The Atonement: Or Human Nature and Redemption (Classic Reprint) - Softcover

Excerpt from The Atonement: Or Human Nature and Redemption

The Jewish nation had fallen into a condition of widespread degeneracy when John the Baptist appeared as the last and greatest herald of the Redeemer. An earlier prophet had said of him: "The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness. Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God" (Isa. 40: 3). At the time of his appearance all classes of the people had forsaken the right ways of the Lord, and were heedless of His commands. Their position as a kingdom had been lost, and they were tributary to the Roman power. The high-priesthood was held by men who were filled with worldly ambition and love of gain rather than a sincere desire to administer God's righteous law. The people were divided into opposing sects, each seeking to establish its own "righteousness."

Added to this degenerate condition was a sense of doubt and expectancy - doubt, because amid the conflict of the sects men knew not which way to turn; expectancy, because there was a general foreboding of some great change about to take place in the nation. Hope of a deliverer, who should free them from a hostile yoke, had been kindled by a prophecy of Daniel:

Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy.

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