up to
Jerusalem expecting to see him made King, sit on the "throne of David"
and restore Israel to her pristine glory, according to the universal
interpretation of the Messianic prophecies. After his tragic death,
and alleged resurrection and ascension,--in which his disciples
certainly implicitly believed, no matter what the actual facts may
be,--we still hear not a word about his death being a vicarious
atonement for sin. When Peter preached that great sermon on the day of
Pentecost he says not one word about a vicarious atonement in the death
of Christ, but lays the whole emphasis on his resurrection and
ascension. Let the reader turn here to that sermon in the second
chapter of Acts and read it; and he will find that the whole burden of
Peter's sermon is to the effect, that since the Jews had put Jesus to
death, he had broken the bonds of death and hades, they being powerless
to hold him, and had ascended to the right hand of God, whereby he had
conquered both death and hades, and for which "God hath made him both
Lord and Christ." Note, that because of this resurrection and
ascension he had _been made_ both Lord and Christ,--and not by any
virtue in his death itself. Not the remotest hint of vicarious
atonement! The natural inference is--tho Peter is not quoted as saying
so in so many words,--that men are to be saved from death and hades
hereafter, because Jesus had escaped from both, and thus not only paved
the way, but himself thereby became able to save others also.

As is well known, for half a century or more, the followers of the new
faith, who for fifteen years were all Jews, or Jewish proselytes,
looked with anxious expectancy for the return of this Jesus, with the
power and glory of heaven, to set up his earthly kingdom on the throne
of David in Jerusalem. Not a word yet about saving men's soul's from
hell thru vicarious atonement. No need for a vicarious atonement to
save men from hell hereafter, if they were soon to live on this earth
forever--those who died before his return to be raised from the dead as
he was, while those that remained were to be "caught up in the clouds
to meet him in the air and live forever,"--under the benign reign of
the Messiah of God.

But we are approaching its development. There appears upon the scene
one Saul of Tarsus, afterwards known as Paul the Apostle. It is
generally conceded that he never saw Jesus in his lifetime; in fact
knew nothing of him while he liv