But it may be that we turn away with a sigh from such intimate talk, knowing how far we are ourselves from the union with God which the Christian depicts. And it may be, too, that there dawns upon us the thought that when this Christian speaks of 'atonement' he means, most likely, some process of God by which that union is accomplished, and the neglect or opposition of men is overcome. What difference is there, we may be inclined to ask, between divine incarnation, as the Christian sees it,—God's communication of himself, the fountain of living waters, to men—and an atonement between him and them? Is not the union of incarnation the very act and process of atonement? Is not the redemption of man effected in and through the self-expression of God in him? When he is one with God he is 'redeemed' from the neglect and opposition of sin, and of the rejection of God; and then God is manifest and expressed in him. Is this a question of words? Perhaps, rather, it is a question of emphasis on one or other side, man's side or God's.
But if, for the moment, we lay emphasis on the side of man and speak of atonement and redemption instead of speaking of incarnation and our communion and union with God, there are certainly elements of special difficulty to be encountered. The explanations of Christians are by no means as trustworthy as their insight and the knowledge they derive from their great 'Redeemer.' They explain in legalistic terms, or materialistic, or in terms of a despotic rule, a process and an act of life given and received. They are prone to ignore the prophet in favour of the Scribe or the Pharisee. And once again the prophet may justly put into the mouth of God the old reproach—'My people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.' They build up their inventions and hide beneath them the sublimity of living fact; and we who ask them concerning the fact are shown the ruins of those inventions. We ask them for bread and they give us the stones they have put together. There is hardly a religious problem or question, or fact and process, more encumbered than this with that tradition which makes the word of God of none effect. No doubt there are Christians who are both able and willing to help such men and women as are likely to ask their help; the difficulty is to find such Christians. Let us see, now, how we can work out for ourselves an understanding of what is really meant by atonement between men and God, what Christians really mean when they express themselves so ill about it, what it really is that really happens.