Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 36:1 (Fall 1973)
Article: The Vicarious Atonement
Author: J. Oliver Buswell, Jr.

WTJ 36:1 (Fall 1973) p. 78

The Vicarious Atonement

J. Oliver Buswell, Jr.

It was in December 1913. I was a member of the Student Volunteer delegation from the University of Minnesota to the great missionary convention at Kansas City. Our group filled two Pullman sleeping cars for the over-night trip. During the brief hours before retiring I found myself seated near a professor of philosophy, engaged in a discussion of the doctrine of the Atonement. As a young freshman with too much selfconfidence I plunged into the argument and dogmatically defended the substitutionary nature of the sufferings of Christ. I was too immature to realize the mechanical, artificial nature of my exegesis. It seemed all very simple: So much sin cancelled by so much suffering. And, since Christ was divine, of course, the value of His suffering in the equation was infinite, and so, adequate for all.

Our professor was a truly learned man. He was soon to be the head of the philosophy department. He was not hostile to Christian theology; but he was struck by the artificiality of some of my arguments.

I vigorously quoted Hebrews 9:22. “Without shedding of blood (there) is no remission (of sin).”

“That sounds like magic,” he said. “What does physical, corporeal blood have to do with moral wrong? Why not teach that God forgives sin, as we forgive one another, or as the state pardons an offender?”

I felt at the time that there was something wrong with the question. The thought of “mere forgiveness” without any compensation in the moral situation was a shock to my sensibilities. That made sin all too simple. What happened at Calvary could not be so simply understood. The question remained active in my mind for a long time.

The summer following my graduation, 1917, I found myself a student in an extremely “liberal” theological school, a place

WTJ 36:1 (Fall 1973) p. 79

where the doctrine of the vicarious atonement was openly ridiculed.

I feel that I must give some explanation of my attendance in such a school. I had been serving as a “student pastor” all through my university course. Our country had just entered World War I. I was eager to get into the military as a chaplain. But Minneapolis Presbytery would not ordain me with no seminary training; and military chaplains must be regularly ordained men. No conservative seminary was open in the summer. I could at least get started in Hebrew in this “liberal” divinity school. So I plunged in.

I took all the courses I could carry. That fall I entered our denominational seminary, took all the courses I could, and the f...