YALE
DIVINITY SCHOOL
LIBRARY

Gift of
Estate of
Professor George Dahl

THE PAULINE THEOLOGY

THE

PAULINE THEOLOGY

A STUDY OF THE

ORIGIN AND CORRELATION

THE DOCTRINAL TEACHINGS OF THE
APOSTLE PAUL

BY

GEOEGE B. §TEVENS, Ph.D., D.D.
PEOFESSOE OF NEW TESTAMENT CRITICISM AND INTEEPBETATION
IN YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1892

Copyright, 1892, By
Chaklbs Sceibnee's Sons.

John Wilson and Son, Cambridge.

TO
THE THEOLOGICAL FACULTY OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF JENA
THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED
IN GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF THE DEGREE OF
DOCTOR OF THEOLOGY CONFERRED BY THEM
AND AS A TOKEN OF CORDIAL
PERSONAL REGARD

PEE FACE
The Apostolic Age must always possess a peculiar
interest for the student of Christian history and
theology. In the study of that period we come into
contact with the men who, filled with love for Christ
and with zeal for his truth and kingdom, so largely
shaped the life of the early Church, and left their
impress upon Christianity for subsequent ages. The
most noteworthy example of such a moulding influ
ence, in both its immediate and its remote effects,
is found in the apostle Paul. The native qualities of
the man, the remarkable transformation by which he
was changed from a persecutor into a champion of
the gospel, and his great achievements as a preacher
and writer, — all unite to invest his career with ex
ceptional interest and importance.
The constantly increasing literature which treats
of the apostle's life and theology, or of special prob
lems connected with his teaching, attests the unfail
ing interest with which the modern world regards
the man and his work. Whether his teaching is
thought to have been grossly perverted in the
Church, as by Mr. Matthew Arnold; or is held to

viii PREFACE
have been unduly influential, especially among Pro
testants, as by M. Renan, — he still continues to be
studied with the closest attention by exegetes, his
torians, theologians, and literati of all shades of
opinion, as the master-mind of his age and the pioneer
par eminence in Christian thought.
The aim which I have set before me in this volume
has been to inquire into the genesis of Paul's leading
thoughts, so far as their origin may be the subject of
historical inquiry, to define critically their content
and relation to each other, and thus to present a sys
tematic account of his teaching upon the great themes
which he considers. Not every topic which finds
place in his epistles has been made the subject of
discussion. I trust, however, that no important
topic, none which is essential in the organism of
his thoughts, has been overlooked. The study, it is
hoped, will afford the reader some aid in determining
how far that set of convictions which he so firmly
cherished and defended may be regarded as furnish
ing the materials for a theological system. The
effort has been made to discriminate between that
which Paul may be shown by strict exegesis to have
taught and those inferences which may be thought
to be involved in his affirmations.
The references to the literature of the subject which
are given throughout the volume may serve to indi
cate, in a general way, my obligations to other writers
on the Pauline Theology. Apart from critical helps

PREFACE ix
in the study of the epistles of Paul, I am most largely
indebted to four authors, — Neander, whose work on
The Planting and Training of the Christian Church,
although not in all points abreast of recent criti
cism, has been of the greatest service in opening
to me the spiritual depths of the apostle's thoughts;
Weiss, whose Biblical Theology of the New Testament,1
with its severe exegetical method, I have always
found useful, especially in regard to intricate ques
tions of interpretation ; Pfleiderer, whose treatise Ber
Paulinismus (as also his later work entitled, Das
Urehristenthum') I have studied with the keenest
interest. Der Paulinismus is the most stimulating
treatise which I have ever read on the subject ; and
none has given me more assistance, although, as will
be seen, I have differed often and widely from its
conclusions. It gives me pleasure thus to acknowl
edge my continued obligation to the distinguished
scholars, Professors Weiss and Pfleiderer, whose in
struction I enjoyed in former years. It remains to
mention the treatise of Professor Lipsius, of Jena,
Die paulinisehe Rechtfertigungslehre, u. s. iv., which
I have carefully read and should have more frequently
quoted had I not been informed that the author has
modified, in important respects, the views therein ex
pressed. Whether one concurs with the positions
taken by him in this volume or not, it cannot but
1 Lehrbuch der biblischen Theologie des Neuen Testaments.
5 Auflage. Berlin, 1888.

X PREFACE
be profitable to read so skilful a piece of exegesis
and so discriminating an analysis of Paul's religious
conceptions. In quoting Neander's Planting and Training of the
Christian Church, I have referred to both the English
(Bohn) and the American editions of Ryland's trans
lation. The American edition by Dr. E. G. Robinson
(which is a careful revision of the English edition)
is decidedly preferable. The references to Weiss's
Biblical Theology are to the fifth German edition, and
I refer to sections and subdivisions, rather than to
pages, for the convenience of those who may wish to
consult the translation (made from the third edition).
Where the notation is not the same in the original
and in the translation, I have added references to the
volume and page of the latter. Pfleiderer's Der
Paulinismus is cited from the revised (second) edi
tion, unless it is otherwise indicated, and correspond
ing references to the English translation (made from
the first edition) are added.
I have appended to this volume a select bibliography
— omitting the familiar works on the Life of Paul —
which, while making no claim to completeness, will
guide the student to the literature which he will be
likely to find most directly useful in the study of
Paul's thoughts.
I wish to express my obligation to my colleagues
Professors George P. Fisher and Frank C. Porter,
who have given me many useful suggestions respect-

PREFACE xi
lng the subjects which I have discussed, and have
kindly assisted me in the correction of the proof-
sheets. I offer this work to the public in the hope that it
may contribute to a clearer understanding, and to a
more cordial reception, of the truths to the defence
and propagation of which the great apostle devoted
his life.
G. B. S.
Yale University,
Dec. 1, 1891.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I. The Conversion of Paul and its Rela
tion to his Mission and Theology .
II. Paul's Style and Modes of Thought
III. The Shaping Forces of Paul's Teaching
IV. The Sources of Pauline Doctrine
V. The Doctrine of God .
VI. The Doctrine of Sin . . .
VII. The Doctrine of the Law .
VIII. The Person of Christ . . .
IX. The Doctrine of Redemption
X. The Doctrine of Justification
XI. The Christian Life . . .
XII. The Doctrine of the Church
XIII. The Pauline Eschatology .

1
2752 75
96
123160199
227259292319339

Bibliography  369
Index of Texts  373
General Index  877

THE PAULINE THEOLOGY

CHAPTER I
THE CONVERSION OP PAUL AND ITS RELATION TO HIS
MISSION AND THEOLOGY
No man exercised so powerful an influence upon
the thought and life of the early Church as the apostle
Paul. This fact is, no doubt, due in large part to
his native enthusiasm and energy. Throwing his
whole soul into any cause which he espoused, he
proved as vigorous and efficient in the character of
a champion as he had formerly been in that of a
persecutor of Christianity. The intellectual gifts
of the apostle were also highly favorable to his in
fluence. He took a clear and strong hold upon
principles. He defined his convictions sharply,
cherished them intensely, and carried them out
consistently in action. His mind, by nature and
education conscientious and religious, was especially
adapted to define the characteristic truths of Chris
tianity, defend them from the errors which threat
ened to corrupt them, and give them currency and
prevalence in the Christian world.

2 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
But neither the apostle's dialectic power nor his
native executive abilities suffice to explain his un
exampled influence and services. His own language
expressly refutes such an explanation. His work is
not a mere achievement of human powers, the tri
umph of genius, or the sweeping success of fiery enthu
siasm. There lies at the basis of his conception of
his mission and of his entire religious consciousness
an intense conviction of a divine call to his work
and of a divine equipment for it. He is a called
apostle (Rom. i. 1), set apart to the work of winning
the Gentiles to faith in Christ; his commission is
from above (Gal. i. 12); he describes himself as
apprehended by Christ (Phil. iii. 12). His native
endowments were elevated and directed by a revela
tion of Christ which contained for him at once the
call to his mission and the perpetual inspiration for
its accomplishment.
We must therefore penetrate beneath these more
obvious sources of power in the apostle Paul, and seek
the explanation of his thought and work in the sphere
of religious conviction and experience. To attribute
his spiritual history to the play within himself of
religious emotion and conscientious scruples is either
to misunderstand him, or is equivalent to charging
him with wholly misunderstanding himself. It has
in modern times become common to explain the con
version of Paul as a psychological process, treating
the threefold narrative of it in the Acts of the Apos
tles as the objective form which the experience as-

THE CONVERSION OF PAUL 3
sumed in his mind, or as the development of Chris
tian tradition. Baur and Strauss sought to explain
his conversion as a change which was gradually
brought about in his mind by reflection upon the argu
ments by which the Christians endeavored to prove
the Messiahship of Jesus, and by the moral impres
sions produced by the language and temper of the
dying Stephen.1 With this explanation Baur did
not, however, remain satisfied, and he later con
fessed that no psychological or dialectic analysis can
unfold the secret of Paul's conversion.2 Later writ
ers, such as Holsten and Pfleiderer,3 following, in
general, the lines marked out by Baur, present a
more detailed account of the process through which
Paul passed, and make the starting-point of the
change not so much a moral impression as a slowly
maturing intellectual conviction that the Christian
way of attaining righteousness was after all the true
one. This conviction was developed, according to
Pfleiderer, by reflection upon the Pharisaic expecta
tion of the near advent of the Messiah, upon the fact
that his coming presupposed a righteous people which
1 Baur, Paulus, i. 68 sq. Strauss, Leben Jesu fur d. deutsche
Voile, p. 33.
2 Kirchengeschkhte d. drei erstcn Jahrhunderte, p. 45.
3 See, for example, Holsten, Die Christusvision des Paulus
u. s. w., in Zum Evangelium des Paulus u. des Petrus, p. 65 sq. :
Pfleiderer, Paulinismus, p. 7 sq. (Eng. tr. i. 11 sq.). For a detailed
analysis and acute critique of Pfleiderer's theory, see an article
by Prof. A. B. Bruce on Paid's Conversion and the Pauline Gospel,
in the Presbyterian Review for October, 1880, p. 652 sq.

4 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
the law-system seemed powerless to secure, and upon
the confident assertion by the Christians of the objec
tive resurrection of Jesus. These ideas combined to
suggest a new solution of the problem of religion
which accorded in a remarkable manner with the
Christian teaching. It needed but the ecstasy
which Paul calls his revelation, and which he re
garded as an objective manifestation to "him of the
risen Jesus, to confirm his mind in this new view of
the way of salvation by divine grace through trust in
the Crucified and Risen One. The method of this
reflection is thus sketched : " What if perhaps the
Messianic righteousness, which the Pharisee postu
lated as the condition of the Messiah's kingdom,
were not to be understood at all in the ordinary sense
of a human fulfilling of the law, but consisted in a
gift of God which could be procured in no other way
than through the new means of salvation which was
offered by the Messiah's atoning death?"1
This type of theory finds in the process of Paul's
conversion the germs of his whole doctrine. The
crisis is reached in the very midst of his persecuting
activity, during which, however, he was affected by
scruples as to the correctness of his course, and on
this account strove the harder to stifle the growing
conviction of the truth of Christianity by intensifying
his outward opposition to it. On this view there
must have been a considerable period during which
he was halting and doubting. Whatever the nature
1 Paulinismus, p. 12 (Eng. tr. i. 12).

THE CONVERSION OF PAUL 5
of the event that happened on the way to Damascus,
or whether there really was any such objective occur
rence as is related, the turning-point in his career
merely marks the logical result of increasing dis
satisfaction with himself and his course as a Pharisee,
and of deepening impressions concerning the truth
of Christianity.
It is obvious that if this explanation is correct,
we must suppose that when the crisis was reached,
Saul had already formed an opinion, more or less
clearly defined, that faith in Jesus, and not the per
formance of deeds of obedience to the law, was the
true way of attaining salvation. His most charac
teristic tenet, — the germ-truth which enfolded his
whole system, — that faith and not works is the prin
ciple of salvation, was wrought out by him in reflec
tion upon the facts concerning the life, death, and
resurrection of Jesus, the truth of which the Chris
tians alleged, and upon the Old Testament proofs by
which they were wont to support these claims. Thus
Paul's conversion is regarded not as an abrupt begin
ning, but as marking a gradual inward transformation
of opinion and feeling. If this is true, then we may
find already present in this event, awaiting but de
velopment and application to life, those character
istic convictions and forces which suffice to explain
the apostle's career.
It is certainly an interesting and commendable
feature of this mode of explanation that it seeks to
find some inner connection between Paul's conver-

6 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
sion and his life before and after it. It is a psycho
logical impossibility that his conversion should have
been due to external causes alone, and should have
had no internal point of contact with the course of
his previous life up to the moment of its occurrence.
It is inconceivable that an external miracle alone
should have transformed a man of Saul's fiery temper
and firmness of conviction from a Pharisee into a
Christian, if indeed such a miracle can in any case
be conceived of as by itself effecting an inner spir
itual revolution.1 The problem is to detect and
define this point of connection. It will first be
proper to inquire whether the subtle and ingenious
psychological theories which have been referred to
can be successfully applied.
We possess in the Acts of the Apostles three de
tailed narratives of the conversion of Paul, — one by
the writer, Luke (chap. ix. ), and two by Paul himself
(chaps, xxii., xxvi.). These chapters, together with
certain allusions to the subject and to his spiritual
history in Paul's epistles, constitute our only docu
mentary evidence for determining the nature of the
event and its relation to the development of his
inner life. The picture which these narratives pre
sent to our view is not obscured by the minor differ
ences which exist among the three accounts, but is
a clear and vivid one.2 The zealous persecutor and
1 Cf. Neander, Planting and Training, Bohn ed. i. 89 ; Am. ed.
p. 91. 2 In Acts xxvi. the interview with Ananias is omitted ; in
chapter xxii. it is narrated, but the occasion of Ananias's goino- to

THE CONVERSION OF PAUL 7
his companions, equipped with a commission from
the Sanhedrin, are arrested in their journey across
the desert toward Damascus by a supernatural ap
pearance to them of the glorified Christ. This reve
lation was accompanied by external phenomena which
dazzled the senses and profoundly impressed the mind
of Saul. To this experience, and to no other cause
or occasion, he uniformly refers his conversion. It
marked the crisis of his life. This fact is not altered
even on the view that his experience was really a
vision, — a clear and convincing inner view of the
exalted Messiah. Upon this hypothesis, as well as
upon the ordinary view, the revelation of Christ to
the soul of the persecutor remains the efficient cause
of the transformation.1 Whether he was converted
Saul is not stated ; in chapter ix. the Lord is represented as
speaking to him and bidding him go, and it is affirmed that at the
same time Saul had a vision of his coming. In chap. xxii. the address
is considerably more extended tban in chap. ix. Minor points
of difference have been noted ; for example, in ix. 7 we are told that
Saul's companions heard the voice, but saw no man, while in xxii. 9,
it is said that they saw tbe light, but heard not the voice of him
who spake. The discrepancy is sometimes resolved by translating
iJKovo-av (xxii. 9) "understood," — an admissible rendering. The
constant factors in all accounts are, the light from heaven, the
voice of Jesus, Saul's answer, and the solemn charge commission
ing Paul to bear the name of Christ to the Gentiles. Even if the
differences be regarded as irreconcilable, it is an unwarranted
procedure in criticism to reject the common matter of the various
narratives and deny their historical character, upon the ground
of such incidental variations in the traditions in which a great
and mysterious experience has been preserved.
1 Cf. Weiss, The Life of Christ, iii. 410, 411.

8 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
by an inward vision of Christ, a manifestation in the
spiritual sphere only, or by a revelation accompanied
by supernatural light and voices, is a question which,
while it affects the historical character of the narra
tives in Acts, does not essentially concern the prob
lem of the relation of the experience on the way to
Damascus to his spiritual history. Whatever im
portance may attach to external phenomena in the
case, it is certain that chief emphasis must be laid
upon that disclosure of Christ as the enthroned King
which, whatever its method, was made to his spirit.
It was the manifestation of the risen Lord in this
aspect of it upon which Paul, no doubt, laid chief
emphasis, — the atroicaXv-tyK iv i/xoi (Gal. i. 16) to
which he referred back as the decisive cause of his
conversion and the effective inspiration of his mission
as a preacher. 1
Does Paul, in his allusions to his conversion, con
template this revelation of Christ to him as the initial
point of his change of life ? There can be no doubt
that the three narratives assume this to be the case.
Up to this moment he is depicted as a persecutor,
1 It should be added that the expression iv ipol gives no war
rant for discrediting the testimony of the narratives in Acts to
the occurrence of external events upon the occasion in question.
The only proper inference from this expression is that in think
ing of his conversion as a divinely effected transformation Paul
lays chief stress on the inward revelation of Christ to him. But
this he would do in any case, since his conversion, by whatever
events attended, would be primarily connected with his new view
of the person of Christ, and not with any outward circumstances.

THE CONVERSION OF PAUL 9
bent upon the extermination of the Christians. No
hint is anywhere given that he had any scruple or
hesitation as to the justification of his course. The
only expression which can be adduced as indicating
such scruple on his part is that of the heavenly voice :
" Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me ? it is hard for
thee to kick against the goad " (Acts xxvi. 14). These
words are thought by some to imply that Saul was
engaged in a conflict with his conscience, which, like
a goad, was urging him toward an opposite course of
action.1 But the figure of the goad, both in itself
and in its use, more appropriately refers to forces
outside oneself, as to the will or efforts of another,
than to the subjective state of hesitancy from scruple.
Most interpreters accordingly agree that the meaning
here is : It is vain and ineffectual for you to resist
my will and purpose regarding the progress of my
Church. This interpretation alone harmonizes with
the statement in the same account of his conversion :
"I verily thought with myself that I ought to do
many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Naza
reth " (Acts xxvi. 9). He avows before the Jewish
council that he had lived in all good conscience until
that day (Acts xxiii. 1). It is true that he blames
himself severely for his career as a persecutor
(1 Cor. xv. 9) ; the memory of it gives him a sense
of unworthiness to bear the name of an apostle,
and he counts the conversion of such a persecutor
1 So Pfleiderer, Urchristenthum, p. 36. Also : The Influence
of the Apostle Paul on the Development of Christianity, p. 29.

10 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
a miracle of grace. But that career appeared so
hateful to him only after he became a Christian ;
he does not intimate that it had appeared so in
the least previous to his becoming a Christian. His
ignorance during his persecution is regarded as
affording a certain mitigation of his guilt, and
as a reason for his obtaining mercy; but he ex
pressly couples it with the unbelief in the blind
ness of which his work of persecution was carried
on (1 Tim. i. 13). 1
There is thus no hint of any hesitation in his
course, or of any gradually changing convictions
regarding the claims of Jesus; all the testimony
which bears upon the subject implies the contrary.
He was, to the end of his course as a persecutor,
firm, persevering, and conscientious in his efforts to
exterminate Christianity. His statements in Gala
tians (chap. i. ), which give the fullest account of the
origin and authentication of his apostolic office, con
firm indirectly, though not less clearly, the same
conclusion. He did not receive his gospel — whose
central principle was salvation by faith in Christ —
from any human source, but " through revelation of
Jesus Christ " (i. 12). He then alludes to his perse
cutions of the Christians in the zeal and intensity of
which he had surpassed others (verses 13, 14). He
implies that during this time he was inaccessible to
1 I am here assuming the genuineness of 1 Timothy. This
disputed subject receives brief consideration in a subsequent
chapter.

THE CONVERSION OF PAUL 11
the action of any human agencies which could have
resulted in his acceptance of the gospel; "but," he
adds, " when it was the good pleasure of God ... to
reveal his Son in me that I might preach him among
the Gentiles, I conferred not," etc. (verses 15, 16).
As a persecutor his life was closed to human influ
ences ; it was only when God made a signal revela
tion of his Son in him that his course was changed.1
That by the "revelation" here spoken of is meant
that unveiling of Christ to his inner eye which
occurred in the experience on the road to Damas
cus, is rendered probable by his mentioning it in
connection with other definite events. After that
revelation, he says, he did not go up to Jerusalem,
but went into Arabia and returned to Damascus.
Additional probability is lent to this conclusion by
the definite way in which he speaks of the appear
ance of Christ to him, classing it among those to
the original apostles (1 Cor. xv. 8), and by the way
in which he connects his apostleship with his having
seen the Lord (1 Cor. ix. 1). This appearance and
this sight of Christ can only refer to the event
which happened near Damascus. Therefore to this
event the apostle definitely refers back as the initial
point of his apostleship, the occasion on which a
special disclosure of Christ to him accomplished
what no human force could have done, — his trans
formation from an ardent persecutor to an equally
zealous Christian apostle.
1 Cf. Weiss, Introduction to the Neiu Testament, i. 153 (§ 13, 2).

12 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
If, then, no place can be vindicated in Paul's
history for a gradual change of opinion regarding
the Messiahship of Jesus, the question arises, what
is that point of connection between the revelation
made to him and his own inner spiritual life which
it seems necessary to find in order to relieve the
change of its otherwise magical appearance, and
without which it seems impossible that any exter
nal manifestation to him should have been at the
same time an inward revelation of truth to his
spirit ?
In Rom. vii. 7-25 the apostle describes a certain
inner conflict of principles under the first person.
It can hardly be doubted that this description refers,
either directly or indirectly, to his own life. The
description is of one who under the operation of
the Old Testament law has been awakened to a sense
of his sin and of his need of forgiveness and renewal.
The picture is drawn in order to obviate the objec
tion to the previous argument that since the law
cannot justify, but only intensifies the consciousness
of sin, it must itself be sinful. To this the apostle
replies by a concrete representation of the service
which the law renders in disclosing their sinfulness
to men and thereby preparing them to accept the way
of salvation offered through Christ. When the law
comes and lays upon them its demands, men become
aware of their failure to meet the divine require
ments, and their real sinfulness, of which they had
before been unconscious, is disclosed to them. Thus

THE CONVERSION OF PAUL 13
arises a conflict in the soul between the moral pur
pose to keep the law and the hindering power of sin,
which is now seen to exert itself with fearful energy.
Two opposing laws seek to control the life , — the " law
of the mind " (d i>o'/ao9 tov voos, verse 23), the right
moral intention and purpose, and "the law of sin
which is in the members " (6 vofiov tj)? a/u,apTia<; 6
eov iv rot? fii\ecriv), the natural impulses and pas
sions. The latter triumphs, and the soul cries out,
" Who shall deliver me ? " (verse 24), when the joy
ous answer comes, "I thank God through Jesus
Christ our Lord " (verse 25).
This narrative reflects Paul's own moral history.
He had passed through this moral struggle, and ex
perienced this sense of defeat in his best aspirations.
It was only the manifestation of Christ in his true
character as the Saviour from overmastering sin that
terminated the conflict and brought harmony and peace
into his life. I believe that it is in the experience
thus depicted that we are to find the point of con
tact between his sudden conversion and his previous
career. This inner conflict, with its resulting sense
of failure and sin, was, in an important sense, a prep
aration for his conversion, and made the revelation
of Christ to him productive of a radical change in his
disposition and conduct. The anxiety and unrest
which sprang from his unavailing efforts to find a
sense of security and peace through deeds of legal
obedience deepened the yearnings of his spiritual
nature, intensified the sense of his own ill-desert

14 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
before God, and thus negatively, at least, prepared
his mind to welcome, if not to seek, some new
ground of hope. The passage in no way intimates
that the course of his thought during this unhappy
experience went so far as to lead him to turn to
Christ for a possible solution of his difficulty. To
suppose that this was the case would be contrary
to the true interpretation of the passage previously
considered, and without warrant in the chapter under
review. Christ appears on the scene only when the
struggle has ended in Saul's defeat and despair.
The law holds its devotee, throughout the whole
conflict and at the end, with an unrelaxed hand.
There is an increasingly intense realization of its
binding force and of the necessity of obeying it in
order to be saved; but the more this is felt, the
more clearly is the failure felt, and the more uncon
querable does the power of sin appear. No doubt is
entertained that obedience to the law is necessary;
no other way of terminating the conflict is discerned.
It rages on until the soul is full of misery and despair,
when Christ is seen in his glorified character. As
soon as he is known as the true Messiah and Deliv
erer, a new way of life at once opens to the soul.
The conflict in the field of law has been found to be
a hopeless one ; it must be given up. A new prin
ciple, that of faith, must supplant that of legal
obedience. Sin renders impossible the perfect obe
dience which the law requires, and thus the door of
human merit through works of righteousness is shut;

THE CONVERSION OF PAUL 15
that of self-surrender to be saved by God's grace —
that is, the way of faith — alone remains. 1
It should be borne distinctly in mind that this
inner conflict was not between efforts to be saved by
the law, and doubts stimulated by Christian teach
ing as to the correctness of this method, but between
these efforts and the power of sin which doomed them
to failure. It implies, therefore, no scruple regard
ing obedience to the law as the true and only way of
salvation, much less any hesitation regarding his
conduct as a persecutor, but only anxiety, fear, and
1 No writer has urged more forcibly than has Neander the
objections to the naturalistic explanation of Saul's conversion, on
the one side, and the necessity of connecting it with his mental
and spiritual history, on the other. He has not, however, dis
cussed the bearing of Rom. vii. on the subject. His allusion to it
leaves little doubt that his view of it is similar to that here pre
sented. He says that we should view his conversion as "an in
ward transaction in Paul's mind, a spiritual revelation of Christ
to his higher self-consciousness ; and in this light we may view
the experiences which he had in his conflict with himself while a
Pharisee ... as forming a preparation by which his heart was
rendered capable of receiving those internal revelations of the Re
deemer." — Planting and Training, Bohn ed. i. 86; Am. ed. p. 87.
The same significance is attached by Weiss to the conflict
described in Rom. vii. In speaking of his conscientious efforts to
fulfil the law according to a zealous Pharisee's conception of his
duty, Weiss says : " Nevertheless all his efforts to gain favor with
God by this means did not satisfy him. In constant strife with
his own opposing nature, he only became more and more deeply
entangled in the unhappy struggle between the desire to do better
and the impotence of the natural man, which led him utterly to
despair of his own salvation (Rom. vii. 11-24)." — Introduction
to the New Testament, i. 151 (§ 13, 2).

16 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
despondency on Saul's part because of his inability
to pursue that way successfully.1
Zeller appeals to Rom. vii. 7-25 as an evidence
that Saul "cannot have assumed the part of a perse
cutor without hesitation and scruples of conscience." 2
This view derives its plausibility from a misplaced
emphasis in dealing with the passage. It assumes
that the conflict described was stimulated by the force
and attractiveness of Christianity for Saul's mind,
instead of by his deepening consciousness of the ideals
and obligations of the law. It is fatal to Zeller's
interpretation that the passage is expressly devoted
to proving the moral usefulness of the law (verse 7)
in making men deeply conscious of sin, and that dur
ing the conflict which the law awakens between the
desire for obedience and the hindering power of evil,
the perfect fulfilment of the law remains as the ideal.
No rivalry between the legal method of salvation and
any other method is hinted at. The whole conflict is
occasioned and pursued to its end in consequence of
the intense and persistent desire to fulfil the law's
requirements. The struggle is, from first to last,
between the better forces within the awakened con
science which aspire to obedience, and the more
potent forces of sin which render the effort futile
J-On the difference between Saul's consciousness of personal
failure to obey the law and the idea of the absolute impossibility
of salvation by it, vide Pfleiderer, Paulinismus, pp. 4, 5 (Eng. tr. i.
pp. 4, 5).
2 Acts of the Apostles, i. 294.

THE CONVERSION OF PAUL 17
and hopeless. The sight of Christ as the gracious
Saviour who receives the sinner upon faith, is the
termination of the conflict, — the event which solves
the problem of conscience of whose solution Saul is
despairing, and not the occasion and exciting cause
of the conflict, as Zeller assumes. The error of this
view is the error of making the peacemaker, who at
last settles an apparently hopeless quarrel, an insti
gator and chief party in the contest.
The further reason given by Zeller for Paul's
scruples as a persecutor, that he was a " pure char
acter," is much weakened by the history of consci
entious persecutions, and in Paul's case is wholly
overthrown by his own testimony that it was just in
consequence of his conscientious and zealous devo
tion to his religion that he deemed it his duty to
exterminate Christianity. His purity of character
previous to his conversion in the only sense in which
it can be maintained — that is, his conscientious relig
ious devotion, animated by misdirected zeal — was
the very cause of his extraordinary hostility to the
Christian religion. " I verily thought with myself, "
he says, — it was my deliberate and conscientious con
viction, — "that I ought to do many things contrary
to the name of Jesus of Nazareth " (Acts xxvi. 9).
We agree, then, with those writers who hold that
the conversion of Paul was connected with a process
of reflection, but maintain that this process was one
which was leading him rather to despair than to the
joyous acceptance of the gospel. The revelation
2

18 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
of Christ to him terminated the conflict of mind
which he had experienced, not because that conflict
had forced his heart to faith in the Messiah, but
because it had forced him into anxiety and unrest
of soul regarding himself, which the manifestation
of Christ to him at length met and satisfied. It
convinced him of the fact of the exaltation and
heavenly glory of Jesus, — a fact to which no scruples
regarding his spiritual state such as he describes in
Rom. vii. could ever have conducted him; a fact
which took away the " stumbling-block " occasioned
by the sufferings and death of Christ. Here was
the turning-point in his life. He was convinced, as
a Pharisee, only of this, — that an earnest and con
scientious soul becomes the scene of a severe conflict
when it really sees what the law demands, and meas
ures its own insufficient strength to obey. The
principle of faith was familiar in the teaching of
the Christians. When, now, Christ becomes dis
closed to Saul, and the fact of his Messiahship
becomes thereby established, a new solution of the
problems of conscience is offered. It only remains
for Saul to apply it to the struggles which had so long
raged in his life and deprived him of security and
peace. He now sees that the soul does not climb
into acceptance with God, but rests in the assurance
of his mercy. When the fact of Christ's Messiahship
is revealed to Saul, — the fact which alone can give
a new direction to his life, — the application of the
faith-principle to the efforts of the will and to the as-

THE CONVERSION OF PAUL 19
pirations of the heart after peace with God can be
quickly made by one who has been so often baffled
in his strivings after that peace through deeds of
obedience to the law.
It is in this consciousness of failure to find rest in
legal works that we discover the inner point of con
tact between the Christian life of Paul and his expe
rience as a Pharisee. His Christian view of the
futility of legal works is doubtless grounded in the
conflicts and failures which are pictured in Rom. vii.
But these conflicts could never have produced his
theology of justification had it not been for the con
vincing revelation of the fact that Jesus was the
Messiah, who was risen and reigning in the glory of
the heavenly world. But given this fact, the prin
ciples of his teaching spring at once into relation to
his former efforts and experiences, and transform the
bitter cry, " 0 wretched man that I am ! " into the
joyous exclamation, "1 thank God through Jesus
Christ our Lord "(Rom. vii. 24, 25).
We must concur in the opinion of Pfleiderer that
psychological theories concerning Paul's conversion
are useful in proportion as they help to give us an
insight into his religious experiences and concep
tions,1 but would add that they are likely to be cor
rect in proportion as they harmonize with Paul's own
testimony and with natural inferences from it. So
far as we can connect his theology with his conver
sion and its antecedents, we may find in them two
1 Paulinismus p. 4 (Eng. tr. i. 4).

20 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
fruitful germs of his subsequent teaching : one is his
own consciousness of failure in legal obedience ; the
other his unshaken conviction, based upon a distinct
personal experience, of the resurrection and exalta
tion of Jesus as Messiah. The former might be
called the negative, the latter the positive pole of
the Pauline system. We regard all efforts to ex
plain his conversion as a process of thought starting
from the first of these presuppositions alone, as both
historically and psychologically untenable. They
can neither adequately explain how he could have
become convinced of the Messiahship of Jesus, nor
can they account for his own clear distinction between
his pre-Christian reflections and his conversion, or
for his evident belief that the revelation of Christ to
him was an objective fact.1
1 The untenableness of the arguments by which the vision-
hypothesis is supported has been frequently exposed. If it was
in a vision that Paul saw the exalted Christ, then the vision was
one which revealed to him a. fact. It must in that case have been
a divinely effected vision and have corresponded to reality (cf.
Weiss, The Life of Christ, iii. 412; Fisher, Supernatural Origin
of Christianity, p. 468). The capital fact which bears against
this mode of explanation is, that while Paul has commented freely
on his visions (see, for example, 2 Cor. xii. 1-7), he never alludes to
his conversion in terms kindred to those applied to visions, nor af
fords the slightest suggestion that the experience of his conversion
was of the nature of an ecstatic state. It is obviously unwarranted
to refer to 2 Cor. xii. 2, " Whether in the body, I know not," etc.,
as even Pfleiderer does (Paulinismus, p. 15 ; Eng. tr. i. 14), since
that ecstasy occurred at least six years after his conversion and
cannot be appealed to as descriptive of it. On the vision-hypothe-

THE CONVERSION OF PAUL 21
The conversion of the apostle sustains an impor
tant relation to his mission as the bearer of the gos
pel to the Gentiles, and to the whole development of
his subsequent theology. He associates his conver
sion and his mission to the heathen closely together
(Gal. i. 15, 16), and contemplates the revelation of
Christ to him as having this mission for its end. In
the same way in Acts xxvi. 16-18 the Lord is repre
sented as commissioning him for this work in con
nection with the experience of his conversion. In
the narrative in Acts xxii. 21 this charge is given
when Paul was at Jerusalem long subsequent to his
conversion (cf. Gal. i. 17, 18), while in ix. 15 it is
Ananias to whom the appointment of Paul as an
apostle to the Gentiles is communicated. The fact
that he spent three years in Arabia and Damascus
(Gal. i. 17), and later not less than five years in
Syria and Cilicia (Gal. i. 21 ; cf. Acts ix. 30), as well
as the circumstance that during these years his
preaching was almost, if not quite, exclusively to
Jews and Hellenists (Acts ix. 20-22 ; ix. 29 ; xi. 19 ;
xiii. 5, 14; Rom. i. 16), would indicate that Paul
had not yet come to the full consciousness of his dis
tinctive mission, but that it was made increasingly
manifest to him in the course of his missionary
labors. So far as the Acts enable us to trace the
beginning of Paul's special mission on behalf of the
sis as most ingeniously elaborated by Holsten, there are clear
and just criticisms by Sabatier (L' Apotre Paul, pp. 43-49 ; Eng.
tr. pp. 64-67).

22 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
Gentiles, it was at Pisidian Antioch during the first
missionary journey that he and Barnabas turned to
the Gentiles when they saw their eagerness to hear
the word of God, and observed the envy of the Jews
on this account (Acts xiii. 42-46 ; cf. Rom. ix. 30 sq. ).
The Jewish synagogue had, on account of its free
and popular character, furnished the Gentiles an
opportunity to manifest their interest; while the
Jews, with envious contempt for the heathen, turned
the tide of the missionaries' labors, and became the
occasion of opening a new epoch in the progress of
the gospel.
Such seems to have been the actual unfolding in
history of the idea of Paul's apostolate to the na
tions. But it was natural that, reflecting on this
providential opening of great opportunities for la
bor and success, he should have conceived of it as
involved in the very revelation by which he had been
made a Christian ; and indeed, in a true and proper
sense, it was so. Whether Paul was directly con
scious, from the time of his conversion, of the char
acter of his peculiar life-work, is a question which
depends upon the critical view taken of the narra
tives of his conversion in their relation to the actual
history of the comparatively slow and late develop
ment of the idea under definite and favoring condi
tions. That he possessed this consciousness from
the first is by no means so evident as is commonly
assumed. That his conversion, considering all that it in-

THE CONVERSION OF PAUL 23
volved, did most naturally and inevitably look toward
this result is clear. Paul was pre-eminently the
man for the Gentile work, both in point of natural
qualification and by reason of his experience, which
had so sharpened his sense of the futility of seeking
salvation in Jewish methods. The very meaning with
which his conversion must have invested the Messiah-
ship of Jesus would tend powerfully to this result.
As soon as he was convinced that it was trust in
Jesus that secured salvation, his reaction of mind
from the legal efforts by which he had vainly sought
for peace would drive him beyond all Jewish par
ticularism in his conception and propagation of the
gospel. His mission to the outlying and despised
nations finds therefore its logical ground in the
revelation of Christ as the Risen and Exalted One
who saves all on equal terms.
Closely connected with his personal mission is his
whole view of the nature and destination of the gos
pel. This too is grounded in his conversion, and
was defined and sharpened in his consciousness by
his previous experience as a Pharisee. No one who
had not had some experience of moral struggle under
the law analogous to Paul's, could have so sharply
defined the gospel principles of salvation in contrast
to the legal. The law had once shut up his own soul
in prison until he learned that faith could set him
free (Gal. iii. 23). It was not only what Paul was
by nature and what he became by conversion, but
what he had been as a Pharisee, which enabled him

24 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
to develop his system of doctrine. Especially would
the experiences of dissatisfaction and struggle under
the law, which had given the objective revelation of
Christ a point of contact with his inner life, con
tribute powerfully to his conviction of the inadequacy
of all human efforts to attain salvation, and of the
absolute necessity of receiving it as a gift of grace
on condition of faith. Thus the call of the apostle
to his work as a preacher of the gospel of grace is
most closely related to his conversion, and to all
the reflections and experiences which are connected
with it.
As soon as he knew Jesus to be the Christ it
would at once follow that the way of life which he
had proclaimed, rather than that advocated by the
Pharisees, was the true one. The Mosaic law as
alone pointing the way to salvation would be re
placed by the Messiah himself. Legal obedience
would speedily give place to personal trust as the
true principle of religion. It would therefore be
obvious that the way of salvation was open, not to
Jews alone, but to the whole world ; that one condi
tion of acceptance with God — faith in Christ — was
required alike of all. A larger thought of the nature
and scope of religion would speedily supplant Jew
ish particularism, and Christianity would be seen to
be universal in its design and adaptation.
The same religious zeal which had before been
employed against Christianity is now directed to its
extension. The same resolute will and honest con-

THE CONVERSION OF PAUL 25
science which had treated the gospel as a dangerous
heresy are now enlisted to herald its truths and pro
mote its sacred ends. This whole change, psycho
logically considered, turns on Saul's new conviction
of the Messiahship of Jesus. Given that truth, with
his bitter experiences of struggle under law, he cannot
but see Christianity as universal in its very nature,
and faith as its characteristic and central truth. This
statement is not meant to imply that his appointment
to his mission was not also received by direct divine
call, but to point out the logical connection between
his conversion and his teaching. However direct
his appointment to his peculiar work, it was not
without a rational connection with his spiritual
history, and especially with the revelation of Christ
to him.
The mission and theology of Paul are involved in
each other, and cannot be separated. His theology —
his " gospel " (Rom. ii. 16 ; xvi. 25 ; Gal. i. 6 sq. ) —
was simply an exposition and justification of- those
truths which were involved in the Messiahship of
Jesus, and which it was his work to proclaim to the
Gentile world. His epistles, in their original inten
tion, were but a means of enlarging his work and in
fluence as a preacher to the nations ; they were writ
ten to assist and supplement his missionary labors.
In them we happily possess a full elaboration of those
principles and truths which were the staple of the
apostle's teaching. Those principles were deeply
rooted in his life-experience. They were evolved,

26 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
under divine guidance and enlightenment, through
reflection and experience, from certain elementary
facts which center in his conversion. They are divine
truths; and just because they are divine we should
believe that they are in closest connection with the
whole inner movement of the life that was so'effective
in teaching them. It is just because they are divine
that they are genetically unfolded in harmony with
man's spiritual constitution and in connection
with the special spiritual experiences of their great
champion.

CHAPTER II
PAUL'S STYLE AND MODES OP THOUGHT1
Being a Hellenist Paul learned Greek as his native
language, and could employ it with facility and
power; but his knowledge of Hebrew, acquired in
the schools, and his familiarity with Old Testament
language and thought, imparted a Hebraistic tinge to
his writings. The rugged and broken style in which
he often writes is due, however, chiefly to his care
lessness of form and to the impetuous rush of his
thought. He could, no doubt, have constructed his
epistles in as elegant a Greek style as that in which
Luke has reported his discourses in the later chap
ters of Acts, or have rivalled in his rhetoric and
diction the mellifluous style of the Epistle to
the Hebrews. The apostle has, however, bestowed
little pains upon form, in his eager desire to con
vince his readers of the truth and importance of his
ideas and convictions. Even when he sets out
to write in a methodical manner, he fails to carry
out his intention by forgetting his mode of begin
ning; as, for example, in Rom. i. 8, and iii. 2, where
1 The substance of this chapter was published in the Andover
Review for July, 1890.

28 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
he begins with "firstly," but never resumes the
enumeration by adding "secondly." His letters
abound in examples of what is sometimes called
" going off at a word, " — the addition of accessory
ideas to every principal term, so as to combine many
thoughts which lie outside his primary purpose with
the matter immediately in hand. The salutation in
Rom. i. 1-7 furnishes good illustrations. At the
mention of " the gospel" (verse 1), he appends a brief
historic description of it (verse 2) ; to the title " Son "
he adds an account of him with respect to the two
sides of his being (verses 3, 4). Occasionally a con
crete point in his argument suggests to the apostle a
universal truth, to which his thoughts, borne aloft by
its greatness and power, suddenly mount up, and in
the expression of which we find examples of sublime
eloquence. A striking instance is found where, in
discussing the Corinthian parties, he urges that
those who enlist under the banner of Apollos,
Cephas, or any other teacher exclusively are, by so
doing, depriving themselves of the benefits which
they might derive from other Christian teachers;
whereas the disciple should make all sources of
help his own ; all are his right. Then the idea of
the Christian's possession takes hold upon his mind,
and his thought suddenly expands : Yes, all things
are yours; not only Paul, Apollos, and Cephas, but
the world and life and death, things present and
things to come, all are yours, if ye are Christ's, for
Christ is God's (1 Cor. iii. 21-23).

STYLE AND MODES OF THOUGHT 29
There is no mark of style which is more character
istic of Paul's epistles than the anacoluthon, — the
carrying out of a sentence or paragraph in a differ
ent way from that which the beginning contemplated
(see Roin. ii. 17, 21). Sometimes his sentences
are left quite unfinished (see Rom. ix. 22-24).
Frequently the progress of thought is interrupted
with long explanatory parentheses, as in Rom. v.
12 sq., where, after stating one side of an intended
comparison (verse 12), he pauses to explain the lan
guage concerning the relation of death and sin, with
which he had started (verses 13, 14), and then resumes
the comparison, but in a new form (verses 15-17). In
stead of stating the point of similarity between the
entrance of sin into the world by Adam and that of
righteousness by Christ, which he had begun to state
in verse 12, he takes up the constrast between the two,
and shows how they are unlike. Three times he
affirms and characterizes this unlikeness in verses
15-17 ; and only in verse 18 does he resume the com
parison and positively assert the point of likeness
which exists between Adam and Christ.
There are numerous examples of play upon words,
whose force is lost in translation, but which serve to
illustrate the apostle's skill in the employment of
language. We may note, as instances, Rom. i. 20,
ra aopara tov Oeov /cadoparat, " The unseen things of
God are clearly seen " (by the use of the reason, vow) ;
i. 28, icadw'i ovk iSoicifi,aaav — irapeScoicev aurou? et?
dhoKLfiov vovv, " Since they did not approve to retain

30 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
God, etc. , he gave them over to an unapproved mind. "
He does not scorn even the playful use of the pun in
a personal letter, as may be seen in Philemon 20,
where, in allusion to the name Onesimus (meaning
profitable), he says, vol, ci8e\<j>e, iyco aov oval/xijv iv
Kvpia, " Let me be profited by thee in the Lord, " — I
have returned to you, Philemon, your servant Onesi
mus, who is now truly profitable; do you now in turn
prove profitable (be my Onesimus) by receiving him
as a Christian brother. A similar touch of humor is
seen in verses 10, 11, where Paul says, after mention
ing the name Onesimus, " who was aforetime unprofit
able [a-xpr]o-Tov] to thee, but now is profitable
[evxpvaTov]," etc. ; that is, this servant of Philemon
had formerly belied the meaning of his name, but
now will prove to be what his name imports. Paul
can also, upon occasion, make his apt use of kin
dred words serve the ends of bitter satire, as in Gal.
v. 12, " Would that those who insist upon circumci
sion had it to the point of mutilation [ciTro/cotyovTai] . "
With this passage may be compared the use of tcaTa-
TopL-r] and irepiTOfiij in Phil. iii. 2, 3.
The vivacity and power of Paul's letters are well
described by Weiss in the following just and forci
ble language : —
" It is certain that we never find the cold objectivity
of the author, because the living warmth of the letter-
writer throbs iu all his epistles. Hence the frequent
addresses, the ever-recurring questions, with which he
draws out his details. Paul is able powerfully to move,

STYLE AND MODES OF THOUGHT 31
but also to lift up and comfort ; high moral earnestness
is always associated in him with depth of religious feel
ing, which often finds vent in inspired utterance. He is
not without passion ; he lashes the weaknesses aud errors
of his readers without pity ; he is able mortally to wound
his opponents, and does not even despise the weapons of
irony and satire. But the softest tones of the mind are
likewise at his disposal ; the ebullition of righteous anger
softens down to the most touching expression of heartfelt
love ; he can speak the language of deeply wounded love
as well as of most ardent longing, of exulting gratitude
as well as of suppressed pain." 1
Of greater importance for our present purpose
than the consideration of Paul's style is the study of
the characteristics of his thinking and his favor
ite modes of presenting his thoughts, in order to
gain a just conception of his teaching upon special
subjects. By this study is meant something more
than an examination of style ; it includes the
thought-forms which lie behind style, — the moulds
into which ideas are run.
This subject has never received sufficient attention.
Interpreters have too often taken up the Pauline let
ters without reference to the environment in which
they were produced, the peculiarities of the writer,
or the special ends contemplated in his writings.
Upon his words have been put meanings which be
long to opinions and speculations which he never
entertained, and around his teaching have been
1 Introduction to the New Testament, i. 212 (§ 16, 5).

32 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
thrown associations wholly foreign to his own type
of thought. Paul has been read as if he had written
in the nineteenth century (or more commonly as if
he had written in the fifth or seventeenth), and as if
his writings had no peculiarities arising from his
own time, education, and mental constitution.
The task of defining these peculiarities is indeed
a difficult one. We are so remote from the apostle's
time, we have so inadequate a knowledge of the re
ligious conceptions under whose influence his Chris
tian belief was matured, that we need to proceed
with great caution and reserve in the treatment of
the subject; but that it is necessary to define as
carefully as possible the Pauline modes of thought is
a conviction which will be forced upon the mind of
every intelligent student who seeks to ascertain pre
cisely the apostle's meaning.
One prominent characteristic of Paul's thought
may be designated, for want of a better term, as
mystical realism. This quality is most ©early illus
trated in his conception of the close relation between
unregenerate humanity and the natural head of the
race, Adam, on the one hand, and between man as
the subject of redemption and the head of spiritual
humanity, Christ, on the other. It is characteristic
of Paul's mind to conceive religious truth under
forms which are determined by personal relationship.
These relations, especially the two just specified,
may be termed mystical in the sense of being unique,
vital, and inscrutable; they are real in the sense

STYLE AND MODES OF THOUGHT 33
that sinful humanity is conceived of as being actu
ally present and participant in Adam's sin, and re
deemed humanity as being similarly present and par
ticipant in Christ's death, burial, and resurrection.
The precise meaning of the apostle in affirming the
reality of these relations and in thus identifying man
with Adam in his sin, and with Christ in his saving
acts, can be determined only by a close study of the
origin and purpose of this method of thought.
The most prominent use made of this realistic con
ception is in denning the believer's relation to Christ.
He is in Christ ; he is one with him ; his life is hid
with him in God. This realism takes the peculiar
form of identifying the believer with Christ in the
characteristic experiences which the latter underwent
for man's salvation. The believer died with Christ
upon the cross, was buried with him in the tomb,
and was raised to newness of life when Christ rose
from the dead. : The origin of these forms of thought
is found in the relation of the death and resurrection
of Christ to the moral renewal of the individual.
1 2 Cor. v. 14 : "One died for all, therefore all died;" that is,
all died when Christ died. The ethical death to sin is accom
plished for all in and with the death of Christ upon the cross (see
Meyer in loco). Col. iii. 3: "For ye died [an-e^uwre]," —not,
" for ye are dead," as the A. V. rendered, obscuring the pecu
liarity of the idea, — " and your life is hid with Christ in God."
Ye died when Christ died in the sense that your cessation from
the old life was accomplished by the death of Christ. They are
so bound together as to be capable of a mystical identification.
Cf. Gal. ii. 19 ; Col. ii. 20 ; Rom. vi. 8.
3

34 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
Their strict relation is that of cause and effect. Now,
under the power of Paul's sense of the close union
between the believer and his Saviour they are identi
fied in thought and expression so that the believer is
said to have died in an ethical sense when Christ
died upon the cross, and to have risen with him to a
new spiritual life when he rose from the grave. " If,
then, ye were raised with Christ, " — not " if ye be
risen, " as the A. V. renders, — " seek the things that
are above " (Col. iii. 1). " If ye rose to new life
when Christ rose from the dead," is the form of the
thought. This mystical identification of the believer's moral
renewal with the procuring causes of it in Christ's
death and resurrection is less plainly made in respect
to the burial than in respect to the death and resur
rection of Jesus. The reason of this is that the
representation is complicated at that point by ref
erences to water-baptism. Death to sin is identi
fied with Christ's death, as being accomplished in
and with it ; resurrection to new moral life is asso
ciated with Christ's resurrection from the tomb in pre
cisely the same way, though less frequently ; but the
intermediate step of burial is not treated under the
same form, but is associated with baptism. The figure
in this case represents baptism as a burial of the
believer into the moral death to sin which must take
place before the new life can ensue. Then, in this
representation, the entrance upon spiritual life is
compared with Christ's resurrection, not strictly

STYLE AND MODES OF THOUGHT 35
identified with it. " We were buried therefore with
him through baptism into death ; that like as Christ
was raised from the dead through the glory of the
Father, so we also might walk in newness of life "
(Rom. vi. 4). Very similar forms of expression
occur in Colossians (ii. 12): "Having been buried
with him in baptism, wherein ye were also raised
with him," etc. Here, it will be noticed, the ex
perience of being raised to new life with Christ is
conceived as occurring when the believer emerges
from the waters of baptism, — an element of the
representation which is only implied in the corre
sponding passage in Romans.
The peculiarity which meets us in these passages
is the imperfect identification of result and cause
which we have observed in the passages previously
noticed. It is a most natural peculiarity on account
of the appropriateness with which the conceptions of
burial and resurrection suggest the idea of baptism,
for this is undoubtedly the logical order of the
thoughts in the apostle's mind. In this whole class
of representations he has taken the terms which de
scribe the crowning acts of Christ's redemptive work
— death, burial, and resurrection — to express in a
moral or figurative sense the renewal which has its
procuring cause in those events. Where this identi
fication of effect with cause is fully made, we have
such conceptions as that in 2 Cor. v. 14, where the
ethical death of man is carried back in thought to
Christ's death on the cross ; but where the identifica-

36 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
tion is less completely made, the relation is stated by
a comparison, as in Rom. vi. 4 : " Like as Christ was
raised, ... so we also. " Here the believer's ethical
death occurs in his own personal experience, and is
associated with baptism. The latter form of thought
is merely a figurative use of the terms of baptism
which symbolizes those moral changes which may be
fitly called death to sin and resurrection to new life.
But it is the idea of the mystical union of the be
liever with Christ in death and resurrection which
underlies the apostle's language concerning baptism,
and creates the peculiar phraseology by which it is
spoken of as "baptism into death." The expression
"to baptize into death" would be unintelligible if
we were not made familiar by other passages with
the figurative meaning of " death " as expressing the
moral change which has its ground in Christ's death.
While, therefore, the two passages concerning bap
tism do not so fully express this mystical identifica
tion of the believer with Christ, they imply it as a
fixed form of thought with Paul, and are inexplicable
without it.
The counterpart of this mystical identification of
believing humanity with Christ in his sacrificial and
saving work is found in a similar identification of
unregenerate humanity with Adam in his transgres
sion. This conception is developed only in a single
passage (Rom. v. 12-21), but is alluded to also in
1 Cor. xv. 22. Adam and Christ represent and em
body the race. The former is the head of the race

STYLE AND MODES OF THOUGHT 37
in respect to its sinfulness ; the latter the head of the
race in respect to its redemption. They thus stand in
analogous relations to the race ; and it is the aim of
the apostle to show that grace in Christ is mightier
than sin in Adam. He accordingly institutes a par
allel between the two for this purpose. The peculiar
mystical realism of Paul lies behind the whole repre
sentation. Sinful man is identified with Adam in
precisely the same way as redeemed man is so often
identified with Christ. The transgression of Adam
and the saving death of Christ are the terms of the
comparison. With the former, the sinfulness of man
is identified ; with the latter, the salvation of man from
sin is identified. As the moral renewal of man is re
presented as taking place in and with Christ's death
and resurrection, so the moral defilement of man is
represented as contracted in and with the sin of Adam.
The aorist tenses, which are used in both classes of
passages (ol tra.vTe<; d-wedavov, 2 Cor. v. 15; dtreddveTe,
Col. iii. 3 ; et direddveTe avv XpiaTw, Col. ii. 20 ;
el Be aired avop.ev avv XpiaTu>, Rom. vi. 8 ; and e'c/>' w
¦n-avTes fj/j,apTov, Rom. v. 12), can be naturally ex
plained only by referring the " dying " spoken of in
the first class back to the time of Christ's death, and
the sinning of Rom. v. 12 to the time of Adam's
transgression. The meaning of the latter passage is
that all sinned when Adam sinned. The whole par
allel between Adam and Christ is accordant with
Paul's modes of thought, the only peculiarity being
that the mystical relation between sinful humanity

38 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
and its head, Adam, is developed in this passage
alone, while the contrasted relation of humanity as
redeemed in Christ is abundantly illustrated in other
passages. It is only from a study of this class of
passages that we obtain the right point of view from
which to interpret the much-disputed expression, —
icj> cp travTes rjfiapTov (Rom. V. 12).
It does not belong to the present inquiry to discuss
the meaning of the passage in detail. We may,
however, remark in passing that those explanations
which seek to avoid Paul's obvious reference in
r\\iapTov to the time when Adam sinned are exegeti
cally as untenable as the elaborate theories of Augus
tinian realism and federal headship are remote from
the apostle's modes of thought. It is a curious fact
that while theology has taken the phrase, " because
all sinned," in the strictest literalness, and has built
whole theories of sin and philosophies of history
upon it, the parallel representation of the race in its
union with Christ in his death has rarely received
any similar treatment. Yet the former finds expres
sion but once, while the latter is a frequent form of
representation. It has been common for those who
take the most literal view of the less plain and promi
nent member of the comparison to explain the other
in exegesis as merely figurative, and in theological
speculation to neglect it altogether. But if the
phrases, " in Adam all die, " and " all sinned " (when
he sinned), are adequate ground for elaborate theories
of the origin and nature of sin, their counterpart,

STYLE AND MODES OF THOUGHT 39
"in Christ shall all be made alive," and "all died"
(when he died) may well be made the basis of some
theory of the relation of humanity to the Redeemer
and of the philosophy of redemption.
Both members of the parallel equally illustrate
the peculiar mysticism of Paul. It is fair exegesis
to interpret both alike in their natural grammatical
meaning and force. It would be a just procedure in
theology to explain the more obscure and occasional
member of the comparison by the plainer and oft-
repeated analogy. It is an utter perversion of exe
getical results to say that the sinning of each member
of the race in Adam's sin is a literal fact, and the
occurrence of the ethical death of the believer when
Christ died upon the cross a mere figure of speech.
The terms of these analogous statements are to be
interpreted in the same way.
We have already seen that the peculiar identifica
tion in time which Paul makes between the believer's
renewal and Christ's death has its ground in the
causal connection between that death and the be
liever's salvation. The identification of the sins of
individuals with Adam's sin can have no other
ground. All sinners sinned when Adam sinned,
just as all believers died to sin (that is, became re
generate) when Christ died upon the cross. Paul's
thought is : " Mankind as redeemed was saved in and
with the death of Christ, the head of the new human
ity ; mankind as sinful transgressed in and with the
sin of Adam, the head of the old humanity. " That

40 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
the former was the more prominent conception in his
mind is shown by his frequent reference to it, and
by the fact that he introduces the other thought of the
sinning of all men in Adam only in order to set its
analogous truth in stronger light. Which represen
tation had logical precedence in his mind we cannot
know ; but the thought of Christ as the second Adam
(d ea^aTO'; ,ABdp, ; o hevTepos avOpcoTros it; ovpavov,
1 Cor. xv. 45, 47) would lead most naturally to the
development of such a parallel as that in Rom. v. 12
sq., especially since the idea of mystical union with
Christ in his death was a fixed and favorite form of
thought with Paul.
Another quality of the apostle's thought appears
in the way in which he objectifies, and sometimes
almost personifies, the great truths with which his
religious teaching deals. A case in point is his con
ception of righteousness. It is to him not merely a
subjective quality, an attribute of character; it is a
status or relation which God constitutes. He calls it
SiKatoavvn Oeov, — a righteousness which comes from
God (Rom. i. 17; iii. 21, 22). It is something
which God reveals or bestows.1 Its revelation to
1 " God's righteousness is, in this connection, the righteousness
which proceeds from God as the cause, or is wrought out by him ;
that is, the way and manner in which God places man in an ade
quate relation to himself, the way which God has opened to the
attainment of this relation, or just the new theory of justification
which God has set forth " (Baur, Neutest. Theol p. 134). The
content of this conception is not now under consideration. We
are here concerned only with its objective form.

STYLE AND MODES OF THOUGHT 41
man in the gospel (Rom. i. 17) is contrasted with
the revelation of wrath against " all ungodliness and
unrighteousness of men" (Rom. i. 18). God's per
sonal attribute cannot be primarily meant in these
passages, since righteousness is represented as be
coming man's possession by faith, and also as being
designed to produce faith (Rom. i. 17: "by faith
unto faith " ). The believer is spoken of as being
the recipient of this endowment or gift from God
(Rom. iii. 22: "unto all them that believe"), and
again as having this righteousness set to his account
upon the exercise of faith (Rom. iv. 6 : " unto whom
God reckoneth righteousness," cf. iv. 11).
This formal conception of righteousness is the one
in accordance with which Paul's definitions of justi
fication are chiefly developed. It is by no means the
exclusive conception of righteousness which is found
in the Pauline writings, but it is a prominent one,
whose shaping power in the apostle's doctrine should
be fully recognized. Whatever may be the moral
and spiritual truths which theology finds involved in
these conceptions, it is the first task of candid exe
gesis to describe the forms of the biblical thought as
exactly as the study of language permits us to define
them. The dominant conception of sin with Paul is that
of a world-ruling power to which action almost per
sonal is ascribed. It enters the world (Rom. v. 12),
and establishes dominion over men (Rom. iii. 9 ; v.
21); it rules them as a master (Rom. vi. 6); it is

42 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
roused into action by the advent of law (Rom. vii.
9) ; it makes the body its special theatre of manifes
tation (Rom. vii. 23-25). It may be thought that
these are but figures of speech which have always
been common. But it appears to us that they attach
a positiveness and power to the principle of sin
which is somewhat peculiar, and which is not with
out influence upon Paul's doctrine of justification.
His intense conviction of sin led him to define it in
terms which were fitted to express the thraldom of
man under it, and the energy with which the law
pronounced its sentence upon him. All these forms
of thought are employed in the most realistic man
ner. Sin was working in the world from its begin
ning in Adam; death was reigning; but men were
only feebly aware of sin's power; the law came and
roused sin into unwonted energy ; men might make
whatever efforts they would to keep the law, sin
overpowered them; their situation was hopeless.
Then God revealed a new way of righteousness ;
upon the exercise of faith in Christ the condem
nation was removed and a new relation was con
stituted. The standing of one who comes into this
new relation to God is called righteousness. It is
from God in the sense that he by his grace places the
man in this relation.
The subject of justification is anticipated here only
so far as seems necessary in order to illustrate this
peculiar objectivity or realism of the apostle's
thought. It should be borne in mind that I am

STYLE AND MODES OF THOUGHT 43
speaking here only of the form, and not of the matter
or ethical content, of these conceptions. What are
the moral and spiritual realities which they involve
is indeed the important question for theology, and
should receive the full measure of attention which
has generally been bestowed upon it; but it is im
portant as a preparation for that inquiry to define
the shape which these truths took in the apostle's
mind. Without doing this, a correct conception of
his teaching cannot be gained. From lack of careful
investigation into the peculiarities of Paul's modes
of thought two opposite errors have resulted : on the
one hand, the formal element in his teaching has
been ignored, and on the other, the form has been
held so essential and so identical with the truths of
the spiritual life that it has been made to give the
law to all religious thought on the subject. The
former is as unjustifiable in exegesis as the latter is
unnecessary in theology.
It is a peculiarity of Paul's thinking that in the
handling of certain themes it moves predominantly
in the sphere of legal relations. This fact may be
due in some degree to acquaintance with Roman
law, but is chiefly accounted for by his Old Testa
ment training. In harmony with this mode of
thought he represents the believer's cessation from
his former relation to the Mosaic law as a death to
the law, and illustrates it by the termination of the
marriage contract by the death of one of the parties
(Rom. vii. 1-6). The condition of those who are

44 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
under the bondage of the law is likened to the rela
tion of the heir during his childhood when he has no
greater authority than a bond-servant; while those
who have been liberated by faith in Christ from this
legal servitude are like heirs who have actually en
tered upon the inheritance which was destined for
them and who enjoy the full freedom of sons (Gal.
iv. 1-7).
The figure of adoption to express the entrance
upon the Christian life is mingled with the descrip
tion of heirship just referred to, and is a favorite
form of thought with the apostle. It pictures the
alienation of the soul from God in the old life by its
sins, and the joyful entering upon a new filial rela
tion. It is based upon a legal analogy, and forms
the contrast to the " bondage " with which the law
enslaves men. In the most striking passage in
Romans where the figure is employed (viii. 15-17)
it is blended with that of heirship.
But the most elaborate use of legal analogy in
Paul's writings is found in his development of his
doctrine of righteousness and justification. This
has been to some extent illustrated in the remarks
upon the objectivity of these forms of thought as they
appear in his doctrinal epistles. It remains to seek the
ground of these conceptions in the sphere of Jewish
thought. They are distinctively Old Testament con
ceptions. Righteousness in the prevailing Old Tes
tament meaning is the condition of one who stands in
a right relation to Godt that relation being measured

STYLE AND MODES OF THOUGHT 45
and determined by the requirements of some norm or
law. The corresponding term, "to justify," de
notes a forensic act by which one is declared to
stand or to be placed in this relation. When predi
cated of God, it denotes an act of the divine judg
ment, a proclamation of the relation of favor and
acceptance. x
We are not here concerned with the theological
conflicts which have been waged over these words.
What is of importance for our present purpose is that
the whole subject of justification is treated prevail
ingly from a legal point of view, and that no exegesis
of Paul's language can be correct which ignores this
fact. It is for this reason that it is necessary to
recur to these fundamental peculiarities of Paul's
modes of thought, in order that his language may be
interpreted in accord with his own peculiar genius
and not be forced to yield meanings foreign to his
i Cf. Schultz, Alttest. Theol, 293, 294. " Sobald der Begriff
der Gerechtigkeit an einem gbttlichen oder menschlichen Urtheil
orientirt wird, heisst ' gerecht machen ' durchaus immer ' den
Menschen (lurch den Urtheilsspruch als unschuldig, im Rechte
befindlich erklaren,' — niemals ihm eine sittliche Erneuerung
zum Guten bringen. . . . Bei dieser Bedeutung des Wortes
' gerecht ' begreift sich leicht, dass Gerechtigkeit und Siindlo-
sigkeit, im strengen Sinne des Wortes, nichts mit einander zu
thun haben.''
Schultz maintains the " purely forensic significance " of the Old
Testament equivalent of SiKaiovv (p'TOIl) in all cases except Is. liii.
11 (as well as of its counterpart inzhn). To this exception Cheyne,
following Gesenius, adds Dan. xii. 3. See Prophecies of Isaiah,
in loco. Is. liii. 11.

46 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
type of thinking, or conformed to moulds which be
long to the theological interpreter. The application
of the forensic type of thought to the phenomena of
spiritual life is not agreeable to many minds, but it
was so to Paul's. It is proper for those who are little
attracted and edified by this mode of thought to urge
that it supplies, at most, but the moulds into which
his ideas of the spiritual life are run, and to appeal
to those more mystical expressions of its truths
which find place outside the formal development of
his teaching concerning justification. But when the
interpreter permits his distaste for legal analogy to
lead him to deny its predominance in Paul's doc
trine, and to explain away the natural force of his
words in accordance with that denial, he is but con
forming his interpretation to theological preposses
sion, and making impossible a sound and impartial
exegesis of the apostle's writings.1 I say nothing
of the theology of those who neglect or deny this
legal quality and form of Pauline thought, but
it is no presumption to pronounce their exegesis
incorrect. The use of parallel is a noticeable quality of
Paul's thinking. In the Epistle to the Romans, be-
1 1 may refer in illustration to Sabatier's depreciation of the
forensic character of Paul's doctrine of justification (L'Apdtre
Paul, p. 276 ; Eng. tr. p. 299). The minimizing of this element
in the supposed interests of a more spiritual theology detracts
from the exegetical value of Dr. Lyman Abbott's Commentary on
Romans, — a work of merit in other respects. See especially
pp. 36, 52-60.

STYLE AND MODES OF THOUGHT 47
fore he enters upon the exposition of the doctrine of
justification by faith, he prepares the way for the
discussion by proving that men cannot be justified
by works. This he does in a twofold manner : first,
by drawing a picture of the depravity of the Gen
tile world (Rom. i. 18-32) which would, without
special argument, be sufficient to exclude the idea
of their justification by merit; then, as the coun
terpart of this, he enters upon an arraignment
of the Jew, charging him with the commission
of the same sins (ii. 1), and denying to him any
advantage over the heathen with reference to
justification, by reason of his possession of the law
(ii. 1— iii. 20).
These parallels are employed for the more forcible
exhibition of some single truth which it is important
to hold clearly in mind in their interpretation. The
primary object in the instance referred to is, no
doubt, to humble the pretensions of the Jew by prov
ing that he stands upon the same moral plane with
the heathen and must accept salvation on the same
terms. In order to do this, it is necessary to bring
out several points of comparison. It must be shown
that both alike have sinned, and equally against
light. It is involved in this fact that the Gentiles,
who had no written law like the Mosaic system, had
nevertheless a certain moral guide in conscience,
which rendered their lives blameworthy. This ana
logue of the Old Testament law was sufficient to
condemn their conduct ; how much more, then, would

48 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
the law condemn the conduct of the Jew! More
over, it offered to the Gentile the same opportunity
to gain justification by obedience as the written law
afforded to the Jew. A perfect obedience to such
law as the heathen had would avail as much as per
fect obedience to his law on the part of the Jew.
Thus both stood upon precisely the same plane ; to
both the same requirement came ; the same princi
ples apply to both (ii. 12 sq.).
When, now, the single purpose of the apostle in
this argument is lost sight of, and it is sought to
determine whether he supposed that some Gentiles
were saved, and if so, in what way, the effort is
made to apply the language to questions which were
not in the writer's mind, and leads to forced inter
pretations of his words. He simply teaches that
both Gentiles and Jews are great sinners and cannot
merit salvation. Both alike, if they obtain it, must
do so on the principle of grace, not of desert. His
language involves the view that all who are saved
from either class are saved by grace upon condition
of faith. How many of each are saved, or what de
gree of light was necessary in each case, or exactly
what was the object of their faith, are interesting
questions of theological speculation; but Paul has
not considered them or said anything relating to
them in this whole discussion. He is developing a
principle, — no salvation by works, — in order to pave
the way for the establishment of another, — salvation
by grace through faith, — and is not treating those

STYLE AND MODES OF THOUGHT 49
concrete and historical questions for which it is often
sought to find an answer in his words.
The most famous instance of this mode of Paul's
thought is found in the parallel between Adam and
Christ in Rom. v. 12-21. Here the primary ob
ject is to exhibit the greatness of the grace of God in
Christ by setting it in contrast with the reign of sin
and death in natural humanity. The passage has
been ordinarily treated in theology as if its purpose
had been to define a doctrine of original sin. The
sway of sin and death is used but as a background in
order to paint in more glowing colors the reign of
righteousness in Christ. The superior greatness of
the power of grace as against that of sin and death is
emphasized not less than three times in the course of
the parallel. The primary object of the passage is
thus to exhibit the contrast between the two opposing
principles of sin and grace, and to show the supe
rior power of the latter. The key-note of the whole
is : " Where sin abounded, grace did abound more ex
ceedingly " (verse 20). But the Adam side of the par
allel has been so exclusively emphasized in theology
that a passage which was to Paul an exultant pasan
of joy and triumph has been made a message of con
demnation and sentence of doom to mankind, because
its thoughts have been thrown out of adjustment, and
a wholly misplaced emphasis laid upon the words in
consequence of neglecting the essential point on
which the whole comparison turns. Such interpre
tation is like that which builds doctrines upon the
4

50 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
incidents of parables, and which, consistently carried
out, finds Christ commending shameless imperti
nence in the parable of the Unjust Judge, and
praising trickery and deceit in that of the Unjust
Steward. Another example of parallelism is found in the
analogy which is traced between the natural and
spiritual in 1 Cor. xv. 35-49, and upon which the
doctrine of the spiritual body is based. The parallel
is traced through various steps. There is (a) The
relation between the seed-grain and its product, and
the analogy between this relation and that of the pres
ent to the future body (verses 35-38). (b) He illus
trates the variety of embodiments which have been
provided for God's creatures in the natural world,
from which fact the inference is that there will
be embodiments for souls fitted to their celestial
state (verses 39-44). (c) Next the contrast between
Adam and Christ as heads of humanity is briefly
mentioned (verse 45); and (d) the natural order
as preceding and preparing for the spiritual order
suggests that there is a spiritual corporeity to fol
low and consummate that in which we now dwell
(verses 46-49).
Other examples of undeveloped parallelism exist,
but need not be considered here. The point of chief
importance is that the apostle's language is to be in
terpreted in accordance with his characteristic forms
of thought and modes of argument. To overlook
these is to neglect an essential condition of perceiv-

STYLE AND MODES OF THOUGHT 51
ing the natural force and relative emphasis of his
ideas. It should be remembered that exegesis is a
study of form as well as of matter. Its task is not
merely to grasp the practical contents and bearing of
the passages studied, but to see, as it were, with the
author's eyes, to apprehend his thoughts in all the
peculiarities of form and shades of emphasis in
which he has himself presented them.

CHAPTER III
THE SHAPING FOECES OP PAUL'S TEACHING
Paul belonged by birth and education to the " strait-
est sect" among the Jews (Acts xxvi. 5). The Phari
sees were the popular and most influential party in the
nation, and best represented the spirit of post-exilian
Judaism. They were rigid adherents of tradition and
sticklers for a strict interpretation and observance of
the law. The natural consequence of this temper was
that they encouraged an ostentatious piety and made
the religious life to consist in a system of rules
many of Avhich rested upon the most superficial
distinctions. But with all their formalities and follies,
they were by no means wholly devoid of conscien
tiousness and real religious zeal. They had indeed
carried the duties of religion almost exclusively into
the external sphere ; but they retained a certain con
sistency and devotion in their performance which
when enlightened and directed would become essen
tial elements of high religious character. They were
proud and self-righteous, but, mingled with these
qualities, was an abhorrence of the corruption of the
heathen world, and a revulsion of feeling from what

SHAPING FORCES OF PAUL'S TEACHING 53
they conceived to be the prevailing uncleanness of
their own nation. Their name, Pharisees, meaning
Separatists, was perhaps attached to them in blame
for their exclusiveness, but it also represented char
acteristics which had their good side, and which were
capable of being so ennobled as to become qualities of
real moral worth.
There was indeed much to censure in the Phari
sees. Their formality, hypocrisy, and bondage to
tradition justly exposed them to the rebukes which
they received from Jesus. But these faults were the
faults of the nation as a whole. They were an index
of the moral temper of the times. They exemplified
the travesty of religion which springs from mis
directed zeal ; the sad perversion of man's highest
capacities which arises when duty is removed from
its true center, and the high qualities of conscien
tiousness and earnestness degraded by being directed
toward false or trivial objects.
In spite of their marked faults, the Pharisees as a
party still cherished certain beliefs of great religious
value. They believed in a spiritual world and in the
immortality of the soul (Acts xxiii. 8). In this re
spect they represented, as compared with the more
aristocratic and worldly Sadducees, the higher relig
ious standpoint of later Judaism. Their notion of
the world of spirits was no doubt extravagant, but
it formed a better basis for a spiritual religion than
the theory which bounds the horizon of life by the
limits of this world. The Pharisees, then, were a

54 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
distinctively religious sect. Their aim was to carry
out the law strictly. They regarded all interests
from a religious point of view, however inadequate
by reason of misconception that point of view might
be. However much they failed to realize the true
idea of religion as a life of love and service, — and
they certainly did grossly fail to do so, — they cher
ished certain truths and cultivated certain traits which
under new conditions were fitted to become a useful
starting-point for true religion and theology.1
It was under the influence of this sect and, indeed,
under the direct instruction of one of its most hon
ored representatives, Gamaliel, that Paul received
his early education (Acts xxii. 3). That celebrated
doctor was one of the most moderate and enlightened
men of his class, and on one occasion warned his
countrymen in an impartial and humane spirit against
the fanatical zeal with which they opposed Christian
ity (Acts v. 34 sq.). He embodied the best elements
of Phariseeism, and must have exercised a strong-
influence upon his pupil from Tarsus. The supposi
tion that Gamaliel was a Christian, or that he was
secretly inclined toward Christianity and afterward
espoused it, are fictions of ecclesiastical tradition
which rest upon no evidence, and are in themselves
improbable. Although Paul was born and lived dur
ing his early boyhood in a city where Greek influences
and culture predominated, his education was in the
1 Cf. Schurer, The Jewish People in the Time of Christ, Divi
sion II. vol. ii. pp. 10-28.

SHAPING FORCES OF PAUL'S TEACHING 55
sacred city of his ancestral religion, and was con
ducted according to the methods, and limited to the
range, which belonged to the best Jewish schools of
the period. His parents were Roman citizens (Acts
xvi. 37; xxii. 25-29), and the place of his birth
made Greek his native language; but while these
facts cannot have been without their influence upon
his development, they furnish no ground for the com
mon opinion that Paul was learned in the Roman
law or in Greek literature. His training during his
youth moved within the sphere of Old Testament and
rabbinic thought, and formed the habits of his mind
according to Jewish models. This statement is abun
dantly illustrated and confirmed by his characteristic
conceptions and modes of argument in his epistles.
The fact would be misconceived, however, by any
who should suppose that his Jewish education oper
ated as a permanent check or barrier to the indepen
dent application of his mind to new subjects and to
its adjustment to new points of view. His extended
and repeated journeys through various parts of the
Roman Empire, combined with the native freshness
and vigor of his mind, would preclude anything like
imitation or routine thinking in his case. We accord
ingly find in his letters Jewish modes of thought and
styles of argument applied with a striking freedom
to new subjects, and wrought out in new combinations.
While, therefore, it is certain that no explanation of
the type of his theology can be adequate which ne
glects to take account of his rabbinic education, it is

56 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
equally certain that his teaching is marked by an
individuality and independence which prove him to
have been the master, and not the servant, of the
ideas and arguments with which he had been in
doctrinated in his youth.
In recent times elaborate attempts have been made
to prove that Greek thought, especially as it was
developed at Alexandria, exercised an important in
fluence upon the apostle's teaching. Parallels have
been traced between his ideas and those of Philo,1
and coincidences of thought are pointed out between
his epistles and certain apocryphal books. Many of
these comparisons are interesting and instructive ; but
a candid effort to give to them their full weight in
evidence leaves me far from convinced of the justice
of the conclusions which are drawn from them. They
do not appear to me to prove more than that systems
which grow up under similar conditions and subject
to the same general influences will present points of
similarity. There are coincidences of idea and of
interpretation between Paul and Philo ; but they are
too slight and superficial, when compared with the
fundamental and radical differences of their respective
systems, to warrant the conclusion that Paul's opin
ions had been in any important degree influenced by
those of the Alexandrian philosopher. This fact is
indeed fully recognized by Siegfried in treating of the
relation of Philonic to New Testament thought in
general. He says, — ¦
1 See, for example, Siegfried, Philo von Alexandria, p. 303 sq.

SHAPING FORCES OF PAUL'S TEACHING 57
" Common to both is the effort to bring about a higher
union of Jew and Gentile. Both have the important idea
of an intermediate being, connecting God and the world,
God and man. They have similar views of the utter
sinfulness of the human race, and of the ethical problem
set before it ; namely, how to become pure from sin. But
by the side of these features of resemblance there exist
deep aud far-reaching differences. Philo's idea of God
is more Gentile-philosophic than biblical ; while in that
of the New Testament appear the traits of the living God
of Israel. The Logos-doctrine of Philo leans toward the
pantheistic conception, while that of the New Testament
abides throughout on the soil of theism. In respect to
ethics, the view which places evil exclusively in the bodily
nature is altogether alien to the New Testament." 1
A representative example of the efforts to show
that Paulinism is a composite of Jewish and Hellenic
ideas may be found in Pfleiderer's work entitled, Das
Urchristenthum? It is the author's opinion that Paul
was not directly acquainted with Philo's writings, but
that he knew and largely used a writing which may
be considered as a forerunner of the Philonic philoso
phy of religion, — the apocryphal Book of Wisdom.
Some coincidences — none of which appear to me
especially striking — are pointed out ; but though one
give to them the most favorable estimate, they appear
to fall far short of establishing the derivation of one
1 Philo von Alexandria, p. 304. An interesting and instructive
essay on this subject, entitled Saint Paul and Philo, may be found
appended to Jowett's Commentary on Galatians.
2 Quellen der paulinischen Theologie, pp. 153-178.

58 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
series in the comparison from the other. We com
mend to the student of the subject a careful reading
of the Book of Wisdom with close attention to its
points of contact with Pauline teaching. We appre
hend that few will discover in it a closer resemblance
to Paul's epistles than would, in the nature of the
case, exist between literary products growing, as it
were, upon the same soil. That the book in question
played any important part in shaping the apostle's
theology, appears to my mind a proposition singularly
destitute of proof. Until far more convincing evi
dence is adduced of a potent influence of Alexan
drian speculation and kindred forms of thought
upon Paul's mind, we shall still be required to seek
the shaping forces of his thought, first, in the Old
Testament and the later developments of Jewish
thought, and, second, in his own vigorous and in
dependent reflection upon the content of his newly
received faith, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit
of truth.
The Old Testament was his chief text-book in the
Jewish schools, and continued to be to him a great
storehouse of facts and arguments for his work as a
Christian teacher. He was trained, no doubt, in the
methods of interpretation which were current among
the rabbis of his time, in which the free use of type
and allegory, often to the entire neglect of the primary
and historical sense, was one of the most prominent
characteristics. Rabbinic modes of exegesis had their
influence upon his use of the Old Testament, and

SHAPING FORCES OF PAUL'S TEACHING 59
have left clear traces in his epistles.1 But to the
student who considers his training, the matter of
chief surprise is, not that his mind should have been
influenced by rabbinic interpretation, but that he
should have been so free from its extravagances, and
should have employed its methods so sparingly and
with so much reserve.
An instructive example of the allegorical method
of applying Old Testament narratives is found in Gal.
iv. 21-31, where the descendants of Hagar and Sarah
are made to represent respectively the Old and the
New Covenants. This application is the more fitting
to the apostle's mind because Sinai — the symbol of
the law — is situated in Arabia, the land of Hagar's
descendants.2 It cannot fairly be doubted that Paul
considers the history connected with Hagar and Sarah
in their relation to Abraham to have an allegorical
meaning and to afford a typical parallel to the rela
tion of the Old and Now Testament systems. The
1 Cf. Immer, Das Jiidische in der Lehre des Paulus in his
Theologie des Neuen Testaments, pp. 247-257.
2 I here follow the reading of Tischendorf in verse 25, cf. marg.
R. V. If the word"Ayap is inserted in this verse (so Westcott and
Hort), the sense then is that the name " Hagar " was applied as a
designation to Mount Sinai, of which no satisfactory proof has been
found. The word is attested by A B D E K L P, most cursives,
and Chrysostom; omitted by K C F G 17, It. Vulg. iEth. Arm.
vss., and the Latin fathers generally. Some who insert the word
here, understand the sense to be : This word " Hagar " (to "A-ynp)
represents Mount Sinai (because Mount Sinai is in Arabia, the
land of Hagar). In this view the reading yields the same sense
as the other. See Lightfoot, Galatians, p. 193 sq.

60 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
argument is thus determined in its form by current
habits of rabbinic interpretation; but this form is
not, in any case, essential to the appropriateness and
validity of the analogy which the apostle is tracing.
The essential point is that Abraham's two sons, from
the circumstances of their birth, may be fitly contem
plated as representing the two principles of bondage
and freedom, which are the characteristics of the two
covenants respectively. Ishmael, as the son of a
bond- woman, is a child KaTa, adpKa, and represents the
system which engenders bondage ; Isaac, as the son of
Sarah, born in fulfilment of a divine promise, — Bid
Tfjs iirayyeXlas, — fitly represents the covenant of
promise and freedom. Whether Paul regarded the
history in question as containing this allegorical sig
nificance, or merely as capable of such an application,
his resort in this place to this form of rabbinic exe
gesis is certain. It is also to be borne in mind how
infrequently he has recourse to it.
An instance in which the apostle departs more
noticeably from the historical sense in the interest of
a special application of Old Testament Scripture is
found in 1 Cor. ix. 9, 10, where he interprets the
Mosaic precept, " Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth
of the ox when he treadeth out the corn," as applying,
not to oxen, for God is not making oxen an object of
solicitude, but to the care and support which are to
be accorded to preachers of the gospel. That Paul
here overlooks and counts of little importance the
obvious historical sense in the case of this merciful

SHAPING FORCES OF PAUL'S TEACHING 61
provision for the cattle when engaged in threshing, is
beyond question. Whether he wholly denies the his
torical sense depends chiefly upon the meaning of
TrdvTco<i (verse 10). If it means " wholly," " altogether"
(A. V., R. V., Stanley, Meyer, De Wette, Weiss),—
its usual meaning in the New Testament, — then the
passage means that in the maxim in question God is
not concerning himself about the needs or welfare of
oxen, but gives the precept altogether for the sake
of preachers, Paul and his associates, and the histori
cal sense is excluded. If, on the other hand, -n-avTca
means " certainly," " doubtless," the sense may be
that the maxim has a reference and application to
preachers, without asserting that it had no other.
The emphasis would then be upon the certainty of its
having such a reference, and not upon the exclusive
ness of that application (so marg. R. V.).
Upon this meaning of nrdvTcos, it is possible to main
tain, with Godet and Neander, that Paul here merely
subordinates the historical to the allegorical sense
without rejecting the former. So far as the argument
for this meaning of the word is concerned, it is proper
to appeal to Luke iv. 23 : " Doubtless [ttyWco?] ye will
say to me this parable, etc. ; " Acts xxi. 22, " They
will certainly [7rai<T£D9] hear that thou art come ; " and
xxviii. 4, "No doubt [trdvTw'] this man is a mur
derer." Such is the meaning in the three instances
in which Luke employs the word. Paul uses it five
times, — once in Romans (iii. 9), and four times in
1 Corinthians (v. 10 ; ix. 10, 22 ; xvi. 12). In all these

62 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
cases, unless our passage be an exception, it has the
meaning " wholly," " entirely," " altogether." Consid
erations from Pauline usage would therefore favor this
meaning, but in themselves are not decisive. When,
however, we consider how Paul puts the alternative,
" Is it for the oxen that God careth, or saith he it
[altogether] for our sake ? " it seems plain that he
considers the choice to lie between the application to
oxen and that to Christian teachers. If the maxim
is declared not to relate to oxen, the historical sense
is set aside and the allegorical substituted. This use
of the passage is also found in rabbinic writings (see
Meyer in loco).1
Of the way in which an argument, in the methods
of the Jewish schools, was made to turn on a word, we
have an interesting example in Gal. iii. 16, where the
Old Testament statement that the promises were
made to Abraham and to his seed (Gen. xiii. 15 ; xvii.
8) is interpreted to mean that they relate to Christ,
because the passage uses the singular " seed," and not
the plural " seeds," referring therefore to one (Christ),
and not to many. Here also we may distinguish the
rabbinic form from the underlying idea, which is
separable from the form and could have been brought
out without the use of it. It was the apostle's pro
found and true conviction that the idea of the Mes-
1 Luther's explanation escapes the natural meaning of the
words with a native simplicity which is all its own : " God cares
for all things, but he does not care that anything should be written
for oxen, seeing they cannot read."

SHAPING FORCES OF PAUL'S TEACHING 63
siah was veiled in the Abrahamic promise. That the
promises given to Abraham and to his seed looked
forward to Christ, and in the light of later revelation
could be truly read as referring to him, is the point
of chief importance. But the form in which he is led
to express this view cannot be derived from the Old
Testament passage, where the term " seed " is a col
lective noun, except by the application of those meth
ods of finding occult meanings in words which were
current in Paul's time, and in which he had in early
life been instructed.
These examples will serve to show how character
istically and thoroughly Jewish was the apostle's
education, and at the same time how little he was
enslaved to his training. The presence of these in
stances of rabbinic exposition, in all of which the
underlying thought could have been well established
and enforced apart from the form employed for
its presentation, serves but to tinge the epistles of
Paul with rabbinic thought ; but the coloring, slight
though it is, bears unmistakable testimony to the
character of that training whose influence time and
change could never wholly destroy. It was usual for
Paul as a Hellenistic Jew to quote from the Septua
gint, following its language more or less closely, and
to apply passages freely, if fitting in their substance,
to different objects from those to which they relate
in the Old Testament itself. A convenient example,
which is in every way a fair representative, is found
in Rom. ii. 24 (Is. Iii. 5) : " For the name of God is

64 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you."
Here the apostle follows the Septuagint, which has
added to the original the phrases " among the Gen
tiles " and " because of you." The original passage
is simply, " My name continually all the day is blas
phemed," and the reference is to the blasphemy of
Jehovah's name by the enemies of Israel, who claim
that he is unable to save the nation. The apostle
applies it to the contempt for God which the corrup
tion of the professed people of God (the Jews) would
occasion in the heathen. Thus the Septuagint addi
tions — " because of you " and " among the Gentiles "
— made the passage more pointed and fitting for the
apostle's use than the briefer original could have
been. The words which picture the action of Israel's
enemies during the exile as fitly apply to the actions
which Israel's sins will occasion in the Greek and
Roman world of a later age.
One further example of Paul's freedom in citing
the Old Testament, especially when influenced by the
renderings of the Septuagint, will suffice. In 1 Cor.
ii. 9, we read: "As it is written, Things which eye
saw not, and ear heard not, and which entered not
into the heart of man, whatsoever things God pre
pared for them that love him." From the fact that
only remote resemblances to this language are found
in the Old Testament it has been thought by many
(following Origen) that some extra-canonical or
apocryphal book is here quoted. Meyer (in loco)
says, —

SHAPING FORCES OF PAUL'S TEACHING 65
''Since it is only passages from the canonical Scrip
tures that are ever cited by Paul with Ka6ia<s yiypa-mai, we
must at the same time assume that he intended to do so
here also, but by some confusion of memory took the
apocryphal saying for a canonical passage, possibly from
the prophecies, to which the passages of kindred sound
in Isaiah might easily give occasion."
Weiss holds the same opinion.1 Schurer thinks that
the passage was taken from a lost Jewish Apocalypse
of Elijah, to which Origen and others had assigned
it, and appeals to the quotation of the Book of Enoch
by Jude.2
It has been more commonly held — and we think
this opinion preferable — that Paul has in mind the
language of Is. lxiv. 4 (cf. Iii. 15) : " For from of
old men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear,
neither hath the eye seen a God beside thee, which
worketh for him that waiteth for him." The Septua
gint gives a free translation by which the passage is
rendered more general and indefinite, thus : " From
of old we have not heard, nor have our eyes seen a
God beside thee, and thy works which thou wilt do
for those who wait for thy mercy." In the original,
the prophet, amid the desolations of the exile, de
scribes the help which Jehovah is capable of ren
dering his people who wait faithfully upon him.
No deliverance has ever been tvitnessed which can
equal that which Jehovah will accomplish if his
1 Bib. Theol. § 74 6, note 7.
2 Jewish People, Division II. vol. iii. 130.

66 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
people remain true to him. The apostle seizes the
thought of the greatness of God's spiritual mer
cies, and adapts this expression of it to his pur
pose by laying a new emphasis upon the statement
that they are not perceived by eye, ear, and heart,
but revealed to the human spirit by the Spirit of
God. In the original it was said that eye had not
seen, nor ear heard, the deliverance hoped for, be
cause of its unparalleled greatness ; in Paul's use
of the words, eye and ear (and to these the apos
tle adds " the heart ") do not perceive the heavenly
wisdom revealed in the gospel because they are not
adequate to do so ; only the revealing Spirit can make
them known. The common thought in both cases is
the exceeding greatness of the blessings which God has
in store for his people. In the original, the eye has
not seen them because there are greater mercies yet
to come. In Paul's application, it has not seen them
because they surpass its power ; God himself must
reveal them in the life of the spirit.1
This example aptly illustrates the following points
touching Paul's training in the Old Testament and his
use of the same in argument and exposition of doc
trine : (1) He bestows no pains upon citing the exact
1 Other examples, presenting points of similarity with that
which we have considered, are : 1 Cor. xv. 55 (cf. Hosea xiii.
14) and especially Eph. v. 11 (cf. Is. Ix. 1), where, in the opin
ion of many, some lost writing is cited, but which, we think, can
be more naturally explained as a free adaptation of Old Testa
ment language. So Toy, Quotations in the New Testament, in loco ;
Weiss, Bib. Theol. § 74 b, note 7, vs. Meyer in loco.

SHAPING FORCES OF PAUL'S TEACHING 67
words either of the original or of the Septuagint.1
(2) He seizes the idea, often without reference to its
immediate setting, and employs it freely for the pur
pose before him, making such adaptations in form,
emphasis, and application as that purpose may re
quire. (3) In this free use of scriptural language
and its application to new subjects, there is a fidelity
to the idea expressed in the original passage which
insures a true point of contact even in those in
stances (like the foregoing) where the historical sense
is most disregarded.2 (4) The apostle's use of Scrip
ture is dominated by the profound view that Israel's
history is prophetic and Messianic throughout, so that
the idea and hope of the Messiah are held to per
vade the Old Testament history and literature. In
this connection Weiss truly says, —
1 It should be mentioned that his deviations may sometimes be
due to his following current synagogue readings or popular Ara
maic oral renderings. Cf. Toy, Quotations, Introduction, p. 15.
2 The statement of Weiss on this point seems extreme : " In
the use that he makes of the passages of Scripture, he pays no
attention to their historical references or to their connection ; it
is only their language that he takes into account " (Bib. Theol.
§ 74 c). It is true that Paul often disregards the historical
connection entirely ; but in the use of Old Testament passages he
certainly seeks to find a kinship of thought with the argument or
exposition which he is conducting. The language cannot be to
him the main thing, since he so frequently disregards its form ;
the underlying idea, which is kindred to the thought in hand, is
the matter of importance. He changes the language freely ; he
adapts the idea to new situations ; but his effort is always to pre
serve and enforce it.

68 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
"At the basis of this practice [that of following
verbal resemblances], however, there lies the presup
position that, on the one side, the whole of Scripture
prophesies of the Messiah aud the events of the Messi
anic time ; so that everything which simply admits of
being applied to these circumstances is interpreted in this
sense, and that too as a direct prophecy. Thus in Ps.
Ixix. 9, the Messiah himself is conceived of as speaking
(Rom. xv. 3) , and Joel ii. 32 is applied by him, as well as
by Peter (Acts ii. 21), to the Messiah (Rom. x. 13).
Even passages which, like these, are undoubtedly Messi
anic in the wider sense appear as having a reference to
the person of Jesus which is originally foreign to them
(Rom. ix. 33 ; cf. 1 Pet. ii. 6)." 1
But that which is of chief importance in this con
nection is that the apostle's mind was penetrated
with Old Testament thought and permeated by the
Old Testament spirit in its highest Messianic import.
He saw in Christ the realization of the ideals and
hopes which had inspired the prophets of Israel ; and
it was one of the purposes of his letters to explain
and trace this fulfilment. Exegetical science may
indeed demur at his rendering and application of
texts ; but no such science can safely neglect the fun
damental assumption on which he proceeds in dealing
with the relation between the gospel and the Old Tes
tament. They are related as the fruit to the blos
som. The Old Covenant is a perpetual prophecy and
guaranty of the New. It takes its place in subordina-
1 Bib. Theol. § 74 c.

SHAPING FORCES OF PAUL'S TEACHING 69
tion to the system which is to succeed it, and has its
true glory in that it ushers in the superior glory of
that system (2 Cor. iii. 7-11). After his conversion
new meanings must have glowed in the pages of the
Old Testament as Paul read it. Not only were its
contents now suffused with new light, but a wholly new
view of its design is developed in his mind. He
now sees the whole reason of its existence in the
bringing of men to Christ. The positive and historic
aims of deterring from wrong-doing and checking
transgression, which had always been associated with
the law, assume a secondary place in the light of its
preparatory and Christological purpose, which is now
seen. The origin and development of this new view
of the subject will form the theme of a subsequent
chapter. It is sufficient here to point out how great
a revolution in Paul's view of the Old Testament
must have been wrought by his Christian thinking,
and what new and striking developments of Christian
doctrine were now possible from Old Testament
points of view. The Old Testament, in which he had
been so carefully trained as a Jewish youth, seen in
this new light and interpreted as a record of God's
methods of conducting men to Christ, becomes to the
apostle a storehouse of facts and truths whereby the
gospel may be illustrated and confirmed ; and thus
Paul's knowledge of it, filled with the new light that
had penetrated it from Christ, became one of the most
potent forces which shaped his presentations of
doctrine.

70 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
But while Paul thus carried into his teaching influ
ences and impressions which he had received in his
Jewish education, his system was, in an important
sense, the product of independent reflection. At the
time of his conversion the Christian community was
just emerging into the consciousness of that freedom
and independence which Jesus had defined in his
parabolic saying that the new wine of his kingdom
was not to be put into the old bottles of Judaism
(Mark ii. 22), and in his teaching concerning fulfil
ment (Matt. v. 17 sq.). It appears from the charges
which the Jews brought against the Hellenist Stephen
(Acts vi. 13, 14) that he had expressed sentiments
which implied the temporary character of the Leviti
cal system and the completeness and sufficiency of
the gospel. The problem of defining the relation of
the gospel to the Old Testament would be at this
juncture no easy one. How could the law be said
to be divine and temporary at the same time ? Could
the New Testament system itself be saved if the Old
was abandoned ? Those who had grown up in Juda
ism and had experienced no special shock or revolu
tion of feeling and opinion in passing into Christianity
would have less sense of the difference between the
two. To such, Christianity would seem but another
form of Judaism, an appendix to it or an infusion of
new life into its old forms. Hence they would be
tenacious of its rites. Its ceremony of initiation into
the community — circumcision — would in their judg
ment be a necessary condition for entering the Church

SHAPING FORCES OF PAUL'S TEACHING 71
from the heathen world. The most excellent and
enlightened men among the apostles at Jerusalem
shared, to some extent, these convictions. They
understood, indeed, that the gospel was to be offered
to all men ; but it was with difficulty that they con
sented to the view that all should receive it upon the
same simple condition, — faith in Christ (cf. Acts x.
14 ; xv. 1 ; Gal. ii. 11-16). It was Paul who led the
infant Church out of the mazes of this perplexing
problem. It was he who sharply defined the true
relation of the Christian community to the Old Cove
nant, clearly contrasted the law and faith as princi
ples of salvation, and by rebuking all inconsistency
with their professed trust in Christ on the part of
other Christian teachers, and refuting the opinions
of those who were fanatically opposed to his doctrine
of freedom from the law (Gal. ii. 4; Acts xv. 24),
both determined the doctrine and shaped the course
of the early Church in reference to the subject.
The mode of Paul's conversion in connection with
his previous course of life must have powerfully inten
sified his sense of the difference between the law
dispensation and the gospel. What it was to live
under the law, to feel its yoke without being able to
do its requirements, he well knew from long and
bitter experience. The revelation of Christ to him
had been the message of release to his burdened
spirit. In the gospel, with its principles of grace and
faith, he had found freedom and peace. No wonder,
then, that to him there was a world-wide difference

72 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
betwreen the state of men under the law and that
under the gospel. They assumed to his mind the rela
tion of contraries, mutually excluding each other. It
was not that this contrariety pertained to their rela
tions in general, but only to them considered as means
of salvation. It was in this sense that the gospel
excluded the law ; and it was from this point of re
garding the subject that Paul resisted all resort to
the law and all attempts to attain salvation by observ
ance of it, even declaring, in his polemic against the
Galatian Judaizers, that if they were circumcised they
thereby forfeited all relation to Christ (Gal. v. 2).
It was not because circumcision wras in itself so con
trary to Christianity that the apostle said this, but
because in receiving this initiatory rite the Gentile
convert espoused the legal system and based his
hope of salvation upon obedience to it instead of
placing it upon Christ alone. Being circumcised, he
is bound to keep the whole law, and if he fails to do
this (as he certainly will), his ground of hope in the
law crumbles away, and he remains unforgiven and
subject to condemnation. As there are not two ways
of salvation, one by the law and one by the gospel, so
are there not two conditions of salvation, circumcision
and faith. Since the way of meritorious salvation is
shut, and that by grace alone remains open, the con
ditions which the method of legal obedience might
impose are excluded ; that which the method of grace
requires — namely, faith — alone remains.
But after the fullest possible analysis has been

SHAPING FORCES OF PAUL'S TEACHING 73
made of the human conditions and influences which
determined the forms and shaped the development of
Paul's thought, his career remains inexplicable with
out assigning chief importance to that divine grace
and providential leadership to which he himself ever
ascribes his achievements in the work of the gospel.
The human factors of his mission and work lie open
to view, and deserve the most careful study. It is
these which make his life a truly natural one far re
moved from that unearthly and inscrutable char
acter with which it has been sometimes invested.
His temperament, education, religious experience
as a Pharisee, and peculiar conversion have an
obvious and easily traceable effect upon his work
and his theology. The grace that made him what
he was did not work its results apart from these
human conditions, but in and through them. While
his gospel was divine in its origin and came to him
by revelation, it was also subject to reflection and
development in its definition and application. The
core of this gospel was the truth of the Messiahship
of Jesus. This was matter of revelation in the ex
perience of his conversion ; but this fact in no way
involves the idea that his whole scheme of teaching-
was revealed to him ready-made. This was indeed
the germ-truth out of which his view of the law and
of the relations of the Old and New Covenants were
developed. But the working-out of the bearings and
applications of that new truth must have cost the
apostle long and patient reflection. Moreover, the

74 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
circumstances of his churches and the exigencies of
the time determined the ways in which he must, in the
various cases, have reasoned out and applied his doc
trines of grace and faith. It remains to us to pursue
our studies upon the development of these doctrines
in accord with the personal and historic conditions
affecting them, while we recognize the divinely re
vealed truth by which Paul was set upon his great
career, and the providence and grace by which he was
continually enabled to win such great conquests for
truth and righteousness.

CHAPTER IV
THE SOURCES OP PAULINE DOCTRINE
It does not fall within the scope of this volume to
discuss the critical questions connected with the
genuineness of the thirteen epistles which are com
monly attributed to Paul. It seems desirable, how
ever, to present a brief resumS of the status and
results of criticism in this branch of biblical study.
It is particularly important, for the purposes of our
investigation, to appreciate the sources of Paul's
teaching in their individuality, and to group them
according to their leading characteristics.
We have in the first place, in the Book of Acts, a
number of reports of Paul's discourses. In my judg
ment, criticism has not shaken the long-cherished
opinion that the author of the Acts was Luke, who
was a member of the apostle's company during a
portion of his missionary activity. If this be correct,
the writer must have been a frequent listener to the
apostle's preaching, and would be able to report his
discourses with substantial accuracy. Whatever diffi
culties, then, may attend the interpretation of details
or the question of the sources and preservation of the

76 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
reports, there is no adequate reason to question the
narratives of Acts in their testimony to the main
truths which Paul emphasized in his missionary
preaching. From these we learn that his chief asser
tion in speaking to the Jews was that of the Messiah-
ship of Jesus (Acts ix. 20, 22 ; xvii. 3), and that in
support of this truth he appealed chiefly to Christ's
fulfilment of prophecy and to the fact of his resur
rection (xvii. 2 ; xiii. 30). In addressing Gentile
audiences he first sought some point of contact with
their own religious ideas, by appeal to evidences of
God's providence and goodness (xiv. 15-17 ; xvii. 22-
31), and then led their minds onward to truths spe
cifically Christian. On more than one occasion, when
personally accused of sacrilege or sedition, he narrated
the story of his conversion and divine call to his
work, in justification of his course (Acts xxii. 3 sq. ;
xxvi. 2 sq.).
The Pauline epistles fall chronologically into four
groups, and to each of these groups belong distinguish
ing characteristics. They may be classified as follows :
(1) The Missionary Epistles,1 — 1 and 2 Thessalonians,
written at Corinth (cf. 1 Thess. i. 1 with Acts xviii.
5-11), in the year a. d. 52 or 53. (2) The Great
Doctrinal Epistles, — Galatians, written during Paul's
three years' residence at Ephesus (Acts xx. 31),
1 I assign to them this title because they sustain, both in point
of time and of substance, a close relation to the apostle's mission
ary preaching. They are commonly referred to as Paul's Earlier
Epistles.

SOURCES OF PAULINE DOCTRINE 77
probably in A. d. 55 or 56 ; 1 and 2 Corinthians, written
at Ephesus and in Macedonia respectively, A. r>. 58 ;
and Romans, written at Corinth during the winter of
58-59. (3) The Epistles of the Imprisonment, — Co
lossians, Philemon, Ephesians, and Philippians. These
letters are generally believed to have been composed,
in the order named, while the apostle was a prisoner
at Rome during the years 61-63 (cf. Acts xxviii.).
Many critics, however, assign the first three of this
group to the imprisonment at Caesarea (Acts xxiii.,
xxiv.) and the last only to that at Rome (so Meyer,
Reuss, Weiss). (4) The Pastoral Epistles, — 1 and 2
Timothy and Titus, commonly supposed to have been
written after Paul had been released from the impris
onment at Rome, during which he had written the
third group of letters. The supposition is that Paul
was acquitted after his trial in A. d. 63, and during a
period of freedom wrote 1 Timothy and Titus. Then,
after several years of missionary labor, during which
he perhaps visited Spain (see Rom. xv. 24), he was
imprisoned a second time, and wrote during this im
prisonment and shortly before his execution the
second letter to Timothy, probably about a. d. 67 or
68. The genuineness of each of these groups, except the
second, has been denied by the Tubingen criticism.
Recent critics, who follow in general the methods and
principles of Baur, differ widely in their opinions re
garding the epistles of the first, third, and fourth
groups. The genuineness of the fourth is most con-

78 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
fidently and plausibly denied. The tendency of this
criticism, however, is toward a recognition, more or
less qualified, of the first and third groups as Pauline.
The genuineness of 1 Thessalonians, Philemon, and
Philippians is now widely admitted by disciples of the
Tubingen school (for example, Schenkel, Reuss, Pflei
derer). The movement of criticism has been toward
the recognition of the genuineness of 2 Thessalonians.
De Wette, for example, retracted his unfavorable opin
ion regarding this epistle. Pfleiderer regards it
(apart from the apocalyptic portion, ii. 1-12) as a
reproduction, by another hand, of the First Epistle,
and so as Pauline in its main content, though spu
rious in authorship. Reuss maintains its genuineness
throughout. The genuineness of Colossians and Ephesians, to
gether with the problem of their relation, continues
to be much disputed. On this latter point the most
diverse views have been entertained. Now, Colossians
has been made a reproduction of Ephesians (Mayer-
hoff), and again the converse has been supposed (De
Wette). Others rejected both together (Baur and
Schwegler). Later the view became current that
Colossians was based upon a genuine Pauline letter
which the writer of the spurious Epistle to the Ephe
sians had worked over into its present form by adding
his own speculations (Holtzmann, Hausrath, Immer,
von Soden). It will thus be seen that even with the
results of what is called the negative or destructive
criticism of the Pauline epistles, as represented, for

SOURCES OF PAULINE DOCTRINE 79
example, by Pfleiderer, we have as sources of Paul's
teaching not only the four undisputed letters, but also
1 Thessalonians and Philippians, and as based upon
Pauline teaching and representing it with more or less
variation, 2 Thessalonians, Colossians, and Ephesians.
The criticism most unfavorable to traditional opinion
— at least such as has won any general acceptance —
rules out from the sources only the Pastoral Epistles
and certain elements in 2 Thessalonians, Colossians,
and Ephesians.1
These examples of the varying results of a current
type of criticism have been adduced partly to show
how discordant are its conclusions. This fact alone
throws just suspicion upon the validity of its prem
ises, even apart from the consideration of counter
vailing arguments. But the reasons by which the
negative views are supported are in many points
notably deficient. The objection to 2 Thessalonians
is, that the apocalyptic passage contradicts the First
Epistle, which represents the parousia as imminent.
It is also said that the writer betrays an obvious anx
iety to have his epistle regarded as Pauline (iii. 17),
and reveals himself through his guise by saying that
the autograph salutation is the mark of genuineness
1 The arguments by which Bruno Bauer sought to disprove
the genuineness of the letters of the second group have been re
vived and further elaborated by some recent critics, especially by
Loman and Steck. A clear summary and critique of their opin
ions may be found in Lipsius' " Introduction to Galatians," in the
Handkommentar (Freiburg, 1891) ; also in Pfleiderer's Der Paid-
inismus, 1 Aufl., p. 33 sq.

80 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
in every epistle, whereas Paul had, at most, written
but one letter before this. To these points it may
properly be replied that while Paul clearlv expressed
the expectation in the First Epistle that the advent
would occur during his lifetime, he nowhere presumed
to fix its time or to say that it was in the immedi
ate future. He was in middle life at the time of
writing, and beyond question expected the develop
ments described in 2 Thess. ii., which were to pre
cede the advent, to occur within his lifetime. He
declared that the " mystery of lawlessness " was al
ready working; it needed but to come to its culmi
nation in order to usher in the parousia. Objections
connected with this passage derive their force largely
from the assumption that by the " man of sin" some
Roman Emperor is meant, — a supposition which is
wholly improbable. Regarding the second point men
tioned, it may be said that we do not know that Paul
had written but one letter (1 Thessalonians) at the
time when he is supposed to have written 2 Thessalo
nians,1 and, further, that the expression, " Which is the
token in every epistle," may look forward to the future,
as well as backward to the past. The same authentica
tion is found at the close of 1 Corinthians and Colos
sians, and it is probable that the salutation in all the
epistles was added with Paul's own hand. Moreover,
there would be special reason for this authentication
in this case, because a letter had been circulated at
1 Vide Jowett, " On the Probability that many of Saint Paul's
Epistles have been lost," in his Pauline Epistles.

SOURCES OF PAULINE DOCTRINE 81
Thessalonica which falsely purported to be Paul's (see
2 Thess. ii. 2). It has been generally conceded that
the second letter bears unmistakable marks of the
Pauline style, — evidences so clear as to lead to the
opinion that it was an imitation of the First Epistle,
with the apocalypse (ii. 1-12) added. Ewald has
justly observed that " none of the writings of the New
Testament have so much of the living freshness of the
first age of the gospel, or present so vivid a picture of
the hopes of the first believers, as the Epistles to the
Thessalonians." It will require more cogent argu
ments than have been presented, to shake the opinion,
universal in ancient and modern times until the pres
ent century, that both these epistles are Pauline.
The objections which have been urged against the
Epistles of the Imprisonment, especially Ephesians,
are, in general, that they lack the vigor and power
of Paul's genuine letters, and that they reflect in lan
guage and idea the gnostic speculations of the post-
apostolic age. References are made to the numerous
hapaxlegomena, to a supposed vagueness of thought and
redundancy of style, and to the forms of later her
esy which are antagonized (especially in Colossians),
as proofs of the non-Pauline authorship ; but these
are largely matters of taste and subjective opinion.
There is little agreement among critics who, in gen
eral, are unfavorable to the genuineness of these let
ters. It is certain that Ephesians and Colossians
have some marked peculiarities. The problem is,
whether they can be adequately explained by the
6

82 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
lapse of years, change of conditions, and the develop
ment of the apostle's owrn thought in its application
to the subjects treated of in this group, especially the
person of Christ and his relation to his kingdom.
The question appeals chiefly to subjective tests. The
difficulties will be variously estimated by different
minds. Theological and historical presuppositions
will also inevitably influence the judgment upon such
points. I deem it safe to affirm that adverse criti
cism has not disproved the genuineness of any one of
this group of letters. Philippians is now generally
admitted by this criticism to be unconditionally genu
ine, while opinion wravers upon the question whether
Colossians is not conditionally so. If this view is
taken, it cannot then be denied that Ephesians, which
so nearly resembles Colossians, is in substance Pauline
in idea, if not the direct product of the apostle's own
mind. The burden of proof clearly lies upon the objectors.
The epistles claim to be Pauline; tradition is abun
dant and distinct in its testimony to the validity of
this claim ; a general Pauline character is admitted
by all to belong to them. Can the peculiarities be
explained ? I believe that they can. The objections
proceed too much upon an assumption of the form and
ideas of the doctrinal epistles as furnishing the stand
ard and measure of the apostle's thought. It appears
to me unwarranted, in the case of a writer of such
vigor and independence as Paul, to make one group
of his letters a fixed type to which all other alleged

SOURCES OF PAULINE DOCTRINE 83
epistles of his must closely conform. In respect to
the validity of the Tubingen criticism of these letters,
I therefore concur in the words of Meyer : —
"The grounds on which the hypothesis is based are
far from adequate in the case of a letter-writer who
stands so high aud great in many-sided wealth, both of
thought and diction, and in its free handling, as Paul,
and who, according to the diversity of the given circum
stances, and of his own tone of feeling, was capable of,
and had mastery over, so ample and manifold variety in
the presentation of his ideas and the structure of his
sentences." l
The genuineness of the Pastoral Epistles has been
for obvious reasons most widely doubted. One of
them — 2 Timothy — purports to have been written
while the apostle was a prisoner. 1 Timothy appears
to have been written from Macedonia for the purpose
of guiding Timothy in his work at Ephesus. The
letter to Titus represents this apostolic assistant as in
Crete, and has closest affinities to the First Epistle
to Timothy. The order would seem to be : 1 Timo
thy, Titus, 2 Timothy.
The allusions which these epistles contain have led
most critics to the opinion that they cannot be as
signed to any period of Paul's life with which the
New Testament makes us familiar. Until recent
times, the universal opinion was, as we have already
indicated, that the apostle had been acquitted and re-
1 Commentary on Colossians, Introduction, Am. ed. p. 204.

84 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
leased from the imprisonment during which Colos
sians, Ephesians, Philemon, and Philippians were
written, and after a period of freedom, was again
imprisoned at Rome. During the period of release
1 Timothy and Titus were written, and after his im
prisonment a second time the second letter to Timo
thy was composed ; but this supposition is based
upon references and allusions in the letters them
selves, and their genuineness in turn rests upon the
supposition in question. It is thus a case of reason
ing in a circle.
Since the investigation of the question could not
make progress upon the traditional view, the problem
became one of internal evidence chiefly. Neither the
genuineness nor the spuriousness of the epistles can
be proven by historical testimony, since the closing-
years of Paul's life are lost in a maze of uncertain tra
ditions. The question then is, whether the letters are
Pauline in style and thought, and may be fairly pre
sumed to emanate from Paul, to whom they claim to
belong, and to whom uniform church tradition ascribes
them. The objections which, since Schleiermacher, have
been urged against their genuineness are chiefly, that
the errors which they combat belong to the post-apos
tolic age, and that the church-order which they reflect
is of a more elaborate character than we find in the
period to which they have commonly been referred.
It is maintained, on the contrary, that no gnostic
system of the second century with which we are

SOURCES OF PAULINE DOCTRINE 85
acquainted, corresponds to the allusions made to doc
trinal errors in these epistles, and that the church-
organization is the same as that which we meet else
where in Paul's writings ; it is still the order of
presbyter-bishops and deacons, with nothing of the
hierarchical quality wdiich we find in the second cen
tury. It is beyond my present purpose to discuss this
vexed question. In the nature of the case it is one
of peculiar difficulty, since indications and allusions
such as constitute the evidence are liable to very
different estimation and interpretation. It is ad
mitted by candid critics who maintain their genu
ineness that these epistles present considerable
peculiarities both in diction and matter ; but it is
maintained that these are adequately explained by
their peculiar purposes, themes, and circumstances.
It is claimed that the earlier epistles ought not to
be made an absolute standard of method, style, and
matter for a writer of such wealth and freedom of
thought and expression as Paul.
It is obvious that the burden of proof lies upon the
opponents of the Pauline authorship of these epistles.
It is also to be noticed that there have not been want
ing important variations of opinion among critics
who, in general, were unfavorable to their genuine
ness. Some have found genuine passages in all three ;
more freely has a genuine nucleus for 2 Timothy been
allowed, wliile others have supposed the letters to be
based upon notes and recollections of the apostle's
instructions. Those who reject the Pauline author-

86 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
ship commonly admit a large Pauline element, and
would treat the subject-matter of the epistles as fur
nishing examples of a later developed and applied
Paulinism which might be made a supplement or
appendix to Pauline theology proper.
There is no present indication of harmony of opin
ion upon this question. Scholars of the greatest
learning and candor remain divided, and the basis
of division seems to be certain theological and his
toric views regarding the tendencies of thought in the
Apostolic age, and the relation of the New Testament
literature to them. Among those who reject the
Pauline authorship are Hilgenfeld, Holtzmann, Haus
rath, Pfleiderer, and Weizsacker ; among those who
defend it, Wieseler, Wiesinger, Huther, Van Oos
terzee, and Weiss. I am far from convinced by the
arguments alleged against these epistles ; but the limi
tations of the evidence and the peculiarities which they
present render impossible to an impartial judgment
the same degree of confidence respecting this group of
letters which may be felt regarding the others.
It is easy to form an exaggerated impression of the
bearing upon biblical theology of doubts regarding
the genuineness of the epistles which are in dispute,
if such doubts are considered to be well-grounded.
The Thessalonian and Pastoral Epistles are so far
practical and hortatory in character that their rejec
tion as sources of Paulinism affects the representation
of the apostle's teaching only in minor details. The
question is more important if the method of tracing

SOURCES OF PAULINE DOCTRINE 87
the specific peculiarities of each stage of the apostle's
teaching is chosen. Where, however, the effort is to
trace the great outlines of the apostle's thought, and
to grasp his type of Christian teaching as a whole, —
the end which I have set before me in these pages, —
the chief sources are, in any case, the four great
undisputed epistles in which men of all views must
find common ground.
Greater importance for biblical theology attaches
to Colossians and Ephesians ; and yet the great themes
of the apostle's teaching would not be so much affected
by their omission as might at first thought seem to
be the case. They deal chiefly with Christ's exaltation
and kingship over the Church and the world. These
themes are treated in an elevated and striking style,
and the thought moves in the region of the mysterious
and transcendent. Adverse critics do not claim that
the thoughts are contrary to Paul's. They represent
in any event a phase of Pauline doctrine, even if cast
into these forms by a later writer. But in case these
two epistles were not used as sources, it would be
certain applications of Pauline ideas that would be
taken from us rather than the substance of those
ideas themselves, especially so long as Philippians is
held to be genuine.
I am far from admitting that the loss of these epis
tles as sources would not be a serious curtailment of
the material which I believe we may confidently use ;
but it would be a loss in richness and fulness rather
than of any fundamental or formative idea. The

88 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
elements of Paul's doctrine can be fully defined with
out recourse to these letters ; but when this has been
done, we turn to Colossians and Ephesians for match
less examples of his high conception and eloquent
description of the dominion of Christ amid the powers
of the world, and for vivid pictures of the scope of his
redeeming work.
The first group of letters (1 and 2 Thessalonians)
possess a special interest arising from their close
connection with the apostle's missionary preaching.
Written amid the labors of establishing the church at
Corinth and with the memory of his teaching in the
Thessalonian synagogue fresh in mind (Acts xvii. 1-4),
they bring us into close contact with Paul's practical
religious teaching, and enable us to feel the touch of
his warm personal affection for the converts whom
he had won and instructed. They contain no doc
trinal teaching, however, in the strict sense, except
certain references to the second advent. Paul had
comforted them in his personal teaching with the
hope of Christ's return, and in the First Epistle ex
horts them to faith and patience amid their afflictions
and persecutions, in view of this expectation. He had,
however, sought to guard them against a fanatical
spirit wdiich should lead them to relinquish their
employments on account of the anticipation of Christ's
speedy return (iv. 11 ; v. 1). This result followed
notwithstanding, and occasioned the writing of the
Second Epistle, in which he seeks to draw away their
minds, in a measure, from the expectation of the

SOURCES OF PAULINE DOCTRINE 89
parousia as immediately imminent, and to fix them
upon certain events which are to be previously ex
pected, — a development of opposition to the gospel,
culminating in claims to divine honors on the part of a
certain false Messiah, which was to occur in the sphere
of Judaism. This apostasy must first reach its height
of power and defiance before the advent will occur
(2 Thess. ii. .3). By this means the apostle diverts
their attention to other thoughts, and urges them to
resume and pursue their customary occupations (iii. 10-
12). It may be added that their excitement was no
doubt due in large part to the influence of a letter
Which purported to have come from him (2 Thess. ii. 2),
and which, contrary to his actual teaching, had repre
sented him as saying that the day of the Lord was
immediately at hand (iveaTfjKev) ; that is, on the very
point of dawning (ii. 2).
The apostle had touched upon one other topic con
nected with the parousia-expectation. The Thessa
lonians had been troubled by the thought that those
of their number who had died would fail to participate
in the glory which would be revealed at the advent,
and in which those who lived until that event should
share (1 Thess. iv. 13 sq.). Paul assures them that
those who survive the advent will have no advantage
over those who shall have died before its occurrence,
but that they will be raised from the dead before the
living shall enter into the glory of Christ, and thus
those who are alive " shall in no wise precede them
that are fallen asleep " (iv. 15).

90 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
This brief resume of the teaching of these letters,
so far as they are doctrinal, is here given because the
thoughts presented are not found elsewhere, and con
stitute a phase of the apostle's earlier teaching. The
advent continues to be confidently expected by the
apostle to occur during his lifetime, as is shown by
the later letters (1 Cor. i. 7 ; xv. 23 ; xvi. 22 ; Rom.
xiii. 12 ; Phil. iv. 5) ; but both the event itself and its
attendant circumstances recede into the background
of his thought, and are only incidentally emphasized.
The engrossing cares of his ministry, and especially
the conflict with various forms of error which threat
ened to pervert the pure doctrines of grace, absorbed
the apostle's attention, and furnished the occasion for
those definitions of his " gospel " (Gal. i. 11 ; Rom. ii.
16) which we find in Galatians and Romans ; while
the disorders and immoralities in the Corinthian
Church occasioned the more practical application of
its principles to the needs of that community. The
way is thus paved for the writing of the second group
of letters, in which must always be found the clearest
outlines and the central principles of Paul's teaching.
Since our subsequent discussions will be chiefly occu
pied with the subject-matter of these epistles, we need
in this connection only to remark that their key-
thought is that salvation is of divine grace alone, as
opposed to human merit, and is received by humble
acceptance, not achieved by human willing or striving.
This principle is, as we have sought to show, logically
involved in the experience of Paul's conversion, and

SOURCES OF PAULINE DOCTRINE 91
must have unfolded itself to him as he reflected upon
his futile strivings after peace by deeds of legal obe
dience. He had himself experienced, in the revela
tion of Christ to him, the truth of this way of grace
and faith. The formative principle of his theology
must have been present to his mind from that expe
rience onward ; but there is no evidence that it was for
a long time distinctly developed as a doctrine in his
preaching. In his earlier teaching, so far as it is pre
served to us in the Acts and in the Thessalonian
Epistles, he does not enter into an exposition of this
characteristic principle. The resurrection and Mes
siahship of Jesus and tlie hope of his speedy return
formed the staple of his teaching, until the growth
of error in the churches which he had founded gave
him occasion to work out a defence of his gospel in
the sphere of its principles. This he has done in Gala
tians and Romans, connecting his exposition in the
former with his conversion and call to his mission,
while in the latter he has more fully and syste
matically developed and applied the principles of
grace and faith, and has traced them back into the
Old Testament. The treatment of practical and deli
cate questions of conduct in the Corinthian Epistles
invests them with special interest as manuals of Paul
ine ethics. They present a greater variety of sub
ject than the other letters, many of which furnish
the apostle his most inspiring themes and call forth
some of his most striking expositions of Christian
truth. In my judgment no epistle contains so many

92 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
passages of lofty eloquence as the First Epistle to the
Corinthians. The peculiarities of the third group of epistles have
been briefly pointed out. With the exception of Phile
mon, which is a personal letter and has no doctrinal
content, they are chiefly Christological in character,
and have their main use for biblical theology in
exhibiting the apostle's exalted conception of Christ's
person and work. This development of thought was
called out by special forms of error which threatened
the doctrines of the incarnation of Christ and of re
demption by him. The tone and language are adapted
to these peculiar conditions. Many terms which do
not occur elsewhere are employed in dealing with the
errors under review. The errorists were in the
churches, and their influence must be counteracted.
Colossians is the most controversial of the three
letters in question, and from it can be most clearly
ascertained the outlines of the heresy against which
Paul is contending. It appears to have been a species
of Jewish eclecticism, and to have had in it some of
the germs of later Gnosticism. It contained specu
lations concerning angels (Col. ii. 18), and laid stress
upon ascetic rigors and observance of days (ii. 16-23).
It clearly assigned to Christ an inferior position, plac
ing him, perhaps, in a series of supernatural beings
who together constituted, in this philosophy, the full
revelation of God. Paul warns against these vain
and foolish speculations, and asserts that Christ him
self is the fulness of divine revelation, and that in him

SOURCES OF PAULINE DOCTRINE 93
alone can the believer find the complete truth and life
which he needs (ii. 8-10).
These forms of error did not, like Jewish legalism,
threaten the evangelical principle of faith, but they
obscured the object of faith by departing from the
truth of the sole sufficiency of Christ as the revealer
of God. The notion of intermediate agencies of reve
lation removed God into a dim region of mystery, and
made communion with him a vague and uncertain
experience. This mysterious intercourse with the
heavenly world was thought to be promoted by re
nouncing contact with present enjoyments and by
self-imposed observances of days and seasons. In
this way, from another point 6*f departure, these theo-
sophic speculations introduced again the legal con
ception of salvation ; and thus Paul's defence of the
pre-eminence of Christ and his rebuke of this ascetic
mysticism may be still considered as a maintenance,
in a new sphere, of the principles of salvation by
grace alone and upon condition of faith, which consti
tute the fundamental peculiarity of his theology.
The Pastoral Epistles were addressed to trusted
disciples of the apostle, and consequently have no
occasion to deal with definitions or defences of the
gospel. They urge upon the Christian teachers to
whom they are addressed faithful adherence to " sound
doctrine " and the avoidance of certain current specu
lations which only foster pride and folly. No refu
tation of these doctrinal tendencies is undertaken;
Timothy and Titus are counselled wholly to avoid

94 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
them as unprofitable and presumptuous. They are
characterized as " a different doctrine " (1 Tim. i. 3)
from the apostle's own, and as dealing with Jewish
fables, endless genealogies, and strivings about the
law (Titus iii. 9; 1 Tim. i. 4). The utter valueless-
ness of these reasonings, wdiich filled the air, is repeat
edly pointed out (1 Tim. i. 6 ; vi. 20 ; Titus i. 10 ;
2 Tim. ii. 16), and their baneful consequences pic
tured. They are, — strife, contentions about words
(1 Tim. vi. 4), and their inevitable result, divisions
(Titus iii. 10). Such tendencies subvert the peace of
families (Titus i. 11) and act as a hindrance to Chris
tian faith (2 Tim. ii. 18). The motive of this false
teaching, he declares, will be found to be greed of
gain (1 Tim. vi. 5 ; Titus i. 11).
These speculations cannot be clearly identified with
the tenets of any particular sect. They were probably
tendencies of thought wdiich were represented by no
special party, but were common in one form or
another in the communities where the evangelists
Timothy and Titus were called to labor.
This group of epistles, then, presents little for the
construction of Pauline doctrine. Where points of
doctrine are touched upon, they are in accord with
Paul's teaching as unfolded elsewhere. Examples are
found in the allusions to the apostle's conversion and
calling to his office (1 Tim. i. 12 sq.), God's gracious
purpose of salvation (2 Tim. i. 9 sq. ; Titus iii. 5), the
references to dying with Christ (2 Tim. ii. 11) and to
the expectation of his appearing (Titus ii. 13). While,

SOURCES OF PAULINE DOCTRINE 95
therefore, the peculiarities of this group of epistles
should be allowed their full weight in evidence, it
cannot be fairly affirmed that they are essentially un-
Pauline in character, or that their tone and language
preclude the view that they were written late in Paul's
life under conditions which history does not enable us
clearly to define, and for purposes which would, in the
nature of the case which this theory supposes, prevent
them from following the lines of exposition marked
out in previous letters, as well as impart to them such
peculiarities of diction and of argument as would
easily give rise to critical difficulties.

CHAPTER V

THE DOCTRINE OP GOD

The apostle's conception of God is developed quite
incidentally, and has commonly received no separate
treatment by writers on biblical theology. But this
conception is of first importance for Paul's doctrinal
system, and is deserving of a careful elucidation ; for
it is in the thought of God that the plan of grace for
sinners must arise, and it must be executed in accord
ance with his fixed purpose. It will be convenient to
discuss the subject under three heads : (1) The doc
trine of God's nature or essence ; ( 2) The doctrine of
divine revelation; and (3) The doctrine of God's
sovereignty and providential superintendence.
In his address at Athens (Acts xvii. 22 sq.) when con
fronting representatives of those philosophical schools
which had speculated most upon the nature of the
Divine Being, Paul unfolds, in certain bearings of it,
his idea of God most fully. He asserts the creatorship
and spirituality of God, — that he is Lord of heaven and
earth, and does not confine his manifestation to shrines
or temples made by man. He declares that the course
of history is subject to God's providence, and is so

THE DOCTRINE OF GOD 97
ordered as to lead men to seek to know him, and that
he is near to all men by virtue of their moral kinship
to him. He further asserts that God has made allow
ance for the comparative ignorance concerning true
religion in pre-Christian times, but that now he calls
all men to repentance. The Acts contain, no doubt,
but a sketch of Paul's argument ; but the points touched
upon are so fundamental as to form the elements of
an entire philosophy concerning God. The truths of
man's essential kinship to God, of God's spiritual
omnipresence, and of his universal revelation are
foundation-stones in the apostle's teaching. God is
to him the self-revealing God, who makes himself
known to the creatures who are akin to himself
through the courses of human history. He is the
living God of providence, who stands in close per
sonal relation to mankind, and by successive and
progressive revelations seeks to bring them into
harmony with himself.
We should search in vain for any abstract definition
of the ethical nature of God in the writings of Paul or
for any enumeration or analysis of his attributes ;
but his attitude and action toward mankind con
sidered as sinners or as the subjects of redemption
furnish occasion for many incidental statements touch
ing his nature. In assigning to love the pre-eminence
among virtues (1 Cor. xiii. 13), and in designating
love as moral perfection (xiii. 10), is involved the logi
cal necessity of making love the essential glory of the
divine perfectness. In the divine love is found the
7

98 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
motive of redemption through Christ : " God com-
mendeth his own love toward us, in that, while we
were yet sinners, Christ died for us " (Rom. v. 8 ;
cf. Eph. ii. 16 ; 2 Thess. ii. 16). In a similar man
ner redemption is derived from mercy (e'Xeo?), which
is a name for the pitying disposition of God toward
sinners, as love is a name for his disposition and
effort to bless and save them. Those who are saved
are "vessels of mercy" (Rom. ix. 23); and it was
because God is " rich in mercy " (Eph. ii. 4) that
men have been saved in Christ. Salvation is also
repeatedly ascribed to grace C%apt?), which is a name
for the energy of love as it goes out toward the un
deserving. Salvation has its source in love as the
essence of God's being ; considered as a work on be
half of helpless and pitiable sinners, it may be ascribed
to God's mercy ; considered as a boon to the ill-de
serving, it is attributed to grace (Rom. iii. 24 ; iv. 4 ;
2 Cor. viii. 9 ; Gal. i. 6).1 These are but differing
phases of the same thought, and alike illustrate the
great idea that redemption springs from within the
Divine Being, and is wholly gratuitous on God's part.
God seeks to save men because it is according to his
nature to do so. His pitying love initiates and carries
forward the work in sovereign mercy independently
of all human deserving. God's action in redemp
tion is free and absolute, springing wholly from
within himself.
1 " II t1) X°/"f] designe l'amour de Dieu en action, intervenant
directement el positivement dans les destinies de l'humanite pour
la relevcr " (Sabatier, V Apotre Paul, p. 300; Eng. tr. p. 322).

THE DOCTRINE OF GOD 99
But there is a second set of expressions which give
us another phase of the essential character of God,
and which constitute the counterpart of those just
enumerated. So long as men persist in sin, they are
the objects of the divine wrath (bpyi] Oeov) : " For the
wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all
ungodliness and unrighteousness of men " (Rom. i. 18 ;
cf. ii. 8). This term 6pyrj describes the disposition
and attitude of God toward sinful men ; it is the holy
energy of God's nature in repudiating and punishing
sin. It is not antithetic to love in such a sense that
the two exclude each other, since in that case the
sinful world described by Paul in Rom. i. and ii., which
was the object of the bpyrj Oeov, could never have been
saved. It is the divine displeasure at sin, but it does
not abate the energy of the divine love, which still
makes the sinful world the object of its redemptive
purpose. Closely allied to this expression is the phrase
BiKatoavv-n Oeov where it is employed to designate a
divine attribute. It denotes that self-respecting qual
ity of holiness in God, that reaction of his nature
against sin, which must find expression in condemna
tion of it. It first comes into view in this sense in
Rom. iii. 25, 26, where the thought is that since God
had so long shown indulgence to sinful men in past
ages, it was necessary to reveal and vindicate his
righteousness in the work of Christ. By accomplish
ing a work of reconciliation between God and men,
Christ effected a revelation of God's righteousness
(evBet^K rr)? BiKaioavvvs airov), which vindicates the

100 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
divine displeasure at sin, as well as shows God to be
the gracious justifier of men. Without entering fur
ther upon the interpretation of this passage, which
will be considered later, it is certain that the term
BiKaioavvr) Oeov denotes that quality of God's being
which might seem to have been in abeyance while
he leniently treated the sinners of past generations
(cf. Acts xvii. 30), which is, nevertheless, always
operative in the treatment of sin, and in accordance
with which all gracious treatment of sinners must be
planned and executed. Righteousness, then, may be
defined as that essential quality of the divine nature
which makes God displeased at sin, and which must
find expression in all treatment of sin. It is the
self-preservative attribute of God, and expresses
especially his feeling toward sin, which issues in the
opyr) Oeov.1
It is clear, however, that the BiKaioavvn Oeov cannot
be thought of by the apostle as in any way inconsis
tent with his love or grace ; God must manifest his
righteousness in the very forgiveness of sins. If
righteousness in the strictest penal sense were here
meant, there would be a complete contradiction in the
apostle's thought, since the setting-forth of Christ as
a propitiation is the very opposite of an infliction of
1 "Der apostel versteht, Rom. iii. 25 sq., wie uns scheint,
unter bucaioo-vvn, und zwar in Ubereinstimmung mit dem A. T.
Sprachgebrauch und Lehrgedanken zumal in Prophetismus, die-
jenige Eigenschaft Gottes, kraft welcher er die heilige Weltord-
nung aufrecht erh'alt und verwirklicht " (Lechler, Das apos.
Zeitalter, p. 346).

THE DOCTRINE OF GOD 101
punishment. If the necessity of exhibiting God's
righteousness means the necessity of actually punish
ing sin, then that necessity has not been realized,
since God has from the first been ready to forgive
sin. The idea that BtKaioavvn here means the neces
sity of punishing sin leads to the view that God pun
ished Christ with the full penalty of the world's sin, —
a view which annuls the very idea of punishment,
since punishment for sin can be inflicted only upon
those who commit it, and the notion of punishing an
innocent person is the essence of injustice and a con
tradiction in terms.1
The object of the apostle is to show, not how God
could effect the punishment of sin in order to forgive
it, but how he could effect its forgiveness in a way
which should at the same time express and satisfy his
displeasure at sin. The divine BiKacoovv-n is no
barrier to the divine grace, but is an element of the
divine nature in accord with which the purposes of
that grace must be effected. Righteousness is there
fore antithetic to mercy and love only so far as it
conditions and determines the method of their action,
not as denoting a necessity of punishment in God
which must be carried out in a penal infliction before
the way is open to the operation of love. That God's
love should go forth toward sinners is an axiomatic
thought with Paul ; he has always been gracious to
them, and has been receiving and forgiving them upon
1 Cf. AVeiss, Bib. Theol. § 80 c, note 13 ; Eng. tr. i. 428,
note 12.

102 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
faith, but his gracious treatment of sinful men must
not be thought to indicate the quiescence of his right
eousness. In Clirist he has found a way to manifest
that righteousness and to show that he has no tolera
tion of sin, in the very execution of his purposes of
mercy. Righteousness, therefore, is a quality which
in no way antagonizes, but only so determines and
limits, the action of love that in all such action the
displeasure of God at sin must be fully revealed.
It demands, not the infliction of punishment, wdiich in
God's mercy does not take place, but such a substitute
for the infliction of punishment as shall express God's
uprightness and condemnation of sin, while at the
same time he forgives it without punishment. Xo
analysis of the divine attributes which opposes God's
righteousness to his love, or predicates the necessity
of the punishment of sin before it can be forgiven, can
be harmonized with Paul's thought of a gracious treat
ment of sin which shall at the same time manifest
God's righteousness.1
1 It would be aside from my present purpose to enter upon the
theological question of the relation of the divine attribute of love
(mercy, grace) to that of righteousness (justice), although the
preceding remarks lead directly to it. A few definitions on this
relation are subjoined, with the substance of which I agree : " La
hiKaioo-vvrj deov est une vertu positive qui se communique, se
donne, et se confond avec l'amour. On pourrait dire que la jus
tice, en ce sens, est le contcnu meme de l'amour de Dieu, et l'amour,
la forme essentielle de sa justice (Rom. iii. 21-2C) " (Sabatier,
o. c. p. 300 ; Eng. tr. p. 322). The above definition cannot of
course apply to such passages as Rom. i. 17 and iii. 21, but only to
those in which oiKaioo-vvn designates an attribute of God, and here

THE DOCTRINE OF GOI) 103
Divine revelation is, in the apostle's view, universal in
extent. Among the heathen God did not leave himself
without a witness to his benevolence and providence,
but in the succession of the seasons and the bounties
of nature taught them of himself (Acts xiv. 17). The
course of history also, especially the providential ap
pointment of periods for the life of nations and of defi
nite boundaries for their dwellings, is a method of divine
revelation (Acts xvii. 26), by which God was seeking
to lead the world to a knowledge of himself. Above
all, is the moral nature, the conscience, a point of
contact between God and man (Rom. ii. 14, 15). -The
idea of God's revelation to the nations in nature and
in conscience is most fully developed by Paul. That
which they wrere capable of knowing concerning God
(to yvmoTov tov Oeov, Rom. i. 19) was manifested to
with some modification. '• We must recognize it to be a necessary
and truly Christian effort, to trace all God's dealings with the world
to love as their original source. Even God's wrath is in its ultimate
essence love ; love itself is ' a consuming fire ' against all which is
opposed to it, — the very essence of good- Love would not be true
to itself if it did not repudiate its opposite " (Mulier, The Chris
tian Doctrine of Sin, i. 248).
" Dass sich die heilige Liebe allenthalben und dass nur sie sich
an und in der Welt verwirklichen will, ist die ganz allgemeine
Gerechtigkeit Gottes, justitia universalis von den Theologen
genannt, nichts anders als die Treue seiner Liebe oder als seine
Wahrhaftigkeit, folglich auch an ihrem Orte Gnade, Barmherzig-
keit und Giite" (Nitzsch, Syst. d. Christi. Lehre, p. 180). I ven
ture further to refer to what I have written on this subject in the
Baptist Review (July, 1881, 312-319), and the New Englander
(June, 1888, 422-431).

104 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
them through the creations of the visible world, which
are so interpreted by the mind (voovfieva) as to assure
it of God's power and divineness (Bvva/us Kal 0et,6rr]<;).
This revelation is sufficient to found responsibility
and to leave the Gentile world inexcusable for its dis
obedience, immorality, and idolatry (ek to elvai avToix;
dvaTroXoyrjTov;, i. 20). God has therefore revealed
himself to all men in nature through the capacity of
reason to discern and interpret the evidences of his
power and divinity as thus manifested.
In the course of an argument to show that the Jews,
as little as the sinful Gentiles, can be justified by
deeds of legal obedience (Rom. ii. 1 — iii. 20), Paul
incidentally dwells upon the manifestation of God
which is made directly to the conscience of the
heathen man (ii. 14, 15). Although the Gentiles have
no written law like the Mosaic, yet if they ever obey
the ethical requirements of that written divine law,
they are in that case a law unto themselves ; that is,
they thereby show that they have within themselves the
capacity to recognize the obligations of the divine law,
and that, so far as they obey, its essential principles
are ruling their lives. So far as they thus obey, they
prove that the law's requirements are written on their
hearts, by the fact that their conscience approves the
obedience, and convicts them of sin when disobedient.
How far Paul may have conceived such actual obedi
ence on the part of Gentiles possible, is not a question
of importance for the point under consideration.
Whether they ever actually obeyed the requirements

THE DOCTRINE OF GOD 105
of divine law or not, it is certain that he credits them
with the capacity for so doing, and so supposes, at
least, the abstract possibility. Their moral nature
was able to yield them such a knowledge of right and
duty that it was conceivable that they should without
further revelation conform, at least in some measure,
to the essential contents of the Old Testament com
mandments (t« tov vofiov) ; and even if in actual
fact their moral lives were ever so base, the accusa
tions of conscience proved the existence of a sense of
ill-desert which itself presupposed a knowledge of the
right. That the constitution of man is religious is an
axiom with Paul. No degree of actual sinfulness
can cast doubt upon this fundamental truth. It is
certain that the apostle holds it to be impossible
for the Gentile to be saved by following the " light of
nature ; " but this is not because of the inadequacy of
that light, but because he cannot perfectly follow it.
It is equally true that the Ten Commandments cannot
save the Jew, not because they are an insufficient
epitome of human duty, but because man is morally
powerless perfectly to obey them. There is the same
abstract possibility of the Gentile's being saved by
obeying the voice of God to him in nature and con
science as there is of the Jew's being saved by keeping
the Mosaic law ; but in point of fact, since men are
universally sinful and weak, both are equally im
possible (Rom. viii. 3).
But the very fact that the one case is as conceiv-

106 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
able as the other proves that to the apostle's mind
the revelation of God to the Gentile was adequate to
guide him who should have perfectly followed it to
salvation. If it was adequate to make men " without
excuse " for their disregard of it, it must have been
adequate to have furnished them justification for
perfect obedience. A law cannot condemn for dis
obedience farther than it can reward for obedience.
It will be seen that the apostle's principles require a
somewhat exalted view of this universal revelation of
God. It performs the same function in the heathen
world as the Old Testament law does in the Jewish ;
it is equally competent to ground moral responsibility,
equally competent to pronounce men inexcusable for
their sins, and, abstractly considered, wrould be as
capable of showing the way of salvation as the Mosaic
system would be (i. 19; ii. 12-15, 26; iii. 20-23).
This point, however, receives no emphasis, because the
sinfulness of men excludes both possibilities alike. Yet
it is a point which is logically assumed in Paul's whole
argument to prove that in respect to securing justifi
cation Jews and Gentiles stand upon the same plane,
and that the former have no advantage over the latter
in the mere possession of their law. They would
have an advantage only in case they obeyed their law
better than the Gentiles did theirs, which is not the
case : " Thou [the Jew] dost practise the same things"
(Rom. ii. 1) ; " There is no distinction " (iii. 22) ;
" Doers of a law shall be justified " (ii. 13).
To the Jews God has given a special revelation

THE DOCTRINE OF GOD 107
which, though not a means by which they can be
justified, gives them a great advantage in the knowl
edge of right and duty and in assurances of the divine
favor (Rom. iii. 1, 2). On the other hand, the posses
sion of these superior advantages carries with it a
heavier responsibility and a heavier condemnation for
disobedience to God. As the principle, " To the
Jew first, and also to the Greek," was applicable to
religious privilege as showing that an economic pre
cedence was accorded to the Jews in the historic
order of salvation (Rom. i. 16), so the same principle
was applicable to religious responsibility, as indicating
that from those to whom more had been given the
more would be required (Rom. ii. 9). The nature
and ends of this special revelation will be considered
in a later chapter.
It is clear, then, that in the apostle's view revela
tion is universal. Although he states the fact of a
manifestation of God in the extra-Jewish world only
incidentally and within the limits determined by
courses of argument which bear directly upon other
points, yet the fact is assumed as indubitable. Nor
ought this fact to be obscured by the great emphasis
which is laid upon the sinfulness and practical god-
lessness of the Gentile world which it came more imme
diately within his purpose to describe. Their degra
dation was in spite of the knowledge which they had
possessed (Rom. i. 21-23) ; their idolatry was a per
version of that knowledge, resulting from sin and
from dulled spiritual perceptions. Thus the dark

108 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
picture is distinctly set upon the background of a
universal self-manifestation of God, and in the few
brief references which have been preserved to us are
contained the germs of all theistic philosophy. They
may be briefly summarized thus : God reveals himself
(1) in the world of nature (to, ydp dopara avrov dtro
KTiaecos Koapcov tok Troirffiaoiv KaOopdrai, Rom. i. 20) ;
(2) in the providential course of history (Acts xvii.
26, 27) ; (3) in the constitution of man, which is
morally kindred to the divine nature (tov ydp Kal
yevo<; ia/xev, Acts xvii. 28) ; and (4) this revelation is
effected and appreciated through the action of man's
rational powers upon the phenomena of nature, history,
and moral consciousness (t<z dopara vooijxeva KaOo-
paTat). In virtue of the rational and moral kinship
of man to God he is capable of a truer and higher
thought of God than had been developed in heathen
ism. Being God's offspring, man is not true to his
own nature when he localizes, limits, and degrades
the Deity by identifying him with images and creatures
(yevo<; ovv virdpyovTes tov Oeov ovk oipeiXofiev vofjcl^etv
k. t. X., Acts xvii. 29), but thinks normally and health
fully only when he interprets by his reason the facts
of nature and conscience as evidence of a divine power
and infinite wisdom pervading the universe.
The apostle's conception of the nature of God and
of man's relations to him is such as to exhibit a logical
ground in the being of God for revelation and re
demption. It is in harmony with God's nature to
graciously reveal himself. The presuppositions of

THE DOCTRINE OF GOD 109
redemption are found, on the one side, in the love of
God, wdiich goes out in efforts to bless and save man,
and, on the other, in man's native kinship to God and
capacity to know and love him ; but salvation is a
work that has to do, not with man as such, or with
him in his true and ideal character, but with man as a
sinner. The motive which prompts his salvation and
the means chosen to effect it must be so directed and
controlled by the necessary recoil of the divine nature
against sin as to express and vindicate that feeling
in the very process of salvation itself. Paul's thought
of God's nature is that the love of God in effecting
man's salvation and in remitting punishment for sin,
must affirm and maintain its inviolable holiness. This
is done by affording in the work of Christ a substi
tute for punishment which at the same time meets
the ends of punishment. Thus the work of divine
love which God wrought in Christ meets at once the
ends of the divine mercy or grace and of the divine
righteousness, not because Christ accomplishes a
reconciliation of them as if they had been until then
in antagonism, but because, since they are in eternal
harmony, the divine love could choose and pursue a
mode of salvation which should adequately reveal,
vindicate, and satisfy both. Paul knows nothing of
the conflict within the Divine Being which speculative
theology has presupposed. He does not betray any
consciousness of inconsistency between God's char
acter as righteous and as justifying men. God is
both just and justifier with no suggestion of contra-

110 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
diction or inconsistency, because his eternally harmo
nious moral attributes are alike operative, and in their
operation alike satisfied, in the saving work of Christ.
The thought of God's free and sovereign grace in
initiating aud carrying forward the "work of human
salvation is prominent in the writings of Paul. The
redemption was wrought " according to the good
pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his
grace, which he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved "
(Eph. i. 5, 6). The plan of grace was eternally in
the purpose and foreordination of God (Eph. i. 4, 5) ;
a " wisdom in a mystery " which God foreordained
before the worlds unto our glory (1 Cor. ii. 7). The
fullest statement of God's sovereignty in salvation,
according to which he hath mercy on whom he will
and hardeneth whom he will, is found in chapters
ix.-xi. of Romans, which treat of the fall and restora
tion of the Jewish people.
If we inquire for the practical religious motive of
the apostle in these representations, we shall find it
in his intense conviction of the sole efficiency of the
divine grace in sah'ation. His aim is to exclude all
appeal to human merit, and to ascribe salvation to
the gracious purpose of God alone. His statements
on this subject have as practical a purpose as do
those relating to justification as a -work of divine
grace instead of human merit. In fact, his descrip
tion of the divine foreordination of salvation is but
the doctrine of God's free grace applied to the initia
tion of the work in the divine purpose.

THE DOCTRINE OF GOD 111
This mode of thought was thoroughly germane to
the Jewish mind. It harmonized with the intense
sense of God and the deep conviction of his sole effi
ciency which pervaded the Old Testament. No phi
losophy wrhich makes man the object of its study —
which emphasizes his self-consciousness and free
dom — had thrust upon the minds of the Jewish
people the metaphysical problems which spring up
in an attempt to define the relation of the divine
to the human activity in salvation. Paul had no
thought of discussing such a problem. When treat
ing of the divine efficiency in redemption and of the
divine origination of it, he spoke freely and unre
servedly from the standpoint of God's good pleasure
in the choice of men to salvation ; when speaking of
the human conditions of its appropriation, he speaks
as unreservedly from that point of view, laying full,
strong emphasis upon the capacity of men to receive
or reject the offered grace, and upon their responsibil
ity for their choice (for example, see Rom. ix. 32 ;
x. 3, 9-13).
Since the purpose to save men is eternal in God's
mind, each man is saved because it was God's pur
pose to save him. Considered from this point of
view, and without reference to the conditions on
man's part of appropriating to himself the proffered
salvation, Christians are said to be " foreordained
unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ" (Eph.
i. 5). Election is the application of the preordaining
purpose. The purpose of salvation, considered as ter-

112 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
minating upon an individual or a class of individuals,
is the election of that individual or class to salvation.
In Rom. ix. Paul carries the thought of God's agency
one step further. He there develops the idea that
there were two Israels, — a true and a false. " They
are not all Israel which are of Israel ; neither, because
they are Abraham's seed, are they all children " (Rom.
ix. 6, 7). On the contrary, there were limitations by
which the true Israel was marked off from the nom
inal Israel ; there was a select inner circle, distin
guished from the rest, whom God had chosen out
from the mass of the nation in accordance with the
promises relating to the birth of Isaac and the choice
of Jacob. God does not dispense his blessings ac
cording to claims founded upon natural descent from
Abraham, but in accordance with his sovereign pleas
ure, quite independently of such claims. The apostle
does not deny that he has the best of reasons for his
action, but only denies that these can be fathomed by
men, and that men are competent to criticise his
action. The primary purpose of the apostle is to
exclude meritorious claims as determining God's pro
cedure, and to assert that the ground of his action is
wholly within his own wisdom and freedom.
Can any complain of the divine choice, exclaims
Paul, and he answers by appealing to the absoluteness
of God's mercy as affirmed in the Old Testament, " I
will have mercy on whom I will have mercy" (Ex.
xxxiii. 19), and by quoting the Old Testament repre
sentation of God's hardening Pharaoh's heart so that

THE DOCTRINE OF GOD 113
he should not let Israel 'go, in order to manifest his
power in overcoming the monarch's determined but
really feeble resistance (Ex. ix. 12, 16). The lesson
which Paul draws from these examples is that man
may not reply against God ; the vessel which the
potter has fashioned may not say to him that formed
it, " Why didst thou make me thus ? " (Rom. ix. 20.)
Whatever doctrinal or ethical difficulties may be
raised in connection with this passage, it is the part
of exegesis to interpret its terms in accord with their
natural force, and in accord with Paul's modes of
thought and methods of handling Old Testament pas
sages. The Old Testament did represent God as harden
ing Pharaoh's heart (Ex. ix. 12), but did not fail to
describe Pharaoh as sinfully hardening his own heart
also (Ex. ix. 34, 35). The prophet represents God as
saying, " I loved Jacob, but Esau I hated " (Mai. i.
2, 3), without, however, referring to those reasons for
this attitude of God toward the two men which may
be found in Genesis (xxv. 34; xxvii. 41). The apos
tle's argument accords with frequent forms of state
ment for the absoluteness of God's action in the Old
Testament, according to which calamity and adversity
(" evil," JH) are ascribed directly to God's creative
agency (Is. xiv. 7 ; Amos iii. 6). More analytical
methods of thought are wont to apply distinctions
here such as that between the efficient and permis
sive agency of God, and to make the effort to draw
lines between that which God does without relation
to human agency and those actions of God wdiich in

114 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
the nature of the case aife conditioned by human
action, since they relate directly to the choices and
character of men. These distinctions Jewish thought
did not make in any philosophical manner. The
freedom and responsibility of men were emphasized
in appropriate connections ; the efficiency of God
was asserted in unqualified terms where the point of
view was distinctively that of the divine agency and
power. No effort was made to define or adjust these
two truths ; that is, the Jews had no metaphysical
philosophy. Paul's utterances touching these subjects are wholly
in the vein of Jewish thought. Where the aim is to
humble human pride and pretension before the sover
eign might of God, he overleaps all human conditions,
and without definition or qualification asserts the
divine absoluteness, as though God dealt with men as
the potter deals with passive clay, fashioning them
into vessels of honor or of dishonor as he pleases.
But when again the aim is to silence human excuses
for neglect and disobedience, he brings into full
prominence the free wrong choices and conduct of
men as the reason for God's rejection and condemna
tion. If from the former point of view, chapter ix.
pictures the unconditional right of God to deal with
men as he will, the tenth chapter, where the Jews'
self-justification comes into view, fully recognizes their
own action as the reason for God's rejection of them
(verses 3, 10-13, 21). His mode of thought may be
approximately indicated thus : If men will complain

THE DOCTRINE OF GOD 115
of God (ix. 14), let them remember that he is free
and sovereign in all his acts ; if they will excuse them
selves (xi. 18 sq.), let them remember that they have
merited by their neglect and sin the penalties which
they have received at his hands. These two truths
Paul asserts with equal energy and plainness. He
adds no word of comment upon their relation to each
other. His thought moved out in the two assertions
from different points of starting ; he betrays no con
sciousness of any conflict or contradiction between
them, or even of the need or difficulty of harmonizing
them. In accordance Avith what has been said, it is to be
remembered that the reasoning of chapter ix. is an
argumentum ad hominem directed against the tendency
of the Jewish people to complain against God's pro
cedure because of their misfortunes. Paul rebukes
this spirit by denying a priori the right of men to
reply against God. Whatever God has done is right ;
man may not question it ; this is an axiom with Paul.
The comment of Weiss upon this point is a just one :
" If Paul [Rom. ix. 18], in a way which approaches a
predestination from arbitrary will, maintains the unfet
tered will of God in his mercy, this is in opposition to the
Jews, who supposed that through their acknowledged
efforts after righteousness [ix. 31 ; x. 2] they had a
claim on salvation above that of the heathen, in order to
establish the truth that the mercy of God involved in
election does not depend on the willing or the running
of men [ix. 16]." » 1 Bib. Then!. § 88 b.

116 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
The aim of the apostle is to silence Jewish pride and
querulousness. It may thus be said that Paul's argument in ix.
15-29 is of the nature of a vindication in abstracto of
God's right to act without reference to human con
duct or agency, rather than an assertion that God
does so. I cannot, however, agree with the author
just cited in finding the transition from the considera
tion of the abstract right to the actual dealing of God
with men clearly marked by a distinct turn in the
thought at verse 22. The Be which introduces that
verse appears to me to be continuative rather than
adversative. The interpretation of Weiss is stated
thus : —
" The apostle vindicates for God the absolute right to
do this (that is, to ' prepare one for salvation and the other
for destruction'), just as the potter iu the simile has the
absolute right out of the same lump to form vessels to an
honorable and a dishonorable use [verses 20, 21]. On
the contrary, wdien he comes to speak of the actual at
tainment of salvation, by means of a Se he puts the actual
dealings of God at present in express contrast with the
former right vindicated for God in abstracto [verse 22]." J
This interpretation, which is elaborately defended
by Tholuck also, encounters the following objections :
(a) It makes too much depend upon the particle
Be; if such a transition in thought as is supposed
occurred at verse 22, it would need to have been more
1 Bib. Theol. § 88 b.

THE DOCTRINE OF GOD 117
plainly marked, as by the strong adversative dXXd.
(b) The contents of verse 22 do not accord with the
supposition that the apostle has now entered upon
a distinctly contrasted line of thought. The terms
of the previous figure (aKevv 6pyi)^ KaTvpTio/jtiva)
are here preserved, and the forbearance implied in
r\veytcev is presented only as a delay of the punish
ment which is destined for the vessels which have
been prepared for destruction, which intervenes in
order that God may reveal his mercy upon the oKevn
eXeov;. Verses 22 and 23 are thus the further devel
opment and application of the simile of the clay in
the hands of the potter which in verses 19 and 20 is
employed to silence human replies against God. They
are a part of the proof that God's action must remain
unchallenged alike in his exercise of mercy and in the
act of hardening ; in his delay of punishment for the
" vessels of wrath," and in his exhibitions of grace to
the " vessels of mercy which he prepared for glory."
The consistent carrying out of the figure seems to re
quire the sense given in Meyer's paraphrase (in loco) :
" But if God, notwithstanding that his holy will dis
poses him not to leave unmanifested his wrath and his
power, but practically to make them known, has never
theless hitherto, full of long-suffering, endured such as
are objects of his wrath, and spared them from destruc
tion, to incur which they are nevertheless constituted and
fitted like a vessel by the potter, — endured them and
spared them, not merely as a proof of such great long-
suffering towards them, but also with the purpose in view

118 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
of making known during the period of this forbearance
the fulness of his glorious perfection in respect to such
as are objects of his mercy, whom he, as the potter fash
ions a vessel, has prepared beforehand aud put in order
for eternal glory, — how in presence of that self-denying
long-suffering of God towards vessels of wrath, and in
presence of this gracious purpose, which he withal at the
same time cherishes towards the vessels of mercy, must
any desire to dispute with God completely depart from
thee ! "
The only contrast at verse 22, then, is that between
his consummating the work of destruction at once and
delaying it for the sake of showing favor meanwhile
to the vessels of mercy, not the contrast between his
right to deal with men as the potter with the clay,
and his gracious renunciation of that mode of dealing
with them in actual fact.
The interpreter cannot, in my judgment, evade
Paul's strict doctrine of predestination in this chapter
by any legitimate application of exegesis. Taken by
itself, the passage — verses 19-23 — is a most rigid
statement of God's absolute right to exercise mercy
toward some and not toward others, whom he may
harden if he will in order to make upon them an ex
hibition of his power and wrath. Theology is at lib
erty to make such use of this fact as it may deem fit
and justifiable. It should, however, be remembered
that this passage is not only an argumentum ad
hominem directed against the Jew^s, but that it is
only a single part or phase of Paul's treatment of

THE DOCTRINE OF GOD 119
their fall. The motive of the passage is to assert the
absolute freedom of God in dealing with men. It is
always competent for philosophical theology to raise
such questions as these : What will God, in the exer
cise of this freedom, be led by his inherent ethical
nature actually to do in his treatment of mankind ?
When God is spoken of as fitting men for destruc
tion, how is that process accomplished ? How was it
actually accomplished in the case of the Jews as
shown by chapter x. ? If the end of this hardening
is the revelation of God's wrath, is that the only end ?
Is the manifestation of God's wrath in punishment an
end in itself, or is there, inseparably associated with
it, the vindication of the holy nature of God and
of the moral order of the universe against sin ? Can
the right of God to do as he will, wdiich is asserted,
be without reference to the conditions which belong,
in God's constitution of the universe, to the reward of
well-doing and to the punishment of evil-doing, as
well as independent of the efficient or determining
agency of man ? Tliese and many kindred questions
are not covered by the statements of chapter ix., and
no exegesis of that passage can decide them, on any
view that may be taken of the normative character of
the apostle's arguments in such fields of thought.1
Similar remarks apply to Rom. viii. 29, 30, where
the salvation of believers is traced from the fore
knowledge of God onward, through foreordination,
1 The general remarks of Meyer appended to his commentary
on chapter ix. are especially commended.

120 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
calling, and justification to glorification. Here the
practical motive of the apostle is to show that the
whole plan and purpose of God are, as it were, pledged
to the Christian. What believers are and shall be,
they were in the eternal purpose of God. The thought
moves throughout along the line of the divine effi
ciency in salvation. Human conditions for its recep
tion, human consent and effort for the completion of
its process, are, for the apostle's particular purpose
here, as little recognized as they are in general ex
cluded. God foreknows and predetermines those who
are to be saved ; that he also therewith foreknows and
predetermines the conditions by which men become
saved, and so comprises in the scope of his eternal
purpose the free consent and action of men in accept
ing salvation, is in no way excluded by exegetical
considerations, and is rendered an absolutely neces
sary supposition by Paul's teaching as a whole, as
well as by any independent rational construction of
Christian doctrine.
This class of statements aptly illustrates a notice
able characteristic of Paul's mind. He has none of
that caution and timorousness wdiich often lead
writers perpetually to trim and qualify for fear of
being misunderstood. He lays full stress upon the
argument in hand in its bearing upon the idea to be
maintained, without concerning himself about its ad
justment with other truths, and without balancing
over against it the statements which form its doc
trinal or logical counterpart. The result is that

THE DOCTRINE OF GOD 121
those who employ one-sided methods of handling his
statements, and are dominated by some dogmatic
prepossession, easily find their desired proof-texts in
his epistles ; while his . critics as readily point out
numerous contradictions in them. Both classes of
interpreters work by the same methods, — the one
emphasizing one class of statements only, the other
emphasizing both in such a way as to draw from them
opposing results. A just treatment of his language
touching any given subject as a whole requires, not a
paring down of one class of statements to fit them to
another, but a consideration of his method of thought
in general, and of his immediate point of view and
special purpose in the passages under examination.
In the apostle's expressions concerning God, then,
we find pre-eminent these ideas : God has revealed
himself to all men in some method, — (a) in nature,
(b) in providence and history, (c) in conscience, and
with still greater fulness (d) in the history and life
of the Jewish people, but now in the later ages (e)
most perfectly in Christ. God is gracious and right
eous in all his action. His gift of Christ for the
world's salvation sprang from the divine love (Gal.
ii. 20; Rom. v. 8; Eph. ii. 4), which is thus the mo
tive of redemption ; and the work is so effected as to
completely vindicate the divine righteousness and dis
approval of sin, while providing for its forgiveness.
This gracious revelation and redemption God alone
originates, carries forward, and completes. Man's
part is the acceptance of its benefits. It lay in the

122 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
heart of God from eternity, and is effected by his
sovereign mercy. With no word of boasting may
man appear in the divine presence. Through no obe
dience or achievement of his, but through divine
grace alone, humbly accepted in faith, does he enter
into peace with God ; but having been made the ob
ject of that love, and having entered into the for
giveness which it secures, he is an ally of God, and
may defy opposing powers, confident that no force or
creature can separate him from God's all-conquering
love.

CHAPTER VI

THE doctrine of sin

The apostle's teaching centers in the doctrine of
salvation ; but as preparing the way for the exposition
of it, he treats of the fact of human sinfulness. This
is the order of thought in the Epistle to the Romans,
and represents the logical relation of the two doc
trines. A systematic exhibition of Paul's teaching-
regarding sin requires us to treat first of its origin,
although that topic is presented in a subordinate way
and quite incidentally by the apostle himself. It is
introduced only as an illustration in Rom. v. 12-21,
and not from set purpose to teach the method of sin's
entrance into the world. The passage has, however,
the greatest importance and interest, not only because
it stands alone in its treatment of the origin of sin,
but because it presents to us most strikingly some of
Paul's characteristic modes of thought.
The purpose of the parallel which the passage draws
between Adam and Christ is to emphasize the great
ness of God's redeeming grace. The peculiarity of
the construction is that after the illustrative member
of the comparison — that is, Adam and his sin — is

124 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
introduced (verse 12), a digression whose purpose is
to illustrate the universality of sin occurs (verses 13,
14) ; and only in verse 15 is the other and chief member
of the comparison — that is, Christ and his grace —
brought forward, where it is stated that as by the
trespass of one the many died, so and in yet greater
measure did God's grace through Christ abound unto
the many. Here, then, is introduced the full com
parison, but with the added element of a special em
phasis (-n-oXXcp fidXXov) upon the exceeding greatness
of the grace of God. In verse 19 the comparison,
which has been deferred by a long parenthesis and
complicated with an emphasizing of the grace side of
the parallel, is simply stated : " For as through tlie
one man's disobedience the many were made sinners,
even so through the obedience of the one shall the
many be made righteous." This was what Paul
began to say in verse 12 where he was diverted by
parenthetic explanations. This verse is therefore the
nerve of the passage taken as a wdiole, and clearly
reveals its true purport and chief intention.
We are now required to fix attention upon the
member of this comparison which is introduced in
illustration ; namely, the sin of Adam in its relation
to the sin of the race. The argument which rests
upon the causal relation of Adam's sin to sin in gen
eral has the following presuppositions : (1) Sin in
general, sin as a principle or world-ruling power, had
its origin in the transgression of Adam. This point
the apostle assumes without argument. It was with

THE DOCTRINE OF SIN 125
him a well-settled belief. It was beyond question the
current opinion in the later Judaism, and was held by
the apostle in common with the rabbinic theology.
Tholuck adduces the following striking rabbinical
parallels:1 —
" The Targum ou the passage, • God made man upright '
(Eccles. vii. 29) , reads, • But the serpent and the woman
led him astray, and caused death to be inflicted upon him
and upon all the inhabitauts of earth.' The Targum on
Ruth iv. 22 says : ' Jesse lived many days, until the
counsel which the serpent gave Eve was called to mind
before God ; on accouut of this counsel all men became
subject to death.' "
Other examples are : —
" If Adam and Eve had not sinned, their descendants
would not have been infected with the disposition to sin,
and tlieir form would have remained perfect like that of
angels, as the curses [upon them] show, and they would
have continued eternally living and unchanged iu the
world. . . . Although all was created perfect, yet as
soon as the first man sinned, everything became per
verted aud will no more return to order until the Messiah
comes. . . . With the same sin with which Adam sinned,
sinned the whole world, for he was the whole world. . . .
As the first man was the one in [committing] sin, so shall
the Messiah be the one in extinguishing sin. . . . Adam
opened, through his fall, a source of impurity, so that
impurity aud poison spread themselves throughout the
whole world." 1 A uslegung d. Briefes an die Romer, in loco.

126 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
The view under consideration, in the form in which
it is here expressed, could have been derived from the
Old Testament only by inference. The transgression
of Adam is there treated as a beginning of sin, but
all other sin is not referred to it as its cause and
ground. (2) A second presupposition is that death is the
consequence of sin. This is the teaching of the Old
Testament ; but the death of all is never there directly
referred to the sin of Adam as its cause. It is rather
the consequence of personal sin. The universal reign
of death is, however, traced to the sin of the first
parents in apocryphal writings, as in Wisdom ii. 24 :
" For God created man for immortality, and made
him to be an image of his own being ; but through
envy of the Devil came death into the world and they
that are of his part \_ol tt}? iKelvov pLepiBos 6vTef\
experience it," and more explicitly in Ecclus. xxv. 24 :
" Of the woman came the beginning of sin, and through
her we all die." Death to the Jewish mind was a
descent to the gloomy shades of Sheol, and was one of
the greatest of evils. From its associations it is
therefore easy to see why it should have been uni
formly represented as the penalty of sin.
(3) A third assumption of the argument is that
Adam and Christ stand in analogous relations to the
race, — the former to the race of men considered as
sinners and in need of redemption, the latter to the
race considered as subjects of that redemption. Christ
is the second Adam (1 Cor. xv. 45, 47) ; that is, the

THE DOCTRINE OF SIN 127
one who rescues man from the sinful course which was
initiated by the fall of the first Adam. He is the head
of spiritual humanity as Adam was the head of
natural humanity. The first two presuppositions are
found in verse 12 ; the third underlies the whole
passage. The unfinished protasis of verse 12, "As through
one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin,"
would naturally have been completed thus : " So
through one man [Jesus Christ] did righteousness enter
into the world, and life by righteousness" (cf. verses
15, 19). But at the mention of death as sin's conse
quence, the apostle pauses to emphasize the universality
of death and sin. The word " so " (ovtcos) refers to
the causal connection between death and sin which is
assumed. The thought is, " And so " — that is, since
death is sin's consequence — -"death became universal,
because sin was universal." The order of thought
then is, (a) Sin entered the world by Adam's tres
pass ; (b) death, sin's invariable penalty, followed ;
(c) in accordance with this connection between sin
and death, death became universal, (d) because all
sinned. The last point is the one over whose meaning in
terpreters are most divided. Several prior considera
tions will furnish the right method of approach to its
interpretation. These are, (a) the apostle's objective,
semi-personal conception of sin and death. They are
principles or powers to which peculiar actions or en
ergies are ascribed. Sin entered (elarfxOev) the world,

128 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
and death passed through upon all men (et? irdvTas
avOpco-Trov; 6 OdvaTos BtrjXOev). During the period
from A'dam to Moses sin was in the world (dpcapTta
?)v iv Koafiq}, verse 13) as an objective and conquering
power, and death was reigning in triumph over men
(i/3aalXevaev 6 OdvaTos, verse 14, cf. 17). (b) The
whole passage deals in the abstract with the relation
of Christ to salvation and with that of Adam to sin,
and not in the concrete with personal acts. In the
chief member of the comparison which is developed
in verses 15-19, where the superior power and abun
dance of grace in Christ as compared with that of sin
in Adam are repeatedly emphasized (see verses 15-17),
no allusion is made to the personal acts by which
believers appropriate the righteousness which God's
grace in Christ provides. The relation of Christ to
the fact of salvation is the single thought, and that
one idea determines the treatment throughout. The
view that in the correlative case Paul thinks only of
Adam's relation to sin in general, without reference to
the acts of individuals, would have the advantage of
preserving the consistency of the comparison in an im
portant particular, and of harmonizing both members
of the comparison with the same fundamental point of
view, (c) The practical religious motive for urging
the universality of sin and death is to magnify the
universal destination of the grace of God in salvation.
As Christ's relation to that salvation is the only point
under consideration in the chief member of the com
parison, so the relation of Adam to human sin is the

THE DOCTRINE OF SIN 129
only point of importance for the purposes of the
illustration. It is the universality of sin and death
as connected with Adam's transgression which serves
to illustrate the universality of the purpose of grace
in Christ.
In accordance with these suggestions regarding the
form and scope of the passage as a whole, and espe
cially in view of the peculiarities of Paul's modes of
thought which were described in a former chapter, I
hold that the much-disputed phrase, i<ft & 7ra^re?
r\p.apTov, means : All sinned when Adam sinned ; all
sinned in and with his sin. My reasons, stated in
detail, for this interpretation are as follows : (a) The
point of the illustration drawn from Adam is found
in referring all sin to his transgression as its source.
With this thought the apostle begins his comparison,
" As through one man sin entered," etc. (verse 12), and
wherever he returns to the same idea, as he does in
verses 15-19, the emphasis is in each case laid upon
Adam's sin as the cause of sin in general and of the
reign of death. If in i(f>' a> Trdvre<; r)p,apTov he means
individual and personal sin, he then gives in this
phrase a different reason for the universal reign of
death from that given elsewhere throughout the pas
sage, and a reason which the nature of his argument
did not at all require. It is by the trespass of the
one (Adam) that the many died, as it is by the act
of righteousness of the one (Christ) that the many
live. The introduction of personal sin as the cause
of the universality of death is as little required as

130 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
the introduction of the personal faith of believers
as a reason for the salvation of the many. Of the
latter there is no hint in the whole section ; the
presumption is against the introduction of the
former. Both are equally aside from the purpose
of the argument.
(b) The force of the aorist rjpcapTov most naturally
favors this view. I grant that it is possible to lay too
great weight upon the force of the tense in itself con
sidered. The aorist denotes a definite past action,
but in itself determines nothing as to the time of that
action relatively to other events. It may therefore
refer to a general or universal course of action in
past time for the expression of which our idiom uses
the perfect tense. Such appears to be its force in
Rom. iii. 23 : iravres ydp fjp,aprov Kal varepovvTai t»}?
B6%t]<; tov Oeov. It is when the term rj/napTov is com
pared with a most characteristic use of the aorist in
other passages to denote an act of individuals con
ceived of as contemporaneous with and included in
the death and resurrection of Jesus, that the full force
of this reason appears. These expressions have been
cited for a general purpose ; they should here be
brought into comparison with the phrase under con
sideration. They are : 2 Cor. v. 15, Kpivavras tovto,
oti, eh itTrep irdvTcov dnreOavev • dpa ol trdvTe<; direOavov,
" Because we thus judge that one died for all, there
fore all died ; " that is, all died (ethically) to sin in
and with the death of Christ upon the cross. The
death of individuals in a figurative sense is distinctly

THE DOCTRINE OF SIN 131
identified in time with the death of Christ.1 Other
passages containing the same form of thought are :
Col. iii. 1, el ovv avvrjyepOijTe tco XpioTco, ra dvco ^VTetTe,
" If ye were raised with Christ ; " that is, were raised
to new spiritual life when he rose, etc. Compare the
aorists in the kindred expressions, Col. ii. 20 ; iii. 3 ;
Rom. vi. 6. As in all these cases where the salvation
(ethical death and resurrection) of believers is carried
back in thought and mystically identified with its
cause and ground in Christ's death and resurrection,
so in this passage, which is the logical counterpart of
the representations just quoted, is it most natural to
refer the aorist r\p,apTov back to the act of Adam
in which the sinning of all had its root, and with
which it is identified in the same wray as the be
liever's death to sin is identified with Christ's death
upon the cross. This analogy in the two represen
tations pertains to the general form of the thought,
and should not be pressed beyond the purposes for
which Paul has used it. These considerations, then,
appear to point strongly to the interpretation of Ben
gel : " Non agitur de peccato singidorum proprio.
Omnes peccarunt, Adamo peccante, sicut omnes mortui
sunt, salutariter, moriente Christo (2 Cor. v. 15)." In
this connection I would refer the reader to what I
1 Cf. Meyer in loco : " In this death of the one the death of
all was accomplished, the ethical death, namely, in so far as in the
case of all, the ceasing of the fleshly life, of the life in sin (which
ethical dying sets in subjectively through fellowship of faith with
the death of Christ), is objectively, as a matter of fact, contained
in the death of the Lord."

132 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
have written in an earlier chapter (pp. 36-40) upon
the peculiar mode of thought of which the sinning of
all in the sin of Adam appears to be an illustration.
(c) The view that inpaprov refers to the sin of the
race in Adam harmonizes best with the apostle's con
ception of dpapria. It is an abstract term denoting
sin as a whole, conceived as a principle or diffusive
power which spreads itself abroad. When the apostle
wrote rj dpapria et? tov Koapov elarjXOev, he did not
refer to the commission of individual and personal
sins, but to the entrance of sin as a power or non-
personal principle in wdiich all partake. It is more
accordant with this conception to suppose that in
•Kavre<; r/p-aprov he introduces no new reason or dif
ferent representation. All sinned when sin entered the
world in the transgression of Adam. That this is
the interpretation which speculative theology, with
little regard to exegesis, has so long espoused, should
not be regarded as an exegetical objection to it, as
on the other hand philosophical difficulties with the
idea thus derived should not be allowed a determining-
weight in overbearing the natural and characteristic
force of the apostle's words.
(d) JTai/re? rifiaprov gives the reason for the abso
lutely universal spread of death. If it means " per
sonally sinned," the statement would not be true. It
could not be said that all died because all consciously
and individually sinned, because millions of infants
have died who have not so sinned. It may be said in
reply that the case of infants did not occur to Paul's

THE DOCTRINE OF SIN 133
mind as constituting an exception to his statement.
But could such an obvious and fatal exception escape
his notice? liv is accounting for the universality oi
death. The reason he gives is rrdvres inpaprov. The
term travres here must be coextensive with ¦n-civras of
the previous clause, else 7rafTe? inpaprov gives no valid
reason for et? rrdvras dvOpcorrovs o Odvaros BtrfXOev.
But it is not coextensive if rrdvres inpaprov means
"personally sinned;" and the argument breaks down.
All sinned in Adam's sin, and therefore, apart from
personal sin, all die.
Such is the interpretation to which wc arc led by
exegetical considerations. It may not accord with
current modes of thought; it accords with those of
the apostle. It is an example of his mystical and
objective handling of such conceptions as that of
sin. With the dogmatic treatment of the passage we
aro not concerned beyond pointing out its relation
to Paul's own scheme of doctrine. The peculiar and
characteristically Pauline form of thought which the
passage presents has been appropriated by a realism
very different from Paul's, and thus the passage was
made to do service as a philosophical theorem. This
use of the passage was facilitated by the translation
in the Vulgate version of e'</>' cp by in quo, so that the
terms of the apostle furnished a most striking parallel
to the proposition that all sinned in Adam. But even
without this exegetical artifice the words easily lent
themselves to this form of speculation. Their natural
meaning was, All sinned when Adam sinned ; and

134 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
that statement was the theorem to be proved on the
principle that all individuals were semiually in Adam,
and actually participated in his sin. This is very con
vincing so long as one assumes that the philosophical
realism which emanated from Plato and was elabo
rately applied to theology by Augustine, is the same as
the mystical realism of Paul ; that is, so long as one
does not go behind the form of the apostle's words.
But when this is done, the resemblance turns out to be
a merely formal one. With no attention to the pecu
liarities of Paul's thought, and with the tacit assump
tion that because one of his phrases has a sound wdiich
accords with one of its favorite maxims, philosophical
realism has introduced its whole scheme into Christian
theology under cover of this one formal resemblance,
and to the entire neglect of the same form of thought
where it appears in several striking instances in an
other connection. It has filled this phrase wdth its
own content, and turned it to use as a hard and fast
theological formula asserting the actual presence of
all men in Adam and their participation in his act ;
while kindred phrases — which rest upon precisely
the same mode of thought, and identify believers
with Christ in his death, just as this identifies sin
ners with Adam in his sin — are passed by, as mere
figures of speech. It is a curious example of the
formal coincidence of exegesis and dogma, — a
coincidence, however, which biblical theology, by
penetrating beneath the external resemblances to
the wholly different underlying conceptions of Paul

THE DOCTRINE OF SIN 135
and of philosophical realism, shows to be no real
coincidence in idea.
It is worth while to point out so noteworthy an ex
ample of the association of speculative opinions with
biblical phrases where there is no real kinship of idea
between them, as a justification of the science of bib
lical theology, upon whose methods speculative the
ology so naturally looks with scanty favor. Until
something more than verbal exegesis becomes wide
spread, and we have a careful and minute study of
the thoughts of the biblical writers in their own light,
— - a study which penetrates to that which is charac
teristic in both form and matter, — we shall continue
to see their words displayed as the mottoes of specula
tions and theories entirely foreign to their meaning,
and applied to conceptions widely remote from their
thoughts. The more obvious misuses of this kind
— such as the employment of scriptural statements
as definitions of scientific truth — are now, though
only within recent years, widely discredited. It is
now generally conceded that scientific conceptions
are not to be expected in Scripture. A similar
concession must at length be made in regard to philo
sophical speculations which grew up on a wholly dif
ferent soil from that on which the conceptions of the
apostles were matured, and which are not at all ger
mane to their modes of thought.
In what sense, then, according to Paul's character
istic modes of thought, does he mean that all men
sinned when Adam sinned ? They sinned wdien Adam

136 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
sinned in the same sense in which believers were
crucified to the world and died unto sin when Christ
died upon the cross. The believer's renewal is con
ceived of as wrought in advance by those acts and
experiences of Christ in which it has its ground.
As the consequences of his vicarious sufferings are
traced back to their cause, so are the consequences
which flowed from the beginning of sin in Adam
traced back to that original fount of evil and identi
fied with it ; but the latter statement should no more
be treated as a rigid logical formula than the former,
its counterpart. All that doctrinal theology de
rives from the one is the causal relation of Christ's
work to salvation; it should by parity of reasoning
derive from the other the thought of the sin of Adam
as the initiation and cause of all sin. As righteous
ness flowed from Christ, so did sin from Adam. The
former initiated the order of righteousness ; the latter
the disorder of sin. As all who by faith enter the
spiritual order of Christ receive from him the gracious
gift of reconciliation and life, so all by their race-
connection have received from the natural head of
the race a taint of nature, a bent or bias toward sin,
so that in principle the sinfulness of all may be said
to be included in the sin of Adam. It may even be
said, in harmony with Pauline conceptions, that all
human nature was in Adam and that he was the
race, if it be meant in accord with the principles of
heredity and not in the sense of realism, which makes
human nature a certain quantum of being and treats

THE DOCTRINE OF SIN 137
descent from Adam as a division of this mass of
human nature into parts.1
It is sometimes said that Paul knows nothing of a
fall of Adam from a state of purity, but rather treats
his sin as the product of a germ of evil or the out
come of moral weakness within him.2 Appeal on
behalf of this view is made to 1 Cor. xv. 47, where
Adam is referred to as 6 rrpSiros avOpcoiros eK yfjs
%ot«6?. But the subject of sin is not there under con
sideration, and xot/eo? only designates Adam as of
earthly origin and mortal. This expression in no way
involves sin or moral fault in Adam previous to the
transgression to which Paul refers, but fairly taken,
clearly implies a certain moral indeterminateness or
weakness as opposed to tested and approved charac
ter, and also — contrary to the common assumption
— mortality. Neither the Old Testament nor the
New teaches that Adam was created immortal, but
only that he might by obedience have attained to im
mortality. It is not asserted that Adam became mor
tal in consequence of his trespass, but only that he
died ; that is, failed of the possible goal of immortality.
It cannot therefore be affirmed that had not Adam
sinned he would have continued forever in his earthly
life, but only that he would not have experienced
death with the pain, anxiety, and decay which now
attend human dissolution. To escape the bitter expe
rience of death, and to be in some way transformed
1 Cf. Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, ii. 77 sq.
3 So Usteri, Paulin. Lehrbegrijf, p. 28 ; Baur, Paulus, ii. 268.

138 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
into a higher life, was the reward of obedience which
both Old and New Testaments assume to have been
set before him. An experience corresponding to
death, a change, a transformation, must have awaited
him as an dvOparrros ^ot/co?, but not death in the
meaning and associations with which long ages of
sorrow and suffering have clothed that word.
That a fall of Adam is meant by -fj dpapria ei?
rbv Koapov elafjXOev, is certain from the fact that
dpapria denotes sin as a power or principle which on
the assumption under review would have been already
in the world before Adam's personal transgression.1
It may be observed in passing that the interpretation
of Paul's words which ascribes to him, not the idea of
a fall, but that of a development of a germ of evil,
present in him from the first, accords with certain
philosophical presuppositions regarding sin as inherent
in human nature. It will be necessary to refer to it
again in considering Paul's teaching regarding the
nature of sin. We are confident that Paul does not
think so ill of human nature as to consider it essen
tially evil, nor so lightly of sin as they suppose who
ascribe to him this doctrine, according to which sin
is little more than man's native moral weakness, the
necessary contrast to goodness and the indispensable
condition of its development in all finite being.
We have seen that the origin of human sin is
traced by the apostle to Adam, and that its universal
1 Cf. Lechler, Das apos. Zeitaller, p. 300; Weiss, Bib. Theol.
§67 6.

THE DOCTRINE OF SIN 139
sway is explained by the organic unity of the race
with hira. It remains to inquire into his teaching
concerning the nature and operation of this despotic
power in the individual and in society, — a problem
for whose solution the apostle has furnished us far
more abundant data than for the determination of
his view of the origin of sin, but data which are by
no means easy of interpretation.
Paul's doctrine of human sinfulness cannot be
understood without determining the meaning of the
term "flesh" (aap^), with which he constantly asso
ciates sin, and which he regards as sin's seat and
sphere of manifestation. In the Old Testament the
term " flesh " ("^l) is frequently used to denote man's
natural creature-life in its moral weakness and sinful
ness, while " spirit " (nn) denotes that God-given ele
ment of his personality which is akin to the Divine
Spirit. Thus the terms set in contrast two phases of
human nature, — its merely natural impulses on the
one side, and its affinities with God on the other.
It has been commonly supposed that Paul founds his
own doctrine upon this Old Testament basis. Re
cently, however, elaborate attempts have been made
to show that at this point he deserts the Old Testa
ment ethical dualism, and constructs his view in
accord with the natural and essential dualism of Hel
lenic philosophy, in which the body was regarded as
necessarily evil and as forming an antithesis to the
higher element — the spirit — in human nature.
Upon this explanation, odp% becomes substantially

140 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
equivalent to awpa or peXv.1 Upon this view an an
tinomy is found in Paul's account of the origin of sin,
since its beginning, on the one hand, is ascribed to
the sin of Adam, and on the other, is made to be
inherent in the material element of the human per
sonality. This view has been modified by Pfleiderer,
in a work more recent than the first edition of Paulin
ismus,2 and the ethical meaning of adptj in Paul's doc
trine is distinctly admitted, although its physical
meaning is still emphasized as the basis of this con
ception. In the view of this writer we have here, as
so frequently in Paul's doctrines, a combination of
Old Testament or rabbinic with Hellenic or Alexan
drian thought. The conclusion is thus stated : " So
far as the flesh is the seat and tool of this power
of sin, it may be so identified with sin that the
formula?, ' to be in the flesh ' and ' to walk after the
flesh,' signify simply ' to live in sin, or according to
the sinful principle.' " 8 This identification of the
flesh with the sinful principle which dwells in it is
explained by the influence of Hellenic dualism and
the doctrine of the essential evil of matter.
There are here two separate questions to be con
sidered: (a) How far the adp^ is for Paul identical
with the body ; and (b) In what modes of thought his
1 So Baur, Neutest. Theol- p. 143 sq., and similarly Holsten,
Die Bedeutung des Wortes o-api- im Lehrbegriffe des Paulus, in
Zum Evangelium des Paulus und des Petrus, p. 365 sq. : Pfleiderer,
Paulinismus, p. 48 sq. 1 Aufl. ; Eng. tr. i. 48 sq.
2 Das Urchristenthum, p. 178 sq.
8 Das Urchristenthum, p. 187.

THE DOCTRINE OF SIN 141
conception of adp% has its root. The former is an
exegetical, the latter an historical question.
There can be no doubt that the simple primary
meaning of adp% as denoting the material of the hu
man body is the logical starting-point of his doctrine.
The question is whether his idea is so dominated by
that original conception, and supplemented with Hel
lenic views, as to yield the doctrine that human na
ture, composed as it is in part of material elements, is
essentially evil. This question can be answered only
by a study of the apostle's language. The passages
where adp% is associated with dpapria and contrasted
with vovs, irvevpa, and kindred terms are of chief
importance. In Gal. v. 19-23, the apostle enumerates the works
of the flesh (rd epya rrjs aapKos), and sets them
in contrast with the fruit of the spirit (6 Kapirbs
rov irvevparos). Among the former are found not
only sensuous sins, such as unchastity and drunken
ness, but (chiefly) such as have no direct connection
with bodily impulses, — " enmities, strife, jealousies,
wraths, factions, divisions, heresies, envyings." Sim
ilarly in Rom. xiii. 13, 14, the avoidance of making
provision for the flesh (ttjs aapKos irpovoia) includes
the renunciation, not only of " chambering and wan
tonness," but also of " strife and jealousy " (epis,
£r?Ao?). In addressing the Corinthians the apostle
designates them as carnal (aapKCKol), because " there
is among them jealousy and strife [£?}\os Kal ept?] "
(1 Cor. iii. 3). Moreover, he speaks (2 Cor. i. 12) of

142 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
a aofyla aapKiK-n ; that is, a worldly and selfish
policy as opposed to the "holiness and sincerity
which come from God." These examples appear to
me to be absolutely decisive against the view that
Paul associates sin inseparably with the body, or
makes its essence to consist in sensuousness. In
these expressions at least, adp% is used in a sense at
once more comprehensive and more distinctly ethical
than that theory supposes which makes it a name for
" the impulse of sensuousness." l
If we consider Paul's doctrine of the body (aiopa),
we shall find that he by no means regards it as essen
tially sinful, and that his conception of it is not
equivalent to the idea denoted by adpg. It is true
that " flesh and blood " (a designation of the corrupt
and perishable material substance of the body ; cf.
¦f] cpOopd, in loco) "cannot inherit the kingdom of God"
(1 Cor. xv. 50), — that is, that the "natural body"
(awpa -ty-v-j/iKov, verse 44) cannot partake in the
glorified life without transformation ; but that is not
because of its inherent sinfulness, but on account of
its corruptibleness : " Corruption doth not inherit in
corruption " (verse 50). Moreover, the fact that
" the body is for the Lord, and the Lord for the body "
(1 Cor. vi. 13), — that is, that it belongs to Christ,
who has the intention to rule and use it, — and that
it may become " the temple of the Holy Spirit "
(verse 19), is conclusive proof that Paul did not
1 Usteri, Paulin. Lehrbegriff, p. 41, " j? aapi; ist der Reiz der
Sinnlichkeit.''

THE DOCTRINE OF SIN 143
regard it as essentially sinful, and that he could not
have charged upon it the character and works which
he so often predicates of the adpg.
These passages furnish conclusive evidence that
Paul's conceptions of adpg and of aiopa are not strictly
identical. It is equally plain that in other passages
he uses them as nearly synonymous. In Rom. vii.
14-25, he gives a description in the first person, and
reflecting his own experience as a Pharisee, of the
conflict which ensues in the unregenerate man who
has been awakened to a sense of his sinfulness under
the law. This conflict is between sin (dpapria) and
the inner man, denoted by eaco dvOpwiros (verse 22), or
between the vopos rijs dpaprias and the vdpos tov voos
(verse 23). The wish and desire (OeXeiv, aw-qBopai,
verses 18, 22) are on the side of the divine law, but
the power of sin dwelling in the flesh (verse 18)
thwarts the efforts made and renders them futile
(verses 15, 19, 20, 23). The description begins with
an explanation of the fact that the good and spiritual
law (verse 14, cf. 16) works only this doleful result.
It is because the man is carnal (aapKiKos), sold as a
captive, and delivered over into the power of sin
(verse 14, cf. 23). This reign of sin is described as
rj ivoiKovaa iv ipol dpapria ; and it occasions the
negative statement that good does not dwell iv ipol,
and the phrase iv ipol is explained by the phrase
eV rfi aapKi pov (verse 18). Similarly the reign of
the principle of sin is located in the members (ev rois
peXeaiv, verse 23), and the final cry for deliverance

144 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
is, " Who shall deliver me from the body of this
death [awpa rov Oavdrov rovrov] ? " (Verse 24.) Fi
nally, in the summing up, the mind, or reason (ww?),
and the flesh are spoken of as the contending prin
ciples or powers.
It is clear that in these passages adpg is nearly
equivalent to awpa and peXn, and denotes the mate
rial substance of man as the seat of sin and the sphere
of its manifestation. Sin and the flesh are not strictly
identified, but are closely associated because related to
each other as principle and instrument or as power
and place of operation. Here, then, adpg is the body as
actually subjugated and ruled by sin ; but nothing is
said which involves the view that the adpg is inherently
and necessarily sinful, or that it cannot be delivered
from the indwelling power of evil. The apostle is
sketching a fact of experience and history, and not
giving an explanation of the origin and nature of sin.
We have in this important passage the fundamental
conception which lies at the basis of all Paul's teaching
on the subject. The flesh is primarily the material
element considered as the seat of evil impulses and
passions, and so as the special sphere of sin's mani
festation. But how far Paul is from regarding the
adpg as essentially sinful may be seen from his exhor
tation : " Let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement
of flesh and spirit" (2 Cor. vii. 1), — a passage which
can have no proper meaning except upon the assump
tion that the flesh as well as the spirit is capable of
purification from sin.

THE DOCTRINE OF SIN 145
With this conception agree the allusions in Rom. vi.
where the nature and requirements of the spiritual
life are sketched. "Our old man" — -that is, our
former sinful self — "was crucified with Christ,"
says the apostle, " that the body of sin [to awpa rrjs
dpaprias] might be destroyed " (verse 6). Here the
figure of crucifixion naturally required the term
" body of sin " as an explanation of 6 iraXaibs dvOpw-rros-
By it is meant the body, which, as a matter of fact, is
ruled by sin, as is shown by verse 12 : " Let not sin
therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should
obey the lusts thereof." The exhortation implies that
the dominion of sin in the body can be broken, as do
those which urge that the members shall be made
" instruments of righteousness " (oirXa Bucaioavvns,
verse 13).
From this primary notion of the adpg, which clearly
rests upon an Old Testament basis, it is but a short
and easy step to the idea that the flesh, which is so
closely associated with sin as its seat, is itself, as a
matter of fact, an anti-spiritual force. Hdpg thus
becomes a term to express the power of those natural
sinful desires and impulses in unregenerate men. In
such the flesh predominates, and not the spirit. They
may thus be said to be in the flesh (Rom. vii. 5), to
live or walk according to the flesh (Rom. viii. 4 sq.;
2 Cor. x. 2 sq.), and to possess the modes of thought
and feeling which are dictated by sinful desire
((ppovvpa rr)s aap/cos, Rom. viii. 6 sq.). By these
terms a second phase of meaning is denoted, by which
10

146 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
adpg acquires a semi-ethical significance, and the way
is paved for that usage which we first examined, where
adpg is seen to be a general term to denote unre
newed human nature, the works of which, such as
strife, wrath, and jealousy, are enumerated (page 141).
In the light of these explanations, then, we may dis
tinguish three shades of meaning in the Pauline use
of the term : (1) the physical, in which adpg is the
body or members considered as the dwelling-place
of sin ; (2) the semi-ethical, in which the flesh as the
seat of evil impulses is treated as an anti-spiritual
power ; (3) the ethical, in which the flesh denotes un
regenerate human nature.1
1 I find distinctions closely like these in Pfleiderer's Urchris
tenthum, p. 186 sq., with the difference that Pfleiderer finds the
primary meaning of o-dp£ in such expressions as "fleshly wis
dom," "wise after the flesh" (2 Cor. i. 12; 1 Cor. i. 26), and
" Are ye not carnal and walk as men?" (1 Cor. iii. 3), which he
interprets as meaning that " to be carnal " and " to be men " are
equivalent expressions. To me these passages seem rather to
belong to the more developed ethical views where " to be carnal "
signifies "to act according to the spirit that rules unregenerate
human nature," as is shown by the charge that there is among
them " envy and strife " (see page 141).
It would carry me too far beyond ray present purpose and
unduly extend the limits of this chapter to explain the different
shades of opinion respecting this point of Paul's doctrine which
have been current since Baur. One of the most elaborate exami
nations of the subject is that of Holsten, Die Bedeutung des
Wortes a-apt- im Lehrbegriffe des Paulus, reprinted in Zum Evange
lium des Paulus und Petrus, in which he maintains that aap^ is
the body as animated by life ; the material element of man is
formuliter a&pa, materialiler oa.pl;. This crdp£ is necessarily <rap£

THE DOCTRINE OF SIN 147
This analysis illustrates the difficulty of framing
a definition which shall include all the shades of
meaning and degrees of force in which Paul employs
the term. It may be serviceable to add a few exam
ples of the efforts made by leading scholars to formu
late the ethical meaning of the word. Thayer's Lexi
con (4 sub voce) : " %dpg . . . has an ethical sense, and
denotes mere human nature, the earthly nature of man
apart from divine influence, and therefore prone to
sin and opposed to God ; accordingly it includes what
ever in the soul is weak, low, debased, tending to
ungodliness and vice." Cremer (Biblico- Theol. Lexi
con, sub voce) : " In antithesis to irvevpa, adpg signi
fies the sinful condition of human nature in and
according to its bodily manifestation." Weizsacker
(Das apostolische Zeitalter, p. 130) : " The flesh is
the expression for the power of sin in the natural life.
It appears as the source of all sorts of sin, and its
powrer consists not merely in the opposition of indiffer
ence to the demands and impulses of the Spirit, butin
active opposition against the Spirit," etc. Dickson
dpaprias ; that is, man is essentially evil in the sense that the
adp% constitutes the nature-ground of all sin. Conscious trans
gression and the sense of guilt are due only to personal action.
Hence the dualism of a determining evil power and a freedom
that may resist, but cannot overcome it (as described in Rom. vii.
14 sq.). For an exposition of the views of Holsten and other recent
critics, I refer to Professor Dickson's Baird Lecture for 1883 enti
tled, Saint Paul's Use of the Terms Flesh and Spirit; and I espe
cially commend his own summary and conclusions in chapter xi.
of that volume (Glasgow, 1883).

148 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
(Saint Paul's Use of the Terms Flesh and Spirit,
p. 310 sq.) enumerates the following points in con
cluding his discussion : (a) Paul does not identify
adpg and dpapria ; (b) he does not identify adpg with
the material body ; (c) he does not identify matter, or
the material side of man, with evil ; (d) he does not
associate sin exclusively with the body or with the
sensuous nature of man ; (e) his design is not to set
forth the origin of sin from the adpg, but the power
of sin in the adpg; (f) Paul means to explain the
historical origin of sin (in Rom. v. 12 sq.), but not its
psychological origin (in his doctrine of the flesh) ;
(g) Paul's doctrine of the flesh is based, not upon
speculation, but upon experience ; (h) adpg is a adpg
dpaprias in all cases save one, that of Jesus Christ. 1
It has been maintained by many recent writers (for
example, Holsten and Pfleiderer) that Paul in his
doctrine of the flesh intends to give an account of
the origin and nature of sin. In their view we have
two explanations of sin's origin, — one which traces
it back to Adam's sin, and one which places its roots
in the carnal element of human nature. The first
is an historical explanation, and is connected with
Jewish rabbinic thought ; the second is a psycho
logical explanation, and is derived from Alexandrian
1 It is noticeable that Paul is careful to speak of Christ as
sent iv opoi&pan a-apxos dpaprias (Rom. viii. 3), thus shunning to
attribute to Christ the associations of sinfulness which o-dp|, as
matter of experience, carries with it in human life. In 1 Tim.
iii. 16, where the connection involved no such danger, it is
affirmed of Christ, e'cpavepaOr] ev aapKt.

THE DOCTRINE OF SIN 149
speculation. In this peculiar combination of elements
these writers find a good example of the syncretism
of Paul. But if, as we have sought to show, the flesh
is not conceived of by Paul after the manner of
Grseco-Alexandrian philosophy, if it is not in itself
sinful, then Paul's teaching concerning it cannot be
intended to explain the origin or nature of sin, but only
its mode of operation. An impartial exegesis of the
apostle's language makes it very difficult to bring his
ideas into accord with the dualistic philosophy from
which it is sought to derive them. It cannot be de
nied that there are certain suggestive points of simi
larity between some of Paul's thoughts and the views
which were current in the later Greek philosophy
with which he must have come more or less into con
tact; but the hypothesis of a derivation of his doc
trine of sin from this philosophy, and especially the
hypothesis of two incompatible sources of that doc
trine, must be considered as unverified in its most
essential point, until it is more convincingly shown
that Paul's language can be squared with the idea
that matter is inherently evil, and that consequently
the body is the source of sin.1 We deem it safe to
affirm that the considerations which are adduced by
recent scholars are entirely inadequate to show that
1 Cf. Pfleiderer, Urchristenthum, pp. 190-192. Per contra,
Dickson, Saint Paul's Use of the Terms Flesh and Spirit, chap. x.
For an elaborate exhibition of the parallels and differences be
tween Philo and Paul, see Siegfried, Philo von Alexandria, als
Ausleger des A.T., pp. 304-310.

150 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
Paul's doctrine of sin was materially influenced by
Alexandrian thought. Its roots are rather to be
sought in the soil of the Old Testament.
It is wholly improbable that the apostle ever set
before himself the definite purpose of explaining the
origin of sin. With the Old Testament narrative of
the fall of Adam in mind, he declares that sin began
in his transgression and extended its dominion over
all mankind. In a mode of thought characteristic
of him he contemplates that as the great race-sin in
which all Adam's descendants sinned. No philosophy
of the subject is given. It could never have been the
apostle's intention to pronounce upon the psychologi
cal problems which later speculation has raised con
cerning the beginning of moral evil. Paul treats the
subject chiefly from a practical standpoint and in the
light of human experience.
Our next inquiry is, What is the relation of sin to
the will ? If we turn to those passages in which the
object is not to assert the origin or depict the enslav
ing power of sin, but to enforce man's responsibility
and guilt on account of it, we shall find abundant evi
dence that sin has its seat primarily in the will. Its
roots lie deep in the past of the race, considered as a
unity ; it masters the body, inflaming its appetites and
perverting its passions. But sin is man's voluntary and
guilty act ; and the responsibility for it belongs to him
who commits it. Paul never represents men as subjects
of guilt or as objects of moral judgment on account of
any one's sins except their own. His most extended

THE DOCTRINE OF SIN 151
portrayal of the development of sin in history is found
in his arraignment of the Gentile and Jewish worlds
in Rom. i. and ii. Throughout this passage the guilt
of sin is charged to the evil choices of men. They
wilfully sinned against the light which God had given
them, and can plead no palliation or excuse (i. 18-
20). The action of God in plunging them into deeper
depths of sin (verses 24, 26) was but the infliction of
the judicial consequences of their action. It was be
cause " they refused [ovk eBoKtpaoav'] to have God in
tlieir knowledge " that " God gave them up to a
reprobate \_dBoKipov~] mind" (verse 28), — a state
ment which is rendered the more pointed by the evi
dent play on the words iBoKlpaaav and dBoKipov, which
significantly emphasizes the connection of God's action
with their own as its penal consequence.
And when the apostle's thought widens to take in
the race, it is the same charge of guilt for evil choices
and inexcusable deeds which he imputes to all man
kind, — " Wherefore thou art without excuse, 0 man,
whosoever thou art that judgest " (Rom. ii. 1). And
what are the elements of the sin which he now lays at
the door of the Jew ? There is, first of all, the prac
tice (irpdaaeiv) of such things as have already been
charged upon the Gentiles (verses 2, 3) ; there is con
tempt for God's goodness, hardness and impenitence
of heart (verses 4, 5), for which God will punish them
according to their deeds (verse 6) ; and by clear intima
tions of their guilt, the catalogue of the Jews' sins is
swelled by the crimes of theft, adultery, robbery of tem-

152 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
pies, and blasphemy (verses 21-24), — sins of choice
and purpose for which they cannot escape the judg
ment of God. To whatever point, then, the origin of
the sinful disposition may be traced back, it is obvious
from such representations as this that the apostle re
garded sin, considered as a matter of experience, as con
sisting of voluntary choices and acts, and that he held
directly responsible for these choices and acts only those
persons wrho committed them. The law of the divine
judgment in relation to unforgiven sin is, " To every
man according to his deeds [to epya avTov]," (Rom. ii.
6 ; 2 Cor. v. 10). No doctrinal inferences from a
more obscure reference of the general sinfulness of
the race to the sin of primeval man is warranted by
Paul's system, if they be contradictory of this maxim.
With this principle the common interpretation of
Eph. ii. 3 — " And [we] were by nature children
of wrath," etc. — is inconsistent. It is generally
understood to affirm that all men are the objects of
God's wrath from their very birth by reason of origi
nal sin and native depravity. It should be noticed
that the first person (r)pels) of verse 3 is the counter
part of the second person (vpeis) in verses 1 and 2.
The first two verses picture the state of his Gentile
readers previous to their conversion. They were
"dead through trespasses and sins;" they " walked ac
cording to the course of this world," etc. But Paul
will apply no terms to their former state which he will
not also apply to himself and to his fellow Jewish
Christians. Hence he frankly confesses : " Among

THE DOCTRINE OF SIN 153
whom [that is, "the sons of disobedience," verse 2]
we also all once lived in the lusts of our flesh, doing
the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by
nature children of wrath, even as the rest " (verse 3) .
We Jewish Christians were " children of wrath " just
as the Gentiles were " sons of disobedience," — is the
apostle's affirmation.
The terms and context of the passage are unfavor
able to the common dogmatic interpretation. The
object is to affirm as much of the Jewish Christians,
to which class the apostle belonged, as was asserted
of the Gentiles. No allusion whatever has been made,
in the case of the Gentiles, to original sin ; none
would have been natural or appropriate, since Paul's
object in the whole passage is simply to show that
the mercy of God did not stop at the most heinous
offences. The terms in which the sinfulness of both
classes is described have no suggestion of original or
inherited sin, and create a strong presumption against
interpretations which find this in the expression ren
dered " by nature children of wrath." The Gen
tiles are accused of trespasses and sins and of a
certain course of conduct, and to the Jews are
attributed the life of carnal lust and the conduct
which the desires of the flesh and of the thoughts
(rwv Biavoiwv) inspire. Unless the phrase under re
view is to be wholly severed from its context and
treated independently, it must be held to be prac
tically synonymous with the terms descriptive of
sinfulness with which it is co-ordinated.

154 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
It is further noticeable that the term " by nature "
(cpvaei) receives no special emphasis according to the
order of the words in which both the Textus Beceptus
and the modern critical texts agree ; namely, Kal ihpeOa
\f)pev\ reicva fyvoei opyrjs. Had the apostle intended
the emphasis which doctrinal theology has been wont
to place upon these words, — namely, " By our very
birth, by the innate depravity which we brought into
the world, we are objects of God's wrath," — it is
strange that he did not so much as throw cpvaei
into an emphatic position. As it is, however, cpvaei
becomes a defining term, without special emphasis,
to the phrase reKva opyfjs, — " wrath-children by
nature." But what is this <j>vois, in accordance with which
sinful men appear as subject to divine wrath ? In
itself considered, the word can mean either " birth "
or " growth ; " that is, it may refer primarily to that
which is inherited, and innate as such (so in Gal. ii.
15), or to that which is developed by practice and
habit, — the unfolding of the native disposition in the
voluntary life. When, for example, the Gentiles are
spoken of (Rom. ii. 14) as doing cpvaei the things of
the law, it is certainly not meant that they are there
thought of as doing them by their very inherited
nature. If the meaning which is commonly claimed
for cpvaei in Eph. ii. 3 were applied to Rom. ii. 14, we
should have in the latter a proof-text to show that
even heathen naturally do the divine will. Thus a
method of interpretation which derives certain re-

THE DOCTRINE OF SIN 155
suits from the former passage would, if consistently
applied to the second, elicit other doctrinal inferences
not so easily adjusted to the system which they are
designed to serve.
The precise sense of cpvaei remains, then, to be de
termined by the context and by evidence to be derived
from Paul's teaching elsewhere. We have considered
the bearing of the context ; let us inquire whether the
proposition means that the Jewrs were by and from
their very birth reKva opyfjs. It may well be doubted
whether Paul could represent his people as the natu
ral branches (ol Kara cpvaiv kXuBoi, Rom. xi. 21) of the
sacred olive-tree of the theocracy, and at the same
time by birth children of wrath (<pvaei [=Kara <pvoiv~\
rmva opyrjs). In Rom. xi. 16 they are termed holy, as
is the root from which they sprang. Again, in ix. 4, he
declares that to them belongs the adoption (vloOeaid).
How would this comport with the common interpreta
tion of our passage ? Finally, in Gal. ii. 15, the
cpiiaei 'IovBaioi are contrasted with ig iOvwv dpap-
twXoi. That the Jews were as great sinners in fact
as the Gentiles is indeed true ; but that they are by
birth and from the first objects of God's wrath, is a
proposition which cannot easily be reconciled with
the apostle's language in other connections. I think
it cannot be deemed an uncharitable judgment to
affirm that a dogmatic view of original sin and inborn
depravity has used the passage (Eph. ii. 3) in isolation
from its connection and without critical comparison
with other Pauline expressions until its natural force

156 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
has become fundamentally perverted.1 It has, indeed,
been common to characterize as " Pelagian " and
" rationalistic " any dissent from this interpretation
(see, for example, Olshausen in loco). But at length
the day is drawing to a close when dogmatic and
speculative opinion so dominates exegesis that its
party-names can be applied even to the processes and
results of interpretation, on the assumption that theo
logical opinion should of course settle the meaning
of texts. It cannot be said that Meyer is predisposed
to " Pelagian " exegesis. No interpreter has more
strenuously maintained the absolute predestination-
ism of Rom. ix., and the necessity of understanding
Rom. v. 12 to mean, " All sinned when Adam sinned."
But theological inferences — especially such as have no
Pauline warrant — are not to be allowed to overbear
the force of the context and the statements of the
apostle upon the same subject in other connec
tions. I conclude this brief survey of the passage
with the paraphrase with which Weiss explains the
force of the expression : " Yet the Jews really walk
in the lusts of the flesh like the children of disobedi
ence, and are on that account, like them, children of
wrath (verse 3). But if (fivaei is here added, that
involves just the opposite of what they have become
Qeaei ; that is, on the ground of the covenants of
promise (verse 12)." 2
1 I especially commend to the reader the discussion of Meyer
in loco, to which I am largely indebted.
2 Bib. Theol. § 100 b.

THE DOCTRINE OF SIN 157
We cannot, then, on the ground of this passage
make sin in the strict sense an inheritance indepen
dent of any personal volition or choice ; for even if
cpvaei be rendered " by nature," it might denote the
development by man's own acts of a native tendency
or bias, as well as by birth per se. In any case, the
term cannot be made to exclude the volitional element
in sin and thus to afford a basis for the definition that
" sin is a nature, and that nature is guilt." That Paul
regarded all sin as having a connection with the first
transgression, we consider certain. We have seen
that in a single instance and for a special purpose in
argument, this view led him to identify the sinning of
all with that first sin. On this mystical or semi-figu
rative expression, and upon Eph. ii. 3, interpreted
in accord with dogmatic presuppositions, chiefly de
pend the historic theories of original sin and total
depravity, including the ideas of the real identity of
all wills with that of Adam, imputed guilt in conse
quence of his sin, the condemnation of all from the
moment of birth, the total natural aversion of mankind
to all goodness and their inclination to all evil, the
reprobation of men for their part in Adam's trans
gression, and the eternal punishment of infants. On
the latter point human feeling has availed to soften
dogmatic rigor, with fatal consequences to the con
sistency of the scheme as a whole. And all this is
attributed to Paul !
The great pervading thought of the apostle concern
ing sin is that it is a wilful perversion, a wrong direc-

158 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
tion and wicked depravation of life. Considered as a
principle, he holds that its roots lie deep in human
nature. This idea underlies his treatment of human
sinfulness ; but he gives no theory in regard to the
origin and spread of this taint or depravation of hu
man nature, and his language affords no basis for
a definition of its relation to conscious, personal trans
gression. That which stands in the foreground of his
thought is the fact of sin as a matter of universal
experience and of fatal consequences to mankind. Of
this he has a deep and intense feeling, — a conviction
which powerfully influences his whole view of redemp
tion. But while the sinful principle dominates in all
men, it is un-Pauline to say that no capacity for
goodness, or aspiration after it, can exist in the
natural man. He still has a certain knowledge of
God (Rom. i. 19), a sense of obligation springing from
conscience (Rom. i. 20 ; ii. 14), and under the awaken
ing power of the law may even will to do the right and
delight in the divine law after the inward man, — the
better self, — though the hindering power of evil pre
vent the realization of the desire (Rom. vii. 16-23).
All views of Paul's doctrine of sin are one-sided or
exaggerated which exclude from human nature this
possible discernment of the good and the capacity to
desire and strive for it. Paul's doctrine of sin is not
the whole of his doctrine of human nature. The
dominion of sin over man is by no means equivalent
to that identification of his will with sin which de
scribes his nature as such to be sin and guilt, — a view

THE DOCTRINE OF SIN 159
which would make all men as bad as they could be ;
in short, would describe all men as absolutely dia
bolical, and that from the very moment of birth.
This chapter may fitly close with the just statements
of Neander respecting the Pauline anthropology :
"Paul certainly represents a corruption of human
nature as the consequence of the first sin, and admits a
supremacy of the sinful principle in the human race, but
not in such a manner that the original nature of man as
the offspring of God, and created in his image, has been
thereby destroyed. Rather he admits the existence in
man of two opposing principles, — the predominating
sinful principle, and the divine principle, depressed and
obscured by the former, yet still more or less manifesting
its heavenly origin. Hence he deduces an undeniable
consciousness of God aud an equally undeniable moral self-
consciousness as a radiation from the former. And as he
recognizes an original and universal revelation of God to
the human consciousness, so also he acknowledges in
human nature a constitution adapted to receive it ; as
there is a self-testimony of God, in whom the spirit of
man lives, moves, and exists, so also there is an original
susceptibility in human nature corresponding to that
testimony. The whole creation as a revelation of God,
especially of his almightiness and goodness, is designed
to arouse the spirit of man to a perception of this inward
revelation of God." 1
1 Planting and Training of the Christian Church, Bohn ed.
i. 428, 429; Am. ed. pp. 392, 393.

CHAPTER VII
THE DOCTRINE OP THE LAW
By the term " the law " (6 vbpos) Paul generally
means the Mosaic system. When vbpos has the ar
ticle, the reference is to the Mosaic law specifically ;
where the article is omitted, he still refers to that
law, but contemplates it more generically, as the ex
pression of the divine will.1 This distinction may be
easily tested by reference to the second chapter of
Romans. In that chapter the apostle is comparing
the Jews, who have a system of positive enactments
(vbpos), with the Gentiles, who have not. The use
of vbpos is ordinarily generic. " As many as sinned
in [the possession of] law [iv vbpw] shall be judged
by law [Bid vbpov] ; for not hearers of law [vopov]
are just with God, but the doers of law [vbpov] shall
1 " The article is usually wanting in places where stress is laid,
not upon its historical impress and outward form, but upon the
conception itself ; not upon the law which God gave, but upon law
as given by God, and as therefore the only one that is or can be.
No'/ios, that which law is, — namely, God's ordainment, the expres
sion of the will of God, — has but one historical embodiment ;
namely, o vopos ; genus and species coincide " (Cremer, Bib. Theol.
Lex. of N. T. Greek, sub voce).

THE DOCTRINE OF THE LAW 161
be justified. For when Gentiles who do not have law
[pr/ vbpov e-^ovra] do by nature the requirements of
the law [rd rov vbpov], these not having law [vbpov],
are a law [vdpos] unto themselves, who show the
work of the law [to epyov rov vbpov] written on their
hearts " etc. (Rom. ii. 12-15). It will be noticed
that in all cases where the Mosaic system is contem
plated in a general way in contrast to the mere light
of nature which the Gentiles have, vbpos is used with
out the article ; where, however, that system is specifi
cally referred to, as in speaking of the requirements
or the work of the law, the ethical demands which the
Mosaic law made, the article is used. It thus becomes
evident that the view sometimes held, that 6 vbpos
denotes the Mosaic law, and vbpos moral or divine law
in general, is not strictly correct.1 Both terms refer
to the Mosaic law in the apostle's ordinary usage, but
with the difference between a specific and a generic
reference. No difference in kind exists between o
vbpos and vbpos, but at most a difference in emphasis ;
a difference in form of thought, not in substance or
content. The Mosaic law is for Paul the embodi
ment of the divine law in general ; that by vbpos he
should denote anything different from that law would
be quite contrary to his view of its nature and
purpose. A few additional illustrations of the position here
defined may be given: Gal. iii. 23, 24, "We were
kept in ward under law [virb vbpov]," — the Mosaic
1 See, for example, Holsten, Jahrbiicher fiir prot. Theol. 1879.
11

162 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
law certainly, but generically considered, — " shut up
unto the faith which should be revealed. So that the
law [6 vopos] became our schoolmaster," etc. Of the
substantial identity of vopos and 6 vbpos here there
can be no reasonable question. In Rom. ii. 23-27 the
two expressions constantly alternate : " Thou who
gloriest in [the possession of] law [eV vbpw] , dost thou
dishonor God by the transgression of the law [tov
vbpov] ? " Throughout the whole passage the distinc
tion of emphasis which we have made is clearly trace
able, vbpos being used with general, 6 vbpos with
specific terms, while the identity of content in the
two expressions is unquestionable. It is noticeable
in this connection that vbpos never has the article
when the noun on which it is dependent in the geni
tive is without the article. Hence we always read
epya vbpov, " law-works." We do not find Paul say
ing that men cannot be justified eg k'pywv tov vbpov, —
that is, by fulfilling the demands of the Mosaic sys
tem specifically, — but ig epyav vbpov; that is, by
deeds of legal obedience. The Mosaic law is as cer
tainly meant as if he had written the former phrase,
but it is thought of as the type and summation of
divine law in general, and the principle, ig epywv
vopov oi BiKaiwOr/aerai iraaa adpg ivwiriov avrov
(Rom. iii. 20), thus acquires a wider sweep and more
universal significance.
Such is Paul's characteristic use of vbpos and 6
vopos in his discussion of the subject of justification
and the handling of the relation of the Mosaic system

THE DOCTRINE OF THE LAW 163
to Christianity. But these definitions by no means
exhaust the Pauline usage of vbpos. Instances like
6 vbpos tov Oeov (Rom. vii. 22, viii. 7) — a general ex
pression for the content of the Mosaic law — and 6
vdpos, in Gal. iv. 21 and 1 Cor. xiv. 24, where the term
denotes the law considered as a book, the Thorah, are
not so much exceptions to the general usage as varia
tions in the formal conception. A real departure
from ordinary usage is found, however, in those pas
sages (Rom. iii. 19; 1 Cor. xiv. 21) where o vdpos
appears as a name for the Old Testament as a whole.
This use of the term by synecdoche probably had its
ground in the popular Jewish view of tho law as the
pre-eminent revelation of the divine will, and was no
doubt sanctioned by the ordinary modes of speech.
The paramount authority which the Pharisees assigned
to the law would easily explain this form of expres
sion, especially since the legal spirit in religion which
was so characteristic of this sect would naturally in
vest the whole Old Testament literature with kindred
associations. The passages in wdiich Paul considers that natural
analogue to the Mosaic law which the Gentiles possess
in their consciences, and where he speaks of their hav
ing the work of the law (rb epyov rov vbpov) written on
their hearts (Rom. ii. 14), and even supposes the case
of their keeping the righteous requirements of the
law (ra BiKaiwpara rov vbpov, ii. 26), have sometimes
been referred to as examples of a special usage. They
are so considered by Grafe, who says that in these

164 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
instances " Paul applies the term [vbpos] in a wider
signification to the natural moral consciousness of
the heathen."1 This view appears to me incorrect.
In both these passages, o vbpos is the Mosaic law and
nothing else. Tne point of the apostle is that not
outward possession of the law, but inward obedience
avails with God. Now, if the Gentiles do that which
corresponds to the moral requirements of the Mosaic
system (6 vbpos), even though they do not possess
that system, they would surpass the Jews themselves
in the approval of God, since they (the Jews), though
possessors and hearers of the law, are not doers of it.
Paul does not apply the term " law " to the " natural
moral consciousness of the heathen," but only sup
poses the case of their doing better than the Jewrs
the requirements of the Mosaic law by the mere
guidance of that natural moral consciousness.
A group of passages remains which forms an excep
tion to the prevailing and characteristic usage which
has been defined. Paul sometimes used the word
" law " as a formal term denoting a principle, force,
or order of working. The context and the defining
clauses employed render clear his meaning in these
passages, and prevent confusion. In Gal. vi. 2, where he
exhorts his readers to bear one another's burdens and
so to fulfil " the law of Christ " (b vbpos tov Xpiarov),
his meaning evidently is that the principle which
Christ commanded and illustrated in his life requires
his disciples to share the cares and troubles of others.
1 Die paulinische Lehre vom Gesetz, p. 3.

THE DOCTRINE OF THE LAW 165
In Romans are found many similar examples : " Where,
then, is boasting? It has been excluded. By what
law [or principle] ? Of works ? No, but by a law of
faith [Bid vbpov irlarews] " (Rom. iii. 27). In this
general sense of the word there is a vbpos irlarews, — a
principle or order of faith, as opposed to that of works.
The most striking example of this usage is found in
the description of the conflict between the better self,
the " inner man," and sin in Rom. vii. 7 sq., especially
in verse 23 : " But I find another law [erepov vbpov] in
my members warring against the law of my mind
[rw vbpw tov vods] and making me captive to the law
of sin [eV tco vbpw rr)s dpaprias] which is in my mem
bers." This " other law," or " law of sin," is the bind
ing power of evil, the reign of sin which has estab
lished itself in the flesh, and which antagonizes the
"law of God" (vopw Oeov, verse 25) to which the de
sires consent, and with which the " law of the mind,"
the order and authority of reason and judgment, is in
harmony. With this general account of the apostle's use of
the term " law," we may, for our present purpose, re
turn to his prevailing application of it to the Mosaic
system, and inquire more particularly into his view
of its nature and purpose.
Paul designates by " the law " the whole Mosaic
code. His teaching respecting the law, therefore,
applies to the Mosaic legislation as a whole. The
division'of the law into moral and ceremonial portions
is not made in Paul's writings, and is a modern

166 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
classification. The view which Holsten maintains,
that the ritual portions of the system did not, accord
ing to Paul, belong to the substance of the law,
is destitute of all evidence, and wholly improbable
in itself. In sketching the Jewish mode of life, he
refers, in Gal. iv. 10, to the observance of " months
and seasons and years," and in Rom. ix. 4, ascribes
to Israel as one of its distinguishing possessions the
ceremonial cultus (;; Xarpela). It is almost incon
ceivable that if he had made this distinction in
thinking of the law, he should not have used it
in his controversy with the Judaizing Christians,
against whose positions it could have been turned
to good account. Hence he who insists upon con
tinuing under the law rather than under the gra
cious system of the gospel (cf. Rom. vi. 14), thereby
binds himself to obey the law as a whole (Gal. v. 3),
since the distinctive principle of the law is, " Cursed
is every one that continueth not in all things that
are written in the book of the law, to do them "
(Gal. iii. 10).
The bearing of this point upon the fulfilment of the
law in the gospel is important. It necessitates the
view that upon the apostle's principles the law as a
whole is done away in Christianity. The common
opinion that the ritual portions of the system were
abrogated and the ethical portions were left unaf
fected by the gospel cannot be harmonized with Paul's
statements on the subject. All parts of the law were
fulfilled in the same sense ; their ideal and permanent

THE DOCTRINE OF THE LAW 167
contents of truth were developed, applied, and en
forced. All parts of it were done away in the same
sense ; their provisional and imperfect elements,
whether ritual, ethical, or civil, fell into abeyance
in that progressive course of divine revelation which
culminated in the teaching and work of Christ.
Paul's conception of the law as a unit did not, of
course, preclude his emphasizing, according to his
purpose, certain elements or phases of the law which
we properly distinguish from others, as when, in
Rom. ii. 14, 26, he supposes a doing of the law by
heathen, or in Gal. v. 14, and Rom. xiii. 9, 10, he
declares love to be the fulfilling of the law. In these
cases he must have been thinking of the law in its
ethical requirements, — perhaps, in the first instance,
distinctively of the Decalogue.
Paul teaches that the law was divine in its origin,
and in its nature "holy and righteous and good"
(Rom. vii. 12). It was " ordained through angels by
the hand of a mediator " (Gal. iii. 19), and is " spir
itual" (irvevpariKos, Rom. vii. 14). In his argument to
show how the law quickens the consciousness of sin,
he is careful to guard against the view that this fact-
is due to any moral defect in the law itself. " What
shall we say then ? Is the law sin ? God forbid "
(Rom. vii. 7). In urging the contrast between the
principles and effects of the legal system and those
of the gracious system of promise, he maintains that
there is no conflict between them. " Is the law then
against the promises of God ? God forbid " (Gal.

168 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
iii. 21). The true relation of the law to the gospel
is that of a subordinate position and preparatory
office. The twro come into collision only when this
position and office of the law are misunderstood, and
the law is regarded as a means of salvation, which
in itself it never was and never can be. The under
lying principles of the gospel — grace, faith, and
promise (Gal. iii. 6-9 ; Rom. iv. 13-17) — antedate
the law, and have from the first been operative in
salvation. The law was a subsequent dispensation,
coming in four hundred and thirty years after the
gracious covenant with Abraham which he accepted
in faith. This primitive gospel, which is identical in
principle with the Christian gospel, the later and sup
plemental system can by no means " disannul, so as
to make the promise of none effect " (Gal. iii. 17). It
cannot itself become a means of reconciliation with
God, but remains subordinate to that primal and un
changed order of salvation wdiose source is grace and
whose condition is faith. The law was designed to
emphasize the need of gracious forgiveness, and to
impel men to seek it through Christ. Accordingly it
entered in alongside (irapeiarfXOev, Rom. v. 20) of the
dispensation of grace and promise as auxiliary to it,
in the development of the kingdom of God.
A careful reading of Romans and Galatians dis
closes a considerable difference of tone in the refer
ences to the law in the two epistles. In the latter
there is an apparent disparagement of the law which
is wholly wanting in the former. Paul describes the

THE DOCTRINE OF THE LAW 169
condition of the Jewish Christians before tlieir con
version as a state of " bondage under the rudiments of
the world " (rd aroi%eia rov mapov, Gal. iv. 3) , and
their present disposition to return to the observance
of the law as a turning back again to " the weak and
beggarly rudiments " (rd daOevr) koX irrwyd aroi-yela,
Gal. iv. 9). It cannot be denied that in these ex
pressions he treats the law as representing an ele
mentary stage of religion, and those who still adhered
to it as holding to a system which was weak and poor
in comparison with Christianity.
The difference to which we have alluded, however,
finds a sufficient explanation in the differing occasion
and purpose of the two letters. In the Galatian
epistle Paul was compelled to defend the validity of
his apostleship and the truth of his teaching against
fanatical Judaizers who insisted that Christians must
become Jews. The letter is therefore intensely po
lemic. He must argue against adherence to the law
in the way in which it was advocated by these op
ponents. " If ye receive circumcision," he said,
" Christ will profit you nothing " (Gal. v. 2), — an ex
pression which seems to imply an absolute incompati
bility between circumcision and Christianity. It must
be remembered, however, that the opponents who urged
the necessity of circumcision advocated it as an essen
tial condition of salvation. It was not against cir
cumcision as such that Paul waged his polemic, but
against it when put forth as a rival or co-ordinate
condition of salvation with faith in Christ. That he

170 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
made no objection to circumcision in itself is evident
not only from the fact that he consented to the cir
cumcision of Timothy (Acts xvi. 3), but from his
language in other connections (Rom. ii. 25), and from
the assertion in this epistle that " neither is cir
cumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new
creature " (Gal. vi. 15). There cannot be two ways of
salvation. If faith in Christ is the true way, then
circumcision and deeds of obedience to the law are
excluded. Against those who insist upon this legal
observance as necessary, the apostle must urge witli
all strenuousness that they, in so doing, fall down
upon a lower plane and return to a comparatively
rudimentary stage of revelation, making its require
ments equal or superior to those which have been
revealed in God's fullest manifestation of his will in
Christ. Among the Romans, on the contrary, these
extreme Judaizing tendencies did not exist. They
wrere indeed liable to misapprehend the relation of
the law to the gospel ; and the apostle in his epistle
to them entered at length into the discussion of the
subject, but rather for the purpose of edification and
instruction than for the refutation of zealous and
dangerous fanatics who from mistaken reverence for
the law were perverting the central principles of the
gospel. In discussing this different tone of the two
epistles in the treatment of the lawr, Grafe justly
remarks : —
"We can understand such differences only when we
recognize and appreciate the fact that Paul is not, as he

THE DOCTRINE OF THE LAW 171
is often so urgently asserted to be, the abstract logician
and severe systemizer who develops all his statements
with strict consequence out of a ready-made and fixed
theory. No ! In all his action, thinking, and writing,
Paul, like every forcible religious personality, is, first of
all, intensely interested in the matter which he presents.
His heart wishes to win the opponent, to bring him over
to his own position by every means at his command." 1
Paul's doctrine of the law is developed from a
purely Christological point of view. His aim is to
show how it prepared the way for Christ by deepen
ing the sense of sin and sharpening the desire for
salvation. The historic purpose of the law, to check
transgressions and secure an upright life, he nowhere
dwells upon. It cannot, however, be said that he
does not incidentally recognize it. For example, in
Rom. vii. 10, he refers to " the commandment which
was unto life " (r) ivroXr/ i) et? ^wr]v) ; that is, which
was ordained unto or aimed at securing life. In
Rom. viii. 3, 4, he shows that what the law could not
do, God accomplished by sending his Son, in order
that " the ordinance of the law [to BtKalwpa rod
vopov] might bo fulfilled in us who walk not after
the flesh, but after the spirit." The ordinance, or
righteous requirement of the law, is that just action
which the law contemplates and seeks to secure,
although, for reasons to be separately considered, it
was not able to secure it. The law, then, in the
apostle's view, had as one of its aims to enforce upon
1 Die paul. Lehre com Gesetz, pp. 22, 23.

172 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
human life the righteous demands which it pro
claimed. This is further recognized in 1 Tim. i. 9 :
"Knowing this, that law is not made for a righteous
man, but for the lawless and unruly, for the ungodly
and sinners," etc. Here the statement is general,
vbpos not having the article ; but the Mosaic system is,
most probably, the typical case in mind, and is cer
tainly included in the statement made regarding the
purpose of law to restrain from evil and incite to
righteousness. It will be seen that Paul makes allusion only in
cidentally to the ordinary object of the law which
the Jews recognized. He nowhere dwells upon it at
length or treats it as important. This commonly
recognized aim of the law has become in his mind
wholly subordinate to another, in which it stands more
closely related to the work of Christ ; that aim is to
rouse sin into action as conscious transgression, and
thus to show men their helplessness and need of gra
cious forgiveness through Christ. This idea Paul
had evidently developed in connection with his own
experience. We must seek its genesis in that con
flict which he has portrayed in Rom. vii. 7 sq., — the
passage in which he has most fully described this
negative and preparatory office of the law. There
was a time, he says, when he dwelt in a sense of safety
and repose ; his conscience was quiet and peaceful, but
it was because the sense of sin was inactive and dormant.
He was relatively unconscious of evil desires ; his
mind rested in false security. This was not because

THE DOCTRINE OF THE LAW 173
sin was absent, but because it was " dead." The
moral stupor in wrhich he was living made him insen
sible to the powers of evil that slept within him, and
which needed only an occasion to exert themselves
with unsuspected energy. That occasion came when
the law confronted him with its demands. He then
saw himself in it as in a mirror. It aroused him to a
sense of his real situation ; it awakened the sleeping
power of sin within him ; it disclosed to him his moral
impotence. He now became conscious of his sinfulness
as he had never been before ; and that sin which dwelt
within him was excited to new energy of action by
the law, which opposed and rebuked it. The result
was an increasing conflict between the reason, or
moral judgment, which recognized the law's demands
as right, and the dominating impulses of evil within
him, which perpetually led him into captivity to sin
and seemed to cut off all hope of victory for the better
desires. What purpose did the law serve in this ex
perience ? It did not conduct him to peace ; it could
do nothing but intensify the power of sin and deepen
his sense of it. It could not justify; it could not save.
Rather " the commandment which Avas unto life,"
which in its ideal purpose was designed to conduct to
life, and which in itself was fitted to attain that end,
was, in actual fact, in his experience " found to be
unto death " (Rom. vii. 10) ; that is, it pronounced the
death-sentence upon him, because it disclosed to him
his sinfulness and condemned it, but could afford him
no deliverance from the power and guilt of his sin.

174 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
Hence Paul concludes that the chief purpose and use
of the law. after all, is to show men their sinfulness
and thus to drive them to Christ. It was his own
experience of dissatisfaction and unrest of soul as a
Pharisee which formed the basis of his characteristic
doctrine that the law was given to make transgres
sions abound, in order that men might be led by a
consciousness of sin and a sense of their inability to
overcome it, to resort to the grace of God in Christ
through which alone they could find deliverance. It
was the hopelessness of success in the effort to attain
peace by deeds of legal obedience, which he had him
self experienced, that led Paul to deny that such
peace was attainable by the legal method. If, then, it
was not thus attainable, and the law had power only
to deepen the consciousness of sin and intensify its
energy, it became evident to Paul that this wras the
chief purpose of the law, and that its purpose to secure
righteousness was rather to be regarded as its remote
aim, which, in actual fact, could be realized only
through the gospel. Its first object was to shut men
up in ward until the deliverer Christ should set them
free, and thus through him the ordinance of the law
should be fulfilled in those who live under the power
of the Spirit. Thus to Paul the immediate aim of the
law is seen in this negative and preparatory office
of revealing to men their sins ; and its historic and
ideal end is attained only when the law has driven
men to Clirist, and the true righteousness which the
law contemplates is secured in the Christian life of

THE DOCTRINE OF THE LAW 175
the Spirit. Before proceeding further, it is necessary
more precisely to define this characteristic teaching
of Paul regarding the relation of the law to sin.
This peculiar doctrine meets us only in the Epistles
to the Galatians and the Romans. In addition to the
elaboration of it in connection with his experience
under the law in Rom. vii. 7 sq., — an exposition
which may be called his psychological argument, —
he has developed this view in a historical manner
by appeal to the case of Abraham. In Rom. iv. and
Gal. iii. he shows that Abraham was justified by
faith, not by works. He received the gracious cove
nant of promise before he received the covenant of
circumcision (Rom. iv. 10-13). He was justified
under the gracious dispensation long before the law
came into existence (Gal. iii. 17, 18). It is certain,
therefore, that the law was not necessary to secure
justification, and could never have been intended to
secure it ; it must have had another purpose. " It
was added because of transgressions [rwv irapafidaewv
%dpiv] till the seed should come," etc. (Gal. iii. 19) ;
that is, its purpose was not to justify from sin, which
it never did or could do, but to develop the conscious
ness of sin, intensify its power in the conscience, make
men aware of their condemnation and guilt on account
of it, and so to lead them to Christ for gracious for
giveness. The law thus plays the part of a tutor
who puts men under severe discipline in preparing
them for the freedom which awaits them when they
shall enter by faith into relation to Christ (Gal. iii. 24).

176 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
So far, then, from the law being a means of justi
fication, it is almost the opposite, since " through the
law cometh the knowledge of sin " (Rom. iii. 20) ; so
far from being able to deliver from sin, it rather in
creases its power and welds its fetters closer upon
mankind. It condemns instead of delivering ; and its
direct purpose was to condemn, that through the
sense of guilt the sinner might be guided to Christ
for deliverance. Hence " the law came in beside "
(that is, beside the sin which was working and spread
ing in the world), "that the trespass might abound;
but where sin abounded, grace did abound more ex
ceedingly " (Rom. v. 20). Thus the apostle draws
from the typical case of Abraham's justification, apart
from the law-system, the same conclusion to which
his experience of the futility of seeking justification
by the law had led him ; namely, that the law was
never intended for that purpose, except so far as by
developing the power of sin, it indirectly leads men
to Christ, who does for men " what the law could not
do" (rb aBvvarov rod vbpov, Rom. viii. 3).
The same conviction is forced upon the apostle's
mind from another point of view. The incompati
bility of the idea of meritorious salvation by legal
obedience and the idea of gracious justification by
faith compels a choice between these two principles.
In connection with the demonstration from the Old
Testament that the law never has justified men, there
is added the consideration that such a legal justifica
tion, if conceived to be possible, would exclude and

THE DOCTRINE OF THE LAW 177
nullify the most characteristic truth of the gospel
that salvation is of grace, and has been effected for
men by the death of Christ, whose benefits are appro
priated by an act of trust. " If there had been a law
given which could make alive, verily righteousness
would have been of the law" (Gal. iii. 21). There
would have been no gospel-system if justification by
the law had been possible. The very existence of the
gospel, therefore, proves that the law was not intended
to justify, but must have had some other object. " If
righteousness is through the law, then Christ died for
naught " (Gal. ii. 21), but the supposition that Christ
should die for naught is absurd ; hence the law was
not intended to secure righteousness to men, but to
increase sin.
In what sense did the apostle hold that it was the
purpose and effect of the law to increase sin ? Was
it to increase sin merely in men's consciousness of it,
— to increase it subjectively ? He certainly teaches
this : " Through the law cometh the knowledge of
sin ; " "I had not known sin except through the
law ; " " Apart from the law sin is dead ; " " But sin
that it might be shown to be sin by working death to
me through that which is good [the law] ; that
through the commandment sin might become exceeding
sinful" (Rom. iii. 20; vii. 7, 8, 13). But does the
law also increase sin actually and objectively ? To
this it must be answered that in Paul's view the law
calls out and develops sin into unwonted strength by
arousing sinful desires which were before latent in
12

178 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
men, and thus sharpening the opposition between in
dwelling sin and the law's righteous demands. The
dpapria, which is often latent or " dead," is roused
into activity and intensity, and in that sense in
creased ; it is developed into open opposition, and is
brought out into actual transgression. " Where there
is no law, neither is there transgression [irapdftaais] ,"
(Rom. iv. 15) ; without law there is dpapria, but
not irapdfiaois. The law does not increase sin, con
sidered as an indwelling principle, but it increases it
in its manifestation, in its activity and expression as
transgression. Sin (dpapria) wrought in him, he
says, through the operation of the commandment, all
manner of coveting (Rom. vii. 8) ; " when the com
mandment came, sin revived," awakened into new
energy and activity. This actual effect of the law in
increasing the expression of sin in transgression, Paul
declares to be the very purpose of the system : " The
law came in alongside [of the power of dpapria] that
the trespass might abound ['Iva irXeovday to irapd-
•n-Twpa]," (Rom. v. 20). The purpose of the law was
not that dpapria as a principle and pervading power
might be increased in the world, but that it might
be brought out in the character of irapdfiaais, and
its latent and deadly power thus shown ; that the
irapdirrwpa — the open transgression of law — might
reveal the depth and danger of the sinful principle of
which it was the expression, in order that men might
be led to seek deliverance from its power by the
grace of Christ. The apostle's view is that the law,

THE DOCTRINE OF THE LAW 179
by creating a reaction in the sinful mind against itself,
intensifies the power of sin and increases its manifes
tation both in the consciousness and in actual trans
gression. If by sin, then, is meant transgression of
law in outward act, the law increases sin ; but it can
not be shown that Paul considers the law to have had
the purpose or effect of adding to the inherent energy
of the sinful principle which pervades human nature
and is the root of sinful actions.
The next inquiry is : On what ground does he affirm
the inability of the law to justify, and why does he
feel himself required to find some other purpose of
its existence than that of saving men ? Neander an
swers this question by saying that man is incompe
tent to perform the epya vbpov in their ideal sense
and content, and that these works, considered em
pirically, do not represent a morality adequate to
meet the divine requirements, but rather " bear the
impress of mere legality in opposition to true piety
and morality."1 There would thus be a double rea
son why the law cannot justify. The power of sin
absolutely precludes a perfect obedience ; and even
such obedience as is rendered is wanting in moral
value, because in the unrenewed man it does not
spring from the right motives and disposition. Ne
ander is careful to add, in the same connection, that
the law's inability to justify is not due to ethical de
fects in the law itself considered as a system of
morals. " The single commandment of love, which
1 Planting and Training, Bohn ed. i. 419 ; Am. ed. p. 385.

180 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
stands at the head of the vbpos (Rom. xiii. 9), contains
in fact everything essential to moral perfection ; and
whoever fulfilled this would be righteous." It is
certainly true that Paul denies to the law as an out
ward, prescriptive authority the power to give life
(2 Cor. iii. 6) or confer the ability to keep its com
mands. The law is indeed perfect in its own nature
and purpose, but these do not include the ability to
impart new life or secure righteousness. In the state
ment of his " empirical " reason for the failure of man
to be justified by law, Neander appears to have ad
vanced beyond Paul's point of view. It is no doubt
true that man's sinfulness renders imperfect such
works of obedience as he may do ; but these works,
so far as they go, are not thought of by the apostle as
morally worthless, but rather as insufficient. In Phil.
iii. 6, to which Neander refers, Paul states that he was
regarded as " blameless " in legal obedience by his
Pharisaic associates rather than that he really was so,
and yet as a Christian he afterward saw all his obedi
ence to have been morally valueless. It is certainly
the impossibility of an adequate obedience to the law
rather than any inherent imperfection of such obedi
ence as is rendered which, to the apostle's mind, makes
futile the hope of justification by legal works. Nean-
der's two reasons seem easily reducible to one. Usteri
maintains that the Mosaic system represented legality
rather than morality, and hence could not justify :
" In the express denial that righteousness before God
could be attained by the method of legal obedience

THE DOCTRINE OF THE LAW 181
lies a denial and renunciation of legal Judaism as a
whole, the assertion of its inadequacy and the demand
for a higher stage of morality than that which the
law represented. " 1
It is important clearly to understand that there is
no incompetency on the part of the law to justify,
resulting from defects inhering in the law itself as a
rule of life. There is therefore no reason, except
such as exists in man himself, why he may not be
saved by the law. So far from this, Paul distinctly
maintains that the law would justify those who should
perfectly obey it. " He that doeth them shall live in
them" (Gal. iii. 12) is the principle which applies;
and the impossibility of success on this principle does
not lie in the inadequacy or incompetency of the law,
but in the inability of men perfectly to obey it.
" Moses writeth that the man that doeth the right
eousness which is of the law shall live thereby "
(Rom. x. 5). Paul quotes these passages to remind
his readers that only " the doers of a law shall be
justified " (Rom. ii. 13), in order that they may clearly
understand how rigorous are the terms on which
justification by merit is to be obtained, and how fruit
less will be the effort, since nothing less than a com
plete obedience will avail. But such an obedience
would avail, and therefore there can be no defect in
the law which makes it unable to justify; the defect
which makes failure certain is solely in man himself.
This is made clear by Rom. viii. 3: "For what the
1 Paulin. Lehrbegriff, p. 52.

182 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
law could not do, in that it was weak through the
flesh [eV a> rjaOevei Bid ttjs aapKos], God, sending his
own son," etc., accomplished. The " flesh " here is
not a name for the weakness of the law itself, but
denotes the sinful element in man which, as was
shown in chapter vii. 7 sq., prevents the law, which
was ideally " unto life," from having the effect to se
cure life, and occasions the development of sin in man
instead. The flesh, which is, strictly speaking, the
seat of sin in man, and thus becomes identified with
sin, reacts against the law, and renders it powerless
to attain the end which it was primarily designed to
secure. The attainment of this aim, however, is ren
dered impracticable merely by human sinfulness,
whose universality and power render justification by
means of the law, as matter of fact, impossible. It
is not correct, therefore, to say that the law is incom
petent to justify ; the Pauline doctrine is that man is
incompetent to fulfil the condition of perfect obedi
ence, and that on this account the way by the law is
shut, and that by gracious forgiveness upon condition
of faith alone remains open.
It is maintained by some 1 that Paul's doctrine of
the law in its relation to sin stands in contradiction
with the historic purpose of the system which the
Jews universally recognized; namely, to restrain trans
gression and incite to righteous conduct. It is affirmed
that the law itself never recognized the aim, wdiich
Paul attributes to it, of multiplying transgressions,
1 For example, Pfleiderer, Paulinismus, p. 106 sq. ; Eng. tr. i. 86.

THE DOCTRINE OF THE LAW 183
and that the purely negative function which he assigns
to the law is without any basis in the Old Testament
itself. These propositions are in part incontrover
tible. It is certain that Paul has developed a new
doctrine of the purpose of the law from his now ac
cepted principle that faith in Christ is the only true
and effective principle of salvation. It is this new
point of view concerning Christ which, in connection
with Paul's experience under the law, furnished the
occasion for his new definition of the law's purpose.
It is a part of the apostle's development of the prin
ciples of grace and faith as applied to salvation.
Finding the law powerless to save or to give peace, on
account of the dominion of sin which the law served
to intensify rather than overthrow, and adopting the
principle of a gracious, as opposed to a merited, salva
tion offered through Clirist, the problem would be
necessarily forced upon his mind, " What purpose,
then, does the law serve ?" Since it does not justify, it
can therefore never have been expected or intended
to justify. What, then, is its object? In reply he
elaborated the doctrine of its relation to sin which we
have traced.
Paul's view of this subject is only an element in his
new view of Christ. Since Christ is the " end of
the law " (reXos vbpov, Rom. x. 4), — that is, since he
puts an end to its validity and fulfils it in himself, —
its purposes must have terminated upon him and have
been in some way subordinate to the truths and prin
ciples of his gracious salvation. It is a difficult ques-

184 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
tion, which conviction took logical precedence in the
mind of Paul, — the conviction of the law's inability
to justify on account of human sinfulness, or the con
viction of Christ's work as the sole ground of justi
fication, from which the other conviction would flow
as an inference. Holsten and Pfleiderer have elabo
rately developed the latter opinion. It may perhaps
be a vain attempt to define the relations of the two
ideas, which are involved in each other. One point,
however, is clear ; namely, that the development of
Paul's view concerning the law had its primal motive
in his personal experience, which he has described
in Rom. vii. 7 sq., although it could have been fully
wrought out only by reflection upon the idea of an
unmerited acceptance that formed the positive coun
terpart to those convictions of failure and hopeless
ness which he had developed in his efforts at legal
obedience. In the unfolding of the doctrine we have,
no doubt, these two co-operating factors, — the ex
perience of the futility of seeking justification on
grounds of legal merit, culminating in the despairing
exclamation, " 0 wretched man that I am, who shall
deliver me ? " and the assured certainty that the law
could not justify, which flowed from the conviction,
so clear to Paul since his conversion, that in Christ
was the only ground of hope, and that the law had its
deepest meaning and truest use as a means of leading
men to him. I therefore regard Paul's experience
under the law as furnishing the starting-point for his
view of it, although that experience alone could never

THE DOCTRINE OF THE LAW 185
have led him to its full development. It was only
when Christ was accepted as a Saviour that the whole
problem of the law's purpose grew clear to his mind,
and the difficulties and perplexities which he had
felt, as a Pharisee, were both understood and relieved.
The genesis of his doctrine of the law is accordingly
to be explained, not from a single fact or principle, —
as, for example, from his doctrine of the cross, — but
from that complex and progressive experience which,
in connection with reflection, enabled him to develop
step by step his whole system of doctrine. His dis
satisfaction with himself and his sense of failure as
a Pharisee would never of itself have led him to
the view which he has elaborated, but it remains the
logical starting-point from which his mind takes its
departure from the common view ; and when once the
crisis comes, and Christ is seen as Redeemer, the full
development of the law's relation to him is a necessity
of reflection for which his life under the law had
already prepared the way.
The doctrine thus has its ground both in this expe
rience and in the acceptance of Jesus as a Saviour ;
that is, in the total spiritual history of the apostle,
in the organic development of his moral life, and in
the essential relations between his pre-Christian expe
rience and his reflection upon Christian salvation as
accepted by him. His opinions cannot be fairly esti
mated or rightly understood except in the light of
those varied, yet related, experiences and reflections
which give unity and continuity to his life. Hence

186 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
the necessity which we have urged (chap, i.) of find
ing in his moral career and condition as a Pharisee
a point of connection for his Christian teaching,
and of avoiding that complete sundering of his life
after his conversion from his pre-Christian moral
history, — a portion of his career whose experiences
must have affected his theology as profoundly as the
experience of Augustine before his conversion affected
the system which he subsequently developed.1
How may we suppose that Paul regarded his pecu
liar doctrine of the law in its relation to the common
view of its aim, which, as we have seen, he himself
also incidentally recognizes ? He has furnished us
no materials for a definite answer to this question.
He does not bring the two views of the law into com
parison, or in any^vay consider them in their relations.
He betrays no consciousness of contradiction between
them, and no sense of any difficulty arising from the
affirmation of both. It is possible that Paul did not
1 The general view here taken is sanctioned by Grafe in his
essay already cited, although it is only briefly touched upon in
these words (following an allusion to Holsten's opinion that
Paul's view of the law is an inference from his doctrine of the
cross) : " Wie glauben vielmehr, dass auch ein praktischer Grund
fur den Apostel mitbestimmend gewesen ist, der eincrseits ihm
seine logischen Schliisse, die er an den Tod Christi kniipfte, nahe
legte, anderseits seine eigenthiimliche Lehre von dem Verhalt-
nisse des Gesetzes zur adp(-, wesentlich beeinflusste. Diescn
praktischen Grund erblicken wir in der vom Apostel unter
schwersten inneren Kampfen errungenen Erfahrung von der Un-
moglichkeit, durch Gesetzeswerke Gerechtigkeit und Frieden
mit Gott zu erlangen." Die pculin. Lehre v. Gesetz, p. 11.

THE DOCTRINE OF THE LAW 187
reflect upon their adjustment, but, in accord with his
changed view of the law, defined its aim to be the
quickening and intensifying of sin, without considering
whether this doctrine could be harmonized with the
idea that the purpose of the law was to restrain men
from sin, to check transgressions, and thus to aid in
securing righteousness of life, — the idea of the law's
purpose which was central and controlling in the Old
Testament and in Jewish religious thought. But if
we consider the tendencies of Paul's mind to system
atic thought, the great prominence which his new
doctrine of the law assumes, and the fulness with
which it is set forth, it is not easy to see how the
problem of the relation of those two aims of the law,
so evidently different and even apparently inconsis
tent, could have escaped his attention. How, then,
can he have supposed that the statement that the
law, if kept, would justify and save, and the proposi
tion that the law was not given to save, but to deepen
the knowledge of sin and to intensify its power, could
both be maintained or made to agree together ? Can
they, on Pauline principles, be harmonized with each
other ?
The problem can only be solved by the recognition
of Paul's principle that the gospel — that is, the gra
cious promise of God implying faith as the condition of
its acceptance and fulfilment — antedated and under
lay the legal system. The law, in its strict sense, was
to Paul but a part of God's ancient dispensation, and
not its most essential and enduring part. There was

188 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
a gospel before the law, wdiich continued operative
during the period over which the legal system held
sway. Now while, abstractly considered, complete
obedience to the law's requirements would entitle one
to salvation, yet, in concrete fact, no person has been
or can be saved thus, because of the powrer of sin in
all men. Practically, then, the law cannot save,
though this fact results from no fault of its owm
(Gal. iii. 21 ; Rom. viii. 3). All, therefore, who have
been saved in Old Testament times, as well as since,
have been saved by grace, as was Abraham ; and the
law may be left out of the account in considering the
direct, practicable means of salvation. Hence Paul
both agrees with the common view regarding the law
and differs from it. He agrees with it so far as to
impute no moral defect to the law and to maintain
the abstract possibility of salvation by it, if perfect
obedience is rendered ; but he differs radically from
the common view on the question of fact, whether
such obedience ever is or can be rendered. The radi
cal difference of Paul's from the common Jewish view
is not in respect to the law as a perfect standard and
rule of life, but in respect to man's capacity to keep
it. He differed also, no doubt, in respect to the
scope of its requirements. To Paul obedience, in
order to avail for salvation, must be complete. His
deeper moral nature and more scrupulous conscience
enabled him to see that no obedience met the require
ment of God which did not extend to the whole scope
of the law's demands and fulfil its highest obligations.

THE DOCTRINE OF THE LAW 189
His keen perception of the loftiness of these demands,
combined with his intense sense of human sinfulness,
convinced him that this was in no case possible.
What, then, is the conclusion ? The law cannot
have been meant to accomplish what it never does
and never can do. It could not therefore have been
intended to be a means of justification; but this fact
in no way precludes its usefulness in warning men
against the consequences of sin and in operating as a
check against evil actions. But even while it did
this, it might at the same time be quickening the con
sciousness of sin within the man and bringing his
real sinfulness to light. The law might intensify sin
in one sense, even while restraining it in another.
The law's restraining power operates in the sphere of
action ; its function of increasing sin is exercised in
the inner sphere of conscience. The law forbidding
adultery may prevent the commission of the overt act,
while at the same time it provokes inward opposi
tion to itself and makes sinful desire not only more
plainly felt, but in fact more intense. Thus Paul's
incidental allusions to the common view of the law as
given to check sin belong to a different sphere of
reflection and of action from that under contempla
tion when he depicts the office of the law in arousing
the power of sin in the heart and conscience. A part
of the answer to our problem is therefore to be found
in the real difference between Paul's opinion and the
common view respecting the practicability of justifi
cation by law.

190 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
Another aid to the solution of the question, also
connected with his doctrine of the primal gospel of
grace and faith, will appear if we raise the inquiry,
Does the law, then, which was ordained unto life, and
was intended to secure life (?J ivroXij -r) els ^w-tjv, Rom.
vii. 10), fail to attain this end, because its direct effect
was to condemn rather than to save ? The answer is
that, according to Paul's view, the law secures the
end for which it was originally given indirectly or
mediately, by shutting men up under sin until they
accept a gracious deliverance. Paul found this com
mandment, which was ordained to secure life, to be
unto him a minister of death; but it was, in turn,
through this "death" which he incurred through the
operation of the law, that the law became instru
mental in finally securing life for him. The law put
him to death ethically — pronounced upon his proud
strivings the merciless death-sentence — that he might
see his hopelessness, and resorting to God for needed
mercy, be quickened with a new life in Christ. Until
the law came to him on this severe mission he was
alive (Rom. vii. 9) in proud security and confidence,
but the law extinguished this haughty spirit, not of
its own action and motion, but by setting into opera
tion the power of indwelling sin (verse 13) ; he sank
under the crushing power of his sin and the law's
condemnation of it, until he at length found deliver
ance and life through Jesus Christ. It is clearly the
apostle's view that the only wray in which the law is
effective toward securing life is in so exhibiting to

THE DOCTRINE OF THE LAW 191
men their sinfulness and the peril and hopelessness
which it involves that they will be constrained to
seek a gracious salvation. Thus the law may be said
to conduct to life indirectly, because it is one agency
by which men are taught their need of Christ and led
to seek his aid.
It thus appears that the Jewish historical view of
the law and Paul's conception of its Christological
aim would be adjusted, upon Paul's principles, by say
ing that while both he and they recognize the ade
quacy of the law as a guide to life and duty, he denies,
while they assume, the actual possibility that men
should be saved by works of obedience to it ; or,
stated in other terms, he declares that the power of
sin in men is so strong that they are unable to con
form their lives completely to the law's requirements,
and without such conformity they cannot be saved by
obedience. This view does not, however, exclude the
usefulness of the law in deterring men from evil
actions by its threats of penalty. So far as Paul ad
mits the truth of the common view of the law, — and
to the general proposition that it had life for its aim
he consents, — the peculiarity of his view is that it
attains its end in a way quite different from that
commonly supposed. It secures life not immediately
and by obedience to itself, — which has been shown to
be impossible, — but indirectly by conducting- sinful
men to Christ. The law leads to life, but it does so
through that moral "death" by which self -righteous
ness is slain and the sinner is brought in helpless-

192 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
ness and self-surrender to the feet of the life-giving
Christ. The principles of Paul would necessitate the view
that to make transgressions abound has always been
the function of the law ; that even in Old Testament
times it served not to justify, but to convince of sin,
and so to turn men to the gracious God, who promised
pardon upon repentance. Thus the operation of the
correlative principles of debt and works may be con
sidered to have contributed, so far as men proved their
futility, to the more eager acceptance of the contrasted
principles of grace and faith, which are also corre
lates, and which constitute for Paul the essentials of
the primitive and changeless gospel.
It is not claimed that the apostle has explicitly fol
lowed out these lines of thought which we have been
tracing. It is maintained, however, that they are ap
plications of his oft-repeated principles which must be
made if we will adjust his statements to each other
or bring certain parts of his teaching into a rational
unity with other parts.
It will thus be seen howr great a revolution in Paul's
conception of the law must have been wrought in his
mind by his changed view of Christ. The whole legal
system falls at once into a subordinate place, and
assumes a rudimentary and preparatory character.
In coming to this opinion Paul was but falling into
line with the frequent representations of the prophets,
who proclaimed the temporary character of the Jewish
system, and whose philosophy of Jewish history was

THE DOCTRINE OF THE LAW 193
founded upon the principle that it was to issue in
something larger, more universal, and more spiritual,
when the Messiah should come and establish his king
dom. Perceiving this, the apostle clearly pointed out
that they only were the true devotees of the law who
accepted him for whom the law prepared ; that the
true Jews, the real sons of Abraham, were those who
in faith like Abraham's received the revelation which
God had made in the fulness of time in his Son. He
therefore pays the truest honor to the law who sees it
in its relation to Christ. The Mosaic system acquires
a greater glory from being a servant and forerunner
to Christ than it can have in itself, and greater than
that with which they seek to clothe it who maintain
its own sufficiency and perpetuity. Its true glory is
that it is one of the dispensations of God by which he
is training the world for Christ ; one method of divine
revelation which serves an important though tem
porary purpose, — a purpose which is at length con
summated in him who fulfils the law and puts an
end to its existence in respect to the attainment of
righteousness for every one who believes on himself
(Rom. x. 4).
That the legal system as such is brought to a ter
mination by the gospel is so obvious a corollary to
the whole doctrine of Paul which we have been trac
ing, that we should be obliged to attribute to him this
view of the subject even if he had not expressed him
self explicitly upon the subject. This, however, he
has done, and that in striking harmony with those
13

194 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
sayings of Jesus which are preserved to us in respect
to his relation to the Jewish system. He had affirmed
that he came to accomplish for the law, not a process
of destruction, but one of fulfilment. It was not his
intention to break with the legal system, and to estab
lish his truth and kingdom de novo. On the contrary,
he came to live and teach in the line of the law's
true purpose and meaning. He came to complete
that which in the law existed in a temporary and in
many respects in an imperfect form. He came to
develop by an organic process out of the old system its
ideal content, so that no part of it should be lost or
fail to attain its divinely intended aim (Matt. v. 17-
20). He cited examples of this process of fulfilment,
showing the way in which he unfolded the essential
and unchanging ethical and spiritual principles which
— sometimes in the law itself, and yet more frequently
in the traditional interpretations of it — were embodied
in inadequate forms, adapted only to the condition of
a rude age, and containing concessions to the hard
ness of men's hearts which could not be permanently
permitted (Matt. xix. 8). In teaching that he who per
ceived that love to God and man was more acceptable
to God than sacrifices, was not far from the kingdom
of God (Mark xii. 33, 34), and that the relation of the
Sabbath to man was that of means to end, he un
folded principles which were far-reaching in their
scope, and which could not fail to issue in the prin
ciple which is fundamental in Paul's thoughts;
namely, that in Christianity the essential ethical con-

THE DOCTRINE OF THE LAW 195
tent of the law is taken up, embodied, and preserved,
while its elements of imperfection and such of its pro
visions as are, in the nature of the case, temporary, fall
away in the process of fulfilment, as the blossom falls
away in the development of the fruit. More clearly
still did Jesus' teaching that his gospel was no mere
amendment of Judaism — no patch to be sewed upon
the old garment, but something new and complete in
itself — plainly declare the divine purpose that in the
gospel the old system as such was to pass away. The
new wine of Jesus' teaching demanded new wine-skins,
— that is, his gospel could not be held within the
forms of the Jewish religion, but must be left free to
give expression to its universal truths, principles, and
laws in ways adapted to its own nature and spirit
(Mark ii. 21, 22; Luke v. 36-39). In this connec
tion Luke reports the striking remark of Jesus that
" no man having drunk old wine desireth new ; for he
saith, The old is good " (verse 39), — an expression
which conveys the idea (so abundantly illustrated
in the early days of Christianity, and indeed in all
Christian history) that men cannot readily adjust their
minds to the truth of the newness and completeness
of the gospel, but will still cling persistently to some
conception which makes it an appendix to the Old
Testament system, or at most a mere continuation,
rather than a true fulfilment of it.
Whether Paul was familiar with these sayings of
Jesus or not, we cannot say. It is in any case cer
tain that he clearly discerned the principles which

196 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
underlay them and wrought them into his whole sys
tem of thought. His view cannot be fully determined
by the citation of individual passages, since it is often
assumed rather than expressed, and rather pervades
his argument than forms the subject of explicit demon
stration. Since the law has its whole purpose in lead
ing up to Christ and in helping to prepare the world
for him, it must fall away when it has accomplished
that purpose. The law " was added because of trans
gressions, till the seed should come to whom the
promise hath been made." " So that the law hath
been our tutor to bring us unto Christ, that we might
be justified by faith. But now that faith is come, we
are no longer under a tutor" (Gal. iii. 19, 24, 25).
" For Christ is the end of the law [reX-o? vbpov] unto
righteousness to every one that believeth " (Rom.
x. 4). Most interpreters now agree that reXos vbpov
here means, not the ideal aim (as Bengel,1 Lange,
Alford), but is to betaken literally, and denotes the
completion, the termination of the legal system, and
therefore asserts that the purpose and effectiveness
of the law as an aid to the attainment of righteous
ness have come to an end in Christ (so De Wette,
Meyer, Godet, Weiss). This statement would then
be equivalent, not to an assertion of the law's destruc
tion, but to an affirmation that all its uses as a guide
to righteousness are met and fulfilled in Christ ; that
there is therefore no assistance to be derived from
the law for the attainment of righteousness of life
1 "TeXos, finis, et -ifS-fipapa, complemenlum, sunt synonyma."

THE DOCTRINE OF THE LAW 197
which is not more easily and completely secured in
Christ. In the plainest terms, though quite incidentally in
the course of his argument, the apostle asserts the
abrogation of the legal system. " For if that which
passeth away was with glory, much more that which
remaineth is in glory" (2 Cor. iii. 11). Here "that
which passeth away " is defined in the context as
" the letter," " the ministration of death engraven
on stones" (verses 6, 7). In his argument against
the tenets of the Colossian heretics (who united in
their strange doctrines heathen Gnostic elements with
the extreme legalism of the Essenes), he urges his
readers to maintain their independence of the Jewish
observances whose necessity the errorists referred to
urged upon the Christians. " Let no man judge you,"
he says, " in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a feast
day or a new moon or a sabbath day," and then adds,
in a comprehensive statement, his whole philosophy of
the nature of the legal system in its relation to Christ,
" which are a shadow of the things to come ; but the
body is Christ's "(Col. ii. 16, 17). With this passage
may be compared Gal. iv. 9-11, where Paul is re
buking the Galatian Christians for their return to the
law, — " the weak and beggarly rudiments whereunto
they [ye] desire to be in bondage." Then he adds :
" Ye observe days, and months, and seasons, and years.
I am afraid of you, lest by any means I have bestowed
labor upon you in vain." To the apostle this contin
ued adherence to Jewish forms signifies (at least in

198 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
the case of Gentile converts) so defective an under
standing of the principles of the complete and self-
sufficient gospel of Christ, that he is almost ready to
despair of those who are led into it.
In Paul's view the full disclosure of God's gracious
purpose and way of salvation is found only in Christ.
His gospel does not need to be supplemented from
the earlier and imperfect stages of revelation. Chris
tianity is lacking in nothing which was of permanent
value in the law. He is entirely in accord with the
writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews in the view
that God has taken away the first, that he might
establish the second (Heb. x. 9). He has completed
the old in the new. The law is indeed worthy of all
honor, but its chief glory will ever be that it served
to usher in the gospel and to prove to mankind a
" tutor unto Christ."

CHAPTER VIII
THE PERSON OP CHRIST
The apostle has not presented in his epistles a
systematically developed doctrine concerning the na
ture and person of the Redeemer. It is wholly im
probable that he ever applied his mind to the problem
of defining the relation to each other of the divine and
human elements in his person. The needs of Paul's
time did not demand such an effort. The two great
obstacles to the progress of the gospel which con
fronted the apostle were the Pharisaic theory of salva
tion by merit, and the general rejection by the Jews
of the claims of Jesus to be the Messiah. It was neces
sary for him to urge upon the men of his time such
facts and arguments as would convince them that
Jesus was the Messiah, and that salvation is by
grace through faith in him ; but into any systematic
effort to define the nature of his personality this task
would not lead him.
We have, however, many incidental references to
the person of Christ which are of such a character as
to reveal the outlines of that picture of the Lord
which must have lain in the apostle's mind. These
are presented in connection with statements concern-

200 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
ing his love, sufferings, and exaltation, and are most
numerous in the third group of his epistles, where
they occur in the course of his refutation of the false
gnosis which made Christianity an esoteric doctrine,
and degraded Christ to the rank of created beings.
The titles which are applied to him are also impor
tant in determining the apostle's idea of his person.
In the first two groups of epistles the references to
Christ's person are more incidental than in the third
group. In both of these earlier groups the special
subjects which are under consideration preclude any
direct discussion of this theme. It will be found,
however, that the elements of the views which are
more fully presented in the Epistles of the Imprison
ment are already present in the earlier letters. We
shall first consider the titles and allusions which are
found in the first two groups, and then trace more in
detail the fuller descriptions which are presented in
the third.
Paul's personal knowledge of Christ began with the
revelation to him of the ascended and glorified Lord.
By this beginning his modes of thought and manner
of speaking of him would naturally be determined.
We should expect to find that the conception of him
as the risen Lord, exalted to divine glory and power,
would be fundamental and controlling in the apostle's
mind. Reference to the lordship of Christ pervades
the great doctrinal letters. It is one of the chief
marks of his ministry that he preaches Jesus Christ
as Lord (Kvpios, 2 Cor. iv. 5). The fundamental

THE PERSON OF CHRIST 201
fact in the Church's confession is that Jesus is Lord
(1 Cor. xii. 3 ; Rom. x. 9) ; and there is no more
common formula in the apostle's writings than
" Jesus Christ our Lord," or " our Lord Jesus Christ."
By this title Paul uniformly implies a special au
thority and mastership of Christ over all believers.
Christ as the heavenly Lord is the sole mediator of
salvation ; his commands are decisive for the Church,
and before him men must stand in judgment.
But Christ is not merely Lord of the Church, but
sovereign of the world (Kvpios irdvrwv, Rom. x. 12 ;
cf. 1 Cor. xv. 27). Old Testament language which
was used of Jehovah is freely applied to him (1 Cor.
x. 22; Rom. x. 13), and according to the more prob
able interpretation of Rom. ix. 5, he is there extolled
as the One " who is over all, God blessed forever." a
The grounds on wdiich this interpretation is preferred
to that which places a period after the word " flesh "
(adpKa) and renders the remainder of the verse as a
doxology to God (see marg. R. V. ) are, briefly stated,
as follows : (a) A doxology to God would seem to
1 For an elaborate defence of the view that the passage is a
doxology, see an essay by Dr. Ezra Abbott in the Journal of the
Society for Biblical Literature and Exegesis for 1881 (reprinted in
Dr. Abbott's Critical Essays), and for an equally exhaustive
argument for the contrary view, Dr. Timothy Dwight in the same
number of the journal just referred to. Among textual critics
Lachmann and Tischendorf sanction the former view by their
punctuation; per contra, Scrivener, and Westcott and Hort.
Among well-known interpreters the former view is represented
by Baur, Beyschlag, and Meyer ; the latter by Ritschl, Godet, and
Weiss.

202 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
be more abrupt in the connection than an ascription
of praise to Christ, which would be occasioned by the
mention of him as the crowning glory of Israelitish
history, (b) As applied to Christ, the words form a
natural antithesis to to Kara adpKa. Christ is de
scended from the fathers of Jewish history on the
adpg side of his being, but he is God over all in his
essential nature, (c) The lofty attributes and pre
rogatives of creation and sovereignty over the world
which Paul elsewdiere ascribes to Christ (especially
in Colossians and Philippians ; for example, Col. i. 16 ;
Phil. ii. 6-8) appear to overbear the objection that Paul
does not elsewhere designate Christ as Oeos. Those
who maintain the genuineness of the Epistle to Titus
may, however, appeal to ii. 13 as an instance in
which, according to the grammatical probabilities of
the case, Christ is spoken of as Oeos- Grammatical
usage certainly favors the application of both appella
tives peydXov Oeov and awrrjpos, which are connected
by Kal, under a common article, to the same person.
These considerations serve, we think, materially to
weaken the argument from Paul's common usage.
The plenitude of divine attributes (irav rb irXrjpwpa
rrjs OebrvTos, Col. ii. 9) is ascribed to Christ, and ac
cording to the interpretation which is at least as
plausible as its opposite, he is directly called Oeos in
Titus ii. 13.1
1 So Wiesinger, Van Oosterzee, Weiss, Ellicott ; per contra,
Winer, De Wette, Huther. For a concise presentation of the
grounds of the interpretation which is adopted in both our Eng-

THE PERSON OF CHRIST 203
The exalted Christ is the Son of God in a meta
physical sense, is one in nature with the Father, and
shares with him the glory wdiich is the prerogative
of Deity. His sonship to God was determined
(bpiaOels) in the fact that God raised him from the
dead (Rom. i. 4). The resurrection was that divine
act of power by which he was instated into the dignity
of sonship, although he was truly God's Son before,
and as such was sent into the world (Rom. viii. 3 ;
Gal. iv. 4). As Son Jesus occupies a unique position
in the universe, since all things are subject to him
(1 Cor. xv. 28 ; cf. viii. 6), and sustains a unique
relation to God, since he is " the image of God " (eUcov
rov Oeov, 2 Cor. iv. 4 ; Col. i. 15), and before his com
ing to earth was " rich " in the glory of the Father
(2 Cor. viii. 9). The titles " Lord " and " Son," and
the functions and prerogatives which, in connection
with them, are ascribed to Christ, are not indeed
equivalent to a formal definition of his essence ; but
in any fair estimate of their meaning, they decisively
show that in his essential relation to God, Christ was
a wholly unique Being, who before his advent to earth
shared the divine nature and glory, and wdio, in his
exaltation after the resurrection, only enters in a
formal and demonstrative manner upon a dignity
which corresponds to his essence and inherent right.
lish versions, see Ellicott in loco. An elaborate article on the
other side by Dr. Ezra Abbott may be found in the Journal of the
Society for Biblical Literature and Exegesis for 1881 (reprinted
in Critical Essays).

204 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
In connection with the exalted dignity and preroga
tives of Christ thus presented, Paul teaches a certain
subordination on his part to the Father. He is the
Executor of the Father's will, the Mediator of the sal
vation which the Father has resolved upon. His re
lation to God is likened to that of the wife to the
husband (1 Cor. xi. 3). In his exaltation, as in his
humiliation, he is the agent who executes the Father's
purposes. God has committed to him the wrork of
completing the salvation of mankind, after which he
is to resign his sovereign authority to him from whom
he received it (1 Cor. xv. 28). It should be noticed
that this subjection of himself on Christ's part is
affirmed in connection with his delivery over to the
Father of the completed kingdom and the resignation
of his office as the Mediator of salvation, and that the
end contemplated in it is " that God may be all in
all." As Christ wTas exalted by the divine will, after
his humiliation, to the throne of sovereignty, so after
the completion of his office he will, still in dependence
upon the divine will, resign this function, that the
divinely completed work of salvation may appear.
The subordination affirmed is therefore rather one of
office through the resignation of the mediatorial throne,
than of nature or essence. He delivers over the com
pleted kingdom, and vacates his office as its admin
istrator because his work is finished, and that the
perfect result may appear to the praise of the Father.
It is not surprising that the apostle, in developing
his thoughts of Christ from this beginning, should not

THE PERSON OF CHRIST 205
refer in detail to the events of his earthly life. But
from this fact the conclusion should not be drawn
that he was unacquainted with these events, at
least with the most important of them.1 Who can
believe that, even if he had been ignorant of the lead
ing facts of Christ's life before, he would not have
acquainted himself with them in his associations with
the primitive apostles ? Could he have passed fifteen
days with Peter (Gal. i. 18) and not have inquired
about the words and deeds of the Lord whom he now
worshipped and served as Master and Saviour ? Nor
should it be held (with Pfleiderer2 and others) that
Paul would be indifferent to the events of Christ's
earthly life because he claimed to have received his
gospel, not through human intervention, but by direct
revelation. It is a forced interpretation which infers
from Paul's determination to know only " Christ, and
him crucified " (1 Cor. ii. 2) that he was concerned in
his doctrine of Christ only with the fact of his cruci
fixion, and not with the other events in his career.
He will know only Christ crucified, not as a contrast to
knowing other facts concerning hira, but as a contrast
to the speculative wisdom to which the Corinthians
were inclined. By an equally misplaced emphasis
does Pfleiderer infer from Gal. ii. 6 that Paul would
not receive information concerning Christ from the
primitive apostles (per contra, cf. 1 Cor. xv. 3), wdio,
1 On Paul's knowledge of Jesus' personal history, cf. Hausrath,
Der Apostel Paulus, pp. 142, 143.
2 Der Paulinismus, p. 112 ; Eng. tr. i. 124.

206 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
he says, " imparted nothing " to him. But the con
text plainly shows that in this statement he is deny
ing, not the impartation of information concerning
Jesus' earthly life, — a matter wholly aside from his
purpose, — but the addition of any new or different
teaching concerning the principle and method of
salvation. So far from imparting anything to him
(that is, correcting or supplementing his teaching in
regard to the freedom of the Gentiles from the Mosaic
enactments, — the real subject in hand), they gave to
him and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship, and
agreed that each group of apostles should labor in
its own field (Gal. ii. 9), — a compact which involved
the imposition upon Paul's converts of no require
ment in addition to that which he himself had exacted
of them.
It is true that the Christ whom Paul had seen
(1 Cor. ix. 1 ; xv. 8) was the risen Christ, and that
the conception of him in his glorified character, and
not that of him in his historic manifestation, is the
one which rules his thoughts and forms the starting-
point of his teaching. A few historical facts are,
however, incidentally mentioned in connection with
doctrinal statements. Christ is descended from the
fathers of the Jewish nation (Rom. ix. 5 ; Gal. iii. 16),
and indeed was " born of the seed of David accord
ing to the flesh " (Rom. i. 3). He asserts that he
received from the testimony of others the all-impor
tant facts (eV irpwrois) of Christ's death, burial, resur
rection, and appearances, of which he enumerates five

THE PERSON OF CHRIST 207
in detail (1 Cor. xv. 3-7). He speaks so often of the
crucifixion and sufferings of Christ as to leave no
doubt that he had in his mind a clear and vivid pic
ture of the Lord's death. He has also learned the
circumstances regarding the betrayal of Jesus, and
even the very words in which he instituted his memo
rial supper (1 Cor. xi. 23-25), — knowledge which he
" received from the Lord [dirb rov Kvpiov]," in the
sense of having traced the usage which he found pre
vailing in the Church back to its source in the direc
tions given at tho institution of the ordinance.
These are instances in which Paul clearly professes
dependence upon the traditions of the Lord's words
and deeds, which were the main source of information
in his time. It can by no means be inferred from the
paucity of these references that the apostle had no
information beyond what they contain. We should
rather expect to find in any case a comparative
silence regarding these facts in the treatment of
Christianity by a man of the strongly systematic
and doctrinal bent which characterized Paul, espe
cially when he approaches the subject from the side
of a great experience which he never ceases to regard
as a revelation to him of the person of the glorified
Redeemer. While it is probable that the events of Christ's life,
aside from those connected with his death and resur
rection, did not strongly affect his doctrinal opinions,
which were formed around a different center, the im
pression of the character of Jesus must have been a

208 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
potent factor in the apostle's thinking, although it is
never put into the foreground of his teaching. It
was an essential element in the doctrine of Christ's
vicarious sacrifice for our sins that he was himself
without sin (2 Cor. v. 21). Paul once alludes to the
"meekness and gentleness of Christ" (2 Cor. x. 1),
and several times makes indirect reference to the ex
ample of his love and helpfulness (1 Cor. xi. 1 ; 2 Cor.
v. 14; Gal. ii. 20). But it is obvious that the circum
stances of Christ's earthly life, and the impression of
his pure and holy character as a man, would not be
so prominent and vivid in Paul's mind as in those of
the primitive apostles who had accompanied Jesus in
his labors among men. Paul's thoughts concerning
Christ naturally rise into the sphere of eternity. He
thinks of him less as he was for a few years on earth
than as he now is in the glory of the Father, or as he
was before his humiliation. The transactions which
occurred on earth have their ground for Paul in a
world of eternal principles and truths, and are a reve
lation of purposes of divine love and condescension
which were cherished in the heart of Christ before he
came to earth. Hence it is not the " Christ of his
tory," but the Christ of eternity to whom Paul traces
back the work of salvation (2 Cor. viii. 9; cf. Phil.
ii. 5 sq.).
It has been held by some ^ that Paul falls into an
1 See, for example, Holsten, Zum Evangelium des Paulus und
des Petrus, p. 437, and Ludemann, Die Anthropologic des Apostels
Paulus, p. 120 sq.

THE PERSON OF CHRIST 209
inconsistency regarding the sinlessness of Jesus in
representing him as free from the commission of sin
(2 Cor. v. 21), and yet as partaking on his human
side in the fleshly, sinful nature (eV opoiwpari aapKos
dpaprias, Rom. viii. 3). He had, it is said, the same
sinful flesh (adpg dpaprias) as other men, and would
therefore be the subject of those sinful desires which
are inseparable from it. It will be observed that this
interpretation rests upon a close identification of the
ideas of " flesh " and " sin." It supposes that Paul
regards the flesh as inherently and necessarily sinful,
and therefore naturally infers that if Christ possessed
a " likeness of sinful flesh," he must have been the
subject of the sinful desires which, as a matter of fact,
inhere in human flesh. We have seen, however, in a
previous chapter that this identification as thus made
cannot be maintained.
In the first edition of Der Paulinismus, Pfleiderer,
carrying out the view that the adpg is inherently
sinful, maintained that bpolwpa designates the same
ness in principle between Christ's flesh and hu
man flesh generally ; that is, its sinfulness.1 But
bpolwpa means likeness, not sameness ; it denotes re
semblance, and not identity ; it signifies that which
corresponds to something. The heathen changed
1 See Der Paulinismus, 1 Aufi. p. 153 sq. : Eng. tr. i. 152 sq.
This interpretation, in which he had followed Overbeck and
Holsten, is abandoned by Pfleiderer in the second edition (see
page 131 sq.). Some of his views as expressed in the first edition
are given in the text because they are concisely and clearly pre
sented, and because they are still widely held.
14

210 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
the glory of God into a likeness (bpolwpa) expressed
in an image of corruptible man (Rom. i. 23) ; that
is, they made and worshipped images wdiich were so
shaped as to resemble perishable men. Elsewhere
(Rom. v. 14) the apostle speaks of sinning " after the
likeness [eVt rw bpoiwpan] of Adam's transgres
sion ; " that is, in a similar manner, against an ex
plicit positive command. So here wdiat is said is
that Christ, in order to redeem men from the sin
wdiich had its seat in the flesh, came into the world
in a human form, like that of man's own actually
sinful flesh, — "a visible form like human nature,
which is subject to sin." : If Paul had meant to say
that Christ himself assumed the " flesh of sin," he
could easily have said so by writing eV aapm, dpaprias-
He clearly introduces a statement of similarity, not
of sameness, to guard against just that idea.2
It was essential to Paul's purpose in the passage to
insert the qualifying word dpaprias, because he is dis
cussing the deliverance of man from sin by Christ's
coming into a form like to that of human sinful flesh.
' It is true that bpolwpa means " likeness," and not
" difference." But things wdiich are alike in some
respects may also be different in others equally im
portant. If a writer clearly affirms that two things
are alike for the very purpose of avoiding the infer
ence that they are identically the same, then so far
forth the difference is as essential and emphatic as
1 Thayer's Lexicon.
2 Cf. Weiss, Bib. Theol. § 78 c.

THE PERSON OF CHRIST 211
the resemblance. Such is the case in this instance.
Christ possessed the adpg, — not, however, the adpg
dpaprias of our sinful humanity, but that which was
similar to it; he had all the essential endowments
of the natural man , but without sin. By thus himself
coming in the flesh and not partaking in its sinful
ness, he was able to dethrone sin, which ruled in its
domain, and thus accomplish what the law could not
do because of the resistance which it encountered
from sin.1
Directly connected with the subject of Christ's sin
lessness is the question how the apostle could have
accounted for this sinless personality who yet stands
in the line of descent from the fathers, and so on his
human side is a son of Adam, — the head of a uni
versally sinful race. It can neither be maintained, on
1 In his work Das Urchristenthum, p. 219 sq. Pfleiderer adopts
the opinion that opoiapa may designate a likeness in certain
respects, though not in all, between Christ's flesh and human
flesh generally : " Denn ob das Abbild dem Original, welchem cs
nachgemacht ist, in jeder Hinsicht gleich oder nur in gewisser
Hinsicht (z. B. der Form nach) gleich, in anderer Hinsicht (etwa
dem Stoff nach) ungleich und so nur ahnlich sei, dariiber besagt
das Wort Spolapa lediglich gar nichts." He therefore concludes
that although for our thinking the participation of Christ in the
o-dpi- would necessarily involve the taint of sinfulness which in
evitably (?) clings to it, yet we cannot assume that this was the
case for Paul, especially in the face of his assertion (2 Cor. v. 21)
that Christ knew no sin, and also in view of the most probable
meaning, as he views it, of <rV rfj a-apKi in Rom. viii. 3, which is,
not the destruction of Christ's personal sin in his flesh, but the
destruction of sin in general in his flesh ; that is, in his substi
tutionary life and death in and for humanity.

212 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
the one hand, that Paul denies the supernatural con
ception of Jesus,1 nor, on the other, that the tradition
of his miraculous conception which is embodied in the
First and Third Gospels had ever reached him. He
declares that Jesus was Kara adpKa a descendant of
David (Rom. i. 3), — a belief which may have rested
upon the supposition of Mary's Davidic descent. If,
as many scholars suppose,2 the genealogy given by
Luke is that of Mary, additional plausibility would be
lent to this conjecture. It is improbable that Paul
was acquainted with the traditions respecting the su
pernatural conception and miraculous birth of Jesus ;
but even in that case there is nothing in his language
which is inconsistent with them. And when we con
sider his doctrine of the universal sinfulness of man
kind as descended from Adam, in connection with his
affirmation of the sinlessness of Jesus, the preter
natural origin of his humanity seems to supply the
only means of explaining and harmonizing these two
facts, both of which he so explicitly asserts. We
can only say, then, that although there is no evi
dence that Paul reflected upon this problem, it is
certain that he not only affirms nothing which is in
consistent with the supernatural conception, but that
1 "Er leugnet sie (die ubernatiirliche Erzeugung) indirect
durch die Betonung des Davidssohnshaft nach dem Fleisch, welche
ja die natiirliche Vaterschaft des Davididen Joseph voraussetzt,"
Pfleiderer, Der Paulinismus, 1 Aufl. p. 152 ; Eng. tr. i. 151.
2 For example, Olshausen, Godet (Commentaries in loco);
Weiss, Life of Christ, i. 216 sq. ; Andrews, Life of our Lord,
p. 56 sq.

THE PERSON OF CHRIST 213
on no other supposition can his statements concern
ing Christ's sinlessness, on the one hand, and univer
sal human sinfulness, on the other, be so well adjusted
and harmonized.
Such in brief outline are the teachings of Paul re
specting the person of Christ which find place in his
earlier epistles. They are elements of doctrine rather
than parts of a developed system. They form the
basis of the more elaborate descriptions of Christ's
dignity, office, and work which we meet in Colossians,
Ephesians, and Philippians, to a brief review of which
we will now turn our attention.
In Ephesians Christ is presented as the agent whom
God in eternity appointed to the work of salvation,
and through whom the elect are foreordained unto
adoption as sons (i. 5). Accordingly, when their sal
vation is effected they are described as " created in
Christ Jesus for good works, which God afore pre
pared that they should walk in them " (ii. 10). The
realization in the Church of God's manifold wisdom is
in accordance with " the eternal purpose wdiich he pur
posed in Christ Jesus " (iii. 11). In one passage the
apostle declares that Christ was both the medium and
the end of the creation : " In him were all things cre
ated, in the heavens and upon the earth, things visi
ble and things invisible, whether thrones or domin
ions or principalities or powers ; all things have been
created through him and unto him" (Col. i. 16). As
the associate of the Father in creation, the mediator
of salvation, and the head of the Church, he is the

214 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
possessor of all fulness of divine life and power (Col.
i. 19), "in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and
knowledge hidden" (ii. 3), so that one need not seek
elsewhere for the disclosure of the true divine mys
tery of life and being, as the Colossians were disposed
to do. Accordingly there now dwells in Christ in his
glorified corporeity (awpariKws1) the plenitude of
Deity (Oebrns) (Col. ii. 9), which enables him, as
the possessor of unsearchable riches of power and
grace (Eph. iii. 8), to impart the fulness of di
vine life to believers, and so to occupy the station
of pre-eminence in the universe and to be the chief
in the kingdom of redemption (Col. i. 18; ii. 10;
ii. 19).
The Son of God's love is the " image of the invisi
ble God," — the One who embodies and perfectly ex
presses the divine nature ; the One whose relation as
1 Some interpreters (as R. Schmidt and Pfleiderer) understand
trapariKas to refer to Christ's incarnate life. In this case the
passage would probably mean that Christ was, in his incarnation,
the bearer of the divine fulness in historical reality, as opposed to
the imaginary beings to whom the Colossian false teachers re
ferred. But the apostle seems to be stating a present and contin
uous, rather than a historical, fact in kotoikci. Considering the
subject in hand — the sole sufficiency of Christ as the mediator
of salvation — and the apostle's mode of conceiving of Christ
rather in his heavenly glory and power than in his human mani
festation, the interpretation which refers the expression to his
glorified life in heaven is the more probably correct. So Meyer,
Commentary in loco, and Weiss, Bib. Theol §103 J, note 8; Eng.
tr. ii. 103, note 9. Others combine both ideas, as De Wette,
Exegetisches Handbuch, in loco.

THE PERSON OF CHRIST 215
Son antedates that of every creature (irpwroTOKos
irdavs Krlaews, Col. i. 15), and who existed before the
universe was created (/cat auTo'? iariv irpb irdvrwv,
Col. i. 17). Previous to his incarnation he existed in
a divine form of being (iv popcpfj Oeov, Phil. ii. 6),
which he however surrendered for a servant-form
(popcpi) BovXov, ii. 7), since he did not consider the
equality with God (to elvai 'laa Oew) which he enjoyed
something to be grasped and held (ov-)/ dpiraypbv
¦qyTqaaro) in a selfish spirit, but on the contrary, chose
to surrender the godlike dignity which was his, by
divesting himself of his divine mode of being, thus
renouncing for the time his equal dignity with God
and taking on the human servant-form. The terms
"form of God" and " equality with God" I take to be
substantially equivalent here, and regard them as de
scribing the dignity of which Christ is said in his
humiliation to have emptied himself. For the vari
ous shades of meaning which different interpreters
find in this celebrated passage, I must refer to the
critical commentaries.1 The main point to be noted
in the interpretation is that the translation in our
older English version, " thought it not robbery to be
equal with God," — that is, considered it no presump
tion to claim equality with God, — is incorrect, since it
is clearly the disposition of Christ which led him to his
humiliation, and not his right to claim divine honors,
1 I may here specially mention a lucid exposition of the whole
passage by Prof. A. B. Bruce in his Humiliation of Christ, Lec
ture I.

216 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
which is in point for the apostle's argument. To say
that Christ was conscious of the right to equality with
God, but humbled himself, makes both an awkward
statement and an unnatural antithesis. If this were
meant, the apostle would have needed to write :
"Nevertheless [ov prjv dXXd, vice dXXd] he emptied
himself." There is a perfect appropriateness, how
ever, in the contrast as presented in the other
interpretation : so far from eagerly grasping and
holding his equality with God, so far from insist
ing upon the advantages connected with his divine
form of being, he voluntarily deprived himself of
them.1 This self-exinanition of Christ was accomplished
by his coming into human form (bpolwpa dvOpwirwv,
a-yfipa ti? dvOpwiros) and freely subjecting himself to
the weaknesses of mortal flesh (Col. i. 22 ; Eph. ii. 15).
Following the kenosis as its natural and intended con
sequence, came the humiliation (rairelvwais), which
was realized in his submission of himself to the shame
ful death of the cross. It will not escape the notice
of the careful reader that the context of the passage
makes it evident that it was the willingness of Christ
to humble himself to human conditions and limita
tions which it is Paul's primary purpose to bring out
1 The R. V. renders, "counted it not a prize," — a rendering
which seems to me to be peculiarly ambiguous, and to stand mid
way between the two interpretations which have been referred to.
The revisers add in the margin the rendering explained above,
" a thing to be grasped."

THE PERSON OF CHRIST 217
as furnishing the supreme illustration and lesson of
self-sacrifice.1 This picture of the condescension of Christ is suc
ceeded by a description of his exaltation to the heav
enly seat of honor and power. In return for the
Redeemer's free giving of himself to humiliation and
death, God has elevated him to the mediatorial throne
and conferred upon him a name which is above all
others (the title and dignity expressed in Kvpios
'Ivaovs Xpiarbs, verse 11), to the end that all crea
tures in heaven, earth, and the under-world should
acknowledge his authority and bow in submission to
his will (verses 9-11). This exaltation is elsewhere
more particularly described as a sitting at the right
hand of God (Col. iii. 1 ; Eph. i. 20-22), the position
of honor and favor. There in the regions of heav
enly glory and power (eV rois eirovpaviois, — the
characteristic expression of Ephesians), elevated to
supreme headship over the kingdom of redemption
and with sovereign authority over all terrestrial
1 The thoughts of the passage may be analyzed and tabulated
thus : —
I. Description of Christ's pre-incarnate state.
os ev popcpfj 8eov ; rb eivai laa 6ea.
II. His disposition not to retain the advantages of that state.
(to (ppoveiv o ev Xpto-ra 'inaov f/v.)
ovx dpnaypov rj-yrjaaro ro elvai 'laa Bern; iavrbv ettevuio-ev.
III. In what his kenosis consisted.
poptyrjv SoiiXov Xd/3coc, ev opoiatpari dvBpamuiv yevopevos, Kal
axopaTi evpe8e\s as tivOpcoTros.
IV. The humiliation.
yevopevos imJKOos pe%pi Bavdrov, davarov de aravpov.

218 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
powers, he will continue to fulfil his " ministry of
reconciliation " until the purposes of God's redeeming
love to man shall be accomplished.
The dignity of Christ's person as the seat of all
divine fulness (irX-ijpwpa) of life and power, in oppo
sition to certain Gnostic speculations concerning
angels and other media of revelation which had in
vaded the " churches of the Lycus," x is more empha
sized in these epistles than the specific doctrine of
his sacrifice. This finds place, however, in such state
ments as that " Clirist loved you, and gave himself
up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for an
odor of a sweet smell " (Eph. v. 2). He speaks also
of the " afflictions of Christ " as continuing and being
completed in his mystical body, the Church (Col. i.
24). In Phil. iii. 10-12, he appears to treat the death
and resurrection of Christ in an ethical sense, and to
represent the life of holiness under the figure of par
ticipation in them. He wishes to attain the perfected
spiritual life contemplated in the " high calling of
God in Christ Jesus " (verse 14), of which he falls
so far short (verses 12-14), by experiencing in his
own person the sufferings, death, and resurrection;
that is, by attaining the spiritual life which these are
able to secure. We thus meet again in this passage
the peculiar mystical identification of the procuring
1 For a full account of the condition of these churches, so far
as it is known, and of the nature of the heresy which had gained
some currency among them, see Bishop Lightfoot's essay on
those subjects in his Commentary on Colossians.

THE PERSON OF CHRIST 219
causes of salvation with their results, in accordance
with which the results are described in terms of the
causes.1 It will be noticed that there is in these
epistles no dogmatic development of the doctrine of
Christ's sacrifice, but that it is contemplated either
as a thank-offering to God, or as the type of that self-
giving which is the duty of Christians, and which
alone opens the way to perfection of life.
The characteristic form in which the thought of
Christ's saving work here appears is that of reconcili
ation," the restoration of harmony where there had
been estrangement. This appears in two applica
tions, — to the relations of the Jewish and Gentile
world in Ephesians, and to the relations of man and
God in Colossians. The Gentiles, who were at one
time " separate from Christ, alienated from the com
monwealth of Israel, and strangers from the cove
nants of the promise" (Eph. ii. 12), are now restored,
and placed upon the same plane of privilege with the
Jews, by the death of Christ, wdiich was for both
alike, and in the benefits of which both equally share
(ii. 13). Christ, by appearing in human flesh, has
united these two divisions of humanity into one fam
ily ; he has broken down " the middle wall of parti
tion" which stood between them, — a separation which
was occasioned alike by the godlessness of the Gen
tile world and by the Jews' particularistic interpre
tation of the divine purpose in their history and
the selfish spirit with which they regarded their
1 Cf. the comments on Paul's mysticism in chap. ii. pp. 32-40.

220 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
privileges. The mutual enmity which thus existed
between Jew and Gentile Christ has abolished by
doing away with the Jewish legal system, — " the
law of commandments contained in ordinances," —
and introducing the universal spiritual law of love,
which can never become a means of separation, but
must always be a bond of union among men. Thus
by his death for all men on the cross, he binds men
together in organic unity in the spiritual common
wealth of which he is the founder and head (Eph. ii.
14-16). He has also by " the blood of his cross " reconciled
to God (or, to himself; so R. Schmidt, Weiss1) both
mankind and the world of angelic beings (Col. i. 20
sq.). There are no indications in these epistles as to
the way in which Christ's death on the cross accom
plished this restoration of the harmony between man
and God, which had been broken by sin. This prob
lem did not here demand a direct consideration. It
is enough to assert, as against the speculation con
cerning revelation through angelic powers or orders
of being, that Christ, as the head of the spiritual
creation, is the agent through whom is accomplished,
not only the reconciliation of man to God, but also
the bringing of these supermundane orders of crea
tion into their right relation to God.
The thought of Christ's headship over the Church
1 Die paulinische Christologie, p. 184 ; Bib. Theol. § 104 a,
note 3. Per contra, Meyer, Lightfoot, and Ellicott, Commentaries
in loco.

THE PERSON OF CHRIST 221
finds frequent expression in Ephesians and Colossians
in opposition to the depreciation of Christ by the false
teachers. " He is the head of the body, the Church ;
who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead ;
that in all things he might have the pre-eminence "
(Col. i. 18 ; cf. Eph. i. 22). In Ephesians (iv. 7-13)
Christ is pictured as distributing gifts to believers,
and assigning to them the various functions which
they are to exercise in the Church. The aim of this
bestowment is that the body may be built up into
strength and symmetry ; that the various members
of the spiritual commonwealth may grow up into
likeness to him who is its head, that is, Christ
(verses 14, 15). This relation is also used to illus
trate the nature of marriage, and to enforce the duty
of subjection on the part of the wife and of love on
the part of the husband (Eph. v. 22-25).
The " cosmical significance of Christ," as the doc
trine of his relation to the universe has been called,
has already been touched upon in connection with
those passages which represent his redeeming work
as affecting the relations to God (or to himself) of
the world of angelic beings. A characteristic formula,
in which are gathered up the various thoughts re
garding the pre-eminent station of Christ in the
Church and the world, is that of Eph. i. 10, where it
is said that God's purpose is " to sum up all things in
Christ " (dvaKe(paXaiwaaaOai rd irdvra iv rco Xpiarco),
in the ultimate outcome of his gracious work for man ;
that is, to bring again into unity and harmony (for

222 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
himself ; note the middle voice) in Christ all things
and beings both in heaven and in earth. Christ is
thus presented as the bond of unity among the parts
of the universe which had been separated by sin, —
the One in whom they are to be brought into that har
mony which is the goal of the economy of grace.
" The redeeming work of Jesus Christ (cf. Col. i. 20)
was designed to annul again this divided state in the
universe, which had arisen through sin in heaven and
upon earth, and to re-establish the unity of the kingdom
of God in heaven and on earth ; so that this gathering to
gether again should rest on and have its foundations in
Christ as the central point of union and support, without
which it could not emerge " (Meyer on Eph. i. 10). 1
Weiss has truly remarked that in these later letters
it is Christ wdio is represented as the goal of the
world, while in the earlier the final issue of re
demption is that God becomes " all in all " (irdvra
iv irdaiv, 1 Cor. xv. 28), since all things have been
created "for him" (et? avrbv, Rom. xi. 36; 1 Cor.
viii. 6).2 This fact may be noted as illustrating the
fuller development of Paul's Christology in his later
reflections upon the institute of grace.
We have seen that the idea of Christ's personal
1 On the question whether this and similar passages, such as
Col. i. 20, imply the idea of universal redemption, the final bring
ing back of all sinful beings to God, see Meyer on Eph. i. 10,
Remark 2. This question will meet us again in the study of the
Pauhne eschatology.
2 Bib. Theol. § 103 b.

THE PERSON OF CHRIST 223
existence before his coming into the world, and in
deed before creation itself, pervades Paul's repre
sentations of his person and work. This fact is com
monly recognized by candid scholars who do not
themselves accept the divinity and pre-existence of
Christ, — such as Biedermann, Ritschl, and Pflei
derer. These writers occupy themselves with ex
planations of the development in the apostle's mind,
and in the early Church generally, of these be
liefs. For Biedermann the motif of the doctrine of
pre-existence in Paul's Christology is found in the
necessity of making Christ antedate the Old Testa
ment system.1 In Ritschl's view the idea of Christ's
essential Deity is born of the high estimate which the
Church put upon the work accomplished by Christ.2
Pfleiderer explains the doctrine of pre-existence as a
reflex of the doctrine of Christ's exaltation, — an in
ference which Paul's mind must draw in order to
hold and justify his conception of the present heav
enly glory of Christ. He expresses it in these words :
" That which had happened in time through the ex
altation, demanded, in order that it might stand fast
for the Christian consciousness as an unconditional
certainty and necessity, a deeper ground in the time
less existence of the heavenly world, in pre-exist
ence." 8 The motive of the doctrine he explains thus :
1 Dogmatik, p. 236.
2 Die Christliche Lehre von der Rechtfertigung und Versbhnung,
iii. §§ 44, 45, passim.
3 Der Paulinismus, p. 136, 1 Aufl. ; Eng. tr. i. 136.

224 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
'• And this mode of thought explains itself to us very
simply from the source from which the whole pre-
existence-idea in general is derived ; that is, the re
flection thrown back into the past from the picture
under which the fantasy of Paul and of the whole
Christian community thought of the exalted and
glorified Christ as at present living in heaven." * It
is also a part of this view that, since the idea of the
pre-existent Christ is but the reflex image of the ex
alted Messiah, he must have been conceived of in his
pre-existence as man, — " the pneumatic man." 2
We are here concerned with the exposition of the
Pauline Christology, and not with speculations in
regard to its origin. But it should be noticed that
the theories which have just been referred to, assume
that the apostle taught the personal pre-existence of
Christ. The manner in wdiich his conception of
Christ's person was developed may have corresponded,
more or less closely, to that process of reflection
which Pfleiderer has sketched in the passages which
I have quoted from the first edition of Der Paulin
ismus. Paul's idea of Christ's pre-existence would
more naturally originate in his view of him as the
Exalted One than in any historic information re-
1 Ibid. p. 141 ; Eng. tr. i. 140. In the second edition
Pfleiderer has substituted for this explanation the theory that
Paul's conception of the person of Christ was a composite of
Jewish Messianic ideas and Alexandrian speculation. See
pp. 115-123.
2 Ibid. p. 140 ; 2 Aufl. p. 118; Eng. tr. i. 139; per contra, cf.
Weiss, Bib. Theol. § 79 a, note 3.

THE PERSON OF CHRIST 225
garding the circumstances attending his birth. If
the thought of his pre-existence was developed by in
ference from that of his heavenly glory, it does not
follow that the 'former was a far-fetched conclusion,
and secondary in significance. A candid considera
tion of his language renders it certain that the work
of salvation was, in the apostle's view, grounded in
the eternal purpose of God and in the willingness
of Christ to come to earth to execute that purpose.
The conception of his pre-mundane existence is there
fore absolutely fundamental in Paul's conception of
the person and work of the Redeemer.
These elements of doctrine supply the material for
the great problems concerning the person of Christ
and the Trinity with which doctrinal theology has to
deal. If, on the one hand, these problems are in
evitably forced upon theology by the apostle's lan
guage, it is, on the other hand, certain that he has
himself attempted no solution of them. On both
these points most interpreters will concur with Weiss
when he says, —
" As the divine eternal existence of Christ in his pre-
existence did not forbid his relation to God from being
regarded as that of a Son, with the subordination which
is naturally involved in it, so the eventual subordination of
the Son to the Father (1 Cor. xv. 28) by no means excludes
the dignity of the Exalted Christ. For our Christological
consideration there now comes in, of course, the problem
how we have to conceive of this relation of the Divine Son
to the Father in his absolute sovereignty over all, apart
15

226 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
from the Son's position with respect to the work of re
demption, as well as previous to the creation of the world
and apart from his mediatorial position in that work. But
Paul has not considered this problem, and it remains alto
gether vain to attempt to elicit from him statements
regarding au immanent Trinity ; in saying which, the
question whether the teaching of the Church has with
justice advanced to that doctrine is, of course, in no way
prejudged."1 1 Bib. Theol. § 79 d.

CHAPTER IX
THE DOCTRINE OP REDEMPTION
The restoration of man to the favor and fellowship
of God, from which he had been separated by sin, is
grounded, according to the Pauline theology, in the
eternal purpose of God's love. In the death of Christ
for sinful men God is commending or confirming
(avvlarrjaev, Rom. v. 8) his love toward them. His
gift of Christ is so great a proof of his love that the
apostle concludes, arguing from the greater to the
less, that he will not withhold anything from those
whom he has chosen in him (Rom. viii. 32 ; cf. Eph.
i. 4). It is because God is " rich in mercy," and " on
account of the great love wherewith he loved " men, that
they have been quickened into new life and raised up
into fellowship with Christ in his glory (Eph. ii. 4, 5).
This redeeming work is " according to the eternal
purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus " (Eph.
iii. 11), in whom believers were chosen before the
foundation of the world (i. 4).
Christ is the mediator of this salvation, which he
accomplishes primarily by his death. " We were re
conciled to God through the death of his Son" (Rom.

228 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
v. 10), who " died for all " (2 Cor. v. 15). The
instrument of this death is often put by metonymy
for the death itself, and salvation is said to be by the
cross. " The word of the cross " (1 Cor. i. 18) accord
ingly forms the substance of Paul's message ; he will
glory only in the cross (Gal. vi. 14), and will have
but one object of knowledge and interest, — " Jesus
Christ, and him crucified " (1 Cor. ii. 2). It is this
doctrine of Christ's death for sin which is " the power
of God " (1 Cor. i. 18), although to the Jew, who
looked for salvation through some outward demon
stration of divine might, and to the Greek, who
sought the way of life in acute speculations concern
ing God and man, it appeared to be without meaning
or value.
Our first inquiry is, What was the genesis of this
doctrine which was so contrary to the Jewish modes
of thought as to be the great obstacle (Gal. v. 11 ;
vi. 12) in the way of belief on Jesus as the
Messiah.1 It is certain that Paul could never have accepted
the idea that the death of Jesus had a saving signifi
cance until he had been convinced by unmistakable
evidence of his Messiahship. This assurance, gained
in the experience on the way to Damascus, would
1 In illustration of the repugnance of the Jewish mind to the
idea of a suffering Messiah, see Weber, Die Lehren des Talmud,
cap. xxii., entitled Die Erlbsung Israels durch den Messias. The
substance of this chapter may be found translated and condensed
in The Old Testament Student for October, 1888.

THE DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 229
compel the effort not only to reconcile the death of
Christ with the Messianic idea, but to show that it was
included in that idea as the very culmination of the
Messiah's saving work. When Christ is seen as the
true object of faith, it must follow that his death, for
merly regarded as the just penalty of a malefactor,
bears an essential relation to his mission ; death could
not have been necessary for the sinless Christ unless
it was experienced on others' behalf.
Various considerations would conspire to urge
Paul's mind to this conclusion, when once he had
accepted the Messiahship of Jesus. His Old Testa
ment education would render him familiar with the
idea of the vicarious death of animals offered in sacri
fice for sin. The prophecies of the Messiah's suffer
ings would also shine in a new light for him after his
conversion, and would tend to overcome his former
repugnance to that interpretation of them which
now seemed obvious and necessary. Moreover, he
had become familiar with the characteristic tenets of
the Christians. The original apostles had taught,
as Jesus had done, that his death had a saving power.
One of the doctrines which he had received from the
primitive oral tradition was that " he died for our
sins, according to the Scriptures" (1 Cor. xv. 3).
From considerations like these it may be at least
partially accounted for that Paul regarded the death
of Christ as having a wholly unique meaning and
value. The original apostles had been at first dis
mayed by the death of their Master, and had seen in

230 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
it the destruction of all their cherished hopes. It
now became the task of Paul, more than of any other
man, to show that Christ's death, so far from being
an untimely termination of his work, was the culmi
nation of the divine decree of salvation, — the event
in which, above all others, his saving mission was
accomplished. Does the apostle conceive of Christ's death, con
sidered as a saving power, apart from other events in
his experience and apart from the course of his life
in general ? It is certain that such a connection
of Christ's death with his life and work receives no
emphasis. Salvation is ascribed directly to his death
as its procuring cause. It is maintained by some
that the " one. act of righteousness " (ev Baealwpa,
Rom. v. 18) by which he procured justification for
men may be a collective designation for his entire
life of obedience and holiness.1 But the fact that it
is contrasted with the " one trespass " (ep irapdirrwpa)
of Adam makes it more probable that it denotes the
one definite act of delivering himself up to death.
In Rom. v. 10 the apostle speaks of salvation as
wrought by Christ's life (awOvabpeOa iv rfj i^wy avrov).
The connection, however, renders it clear that he
there speaks of Christ's life, not as the procuring
cause of salvation, but as the power by wdiich spir
itual development, which ensues upon reconciliation,
shall be completed in the future world. As we are
1 So Neander, Planting and Training, Bohn. ed. i. 446 ;
Am. ed. p. 409.

THE DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 231
" justified by [or in] his blood," so " shall we be
saved from the wrath of God through him " (verse 9) ;
that is, we shall be delivered from the penalties of
sin in the judgment. The meaning is that, having
been reconciled to God by the death of Christ, we
shall be saved (in the eschatological sense) by reason
of our union of faith and love with him who now
lives and reigns in the glory of the Father. Here
also the initiation of the work of salvation is directly
ascribed to the death of Jesus.
It is impossible, however, to suppose that Paul con
templated the death of Christ altogether apart from
his sinless life of obedience and sacrifice. Although
he has not commented upon the relation between the
saving power of the Lord's death and his life, it would
be difficult to combine the elements of the apostle's
teaching regarding redemption into a consistent whole,
except upon the assumption that there was for him a
real and important connection of this kind. He cer
tainly implies that the overthrow of the dominion of
sin in the flesh was conditioned upon the sinlessness
of the life of Jesus (Rom. viii. 3). In treating of
salvation, where its procuring cause is not directly
under consideration, the apostle uses language which
shows that the power of Christ's life and person is an
important factor in the work of delivering man from
sin, as in Rom. viii. 2, where freedom from the prin
ciple of sin, which leads to death, is ascribed to " the
law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus ; " that is, this
deliverance is accomplished through the establishment

232 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
in the heart of the dominion of the Holy Spirit, who
imparts and fosters spiritual life. This new life be
comes ours only when we have entered into fellowship
with Christ, and in this sense it has that fellowship
as its cause and ground. But even here no other
efficacious cause of salvation than the death of Christ
is brought forward, since the apostle is speaking
rather of the power by which salvation, considered
as a progressive work, is carried on, than of its
initiation. A whole group of passages, — already considered
in their general character in chapter ii., — in which
is expressed the thought of an ethical dying with
Christ in his crucifixion (for example, Rom. vi. 4, 8 ;
Gal. ii. 20 ; Col. ii. 20 ; iii. 3) might be here considered
as illustrating a more subjective method of viewing
the moral renewal of man than that which obtains in
Paul's more dogmatic handling of the subject. It
will perhaps be sufficient to consider in detail one
passage of this kind by way of illustration : 2 Cor. v.
14 sq., — " For the love of Christ constraineth us ;
because we thus judge, that one died for all, therefore
all died," etc. The crucial question relates to the
meaning of the phrase, " therefore all died " (dpa ol
irdvres dirkOavov). The older English version, in
translating, " then were all dead," evidently intended
to convey the idea that the death of all in sin was
meant. If Christ died for all men, then must all
have been dead in sin, else he need not have died for
their salvation ; thus he shows his love for undeserv-

THE DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 233
ing sinners. The aorist tense (direOavov), however,
does not naturally yield this sense, but points to a
dying of all which was accomplished at a definite
past time. When this happened is determined by the
context as the time when Christ himself died.1 The
meaning then is, " All died when Christ died." In
what sense did all die in and with his death ? Two
answers are possible : (a) All were under sentence of
death for their sins, but Christ appeared as their sub
stitute, and making their case his own, died in their
stead ; so that the deserved death of all may be said
to have been suffered by him in his death. Hence
all virtually died with their representative, and paid
the penalty of sin in his vicarious death (so Weiss
and, apparently, De Wette and Pfleiderer). (b) All
died to sin — that is, in an ethical sense — in and with
the death of Christ. The moral renewal of mankind,
which in Pauline phraseology is so often represented
as a dying to sin, and which had its efficacious cause
in Christ's death, is spoken of as accomplished when
his death was experienced. It is a mystical identifi
cation in time of cause and consequence, resembling
that found in Gal. ii. 20 : "I have been crucified with
Christ," and in Col. iii. 3 : " For ye died, and your life
is hid with Clirist in God" (so Olshausen, Meyer,
1 " Das Sterben zum Besten aller und das Sterben aller ist daher
einfach in das Verhaltniss von Grund und Folge gesetzt, und
zwar so, dass in beiden Fallen der Aorist diesen Vorgang als
einen einmaligen und abgeschlossenen setzt,'' Heinrici, Das
zweite Sendschreiben des Apostel Paulus an die Korinthier,
p. 282.

234 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
Stanley, Heinrici). On this interpretation, which
seems to comport with all the requirements of the
sense and to accord with Paul's frequent mode of
expression in treating the same subject, the passage
would mean that the love which Christ has had to us
should be a powerful motive to hold us faithful to his
service, inasmuch as, since our conversion, we have
reached the judgment that in his death on our behalf,
our own moral death to the old sinful, selfish life was
accomplished, and that the whole meaning and pur
pose of his death for us, therefore, urge us to live
lives of unselfishness and love.
The class of passages to which the one just consid
ered belongs, in which the result of Christ's death is
contemplated as an ethical death to sin, and life to
righteousness, may be compared and contrasted with
those which present the result as a declaration of
acquittal before God, on the ground of Christ's sub
stitutionary work on man's behalf. Pfleiderer has
designated these two modes, or relations, in which
Paul presents the results of Christ's death as the
" subjective-anthropological " and the " objective-theo
logical." 1 Simpler designations would be the ethical
and the juridical aspects of Christ's redeeming work.
It will be our next task to study the way in which
Paul unfolds his doctrine of salvation by the death
or cross of Christ, and to inquire into the grounds on
which that death is held to avail for man's salvation.
The relation of this more objective, juridical presen-
1 Der Paidinismus, p. f»3, 1 Aufl. ; Eng. tr. i. 92.

THE DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 235
tation of the subject to the more mystical or ethical
view may then be considered.
The locus classicus for this phase of Pauline teach
ing is Rom. iii. 24-26 ; and all other passages bearing
upon the subject should be studied in the light of
this. Here the apostle asserts that believers are
justified freely (Bwpedv) ; that is, without the payment
of any price on their part, through the payment of
the ransom-price (diroXvrpwais) which Christ has
made (verse 24). The commercial terms of the pas
sage show at once that we are here concerned with
an analogy in which the work of Christ in delivering
man from sin is figuratively represented as the giving
of a purchase-price for their release, as captives in
war were often ransomed. The death of Christ is
evidently the act which is here thought of as consti
tuting the purchase. Whether the figure can be
further pressed into service in reply to the question
to whom the ransom was paid, as in the patristic
theology, or in the direction of indicating a quantita
tive equivalence between the sufferings of Christ and
the penalty of sin, as in the theory deduced by theolo
gians from Anselm, may become pertinent at a later
stage of our inquiries.
The apostle continues by explaining the way in
which this deliverance wras wrought. God publicly
set forth Christ in the shedding of his blood, as a
means of reconciliation (IXaarripiov) which avails for
the individual on condition of faith (verse 25). In
terpreters remain divided in respect to the force of

236 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
the word iXaarrjpiov in this passage. In the Septua
gint to IXaarrjpiov is the name for the Kapporeth, or
mercy-seat of the ark of the covenant (see Ex. xxv.
17-20), and in the only New Testament passage, be
sides the one now under consideration, where the word
occurs (Heb. ix. 5), it has this signification. Many
suppose this to be its force in our passage also.1
In this case the apostle's meaning would be that God,
in subjecting Christ to death, has set him forth before
mankind as the antitypical mercy-seat, the One in
whom the gracious, saving presence of God is mani
fested, and who thus fulfils the symbolism of the ark
and of the sprinkling of blood upon it (Ex. xxv. 22 ;
Lev. xvi. 13 sq.).
On the other hand, it is claimed that no inference
can be drawn from the passage in Hebrews as to the
meaning here, because, while that epistle moves with
in the circle of Old Testament ideas, and is strongly
influenced by the Septuagint in a characteristic use of
Scripture, this is not the case with Paul. If he meant
to designate the mercy-seat, moreover, the word should
have had the article (as in the LXX. and in Hebrews) ;
besides, the use of such symbolisms is foreign to the
Epistle to the Romans, and it is inherently inappro
priate to designate Christ as the Kapporeth, or lid of
the ark, — a conception which does not appear in
the New Testament. Influenced by these consider
ations, many scholars2 maintain a use of the word
1 For example, Cremer, Ritschl, Olshausen, Philippi, Delitzsch.
2 For example, Morison (Critical Exposition of Romans Third),
Pfleiderer, Weiss, Godet, Thayer's Lexicon.

THE DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 237
on Paul's part independent of the Septuagint techni
cal meaning, and interpret it in accord with its ety
mology. "IXaos (or tAea)?) means gracious, or favor
able ; IXdaKeaOai, to render so, and, in the passive, to
become so ; IXaar-npiov, used substantively, would then
denote a means of rendering favorable, or propitious,
Siihnemittel, JExpiatorium.1 Upon this interpretation,
the word might denote specifically an expiatory sacri
fice (sc. Ovpa), or remain quite general in signification,
— a question in regard to which those who accept
the explanation of the word just given are divided.
This explanation in that form of it in which
IXaarrjpiov is taken as quite general in signification,
seems to me to have the balance of probability in its
favor. In that case, Christ's death would be repre
sented as a means of reconciling God and man on
condition of faith (e« irlarews) on man's part. Does
the operation of this means of reconciliation termi
nate upon God, or upon man, or upon both? This
inquiry leads us on to the consideration of the
remainder of the passage and to a comparison of
other passages.
After the assertion (verse 25°) that God had
made Christ by his death a means of reconciliation
between himself and man, he adds (verse 256) a state
ment of the aim which God had in view in so doing
and of the reason which impelled him to the action
described. The end was "the manifestation of his
1 Upon the use in the New Testament of l\aa-pos and kindred
words, see Westcott on The Epistles of Saint John, pp. 85-87.

238 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
righteousness " (evBeigis rr/s BiKaioawvs avrov), and
the reason was the " passing over [irapeais] of the
sins done aforetime, in the forbearance of God." This
reconciling work of Christ, then, had the object of
exhibiting God's righteousness, and was occasioned
or rendered necessary by the fact that God had leni
ently treated the sins of mankind in pre-Christian
times, and had thus exposed his moral government to
the charge or suspicion of remissness in the punishment
of sin (cf. Acts xvii. 30). " God judged it necessary,
on account of the impunity so long enjoyed by those
myriads of sinners who succeeded one another on the
earth, at length to manifest his justice by a striking
act," etc.1 This interpretation of the phrase Bid rrjv
irdpeaiv k. t. X., in which most exegetes are now
agreed, has an important bearing upon the force of
BiKaioavvv, which is said to have been exhibited by
Christ's death.2
The manifestation of God's righteousness is spoken
of as occasioned by a certain leniency in his former
treatment of sin. If this manifestation will now
vindicate the divine majesty against the appearance
or charge of slackness in that respect, it must do
1 Godet, Commentary on Romans, p. 156.
2 Many of the older interpreters, as Luther and Calvin, and
some moderns, as Hodge, understood rrdpea-is to mean the same as
afeais, — forgiveness, — and, forcing the meaning of the preposi
tion Std (as if it were els), interpreted the phrase to mean " in
order to secure the forgiveness of the sins done aforetime.'' This
misinterpretation was adopted in our older Enghsh version : " for
the remission of sins that are past."

THE DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 239
so by demonstrating that God is not really remiss
in the treatment of sin. The righteousness which is
thus exhibited must therefore be a name for the atti
tude or temper of God toward sin. It is the law and
penalty side of the divine nature which the apostle
has prominently in mind in the use of the word
" righteousness." His statement means that in
Christ's violent death was revealed and vindicated
the punitive righteousness of God so as completely to
refute the idea that he is lenient in his feeling toward
sin, and so that the ends of penalty are met by the
sufferings and death of Christ for all who trust in
him for salvation. Hence Paul concludes that God is
shown in this work of Christ to be just, to retain his
holiness inviolate as being essentially hostile to sin,
while he is also the justifier of those wrho accept for
themselves the exemption from penalty which another
method of vindicating the divine righteousness makes
possible. This interpretation, which alone satisfies the terms
of the passage as a whole, and renders all its parts
congruous with one another, makes it highly probable
that IXaarrjpiov bears here its simple etymological
meaning, — a means of rendering favorable. The view
that God made Christ a mercy-seat — One in whom
he revealed his gracious presence — for the manifesta
tion of his righteousness, could naturally interpret the
term " righteousness " only in the sense of goodness
or graciousness. But the manifestation of gracious-
ness to men, so far from rescuing the divine action

240 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
from the appearance of leniency toward sin, would in
itself tend to strengthen the impression of such
leniency. This interpretation — wdiich Ritschl has
espoused and defended in recent years 1 — breaks
down in its application to the terms of the passage
as a whole. It will be seen to be equally inconsistent
with other passages.
In Gal. iii. 13 Christ is said to have " become a
curse for us " (yevopevos virep r/pwv Kardpa) ; and in
2 Cor. v. 21 it is affirmed that God made him to be
" sin on our behalf " (virep -rjpwv dpapriav). The
first passage is connected with the proof (verses 10-
12) that under the law, not a blessing, but a curse, is
experienced, because the law must condemn sin, yet
cannot deliver man from its guilt and power. This
curse which impended over the Jewish people under
the legal system, Christ has taken away by himself
taking the place of one accursed, and enduring the
penal sufferings which must otherwise have fallen
upon those who were under the curse which the law
pronounced. The analogy which underlies this representation of
Christ's work is a commercial one. He has bought
off by ransom (ig-nybpaaev) those who were under the
law's curse. He has paid a price for their deliver
ance, — the endurance in his sufferings and death of
the penal consequences of sin. He has taken on him
self the curse with which the law threatened sin, and
1 Die Christliche Lehre von der Rechtfertigung und Versdhnung,
ii. 169 sq.

THE DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 241
has thus illustrated, in his vicarious death on the cross,
the Old Testament declaration (Deut. xxi. 23) con
cerning the ignominy and shame attaching to such as
have their bodies hung upon a stake or tree.
But Christ was " made sin for us ; " that is, he so
far took the sinner's place as to suffer in his stead.
He was made, in some sense, the bearer of the sinner's
guilt and penalty, in order that the sinner himself
might not bear it, but be accounted righteous upon
believing in Christ. No clear and definite meaning
except this can be attached to the phrases " curse
for us," and " sin for us." In confirmation of this
position it may be useful to introduce the interpre
tations of the last passage which are given by rep
resentative scholars of various theological opinions.
Weiss paraphrases the passage thus, —
" God has made him, who did not know sin, to be sin
in our behalf ; has looked upon him and treated him as
if he were a sinner, in order that we might become the
righteousness of God in him, — that is, that on the
ground of what happened to him, we could be looked
upon and treated as those whom God declares to be
righteous." *
Pfleiderer, after quoting the verse, adds, —
" That is, God has allowed his sinless Son to enter as
the bearer of the guilt and penalty of sin, and by dying
to expiate its guilt, in order that we, by virtue of our con
nection through faith with Christ and by entering into his
1 Bib. Theol. § 80 b.
16

242 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
relation of sonship to God, may be looked upon as justi
fied from this guilt." 1
Meyer, commenting on the passage, says, —
" Christ was actually exhibited by God as the concre-
tum of dpapria, as dpapTwXos, in being subjected by him to
suffer the punishment of death. . . . The guilt of which
Christ, made to be sin and a curse by God, appears as
bearer, was not his own [pyj yvovra dpapriav] ; and hence
the guilt of men, who through his death were justified by
God, was transferred to him ; consequently the justifica
tion of men is imputative. . . . Christ is conceived by
the apostle as in reality the bearer of the divine Kardpa,
and his death as mors vicaria for the benefit [xnrep] of
sinful men, to be whose IXaarrjpiov he was accordingly
made by God a sinner. As the yiveaOai BtKaioavv-qv Oeov
took place for men imputatively, so also did the dpapriav
iTroitjo-ev avrov take place for Christ imputatively." a
Heinrici makes this comment, —
" Thus God accomplishes an exchange, in that what
belongs to the sinner is imparted to Christ, and con
versely, what belongs to the Christ, to the sinner." s
It appears, then, that, according to the apostle, there
was in Christ's death a revelation of the divine right
eousness in its attitude toward sin, — an expression
of the divine wrath (bpyrj Oeov, Rom. i. 18), of which
1 Das Urchristenthum, p. 225.
2 Commentary in loco.
3 Das zweite Sendschreiben des Apostel Paulus an die Korin-
thier, p. 308.

THE DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 243
men are, by reason of their sins, the object.1 The in
ference is inevitable that the reconciliation which
Christ effected between God and man did not concern
merely one, but both of the parties to it. It affected
man so as to bring him to God ; but it also con
ditioned the divine procedure and rendered a satisfac
tion to the demands of law and righteousness which
call for the punishment of sin. Two problems, then,
press for solution : (a) In what sense is Christ's
death for us, and his sufferings instead of our punish
ment ? and (b) How does his vicarious work meet
the demands of the law, and satisfy the ethical re
quirements of God's holy nature in respect to sin ?
Neither of these inquiries is explicitly answered by
any statement contained in Paul's letters. The prob
lem is, What view on these points best comports with
his affirmations, and with their clear implications ?
Can the apostle in teaching that Christ died for
our sins, or was made sin for us, mean that he
bore the literal penalty of our sins ; that is, that his
sufferings had the moral quality of punishment for
him ? Though he appeared in the sinner's place and
suffered in his stead, can he be regarded as having
been punished ? If he was punished, it can only have
1 It is generally agreed that exdpol oVres, k. t. X. (Rom. v. 10),
is passive, not active, in signification, — " when we were the ob
jects of God's wrath," not " when we were hostile to God." This
meaning alone is natural for exOpo'i as the counterpart of Sinaia-
6evres, and is favored by the contrast of ixdpoi and dya-nr\roi in
Rom. xi. 28. So Meyer, Pfleiderer, Weiss, vs. Baur, Ritschl,
Weber.

244 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
been upon one of two grounds, — either upon that of
ill-desert, which would contradict Paul's whole doc
trine of Christ's person, or upon the ground of a
transfer of penalty. But punishment implies guilt;
and guilt attaches to the sin committed and to him
who commits it. A punishment of Christ instead of
the guilty party would imply the literal transfer of the
guilt of man to him ; for punishment where there is
no guilt would be an injustice. But guilt is the
inseparable consequence of the sin done, and cannot
attach to an innocent person. There can, then, be no
punishment where there is no guilt, and there can be
no guilt where there is no ill-desert. To predicate
punishment of Christ's sufferings would mean either
to predicate guilt of him, which would deny his sin
lessness, or to affirm a transfer of others' guilt to him
in such a sense that he became the object of God's
wrath, which is contrary to the nature of guilt, and
confuses all moral distinctions regarding sin, guilt,
and penalty. That Paul cannot have intended to
affirm that Christ- was punished is a priori probable
from the obvious implications of such a statement.
His words have been thought to involve this view;
but if they had been so intended, they would surely
have been made more explicit. There is no such
statement as that Christ died instead of (dvrl) us ; he
is said to have died on our behalf (virep), or on behalf
of our sins. If the statement that he " became a
curse for us " is urged as necessarily meaning that he
came under a personal sense of God's displeasure, —

THE DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 245
that is, was punished by literally suffering the penal in
fliction of the curse due to sin, — it must then be said
that the kindred phrase " God made him to be sin for
us " is to be as rigidly interpreted and cannot mean
less than that God made him a sinner, — a meaning
which is, however, excluded by the next phrase,
" who knew no sin." A method of interpretation
cannot be applied in one case which in a kindred
instance would be self-contradictory.
If Christ's sufferings cannot have been the quanti
tative equivalent, nor have had the moral quality, of
the punishment due, in the moral order, to sin, in
what sense can they have been a substitute for man's
punishment ? They can have been so only in the
sense, that, though not the same in quantity or quality,
they answered the essential moral ends of punish
ment. In place of the punishment of the sinner,
there took place a gracious substitution of another
method of vindicating and satisfying the moral re
quirements of law and holiness. The substitution of
Christ for us, therefore, does not mean that he stood
in our place and took our punishment, as an innocent
man might stand beneath the descending weapon
which was to avenge a civil crime,- — a substitution
which would be merely mechanical, and without ethi
cal value as affecting the guilt of the offender ; nor
does it mean that he personally assumed our guilt and
suffered its punishment, — a substitution which, if
not impossible, would be inherently unjust. Christ's
sufferings and death for us mean the substitution of

246 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
another course of divine action instead of the inflic
tion of penalty. This method is not a merely lenient
treatment, an unconditional forgiveness of sin, in
stead of a penal procedure against it. It is a course
of action which effectually rescues God's action in
the treatment of sin from the charge or appearance of
laxness, and proves a real evBeigis rrjs BiKaioavvvs
airov (Rom. iii. 25, 26).
If Christ's sufferings and death are a substitute for
man's punishment, they must, equally with that pun
ishment, reveal, vindicate, and satisfy the divine right
eousness by furnishing an effective demonstration of
the divine hatred of sin. That only can be a substi
tute for punishment which meets its moral ends. If
the penalty of sin is to be remitted, this can be done
only on condition that some other way of procedure is
found which shall be consistent with the inviolable
holiness of God and which shall manifest and
vindicate it. To say, howrever, that holiness must
inevitably punish is either to exclude forgiveness alto
gether or to declare that Christ was punished. It
would be more consonant with Paul's thought to say
that the divine holiness, the self-preservative attri
bute in God, must be manifested against sin ; punish
ment of the sin itself is one such manifestation ; in
the work of Christ for men, God has chosen and pur
sued another in its stead, so that the punishment may
be remitted without laxness toward the sin and with
out its endurance by an innocent person.
In this view, Christ becomes a curse for us, not in

THE DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 247
the sense of becoming the object of divine wrath, but
in the sense that he substituted his suffering for the
penalty which threatened man. He was made sin for
us, not by having a sinner's experience of punishment,
but by taking the place of the sinner in an experience
of suffering which, being instead of the sinner's pun
ishment, met the ends for which punishment exists in
the moral order of the world. The vicariousness of
Christ's work does not consist in the substitution of
Christ's punishment for ours, but in the substitution
of his sufferings for our punishment.
How those sufferings can be regarded as a moral
equivalent for punishment and as answering its ends,
is a question for doctrinal theology and the central
problem of the atonement. The apostle has nowhere
touched directly upon it. It is inseparable, however,
in a critical inquiry, from his teaching regarding
substitution, and especially does it force itself upon
the mind in every attempt to answer the question,
What can be meant by the setting forth of Christ
as a IXaarrjpiov in the shedding of his blood on the
cross ? The question, Why do Christ's sufferings
avail as a substitute for man's punishment ? Paul an
swers by saying, because they are an adequate demon
stration of the divine righteousness. The further
inquiry, What is there in these sufferings which ren
ders them a vindication of God's holiness and a satis
faction to his law ? is much more difficult to answer
by appeal to the apostle's language. The reply, so
commonly given, that it was because in them Christ

248 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
was enduring the penalty of the world's sin, has the
advantage of simplicity and directness, but is exposed
to the great difficulties which have been noticed. If
in his sufferings and death he did not, in the strict
sense, assume man's guilt and penalty, he must,
nevertheless, in those experiences have in some way
satisfied those demands of holiness which otherwise
would have found expression in punishment.
Christ voluntarily humbled himself by taking the
servant-form and identifying himself with man. In
so doing he must come into participation in the
sorrows and sufferings which were inseparable from
man's sinful state. He would therefore, though per
sonally sinless and not liable to punishment, come
into the most intense and vivid realization of human
guilt. He would inevitably suffer its consequences
by virtue of his identification with sinful man. His
life would be lived throughout under the most pain
ful consciousness of the enormity of sin and of its
desert of penalty. His very purity would make his
realization of the guilt of sin the more profound, and
his suffering under the sense of it the more intense.
Yet in order to save man he willingly bears this bit
ter fruit and consequence of human sinfulness. He
suffers as he does because he is a pure being, living
under the weight of the world's great sinfulness, the
burdening, crushing consciousness of its desert of
penalty. This suffering, considered on its physical
side, culminates in a violent death, — the experience
which represents the utmost that human sinfulness

THE DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 249
could inflict, and which, therefore, becomes the symbol
for his sufferings generally. These were made neces
sary by human sin, and were borne by Christ because
he had come to man and had entered into his lot.
How can these sufferings be contemplated as a sub
stitute for punishment? Because, being the conse
quence of sin, they were voluntarily borne by the
sinless Christ as a solemn testimony, out of his own
bitter experience, to the hatefulness of sin and the
justice of God's appointment that misery and suffer
ing shall follow it as its deserved penalty. Christ
honored and vindicated this divine appointment by
taking upon himself sufferings which belong in God's
order to sin, thus upholding the justice of that divine
order. Christ had entered through the vicariousness
of infinite love into man's case. Man was under
the penal consequences of sin. Christ comes under
these, both by becoming the object of sinful treat
ment, and by the intense realization in his own spirit
of sin's guilt ; and he attests, by the severity of his
sufferings, vicariously borne, the righteousness of
God's hostility to sin. He thus becomes a curse so
far as to realize and vindicate, in his own person
and experience, the absolute justice of the curse
upon sin, and to taste its bitterness so far as in his
incarnation he is one with man. He is made sin for
us inasmuch as on our behalf he enters by a sympa
thetic identification of himself with us into the intense
realization of our sin and guilt, and therein fully
acknowledges the justice of the sufferings which are

250 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
divinely appointed as sin's consequence. He is a
IXaarrjpiov — a means of reconciling God and man —
not merely in the sense of furnishing motives to man
to repent and turn to God ; his work affects the re
lation of man and God on both sides. He does not
indeed propitiate God (no such expression appears in
the New Testament) in the sense of winning him
from an unwillingness of mind to save men, since the
whole work of salvation, alike in its plan and execu
tion, originates in the will of God to save men. God
is the object of the reconciling work of Christ in so
far as Christ fulfils certain conditions of the divine
procedure in the remission of man's punishment.
God is rendered favorable to man's forgiveness by the
work of Christ in the sense that an adequate revela
tion of his righteousness against sin is made in his
sufferings, — a revelation which in some way must
find place as the recoil of his holy nature against sin.
The reconciliation does not have God's disposition for
its object, as if he were thereby made willing to for
give. It has him for its object only in his relation to
sin as disapproving it. If this disapproval is not to
find expression in punishment, the obstacle which
exists to sin's unconditional forgiveness in that essen
tial hostility of God's nature to sin must be removed
by the adoption of some other expression of that dis
approval. In this sense only does God become recon
ciled to man in the work of Christ; he thus removes
an obstacle to forgiveness by pursuing another course
(equally valid to secure the ends of justice) than that

THE DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 251
of punishing, and thus fulfils the condition of the
operation of his grace.
In further illustration of the general view of Christ's
atoning work which is outlined above, the reader
may find the following extracts and references of
service : —
" From his [Christ's] cross there arose the most perfect
homage rendered to the righteousness of God. In this
death the sin of mankind was therefore doubly judged,
and the righteousness of God doubly manifested, — by the
external fact of this painful and ignominious punishment,
and by the inward act of Christ's conscience, which
ratified this dealing of which sin was the object in his
person." 1
" From the point of view to which the exposition of the
apostle brings us, this equivalent [of the penalty of sin]
is not intended to satisfy divine justice except by manifest
ing it, and by re-establishing the normal relation between
God and the guilty creature. His [God's] holiness would
protest against every pardon which did not fulfil the
double condition of glorifying his outraged majesty and
of displaying the condemnation of sin. Now this double
end is gained only by the expiatory sacrifice." 2
"The death of Christ was a propitiation for the sins
of men because it was a revelation of the righteous
ness of God, on the ground of which he can remit
the penalties of sin ; because it was an act of submis
sion to the justice of those penalties on behalf of mankind,
— an act in which our own submission was really and
1 Godet, Commentary on Romans, in loco, iii. 25.
2 To., Excursus on The Expiation, p. 160.

252 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
virtually included ; and because it secured the destruction
of sin in those who through faith are restored to union
with Christ. It is therefore the supreme and irresistible
argument by which we can now sustain our appeal to
God's infinite mercy to grant us forgiveness of sin and
deliverance from the wrath to come." J
Paul's description of the reconciling work of Christ
in terms of juridical or commercial analogies is that
which has chiefly shaped theological language and
thought respecting the atonement. The death of
Christ as a ransom ; his payment of our debt ; his
endurance of the penalty which threatened us ; his
satisfaction to the demands of law, — tliese have be
come the current terms of theological language.
They have sometimes been extravagantly applied, as
when the ransom-price was said to have been paid
to the Devil to purchase the release of man from
his power, in the patristic theology ; or, as when
Christ was said to have suffered the combined tor-
1 Dale, The Atonement, p. 434. The student who may de
sire further to pursue the study of this type of thought regard
ing the subject of expiation, will find abundant means for so
doing in the following literature : three articles by W. F. Gess
in the Jahrbiicher fur Deutsche Theologie for 1857, 1858, and
1859, especially that entitled, Die Nothwendigkeil des Siihnens
Christi; Lyttelton on the Atonement in Lux Mundi; Bruce, The
Humiliation of Christ, especially Lecture vii. ; Jonathan Ed
wards on Satisfaction for Sin, Works, i. 582 sq. ; Fisher, Faith
and Rationalism, Appendix vi. ; and, with important variations
in emphasis and conception, Rothe, Dogmatik ; Hofmann, Der
Schrifibeweis ; J. McLeod Campbell, The Nature of the Atone
ment: Bushnell, Forgiveness and Law.

THE DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 253
tures of all the lost, as by the older Reformed and
Lutheran dogmaticians.1 These extravagances are
illustrations of forcing a particular figure to do ser
vice as the basis of a whole theory, rather than, as
it was intended, to illustrate some phase of the great
theme. When the commercial or judicial analogies
which the apostle uses to express his thought are
followed out into all the inferences which they can
be made, by a rigid application, to yield, the ex
travagant one-sidedness of the result is made clearly
to appear. The conclusion is inevitable that these
expressions must not be treated like scientifically
precise formulae, but like human forms of thought,
— the most useful forms which were available, for
the illustration and enforcement of truths and rela
tions which are beyond the full reach of definition
by any human analogies. Few, if any, of those sys
tems of thought regarding the atonement which, like
those of Anselm or Grotius, have been formed by a
strict carrying out of some one particular analogy or
thought-form, have proved satisfactory to Christian
thinkers generally, as is shown by their constant
effort to penetrate beneath the figures of ransom and
forensic imputation to the moral and spiritual reali
ties which underlie them.
There need be small difference among interpreters
as to what Paul's language, in the class of passages
just considered, says and means. The chief differ-
1 For example, Heidegger, Hollaz, and Quenstedt ; see Bruce,
Humiliation of Christ, p. 439 sq.

254 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
ence arises over the problem, What is the just use of
his expressions in theology ? Shall the inferences
which certain of his terms suggest be drawn, though
he has not himself drawn them ? Shall the fact that
he designates Christ as a " means of propitiation," be
said to imply that his sufferings propitiated God ; that
is, induced him to be gracious ? Shall the statement
that he was " made sin for us " be declared clearly to
imply that he experienced under God's curse the
equivalent of the misery of the lost ? Shall the
statement that he bought us off by ransom from the
law's curse be forced to give answer to the question,
To whom was this price paid ? If so, the patristic
answer must follow.
That the modes of thought here referred to have a
large place in Paul's writings no competent inter
preter will deny. What are the limits of their legiti
mate use in theology ? is another question. That there
are limits, most Christian thinkers will agree, as is
shown by the general disfavor into which the theories
of equivalence and purchase have fallen. It may
serve to point the way to a more judicious view of this
question to revert to the more distinctively ethical
mode of thought which the apostle has himself ap
plied to this same subject, and which may be regarded
as complementary of that just reviewed. In Rom.
iv. 25, Christ is said to have been " raised for our
justification ; " that is, in order to secure for us the
divine declaration that we are accepted with God.
The apostle thus grounds the attainment of salvation,

THE DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 255
not only upon the death of Christ, but upon his resur
rection so far as to imply in this passage that the
resurrection was the complement of his death. The
delivery up to death for our trespasses, the atonement
for our sins which was made in his death, could not
effect the result of our actual appropriation of salva
tion unless it had been followed by the resurrection
from the dead. While, therefore, no strictly atoning
significance is here or elsewhere ascribed to any event
except the death of Christ, the resurrection is associ
ated with the completion of salvation in such a way
as to be made an essential factor. We may see in
this passage a connecting link between the view of
Christ's work just considered and that to which we
now call attention. The representation that salva
tion is appropriated through an ethical dying and
rising to new life with Christ is based upon the
causal connection between those events and the be
liever's spiritual renewal. And thus we are brought
to the subjective side of the work of salvation. In
this view, salvation consists in fellowship of life with
Christ, the cessation of the old, sinful life and the in
dwelling of Christ in the heart. The causa meritoria
of salvation remains the death of Christ ; but the lan
guage — intensely ethical and even mystical as it is
— in which the apostle describes the participation of
believers in its benefits, shows how far he is from
abiding constantly by the formal figure of transfer
and imputation. Salvation is not wrought merely by
the acceptance of the cancellation of man's debt which

256 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
another has discharged, but by the actual entrance
of the soul into life-fellowship with Christ. In the
practical application of his doctrine to life, Paul fre
quently departs from the more formal, legal view of
the processes and relations involved, and depicts the
work of salvation as eminently an ethical affair.
Some have seen in this twofold manner of present
ing the subject a diversity amounting almost to a
contradiction. There is no just ground for such a
view. Both forms of thought meet and blend in a
higher unity. If the terms in which Christ's work is
represented as an endurance of our deserts that we
might escape them, or a payment of our debt which
may be now regarded as discharged, are unduly
pressed and treated as if the subject belonged to the
sphere of mere commercial or penal law, and not
rather to that of ethical principle, a great difficulty
may indeed be found in reconciling the judicial and
the ethical representations of salvation through Christ.
If Christ's satisfaction were merely rendered to law
so that its penalty might be withdrawn, as the more
extreme governmental views would represent, then
the appropriation of the benefits of that satisfaction
would naturally bear a legal character also, and sal
vation would be defined as an acceptance of the fact
that Christ had discharged our obligation for us. The
apostle, however, defines salvation in terms of life ;
it is a matter of actual spiritual relations. Must he
not also have regarded that work of Christ in which it
was grounded as belonging to this realm, as no after-

THE DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION 257
thought or makeshift to meet the exigencies of gov
ernment, but as a revelation and vindication of laws
of life and being which are supreme and eternal in
God ? If Christ was the adequate revelation of God
in his essential perfections, his work must have been
in some way a satisfaction to God's ethical nature, —
a perfect expression at once of " the goodness and
severity of God." In that case, the appropriation of
that work is no mere formal acceptance or assent, but
is an entrance into fellowship with those perfections
of God which Jesus revealed, honored, and satisfied.
If the work of atonement is ethically viewed, the
work of salvation may also be. If the mind pene
trates to those essential, eternal, moral truths and
relations which underlie Paul's treatment of Christ's
death, there is no difficulty in passing to those ethical
forms of thought in which he often describes the
actual participation of the believer in Christ's death
and resurrection. If, however, the formal modes of
thought are adhered to as containing the essence of
their meaning in their very form, and not in the
moral relations and truths which they, by analogy,
represent, a construction of the doctrine of the atone
ment results which can make small use of the ter
minology that pictures salvation as a moral process,
if indeed it admits of reconciliation with such ter
minology at all.
The bearing of these more mystical descriptions of
salvation upon Paul's theology can best be considered
in full in connection with the subject of justification,
17

258 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
where they appear as the counterpart of a more for
mal mode of thought, — that of the imputation of
faith. It is sufficient in this connection to point to
them as illustrations of a method of thought on the
apostle's part which shows that his mind did not re
main imprisoned within the limits of the legal analo
gies which he used to illustrate and enforce his truth,
but apprehended in a comprehensive and vital manner
their essential ethical content and value.

CHAPTER X
THE DOCTRINE OP JUSTIFICATION
Closely related to the doctrine of redemption, which
deals with the objective provision for man's rescue
from sin, stands that of justification, which treats of
his personal appropriation of salvation. Although
this doctrine is the logical counterpart of the doctrine
of the cross, the apostle has not developed them in
such close connection with each other as would doubt
less have been the case had he not approached the
subject of justification by faith with the aim of dis
proving the opposite view of justification by works.
His teaching concerning the attainment of salvation
is developed in his most controversial letters under
the impetus of his polemic against the Pharisaic idea
of merit ; and little attention is directly bestowed upon
adjusting it to the doctrine of Christ's death. These
relations, however, as Paul must have conceived of
them, are, in the main, not difficult to trace, although
at some points the nexus is not easy to discover.
Paul's doctrine of gratuitous justification is no
doubt closely connected with his own experience as
a Pharisee, and with his conversion. He had felt

260 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
and proved in his own struggles after righteousness
the inability of all human strivings to bring peace
to the conscience. His experience — so clearly re
flected in the seventh chapter of Romans — had effec
tively disproved for him the opinion that salvation
was conditioned upon man's merits and achievements,
— the view of the subject commonly held by the mem
bers of his sect.1 His polemic against Jewish and
Judaizing theories of salvation had, therefore, its
starting-point in the experience by which he had been
delivered from the bitterness and despair of his life as
a Pharisee into the freedom and joy of the Christian
believer. The radical defect which Paul sees in the
Jewish view is that it derogates from the divine
grace by making man earn and deserve his acceptance
with God. It results from the inherent absurdity of
this view that men are encouraged to attempt an
achievement of goodness which, by reason of their
sinfulness, they are utterly powerless to accomplish,
and whose fruitless pursuit is sure to plunge them
into ever-deepening despair. The doctrine of justifi
cation has thus an immediately practical aim ; and it
should not seem strange if certain theological aspects
of the doctrine, and certain points of connection with
related doctrines, which are of great interest for a
1 For a full exposition of the popular Jewish view of righteous
ness and of the conditions of its attainment, see Weber, Die
Lehren des Talmud, cap. xix., entitled Die Gerechtigkeit vor Gott
und das Verdienst, especially §§ 60, 61. The substance of this
chapter has been reproduced by me in The Old and New Testa
ment Student for July, 1889.

THE DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION 261
systematic treatment of the subject, should not have
received the apostle's attention.
A succinct statement of Paul's doctrine on this sub
ject would be that sinful man, upon condition of exer
cising faith in the Redeemer, who has made a full
provision for man's acceptance with God, is declared to
be righteous in God's sight, and is received and treated
as such. It is too well established to require further
discussion, that, in Paul's usage, the word "to justify"
(BiKaiovv) denotes primarily a forensic act, the making
of a declaration, the pronouncing of a judgment, rather
than a moral process of making just through an in
fusion of righteousness. In like manner BUaios des
ignates one in whose favor this judgment has been pro
nounced, and BiKaioavvrj the status or relation of such
a person. The terms are judicial in their use, and the
process which they describe is depicted in accordance
with legal analogies. The faith which is the condi
tion of the justifying judgment is best understood
negatively as the contrast to works (epya) in the
popular Jewish theology ; that is, deeds of meritorious
legal observance. It is the opposite of achievement
or deserving; it is self-surrender, humility, accept
ance. More positively defined, it is, in general, trust
in God's grace ; in particular, personal trust in Christ,
in whom that grace is chiefly revealed and assured to
sinful man. " Faith " and " grace '' are thus correlative
terms and are the pivots of Paul's whole teaching.
Grace is the principle in God wdiich initiates and com
pletes the work of salvation ; and faith is the act in

262 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
which man appropriates it. The corresponding terms
in the scheme of thought which Paul opposes are
" debt " and " works." If salvation could be attained
by works, it would not be a gift of grace on God's part,
but, being deserved by man, might be demanded as his
right, and so be matter of debt to him (Rom. iv. 4).
Besides the word " to justify " we have, as an equiva
lent expression, the phrase to "reckon [Xoyl&aOai]
righteousness" to one, or to "reckon his faith for
righteousness." There are two cases of the occur
rence of the former phrase (Rom. iv. 6, 11), and
seven where the latter is found (Rom. iv. 3, 5, 9, 22,
23, 24; Gal. iii. 6). It will be seen from the preva
lence of the latter expression that Paul's character
istic thought is that of the imputation of faith; and
when the two passages in which righteousness is said
to be imputed are compared, they are found to present
but another expression for the same idea. In the first
instance (Rom. iv. 6) the apostle, in allusion to Psalm
xxxii. 1, 2, speaks of the blessedness of gracious for
giveness as experienced by the man " unto whom God
reckoneth righteousness apart from works," — an ex
pression which, as the quotation which follows it shows,
is equivalent to the non-reckoning or forgiveness of
sin. In the other (iv. 11) righteousness is spoken of
as being reckoned to believers in the same way as to
Abraham, the type of all believers. But the reckon
ing of righteousness to Abraham is identical with the
imputation of his faith for righteousness, — a form of
expression which occurs six times in this same chapter.

THE DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION 263
It is obvious, then, that the theological formula, " the
imputation of Christ's righteousness," can have no
basis in these expressions. If this were not clear
from the evident equivalence of the phrases, reckon
ing righteousness and reckoning faith, it would be
made so by the fact that both instances of reckoning
righteousness referred to are drawn from the Old
Testament sphere, where the reckoning of Christ's
merit, in the sense of Christian theology, could not
come within the circle of the thought which he is de
veloping.1 It will be a subsequent inquiry whether
this formula has a real ground in the implications
of the Pauline system.
The word " righteousness " in connection with Paul's
doctrine of justification has a technical meaning which
it is not easy concisely to define. It is BiKaioavvrj
Oeov (Rom. iii. 21), — a righteousness which comes from
God, as opposed to the idea of its originating in hu
man attainment. Hence it is described as the right
eousness which is from God on condition of faith
(r) iK Oeov BiKaioavvrj iirl rfj irlarei), in contrast
1 On this point, considered as a question of exegesis, the opin
ions of critics are well agreed, and the conclusion is incontrovert
ible that theological symbols like tbe Formula Concordice and the
Westminster Confession (ch. xi.), in denying the imputation of
faith and asserting the imputation of Christ's merit, have pro
ceeded, as Meyer affirms, ultra quod scriptum est. Cf. Meyer on
Rom. iv. 5, note. Weiss says, " The idea that God reckons the
righteousness of Christ unto man is not Pauline ; it is not con
tained even in Rom. v. 19." Bib. Theol. § 82 b, note 3; Eng.
tr. i. p. 440, note 2.

264 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
with one's own righteousness, which is of the law
(iprj BiKaioavvrj r) iK vdpov, Phil. iii. 9). The Jews
are said to have been ignorant of God's righteous
ness (r) tov Oeov BiKaioavvrj), and to have sought
to establish their own righteousness (r) IBla BiKai
oavvrj, Rom. x. 3). Righteousness, then, in these
connections, does not mean moral perfection, but a
state of gracious acceptance into which the believer,
upon condition of his faith, is admitted. It is an
acquittal which proceeds from God, wdiereby the
believer is declared forgiven and accepted before him.
The righteousness which is of the law would need to
be moral perfection in the nature of the case. If
one will have righteousness by his own acts, he must
fulfil all the obligations which its perfect attainment
involves. Should one completely meet these require
ments he would be a BUaios, not by grace, but by
debt. Should one by obedience attain perfection, he
would be entitled to the recognition of that attain
ment in the judgment of justification (Gal. iii. 12 ;
Rom. ii. 13). But this righteousness — perfect obe
dience to the law's demands — man is powerless to
achieve. There remains open to him, however, a
righteousness which consists in a state of pardon
and acceptance before God, which, though unmerited,
is accorded him on the ground of the gracious work
of Christ in his behalf. This righteousness, so far
from being attained by merit, or produced within him
self, is conferred upon him, though he does not in
himself possess it. It is now- his own in so far as the

THE DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION 265
imputation makes it his privilege and right, but is not
his own either in respect to its origin or as inhering
in his character. It will be seen how objectively
Paul treats of righteousness in the formal develop
ment of his doctrine of justification. It is repre
sented as a status rather than a character ; it bears
the stamp of a legal rather than of an ethical
conception.1 The motive of the apostle in developing this idea in
so purely objective a manner is easy to discover. It
was to guard his teaching with the utmost care
against the Jewish idea of righteousness by man's
own merit. His view of righteousness is a corollary
of his fundamental doctrine of grace. Righteousness
is something which is accorded to man, though he
does not possess or deserve it ; that is, it is a gift of
grace. Justification is a treatment of man which is
better than he deserves. God reckons to him some
thing which he does not have. The same motive
which impelled the apostle to magnify God's grace in
salvation as against all human deserving, has com
monly secured in theology a very close adherence to
the forensic side of Paul's teaching upon this subject,
and has even carried theological definition in this
direction so far beyond the apostle's statements as
almost to make justification a mere fiat, and not an
1 I can refer the reader to no more elaborate and convincing
proof of the forensic character of Paul's doctrine of justification
than is found in Morison's Exposition of Romans Third, pp.
163-200.

266 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
ethical affair at all, and actually to deny the imputa
tion of faith and affirm instead the imputation of
Christ's righteousness, lest, by allowing that faith was
imputed, the view should seem to be favored that
faith was itself a " work," and thus salvation, after all,
an attainment of man. It should be borne in mind,
however, that in expounding his doctrine of justifica
tion, Paul was waging an intense polemic (the great
conflict of his life) against the Jews' idea of man's
deserving salvation, — an idea which naturally sprang
out of their conception of their peculiar claims and
prerogatives as the supposed favorites of heaven.
That he should, in refuting this error, magnify every
point which illustrates the gracious view of salvation
would be most natural. That in his polemic he
should go so far as to seem to separate the work of
man's salvation from all ethical processes within him
self, and to make it a matter of the divine judgment
and efficiency alone, need not be thought strange. If
there is, in one set of representations, a certain one-
sidedness in Paul's legal conception of righteousness
and in his forensic view of justification, it should
neither be hastily inferred, on the one hand, that
these conceptions should be read out of his epistles
by exegetical artifices, or rejected as valueless, nor,
on the other hand, that they set the limits to all
Paul's thought on the subject, much less to Chris
tian thought in general, and give an inflexible law to
theological reflection and definition regarding the
dealings of God with man in salvation. It is at

THE DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION 267
least a justifiable observation that theology need not
push Paul's juridical conception beyond the point to
which he has himself carried it, since it is reasonable
to think that the apostle employed these forensic
representations as far as they were serviceable to
the truth which he was maintaining. In another
instance, where the apostle was waging war upon
certain unfounded Jewish assumptions, we saw
(chap, v.) that the purposely one-sided argumentum
ad hominem with which he opposes and humbles
their pretensions (Rom. ix.) is afterward so sup
plemented (chaps, x., xi., esp. x. 21 ; xi. 20, 22, 23)
as to assign to men in the dispensations of God
their own measure of responsibility, to relieve the
divine action of the arbitrariness which appeared
to be asserted of it, and to answer the very natural
query (ix. 19) which, in the course of the polemic
where it is stated, is treated as presumptuous. May
it not be that the court analogies to which by his
Jewish education Paul's mind was accustomed, and
which served so well his doctrine of a gracious, as
opposed to a deserved, justification, do not represent
all of Paul's thought upon the subject, and do not
give us the only light in which we may view it ? It
seems desirable to take a more comprehensive view
than a mere exegesis of individual passages can
yield, and to inquire into the idea of justification in
the light of Paul's whole system of ideas. This in
quiry is perhaps most naturally started by the ques
tion, Why, according to Paul, is faith reckoned for

268 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
righteousness ? or, What is the real relation between
the two which entitles the one to be taken for the
other ?
In answering this question, theological thought has
taken two different directions. One reply is, that
the connection between faith and righteousness is
solely a matter of divine arrangement. Faith is
neither righteousness nor the germ of righteousness.
God has declared himself pleased to accept it and to
reckon righteousness to man on condition of the exer
cise of faith, although there is no inherent, vital con
nection between the two. As our sins were imputed
to Christ by a sovereign act of God, so that he bore
their penalty, so his righteousness is imputed to us, if
we fulfil the condition which God requires. Faith,
then, is simply a resting upon the substitutionary work
of Christ on our behalf, and cannot be reckoned for
righteousness because there is any identity of princi
ple or causal connection between the two, but only be
cause God is graciously pleased to impute Christ's
merit to him who in faith rests his hope wholly upon
it. Is the man now who is thus accounted " right
eous" really so? He is not. He is covered or
clothed with Christ's merit, which now avails for him,
but personally he is no more righteous than before.
The decree of justification pronounces him righteous
only in the sense that he is treated as if he possessed
the righteousness of Christ. He is imputatively, not
ethically, righteous.
The other answer to the question proceeds from the

THE DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION 269
effort to establish a real, inner connection between
faith and righteousness. It is held that faith is
reckoned for righteousness because it is the principle
or beginning of righteousness ; it is that attitude or
temper of mind toward God and his gracious salva
tion which, renouncing self-sufficiency, humbly re
ceives from him what he offers to the soul. Faith is
surrender, trust, receptiveness. It is not merely a
condition of being pronounced righteous ; it is the
actual entrance upon the righteous life, because it is
the beginning of glad and loyal obedience. Salvation
is by faith, because faith is the act of acceptance by
the soul, of Christ as its master, and of his spirit as its
law. What is accepted is the grace and forgiveness
offered in the atonement. It is the acceptance of
Christ's righteousness, not through imputation, but by
actual participation in it through vital union with
him. Christ's righteousness — that is, his life and
spirit — is appropriated in faith ; and the man whom
God, in the sentence of justification, pronounces
righteous is really so, not indeed, in the sense of being
morally perfect, but in the sense of having begun the
life of real righteousness, — the life which is well-
pleasing to God.1
1 Cf. Pfleiderer's statement of the two contrasted views, Ur
christenthum, pp. 249, 250. The characteristic idea of one is a
"Zurechnung des Verdienstes oder der fremden Gerechtigkeit
Christi an den Sunder ; " the other regards faith as " sittlich gute
Gesinnung oder Tugend." His criticism of both these opinions
and his discussion of the elements of truth in each well deserve
careful reading.

270 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
It will be seen that these two solutions of the prob
lem start out from widely different presuppositions.
The former view proceeds in rigid adherence to the
judicial conceptions of Paul's argument. The rela
tion between God's action in the treatment of men
and the legal processes of a court, which is implied in
such words as " justify " and " impute," is strictly
carried out, and upon it is built a philosophy of the
whole subject. The forensic conception is not treated
as embodying an analogy and thus as furnishing an
illustration, drawn from human relations, of higher
spiritual realities, but is treated as if it were a scien
tific definition. The thought-form is identified with
the absolute truth, and must therefore be preserved
consistently throughout in constructing a doctrine Of
salvation. The second method of treatment proceeds upon the
assumption that the juridical mode of depicting God's
relation to men is but one form of conceiving of that
relation, — a form wdiich is indeed prevalent with
Paul, — and that it is the province of theology to seek
and define the essential ethical content of truth which
these forms embody ; to translate these legal terms
as fully as possible into their moral equivalents.
Sometimes the effort is made to show that Paul's
terms are not so wholly forensic as has been com
monly claimed, and to construct by exegesis a more
purely ethical view of justification.1 We have already
1 See, for example, Lyman Abbott's Commentary on Romans,
passim; Sabatier, L'Apdtre Paul, p. 273 sq. ; Eng. tr. 297 sq. The

THE DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION 271
shown (chap, ii.) that this effort involves exegetical
violence, and cannot succeed. The formal structure
of the Pauline doctrine of justification stands out in
clear, bold relief. The best exegetes are well agreed
as to the meaning of its terms ; there is small reason
why they need disagree, so clear and strong are the
marks with which the apostle has struck out the out
lines of his doctrine. The problem is to be remanded
to another court than that of mere exegesis, and can
not be settled by appeal to one class of passages alone,
in which a certain legal mode of thought obviously
predominates, as is the case with those which deal
directly with the doctrine of justification. The ques
tion is whether it is permissible to seek to define the
ethical and spiritual counterpart of this formal doc
trine ; whether it accords with Paul's thought as a
whole to suppose that his legal terms were to him
really the symbols of living spiritual realities and
processes ; nay, whether Paul, in connections where
he is not building a dogma of justification, but speak-
most exhaustive exegetical argument for the ethical view of justifi
cation with which I am familiar is that of Lipsius (Die paulinische
Rechtfertigungslehre u. s. w. Leipzig, 1853), who maintains the
view that diKaioavvt] designates not " ausschliesslich ein objectiv
gegebenes ausserliches Verhaltniss zu Gott, sondern stets zugleich
einen wirklichen innern Zustand der Rechtbeschaffenheit," p. 10.
It is understood, however, that the author has so far retracted this
and kindred positions as to disclaim that they can be established
by exegesis. The fact that his able argument, which has convinced
so many others, does not now convince the author himself, may be
taken as an indication that the theory which it advocates cannot,
as a matter of exegesis, be successfully defended.

272 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
ing practically of the Christian life, does not so ex
press himself regarding the union of the believer with
Christ, and the required and actual character of the
true Christian man, as to make it necessary in at
tempting to reproduce the whole Pauline thought
regarding salvation to supplement his formal doc
trine by other elements derived from his own letters, —
in other words, to find in his teaching concerning the
Christian life the matter which corresponds to the
form that we have been considering. I unhesitat
ingly adopt the view that this is not only allowable,
but necessary to a right systematic treatment of the
thoughts of Paul concerning salvation.
Let us turn to the Epistle to the Romans. The
doctrine of justification is developed in chapter iv.
In chapter v. the apostle dwells on the blessed conse
quences of the justified state, — peace, joy, and the
assurance of yet greater blessings from divine grace,
since it is more mighty and prevailing than the power
of sin. In chapter vi. he enters upon a description
of the requirements of the Christian life. He speaks
of conversion as a dying to sin (vi. 2) ; he affirms
that the rite by which the beginning of their spir
itual life was symbolized signifies the cessation of the
old sinful life and the commencement of a process of
spiritual renewal (verses 3, 4). The " old man," the
former sinful self, died with Christ ; that is, the unre
generate nature became inoperative, ceased to be the
determining power of the life in the converted man.
The very same spiritual process which, in the formal

THE DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION 273
development of the doctrine, is treated as a judgment
or decree of God is now described as an ethical and
spiritual transformation figuratively called a " death,"
in order at once to emphasize the completeness of the
change and causally to connect it with Christ's sacri
fice (cf. chap. ii.). So completely identical are the
juridical justification and the ethical death that the
apostle can mingle in the same sentence the terms
which are descriptive of each, and say : " He that
hath died is justified from sin" (verse 7). Through
out the remainder of the chapter (verses 8-23) he
enforces the strenuous demand for holiness which is
involved in the very idea of the Christian life, by com
paring the complete separation from sin which Christ
experienced at his death, with the breaking away from
the sinful life which should take place in the case of
the one who dies to sin with him (verses 10, 11) ; also
by showing that the life of sin involves a terrible
bondage of soul (verses 12-20), and by pointing out
the fruitlessness and misery of this life in the end
(verses 21-23).
If one traces the main current of the apostle's
thought through the next two chapters (vii., viii.), it
will be found that he further develops the same in
tensely ethical conception of the Christian life both in
its beginning, its nature, and its demands. In vii. 1-6
he draws the lesson that the Christian life is a service
" in newness of the spirit, and not in oldness of the
letter" (verse 6) ; and to enforce this truth, he proceeds
to describe (verses 7-25) the bondage and despair to
18

274 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
which the service " in the oldness of the letter " actu
ally leads, — a description which is intensified by his
own experience. He then turns again in chapter viii.
to the spiritual as contrasted with the legal life, and
develops the great thoughts toward which all his
previous arguments and illustrations have been tend
ing. This chapter is the summit of the apostle's
thought, and should be regarded as the very heart
of the epistle. The dogmatic treatment of the letter,
disregarding alike its systematic and progressive
character and the inner connections of its thoughts,
has commonly laid the main emphasis upon the fourth
chapter, or perhaps with equal frequency upon the
parallel between Adam and Christ, or, more unjusti
fiably still, upon one member of that comparison, the
Adam-side of the parallel. This procedure is quite
as unwarranted in the light of a genetic study of
Paul's thoughts as is the effort of exegesis to find the
ideas of chapter viii. already present and expressed in
chapter iv.
Remembering that the last half of chapter v. (verses
12-21) and all of chapter vii. are illustrative in char
acter, we may look upon chapters v. 1-11, vi., and viii.
as a connected development of the same truth, — that
the saved or justified state involves in its very idea
a moral renewal, a spiritual life. The condition of
entering this life may be called faith, or it may be
called a moral death to sin. If these terms are so

THE DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION 275
regards faith as a mere formal, non-moral requirement,
an arbitrary condition of the issue of a decree. If after
developing, in opposition to the Pharisaic principle of
" works," the doctrine of a gracious justification apart
from merit, and on condition of humble acceptance
and trust, he proceeds to expound to believers what is
involved in this life of faith and what is its whole
idea, nature, and demand, it will certainly not be
unnatural to take this exposition as expressing his
ripest and most essential thoughts on the subject.
His polemic against a false view in chapter iv., where
he wards off the theory of merit by showing that God
treats man, not as he deserves, but better than he
deserves, must be supplemented by that exposition of
the subject which is addressed distinctively to be
lievers, and which is wholly positive and constructive,
rather than defensive, in its purpose and spirit. In
chapter iv. he develops the formal principle of salva
tion, which is justification by faith, treated in a
forensic manner in accord with prevailing Jewish
conceptions ; in chapters v., vi., and viii. he unfolds
the real principle of salvation, which is moral renewal
through union with Christ. The first argument is
designed to parry a false theory, and meets that the
ory on its own juristic plane of thought ; the second
exposition is adapted to the edification and instruc
tion of believers, and mounting up into the spiritual
realm, deals with the moral and religious truths,
processes, 'and' 'forces' which 'are ' involved "in justifi-
prgcessesm, and tosces which are, involved ui justih-
cafjon. Strange that theology should so oiterl have
cation. Strange that theology should so often have

276 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
insisted upon constructing its doctrine upon the for
mal principle alone. By so doing, the process of sal
vation is left without definite content ; and in order to
give it such, the theory is driven to introduce posi
tively un-Pauline elements, such as the imputation of
Christ's merit. Let the view of the genetic connec
tion of Paul's thoughts outlined above be tested by
fuller reference to the eighth chapter.
In the opening words we meet the conception of
the justified state which involves Paul's deepest phi
losophy of salvation : " There is therefore now no con
demnation to them that are in Christ Jesus." Here
again are found both elements or types of thought in
closest union. The BUaios is free from condemna
tion ; no accusation can now be made against him, and
why ? It would be Pauline to answer: Because upon
condition of his relying for pardon upon the sacri
ficial work of Christ on his behalf, God has pro
nounced him acquitted before the law. But it is
also Pauline to answer that he is secure from condem
nation because he is " in Christ Jesus," one with him
in life and character through the indwelling of Christ
in his spirit (Gal. ii. 20), through the hiding of his
life with Christ in God (Col. iii. 3). Such is the
apostle's reasoning in this connection, as is seen in his
explanation of the phrase, " in Christ Jesus." " For,"
he says, " the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus ''
— the power or principle which is implanted in the
soul by the life-giving Holy Spirit, who works in
and through our fellowship with Christ — " made me

THE DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION 277
free from the law of sin and death." Deliverance
from sin, freedom from condemnation, is accom
plished by a spiritual life-process which fulfils the
requirement of the law in us (which the law itself
could not effect by reason of the resistance to it of
indwelling sin) by enabling us to " walk not after the
flesh, but after the Spirit" (verses 3, 4). It must not
be overlooked that the apostle here asserts a fulfil
ment of the law's requirement (verse 4) in the case
of those who are in life-fellowship with Christ. This
requirement or rightful demand of the law (BiKalwpa
rov vbpov) means the ethical character, both as respects
outward action and inner morality, which is accordant
with the law. Christ's work makes possible this re
sult which is actually effected in the believer through
life-union with Christ.1 The old interpretation which
understood this BiKalwpa to denote the law's demand
for punishment which Christ by his sufferings satis
fied, and which is therefore fulfilled in the believer
by imputation to him of this satisfaction, is contrary
to tlie context, which treats explicitly of the life which
corresponds to the law's requirements.
It is obvious, then, that according to Paul, the just
demand of the law is fulfilled in him who believes ; and
yet it is equally plain that faith is not regarded as a
virtue or as in any way the source of this moral
process. In view of this fact, only two positions are
logically possible : (1) That the fulfilment of this moral
requirement is in no way connected with faith, except
1 So, substantially, Meyer, Godet, Weiss.

278 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
so far as faith is a condition of its taking place. This
I understand to be Weiss's opinion. Faith has no
moral quality ; it is even " the antithesis of all ful
filling of the law," and " excludes every disposition
demanded by the law." a In this view, faith is not
the act whereby man enters into life-fellowship with
Christ, but only the presupposition of this union, — an
attitude of man toward the grace of God in Christ.2
Faith and justification are acts which precede the
life-union wdth Clirist ; and only after they have taken
place does the communication of a new principle of
life, which is a second and separate act, occur. (2) In
the other view, faith is an appropriation of Christ, — a
bond which unites the believer to him. The act
denoted by faith is the entrance upon a new personal
relation. Faith is as little a mere " attitude," with
no significance for the inner life (as Weiss makes it),
as it is a " mere opinion " (as Baur had made it). It
is man's part in the constitution of a new and vital
personal relation of the soul to Christ. It is indeed a
religious act rather than a moral achievement, but it
is an act which is in closest connection with the
actual increasing attainment of the divine require
ments, because it is the act of entering into mystical
union with Christ. It will be seen that the first
question is, whether the actual righteousness which
all recognize as the demand of the Christian life is in
any way directly connected with faith,3 — in other
1 Bib. Theol. § 82 c. 2 Ibid. § 84 b.
8 See Weiss, Bib. Theol. § 87 a, note 2.

THE DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION 279
words, whether faith is a mere naked act of trust, in
itself wholly separate from the moral disposition, or
whether it is an act of entrance into mystic fellow
ship with Christ.1
In seeking to determine which of these ideas is to
be adopted, reference must be made to such passages
as Gal. ii. 17 and 2 Cor. v. 21 (BiKaiwdrjvai iv Xpiaraj-
'iva rjpeis yevwpeQa BiKaioavvrj Oeov ev avrw). Cf. Phil.
iii. 9. In one view we have here a commingling of the
forensic terms (BucaiwOijvat, BiKaioavvrj) with the mys
tical (iv Xpiarw, ev avrw). This, however, is more
doubtful, since in both cases the subject of redemp
tion on its objective side is directly under considera
tion, and the preposition ev may denote the ground of
justification.2 But we think that no just exegesis can
deny that these passages adumbrate the mystical
union of the believer with Christ which is found
clearly expressed in Phil. iii. 9 in the phrase " that I
may be found in him " (Iva evpeOw ev avrw), which, in
turn, is explained and defined as meaning, "not having
a righteousness of mine own, even that which is of
the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the
righteousness which is of God by faith " (r) eK Oeov
BiKaioavvrj). That to be iv avrw is practically equiv
alent to e-ywv rrjv iK Oeov BiKaioavvrjv is evident, espe-
1 So, substantially, Pfleiderer, Reuss, Neander, Lechler, Lip-
sius, et al.
2 So Weiss, Bib. Theol. Eng. tr. i. 460 (apparently not, how
ever, in the 5th ed.) ; Meyer in loco. Per contra, Pfleiderer, Paul
inismus, p. 186, 1 Aufl. ; Eng. tr. i. 185, 186.

280 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
cially in view of the further explanations that follow
from verse 10 to the end of the chapter.
A more decisive passage is Gal. ii. 20, where the
apostle is clearly discussing the nature of the spir
itual life (Oew tfjv, verse 19). The thought here is :
"I have been crucified with Christ;" I died to sin
when he died on the cross (an intensely mystical
conception) ; " and it is no longer I that live "
(t,w Be ovKen iyw, cf. R. V. margin), " but [so far
from my living] Christ liveth in me ; and that life
which I now live in the flesh [b Be vvv £ai iv aapKi] I
live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God "
(eV irlarei t,w rfj rov viov rov Oeov). The question
arises whether the phrases " Christ lives in me " (£$
Be iv epol Xpiarbs), and " I live in faith " (iv irlarei
t,w) are practically synonymous. Weiss replies in
the negative, and holds that o Se vvv £&S marks a con
trast to §j7 iv ipol Xpiarbs, thus : Christ lives in me ;
my new life is simply his life in me, but so far as my
own personal life continues at all in the flesh, it is
wholly in faith ; whatever remains as my part of the
life I am living, is wholly in trust upon him. On the
contrary, it seems far more natural to take Se' in
the phrase b Be vvv £c3 as explanatory or continuative,
just as the same particle must be taken in the pre
ceding phrase, %w Be ovk4ti iyw.1 After the state
ment, " I have been crucified with Christ," he adds
the explanation, " and it is no longer I that live, but
1 So Meyer in loco ; similarly, De Wette, Pfleiderer, Olshausen,
Lightfoot, Ellicott.

THE DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION 281
Christ liveth in me ; " then further to limit and ex
plain this paradoxical statement, he adds that he does
not mean to deny that there is a sense in wdiich he is
still living (%w iv aapKi), but that so far as he is so,
his life is sustained by faith on the Son of God.
When he says that Christ lives in him, he means that
Christ is the indwelling power of his life, or in other
words, that trust in Christ is his true life-element.
In view of the mystical conception which underlies
the passage, it appears to be exegetical arbitrariness
to sever in meaning the phrases £$ iv ipol Xpiarbs
and iv irlarei %w, as is done by Weiss. It seems to
me as unjustifiable in exegesis as it is unwarranted
in theology, to separate Paul's doctrine of faith from
his teaching concerning the mystic union of the be
liever with Christ. Why does the believer alone enjoy
such mystic union if there is no close connection be
tween faith and that union ?
The true adjustment of the doctrine of faith and of
mystic union will be found in a careful definition of
the sense in which faith is said to be the opposite
of all merit. The apostle is advocating salvation by
grace alone as opposed to human deserving. He is
concerned with proving that no works of merit on
man's part can establish a claim upon God's forgive
ness, on the basis of debit and credit. Since, then, man
cannot be saved by merit, but may be saved by faith,
it must be evident that to Paul's mind it is impossi
ble to regard faith as a " work " founding a claim to
salvation. But this position does not deny the ex-

282 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
cellence of faith in general, as an act and disposition
conformable to God's moral requirement. When
Weiss says that in Paul's theology "faith excludes
every disposition demanded in the law," it can only
be true in the sense that faith renounces every such
disposition as a ground of salvation or basis of merit,
not that faith is the ethical contrary of those works
and dispositions of right doing wdiich the law enjoins.
If the statement were meant in this latter sense, it
would come into clear conflict with the Pauline teach
ing that faith works through love (Gal. v. 6), and that
the way of justification which is " from faith to faith "
(Rom. i. 17) really secures a fulfilment of the just
demand of the law (Rom. viii. 4).
In building up his doctrine of justification, Paul's
point of departure is the believer's gracious acquittal
as opposed to the idea of a meritorious claim entitling
to salvation, and his thought moves within the legal
sphere. Faith is an acceptance, a renunciation of
claim, a confession of unworthiness, and an act of
homage to God's grace. It is without merit in the
sense in which he is contemplating merit in the de
velopment of the doctrine ; namely, as a ground of
claiming acceptance with God as man's right. It in
volves, in its very nature, an entire disclaimer of any
such right. But it is not without merit in the sense
that it involves the right attitude of tho soul toward
God, the temper of humble dependence and thankful
receptiveness. In this understanding of the terms it
would be correct to say that in Paul's view faith is

THE DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION 283
without merit, but not without excellence. It is the
very opposite of a meritorious claim upon God's
mercy ; but there is an ethical excellence in the re
nunciation of such a claim because it is the essence
of the obedient and teachable spirit, and brings one
into fellowship of life with Christ, and is thus the
condition of the increasing fulfilment of the divine
will in the Christian and of his increasing likeness to
God.1 That which may, in accord with Pauline principles,
be said of faith in these two aspects of it, might
be said of kindred acts and exercises of the Christian
life ; of prayer, for example. Prayer is no basis of
desert before God. If it should be contemplated as a
work of merit establishing, by any method of equiva
lence, a claim to the favor of heaven, its true nature
and value would be annulled. It was in this light
that the Jews regarded their prayers, sacrifices, and
other religious exercises. They even went so far as
to suppose that works of supererogation done by others
might found claims for those who were entitled to
1 In drawing out this distinction, Pfleiderer (Paulinismus, p. 1 72 ;
Eng. tr. i. 165) says (cf. Lechler, Das apos. Zeitalter, p. 364)
that faith is " the completest possible fulfilment of the divine will,
not of the commanding, legal will, but of the giving, gracious will
of God ; it is the trustful reception of the gracious gift which God
sffers." This view merely recognizes in Paul the same essential
elements of doctrine which are summed up in the answer of Jesus
to the question of the multitudes : " What must we do, that we may
work the works of God ? . . . This is the work of God [to epyov
rov 6eov"]> tnat ye believe on him whom he hath sent " (John vi.
28, 29).

284 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
their benefit.1 Paul's doctrine of justification by faith
is a polemic against this view, and must be understood
in the light of this Pharisaic perversion. In the Jew
ish view, prayer would be meritorious as a ground of
demand for reward. According to Pauline principles
it could, in the nature of the case, be nothing of the
sort. Its very essence implies confession of depen
dence and a sense of unworthiness. It presupposes, in
any right view of it, appeal to God's grace alone;
but all excellence is not therefore denied to it. It is
an evidence of real goodness ; that is, of trust, obedi
ence, and love to God.
The discrimination which we are making is clearly
seen and abundantly justified when we observe that
the apostle's arguments which emphasize the entire
non-merit of faith are conducted on the legal plane,
while the recognition of faith as involving the right
attitude and relation of the soul to God, and in that
sense as possessing religious value, is found in the
ethical and spiritual sphere of thought, where the
apostle is not concerned with refuting a false theory.
We believe that in this way — and in this way only
 can Paul's views be successfully harmonized in
principle with those of James (chap, ii.) in respect
to faith and works ; but what is more to our present
purpose, it is only thus that Paul can be harmonized
with himself. Nor does the objection longer remain
that he does not wholly escape ascribing a meritori-
1 See Weber, Die Lehren des Talmud, § 61, entitled, Die Ge
rechtigkeit aus den guten Werken.

THE DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION 285
ous character to faith. He succeeds perfectly in
showing that faith is without merit in the legal,
quid pro quo sense with which he is occupied. He
does not show, nor does he hold, that it is without
moral excellence and value, and so without a real
and vital relation to that true righteousness which
consists in the disposition corresponding to the law's
requirement. This method of thought, moreover, is a preventive of
the onesidedness which is so abundantly illustrated in
theology in its treatment of these two points of view
found in the Pauline teaching respecting salvation.
One type of thought, ignoring the peculiar stand
point from which Paul's definition of the process of
justification starts, and keeping the doctrine abso
lutely shut up within legal analogies, has ended in a
fiat righteousness, a faith without real ethical value,
and even in a denial that faith was reckoned for
righteousness at all. Another type of thought, equally
neglecting the motive of the formal doctrine, though
for very different reasons, has taken up the ethical
side, and treating righteousness rather as a human
attainment than as a divine gift, and regarding faith
and righteousness as virtually identical, have come
perilously near to making faith a meritorious " work,"
and righteousness a name for man's own actual spir
itual attainments. A true synthesis of the truths which
are thus apprehended in a onesided manner is found in
the position which alone accords with the whole circle
of Pauline ideas : that faith, though founding no legal

286 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
claim to divine favor, is the soul's disposition of
receptiveness and trust toward God, — the right and
required attitude of the mind and heart, — and is
therefore the morally necessary condition of a man's
being what he ought to be ; that the judgment of justi
fication, while accepting faith for righteousness, — that
is, for more than it actually is, — and declaring the
sinner fully acquitted on the ground of Christ's work,
is yet no legal fiction. It declares the believer right
eous, not in a merely legal manner, for he is not such
in the sense of having fulfilled all God's require
ments ; but in a gracious manner, accepting by antici
pation his faith for righteousness, because faith unites
him to Christ, and this union is the guaranty of
increasing and full final perfection of life. Faith,
then, is not righteousness ; the two conceptions are
generically different. Faith is humility, receptiveness,
trust ; righteousness is correspondence with a divinely
given norm ; but they are vitally related because faith
is the act by which the soul comes into living union
with Christ, — a union wdiich assures increasing
growth in Christlikeness.
The Augustinian and Calvinistic theology . never
successfully accomplished a synthesis of these two
elements of Paulinism, and therefore never made a
genetic connection between the doctrines of justifica
tion and sanctification. This type of thought has
treated them apart, and has defined justification in so
formal' and''legal'aL'manner'as"to give it'h'o 'essential
formal -.and legal a manner as.tojnve it np essential
internal point m connection writn the qe velopment oi
internal point of connection with the development ot

THE DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION 287
spiritual life. They are certainly not to be identified
or confused ; but neither are they to be separated and
treated as if they were without an inner connection.
The processes of spiritual life described in Rom. v.,
vi., and viii. may be said to belong rather to sanctifi
cation than to justification ; but upon close examina
tion it is found impossible not to carry back the
conceptions here presented, and apply them to the
nature and beginnings of salvation as well as to its
progressive work. If the life and character which
are pictured in Rom. viii. as belonging to the man
who is " in Christ " are attained, then the promise
and beginning of that life must have been already
present when the soul entered into Christ by faith.
If the righteousness which actually fulfils the law's
-demands is more and more realized in the justified
man, its power must have already taken hold upon
the life when God pronounced his righteousness to be
the soul's possession. Faith links us to Christ; in
that fact lie its power and its value. It connects us
with the Source and Giver of life. It involves no
merit in us ; yet it is the right attitude and temper of
the soul toward God's grace in Christ. Righteous
ness is right standing before God ; in more ethical
terms, equally accordant with Paulinism, it is corre
spondence to what we ought to be. We cannot achieve
it, but we can seek and accept it. We can fulfil the
conditions of trust and obedience which are necessary
to its progressive 'attainment.
to xts .progressive attainment., „ , „ ,,
This self-renouncing trust God accepts tor the
This self-renouncing trust God accepts for the

288 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
righteousness after which we long ; in other terms,
he graciously reckons the true perfection of life as
ours already, because in joining our lives to Christ we
have entered the way of its increasing realization. In
the union of the soul with Christ and the consequent
participation in his life lies the guaranty of the com
pletion in the believer's life of the righteousness which
is already, by anticipation, accorded him. Thus the
real moral value and power of faith are recognized
without making it a meritorious " work," or in any
sense a ground of salvation ; and an ethical content is
given to righteousness without making it a human
achievement. Thus a real point of contact is seen to
exist between faith and righteousness. The former is
no mere assent, and the latter no mere legal fiction.
Justification is not a mere fiat of God, but has as its
essence the great reality of a new relation to God, and
involves the action of those spiritual forces which
work for renewed character, and which are from the
very first operative in the religious life.
Some of the older Protestant theologians have
apprehended and defined the deepest realities of faith
and justification in such a way as to do full justice to
the scope of the apostle's thoughts, and none more
clearly than Gerhard, who, in commenting on the pas
sages which speak of the imputation of faith, says, —
" The apostle is speaking of faith, not as it is a quality
inhering in us (for in that respect it does not justify, since
it is obedience to only one commandment, is imperfect,
and long already due), but as it apprehends the redemp-

THE DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION 289
tion of Christ. Scripture not only asserts that faith is
accounted to us for righteousness, but also that Christ is
our righteousness (1 Cor. i. 30 ; 2 Cor. v. 21). Since,
therefore, Christ and faith are said to be at the same
time our righteousness, the consequence is that faith is
and is called our righteousness, because it apprehends
Christ's righteousness and makes it ours." l
It is not necessary, we think, to follow further the
course of Paul's thoughts regarding the ethical side of
those changed relations to God and Christ which are
entered into by faith. These representations will
come into view again in considering Paul's doctrine
of the Christian life. It is sufficient for our present
purpose to have pointed out the bearing which they
must have upon any view of justification which not
only considers the polemic development of his doc
trine on the legal plane, but also seeks to penetrate to
the real center of his thouglits and to grasp them in
tlieir inner unity and harmony. Weiss has, we think
somewhat too guardedly, admitted the possibility of
such a union of the ethical and the formal in Paul's
doctrine of justification as we have sought to establish,
in these words : —
" This fact [that justification is an act of pure grace]
by no means excludes the possibility that, as Paul con
ceives faith, it really involves a restoration in principle
of the right religious relation of man to God, a restoration
which guarantees a fulfilment of his religious-moral task,
and is therefore the deepest germ of the full SiKaioavvrj-
1 Loci Thcologici, vii. 262.
19

290 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
But Paul certainly does not reflect upon this ; he regards
the reckoning of faith as a pure act of grace, etc." 1
If the assertion that Paul has not reflected upon
faith as involving " a restoration in principle of the
right religious relation of man to God," means only
that he has not explicitly defined the connection of
faith with sanctification, it is, beyond question, cor
rect. If it means that this relation is not essentially
implied and assumed in Paul's thought, and necessary
to be recognized in any systematic development of his
doctrines, we should dissent from it. The " possi
bility " which Weiss regards as not excluded would
better be treated as a fact wdiich must be included in
any construction of Paulinism which is not a mere
piece-meal grouping and exegesis of texts, but a
synthetic exhibition of the apostle's thoughts.
A study of Paul's theology which will comprehend
in one view the various complementary aspects of
his teaching, and combine into unity all the elements
of his thought concerning the method of salvation,
will conduct the mind, as it seems to me, not merely
to the guarded admission of Weiss, but to the position
of Neander, who says, —
" The righteousness of faith, in the Pauline sense, in
cludes the essence of a new disposition. Accordingly
it [justification] is not an arbitrary act on the part of God,
as if he regarded and treated as sinless a man persisting
in sin, simply because he believes in Christ; but the
1 Bib. Theol. § 82 b, note 4 ; Eng. tr. i. 440, note 3.

THE DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION 291
objective on the part of God corresponds to the subjective
on the part of man, — namely, faith, — and this necessarily
includes in itself a release from the state inherited from
Adam, from the whole life of sin and the entrance into
spiritual fellowship with the Redeemer, the appropriation
of his divine life. . . . Thus [in faith] there is an en
trance into communion with the Redeemer, and a new
principle of life is received which continually penetrates
and transforms the old nature. Faith is the spiritual act
by virtue of which, in surrendering ourselves to him who
died for us, we die to a life of sin, to the world, to our
selves, to all which we were before, and rise again in
his fellowship, in the -power of his Spirit, to a new life
devoted to him and animated by him." *
1 Planting and Training, Bohn ed. i. pp. 457-459; Am. ed.
pp. 418, 419.

CHAPTER XI
THE CHRISTIAN LIFE
The doctrine of faith furnishes the starting-point
from which Paul's whole view of the nature and
demands of the Christian life is developed. It is the
principle of salvation by faith which separates his
doctrine of religion so widely from the popular Jewish
conceptions of his time, and which accounts for the
distinctive elements of his theology. The Jewish
idea was that salvation was to be won by good deeds,
especially by the observance of commandments. The
practical result of this theory was the development
of a spirit of self-righteousness on the one hand, and
of an uncertainty of acceptance with God, on the
other. If one had faithfully done the prescribed
duties, he would easily fall into self-congratulation,
yet could not be sure that he had done enough. The
religious consciousness wavered thus perpetually be
tween these two dangers, each of which was fatal to
a healthy and stable religious life. By his doctrine
of faith the apostle escaped both these pitfalls. Faith
was, in its very nature, a disclaimer of merit, and in
volved a temper of self-abnegation and dependence;

THE CHRISTIAN LIFE 293
but it led to a confident assurance of salvation, be
cause it reposed its trust solely in the grace of God
which had been manifested in Christ. In the very
act of renouncing works as a means of attaining divine
favor, faith presupposes the willingness of God to
accept those who make no claims of personal worthi
ness and who consent to receive forgiveness as a gift
of grace. The very act of self-surrender in which
man confesses his unworthiness of Heaven's favor is
the act in which he enters into the possession of a
full assurance of salvation, because thereby he escapes
out of himself, and putting his case beyond the reach
of mere human standards of judgment, casts himself
upon the promised compassion of God.1
We have seen that justification is the formal act by
which one is admitted to the Christian life, and that
faith is the condition of this admission. The way of
life is entered by the gateway of humility. No one
in entering can suppose that he is doing so because
of any right or claim which is founded on his own
achievements, but must recognize the fact that he is
received solely because God is gracious and treats him
better than he deserves. The spiritual life which now
follows his justification is not to be looked upon as a
development from faith, considered as the man's own
act, but as a divine impartation which faith makes
possible and thankfully receives. It would be as con-
1 Cf. Schiirer, The Jewish People in the Time of Christ, Divi
sion II. vol. ii. § 28, entitled, Life under the Law; especially page
125.

294 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
trary to Pauline principles to describe the spiritual
life as flowing from faith as its source as it would be
to trace it to legal works of righteousness. Faith is
the condition precedent, on man's part, to the spiritual
life ; or, in other terms, it is the humble acceptance
of what God provides and offers to the soul. While
we have sought to show, as against views which make
justification a mere fiction, that this attitude of trust
and self-surrender is the right attitude, has an ethical
significance and value, and is, so far, a fulfilment of
God's moral will, it is equally important for a just
view of the spiritual life to remember that it is not
the product of faith, but is a gift of God which man
by faith receives. It is God's gracious will that man
should relinquish his fruitless efforts to merit salva
tion, and be content in humble dependence to enter by
trust in Christ and by the appropriation of undeserved
favor upon the way toward the realization of his true
mission and destiny. In faith man accepts this offer ;
in faith he continues to avail himself of its benefits.
Thus in the gospel God's righteousness is revealed
" from faith to faith" (Rom. i. 17); the appropriation
of salvation is throughout a matter of faith. The
religious value of faith cannot lie in the act of be
lieving in itself considered, but lies in the new rela
tion which faith involves and which, on man's part,
faith constitutes; namely, the relation of fellowship
with Christ. Whatever may be the reason why faith
is reckoned for righteousness, there can be little doubt
that it is the condition of the development of Christian

THE CHRISTIAN LIFE 295
character because it involves obedience to Christ and
fellowship of spirit with him.
The favorite expression by which the apostle desig
nates this personal relation which faith implies, is
that of a dwelling of the believer in Christ or of
Christ in him. The one who is " in Christ " is a
" new creature " (2 Cor. v. 17) ; those who are " in
Christ Jesus " are not subject to condemnation (Rom.
viii. 1). The spirits of those in whom Christ dwells are
quickened into new life "on account of righteousness "
(Rom. viii. 10); that is, because they are now justified.1
The significance of baptism, the initiatory rite of the
Christian Church, is found in the fact that it expresses
and ratifies this relation. It is a baptism " into
Christ" (els Xpiarov) or "into his death" (Rom. vi. 3);
that is, baptism into Christ signifies that entrance
into personal fellowship and life-communion with
Christ which is denoted by the expression, to die with
Christ (Rom. vi. 8), or to die to sin (Rom. vi. 2). As
many, therefore, as have been baptized into Christ
1 This phrase (dia biKaioavvnv) is interpreted by many as de
noting righteousness of life (so Hodge, Tholuck, De Wette, Weiss).
The last-named scholar maintains this (Bib. Theol. § 96 c, note ¦>)
on the ground that only ethical and never imputed righteousness is
considered by Paul as proceeding from the indwelling of Christ in
the believer by his Spirit. On the other hand, it may be held
that here the life which the Sphit imparts is considered as pro
ceeding from righteousness : the Spirit becomes the new life-
principle in the believer because of righteousness ; that is, because
of his acceptance in justification. This appears to be the rela
tion of the apostle's thoughts here (so Philippi, Godet, Olshausen,
Meyer).

296 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
have put on Christ (Gal. iii. 27), have made him the
life-element of the soul.
Of those who have been " crucified with Christ "
the apostle can affirm that "Christ lives" in them, or,
in practically equivalent terms, that they " live in
faith which is in the Son of God " (Gal. ii. 20). His
meaning is, that the death of Christ is the ground of
that moral renewal which, by a mystical identification
of the procuring cause with its effect, is called a cruci
fixion with Christ on his cross, an ethical dying to sin
when he died, or, dropping the figure, a cessation of
the old sinful life through the appropriation of the
benefits of his atoning death. This death to sin is
followed by a life to righteousness (Rom. vi. 11). Ex
pressed in terms derived from baptism, the burial into
death depicts the cessation of the sinful self, and has
its complement in the resurrection to newness of life
which ensues (Rom. vi. 4). When this transition into
a new status, this commitment of the life to a new
determining principle, is accomplished, there begins
a development in holiness which may be described,
on its human side, as a living in faith, or on its divine
side, as a living of Christ in the soul (Gal. ii. 20).
Here it again appears that there is a life of faith as
well as an act of faith. The spirit of surrender and
acceptance wdiich is involved in the initial act of trust
continues as the characteristic temper of the Christian
man, and becomes a fixed mood of conscious depen
dence and receptiveness. How evident, then, does it
become that faith as a condition of acceptance with

THE CHRISTIAN LIFE 297
God does not stand in isolation from the spiritual life
that follows it. It continues to be what it was at the
first, — the attitude of humility and trust in which all
divine grace is thankfully received. It remains the
subjective principle of the new life, the human conditio
sine qua non of spiritual life and growth, as truly as
divine grace is its objective principle, the /oh s et origo
of the forces of renewal and sanctification. The sharp
separation of justification from sanctification, as if
they had no internal and generic connection, but only
a relation of sequence, denies to faith the function in
the development of spiritual life wdiich the apostle
assigned to it, and leaves it standing in isolation at
the beginning of the new life, instead of conceiving of
it as the entrance into a personal relation which con
tinues constant and unchanged. The type of theo
logical thought wdiich holds forensic justification in
rigid separation from the mysticism of faith neg
lects a most essential element in Paul's theology ;
namely, that religion is a personal relation. When
theology has made deep and wide the gulf between
justification and spiritual life, and has restricted faith
to the former, it is then powerless to bridge the
chasm which it has made, and is compelled to make
real religion begin de novo after justification.1
1 The exposition of AVeiss is as striking an example of this
complete dissociation of. justification from sanctification as can be
found in the older dogmatics. They are, in his view, " two divine
saving deeds," without connection in nature or result. The real
Christian life is no more begun when a man is merely justified

298 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
With Paul the value and power of religion consist in
the personal relations of the believer with God. The
Christian life is begun, so far as man's part in it is
concerned, in the entrance of the soul into a right
relation to God, and it is perpetuated in the constancy
and increasing closeness of that relation. Man's part
in the constitution of this relation is faith, and his
part in the continuance and strengthening of it con
tinues to be faith. The Christian life has a strict
unity and continuity. In the very nature of faith, as
Paul conceives of it, is involved that personal fellow
ship in which alone the impartation of spiritual life
from God can take place. The powrer and religious
value of faith, therefore, are not in the faith itself,
considered as an act or exercise, but in the rela
tion of abiding fellowship and life-union which faith
constitutes. Faith is not a mere confidence that a
work of grace will be done for us, but a consent that
a work of grace shall be wrought in us- The power
of faith thus resides not in its exercise, as if it were
an achievement, but in its object, because it is a per
sonal relation of one who is helpless and dependent
to Christ, who is able to save and purify.
This personal conception of religion is absolutely
central in all Paul's thinking. Religion is not a hold
ing of things for true ; nor is it even merely a trust
in a work which has been or is to be wrought for one ;
than it was before; this life begins in his baptism when the be
liever is " put in principle into the state of holiness, and therewith
into that of actual righteousness," Bib. Theol. § 85 d.

THE CHRISTIAN LIFE 299
it is also, and much more, a glad and loyal obedience
proceeding from personal love to Christ, — a life which
springs from fellowship with him, and is controlled
by the power of his Spirit (Rom. viii. 9). The moral
character and spiritual life wdiich must ensue upon
justification are strongly depicted in Rom. vi. Can
any one infer, asks the apostle, from the truth that
" where sin abounded, grace did abound more exceed
ingly " (Rom. v. 20), that sin was desirable because it
called forth the exercise of grace, — on the principle,
the more sin the more grace (verse 1) ? Against such
a conclusion is to be opposed the very nature of the
Christian life (verse 2). To be justified implies a new
heart ; if the beginning of the Christian life is a break
ing loose from sin, its continuance must secure a
positive attainment of holiness ; if we have begun by
dying with Christ, wre must continue by rising with
him into a new spiritual character (verses 5-13). As
Christians our lives are ruled by new powers ; we
have exchanged masters. From the sin to which we
were formerly in bondage we are now free, and to
the righteousness from which we were once free we
are now in bondage (verses 16-20). In other passages
the new life is attributed to the work of the Spirit
as the determining power in the renewed man. Before
justification man is carnal (aapKiKos, 1 Cor. iii. 3) ; he
is said to walk according to the flesh (Kara adpKa irepi
irareiv, Rom. viii. 4) and to have his thoughts and
efforts directed toward the interests of the flesh (rd
rrjs aapKos cppovetv, Rom. viii. 5). In becoming a Chris-

300 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
tian, he becomes a spiritual man (irvevpariKos, 1 Cor. ii.
15 ; iii. 1), a man whose life is inspired and shaped
by the Divine Spirit. The Christian, then, is no longer
in the flesh (iv aapKi, Rom. viii. 9) as his life-element,
but in the spirit (eV irvevpan). It is true that the
dominion of sin is not in fact wholly overcome.
Those who are ideally, and even actually " spiritual,"
are but relatively so. They may also be at the
same time relatively carnal (1 Cor. iii. 1), or psy
chical (-fvxncbs, ii. 14), though they may not be
supremely and characteristically so, since their Chris
tian life, in its very idea, is directed toward sanc
tification (et? dyiaapbv, Rom. vi. 19). All the ideals
and hopes of the Christian life appeal to the be
liever to cleanse himself from every sinful defilement
which may cleave to either body or spirit, thus
" perfecting holiness [dyiwovvrj] in the fear of God "
(2 Cor. vii. 1).
It will be evident, then, that Christianity secures
not merely a judicial acquittal, but a practical freedom
from sin and attainment of righteousness. Those who
have received the Spirit by the hearing of faith
(Gal. iii. 2) — that is, by receiving the message which
proclaimed faith as the first requirement in religion
— must also " walk by the Spirit," and in so doing will
not "fulfil the lust of the flesh" (Gal. v. 16). The
fact that the Spirit is received when faith is exercised
shows that justification is not an act separate and
apart from spiritual life, and also points out in advance
the nature and demands of the growth which is to

THE CHRISTIAN LIFE 301
follow. " If we live by the Spirit, by the Spirit let us
also walk "(Gal. v. 25).
We are enabled in the light of these thoughts to
see the connection between Paul's scheme of doctrine
and his practical view of the Christian life. In his
dogmatic the facts of Christ's death and resurrection
are the objective ground of salvation ; but according to
his view of the Christian life, the actual appropriation
of these does not take place without the reception of
Christ's Spirit (Rom. viii. 9), the entrance of the
believer into life-union with Christ, so that there is a
reciprocal indwelling of Christ and the Christian in
each other (Gal. ii. 20 ; iii. 28 ; Col. iii. 3). Paul's
doctrine of the office of the law may also be readily
adjusted to his view of the true life in Christ. " Love
is the fulfilment of the law [irX-npwpa vbpov]," (Rom.
xiii. 10) ; and since love is at once the chief require
ment of the Christian life (1 Cor. xii. 31 ; xiii. 1-3)
and the essence of the lawn's demand, those who pos
sess this all- comprehending virtue do really fulfil the
law's just requirement (to BiKalwpa rod vbpov, Rom.
viii. 4). Christianity contemplates a life of real, posi
tive righteousness; and this goal is actually attained
in the proportion in which the believer enters into
the possession of Christ's Spirit and the personal
appropriation of his life.
It must be evident, then, that the conception of the
law as developing the consciousness of sin, upon which,
as we saw in chapter viii., Paul has dwelt most fully,
does not exhaust his idea of the meaning and use of

302 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
the law. That was a special view of the subject which
was adapted to his purpose in refuting the doctrine of
salvation by obedience to the lavr. Considered as a
means of salvation, the law was utterly powerless.
Since men could not obey its commandments, it must
point out and condemn their sins and intensify their
sense of them ; but when the law is contemplated
from the point of view of its ideal moral requirements,
it is to the apostle the epitome of all morality and
goodness (Rom. vii. 12-14). It is natural that Paul
should dwell most on the negative aspect of the law
because that alone suited the aim of his polemic;
when, on the other hand, he turns to that positive
life of holiness which Christianity requires and
secures, and which fulfils the law, he defines it, not in
terms of the law, but in terms drawn from the con
ceptions of Christlikeness and of the indwelling of
his Spirit. There is, therefore, no antinomy between
these two conceptions of the law ; nor is there any
thing strange or unnatural in the frequent emphasis
of the former in Paul's argument against the Pharisaic
doctrine of salvation and the very incidental, though
plain, recognition of the fulfilment of the law which
is accomplished in the Christian life, since, in present
ing this truth, the apostle's thoughts pass out of the
legal sphere and center in the perfection of Christ
and the appropriation of his Holy Spirit.
The freedom of the Christian is not a mere judicial
release from condemnation. One becomes truly free
from the law and from its judgment upon sin, not by

THE CHRISTIAN LIFE 303
any method of evading its demands, but only by ful
filling them. The contrast to the state of bondage
under the law is described when Paul says that Chris
tians " became obedient from the heart to that form
[or type, tvttos] of teaching whereunto they were de
livered " (Rom. vi. 17). Before their conversion they
were "bond-servants [SoOXot] of sin" and were there
fore " free in regard of righteousness " (iXevOepoi rfj
BiKaioavvrj, vi. 20); that is, they were not living in
obedience to the divine will. " But now," he adds,
" being made free from sin, and become servants to
God, ye have your fruit unto sanctification, and the
end eternal life" (vi. 22). This freedom from sin
is a practical and effectual deliverance from the power
of sin as a determining principle of life.
The apostle's teaching, in regard to the believer's
relation with Christ which we have thus briefly traced,
sets forth most forcibly the personal nature of religion
and the demands which arise from that relation. For
a description of the principle which is most funda
mental in this life in Christ, we must turn to his
doctrine of love. We have seen how love is the ful
filling of the law. In an eloquent passage he else
where (1 Cor. xiii.) accords to love the pre-eminence
among the virtues, and shows how valueless are all
spiritual endowmients and powers without love to in
spire and direct them. He had been commenting, in
the previous chapter, upon the variety of gifts which
the Spirit bestows upon Christians, and had cautioned
his readers against jealousy and rivalry in the cidtiva-

304 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
tion and use of these charismata. It appears from
chapter xiv. that the Corinthians preferred the gift
of tongues, a species of ecstatic utterance in prayer
(xiv. 2) which was not readily understood by the
people, and which required to be interpreted (verses
27, 28). Paul himself, however, preferred the gift of
prophecy or preaching (xiv. 4, 5) on the ground that
it could be understood by all and was more useful for
the edification of the Church and for impressing the
unconverted in the assembly (verses 23, 24).
In chapter xiii. the apostle's first aim is to show
that all these endowments, greater and smaller, are
morally valueless without love (verses 1-3). If he
could rise to the highest ecstatic states which have
been granted, not only to men, but to angels, his
speech in that condition of exaltation would still be
but as empty and meaningless sound without love.
The more highly esteemed gift of prophecy is equally
valueless without it. " Though I should know the
mysteries of redemption in all their extent [rd pvarijpia
irdvra], and possess the knowledge of them in all their
depths [iraaav rrjv yvccaiv] ; and if to this were added
the most heroic faith, the sublime confidence in God
which is necessary to the accomplishment of miracu
lous works, I am still nothing," says the apostle ; " I
am not thereby brought nearer the true goal of my
life, if I am wanting in love." The enthusiasm of
highly wrought feeling, the fullest possible possession
of truth, the sublimest heroism of faith, and the most
self-denying sacrifice, — all are worthless in God's

THE CHRISTIAN LIFE 305
sight without love. Why ? Because love alone can
direct them to their true ends ; because love is the
quality of life which helps and serves and blesses.
The attributes and activities of love which are next
depicted (verses 4-7), show that love is the one all-
comprehending and enduring virtue, and the principle
of every form of goodness. Without it enthusiasm
becomes an aimless play of feeling ; knowledge a mere
intellectual apprehension of truth without formative
influence upon character ; heroism a bold and boast
ful confidence, and self-denial a purposeless asceti
cism, placing virtue in mere suffering and serving no
rational or moral end.
But to the question, why love is the queen of all the
gifts and virtues, the apostle gives a more explicit
answer (verses 8-12). She is the enduring virtue.
Prophecy, ecstatic utterance, and knowledge (in the
limited forms of it which alone are possible to men
here) serve but the temporal well-being of the Church,
and must therefore pass away. Our present knowledge
is like that of childhood, which is lost in the mature
mental growth of the man (verse 11); our present ap
prehension of truth falls as far short of the full reality
as the imperfect reflection of an object in a metallic
mirror fails to reproduce the exact likeness of the thing
itself (verse 12) ; the forms of thought in which we
hold truth resemble dark sayings (cf. iv alviypan,
verse 12), since they cannot fully and clearly present
to the mind the truth with which they deal. This
knowledge, then, with its limitations and distortions,
20

306 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
must pass away, but love suffers no change ; it con
tinues the same in its nature ; it is the virtue which
includes all others.
But other graces also abide; faith and hope are as last
ing as love. Yet she is greater than these (verse 13).
The apostle leaves the reason for her superiority over
them to be inferred. This superiority is probably due
to the fact that love is the quality which gives their
value to both faith and hope. Love is therefore the
absolutely fundamental virtue. It forms indeed the
essence of all types of excellence ; it is the principle
of all goodness, the "bond of perfectness" (avvBeapos
rrjs reXeibrrjTos, Col. iii. 14), the virtue which unites
and unifies all others. Love is thus seen to be the
most comprehensive virtue. Faith and hope designate,
in comparison, but single phases of our relation to
God and his truth, and therefore represent but par
tially the significance of the religious life ; but love is
the principle of moral completeness, embracing in its
scope our duties and obligations to God and to man.
The idea may perhaps be inferred from the apostle's
language — and is certainly correct in itself — that
while faith and hope relate more to the religious life
of the individual, love embraces the interests of the
whole community.1
While this demonstration of the activities and pre
eminence of love is introduced for a practical purpose,
it has most important bearings upon the Pauline
theology. It shows how wholly inseparable are true
i So AVeiss, Bib. Theol. § 93 b.

THE CHRISTIAN LIFE 307
faith and love, and that faith is a most fundamental
condition of a right religious character. The faith
which the apostle mentions in xiii. 2 is a courageous
and heroic confidence, not evangelical or saving faith.
Such faith, excellent as it is in itself, would be morally
valueless without love. The faith, therefore, which is
morally valuable must have love as its basis and in
spiration. Again, when the apostle says that love
believes all things (irdvra iriarevei, verse 7), he im
plies, as Bishop Ellicott remarks, that love is the sus
taining power of faith ; 1 and surely in making love
greater than faith, though both abide forever together,
he shows how far he is from regarding true faith as a
formal assent or holding of things for true, or even as
a mere passive trust in another's merit. No faith is
saving which does not appropriate Christ's Spirit and
lead the heart to consecration and obedience and all
the powers to action and service. Faith is indeed a
great word in Paul's teaching ; as a contrast to works
it assumes, however, a relative prominence in the
polemic portions of his theology, which is far greater
than belongs to it when his teaching is regarded solely
in its positive content and is considered apart from
the refutation of Judaizing theories. In this view it
is not faith, but love which is the greatest word in
Paul's doctrine of the Christian life, — greatest be
cause most fundamental and most inclusive of all that
God requires of man.
It is not included in our present purpose to follow
1 Commentary on 1 Cor., in loco.

308 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
out in detail the mode of treatment which is applied
by the apostle to the various practical subjects with
which he deals in his epistles, since we are concerned
rather with the formative principles of his system and
their rational connection with each other than with
his application of them to concrete questions. It may
be well, however, to note a few of the leading themes
which he has thus treated and to trace the outlines of
his views respecting them. One of these is the duty
of the Christian to the State (Rom. xiii. 1-7). Paul
had as little occasion to consider the merits or defects
of the then existing governments as he had to discuss
the propriety of slavery, which was an institution of
society in his time whose right to exist no one thought
of calling in question. The apostle regards the State
as of divine origin and authority. It is ordained of
God for the reproof and punishment of evil-doers, to
whom alone it gives occasion for fear. It has a right
to punish (verse 4) ; within what limits the apostle
does not consider. It has the right to exact tribute
from its citizens (verse 6) ; to resist it is to " with
stand the ordinance of God " (verse 2). It is obvious
that the apostle has attempted no philosophy of the
State in these few verses. The problems of Political
Science were not before his mind. He urged upon
the attention of his readers only those particular
truths which suited his practical purpose. He pro
tests against that lawlessness which was liable to
spring from a perversion of his own doctrine of the
freedom of the Christian man. He reminds them

THE CHRISTIAN LIFE 309
that the State is a providential necessity, and that its
right to preserve order, punish crimes, and receive
loyal support is a divinely given right, and that those
who deem themselves at liberty to renounce their
allegiance to the regularly constituted civil authorities
will justly suffer the penalty of their sin. It is obvious
that such topics as the limits of obedience and the
right of resistance, under certain conditions, to the
State, were not at all the subjects of the apostle's
recorded reflections.
One of the most interesting examples of Paul's
handling of a perplexing ethical question is seen in
his treatment of the " cases of conscience " relating to
the eating of various kinds of food. This question
arose in churches where there were persons of Jewish
education who were affected with scruples in respect
to " unclean " meats, as was apparently the case at
Rome (see Rom. xiv.). In such instances, the ques
tion would be whether those who had no scruples in
respect to certain kinds of food should refrain from
their use out of regard to the scrupulous. In Rom.
xiv. the apostle treats the matter in somewhat general
terms, his main principles being, (a) that Christians
who differ on such points should not harshly judge
one another. Since God has accepted both, they
should be tolerant of one another's differences in such
matters (verses 3, 4). (b) Christ is the judge of all ;
it is not the prerogative of one Christian to judge
another (verses 10-12). (c) It is the dictate of love
diligently to refrain from courses of action which create

310 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
moral hindrances for other Christians. To the apostle
all meats were clean and might be eaten ; but one
might seriously harm and hinder a Jewish Christian
of different views by always acting upon that principle.
Therefore the rights of liberty should sometimes yield
to the obligations of love (verses 13-15). (d) Above
all things, peace is to be sought, and if by concession,
even to an unfounded scruple, the Christian life of
others can be promoted, it is the part of benevolence
to make the concession in such matters as are in
themselves morally indifferent (verses 16-21).
But it was in the Church at Corinth that this ques
tion confronted the apostle in its most peculiar and
perplexing form (see 1 Cor. viii. and x. 23-xi. 1).
There it arose, not from Jewish scruples, but from
the perplexity in which the Gentile converts found
themselves in respect to the right to eat of the meat
of animals which had been killed in idol-sacrifice.
A Christian could not partake of an idolatrous sacri
ficial meal without defilement and sin. But this meat
was frequently offered for sale in the shops, and might
be either wittingly or unwittingly bought and eaten.
Was it in such cases to be eaten by those who knew
its former associations ? The Corinthians had been
accustomed before their conversion to regard the gods
to whom they offered sacrifice as real beings possessed
of superhuman attributes. Under the power of this
idea they questioned, after they became Christians,
whether the idol-worship, which they now regarded as
sacrilegious, did not pollute the meat of animals which

THE CHRISTIAN LIFE 311
were killed in sacrifice at the idol's altar. Many did
not feel at liberty to eat of such meat; others had
no hesitation. The problem was how the "strong" —
that is, those who had no scruple — ought to act in
view of the doubts and fears of the " weak," or scru
pulous. It was therefore not so much a question re
garding the convictions of a certain class, the " weak
brethren," as it was a question how to act in view of
their want of positive convictions ; how to treat their
perplexity so as not to encourage them to do what
their consciences wrere not yet clear that they had a
right to do.
Paul's principles in the handling of this subject are :
(a) that love, rather than knowledge, is the supreme
law which must regulate the Christian's action. One
may know, as the apostle did, that meat cannot be
defiled by connection with idol-worship, and yet, in
certain conditions, he may be required by love to
.refrain from acting upon his abstract right to eat it
(1 Cor. viii. 1-3). (b) It is obviously absurd to sup
pose that an idol can defile meat, because the being
which it is supposed to represent has no existence, or
at any rate no such character and power as the heathen
religion ascribed to it (verses 4-6 ; cf. x. 20). (c) But
all persons cannot rise to this conception. The ques
tion arises how their scruples, based upon inherited
religious ideas, shall be treated (verse 7). (d) The
apostle explains that it is not a question of absolute
right or wrong, but only of right or wrong so far as
one's course might affect the action and conscience of

312 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
an uninstructed class (verse 8). (e) Always to insist
upon the rights of " knowledge " in such cases, might be
contrary to love. If a " strong " man should partake of
a heathen sacrificial meal, his action might easily lead
the " weak " man to do the same. In thus eating, the
"weak" man acts in doubt, and thus violates his con
science by doing what he is not clear that he is morally
at liberty to do. He thereby suffers a moral injury
which may begin the work of destruction (verses 9-11).
(/) Hence the apostle declares that in such cases it is
the part of Christian duty to refrain from the exercise
of the abstract rights of Christian liberty (verses 12,
13). In another passage he takes up the case, which
might occur in a private house, where there are both
" weak " and " strong" persons present. Meat of the
kind described may be on the table. The general prin
ciple is, Institute no inquiry on grounds of conscience
as to the food offered (x. 25-27). But in case some
scrupulous person, from conscientious hesitation as to
his right to eat of it, calls your attention to its char
acter, then you should refrain for his sake (verses
28, 29), — not, indeed, because he asks or expects such
a concession, but because he may follow your example
without seeing that he has a clear right to do so, and
thus do violence to his conscience and inflict a grave
moral injury upon himself.
It should be noticed that the concessions which Paul
recommends are to be made from benevolent motives.
They are accommodations to an unfortunate weakness
which is to be remedied, as soon as possible, by in-

THE CHRISTIAN LIFE 313
struction. The concessions must, in the nature of the
case, be spontaneous on the part of the one who makes
them, and unsought by the weak brother. If they were
demanded, they would not be due, because in that case
the one who should ask them would be no longer " weak "
or perplexed, but " strong" and positive. The obliga
tions of Christian charity are for Paul weightier than
the rights of Christian liberty. His tender treatment
of such scruples of conscience reveal a deep trait in
the character of the man who was the bold champion
of liberty when concessions were asked in the name of
unfounded prejudice, and especially when such conces
sions in any way compromised the principles of the
gospel (see Gal. ii. 3 ; cf. Gal. ii. 11 sq).
The apostle's counsels regarding unity and harmony
in the church are most fully given in the First Epistle
to the Corinthian Church, which was divided into rival
and envious factions. This church had separated into
parties according to the preferences of its members
for different Christian teachers. Some called them
selves after Paul, who had founded the church ; others
took the name of Apollos, the eloquent and rhetorical
Alexandrian (Acts xviii. 24— xix. 1), whose philosophical
mode of presenting Christian truth had doubtless cap
tivated many ; others, knowing the eminence of Peter
among the primitive apostles, made his name their
party watchword ; and still others, disavowing alle
giance to any and all of these merely human teachers,
— but with a no less factious spirit, — declared, " We
are Christ's " (1 Cor. i. 12).

314 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
At the mention of these divisions, the apostle
seems to fasten his attention chiefly upon the charac
teristic differences between his own preaching and
that of Apollos, and without iu the least condoning
the folly of those who had used his name as a party-
sign, enters upon an explanation of the true Christian
teaching and the right method of presenting it. Chris
tianity, with its central doctrine of the cross, — salva
tion through sacrifice and suffering, — runs counter to
the ethical " wisdom " of the Greek schools ; and its
truths are not to be presented in the rhetorical and
speculative methods of those schools. Thus Paul's
mind is led on from the consideration of this practical
difficulty at Corinth until it mounts up to some of his
greatest thoughts regarding the nature and appropria
tion of salvation (1 Cor. i. 18— ii. 16).
After these striking generalizations, the apostle
turns again to the state of the Corinthian Church, and
shows them that in their party rivalries they are be
having like carnal men in whom the Spirit has not yet
obtained control (iii. 1-3), and reminds them that
since all workers in God's kingdom are alike power
less in themselves to effect results, which can be ac
complished only by the one Lord whom they all serve,
they cannot be rivals, and must not be followed in a
spirit of rivalry (verses 4-9). Then by the figure of
a building, composed, indeed, of various materials, but
harmonious in plan and structure, he pictures at once
the true unity of the Church and emphasizes the
variety of the elements of strength and beauty which

THE CHRISTIAN LIFE 315
each teacher may by his instruction contribute to it
(verses 10-15) ; and again, by the figure of a temple,
he depicts the sacredness of the Church, to mar whose
harmony is sacrilege (verses 16, 17). In a final para
graph he points out the wicked folly and self-deception
of those who in a false conceit of wisdom foster this
party-spirit (verses 18-20), and then, turning to the
benefits to be derived from cherishing the opposite
temper, the thought of the Christian's right to all the
help which the various teachers can afford him, seizes
his mind and carries his imagination up to the great
idea of the Christian's possession of all things, — the
world, because Christ gives the key to its right mean
ing and true use ; life, which the Christian spirit fills
with new sweetness and inspiration ; death, because
Christ is its conqueror, and has made it but the gate
way into his eternal joy; things present and things to
come, which open to the soul a limitless sphere for
growth and for service (verses 21-23).
We have traced the main thread of thought in
these chapters, not only because they illustrate impor
tant conceptions as to what the Church's life should
be, but because they show from what a lofty point
of view Paul regarded practical questions. In the
factious temper which was rife at Corinth, the apostle
saw a radically defective appreciation of the very
nature of the gospel. The cure for such disorders
was to be found in a true appreciation of what reli
gion is. He will reprove their quarrelsome temper
by taking them to the loftiest heights of Christian

316 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
contemplation, where they may see those greatest
truths, — salvation by sacrifice, true happiness attain
able only by an inner spiritual development, and the
possible possession of all things for one who has a
knowledge of their right meaning and use, and who
can make them subserve the true ends of his being.
One further subject may be touched upon which
illustrates the apostle's method of handling prac
tical subjects, and reveals certain peculiarities of view
which are connected with the conditions of his time.
He treats of marriage and divorce (1 Cor. vii.) with a
certain diffidence, alleging more than once in the
course of the discussion that he is rather speaking in
the way of concession or advice than giving authorita
tive commands (1 Cor. vii. 6, 12, 25, 26, 40). Paul
himself prefers and recommends the unmarried state
(vii. 1, 7, 8). The principal ground for this pref
erence is the " impending distress " (r) ivearwaa
dvdyKrj, vii. 26) which is to precede the parousia, and
which will bring special sufferings to the married.
Connected with this reason is the present and increas
ing demand for peculiar labors and hardships in the
cause of Christ, which can be better met by the un
married by reason of their comparative freedom from
care (vii. 32, 33). This advice is thus seen to be
based upon reasons of Christian expediency as the
apostle saw them, and not upon any inherent objec
tions to the married state or any superior holiness in
celibacy. He clearly implies that one does not sin
who disregards this advice (cf. vii. 28, 36, 38). It is

THE CHRISTIAN LIFE 317
his opinion that in view of the nearness of the con
summation, changes in such relations as those of
family and social life should not be made (vii. 20-
23, 27).
It follows from this position, as well as from his
knowledge of the teaching of Christ on the subject
(cf. vii. 12), that Paul was opposed to divorce (vii. 10,
11). But there was one situation (no doubt an actual
one in some instances at Corinth) in which he would
concede its advisability. That situation was, where
one of the partners, being a heathen, refused to live on
peaceably with the Christian party (vii. 15). If, in cases
of such differences in religion, the parties can agree
to dwell together, they should by all means do so (vii.
12-14), but where the non-Christian partner departs
and so morally sunders the marriage-bond, the Chris
tian member may acquiesce in his departure. Whether
in such cases the Christian party would be regarded
by Paul as free to marry again is not wholly clear.
His general preference, for the reasons given, that
Christians should not enter upon newr relations, most
naturally suggests a negative answer to this question.
Moreover, in a purely legal view of the matter, the
right of re-marriage in such cases would probably be
excluded so long as the other party lived (vii. 39), and
even then religious considerations would dictate the
rule that Christians should not intermarry with the
heathen (vii. 39), while expediency, as Paul interprets
it, would favor remaining single (vii. 40).
The point of chief interest in Paul's handling of the

318 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
subject is found in the combination of considerations
drawn from the peculiar conditions of his time, and
especially from his parousia-expectation, with the
universal principles which are applicable to the sub
ject in hand. If the argument shows the apostle's
limitations of knowledge and his imperfect interpre
tation of expediency, it also shows that he was con
scious of his limitations and clearly distinguished
between his opinions on such subjects and the essen
tial truths and principles of the gospel, which he
taught with the full confidence of their divine au
thority. If, on the one hand, his limitations of view
show him to have been a genuine man of his time, it
is equally certain that, on the other, his consciousness
of them and his refusal to place his personal counsels
touching such practical subjects as marriage and
divorce upon a level with the essential truths of the
gospel which he had received, lift him again im
measurably above his age, and remain among the
most conspicuous marks of his real greatness.

CHAPTER XII
THE DOCTRINE OP THE CHURCH
The phrase, the kingdom of God, so constantly
used by the Founder of Christianity as a designation
of the community of believers, is not frequently
employed by the apostle Paul. The two meanings of
the expression which are commonest in Paul's writ
ings are : (a) that in which it stands as a name for the
principles or truths of Jesus' teaching, as in Rom. xiv.
17, " The kingdom of God is not eating and drink
ing, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy
Ghost" (cf. 1 Cor. iv. 20); (b) the reign of God in the
perfected society of the future world, — the prevail
ing meaning with Paul, and most frequently associated
with the word " inherit," as in 1 Cor. vi. 9, " The un
righteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God "
(cf. xv. 50 ; Gal. v. 21 ; 2 Thess. i. 5). It is unques
tionable that Paul commonly uses the term in an
eschatological sense, and that we must seek his teach
ing regarding the organization and characteristics of
Christian society as it exists in the present age, in
connection with other terms. The most important of
these is the word " church" (eKKXrjala), which occurs

320 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
more than sixty times in his epistles, and in a consid
erable variety of meanings.
Paul most frequently means by " church " an assem
bly of believers who meet in a particular place for
Christian worship, as in 1 Cor. xi. 18, " When ye
come together in the church [or congregation] ," and
in 1 Cor. xvi. 19, " the church that is in tlieir house "
(rj Kar'' oIkov iKKXrjala), cf. Rom. xvi. 5; Col. iv. 15.
Ordinarily this assembly includes the Christians of
any given town or city, as " the church which is at
Corinth," 1 Cor. i. 2, "the church of the Thessalo
nians," 1 Thess. i. 1, etc. But in many passages the
term has a wider meaning, and denotes the whole
community of believers, as in 1 Cor. xii. 28, " And
God hath set some in the church, first apostles," .etc.
cf. x. 32; xv. 9; Gal. i. 13, — the use of the term
which is most important for our present purpose.
It appears, then, that in Paul's use of words, the
Church, in its broadest meaning, is the present col
lective community of Christians, and that the King
dom of God is the society of believers as it shall be in
the coming age of Messianic blessedness. The Church
and the Kingdom of God are separated by the parousia
and its attendant events, which mark the close of the
present world-period (alcbv ovtos, 6 vvv alwv, Gal. i. 4 ;
1 Cor. iii. 18 ; Titus ii. 12) and introduce the Mes
sianic age (alwv peXXwv, Eph. i. 21, cf. Heb. vi. 5).
There is, therefore, in the language of Paul no basis
for such a distinction as that between the Church mili
tant and the Church triumphant, since the Church

THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH 321
designates an organization or collection of organiza
tions, which exist only in this pre-Messianic period, and
which do not survive the transition from this age to
the coming one. At the second advent the Kingdom
of God will be ushered in, and the Church as such will
pass away, because its ideal will have been attained.
It would not, therefore, be un-Pauline to say that the
Church is the organization of Christians which here
and now imperfectly represents the Kingdom of God
on earth. Their relation is like that of the respective
ages (alcoves) to which they belong. The Church exists
in an evil age (Gal. i. 4 ; 2 Thess. ii. 3 sq.) and must
therefore partake of human imperfection and sin ; the
Kingdom of God will be the reign of the divine law of
love which Christ shall institute at his coming, — the
perfected theocracy. Their relation is analogous to
that of the Old Testament civil polity to the spiritual
commonwealth of Jesus. From the definition of their
relation it is seen that the conception of the Kingdom
of God belongs to the sphere of eschatology ; that of
the Church, the present society and fellowship of
Christians, is a distinct subject, and demands separate
treatment. The Church is a unit under the lordship of Christ.
This thought is most fully developed in First Corin
thians, where the apostle sets it in contrast with the
party-spirit which prevailed at Corinth, and in Ephe
sians, where it is introduced as a corollary of the
supreme headship of Christ over the Church. The
unity and harmony of all Christians in the Church are
21

322 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
illustrated by various figures. One of the most com
mon is that of the members as constituting one body :
" We, who are many, are one body in Christ, and sev
erally members one of another " (Rom. xii. 5) ; " For
as the body is one, and hath many members, and all
the members of the body, being many, are one body ;
so also is Christ" (1 Cor. xii. 12); that is, "just as
the case stands with the body, that its many members
make up its unity, so also does it stand in like manner
with Christ, whose many members likewise constitute
the unity of his body " (Meyer in loco). In Ephesians
the headship of Christ over the Church as his body is
yet more explicitly asserted in contrast to modes of
thought which degraded Clirist from his pre-eminent
position, and which had become rife in the churches in
Asia Minor, although the apostle does not here draw
out the practical lessons regarding the function of
each member of the body which are so fully de
veloped in 1 Cor. xii. 12-31. Here it is a doctrinal
interest regarding the nature and dignity of Christ's
person, while there it was a practical concern for the
harmony and peace of the Corinthian Church, which
determined the course of his thought. It is the divine
purpose " to sum up all things in Christ ; " that is, to
unite all things under one head (dvaKecpaXaiwaaaOai),
in union with Christ (Eph. i. 10). Christ is the uni
fying bond of all saving powers and processes. God
" hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be
head over all things to the Church, which is his body "
(i. 22). It results from Christ's position and work

THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH 323
that mankind, who were before divided into Jews and
Gentiles, are now united into one body by the recon
ciliation which Christ has accomplished by his death
(ii. 16). It follows that it is the duty of the Christian
man to fulfil the function of a member of Christ, and
so to promote the strong and healthy growth of the
body (iv. 16 ; Col. ii. 19), or, disregarding the figure, to
grow in likeness to Christ, to approach ever nearer to
the standard of his perfectness (Eph. iv. 13, 15).
Another favorite representation of the symmetry
and unity of the Church compares it to a temple or
other building. Christians together constitute a sa
cred sanctuary of God (vabs), whose defilement by
jealousy and strife is a grievous sin (1 Cor. iii. 16, 17).
This figure is used to emphasize the guilt of all con
formity to heathen customs, and of marriage with
unbelievers. Such conduct is like the association of
God's temple with idol-shrines (2 Cor. vi. 14-18).
Again, Christians constitute God's building (olKoBoprj),
of which Christ is the foundation (1 Cor. iii. 9), or
"chief corner-stone" (Eph. ii. 20), and whose several
parts being adjusted, each to its own place and use,
grow into a temple hallowed by the indwelling of the
Lord, — a house wherein God may dwell by the pres
ence of his Spirit (Eph. ii. 21, 22). The Church is
also represented as God's tilled field (Oeov yewpyiov,
1 Cor. iii. 9), in which different laborers should culti
vate and irrigate the soil without disparagement or
jealousy of one another, remembering that it is not
they but God who produces the harvest (iii. 6-9).

324 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
The various offices wdiich belong to the Church at
large the apostle has enumerated in two passages.
They are " first apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly
teachers " (1 Cor. xii. 28), or, according to the fuller
list in Eph. iv. 11, apostles, prophets, evangelists,
pastors and teachers. This enumeration is not made
for the purpose of defining or emphasizing the vari
ous functions thus represented, but for the practical
purpose of illustrating the diversities of gift and of
fice which meet and harmonize in the essential unity
of the Church. That the list represents, not so much
different church offices as various functions and en
dowments, is shown by the way in which the list is
continued in 1 Cor. xii. 28, " then miracles, then
gifts of healings, helps, governments, divers kinds of
tongues." In the local churches there were in Paul's
time two well-defined offices, — that of bishops or pres
byters, and that of deacons (Phil. i. 1), — although
it seems clear that not all the Pauline churches were
thus officered from the first. There is no trace, for
example, of official leaders in either the Galatian or
the Corinthian churches ; the fact that none are in
any way held responsible for the disorders of these
churches, as well as the very nature of some of the
disorders, such as those that occurred at the Lord's
Supper (see, for example, 1 Cor. xi. 20, 21, 33) would
indicate a lack of organization in the case of these
communities.1 In the Church at large, however, there
were no offices, in the common meaning of that term.
1 Cf. Weiss, Bib. Theol. § 92 d.

THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH 325
The apostles were men especially commissioned by
Christ to found and foster churches, and they left no
successors. The terms " prophets, teachers, and
evangelists "do not imply functions which can be ab
solutely separated from one another. The "prophet"
was an instructed and divinely enlightened teacher
who interpreted spiritual truth to the churches.
The evangelists were preachers wdio went from place
to place, and might be officers in some local church,
as in the case of Philip the deacon (Acts xxi. 8).
The prophet and the evangelist were also teachers,
although these terms ordinarily denoted persons who,
in an individual church by reason of special fit
ness, gave instruction in Christian truth, and who
would generally, if not always, belong to the col
lege of elders or pastors who were chosen out of
the congregation to be its official representatives
in instruction and government (cf. Meyer on Eph.
iv. 11).
The various spiritual powers with which the Apos
tolic Church was endowed are more distinctly de
scribed, although this description is given, not for
purposes of definition, but as a basis of exhortation
to unity of spirit. The most prominent of these
charismata are the gift of tongues and of their inter
pretation, the gift of miracle-working, of discerning
spirits, and of prophecy (1 Cor. xii. 10, 30). Tbe
first of these was an ecstatic mode of speech which
was unintelligible to the hearers (xiv. 2), and which,
therefore, needed to be interpreted either by the

326 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
speaker or by another (xiv. 5, 13, 27, 28). " Work
ings of miracles " designate effects which proceed
from acts of power (cf. Bvvapeis, xii. 29), and which
presuppose for their performance special faith, —
such an unshaken confidence as is referred to in
1 Cor. xiii. 2, " If I have all faith, so as to remove
mountains." By the " discernings of spirits " is
meant judgments as to the source from which that
which is said in the assembly proceeds, whether from
the Holy Spirit or from human or even demoniac
spirits (cf. 1 Tim. iv. 1 ; 1 John iv. 1). Prophecy
or preaching, the gift of clear, luminous exposition of
Christian truth under the influence of the Holy Spirit,
was the endowment wdiich Paul most highly prized, and
deemed most serviceable to the Church (1 Cor. xiv.
1-5, 24, 25). Other charismata are more incidentally
alluded to, such as " the word of wisdom " (Xbyos
aocpias) and " the word of knowledge " (\o<yo? yz/co-
aews, 1 Cor. xii. 8), — terms which are not easily de
fined and distinguished, but which refer, no doubt, to
the enunciation and apprehension of those deep
truths and mysteries, such as the sacrifice of Christ
(1 Cor. i. 22-24), that constitute the true Christian
wisdom which may be taught to those of spiritual
maturity (1 Cor. ii. 6), but which the worldly and
carnal mind cannot receive (ii. 14). Paul mentions
also " helps " (dvriXrj-ty-eis) , which most naturally re
fers to the duties of the diaconate, and " govern
ments" (Kvfiepvrjaeis, 1 Cor. xii. 28), which is best
understood as the counterpart of " helps," and would

THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH 327
therefore designate the functions of government which
are exercised in the local church by the elders or
bishops. When we turn from the organization of the Church
and the diversity of gifts represented in it, to consider
its relation to society, we must remember that the
expectation of the speedy return of Christ to judg
ment, which was universal in the Apostolic Age,1
operated as a powerful motive to discourage changes
in the social order. We have seen how Paul applied
this motive to the subject of marriage (1 Cor. vii. 26-
31). The trials and sufferings which will precede
the approaching parousia make it desirable that no
change of social conditions or relations be made, but
that " each abide in that calling wherein he was
called" (1 Cor. vii. 20) ; that is, continue in the con
dition in which the call of God found him. If he was
a Jew when converted, let him not seek to efface the
marks of his Judaism ; if a Gentile, let him not be
come a Jew (vii. 18) ; if one was a bond-servant when
called, let him be content to remain such (vii. 21), for
bond and free are on the same level before Christ ;
both are Christ's freemen as those whom he has de
livered from their sins, and both are his bondmen as
being obligated to his service (vii. 22) ; that is, in
Christ's service the true bondage to truth and duty is
coincident with the highest freedom.
1 Cf Prof. G. P. Fisher on " The New Testament Writings
on the Time of the Second Advent " in The Nature and Method
of Revelation, p. 221 sq.

328 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
It is obvious from these considerations that even if
there had been in that age any occasion to raise the
question as to the justice and continuance of slavery,
no such upheaval of society as would have been in
volved in its abolition would have seemed justified to
the apostle's mind. The conditions of the time, how
ever, were not such as to give rise to this question.
Slavery was an institution of both Jewish and Gentile
society in which all acquiesced, and whose ultimate
discontinuance could only be the result of a prolonged
social development. A proclamation against it by the
apostles would have been as premature and futile as it
would have been unnatural. The immediate and
practical duty of the Christian teacher was to counsel
faithful fulfilment of the duties involved in social rela
tions as then existing (Eph. vi. 5-9). To have done
otherwise would have been to recommend a revolution
which would, in fact, have been unsuccessful, and
which, had it succeeded, would have been disastrous
in its effect upon society. A recent writer, treating
of " Paul and Social Gradations," raises the question,
what would have been the result if Christianity had
proclaimed in Paul's time the emancipation of all
slaves, and answers thus : —
" Doubtless it would have instantaneously added to
the numerical strength of Christianity ; the kingdom of
heaven would immediately have been taken by violence.
And so would the kingdoms of earth. It is impossible to
conceive a more perfect picture of anarchy than would
have been created by a sudden and successful insurrec-

THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH 329
tion of the slave population. The numerical proportion
of the bound to the unbound in the Roman empire is a
matter of dispute ; probably the bound outnumbered the
free. Figure anything approaching to such a proportion,
and then to the quantity add the quality. Consider that
the slave population represented at its worst that state
which we designate by the name of Paganism, — a name
which embraces as its leading characteristic the predomi
nance of the sensuous over the spiritual. It was Pagan
ism without its restraints and without its refinements.
What would have been the effect of the emancipation of
these millions, — the emancipation of an un-Christianized,
un-humanized horde, impelled by the fanaticism of a
new watchword, accomplished in a moment of time, and
achieved by a stroke of violence? Could it have any
other result than one, — the transformation of order into
anarchy, the uprooting of that line of civilization on
which Christianity itself had begun to move ? " 1
In regard to the relation of the sexes we may ob
serve, in addition to what has been said regarding
marriage and divorce, that the apostle considers the
distinction of sex to be annulled in Christ in so far
as both male and female are alike dependent upon
him (Gal. iii. 28). In respect of religious equality
there is no dependence of woman upon man. Even
in the natural relations there is a certain reciprocal
dependence, since it is not only true that woman was
made from man, but that man is born of woman
(1 Cor. xi. 11, 12). But neither this religious equal-
1 Matheson, Spiritual Development of Saint Paul, pp. 291, 292.

330 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
ity nor this natural derivation of each sex from the
other, annuls the social difference and the dependence
of woman upon man as her " head," — a relation
analogous to the dependence of the Church upon
Christ as her "head" (Eph. v._ 23 ; cf. 1 Cor. xi. 3).
The woman is to be veiled in public assemblies as
a sign of this dependence (1 Cor. xi. 5). For the
same reason she should wear her hair long, because
Nature has given it to her as a kind of natural veil
(xi. 15). It is therefore a violation of natural mod
esty and decorum for a woman to appear in public
without these signs of her natural dependence upon
man (xi. 6). These proprieties are based upon the
divine order of creation (Gen. ii. 18-22), according to
which the apostle considers that a certain precedence
is accorded man in the direct impartation to him of
lordly authority, while the glory which God imparted
to mankind in creation appears only indirectly and,
as it were, by reflection, in woman, who was not cre
ated directly by God, but mediately from man. In
1 Tim. ii. 14, the secondary place of woman is ascribed
not alone to her later and mediate creation, but to
her earlier yielding to temptation (Gen. iii. 6). It is
noticeable that the apostle's view regarding the de
pendent position of woman in her relation to man
rests upon a literal interpretation of the narratives
of the creation and fall in Genesis, and upon the
separate and far-reaching significance of its various
details. From this general view of woman's dependence the

THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH 331
apostle draws certain practical conclusions respecting
her place and conduct in the Church. He particu
larly forbids her speaking or teaching in the public
assemblies of the Church (1 Cor. xiv. 34 ; 1 Tim. ii.
12). This prohibition he grounds upon a natural
propriety which has its basis in the later creation, the
earlier transgression, and the divinely appointed de
pendence of woman (1 Cor. xiv. 35 ; 1 Tim. ii. 12).
Not only is she precluded from public teaching in the
assembly ; she may not even speak in the way of ask
ing questions. If she wishes instruction in regard to
the subjects which are considered in the Church, she
must ask her husband at home (1 Cor. xiv. 35), in
stead of propounding her questions in public. In
speaking of the impropriety of women praying or
prophesying in the congregation without a veil (1 Cor.
xi. 5, 13), the apostle cannot have intended to indi
cate that they might do so if veiled, since he is not
dealing with the proper way of woman's appearing in
public, but with the obvious impropriety of the mode
of appearance described. The requirement to appear
in the assembly with veiled head would, probably, in
itself preclude, by its very significance, the public
speaking in question ; but, in any case, the apostle's
attitude toward it is made unmistakably clear by his
direct and emphatic prohibition of it in a later chap
ter (xiv. 34, 35).
The ordinances of the Apostolic Church were bap
tism and the Lord's Supper. The former was the
symbol of the believer's entrance into union with

332 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
Christ ; the latter the memorial of his sacrificial death
and the sign and pledge of the believer's participation
in his life. The Christian is baptized into the name
of Christ (cf. 1 Cor. i. 13-16) ; that is, enters into
that personal relation to Christ which is denoted by
taking upon him Christ's name, so that he may be
said to have put on Christ (Gal. iii. 27) as a garment.
Baptism into Christ (et? Xpiarov) thus denotes the en
trance into spiritual relation to Christ, a mystic union
with him in which he becomes the life-element of the
soul. It is involved in this conception that baptism
denotes the renunciation of the former sinful life.
Continuance in sin is inconsistent with the very idea
of baptism, since it symbolizes an ethical death to sin
and life to righteousness (Rom. vi. 1-7). Here we
meet the peculiar Pauline representation by which
baptism is treated as a moral death and burial to sin,
analogous to, or rather mystically identical with,
Christ's death and burial. This form of thought is
discussed at length in another chapter (pp. 34-36),
to which I refer the reader. It is probable that the
immersion of the body in water suggested to the
apostle's mind the analogy between the moral signifi
cance of the rite and those saving acts of Christ —
death, burial, and resurrection — which were the
ground of that ethical transformation which baptism
symbolized. The object of the apostle in the passage
is not to teach anything concerning the mystical
significance of the form of baptism, but to urge that
the very idea of baptism — as denoting participation

THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH 333
in the saving work of Christ and life-union with
him — implies and demands a life of righteousness
as opposed to continuance in sin. Baptism betokens
a moral death to sin and a moral renewal in righteous
ness, — a process which has its ground in the death
and resurrection of Jesus. It is not the form of bap
tism which is said to typify Christ's death, but it is
the process of moral renewal (proclaimed in baptism)
which is so represented. Baptism is nowhere said to
typify or picture forth Christ's death, burial, and
resurrection. It typifies that moral renewal of the
believer which is figuratively called a death and res
urrection (Rom. vi. 4; Col. ii. 12), and which Paul
mystically identifies with Christ's death and resurrec
tion, its cause and ground. But, it may be said, if
baptism typifies spiritual renewal, and this renewal is
identified with Christ's death, does it not therefore
typify Christ's death ? The answer is that the identi
fication spoken of is a mystical identification of events
widely separated in time, and that while one may
carry out Paul's mysticism to this extent, he has not
himself done so. That Paul attached special signifi
cance to submersion as typifying Christ's burial, is an
inference which disregards the peculiar mysticism by
which the significance of baptism is associated with
Christ's death and burial, and overlooks the fact
that the relation of baptism to regeneration (ethical
" death ") is wholly different from that of regenera
tion to Christ's death. It is the fallacy of the argu
ment, A = B, and B = C ; therefore A = C, when

334 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
A does not equal B in the same sense as B equals C.
Baptism typifies moral renewal, and moral renewal is
grounded in Christ's death ; it does not follow that
baptism typifies Christ's death.1
It is not probable that the baptism of infant chil
dren was practised in Paul's time, or that the subject
of its grounds or propriety was ever considered by
him. In the early years of the Church's life there
would be no occasion to raise the question whether
the children of believers were also proper subjects of
baptism, since Christianity of course addressed itself
to adults. In the absence of explicit instruction on
the subject, the Church could only raise this question
— as it could only raise the question of exclusive Sun
day observance — at a later stage of religious thought
and life. It has been too confidently assumed that
the references to the baptism of households (Acts xvi.
15 ; 1 Cor. i. 16) imply the baptism of young children,
since there is no intimation that those families con
tained infants. The statement in 1 Cor. vii. 14 that
the children of parents one of whom is a Christian
are " holy " has been thought to imply tlieir right to
baptism ; but it is certain that the apostle could not
1 Rom. vi. 3, where Paul speaks of baptism into Christ's death,
is no exception to this statement. The context shows that his
meaning is, Our baptism expresses our new moral relation to
Christ's death ; its whole significance is that we ethically partici
pate in its benefits, which implies the cessation of the sinful life.
Paul is emphasizing the moral significance of the believer's initia
tion into the Christian community as implying that inner renewal
of life which is the effect of Christ's death.

THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH 335
have thought of such a bearing of his statement, since
in the immediate connection he affirms that " the un
believing husband is sanctified in the wife, and the
unbelieving wife is sanctified in the brother." The
believing partner " sanctifies " not only the children
of the union, but the unbelieving partner also. More
over, the fact that Paul designates children as "holy,"
not in consequence of a sacred rite, but solely by vir
tue of their Christian parentage, indirectly testifies
against the existence of infant baptisni in his time.
It determines nothing, however, as to the bearing upon
the subject of his underlying idea of the family.
The oldest tradition concerning the institution and
significance of the Lord's Supper (KvpiaKov Beiirvov)
is that which Paul has preserved to us (1 Cor. xi. 23-
25). It represents the Lord as taking bread, and
giving thanks, and saying, " This is my body, which is
for you," and, in like manner, taking the cup of wine,
and saying, " This cup is the new covenant in my
blood : this do, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance
of me." That the bread and wine wrere thought of in
the language of institution as symbols of Christ's body
and blood is evident from the fact that he was bodily
present with those to whom he spoke the words, and any
other sense of the words would have been absolutely
unintelligible.1 The idea that the language implies
a miraculous transformation of the elements of bread
and wine into Christ's veritable body and blood, or
1 Cf. Meyer in loco ; Neander, Planting and Training, Bohn
ed. i. 497; Am. ed. p. 454.

336 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
the equally miraculous presence in these elements of
two substances, is a development of sacramentarian
theology, whose rise was due, not to the passages
wdiich it learned to interpret with unnatural literal -
ness, but to a certain method of religious thought.
The symbolism of the ordinance which points pri
marily to the sacrificial death of Christ, as well as the
explanation of its purpose which the apostle appends
in verse 26, shows that the supper was to him a per
petual sign and confession of the benefits conferred
by the Lord's redemptive work. The institution was
to be a memorial of the Saviour, and more especially
of his sufferings and death, until he should personally
return to consummate his communion with his disci
ples by his immediate presence. But the observance
is not only regarded as an act of remembrance, but
also as an act of communion (koivwv'io). Partaking of
the bread and wine involves participation with the
body and blood of Christ (1 Cor. x. 16) ; that is, with
the remembrance of Christ's sufferings for the parti
cipant is joined the consciousness of communion with
him and of being the recipient of the saving benefits
of his death. That this " communion " with Christ's
body and blood is thought of, not as material, but as
realized in the consciousness of the believer's fellow
ship with Christ, is evident from the considerations
mentioned above in connection with xi. 23 sq.
The apostle also regards the supper as a sign of the
spiritual unity of all believers in Christ. " We who
are many are one bread, one body," or, as the verse

THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH 337
may (I think more properly) be translated, " Because
there is one bread, we, the many, are one body ; for
we all partake of the one bread " : (1 Cor. x. 17). The
common symbol of which all partake suggests the
common participation of all in those gracious benefits
which are symbolized, and thus designates the unity
of the participants.
Among the Corinthians, to whom Paul wrote on
this subject, great abuses of the sacred feast had
arisen. The memorial supper was observed, as uni
versally in the Apostolic Church, in connection with
the agape, or love-feast, — a common meal to which the
various members of the community contributed. But
on coming together, the richer members of the con
gregation proceeded at once to devour what they had
brought, and left those who had brought little or no
supply with an insufficient meal. The result was that
some remained hungry, while the well-supplied par
took to excess, especially of the wine which they had
brought (xi. 21). He reminds them that under such
conditions there can be no proper observance of the
Lord's Supper (xi. 20), and having rehearsed the cir
cumstances of its origin, in order to show them how
incongruous was their conduct with its whole idea
and purpose, he warns them against a desecration of
the sacred festival by reminding them that whoever
participates in it unworthily — that is, without an
1 So Meyer, Heinrici. Others render in the form of a com
parison, " As the bread is one, so we, the many, are one body,"
etc. So Conybeare and Howson, De AVette, Neander.

338 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
appreciation of its sacred character and use — is guilty
of sacrilegious treatment of the Lord's body and blood
(xi. 27). In view of the danger of this great sin to
which his readers were so peculiarly liable, he advises
them to put themselves to the test, whether they are
partaking with serious thoughts and in accord with
the sacred purpose of the institution, and urges them
to partake in the consciousness of the fact that by
this test it is determined whether their partaking is a
source of blessing or an act of sin (verse 28). Accord
ing to this criterion he that eats and drinks (dvaglws in
verse 29 is certainly spurious) draws down a divine
judgment upon himself if, in so doing, he does not
" discern the body ; " that is, if he is not conscious of
the sacredness of the symbols of which he partakes, —
if with a profane or thoughtless disposition he takes
the memorials of Christ's sacrifice (verse 29). To this
profanation of the ordinance the apostle traces the sick
ness and death of many in the Corinthian congrega
tion (verse 30). He warns them to submit their moral
condition to the test proposed (verse 28) when they
approach the sacred meal, and to refrain from those
excesses from which their unworthy participation has
resulted, by waiting for one another at the agape, or
by eating in advance at home, that they may not
further expose themselves by such impiety to the
divine displeasure (verses 31-34).

CHAPTER XIII
THE PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY
No part of the apostle's teaching is developed with
so little of systematic fulness as the doctrine of the
future life. Upon the subject of the resurrection he
wrote at some length (1 Cor. xv.), in order to remove
the objections and difficulties which existed in the
Greek mind in regard to it. He has expressed him
self somewhat fully, especially in his earlier epistles,
upon the hope of the Lord's return to earth, but in
the later letters this theme recedes into the back
ground. Upon no other topics of eschatology has he
dwelt at length. His statements are rather incidental,
hut are not on that account less important as a guide
to his general conception of the nature and progress
of the kingdom of God and of the consummation of
human history.
Salvation is to Paul both a present and a future
fact. At justification there commences a new life
wdiich continues to grow and strengthen under the
power of the Spirit ; but in this life the blessed reali
zation of salvation is but begun. With the experi
ence of God's redeeming mercy there always mingles

340 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
a large element of hope. The full fruition of redemp
tion will be enjoyed only in the immediate presence
of Christ.
Redemption has two sides or relations, — that which
looks toward the former sinful state, and which is
represented by such words as salvation (awrrjpid) and
forgiveness (dcpeais), and that which looks forward to
the future, and is best represented by the term life
(£wrj). The formal, juridical side of Paul's theology
is more immediately connected with this negative
aspect of salvation ; his doctrine of the life of faith
and love illustrates more its positive side. The doc
trine of justification answers the question, How7 can
man be delivered from the burden of his sins and be
come the object of the divine favor ? The doctrine of
the Christian life answers the question, How can man
more and more attain that Christlikeness of char
acter whose complete possession is the goal of his
existence ? The Pauline eschatology is, in the main,
a following out of this question. But this teaching
has also its negative side. It treats of the deliverance
of the spiritual element of the personality from the
corruptible flesh ; but the main stress is laid upon the
positive completion of salvation in the bestowment of
glorified bodies suited to the new conditions which
shall surround the soul in the future life, and in the
glorification and perfection of the whole personality
after the image of Christ.
The great transformation which Paul's views of the
future life underwent in his passing from Pharisaism

THE PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 341
to Christianity is apparent when we contrast the
Jewish view of death as the greatest of misfortunes,
with Paul's conception of it as a departure to be with
Christ, which is better than continued life (Phil. i. 23) ;
or when we compare the Jews' belief in Sheol- — a
gloomy realm of shadows and forgetfulness — with
Paul's hope of a bright, happy, conscious life, ensuing
directly upon death (2 Cor. v. 6-8). On the ground
of the narrative of the Fall in Genesis (iii. 3 sq.),
Paul regards physical death as the penalty of sin.
He cannot, indeed, have supposed that, had sin never
entered the world, there would have been no change
corresponding to what is called death, — that is, a dis
solution of the material body,- — since it is a funda
mental principle with him that fleshly bodies cannot
enter the future spiritual kingdom (1 Cor. xv. 50). We
are led to suppose that, but for sin, there would have
been some transformation of men's fleshly bodies,
without those accompaniments of sickness and pain
which are always associated with " death," by which
they would have been delivered from their perishable,
corruptible elements, and made fit to " inherit the
kingdom of God." Death, therefore, considered as
the penalty of sin, is not merely the dissolution of the
earthly body as such, but carries with it those asso
ciations of weakness, disease, and corruption which
have always invested with terrors the name of death.
How, now, does the work of redemption affect this
bitter consequence of sin ? It does not abolish it ;
the reign of death continues. Nor does it rob it of

312 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
those accompaniments to which we have referred, and
make it what it would have been if sin had never
entered the world. Despite the work of Christ, death
remains with all its train of physical evils, even for
the subjects of salvation. The natural consequences
of sin are not averted by redemption.
In what sense, then, can Paul hold that Christ has
"abolished death" (2 Tim. i. 10)? He has done
so by securing to the believer the certainty that
death shall have no further dominion over him after
his experience of it here. It shall not hold him under
its power in the world to come, where he shall forth
with enter into life. The sting of death, which is sin
(1 Cor. xv. 56), is taken away, because sin cannot
pursue the believer into the future world, there to
inflict upon him death and its attendant evils. Christ
is victor over death because at last the soul in his
immediate presence is delivered from the power of
sin and is placed beyond the reach of death, — sin's
consequence. In accord with this conception of death as power
less to hold or harm the soul after its separation from
this body, the apostle is fond of speaking of death as
a sleep. Christ is the '-firstfruits'' (the pledge and
promise of resurrection), " of them that are asleep "
(1 Cor. xv. 20) ; "for if we believe that Jesus died
and rose again, even so them also which are fallen
asleep in Jesus will God bring with him " (1 Thess.
iv. 14 ; cf. 1 Cor. vii. 39 ; xi. 30 ; xv. 6, 18, 51). To
understand this expression literally as designating an

THE PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 343
actual sleep of the soul, a state of unconsciousness
between death and the resurrection, is clearly incon
sistent with several passages where Paul presupposes
an immediate entrance at death upon a conscious, joy
ous communion with the Lord (2 Cor. v. 8 ; Phil. i.
23).1 The expression must be understood as an
euphemism for death, and as denoting the blessed
rest in fellowship with Jesus into which his followers
enter at death. The realization of the completed
salvation for the individual is thus described as the
disarming of death of its terrors by the assured cer
tainty of an entrance into a blessed life with Christ,
and of being provided with a spiritual embodiment
for the soul which shall never experience death or
corruption. Greater difficulties arise when it is sought to define
Paul's conception of the consummation of the king
dom of redemption as a whole, and to trace the order
of events by which it is to be accomplished, and the
relation of the individual thereto. The second coming
1 Usteri (Paulinischer Lehrbegriff, p. 349) supposes that Paul's
earlier thought was that the dead in Christ slept between death
and the parousia, but that as this event receded into a more un
certain distance, he developed the hope of their immediate partici
pation at death in conscious fellowship with Christ. This opinion
involves the supposition of a very radical transformation of his
ideas on the subject in the few months intervening between the
writing of 1 and 2 Corinthians (cf. 1 Cor. xv. G, 18, 20, etc., with
2 Cor. v. 8), — an assumption wholly destitute of proof and in itself
quite unnatural. Sabatier (V Apotre Paul, p. 155 sq. ; Eng. tr.
p. 1 79 sq.) draws a fanciful picture of this supposed transformation
in the apostle's view of the future.

344 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
of Christ furnishes the starting-point for this phase
of his teaching. It is necessary to consider his views
upon three subjects, • — the parousia, the resurrection,
and the judgment of the world, — in order to define the
further problems to which these views give rise, and
to trace the limits of the apostle's affirmations regard
ing the last things.
In common with the Avhole Church in the Apostolic
Age, Paul regarded the return of Christ to raise the
dead and judge the world as near at hand, and confi
dently hoped for its occurrence in his own lifetime.
This expectation seems to have been occasioned largely
by the disappointment of the hopes of the first dis
ciples of Jesus — • hopes which were universal in the
later Judaism — that the Messiah would establish a
great world-empire and throw from off the nation the
yoke of Roman dominion. Since Jesus had not done
this, but had merely proclaimed and founded a spirit
ual empire, his disciples most naturally turned their
thoughts toward his return as the occasion when their
disappointed hopes would be fulfilled. His own teach
ing respecting this event and respecting other future
crises in his kingdom, they had understood in the
light of their own conception of the nature and es
tablishment of this kingdom. Their inherited ideas
colored their understanding of his teaching on these
themes and influenced the form of the tradition of
his words from the first. This influence is clearly
discernible in our Synoptic Gospels, where he is fre
quently represented as teaching that his second advent

TH1C PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 345
would occur speedily, and even in one instance as
declaring that it would ensue immediately upon the
capture of Jerusalem by the Romans (Matt. xxiv. 29).1
The non-fulfilment of these definite predictions which
were attributed to Christ, did not destroy, though it
must have tempered, the hope of his early return.
Even those who no longer cherished the Jewish con
ception of the Messianic kingdom as agreat theocracy
with Jerusalem as its center, still clung to its asso
ciated idea of the impending return of the Lord. Paul
was no exception. Naturally this hope appears most
prominently in his earlier epistles (1 and 2 Thess.),
which are, in effect, specimens of his missionary teach
ing prior to the time when the great Jewish-Christian
controversy convulsed his churches. At Thessalonica
the Christians, ardent in their hope of the Lord's
speedy coming as the result of Paul's preaching among
them, were perplexed in regard to those of their num
ber who had died. Would they not be at a disadvan
tage at the advent as compared with (hose wdio should
be then living? Paul replies that they will in no
respect fail of participation in that glorious event;
for at the Lord's coming those believers who have
died shall be raised, and shall at once fully share in
the exaltalion to heaven and the perpetual commu
nion with Christ into which his followers will enter
(1 Thess. iv. 13-18). The way in which the apostle
1 Cf. Fisher, on " Tho New Testament Writings on the Time of
the Second Advent," in The Nature and Method of Revelation,
p. 221 sq.

346 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
speaks of those who shall be living at the parousia
(" We that are alive, that are left unto the coming
of the Lord," verses 15, 17) clearly shows that he
expected to be of that' number, and that he re
garded those who should have " fallen asleep in
Jesus " (verse 14) as constituting a minority of the
church. Paul soon found that from this hope had been drawn
unwarranted and dangerous inferences. Many at
Thessalonica had ceased from their regular employ
ments and from self-support, in expectation of the
speedy consummation (2 Thess. iii. 6-12). In his
second letter to them he seeks to correct this extrava
gant and fanatical temper. A letter had been circu
lated among them, purporting to emanate from Paul,
which had stated that the day of the Lord was on the
very point of dawning (ivear-rjKev, ii. 2). Paul denies
all responsibility for such definite and confident pre
diction of the immediate nearness of the advent, and,
in order to turn their minds, in a measure, to other
thoughts, tells them that certain events which must
precede the parousia may more wisely be made the
object of their present expectation. These events are
connected with " the apostasy " (r) diroaraala, ii. 3),
which shall culminate in a great development of evil,
which Paul conceives of as being represented by a
false Messiah who is called " the man of sin," " the
son of perdition." This manifestation of evil is to be
within the sphere of anti-Christian Judaism, and is at
present held in check by the Roman pow7er. These

THE PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 347
evil forces are gathering themselves for an outbreak
which will occur as soon as the restrainer (6 Kare-^wv,
verse 7 ; cf. to Kareypv, verse 6) is taken out of the
way. From this whole passage (ii. 1-12) — well named
" the Pauline Apocalypse " — it is evident that Paul
shared, in some measure, the Jewish idea of the
dolores Messice (cf. 1 Cor. vii. 26), the dread sufferings
and portents which were to precede and accompany the
advent.1 The passage under review throws no doubt
whatever upon Paul's expectation of the nearness of
the advent. While he had not taught that the day
was so near that its dawn was on the point of break
ing, and while he asserts that other events are to
be first expected, he clearly regards these events as
harbingers of the approaching advent, and contem
plates them all as near at hand and as likely to occur
within his own lifetime.
In his later epistles other great problems and
interests absorb his attention, and the subject of
the advent assumes quite a secondary place. The
hope of a personal experience of it continues, how
ever, to -find occasional expression almost to the
very end of his career. There is no just ground foi|
the assertion that Paul underwent a change of view
regarding this subject. There is in his teaching a
change of emphasis in regard to it, but no change of
opinion. It is referred to in the second group of let-
1 Cf. Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah,
ii. 433, 434.

348 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
ters (1 Cor. i. 7, 8 ; iv. 5 ; xvi. 22) and in the third
(Col. iii. 4 ; Phil. iv. 5).
The apostle's doctrine of the resurrection is pre
sented in a compact form in order to answer the
objections to it which were rife at Corinth (1 Cor.
xv.). The certainty of resurrection in general is
based upon the fact of Christ's resurrection. These
two truths are involved in each other, and stand or
fall together (verses 12-19). But it is a fact that
Christ has risen and become " the firstfruits [dirap^/rj]
of them that are asleep " (verse 20) ; he has begun
the great resurrection-process, and in his resurrection
that of his followers who have died, is assured. It
is only the certainty of this fact which can lend sig
nificance to the custom of receiving vicarious baptism
for those who have died (verse 29), or justify the
apostles in subjecting themselves to constant perils
and labors for the gospel (verses 30-32). But for the
hope founded upon Christ's resurrection, we should
easily fall into moral indifference and carnality of life
(verses 32-34).
The question then arises as to the mode of the
resurrection. The apostle replies that it may be
thought of after the analogy of natural processes.
As the seed-grain which is sown in the earth decays,
but rises again in the nobler product of the new stalk,
so the perishable body may have within itself some
germ or potency which becomes the formative princi
ple of the resurrection-body (verses 36-38). This
analogy is intended to relieve the difficulty which

THE PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 349
was felt in regard to the relation between the present
and the future embodiment. To the Greek mind the
difficulty would be : When the disembodied soul comes
forth from Hades and enters a body, whence and of
what materials shall that body be ? Paul's analogy
meets the problem only in two points : (1) the new
body shall not be identical with the present one, — the
buried body resuscitated, — but (2) it shall be organi
cally connected with the present body ; the conti
nuity of the personality on its corporeal side shall
not be broken.
He next adduces an analogy to show the reason
ableness of the idea that in the future life men should
have bodies suited to their condition (verse 39).
Various orders of being — men, beasts, fishes — have
bodies suited to their conditions and needs. Why
should not men receive such bodies as befit a higher
state of being ? That there should be various kinds
of embodiments for differing stages of existence
accords with the fact that in the universe God has
made a difference in the glory of the material spheres
(verses 40, 41). As he has made the heavenly bodies
of various degrees of splendor, so he may create
bodies which vary in their qualities according to the
purpose which they are to serve.
From these points of view he develops his doctrine
of the "spiritual body" (awpa irvevpariKov), which
the soul will possess in the spiritual world, as con
trasted with the " psychical body " (awpa -^-v^ikov),
which it inhabits here (verse 44). The latter is ani-

350 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
mated by the sensuous and perishable life (-v^f^) as
its determining element ; the former will be animated
by the supersensuous and imperishable life (%wrj) which
the Spirit imparts and sustains. The perishable body
of Adam is the type of the present natural bodies of
all men ; the glorified body of the risen and ascended
Saviour is the type of the pneumatic bodies which
await the dead in Christ (verse 49). It is doubtful
whether the glory (Bbga) which Paul ascribes to the
resurrection-body in contrast to the " dishonor "
(dnpia) of the buried body (verse 43), can be under
stood as intended to define the material of that body
as a " heavenly light-substance," as Weiss holds.1
This term appears to be co-ordinate with " incor
ruption " and " power," — which, taken together,
denote qualities of the spiritual body as opposed to
the " corruption," " dishonor," and " weakness," which
characterize the psychical body, — rather than to
describe its material or composition (cf. verse 40).
The judgment of the world Paul closely associates
with the parousia. The " day " of the Lord's coming
is the "day" of judgment (1 Cor. i. 8; 2 Cor. i. 14;
Phil. i. 6, 10 ; ii. 16) . The order of events evidently is,
— the advent, the resurrection, the judgment. Many
hold that according to Paul there are to be two resur
rections, — the first that of believers, and the second
that of the rest of mankind.2 This view is supported
by appeal to two passages, 1 Thess. iv. 16, 17, " The
1Bib. Theol. § 97 J.
2 So Bengel and Meyer on 1 Cor. xv. 24.

THE PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 351
Lord himself shall descend from heaven, etc., and the
dead in Clirist shall rise first [dvaarrjaovrat, irpwrov] :
then [eireira] we that are alive shall be caught up,"
etc. It is obvious, however, that the word " first "
here is correlative to the word " then " in the next
verse, and that the rising of the dead in Christ as a
first event is said to be followed as next in order, not
by a second resurrection, but by the translation to the
skies of believers who shall be living at the time. It
is clear, then, that Paul does not here speak of a first
resurrection as opposed to a second. The passage is,
however, in no way inconsistent with the idea of a
second resurrection, and in the view of many critics
naturally gives rise to the inference that his mention
of the resurrection of the dead in Christ, as an act by
itself, implies his belief in the resurrection of non-
Christians as a distinct and separate event (so Ols
hausen, De Wette). The question which arises regard
ing the separate mention of the resurrection of the
dead in Christ would, no doubt, disappear if the view
that Paul does not believe in the resurrection of non-
Christians at all could be established (so Weiss).
The question may also be answered by saying that he
mentions Christians only because he was comforting
the Thessalonian Church concerning their departed
friends, and had no occasion to take into view any
except believers (so Calvin). This appears to me to
be the most natural explanation of the mention of the
resurrection of believers as a. distinct event, and as
preceding the transporting of the living to heaven,

352 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
whatever view be taken of the resurrection of non-
Christians, or a twofold resurrection, on the ground of
other passages. The Thessalonians feared that their
departed friends would be anticipated by the living at
the advent ; that the living would earlier and more
fully enjoy its glory than the dead. Paul replies, No,
your departed friends shall rise first ; that is, before
the living enter into the joy of perpetual presence
with the Lord. They shall be at no disadvantage as
compared with you who are alive at the time, for before
you enter the glory of the consummation which shall
begin at the parousia, they shall be raised from the
dead. There is therefore no occasion here to think
or speak of any except believers ; there is, at any
rate, no reference here to two resurrections, as Meyer
(who, on other grounds, holds the view of a double
resurrection to be Pauline) fully acknowledges.1
The principal passage to which appeal is made in
support of the opinion that Paul believes in two res
urrections is 1 Cor. xv. 23, 24, " Each man [shall
be raised] in his own order [that is, group, or divi
sion] : Christ the firstfruits [the first typical case of
resurrection, and so the guaranty and pledge of the
resurrection of believers ; cf. verse 20] ; then they
that are Christ's, at his coming. Then cometh the
end," etc. " The end " (to reXos) is understood to
mean the end of the resurrection (so Bengel, Meyer).
In this view there would be three divisions of those
who are raised, — first, Christ himself, conceived no
1 Commentary on 1 Thess. iv. 16.

THE PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 353
doubt as a leader (although designated here " first-
fruits," in accordance with a figure previously
employed) ; then the believers ; and finally the non-
Christians. If, however, the end of the resurrection
had been meant by to reXos here, it seems highly
probable that it would have been more particularly
defined. It is true that Meyer's interpretation has the
advantage of giving a more extended program of
the resurrection, which seems to be contemplated by
the apostle in such a beginning of his description as,
" Each man in his own division." We naturally ex
pect a somewhat numerous series of the ray para
of which he seems to be thinking ; but several in
stances occur elsewhere in which Paul does not carry
out enumerations which his language seemed to promise
(Rom. i. 8; iii. 2). But the apostle's conception of
" the end " here appears to be clearly implied in what
follows the expression : " Then cometh the end, when
he shall deliver up the kingdom to God," etc. "The
end" refers to the time when Christ shall consum
mate his kingdom, and put into subjection all hostile
powers (see verse 28). If this consummation can be
shown to include the resurrection of non-Christians,
the passage will indeed admit of adjustment to the
doctrine of two resurrections. But I regard it as
quite certain that the passage cannot be made directly
to support that opinion. " The end " must be taken
in the absolute sense as denoting the end of the pres
ent world-period, the goal of human history (so Godet,
Heinrici, Weiss, Edwards). Since no other passages
23

354 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
appear to support the Jewish idea of a twofold resur
rection, we may conclude either that Paul had aban
doned it in favor of the idea of a general resurrection
of all mankind, or that he supposed there was to be
no resurrection for unbelievers.
If Paul knew nothing of two resurrections, it fol
lows that he could not have held the idea of a reign
of Christ upon earth either for a thousand years (cf.
Rev. xx. 1-7), or for any less definite period. Paul
was not a chiliast ; and the Jewish doctrine of two
resurrections, with the added conception of an inter
mediate reign of Christ upon earth, finds absolutely
no support in the New Testament outside of the
Apocalypse. In regard to the question whether Paul believed in a
resurrection of the godless, the following points must
be remembered, — (a) that he nowhere speaks in his
epistles (cf., however, Acts xxiv. 15) of a general res
urrection of all mankind ; (b) that he twice (1 Thess.
iv. 16 ; 1 Cor. xv. 23) speaks explicitly of a resurrec
tion of Christians, as if he thought of it as a distinct
event ; (c) that his whole argument for the fact of a
resurrection is based upon Christ's resurrection as its
ground and guaranty ; and (d) that the application of
this argument is made to Christians alone. It is cer
tain that Paul has said nothing — even in the most
casual or indirect way — of a resurrection of non-
believers. Whether he held to such a resurrection
notwithstanding the fact that he has not alluded to it,
or whether he has not alluded to it because he did not

THE PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 355
hold it, is a matter for conjecture. It cannot fairly
be denied that the facts just mentioned make no ordi
nary case of an argumentum e silentio. Why, in
1 Cor. xv. 23, does he make no allusion to the resur
rection of others than Christians when, in what seems
to start out as a general description of the process, he
explicitly mentions that of those who are Christ's ?
Would the argument of 1 Cor. xv. avail to establish,
or even to render probable, a resurrection of all men ?
It is certainly used by Paul only to prove the resur
rection of Christians. Can the last Adam be consid
ered, according to the presuppositions of the argument,
as becoming the life-giving spirit of resurrection (xv.
45) to any except to those who are joined to him by
faith? Can the "all" who, it is said, will be made
alive (xv. 22), — that is, raised from the dead, — be
understood absolutely ; that is, without respect to
their union with Clirist through faith ? As against
most interpreters (Hofmann, Heinrici, Edwards, Beet,
Godet), Meyer holds that it should be so understood.
If so, tho conclusion must follow that it is not life-
union with Christ, but a natural relation of Christ to
all men, which secures resurrection, — a view which
would not only be at variance with Rom. viii. 11,
where the indwelling of the Spirit of Christ is de
clared to be both the condition and the means of the
quickening of the mortal body, but would, in my
opinion, logically lead to the conclusion which Ols
hausen, De Wette, and others have drawn from it,
— the final restoration of all men. Moreover, the de-

356 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
scription of the resurrection-body is such as to show
that believers only were thought of. It is a pneu
matic body ; that is, one animated by the life-giving
Divine Spirit, and suited to a holy and glorious sphere
of existence. If evil men are regarded as subjects of
resurrection, what conception of their bodies is to be
entertained ? Paul furnishes no hint in answer.
But there is one consideration which is regarded as
decisive (see Meyer on 1 Cor. xv. 24) for the view
that Paul believed in the resurrection of all men :
All men are to be judged (1 Cor. vi. 2; xi. 32), and
the judgment presupposes resurrection. There is no
question that the resurrection (whatever be its scope)
precedes the judgment ; there is also none that the
world is to be the subject of judgment, although this
representation is quite incidental and infrequent with
Paul ; but without further evidence it cannot be
proven that these positions necessarily involve the
universality of the resurrection. The considerations
adduced may create a certain presumption in its favor,
but they do not conclusively prove a positive opinion
on Paul's part.
We are led to the conclusion that Paul teaches
nothing concerning the resurrection of unbelievers.
This statement does not mean that his teaching is ab
solutely inconsistent with the fact of such a resurrec
tion, or that his language shows him to have had a
positive opinion against it. The subject is wholly
outside the scope of his doctrine. His arguments are
not directed toward it, nor would they be applicable

THE PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 357
to it. It must also be admitted that if the considera
tions which Paul has adduced to support the fact of
the resurrection of the dead arc the only ones which
are available, a strong presumption must arise against
the resurrection of non-Christians, since such a resur
rection cannot rest upon the grounds which Paul has
alleged. With reference to Paul's doctrine of the '
resurrection, then, I regard two negative conclusions
as well established by exegesis, — (1) that he does not
teach the Jewish doctrine of two resurrections, and
(2) that he does not affirm or clearly imply any view
as to the fact or manner of a resurrection for non-
believers.1 A further question arises, From what are men con
ceived of as rising in the resurrection ? Paul speaks
either of tho resurrection of the dead (dz'ao-Tao-t?
veKpwv, 1 Cor. xv. 12, 13, 21, et al.), or of resurrection
from (among) the dead (ck veKpwv, Rom. vi. 4 ; vii.
4; 1 Cor. xv. 12, et al.). The latter expression he
couples only with Christ's resurrection ; the former
he regularly employs of the resurrection in general.
The conception in the expression, resurrection e/c
veKpwv, is evidently that of a rising up out of the
underworld, Sheol, — resurrection from the realm of
the dead. How the apostle conceived of the person,
1 If we could assume with confidence that the report of Paul's
speech before Felix accurately reproduced his language in detail,
the apostle's belief in " a resurrection both of the just and of the
unjust " (Acts xxiv. 15) would be securely established ; but in
view of the silence of his epistles this assumption becomes a pre
carious one.

358 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
or spirit, of Christ, as related to his body during the
period between his death and resurrection, he has in
no way intimated. The Jewish conception of Sheol.
which there is no reason to suppose that Paul had.
in its general idea, abandoned, in connection with the
two expressions already referred to, requires us to
suppose that he conceived of the dead persons as ris
ing from the underworld, or realm of disembodied
spirits, and being clothed with bodies suited to the
life upon which they then enter.
Did Paul, then, believe in an intermediate state :
He has certainly developed no doctrine concerning it.
and it is a perplexing question as to what his state
ments most naturally imply. His expectation of the
nearness of the parousia naturally accounts for hi>
entire neglect of this subject. Even if his principles
required the assumption of a middle state, the con
ception of such a state would remain comparatively un
important for him in view of the speedy culmination of
human history in the resurrection and judgment. His
expressions regarding the believer's entrance at death
into the immediate presence of Christ (2 Cor. v. 6-S :"
Phil. i. 23) seem unfavorable to the idea of an
intermediate state, and certainly reflect a widely dif
ferent conception of the condition of the soul between
death and judgment from that which was connected
with the Jewish notion of Sheol. On the other hand.
it is certain that with Paul the resurrection and judg
ment are definite future events which ensue upon the
Lord's return. What. then, is the state of the dead in

THE PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 359
the interval between their death and the day of their
resurrection ? The apostle has given no answer, be
yond expressing the confident hope that the believer
enters at death into fellowship with Christ. In what
state or sphere this fellowship will be realized pre
vious to the bestowal of the resurrection-body, and
to the final award of the judgment day, wre are left
to conjecture. We thus see that Paul has ex
pressed the Christian hope of immediate entrance j
into fellowship with Christ at death, without in any 1
way adjusting this hope to his doctrine of the resur- \
rection from the realm of the dead at the second
advent. His doctrine of the resurrection and the
judgment seem clearly to presuppose some sort of
preliminary state between death and the completion
of personal life in the resurrection ; but the hope of
being at once with Christ, together with the expecta
tion of the Lord's speedy return, has deterred the
apostle's mind from developing any doctrine of the
middle state which his principles so obviously require.
Whatever view is taken of the implications of Paul's
doctrine regarding the resurrection of non-Christians,
it is certain that he regards all men as amenable to
the final judgment (Rom. ii. 5-9; xiv. 10-12). This
subject, also, he often treats in its relation to believ
ers. Their work will then be tested, and will be
either approved or rejected (1 Cor. iii. 14, 15). The
principal problem to which his language gives rise is,
How is his teaching that men are to be judged in
strict accordance with the deeds done in the body to

360 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
he reconciled with his doctrine of grace according to
which the believer is not treated in accordance with
his works, but in a gracious manner and better than
he deserves ? His conception of the judgment, in this
aspect of it, is thus described : " For we must all be
made manifest before the judgment-seat of Christ ;
that each one may receive the things done in the
body, according to what he hath done [rd Bid rov aw
paros irpbs a eirpagev], whether it be good or bad"
(2 Cor. v. 10 ; cf. xi. 15 ; 1 Thess. ii. 19, 20). Here
Paul seems to affirm for all men a merely legal judg
ment, whose awards shall be in precise equivalence to
their deeds, instead of taking account of faith in
Christ as divinely accepted for righteousness, and en
titling the believer to a gracious treatment. Who,
then, can be saved if none have sufficient works of
merit to constitute a claim to acceptance, and the
awards of the judgment are nevertheless to be in
strict proportion to what men have done ?
Various solutions of this problem have been pro
posed. Baur maintained that the contrast between
justification by faith and justification by works was
an abstract and theoretic contrast which designated
respectively the characteristics of Christianity and
Judaism. In concrete application to the individual
Christian, both these ideas meet and blend. " Works
and faith, or outer and inner, are in the life of the
individual not so separated that where the one is,
something of the other would not also be always
present ; only both together, in their relation to each

THE PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 361
other, constitute the essence of piety, the disposition,
the moral quality, without which man cannot be justi
fied before God." J Pfleiderer holds that Paul's doc
trine of a day of judgment and of the equivalence
between awards and deeds, is a fragment of Jewish
theology which is not consonant with his Christian
principle of grace, — a survival iu his thought of a
conception which is not assimilated to his system.2
Ritschl remarks that " Paul does not reflect upon the
imperfection of the moral actions of believers, in
order to seek their complement in justification through
Christ." 3 Reuss says that this doctrine of the judg
ment according to good actions is purely Jewish, and
has no point of connection with Paul's evangelical
doctrine of faith as the condition of the Christian's
acceptance with God, or with his doctrine of resurrec
tion as guaranteed by union with Christ. He adds
that the Church should not seek to combine into one
system these incompatible conceptions.4
To these opinions of the problem, I will only add
the ingenious solution of Weiss : " This equivalent
(the exact correspondence of reward to the deeds
done) is not to be regarded in the rigid judicial
sense as an external balancing of wages and ser
vice, but as the natural correspondence of harvest
and seed-time" (Gal. vi. 7, 8). He explains the
1 Vorlesungen iiber Neutestamentl. Theol. p. 181.
2 Paulinismus, pp. 281, 282; Eng. tr. i. 266.
8 Rechtfertigung und Versohnung, ii. 365.
4 Theol. Crc't. au Steele Apos. ii. 221, 222.

362 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
" deeds done " as denoting, in the case of the Chris
tian, his whole activity as determined by the Spirit,
and the award as not being legally due, but as fol
lowing by a natural necessity.1 The principle of
equivalence, then, as applied in the doctrine of the
judgment, is not to be interpreted in a narrow legal
spirit, but in accord with Paul's Christian standpoint.
There can be no reasonable doubt that the apostle
has retained, in regard to the judgment, Jewish phrase
ology which belongs to the scheme of debt and works
that he so energetically rejected and opposed ; in
other words, he did not extend the application of the
terminology of his doctrine of grace and faith to that
subject. The principles of his system obviously re
quire a distinction to be made between the basis of
judgment for such as refuse God's grace and insist
upon standing upon the plane of law and works, and
for those who renounce all claims to merit and accept
the gracious offer of salvation through faith. The
principle of equivalence can apply only to the former
class, because they adhere to the sphere of law, aud
make their claim upon the work-and-wages principle.
But Paul teaches that on this basis there can be
no acceptance with God, because no one can furnish
proof of the requisite obedience to the divine require
ments. Salvation is attainable only on the principle
of a gracious concession on God's part toward sinful
men. This is the ground of their acceptance in justi
fication, and must equally be the basis of their final
1 Bib. Theol. § 98 d.

THE PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 363
acceptance in the judgment. Yet Paul has retained,
in describing the judgment, the formula used by the
Jews which comports with the idea of a merely
legal, and not with that of a gracious or Christian,
judgment. While we are thus bound to recognize the fact that
Paul has not carried out his principle of grace in
application to the judgment, it is not reasonable to
assume that this Jewish formula descriptive of the
judgment was understood by him in the same narrow
sense in which he had understood it as a Pharisee.
It is impossible that his intensely ethical and per
sonal conceptions of religion should not have broad
ened the terms of this formula of equivalence. While
it is certain, on the one hand, that his theology of
grace did not replace the terms of the Pharisaic
theory of salvation regarding the method of the judg
ment, it is a just and tenable view that this theology
elevated and broadened those terms in accord with
its own spirit, so that the " deeds done in the body "
comprehended, in the case of the Christian, all the
activities of a life of faith which works by love. The
reward, in such a. case, Paul could not have regarded
as legally due on the ground of personal merit, but
as morally due according to that gracious system of
divine action which has made faith, obedience, love,
and service the conditions of receiving, not of achiev
ing, final salvation.
It remains to review Paul's statements regarding
the final consummation of the Messianic kingdom.

364 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
When the end of the present world-period arrives,
Clirist will deliver over to God his mediatorial king
dom, but not until he shall have subdued all ene
mies, of which death is the last to be overcome.
Death, however, shall be subdued in the resurrec
tion and the glorification of believers. When Christ
has thus accomplished the object of his reign, he shall
also himself become subject to the Father, that God
may be all in all (1 Cor. xv. 24-28). It appears
from the fact that the work of Clirist in his kingdom
is under consideration, that the " subjection " of the
Son spoken of denotes an official surrender of the
function of Mediator, whose work is now complete, so
that, in contrast to the mediatorial rule of Christ,
God may be the immediate ruler in all the subjects
of the kingdom (cf. verse 22 ; Phil. ii. 10, 11 ; Rom.
xi. 32 ; Cob i. 20).
In these passages the final triumph of Christ over
opposing powers is plainly asserted. Do they involve
the idea of the final conversion of all to Clirist, and
of their restoration to divine favor ? If the language
of these verses might be taken by itself, it would most
naturally suggest this conception. Its terms are the
broadest and most positive which could be employed
to assert the absolute submission of all evil powers
to Christ. Neander regards them as presenting a
"magnificent prospect of the final triumph of the
work of redemption." 1 Pfleiderer affirms that this
subjection of all things under Christ, this bowing of
1 Planting and Training, Bohn ed. i. 531; Am. ed. p. 487.

THE PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 365
all knees to him, wdiich Paul describes, can be con
ceived as realized only by the annihilation of the
wicked or by their conversion.1 Julius Mulier does
not regard these passages as in themselves decisive
apart from considerations drawn from other sources.2
It appears to me unwarranted to explain these ex
pressions without reference to the principles of Paul's
system as a whole. When it is said that " in Christ
shall all be made alive" (1 Cor. xv. 22), — whether
ZwoiroirjOrjaovrai refer to resurrection (as is prob
able), or to spiritual life, — it cannot be maintained,
on Pauline principles, that this making alive occurs
apart from union with Christ ; that is, apart from the
personal appropriation of the benefits of Christ's work
by faith. In like manner, when in verse 28 God is
said to be " all in all," — whether iv irdaiv is taken
as masculine (Godet, Meyer, Weiss) or neuter (Ed
wards, Lechler, Heinrici), — it does not follow, on
the former supposition, that iv irdaiv is more com
prehensive than the " all things " which have before
been mentioned as ruled over by the Son ; nor, on the
latter, that all evil world-powers are willingly sub
jected to God's rule. It cannot be concluded from
the statement that all men and powers are subdued
to divine rule, and are rendered subject to Christ's
kingdom, that all are thus subject in the same sense,
unless the principles of the system authorize such a
supposition. 1 Paulinismus, pp. 288, 289; Eng. tr. i. 275.
2 Christian Doctrine of Sin, ii. 426, 427.

A

366 THE PAULINE THEOLOGY
It can hardly be doubted that these expressions,
taken absolutely and by themselves, would most natu
rally be understood to point to the restoration of all
men. This interpretation of them, however, cannot
be adjusted either to Paul's doctrine of man, of sal
vation, or of the judgment. But two courses seem
open to the interpreter, — either to hold the terms
of these passages subject, in concrete application, to
those modifications which are required by the condi
tions of salvation that the apostle elsewhere regards
as not fulfilled in all ; or to assert, with Pfleiderer, an
insoluble contradiction between that harmonious out
come of human history which accords with Paul's
" religious speculation " respecting the principle of
grace, and the dualism which corresponds to his legal
standpoint of " moral reflection." 1
The impression made by an impartial examination
of the salient points in Paul's eschatological teach
ing is, that he has expressed the content of Christian
hope without close j-eHectabrrupon the relation of the
various elements of his doctrine to one another. The
reserve of his teaching respecting the future is evi
dent when one seeks for replies to many of the
questions regarding the resurrection, the intermedi
ate state, and the judgment, with which theology is
required to deal. His statements are assertions of !
general principles rather than parts of a coherent
system. He was confident of being with Christ at
once after death, and of being clothed upon with
1 Paulinismus, pp. 272, 273, 1 Ann. ; Eng. tr. i. 276.

THE PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY 367
the heavenly house (2 Cor. v. 1, 2), — the spiritual
body; he was sure that God would judge all men in
righteousness, and that Christ would triumph over
every foe. But his language must be forced and sup
plemented with many conjectures before it can be
made to yield any detailed eschatological program, or
to afford an answer to the numerous inquiries to which
speculative thought gives rise in connection with his
affirmations. It was wholly aside from his purpose
to write in respect to this, or in respect to any other
subject, a systematically reasoned argument which
should answer the demands of scientific thought. He
wrote for a more practical, and, in relation to his
time and purpose, a more important end, — to foster
and strengthen the Christian life. Of this fact we
find an illustration in the way in which he closes the
chapter on the resurrection, with which our attention
has been so much occupied : " Wherefore, my be
loved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always
abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye
know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord "
(1 Cor. xv. 58).

BIBLIOGRAPHY
(See explanatory remarks in Preface, page x.)

I. Treatises on the Pauline Theology.
O. Pfleiderer (Professor of Theology in Berlin), Der Paulinis
mus; ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der urchristlichen Theologie.
2 Aufl. Leipzig, 1890. Translated (from the first edition)
by E. Peters. 2 vols. Williams & Norgate, London, 1877.
O. Pfleiderer, The Influence of the Apostle Paul on the Develop
ment of Christianity. (The Hibbert Lectures, 1885.) Williams
& Norgate, London ; Charles Scribner's Sons, New York.
L. Usteri, Entwickelung der paulinischen Lehrbegriffs, u. s. w.
Zurich, 1851.
F. C. Baur, Paulus, der Apostel Jesu Christ!, u. s. w. 2 Aufl.
Leipzig, 1866. Translation by A. Menzies, 2 vols. Williams
& Norgate, London, 1873-75.
A. Sabatier (Professor of Theology in Paris), L' Apotre Paul:
Esquisse d'une Histoire de sa Pensee. G. Fischbaeher, Paris,
1881. Translated by George G. Findlay. New York, 1891.
James Freeman Clarke, The Ideas of the Apostle Paul, trans
lated into their Modern Equivalents. Boston, 1884.
E. Rena n, Saint Paul. Translated by I. Lockwood. New York,
1869.
II. Wokks ox New Testament Biblical Theology.
B. Weiss (Professor of Theology in Berlin), Lehrbuch. der bib
lischen Theologie des Neuen Testaments. 5 Aufl. Berlin, 1888.
Translation (from the third edition) by David Eaton. 2 vols.
T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1882-83. 24

370 BIBLIOGRAPHY
E. Reuss (formerly Professor of Theology in Strasbourg),
Histoire de la Theologie chre'lienne au Siecle apostolique. 2 vols.
Strasbourg and Paris, 1864. Translation by Annie Har
wood. 2 vols. Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1872.
F. C. Baur, Vorlesungen iiber neutestamentliche Theologie.
Leipzig, 1864.
A. Immer, Theologie des Neuen Testaments. Bern, 1877.
III. Historical Works on the Apostolic Age.
A. Neander, History of the Planting and Training of the Chris
tian Church, etc. Translated by J. E. Ryland. 2 vols. George
Bell & Sons (Bohn ed.), London. The same revised by
E. G. Robinson. Sheldon & Co., New York, 1869.
G. V. Lechler (late Professor of Theology in Leipzig), Das
apostolische und das nachapostolische Zeitalter, u. s. tc. 3 Aufl.
Leipzig, 1885. Translation by A. J. K. Davidson. Edinburgh,
1886.
C. Weizsacker (Professor of Theology in Tubingen), Das
apostolische Zeitalter, u. s. w. Freiburg, 1886.
0. Pfleiderer, Das Urchristenthum, seine Schriften und Lehren,
u. s. w. Berlin, 1887.
A. Ritschl, Entslehung der altkatholischen Kirche. 2 Aufl.
Bonn, 1857.
IV. Treatises or Essays on Special Topics.
W. P. Dickson (Professor of Theology in Glasgow), Saint Paul's
Use of the Terms Flesh and Spirit. Glasgow, 1883.
C. Holsten (Professor of Theology in Heidelberg), Die Christus-
vision des Paulus und die Genesis des paulinischen Evangelium
(1861), and, Die Bedeutung des Wortes o-dpg im Lehrbegriffe
des Paulus (1855), forming part of the volume entitled, Zum
Evangelium des Paulus und des Petrus. Rostock, 1868.
George Matheson (Pastor in Edinburgh), Spiritual Develop-
ment of Saint Paul. Wm. Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh and
London, 1890.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 371
R. A. Lipsius (Professor of Theology in Jena), Die paulinische
Rechtfertigungslehre, u. s. w. Leipzig, 1853.
George P. Fisher (Professor in Yale University), An Exami
nation of Baur and Strauss on the Conversion of Paul, in The
Supernatural Origin of Christianity, p. 459 sq. Charles
Scribncr's Sons, Xew York.
George P. Fisher, The Apostle Paul, in Discussions in History
and Theology, p. 487 sq. Charles Scribner's Sons, New
York, 1880.
A. B. Bruce (Professor of Theology in Glasgow), Paul's Conver
sion and the Pauline Gospel. Pivsbyterian Review, October,
1880, p. 652 sq.
Matthew Arnold, Saint Paul, ami Protestantism. Macmillan
& Co., London and Xew York.
James Stalker (Pastor in Glasgow), The Life of Saint Paul,
chap, iv., entitled His Gospel, p. 44 sq. T. and T. Clark,
Edinburgh.
James Iveracii (Professor of Theology in Aberdeen), Saint
Paul: His Life and Times, chap, xv., entitled The Pauline
Theology, p. 203 sq.
Eduard Grafe (Professor of Theology in Bonn), Die paul
inische Lehre vom Gesetz, u. s. u: Freiburg and Tubingen,
1884.
H. Ludemann, Die Anthropologic des Apostels Paulus und Hire
Stellung innerhalb seiner Heilslehre. Kiel, 1872.
L. Ernesti, Die Ethik des Aposlels Paulus in ihren Grunchiigen
dargeslellt. 3 Aufl. Gottingen, 1880.
H. Gunkel, Die Wirkungen des Heiligen Geistes, nach der
popularen A nschauung der apostolischen Zeit und nach der
Lehre des Apostels Paulus. Gottingen, 1888.
J. Gloel, Der Heilige Geist in der HeilsverkUndigung des Paulus.
Halle, 1888.
R. Schmidt, Die paulinische Christologie in ihrem Zusammen-
hange mit der Heilslehre des Apostels dargestellt. Gottingen,
1870.
E. Menegoz (Professor of Theology in Paris), La Predestination
dans la Theologie Paulinienne. Paris, 1884.

372 BIBLIOGRAPHY
E. Menegoz, Le Peche et la Redemption d'apres Scint Paul.
Paris, 1882.
W. Beyschlag (Professor of Theology in Halle), Die paulinische
Theodicee, Romer ix.-xi. Berlin, 1868.
A. Tholuck, The Life, Character, and Style of the Apostle Paul,
translated and published in a volume entitled Selections from
German Literature. By B. B. Edwards and E. A. Park.
Andover, 1839.
E. Hatch, article Paul in the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
A. Hausrath (Professor of Theology in Heidelberg), Drittes
Buch, pp. 123-194, in Der Apostel Paulus. 2 Aufl. Heidel
berg, 1872.
A. Monod, Saint Paul. Five discourses (translated ; Andover,
1861).

INDEX OF TEXTS

ACTS OF THE APOS
TLES. Page 5470
21
21,76 21 71 21217G21
70
103 7171
170334 55

v. 34 sg.
vi. 13, 14
ix. 1.1 .
ix. 211-22
ix. 2! I
x. 14
xi. 19 .
xiii. 5, 14
xiii. 30
xiii. 42-41
xiv. 15-17
xiv. 17
XV. 1 .
xv. 24 .
xvi. 3 .
xvi. 15
xvi. 37
xvii. 1-4
xvii. 2
xvii. 3
xvii. 22-31
xvii. 20
xvii. 26, 2
xvii. 28
xvii. 29
xvii. 30 .
xviii. 5-11
xviii. 24
xix. 1 .
xx. 31 .
xxi. 8 .
xxi. 22
xxii. 3
xxii. 21 .
xxii. 25-29
xxiii. 1
xxiii. 8
xxiv. 15 .
xxvi. 2 .
xxvi. 5
xxvi. 9
xxvi. 14 .
xxvi. 16-18
xxviii. 4 .

76 76
76
. 103
108108
. 108
. 100 76
313
313 76
325
. 61
54, 76
. 2155 9
53
354, 357
. 76
. 52
.9, 17 9
. 21
. 61

i thessalonians.

Page

i. 28 . ,

29,151

i. 1

... 76, 320

ii. 1 sq. .
ii. 5-9 . .

. 47

106, 151

ii. 19, 20

. . 360

. 359

iv. 11 .

... 88

ii. 6 . .

. 152

iv. 13 sq. .

. 89, 345, 346

iv. 14 .
... 342
ii. 12 sq.
. 48
106, 161
iv. 15
. 89
ii. 13 . .
. 106
181, 264
iv. 16 . .
. . 354
ii. 14 .
. 154
158, 167
iv. 16, 17 .
. 350
ii. 14, 15 .
103, 104
v. 1 . .
. 88
ii. 17 .
ii. 21 . .
. 29
. 29
3SALONIANS. .... 319
. 81, 89, 346
89, 346
. . 321
. 78, 81, 347
. 347
. 98
. 346
. 346
. 89
79
ii. 21-24
152
2 THE
ii. 23-27
162
i. 5. .
ii. 2 .
ii. 3 .
ii. 3 sq.
ii. 1-12
ii. 0, 7
ii. 16 .
iii. 2 .
iii. 6-12
iii. 10-12
iii. 17
ii. 24 .
ii. 25 . .
ii. 26 .
iii. 1, 2
iii. 19 . .
iii. 20 . .
iii. 21 . .
iii. 21, 22
iii. 21-26 .
, 41
. 162,
. 63
, 170
106, 167
. 107
27, 353
, 61, 107
. 163
176, 177
. 263
. 40
. 102
iii. 22 .
41, 106
iii. 23 .
. 130
ROM." N :
iii. 24 .
98, 235
iii. 25 .
. 237
i. 1 .
2
iii. 25, 26
99,
235, 246
i. 1-7
... 28
iii. 27
. 113
i. 3 .
. 206, 212
iv. 3
. 262
i.4
. . 203
iv. 4 .
98, 333
i. 8
. . . 27,353
iv. 5 .
. 262
i. 14
... 163
iv. 6
. 262
i. 16 . .
. . 21, 90, 107
iv. 9 .
. 262
i. 17 . .
40,41,282,294
iv. 10-13 .
. 175
i. IS . .
. 41,99,242
iv. 11
41,262
i. 18-20 .
... 151
iv. 15 .
. 178
i. 18-32 .
.... 47
iv. 13-17
. 168
i. 19 . .
. 103, 106, 158
iv. 22 .
. 262
i. 20 . .
29, 104, 108, 158
iv. 23 .
. 262
i. 21-23 .
.... 107
iv. 24 .
. 262
i. 24, 26 .
.... 151
iv. 25 .
. 254
v. 8 . .
. 98,
121, 227
374

INDEX OF TEXTS

v. 10 . . . 228, 230, 243
v. 12 . 37, 38, 40, 41, 156
v. 12-18  29
v. 12-21 36, 49, 123 sq., 274
v. 14  210
v. 18  230
v. 20 . 108, 170, 178, 209
v. 21  41
vi. 1-7 . . . 332
vi. 1-20 . . 299
vi. 2 . , 295
vi. 2-4 . 272

vi. 3

vi. 6
vi. 7 .
vi. 8 .
vi. 8-23
vi. 11 .
vi. 12 .
vi. 13 .
vi. 14 .
vi. 17 .
vi. 19 .
vi. 20 .
vi. 22 .
vii. 1-6
vii. 4 .
vii. 5 .
vii. 7 .
vii. 7-25
vii. 8 .
vii. 9 . .
vii. 10
vii. 12
vii. 12-14
vii. 13
vii. 14
vii. 14-25
vii. 10-23
vii. 22 .
vii. 23
vii. 23, 24
vii. 24, 25
vii. 25 .
viii. 1
viii. 2 . .
viii. 3 10

. . 295, 334
35, 36, 232, 296, 357
41, 131, 145
. . 273
33, 37, 232, 295
. . 273

viii. 3, 4
viii. 4 . .
viii. 4 sq. .
viii. 5 . .
viii. 6 sq.
viii. 7 .
viii. 9 .
viii. 10 .
viii. 11 .
viii. 15-17
viii. 29, 30
viii. 32
ix. 5 .

296145145165
. 303
. 300
. 303
. 303
43, 273
. 357
. 145
. 107, 177
12, 11,5, 172, 175,
182, 184. 273, 274
. . . 177, 17S
42, 190
171, 173, 190167302
. 177
. 107
143, 144, 147 158
. . 103
. 105
13,42 111
. 10.5
270, 295
... 231
..., 148, 170, 181,
1S8, 203, 20,'), 231
. 171, 277
282, 29!), 301
140

. 299
. . 145
. 163
299, 301
. 295
. 355
. . 44
... 119227
201 sq., 200

ix. 6, 7 .
ix. 14 .
ix. 15-29 .
ix. 16 .
ix. 18 . .
ix. 19-23 .
ix. 20 .
ix. 22 .
ix. 22-24 .
ix. 23 .
ix. 30 sq. .
ix. 31 . .
ix. 32 . .
ix. 33 .
x. 2
x. 3 .
x. 4
x. 5 . .
x. 9
x. 9-13
x. 12
x. 13 .
x. 21 .
xi. 16 . .
xi. 18 sq. .
xi. 21 . .
xi. 32 . .
xi. 36 . .
xii. 5 . .
xiii. 1-7 .
xiii. 9 . .
xiii. 9, 10
xiii. 10 .
xiii. 12
xiii. 13, 14
xiv. 1-21 .
xiv. 10-12
xiv. 17
xv. 3 . .
xv. 24 .
xvi. 5 ,
xvi. 25

i. 7
i. 7, 8' .
i. 8 .
i. 12 .
i. 13-10
i. 10
i. 18 .
i. IS sq.
i. 22-24
i. 20
i. 30 .
ii. 2
ii. 0
ii. 7
ii. 9
ii. 14 .

Page

112

115

110
115
115
118
113
116, 117
29, 116
98
21
115
111
68
115
111, 114, 2< ,
its, 1C
3, 196
181
201
111, IN
201
68
114
155
115
155
304
222
322
308, Ei'. i
180
107
301
90
141
309, ;.n
359
319
68
77
320
25
THIAJ
rs. 320
00
348
350
313
332
334
228
314
. 326
146
289
205, '.
326
. 110
64
.' 300, 326
ii. 15
iii. 1 .
iii. 1-23
iii. 3 .
iii. 6-9
iii. 9 .
iii. 14, 15
iii. 16, 17
iii. 18 .
iii. 21-23
iv. 6 .
iv. 20 .
v. 10 .
vi. 2 .
vi. 9 .
vi. 13 .
vi. 19 .
vii. 1-40
vii. 14 .
vii. 18 .
vii. 20 .
vii. 21 .
vii. 22 .
vii. 26 .
vii. 26-31
vii. 39 .
viii. 1-29
viii. 6 .
ix. 1 .
ix. 2 .
ix. 9, 10
ix. 10 .
ix. 22 .
x. 16 .
x. 17
x. 20 .
x. 22 .
x. 32 .
xi. 1 .
xi. 3 .
xi. 5 .
xi. 6 .
xi. 11, 12
xi. 13 .
xi. 15 .
xi. 18 .
xi. 20, 21
xi. 23-25
xi. 26 .
xi. 27-34
xi. 30 .
xi. 32 .
xi. 33 .
xii. 3 .
xii. 8 .
xii. 10 .
xii. 12.
xii. 12-31
xii. 28 .
xii. 29 .
xii. 30 .
xii. 31 .
xiii. 1-3
... 300
. . 300
. 314, 315
141, 146, 299
... 323
... 323
... 359
. 323320 28
348
. . 319 01
356319 142
. 142
. 316-318
. . 334
. 327
... 327
. 327327
. 347
. 327
. 342
. . 310-312
. 203, 222
... 11
2(10
. CO01
. 61
335337
. 311
. 201
. 320
. 208
204, 330
33J, 331330
. 329
. 331330
. 320
. 324, 337
207. 335, 330336338 312
350
. 324201
326 325322
. 322
320, 324, 326
326 325
301 301
INDEX OF TEXTS

375

xlll.
xiii.
xiii.xiii,xiii.xiv. xiv.
xiv. xiv.
xiv.xiv.xiv.xiv.xiv.xiv.xiv.xiv.

1-13
2.
.7 .
10
13
1-5
2 .
4,5 5 .
1321
23, 24
24 .
24,25 27,28
3435
3 .
.3-7. 6 .
.8 .
. 9 .
. 12, 13
. 12-49
.18..20. .
. 21 . .
. 22 .
.23. .
. 23, 24
.24 .
.24-28. 27

xv. 28

304-306
307, 326
. 307
. 97
. 97
. 326
304, 325
. 304
. 326

. 163
. 304
. 103
. 326
304, 326
. 331 331
205, 229
. 207
342, 343
11, 206
9,320
. 357
348-350
342, 343
. 342, 343, 352357
36, 355,' 364, 365
. 90, 354, 355352
.... 356
.... 364 201

xv.XV.
XV. xvi.xvi.xvi.

35-494545-4747.5051.55.50.58. 12 ,
1922

203, 204, 222, 225,
353, 365
. . 50
. 355
40, 126
... 137
142, 319, 341
... 342
. . 66
. 342
. . 367
. . 61
... 320
90, 348

2 CORINTHIANS.

i. 12 .
i. 14 .
iii. 6 .
iii. 6, 7
iii. 7-11
iii. 11 .
iv. 4
iv. 5 .
v. 1, 2 .
v. 6-8 .

141, 146
. . 350
. . 180
. . 197
. 69
. . 197
. . 203
. 200
. 367
. 341, 358
. . 343

v. 10
v. 14
v. 15
v. 17
v. 21
vi. 14-
vii. 1
viii. 9
x. 1 -
x. 2 &(,
xi. 15
xii. 1-
xii. 2

 152, 360
33, 35, 208, 232
37, 130, 131, 228, 232
 295
208, 209, 240, 279, 289

18 .

323
. . 144, 300
98, 203, 208
. 208
. . 145
360
. 20
. 20

GALATIANS.

i.4.

i. 11 .
i. 12
i. 13 .
i. 13, 14
i. 15, 16
i. 16 .
i. 18 .
i. 17, 18
i. 19 .
Ii. 3 .
ii. 4
ii. 6 .
ii. 9 .
ii. 11-16
ii. 15 .
ii. 17
ii. 19 .
ii. 20

121, 276.

ii. 21 .
iii. 2 .
iii. 6 .
iii. 6-9
iii. 10 .
iii. 10-12
iii. 12
iii. 13 .
iii. 16 .
iii. 17 .
iii. 17, 18
iii. 19 .
iii. 21 .
iii. 23 .
iii. 23, 24
iii. 24 .
iii. 25 .
iii. 27
iii. 28 .
iv. 1-7
iv. 3 .
iv. 4 .
iv. 9 .
iv. 9-11

320, 321
25, 9890
. 2, 10
. 320
. 10
10, 11, 21 8
205 21
. 33
. 313
. 71
. 205
. 206
71, 313
154, 155
. 279
... 280
208, 232, 233,
280, 296, 301
. 177
. 300
. 262
. 168
. 166
. 240
181, 264240
62, 206
. 168
. 175
175, 196
177, 188
. 23
. 161
175, 196
. 196
. 332
301, 329
. 44
. 169
. 203 169
. 197

107,107,

iv. 10 .
iv. 21 .
iv. 21-31
v. 2 .
v. 3 .
v. 11 . ,
v. 12
v. 14
v. 16 . ,
v. 19-23
v. 21 .
v. 25 .
vi. 2 .
vi. 7, 8
vi. 12 .
vi. 14 .
vi. 15 .

. 106
. 163
. 59
72, 169
. 166
. 228
. 30
. 167
. 300
. 141
. 319
. 301
. 104
361
. 228
. 228
. 170

colossians.

i. 15

. . 203

i. 16 .

202, 213

i. 18

214, 221

i. 19 .

 214

i. 20 .

.... 364

i. 20 sq.

... 220

i. 22 .

. 216

i. 24 .

. . 218

ii. 3 .

. . 214

ii. 9 .

214, 323

ii. 10 .

. . 214

ii. 12 .

35,333

ii. 15 .

. 215

ii. 16, 17

. 197

ii. 16-23

92

ii. 17

215

ii. 18 .

. 92

ii. 19 .

.214

ii. 20 .

. 33, 37, 131, 232

iii. 1 .

34, 131, 217

iii. 3 33,

37, 131, 232, 233,

276, 301

iii. 4

. 348

iii. 14 .

. 306

iv. 15 .

. 320

PHILEMON.

10,11
20 .

EPHESIANS.

i. 1,2
i. 4.
i.4, 5
i. 5.
i. 5, 6

3(130

152
227 110
,213 110

376

INDEX OF TEXTS

Page

PHILIPPIANS.

2 TIMOTHY.

i. 10 . . . 221

, 222, 322

Page
Page
i. 20-22
. . 217
i. 1. .
324
i. 10 . .
342
i. 21 . . .
. 320
i. 6. .
350
i. 22 . . .
. 221, 322
i. 10
350
TITUS.
ii. 3 ....
i. 23
341
343
,358
ii. 4 ....
, 98,121
ii. 5 sq.
208
ii. 12 . . . .
320
ii. 4, 5 ...
. 227
ii. 6-8 .
202
215
ii. 13 . . . .
202
ii. 10
, . 213
ii. 9-11
217
ii. 12
. . 219
ii. 10, 11
304
OTHER NEW
TESTA-
ii. 13 . .
. . 219
iii. 2, 3
30
MENT BOOKS
ii. 14-10
220
iii. 6 .
180
ii. 15 . .
. . 216
iii. 9 .
204
279
Matt. v. 17 sq.
. 7
1, 194
ii. 16 .
. 98, 322
iii. 10-12
218
xix. 8
194
ii. 20-22 . . .
323
iii. 12 .
2
xxiv. 29 .
345
iii. 8 . .
. . 214
iii. 12-11
218
Mark ii. 21, 22 .
11)5
iii. 11 .
213, 227
348
ii. 22
70
iv. 7-15
. . 221
xii. 33, 31
194
iv. 11
324, 325
Luke iv. 23 . .
61
iv. 13
. . 323
1
riMOTHT.
v. 36-39 .
1115
iv. 15 .
. . 323
John vi. 28, 29 .
283
iv. 16
. . 322
i. 9.
172
Heb. vi. 5 . .
320
v. 2 .
. . 218
i. 13
10
ix. 5 . .
230
v. 4 .
. . 66
ii. 12 .
331
x. 9 .
198
v. 22-25 .
. . 221
ii. 14
330
1 Peter ii. 6
68
v. 23
. . 330
iii. 16 .
148
1 John iv. 1
320
. . 328
iv. 1 .
326
Rev. xx. 1-7 .
354
GENERAL INDEX

Acts, accounts of Paul's conversion
contained in, 6 sq. ; Paul's dis
courses in, 94 sq.
Adam, parallel between, and Clirist,
36 sq. ; primary purpose of the
parallel, 49, 123; the sinning of
all in his sin, 37 sq., 124 sq. ; the
sense in which all sinned in his
transgression, 129 sq. ; theological
treatment of his sin in relation to
the sinfulness of the race, 133-137;
his fall, 137, 138.
Adoption, the figure of, 44.
Allegorical interpretation in the Paul
ine epistles, 59 sq.
Analogy, Paul's use of, 42 sq. ; how
abused in theology, 253.
Apocalypse, the Pauline (2 Thess.
ii. 1-12), 346, 347.
Apostasy, tlie, which is to precede
the parousia, 346.
Apostles, the primitive, their view of
the aim of the gospel, 71; their
function in the early Church, 325.
Apostolic Age, interest and impor
tance connected with, vii.
Arnold, Matthew, on the perversion
of Paul's theology in the Church,
vii.
Atonement, its subjective side, 232-
234; its objective aspects, 234 sq. ;
its presentation under the figure of
a ransom, 235-240; twofold repre
sentation of by Paul, 256-258.

Baptism, in the early Church, 331-
335.

Baur, on Paul's conversion, 3; on
Paul's idea of righteousness, 40;
on Paul's view of the judgment,
360.
Bengel, on Adam's sin, 131.
Bibliography of Paulinism, 369-372.
Bruce, on Pfleiderer's theory of Paul's
conversion, 3.
Chkist, the believer's mystical union
with, 33 sq. ; parallel between
Adam and, 36 sq. ; Paul's doctrine
of his person, 199 sq. ; Paul's doc
trine of, not systematically de
veloped, 199 ; Paul's personal
knowledge of, 200 sq. ; his "cos
mic significance," 201, 202 ; as
" Lord " and " Son of God," 203 ;
his subordination to the Father,
204 sq. ; Paul's references to his
earthly life, 206-208; his sinless
ness, 209 sq. ; doctrine of, in the
Epistles of the Imprisonment, 213
sq. ; his personal pre-existence,
223 sq. ; the mediator of salvation
by his death, 227, 228; pays the
ransom for man's redemption, 235-
240 ; manifests the divine righteous
ness in his death, 237 sq. ; becomes
"a curse " and " sin " on our be
half, 240 sq. ; his substitution of
himself for man in suffering,
241 sq. ; his sufferings not punish
ment, 245 sq. ; his self-humiliation,
248; his sufferings a substitute for
man's punishment, 249, 250 ; saving
value of his resurrection, 254, 255;

378

GENERAL INDEX

fellowship with, how related to
justification, 276, 277 ; the believer's
union with, 279 sq. ; his headship
over the Church, 322; in what
sense he has "abolished death,"
342.
Church, Paul's teaching respecting
the unity and harmony of, 313-
315 ; Paul's doctrine of the Church,
319 sq. ; meaning of the word
"church" in his epistles, 320;
Christ's headship over, 321 sq. ;
Paul's figurative descriptions of,
323; various offices and functions
in, 324, 325 ; miraculous gifts in,
325 sq. ; its relation to society, 327
sq. ; the ordinances of, 331 sq.
Colossians, Epistle to the, criticism
of, 78 sq., 295 sq.
Conscience, as a medium of divine
revelation, 104-106; Paul's treat
ment of the weak, 309 sq.
Conversion of Paul, 1 sq. ; explana
tions of, by Baur and Strauss, 3 sq. ;
by Holsten and Pfleiderer, 3 sq. ;
account of, in Acts, 6 sq. ; refer
ences to, in Paul's letters, 8 sq. ;
relation of, to his previous and sub
sequent life, 8 sq. ; bearing of Rom.
vii. 7 sq. upon the problem of, 12
sq. ; its relation to his future work,
23 sq., and to his theology, 25;
how it changed his view of the
Old Testament, 71 sq.
Cremer, on the meaning of the term
"flesh," 147; on Paul's use of the
word "law," 160.
Criticism, of the Pauline epistles;
state of, 75 sq.
Cross of Christ, Paul's doctrine of,
228 sq. ; origin of, 228 ; its rela
tion to Paul's belief in the Mes
siahship of Jesus, 229.
Death, ethical, of believers with
Christ, 34 sq. ; as the consequence
of sin, 126; ethical, analogy of to

sin in Adam, 130, 131; of Christ,
significance of, 227 sq. ; does Paul
contemplate it apart from the life
of Christ, 230-232 ; ethical death
with Christ as illustrating the sub
jective side of the atonement, 232
sq. ; Christ's, for us, in what sense,
243 sq. ; Christ's, the causa merit-
oria of salvation, 255; Paul's con
ception of, as contrasted with the
Jewish idea of, 341 ; as the penalty
of sin, 341; in what sense abolished
by Christ, 342.
Debt, correlative to works, 262.
Dickson, on Paul's use of the terms
" flesh " and " spirit," 148 sq.
Discourses of Paul in Acts, 75, 76.
Divorce, Paul's treatment of, 316 sq.
Education, Paul's, 54 sq.
Election, Paul's doctrine of, 111 sq.
Ephesians, Epistle to the, criticism of,
78 sq.
Epistles, of Paul, the criticism of, 75
sq. ; grouping of, 76, 77 ; the Epis
tles of the Imprisonment, Christ-
* ology of, 213 sq.
Eschatology, Paul's, 339 sq. ; unsys
tematic character of, 366, 367.
Faith, correlative to grace, 261 ; why
reckoned for righteousness, 268 sq. ;
the opposite of merit, 281-283; its
relation to a righteous life, 289-
291; how Paul's doctrine of gives
security to the believer, 292, 293.
Fall, Paul's doctrine of the, 137 sq.
Fellowship with Christ, how related
to justification, 277, 278.
Flesh, Paul's doctrine of, 139 sq. ;
its relation to the body, 141-144;
its relation to sin, 145 sq. ; its
ethical meaning, 146.
Gentilks, moral responsibility of,
106; they possess in their con
sciences an analogue to the Jewish
law, 163, 164.

GENERAL INDEX

379

Gerhard, on justification, 288.
Gifts, miraculous, in the early
Church, 325 sq.
Gnosticism, germs of, in the Epistles
of the Imprisonment, 92.
God, Pauline doctrine of, 93 sq. ;
revelation grounded in his nature,
108-110; the Jews' intense sense
of, 111; his electing purpose, 111
sq. ; his righteousness manifested
in the death of Clirist, 237 sq.
Godet, on Christ's satisfaction to the
divine righteousness, 251.
Grace, meaning of, 98 ; its sole effi
ciency in salvation, 110; its cen
tral place in Paul's teaching, 282.
Grafe, on Paul's treatment of the law
in Eomans and Galatians, 170,171;
on the grounds of Paul's view of
the law, 186.
Greek thought, its supposed influence
on Paul, 56 sq.
Hagar and Sarah, allegorical treat
ment of, by Paul, 59 sq.
Headship of Christ over the Church
and the world, 221 sq., 321 sq.
Heinrici, on the meaning of 2 Cor. v.
14 sq., 233 ; on the vicarious work
of Christ, 242.
Holsten, on Paul's conversion, 3 sq.
Idolatry, a perversion of true re
ligion, 107.
Imprisonment, Epistles of the, criti
cism of, 78 sq. ; the question of a
second, 84; bearing of the Epis
tles of, upon Paul's theology, 87,
88 ; their Christological character,
92 sq. ; Gnostic elements in, 92.
Intermediate state, did Paul believe
in an, 358.
Jewish doctrine of salvation, Paul's
polemic against, 266, 267; why it
could never give complete assur
ance of peace with God, 292.

Jewish idea of death in contrast to
Paul's, 341.
Jews, their responsibility as com
pared with that of the heathen,
107; their sense of God, 111.
Judgment, the, its relation to the
parousia, 350; to be universal,
356; the apparently legal view of,
in Paul's epistles, 359 sq.
Justification, forensic conception of,
45 ; negative and positive proof of,
by Paul, 47; how related to re
demption, 259; Paul's doctrine of,
connected with his experience,
259, 260; Jewish doctrine of, 260;
a succinct statement of Paul's doc
trine of, 261 ; motive of Paul's doc
trine of, 265; juridical and ethical
views of, 270 sq. ; presentation of,
in Eomans, 272 sq. ; the formal
and the real principle of, 275 ; its
relation to the law's requirement,
277 sq. ; its relation to life-union
with Christ, 279 sq. ; one-sided
treatment of, iu theology, 285, 286 ;
its relation to sanctification, 286.
287, 297; not a mere fiat of God,
288 ; the formal and the ethical
elements of, 289.
Justifv, meaning of the word, 262,
263."

Kapporeth, the, whether referred
to in Eom. iii. 25, 236.
Kingdom of God, its eschatological
meaning in Paul's epistles, 319;
its relation to the Church, 320, 321 ;
its consummation, 363 sq.

Law, Paul's experience under, 12 sq. ;
Paul's new view of, after his con
version, 71 sq. ; Paul's doctrine of,
160 sq. ; its generic and specific
sense, 160-163 ; its use denoting a
force or principle, 164, 165; denotes
the whole Mosaic system, 165 sq. ;

380

GENERAL INDEX

its fulfilment in the gospel, 166,
167; its origin and nature, 167; its
subordinate relation to the gos
pel, 168 ; different treatment of, in
Eomans and Galatians, 168-171;
the doctrine of, developed from
a Christological standpoint, 171;
Paul's peculiar doctrine of, how
different from the Jewish idea,
172 sq. ; sense in which it increases
sin, 177 sq. ; why it cannot justify,
179 sq. ; roots of Paul's doctrine
of, 182 sq. ; how Paul's view of is
to be adjusted to the Jewish view
of, 191 sq. ; his doctrine of, how
due to his changed view of Christ,
192 sq. ; abrogation of, in Chris
tianity, 193 sq. ; Paul's twofold
view of, 301, 302.
Life, the Christian, Paul's doctrine
of, 292 sq. ; how related to faith,
293; an indwelling in Christ, 295
sq.
Lipsius' Paul. Rechtfertigvn gskhre,
commented on, ix. ; on justifica
tion, 271.
Literature of Paulinism, 369 sq.
Love, Paul's doctrine of, in 1 Cor.
xiii. 304 sq.
Marriage, Paul's views concerning,
316 sq.
Matheson, on Paul's treatment of
slavery, 328, 329.
Messiahship of Jesus, relation of, to
Paul's conversion and theology,
18; relation of, to Paul's doctrine
of the cross, 229.
Meyer, on the source of the quotation
in 1 Cor. ii. 9, 64, 65; on the
Tubingen criticism of Paul's epis
tles, 83; his paraphrase of Eom.
ix. 22, quoted, 117, 118; on ethical
death with Christ, 131; on the con
summation of Christ's redeeming
work, 222; on the vicarious work
of Christ, 242.

Mystical realism in Paul, 32 sq. ;
mystical elements in Paul's doc
trine of the atonement, 256 sq.

Neander, on the connection between
Paul's Pharisaic and Christian ex
perience, 14, 15; on the Pauline
anthropology, 159 ; on the ques
tion why the law cannot justify,
179, 180 ; on the relation of faith
to a holy life, 290.
Neander's Planting and Training,
importance cf, for the study of the
Pauline theology, ix.

Offices, in the Church, 324 sq.
Old Testament, doctrine of justifica
tion in, 45; the chief text-book of
Paul, 58; allegorical interpretation
of, 59 sq. ; its Messianic import,
68 ; Paul's new view of, after his
conversion, 69 sq.

Parallel, Paul's use of, 46 sq. ; pur
pose of that between Adam and
Christ, 49 ; that between the natu
ral and the spiritual, 50.
Parousia, ideas concerning in the
Thessalonian Epistles, 88, 89 ; its
place in the Pauline eschatology,
344; Paul's expectation of its oc
currence in his lifetime, 344 ; dan
gerous inferences drawn by some
from supposed nearness of, 346:
expectation of, less emphasized in
Paul's later epistles, 347; relation
of, to the judgment, 350.
Pastoral Epistles, criticism of, 83 sq. ,-
their relation to the Pauline theol
ogy, 86 sq.
Paul, his acknowledged pre-eminence
in his age, viii ; influence in the
early Church, 1; his native quali
ties, 1 ; his own explanation of his
work, 2; his conversion, theories

GENERAL INDEX

381

respecting, 3 sq. ; has no scruples
as a Pharisee, 9 sq. ; his pre-Chris
tian experience in its relation to
his conversion, 12 sq. ; his inner
conflict as depicted in Eom. vii., 16 ;
his call to his life-work, 21; his
view of the universality of the gos
pel, 23; as a writer and thinker,
27 sq. ; his education, 54 sq. ; his
explanation of his life-work, 72 sq. ;
his doctrine of revelation, 103 sq. ;
his idea of the divine purposes,
111 sq. ; his view of sin, 123 sq. ;
his doctrine of the law, 160 sq. ; his
doctrine of Christ's person, 199 sq. ;
his doctrine of redemption, 227 sq. ;
his doctrine of justification, 259 sq. ;
his polemic against the Jewish doc
trine of salvation, 266, 267; his
teaching concerning the Christian
life, 292 sq. ; his doctrine of love,
304 sq. ; of the State, 308, 309 ; his
treatment of cases of conscience,
309 sq. ; his views of marriage and
divorce, 316 sq. ; his doctrine of
the Church, 319 sq. ; his attitude
toward slavery, 328, 329 ; his view
of the place and function of woman,
329, 330; his eschatology, 339 sq.;
his doctrine of the parousia, 344
sq. ; of the resurrection, 348 sq. ;
of the judgment, 359 sq.
Personification, use of, by Paul,
40 sq.
Pfleiderer's works on Paulinism,
characterized, ix ; his view of
Paul's conversion, 3 sq. ; his esti
mate of psychological theories of
Paul's conversion, 19; on the union
of Jewish and Hellenic ideas in
Paulinism, 57; his view of Paul's
doctrine of the flesh, 140 ; his dis
tinctions respecting the use of the
term " flesh," 146, 147 ; his views on
Paul's doctrine of the sinlessness
of Jesus, 209-211 ; on Christ's pre-
existence, 223, 224; on Christ's
substitution, 241; on the reckoning

of faith for righteousness, 269 ; on
Paul's doctrine of the judgment,
361.
Pharisees, tenets and peculiarities of,
52 sq.
Philo, supposed influence of on Paul,
56 sq.
Predestination, Paul's doctrine of,
118 sq.
Pre-existence of Christ, 223 sq.
Psychological theory of Paul's con
version, 2 sq. ; the point of im
portance in the theory, 5 ; element
of truth in, 17.

Rabbinic thought, its influence upon
Paul, 55 ; exegesis, 59 sq.
Ransom-price, the figure of, in appli
cation to the work of Christ, 235-
240; conception of, in patristic the
ology, 252.
Eealism, Paul's mystical, 32 sq.
Reconciliation, wrought through
Christ, 219 sq.
Redemption, Paul's doctrine of, 227
sq. ; exposition of Rom. iii. 24-26
in its bearing upon, 235-240; its
relation to man's past and to his
future, 340.
Religion, natural to man, 105 ; Paul's
personal conception of, 298, 303.
Eenan, on Paul's influence in the
Church, viii.
Eesurrection, of Christ, how related
to his saving work, 254, 255 ; Paul's
doctrine of, in 1 Cor. xv., 348 : the
mode of the general, 348, 349;
the resurrection-body, 349, 350 ;
the question of a, twofold, 350-
354; the question of a, for unbe
lievers, 354-356; from what, ac
cording to Paul, 357.
Eeuss, on Paul's doctrine of the judg
ment, 361.
Eevelation, in Paul's view, universal,
103 ; made through conscience,
104; its method and media, 108;

382

GENERAL INDEX

grounded in the divine nature,
108 sq.
Righteousness, partial personification
of, by Paul, 40 sq. ; forensic con
ception of, 44, 45; as a divine at
tribute, 99 sq. ; not in conflict with
love or grace, 100 sq. ; as an attri
bute of God, 101, 102; God's,
manifested in the death of Christ,
237 sq. ; how satisfied in Christ's
sufferings, 249 sq. ; its meaning iu
Paul's doctrine of justification,
263, 264; why faith is reckoned
for, 268 sq. ; how faith secures the
practical attainment of, 300.
Ritschl, his view of the origin of
Paul's doctrine respecting Christ's
pre-existence, 223 ; on Paul's view
of the judgment, 361.
Romans, the Epistle to, the main
purpose of its first part, 47, 48;
different treatment of the law in,
from that found in Galatians, 168
sq. ; Paul's doctrine of justifica
tion in, 272 sq.

Sabatier's definition of grace, 98.
Sadducees, their tenets, 53.
Sanctification, relation of justification
to, 286, 287, 297.
Saul. See Paul.
Schultz, on forensic justification in
the Old Testament, 45.
Schurer, on the source of the quota
tion in 1 Cor. ii. 9, 65.
Scruples, supposed, of Paul in regard
to his course as a persecutor, 9 sq.
Shaping forces of Paul's teaching,
52 s?.
Sheol, Jewish conception of, 341.
Siegfried, on Paul and Philo, 56, 57.
Sin, Adam's, relation of the sin of all
to, 37 sq. ; the believer's death to,
33 sq. ; quasi personification of by
Paul, 41, 42; Paul's doctrine of,
123 sq. ; its relation to the fall,
137 sq. ; its relation to the flesh,

139 sq. ; the question of its origin
and nature, 148 sq. ; its relation to
the will, 150 sq. ; bearing of Eph.
ii. 3 upon the problem of, 152 sq. ;
death the penalty of, 341.
Sinlessness of Jesus, Paul's doctrine
of, 209 sq.
Slavery, Paul's view of, 328, 329.
State, the, Paul's doctrine of, 308,
309.
Strauss' theory of Paul's conver
sion, 3.
Style, Paul's, 27 sq. ; its Hebraistic
coloring, 27; digressions, 28 ; ana-
colutha, 29; paronomasia, 29, 30;
vivacity and power of, 30.
Substitution, Christ's, in what sense
taught by Paul, 241-243; why it
avails for man's salvation, 243 sq. ;
of his sufferings for man's punish
ment, 249, 250.
Sufferings of Christ, in what sense
penal, 245 sq. ; a substitute for
punishment, 249, 250.
Supernatural view of Paul's conver
sion, 6 sq.
Supper, the Lord's, in the early
Church, 335-338.

Targums, expressions of, respecting
sin, 125.
Thayer's Lexicon; definition of the
term "flesh," 147.
Theology ; for the Pauline, see Paul,
and references to special topics ;
its usual treatment of Rom. v. 12-
21, 49.
Thessalonian Epistles, the criticism
of, 78 sq. ; their connection with
Paul's missionary preaching, 8.8
sq.
Thought, peculiar Pauline modes of,
31 sq. ; mystical type of, 32 sq. ;
personification, 40 sq. ; use of anal
ogy, 43 sq. ; parallelism, 46 sq.
Tubingen criticism of the Pauline
epistles, 77 sq.

GENERAL INDEX

383

Universality of the gospel ; connec
tion of this idea with Paul's con
version, 23.
Usteri, on the inability of the law to
justify, 180, 181.

Vision-hypothesis of Paul's con
version, 7 sq. ; untenableness of, 20.
Visions of Paul, distinguished from
his conversion, 20.

Weiss, his Biblical Theology, as an
aid to the study of Paulinism, ix ;
on the conflict described in Rom.
vii., 15; on Paul's style, 30; on
Paul's quotations, 67, 68 ; his views
of Paul's doctrine of election, 115,
116; his paraphrase of Eph. ii. 3,

156; on the doctrine of Christ's
pre-existence, 225, 226; on Christ's
substitutionary work, 241 ; on jus
tification, 278; on the relation of
faith to righteousness, 289 ; his dis
sociation of justification from sanc
tification, 295 ; on Paul's doctrine
of tlie judgment, 361.
Weizsacker, on the meaning of
"flesh" in Paul's epistles, 147.
Wisdom, Book of, its supposed in
fluence upon Paul's doctrine, 57,
58.
Woman, Paul's view of the place and
function of, 329, 330.
Wrath, the divine, 99.

Zeller, on Paul's "scruples" as a
persecutor, 16.

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service, and their discussion is conducted by earnestness as well as ability, and In
a style which for clear, vigorous, and unexceptionable English, is itself a model."
THE CHRISTIAN INTELLIGENCER.— "The ablest book on the subject whioh
the generation has produced."

CHURCH HISTORY.

THE BEGINNINGS OF CHRISTIANITY. With a View of tha
State of the Roman World at the Birth of Christ. By
GEORGE P. FISHER, D.D., LL.D., Professor of Church
History in Yale College. 8vo, $2.50.
THE BOSTON ADVERTISER.— "Prof. Fisher has displayed in this, as in his
prevlons published writings, that catholicity and that calm judicial quality of
mind which are so indispensable to a true historical critic."
THE examiner.— "The volume is not a dry repetition of well-known facts.
It bears the marks of original research. Every page glows with freshness ol
material and choiceness of diction."
THE evangelist.— "The volume contains an amount of information that
makes it one of the most useful of treatises for a student in philosophy and
theology, and must secure for it a place in his library as a standard authority."
HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. By GEORGE P.
FISHER, D.D., LL.D., Professor of Ecclesiastical History in
Yale University. 8vo, with numerous maps, $3.50.
This work is in several respects notable. It gives an able presenta
tion of the subject in a single volume, thus supplying the need of a
complete and at the same time condensed survey of Church History.
It will also be found much broader and more comprehensive than other
books of the kind.
HON. GEORGE BANCROFT.— "I have to tell you of the pride and delight
with which I have examined your rich and most instructive volume. As an
American, let me thank you for producing a work so honorable to the country."
REV. R. S. STORRS, D.D  " I am surprised that the author has been able to
put such multitudes of facts, with analysis of opinions, definitions of tendencies,
and concise personal sketches, into a narrative at once so graceful, graphic, and
compact." PROF. ALEXANDER V. G. ALLEN, Episcopal Divinity School, Cambridge,
Mass.— "It has the merit of being eminently readable, Its conclusions rest on the
widest research and the latest and best scholarship, it keeps a just sense of pro
portion in the treatment of topics, tt is written in the interest of Christianity as a
whole and not of any sect or church, it is so entirely impartial that it is not easy
to discern the author's sympathies or his denominational attitude, and It has the
great advantage of dwelling at due length upon English and American Churcli
history. In short, it is a work which no one but a long and successful teacher oj
Church History could have produced."

STANDARD TEXT BOOKS.

HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. By PHILIP SCHAFF,
D.D. New Edition, re-written and enlarged. Vol. I.— Apos
tolic Christianity, A.D. 1-100. Vol. Il.-Ante-Nicene Chris
tianity, A.D. 100-325. Vol. Ill.-Nicene and Post-Nicene
Christianity, A.D. 311-600, Vol. IV— Mediaeval Christianity,
A.D. 590-1073. Vol. Vl.-Modern Christianity. The German
Reformation, A.D. 1517—1530. 8vo, price per vol., $4.00.
This work is extremely comprehensive. All subjects that properly
belong to a complete sketch are treated, including the history of Chris
tian art, hymnology, accounts of the lives and chief works of the
Fathers of the Church, etc. The great theological, christological, and
anthropological controversies of the period are duly sketched ; and in
all the details of history the organizing hand of a master is distinctly
seen, shaping the mass of materials into order and system.
PROF. GEO. P. FISHER, of Tale College.— "Dr. Schaff has thoroughly and
successfully accomplished his task. The volumes are replete with evidences of a
careful study of the original s:urces and of an extraordinary and, we might say,
unsurpassed acquaintance with the modern literature— German, French, and
English— in the department of ecclesiastical history. They are equally marked by
a fair-minded, conscientious spirit, as well as by a lucid, animated mode of
presentation." PROF. ROSWELL D. HITCHCOCK, D.D.— "In no other single work of
Its kind with which I am acquainted will students and general readers find so
much to instruct and interest them."
DR. JUL. MULLER, of Halle.— " It 13 the only history of the first six cen
turies which truly satisfies the wants of the present age. It is rich in results of
original investigation."
HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST, IN CHRONOLOGI
CAL TABLES. A Synchronistic View of the Events, Charac
teristics, and Culture of each period, including the History of
Polity, Worship, Literature, and Doctrines, together with two
Supplementary Tables upon the Churc/i in America; and an
Appendix, containing the series of Councils, Popes, Patri
archs, and other Bishops, and a full Index. By the late
HENRY B. SMITH, D.D., Professor in the Union Theologi
cal Seminary of the City of New York. Folio, $5.00.
REV. DR. W. G. T. SHEDD— " Prof. Smith's Historical Tables are the best
that I know of in any language. In preparing such a work, with so much care and
research, Prof. Smith has furnished to the student an apparatus that will be ol
life-long service to him"
REV. DR. WILLIAM ADAMS.— "The labor expended upon such a work ls
immense, and its accuracy and completeness do honor to the research and
scholarship of its author, and are an invaluable acquisition to our literature."

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS'

LECTURES ON THE HISTORY OF THE JEWISH CHURCH. By
ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY, D.D. With Maps and Plans.
New Edition from New Plates, with the author's latest revis
ion. Part I.— From Abraham to Samuel. Part II.— From
Samuel to the Captivity. Part III.— From the Captivity to
the Christian Era. Three vols., 12mo (sold separately), each
$2.00.
The same— Westminster Edition. Three vols., 8vo (sold in sets
only), per set, $9.00.
LECTURES ON THE HISTORY OF THE EASTERN CHURCH.
With an introduction on the Study of Ecclesiastical History.
By ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY, D.D. New Edition from
New Plates. 12mo, $2.00.
LECTURES ON THE HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF SCOT
LAND. By ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY, D.D. 8vo, $1.50.
In all that concerns the external characteristics of the scenes and
persons described, Dr. Stanley is entirely at home. His books are not
dry records of historic events, but animated pictures of historic scenes
and of the actors in them, while the human motives and aspects of
events are brought out in bold and full relief.
THE LONDON CRITIC— "Earnest, eloquent, learned, with a style that ls
never monotonous, but luring through its eloquence, the lectures will maintain
his fame as author, scholar, and divine. We could point out many passages that
glow with a true poetic fire, but there are hundreds pictorially rich and poetically
true. The reader experiences no weariness, for in every page and paragraph
there is something to engage the mind and refresh the soul."
THE NEW ENGLANDER.—" We have first to express our admiration of the
grace and graphic beauty of his style. The felicitous discrimination in the use
of language which appears on every page is especially required on these topics,
where the author's position might so easily be mistaken through an unguarded
statement. Dr. Stanley Is possessed of the prime quality of an historical student
ind writer— namely, the historical feeling, or sense, by which conditions of life
ind types of character, remote from our present experience, are vividly con
ceived of and truly appreciated."
THE N. Y. TIMES— "The Old Testament History is here presented as it
never was presented before ; with so much clearness, elegance of style, and his
toric and literary illustration, not to speak of learning aud calmness of judgment,
that not theologians alone, but also cultivated readers generally, are drawn to its
pages. In point of style it takes rank with Macaulay's History ati the best
chapters of Froude."

STANDARD TEXT BOOKS.

LECTURES ON MEDI/EVAL CHURCH HISTORY. By RICHARD
C. TRENCH, D.D., Archbishop of Dublin. 8vo, $3.00.
In this work the author discusses the more important epochs of
Church History, tracing the origin and growth of various sects and
sketching the careers of the great Schoolmen and Reformers. Intro
ducing his subject with a general consideration of the study of Church
History, he devotes his early chapters to the beginning of the Middle
Ages, the Holy Eoman Empire, the conversion of England and Ger
many, Monasticism and the Crusades, with accounts of the Mendicant
Orders and the Waldenses. His later chapters treat of the great coun
cils of the West, Wiclif, Hus, and their followers, with a view of
Christian art, life, and work down to the eve of the Reformation.
THE CONFLICT OF CHRISTIANITY WITH HEATHENISM. By
Dr. GERHARD UHLHORN. Translatedlby Prof. Egbert C.
Smyth and Rev. C. J. H. Ropes. Crown 8vo, $2.50.
This volume describes with extraordinary vividness and spirit the
religious and moral condition of the Pagan world, the rise and spread
of Christianity, its conflict with heathenism, and its final victory.
THE BOSTON ADVERTISER.— "It is easy to see why this volume Is so highly
esteemed. It is systematic, thorough, and concise. But its power ls in the wide
mental vision and well-balanced imagination of the author, which enable him to
re-construct the scenes of ancient history. An exceptional clearness and force
mark his style."
THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL TIMES.— "One might read many books without
obtaining more than a fraction of the profitable Information here conveyed, and
he might search a long time before finding one which would so thoroughly fix
his attention and command his interest "
A HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. By W. G. T. SHEDD,
Professor of Systematic Theology in Union Theological
Seminary. 2 vols., 8vo, $5,00.
The work ia divided into seven books : 1. — The Influence of Philo
sophical Systems ; 2. — History of Apologies ; 3. — History of Theology;
4. — History of Anthropology ; 5. — Of Soteriology; 6. — Of Eschatol
ogy ; 7. — Of Symbols. The style is lucid and penetrating, the dis
cussions move onward according to the law of the subjects themselves,
as evoked in history ; and new light is thrown on past thought by
pertinent illustration from subsequent times.
THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.— "Dr. Shedd has furnished an important
contribution to the study of Church history. It is eminently a readable book, and
will, no doubt, be extensively read beyond the circle of his own profession by
Intelligent laymen in all walks of life."
THE N. Y. EVENING POST.— " A body of theological history which is in form
as perfect as it is In substance excellent."

BIBLICAL STUDY.

BIBLICAL STUDY. Its Principles, Methods, and History. By
CHARLES A. BRIGGS, D.D., Professor of Hebrew and
Cognate Languages in Union Theological Seminary. Crown
8vo, $2.50.
The author has aimed to present a guide to Biblical Study for the
intelligent layman as well as the theological student and minister of
the Gospel. At the same time a sketch of the entire history of each
department of Biblical Study has been given, the stages of its develop
ment are traced, the normal is discriminated from the abnormal, and
the whole is rooted in the methods of Christ and His Apostles.
THE BOSTON ADVERTISER.— "The principles, methods, and history of
Biblical study are very fully considered, and it is one of the best works of Its kind
in the language, if not the only book wherein the modem methods of the study
of the Bible are entered into, apart from direct theological teaching."
THELONDON SPECTATOR.— "Dr. Briggs' bookis one of much value, not the
less to be esteemed because of the moderate compass into which its mass of in
formation has been compressed."
MESSIANIC PROPHECY. The Prediction of the Fulfilment of
Redemption through the Messiah. A Critical Study of the
Messianic Passages of the Old Testament in the Order of
their Development. By CHARLES A. BRIGGS, D.D., Pro
fessor of Hebrew and the Cognate Languages in the Union
Theological Seminary. Crown 8vo, $2.50.
In this work the author develops and traces "the prediction of
the fulfilment of redemption through the Messiah'' through the whole
series of Messianic passages and prophecies in the Old Testament.
Beginning with the first vague intimations of the great central thought
of redemption he arrays one prophecy after another ; indicating clearly
the general condition, mental and spiritual, out of which each prophecy
arises ; noting the gradual widening, deepening, and clarification of
the prophecy as it is developed from one prophet to another to the
end of the Old Testament canon.
THE LONDON ACADEMY.— "His new book on Messianic Prophecy ls a
wcrthy companion to his Indispensable text-book on Biblical study. He has pro
duced the first English text-book on the subject of Messianic Prophecy which a
modern teacher can use."
THE EVANGELIST.— "Messianic Prophecy is a subject of no common inter
est, and this book ls no ordinary book. It is, on the contrary, a work of the very
first order ; the ripe product of years of study upon the highest themes. It ls
exegesis in a master-hand."

STANDARD TEXT BOOKS.

THE BEGINNINGS OF HISTORY. According to the Bible and
the Traditions of the Oriental Peoples. From the Creation
of Man to the Deluge. By FRANCOIS LENORMANT, Pro
fessor of Archaeology at the National Library of France, etc.
(Translated from the Second French Edition). With an in
troduction by Francis Brown, Associate Professor in Biblical
Philology, Union Theological Seminary. 12mo, $2.50.
THE NEW ENGLANDER. — "Mr. Lenormant ls not only a believer in reve
lation, but a devout confessor of what came by Moses ; as well as of what came
by Christ. In this explanation of Chaldean, Babylonian, Assyrian and Phenician
tradition, he discloses a prodigality of thought and skill allied to great variety of
pursuit, and diligent manipulation of what he has secured."
THE NEW YORK TRIBUNE.— "The work is one that deserves to be studied
by all students of ancient history, and in particular by ministers of the Gospel,
whose office requires them to interpret the Scriptures, and who ought not to be
ignorant of the latest and most interesting contribution of science to the elucida
tion of the sacred volume."
QUOTATIONS IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. By C. H. TOY,
D.D., Professor of Hebrew in Harvard University. 8vo, $3.50.
THE CONGREGATIONALIST.—" Textual points are considered carefully, and
ample and accurate Indexes complete the work. The minute and patient
thoroughness of his examination of passages and the clear and compact arrange
ment of his views render his book remarkable. The difficulties of his task were
great and he has shown rare skill and has attained noteworthy success In meeting
them." THE CHRISTIAN EVANGELIST.— "Prof. Toy's collection and comparison of
the passages quoted in the New and Old Testament is a fine, scholarly piece of
work. It surpasses anything that has been done by European scholarship in this
field."THE CHALDEAN ACCOUNT OF GENESIS. By GEORGE
SMITH, of the Department of Oriental Antiquities, British
Museum. A New Edition, revised and corrected (with addi
tions), by A. H. Sayce. Svo, $3.00.
THE N. Y. GUARDIAN.— "It is impossible in few words to give any adequate
Impression of the exceeding value of this work. This volume is sure to find its
way Into the public libraries of the country, and the Important facts which It
contains should be scattered everywhere among the people."
THE CHRISTIAN INTELLIGENCER.— "The accomplished Assyriologist Prof.
Sayce has gone over the whole with the advantage of a large number of additional
texts, and has carefully brought the book up to the level of the present knowl
edge of the subject. Tbe book as it stands ls a very important verification of
the early Hebrew records."

CHARLES SGRIBNER'S SONS'

THE DOCTRINE OF SACRED SCRIPTURE. A Critical, His
torical, and Dogmatic Inquiry into the Origin and Nature
of the Old and New Testaments. By GEORGE T, LADD,
D.D., Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy in Yale
College. 2 vols., 8vo, $7.00.
J. HENRY THAYER, D.D.— "It ls the most elaborate, erudite, judicious dis
cussion of the doctrine of Scripture, in Its various aspects, with which I am
acquainted. I have no hesitation in saying that, for enabling a young minister
to present views alike wise and reverent respecting the nature and use of
Sacred Scripture, nay, for giving him in general a Biblical outlook upon Chris
tian theology, both in its theoretical and its practical relations, the faithful study
of this thorough, candid, scholarly work will be worth to him as much as half
the studies of his seminary course."
GEORGE P. FISHER, D.D., LL.D.— "Professor Ladd's work is from the pen of
an able and trained scholar, candid in spirit and thorough in his researches. It
is so comprehensive in its plan, so complete in the presentation of facta, and so
closely related to ' the burning questions ' of the day, that It cannot fall to enlist
the attention of all earnest students of theology."
WORD STUDIES IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. By MARVIN R.
VINCENT, D.D. Vol. I.-The Synoptic Gospels, Acts of the
Apostles, and the Epistles of Peter, James and Jude. Vol.
II.— The Writings of John— The Gospel, the Epistles, the
Apocalypse. 8vo, per vol., $4.00. Vol. III. ready.
The purpose of the author is to enable the English reader and
student to get at the original force, meaning, and color of the signifi
cant words and phrases as used by the different writers. An introduc
tion to the comments upon each book sets forth in compact form what
is known about the author — how, where, with what object, and
with what peculiarities of style he wrote. Dr. Vincent has gathered
from all sources and put in an easily comprehended form a great quan
tity of information of much value to tbe critical expert as well as to
the studious layman who wishes to get at the real spirit of the Greek
text. REV. DR. HOWARD CROSBY.— "Dr. Vincent's 'Word Studies in the New
Testament ' is a delicious book. As a Greek scholar, a clear thinker, a logical
reasoner, a master in English, and a devout sympathizer with the truths of reve
lation, Dr. Vincent is just the man to Interest and eduy the Church with such a
work as this. There are few scholars who, to such a degree as Dr. Vincent,
mingle scholarly attainment with aptness to impart knowledge in attractive form.
All Bible-readers should enjoy and profit by these delightful ' Word Studies.' "
DR. THEO. L. CUYLER, in The JV. Y. Evangelist.— "The very things which
a young minister — and many an older one also — ought to know about the chief
words in his New Testament he will be able to learn In this affluent volume.
Tears of close study by one of our brightest Greek scholars, have been condensed
Into its pages."

SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY.

SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY. By CHARLES HODGE, D.D., LL.D.,
late of Princeton Theological Seminary. New Edition, com"
plete in three volumes, including index. Bvo, $12.00.
In these volumes are comprised the results of the life-long labors
and investigations of one of the most eminent theologians of the day.
The work covers the ground usually occupied by treatises on Systematic
Theology, and adopts the commonly received divisions of the subject :
Vol.1. — Theology; Vol. H. — Anthropology; Vol.111. — Soteriology
and Eschatology. The Introduction is devoted to the consideration of
method, or the principles which should guide the student of theology,
and the different theories as to the source and standard of our knowl
edge of divine things, Rationalism, Mysticism, the Eoman Catholic doc
trine of the Rule of Faith, and the Protestant doctrine on that subject.
The plan of the author is to state and vindicate the teachings of
the Bible, and to examine the antagonistic doctrines of different classes
of theologians. The various topics are discussed with that close and keen analytical
and logical power, combined with that simplicity, lucidity, and
strength of style which have already given Dr. Hodge a world-wide
reputation as a controversialist and writer, and as an investigator of
the great theological problems of the day.
THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL TIMES— "It is perhaps not too much to say of it,
that this Is the most important contribution to the literature of theology made
since the days of Jonathan Edwards. The reputation of Dr. Hodge in this depart
ment, by reason of his life-long associations and his eminent abilities, is such as
to command for him, as a recognized authority, respectful hearing in all tha
ehurches." THE NEW YORK CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE.— "This volume is a monument
of thought and Christian scholarship, and will be welcomed and studied by
Intelligent minds in all the Christian denominations."
QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT OF THE SYSTEMATIC THEOL
OGY of Dr. Charles Hodge, together with an exhibition of
various schemes illustrating the principles of theological
construction. By A. A. HODGE, late Professor in Princeton
Theological Seminary. 8vo, paper, $1.00 net.
The questions contained in this volume are designed to assist the
student in the analysis of the text, and in fixing the points to be
grasped by his understanding and retained in his memory, and further
for the use of the professor during review and examination.

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS'

DOGMATIC THEOLOGY. By WILLIAM G. T. SHEDD, D.D.,
Professor of Systematic Theology. 2 vols., 8vo, $7.00.
CHRISTIAN intelligencer.— "The publication of a System of Theology by
Prof. Shedd marks an epoch in scientific religious thought. His training has
been Buch as to fit him exceptionally for this culminating work. A great charm
in the3e bulky volumes is the beautifully clear, precise, and simple style in which
they are written. The layman can read them with as much ease and interest as
the professional theologian."
JOHN DE WITT, in Presbyterian Rfview.—"lt is didactic rather than
polemic. He states, expounds, and defends what he believes to be the true view,
and spends little time in expounding and opposing heresies. The discussions are
compact. The style is absolutely clear."
NEW YORK examiner.— "The two volumes are the result of eighteen years
of special Btudy and of forty years' labor in theological research. The treatment
is such as might be expected of Dr. Shedd: scholarly, devout, profound,
thorough." PRACTICAL THEOLOGY. A Manual for Theological Students,
By J. J. VAN OOSTERZEE, D.D., Professor of Theology
in the University of Utrecht. Translated and adapted to
the use of English readers by Maurice J. Evans. 8vo, $3.50.
His is the result of instruction in practical theology, given by the
author during a period of fifteen years at the University of Utrecht,
but its original form has been modified or supplemented to adapt it
more completely for use as a text-book. As an additional feature of
interest the historic portion of the work contains such brief notices of
our leading Anglo-Saxon preachers, Christian poets, and catechists, as
seemed necessary to furnish the connecting link in English Church
History between the movements of the Reformation age and those of
our own day, and to make evident the unbroken continuity of the
Church's life amidst the constant variation of outward forms.
CHRISTIAN DOGMATICS. A Text-book for Academical Instruc
tion and Private Study. By J. J. VAN OOSTERZEE, D.D.,
Professor of Theology in the University of Utrecht. Trans
lated by John W. Watson, B.A., and Maurice J. Evans, B.A.
Two vols., 8vo, $5.00.
THE PRESBYTERIAN BANNER.— "The volumes before us are a rich mine
for the student and the theologian. The arrangement is good, the style clear,
and the spirit evidently evangelical. The study of these volumes will stimulate
thought, enlarge the vision, and st'engthen faith, while they will supply rich
material for all whose calling it ia to preacu the gospel."
THE CHRISTIAN INTELLIGENCER.— " Dr. Van Oosterzee Is undoubtedly a
ripe and distinguished scholar, and the work before us is his greatest and most suc
cessful effort. It has already received high commendation from some of the
ablest Enghsh scholars, and is certified to by Drs. Smith and Schaff as giving
'the mature results of long-continued, earnest, and devout study of the articles
of our Christian faith ; ' who also add that ' it will prove a safe and useful guide
to students in our institutions of learning.' "

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