one another. He did not reject the idea of a propitiation won for man by His vicarious sacrifice--the truth is far from that--but He keeps it in inseparable connexion with the life which is to be based upon it; and in the eucharist He brought back the idea of sacrifice to what had been its starting-point in all primitive usages. 'The one point,' says {148} Professor Robertson-Smith, 'that comes out clear and strong (from the examination of ancient sacrificial customs), is that the fundamental idea of ancient sacrifice is sacramental communion, and that all atoning rites are ultimately to be regarded as owing their efficacy to a communication of divine life to the worshipper, and to the establishment or confirmation of a living bond between them and their God[21].' Still Christ's sacrifice of propitiation, to which we contribute nothing, in which we do not share, remains a necessary prelude to the establishment of the new life. It is in virtue of this that we are justified and accepted and allowed to start afresh. This fact the New Testament in general takes for granted, and offers no explanation of it; as indeed the human heart has in general accepted the benefit in all thankfulness and asked no questions. But the speculative modern intellect has found a difficulty in the matter--in the matter at least as commonly represented--and we have noticed that a suggestion of explanation is made by St. Paul in this passage. God had long gone on 'passing over' sin all over the world in loving forbearance, bearing with all men's sinfulness, {149} till they had thoroughly learnt the lesson of their own need of God and inability to save themselves. But this very forbearance rendered God's character liable to complete misunderstanding. He might have been supposed to be kind indeed, but indifferent to sin. 'These things hast thou done and I kept silence: thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself[22].' Thus the severity manifested in the claim of the 'righteous Father' upon the Son of Man, His claim of an obedience unto the shedding of His blood, and the ready response to His claim on the part of the Son of Man gladly rendering up His life in homage to the Father--these taken together, the claim of the Father and the sacrifice of the Son, vindicated within the area of the Christian faith the true character of God, and forced the believer in Jesus to hold the severity and the love in their inseparable unity as making up the divine righteousness.