It is just the same truth under every one of these different theories, but if we persist in regarding them literally we shall miss it, for by no kind of ingenuity can we square the theory of St. Paul with that of the other writers; the way of putting it is different. But once we see what the essential truth of Atonement is, we are no longer bound by the intellectual symbolism of Paul or Hebrews or any other authority; we can get beneath the symbol to the thing symbolised. The Pauline principle of dying with Christ, the Hebrews idea of the eternal sacrifice manifested in time, the Johannine thought about the outpoured life of the eternal Christ, are all one and the same. Jesus did nothing for us which we are not also called upon to do for ourselves and one another in our degree. Faith in His atoning work means death to self that we may live to God; as selfhood perishes on its Calvary, the Christ, the true man, the divine reality, in whom we are one with all men, rises in power in our hearts and unites us to the source of all goodness and joy. Institutional, forensic, external, the Atonement never has been and never will be. But vicarious suffering, willingly accepted, is the great redeeming force by which the world is gradually being won to its true life in God, for vicarious suffering is the expression of the law that in a finite world the service of the whole involves pain, although it is also the deepest joy that the human heart can know. The sacrifice of Jesus is the central and ideal expression of this principle on the field of time, but it only possesses meaning and value as it is repeated in our lives; the Christ has to be offered perpetually on the altar of human hearts. There is no justification except by becoming just, and no imputed righteousness which means availing ourselves of merits that are not ours. We are "justified by faith," indeed, but only in the sense that no man can become good without believing in goodness, and no man can really believe in the Christ revealed in Jesus without gradually becoming like Him. Here is Atonement, Justification, Sanctification, and all else that is needed to unite mankind to the life eternal which is to know God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent.