Just this attitude exactly, and no other, it seems to the writer, God takes toward men in his revelation in Christ. Christ is God's own showing forth of himself. "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself."[87] "Propitiation," Beysclag truly says, "is blotting out, making amends for sin in God's eyes. Now what can cover the sin of the world in God's eyes? Only a personality and a deed which contain the power of actually delivering the world from its sin."[88] We have seen, it may be hoped, just how God's self-revealing in Christ does have this actual power, and becomes, thus, a true propitiation in the highest moral sense, in the only sense in which God can wish a propitiation, and in the only sense in which we can ever need a propitiation. Our final hope for that true salvation, which is the sharing of the life of God and the involved likeness of character with God, is in God's own long-suffering, redeeming activity. Only as _that_ may be remembered, in connection with our surrender to it, may we hope to stand approved before the judgment of God. We are not judged alone before the judgment of God. In a very real sense the judge himself stands with us. Not what God is able to believe about this man thought of as standing alone, but what he may believe about this man standing in a living, surrendering association with himself, is the ground of judgment. We may not separate here the work of God and the work of Christ, as the New Testament does not separate them. In constant reliance upon the constant redeeming activity of the Father here and hereafter, we children go hopefully on our way. Put into the language of the blood covenant, where the blood has all its significance as life--the giving of life, the sharing of life, the closest and most indissoluble union of lives--this is to say, there is no atonement, no reconciliation, no remission of sins, no forgiveness--and these are all essentially identical terms--without shedding of blood, that is, without complete giving of life on both sides, Christ giving himself not only _for_ us in seeking us out, but _to_ us in complete reconciliation and renewal of life. It means that only God, the very life of God, sharing God's life, can really save one from his sins. God must pour his life into one, and he does, in Christ. This seems to be the heart of the whole matter; but certain considerations may be still added, as indicating how far a purely ethical and spiritual view of the atonement may go, in meeting the human need expressed in these older terms of substitution and propitiation.