YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY THE LIBRARY OF THE DIVINITY SCHOOL BIBLICAL COMMENTARY ON THE NEW TESTAMENT, BY DR. HERMANN OLSHAUSEN, PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ERLANGEN. TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN fob clark's foreign and theological library. FIRST AMERICAN EDITION. REVISED AFTER THE LATEST GERMAN EDITION, BY A. 0. KENDRICK, D.D., PBOFESSOB O* GEEEK IN THE UNIVERSITY OP ROCHESTER. TO WHICH IS PREFIXED OLSHAUSEN'S PEOOF OF THE GENUINENESS OF THE WRITINGS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. TRANSLATED BT DATID FOSDIOK, JR. vol. iv KEW YORK: SHELDON, BLAKEMAN & CO., 115 NASSAU STREET 1858. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in tbe year 1857, by SHELDON, BLAKEMAN & CO., In tbe Clerk Jfidce of the District Court of tbe United States for tbe Southern District of Ne» York. osu Y. ^ fyTEBEOTTFED BT T. B. SMITH & SON, 82 & 84 Beekman-street, N. T. PatNTKD BY PUDNET & RUSSELL, 79 John-street. PREFATORY NOTE TO THE FOURTH VOLUME, The Editor deems it proper to prefix to the present volume a few explanatory statements. 1. Only the Synoptical Gospels have, in the original, been carried through the fourth edition. Other portions ofthe Commentary have reached a third, others a second edition. This will account for a slight change in the title page of the present volume. 2. The Scripture references have been, in the entire work, thus far, thor oughly examined, and numerous errors rectified. It is believed that the work will be found, in this important point, unusually correct. 3. In the present volume the numerous references to Winer's New Testament Grammar (made, in the original, to the third edition) have been con formed to the sixth enlarged and greatly improved edition. They have also been adjusted to the section and paragraph (instead of the page), in order that they may be equally available in a translation as in the orig inal. Such a translation will probably be soon issued by the American publishers of Olshausen. 4. The widely-extended favour and interest with which this admirable Commentary has been received, have prompted the editor to augmented pains in securing to the American edition ac curacy, clearness, and even a degree of elegance. The amount of labour which this has involved will be appreciated only by those who have gone through a similar task. The Edinburg translation is by more than a dozen different hands (exhibiting nearly every variety of qualification and dis-qu&HB. cation), and has been subjected to no single editorial supervision. It exhibits therefore, we are constrained to say, a great disregard of uniformity, while scarcely a single portion of it is executed in a thoroughly scholarly manner. The entire work thus far, except perhaps the latter half of the Epistle to the Romans (next to this in ac curacy is the Acts), is deformed by frequent errors, often seriously af fecting the course of thought, and by not less frequent obscurities. As a lesser defect, we may mention the Greek accentuation, which is often carelessly, and in some entire divisi6ns ofthe work systematically wrong. All its other faults, however, might be passed with comparative indulg ence ; but we feel compelled to notice, in terms of severe reprehension, its translation of that entire section of the Gospels containing the trial, crucifixion, and resurrection of Christ (in which Olshausen's peculiar genius is transcendently displayed), and of the volume containing the IV PREFATORY NOTE. two Epistles to the Corinthians. These important portions, amounting to some 600 pages, exhibit a marvellous capacity of blundering, a sloven liness and ignorance utterly incredible to one who has not laboriously waded through the sea of errors with which they are inundated. The translators often seem ignorant alike of German and of English, and al most indifferent whether they give the meaning of the original, a mean ing alien from the original, a meaning the reverse of the original, or no meaning whatever. The editor speaks thus with unaffected pain in regard to so important a work, issued by a publishing house of eminent respectability, and which in its noble Library of Foreign Theological Literature, is rendering to the cause of religion and sacred learning an invaluable service. But the statement he has made is simple truth. The translations of these portions contain more mistakes than lines, and on almost every page utterly darken or grossly pervert the sense of the original. In cutting his way through this wilderness of blunders, the editor does not presume to hope that his work has been perfectly accom plished. Obliged sometimes to labor when physically and mentally ex hausted, he has no doubt left behind many (he trusts minor) errors to be expurgated from a future edition. He feels assured, however, that he has, in the main, restored Olshausen to sense, and that the readers of this edition will not be obliged frequently to pause and wonder that so celebrated a commentator could say things, not so " hard" but so im possible " to be understood." A. C. KEISTORICK. Rochester, August, 1857. TABLE OF CONTENTS. EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS.— Continued. D. SECTION IV. OP THE STAGES OP DEVELOPMENT IN INDIVIDUALS AND THE UNIVERSE. — (vii. 7— viii. 39.) PASS J 11. Of the Development of the Individual until his Experience of Redemption. vii. 7-24 , 10 § 12. Of the Experience of Redemption until the Perfection of the Individual Life. vii 25— viii. 17 28 § 13. Of the Perfection of the whole Creation with the Children of God. viii. 18-39 50 E. SECTION V. THE RELATION OP ISRAEL AND Or THE GENTILE WORLD TO THE NEW WAT OF SALVA TION. — (ix. 1 — xi. 36.) §14. Of the Election of Grace, ix. 1-29 70 §15. Of Israel's Guilt, ix. 30— x. 21 102 § 16. Israel's Salvation, xi. 1-36 113 THIRD PART. THE ETHICAL EXPOSITION. A. SECTION I. EXHORTATION TO LOVE AND OBEDIENCE. — (xii. 1 — xiii. 14.) §17. OfLove. xii. 1-21 140 § 18. Of Obedience, xiii 1-14 148 B. SECTION H. OP BEHAVIOUR IN THINGS INDIFFERENT. — (xiv. 1 — XV. 13). § 19. Of Bearing with the "Weak. xiv. 1-23 156 § 20. Christ an example of Bearing with the Weak. xv. 1-13 164 C. SECTION IH. PERSONAL COMMUNICATIONS. — (XV. 14-33.) § 21. Apology, xv. 14-21 16l? §22. Notice of Journeys, xv. 22-33.., I1™ vi TABLE OF CONTENTS. FOURTH PART. SALUTATIONS AND CONCLUSION. (xvi. 1-27.) v PAS« §23. Salutations, xvi. 1-20 173 § 24. Conclusion, xvi. 21-27 176 THE EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS. INTRODUCTION. § 1. Character of the Corinthian Church 181 § 2. Relation of Paul to the Corinthian Church 191 § 3. Genuineness and Integrity ofthe Epistles 190 § 4. Contents of the Epistles to the Corinthians 198 § 5. Literature 201 EXPOSITION OP THE EIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. FIRST PART. (i. 1— iv. 21.) § 1. Human Wisdom, i. 1-31 203 § 2. Divine "Wisdom, ii. 1-16 220 § 3. The Building of God. iii. 1-22 231 § 4. Human Judgment, iv. 1-21 242 SECOND PART. , (v. 1-xi. 1.) § 6. The Incestuous PersoD. v. 1-13 § 6. Lawsuits, vi. 1-20 * 259 § 7. Marriage, vii. 1-40. , 272 § 8. Christian Liberty, viii. 1 — xi. 1 290 THIRD PART. (xi. 2— xiv. 40.) § 9. Becoming Apparel xi. 2-16 *„„ § 10. The Holy Supper, xi. 17-34 ' 328 § 11. The Gift of Tongues, xii. 1— xiv. 40 337 FOURTH PART. (xv. 1— xvi. 24.) § 12. The Resurrection of the Body. xv. 1-58. . . ... '§13. The Collection, xvi. 1-24 .'........"!!.'!! ,,...'. 400 TABLE OF CONTENTS. Vii EXPOSITION OP THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS FIRST PART. (i. 1— iii. 18.) PAOH § 1. The Consolation. i. 1-14 407 § 2. The Plan of Paul's Journey, i. 15— ii. 17 412 §3. The Apostolic Office, iii. 1-18 424 SECOND PART. (iv. 1— ix. 15.) §4. The Conflict, iv. 1-18 435 § 5. The Glorification, v. 1-21 441 § 6. The Warning, vi. 1 — vii. 1 452 § 7. Godly Sorrow, vii. 2-16 457 § 8. The Collection, viii. 1— ix. 15 416 THIRD PART. (x. 1— xiii. 13.) § 9. The False Apostles, x. 1-18 469 §10. The True Apostles, xi. 1-33 476 § 11. The Trance, xii. 1-21 484 § 12. The Conclusion, xiii. 1-13 493 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. INTRODUCTION. § 1. Of the Province of Galatia, as also of the time and place of the composition of the Epistle to the Galatians 499 § 2. Of the Occasion of the Epistle's being written 604 § 3. Course of Thought in the Epistle 507 § 4. Literature 509 EXPOSITION OP THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. FIRST PART. § 1. The Greeting 511 §2. Paul's Call 514 § 3. Paul at the Council ofthe Apostles 623 § 4. Paul's Dispute with Peter 631 Fill TABLE OF CONTENTS. SECOND PART. PAOB § 5. Of the Curse of the Law 539 § 6. Of the Relation of the Law to the Gospel 644 § 7. Hagar and Sarah Types of the Law and the Gospel 560 §8. Warning against falling away from Faith 671 THIRD PART. § 9. Warning against the abuse of Liberty 576 § 10. Conclusion 583 COMMENTARY THE EPISTLES OF PAUL SECTION IV. (vn. 7— vm. 39.) Of the Stages of Development alike in Individuals and the Universe. In the establishment of the new way of Balvation upon the vica rious character of Christ and the indication of its relation to the law, the strictly doctrinal discussion had at length reached a full and natural termination. But in now proceeding most appropriately to indicate the various stages of development disclosed primarily in the individual man, the apostle sheds a still clearer light over all 4hat has preceded. He shews, first (vii. 7-24), how man rises from the state of undeveloped childishness into that of life under the law, in which sin awakened by the resistance of the law calls up that inward conflict, by which he first becomes truly conscious of the moral antagonism within him, and of his bondage to sin. The result of this conflict is the felt need of redemption, out of which faith in the redemption accomplished in Christ developes itself ; and in the power of this faith the believer is enabled, what of his own effort he could never do, to serve the Divine law in spirit, albeit the old man in him remains still subjected to the law of sin. Then fol lows (vii. 25 — viii. 17) a description of the development of the new life itself received through Christ. This penetrates not merely the inward man, but sanctifies and glorifies by degrees the bodily sub stance also, so that the whole man becomes like to Christ, and thereby heir of God and co-heir of the glory of Christ. But since man is a member, and the most essential member of the creation, his life must react upon the universe for glorification not less than his death has acted upon it for destruction. The participation of 10 Romans VII. 7-24. ( universal nature in the perfecting of humanity in Christ, Paul treats of lastly (viii. 18-39), and this contemplation of the infinite power, which lies in Christ, as the germ of the whole vast glorified crea tion, so inspires the apostle, that he closes with a triumphal song, in which he utters with glad assurance the unconquerableness of the life of Christ in all his faithful. § 11. Of the Development of the Individual until his Ex perience of Redemption. (VII. 7-24) Before we treat the particulars of this remarkable, and, alike theoretically and practically, highly important section, some general questions are to be considered, the answer to which in a great mea sure determines its illustration. Is Paul speaking in this section of his own state, or not ? and are' the experiences of the regenerate or unregenerate its subject' matter ? As regards the first question, it is clear, that the apostle could not possibly have chosen to carry through vthis representation in the first person, if absolutely no analogy to his portraiture were presented in his own life, if he had intended himself to be considered as expressly excepted. On the other hand it is equally clear that Paul cannot be so speaking of himself as that his statements refer to him alone; for his desire is, to enlighten his readers upon their own necessities. Rather must his experiences mirror those of the great body. We can but decide therefore that while the apostle speaks indeed of himself, it is rather under those relations which he shares in common with the race, than of his Qwn individual experience. Little, however, is gained by this, unless it be determined in what period of his life the experiences of which the apostle speaks were felt. This inquiry coincides with the other highly important question, whether his portraiture has reference to the state of the regenerate or unre generate. The passage 7-13, indeed, according to the opinion of all expositors, applies to the state before regeneration, the aorist sufficiently indicating that the state described is gone by ; but whe ther vers. 14-24 are likewise to be considered as preceding regenera tion, seems very uncertain, since in this section Paul employs only the present, while viii. 2, etc., the aorist reappears. This is in fact a difficult inquiry, as in the first place the processes treated of are purely internal, and require thoroughly analogous experiences and a definite consciousness of these experiences, in order to be rightly es timated ; in the next place, the influence of many false tendencies has confused the inquiry. Pelagian blindness as to moral states, as well as Donatist rigorousness, must have found it easy to assert, that Romans VII. 7-24. 11 vers. 14-24 could not have reference to the regenerate, for that sin in these must be entirely out of the question. Moral laxity or hypocrisy has again found it very convenient to say, th,at Paul is de scribing the state of the regenerate, thus dreaming that they might, notwithstanding their moral debasement, consider themselves regen erate. But besides these decidedly false tendencies, even the most faithful and learned members of the church have held different views of the passage, according as they were accustomed to consider the sinfulness of man to be greater or less, and so to rate differently the effect of regeneration. Accordingly we are not surprised to find the orientals, always inclining to Pelagianism, as Origen, Chrysos tom, Theodoret, on the side of those who refer the passage to the Btate before regeneration. Even Augustine followed them at first ; as he carried out his system, however, he was induced to defend the opposite view, that Paul is describing the state of the regenerate themselves. He was followed not merely in the middle ages by the most esteemed theologians, especially Anselm and Thomas Aqui nas, but by the reformers, Luther, Melancthon, Calvin, Beza, who interpreted the passage as Augustine did. After Spener, Franke, Bengel, Gottfried Arnold, Zinzendorf, the words of the apostle again began to be explained of the state preceding regeneration, and Stier, Tholuck, Riickert, De Wette, Meyer, follow them in their interpretation. These learned men nevertheless rightly ac knowledge in the Augustinian representation also an element of truth, since in the life of the regenerate moments occur in which they must speak entirely as Paul expresses himself here. As it is only by degrees that the transforming power of the gospel pene trates the different tendencies of the inward life, kindred phenomena extend through the whole life of the believer ; and this suggests the possibility of uniting the two views in a higher one. For it is antecedently improbable, that men hke Augustine and the reformers should have entirely erred in the conception of so important a pas sage. The following exhibition of the course of thought may per haps render it clear how such a difference of views could arise in the interpretation of the passage, and what in such difference i» right and what erroneous. First, it is evident that the apostle's purpose is to sketch a description of the inward process of development from its begin nings to its highest perfection. He sets out, vii. 9, from a state- in which the man is living entirely without law, and closes, viiit. 11, with the glorification of the body. The question occurs here, how many stages of development are properly distinguished ? Fowr clearly present themselves. First, a life without law, in whichj sin- is dead ; next, a life under the law, in which sin becomes alive and has dominion ; further, a state in which, by the power of Christ, 12 Romans VII. 7-24 the Spirit has dominion, and sin is mastered ; finally, the state of the entire exclusion of sin by the glorification of the body. If now by regeneration alf is to be understood from the first stirrings of grace, the whole of the apostle's description may then be applied to the regenerate ; because the veiy needfulness of the law is called forth by grace. But it is surely more correct and scriptural to call regeneration that inward process only, by which, after the need of redemption is awakened, the power of Christ bears sway in the soul ; so that a new, spiritual man comes into being, and exercises his ruling power. According to this acceptation, the state under the law cannot co-exist with regeneration, and without question there fore — as vii. 24 would seem to express the awakened need of re demption, and ver. 25 the experience of redemption itself — vers. 14- 24 are to be assigned to a period before regeneration, and understood as portraying the conflict in the breast of one who is awakened. As, however, the apostle in this section , makes use of the present, while before and afterwards he employs the aorist, we are led to infer that he does not regard this state of conflict as concluded with the experience of redemption. In the description (14-24) itself too, as will afterwards be more particularly shewn, an advance in the con flict with sin is clearly observable, the better / stands out in the man more and more, and he feels in God's law a gradually growiDg plea sure. This appears at ver. 17 especially in the vwl 61 ovtcert, and at ver. 20, in ovttht, which indicate a state now past. In a far higher degree, as ver. 25 expresses, is this the case after the experience of .the redeeming power of Christ, where the conflict with sin is de scribed as resulting mainly in the triumph of the better elements in man. But a conflict remains still, even after the experience of re generation ; and that even the regenerate man does not always appear victorious, that even for him times of temptation, of very sore temptation, come on, the Scripture assures in express declarations (comp. at 1 John ii. 1), and in its records of the hfe of the apostles, as does the experience of all saints of all times. Add to this considera tion, that commensurately with true progress in the hfe of faith, our perception of the stirrings of sin becomes more searching and spiritual, conscience becomes more delicate and censures strictly even the smaller deviations, which had else on lower standards remained unnoticed, and it is clearly right that Augustine and the great doctors of the church who followed him, should declare, that even the regenerate man can and must say of himself all that the apostle, vers. 14-24, utters. The safest answer therefore to the question, whether Paul, is here treating of the regenerate, is, that in the pas sage, vers. 14-24, he immediately describes the state of the man be fore regeneration, since, his purpose is, to set forth coherently the whole" course of development ; in the consciousness, however, that Romans VII. 7, 8. 13 phenomena entirely similar present themselves within the regenerate man, he makes the description applicable to the regenerate also. The opinion, therefore, on the one side, that the apostle immedi ately and directly intends the regenerate, and on the other the as sertion, that in the regenerate man nothing answering to the picture, vers. 14-24, can be found, are alike entirely erroneous. The distinction between the conflict and the fall of the unregenerate and the conflict and fall of the regenerate, remains, notwithstanding the subjective feeling of their near affinity, objectively so great (as at vii. 24, 25 will be proved) that anxiety, lest the view proposed should strip regeneration of its essential character, must appear entirely unfounded.* If we now look back again to the first question, of which period of his life the apostle could say such things as he utters, vers. 14-24, it is clear that he cannot be immediately de scribing his moral state after the Lord's appearing to him near Damascus, but his inward conflicts under the yoke of the law ; yet the transition into the present certainly indicates, that even in his then existing state, he still caught the tones of feeling which made him exclaim with perfect truth, although with incomparably more delicate application to deeper and tenderer relations than in his for mer state (comp. at vii. 24, 25) : What I would, I do not, and what I would not, that I do ; wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death ! (Comp. at 2 Cor. xii. 7, etc.) Vers. 7, 8. — The first two verses of this section contain the gen eral fundamental thought briefly expressed, which ver. 9, etc., further carries out. The apostle expresses in these the relation of sin to the law, and describes the latter as the power which brings sin to sight. Sin is in human nature, even apart from law, but by the law does it manifest itself, and so reach the human consciousness. Hence, also, notwithstanding this provocation of sin by the law, the law itself is no sinful production, but rather it is holy, just, and good (ver. 12), as the expression of the holy will of God, of whose eternal, unalterable nature it even therefore partakes (comp. Ps. cxix. 96), and is designed to lead to life ; but sin perverts it to death. (Ver. 10 and the observations at John xii. 50, compared with Levit. xviii. 5 ; Deut. v. 16, 33.) What the apostle declares here, therefore, holds also, not by any means merely of the Mosaic ceremonial law, but of the moral law, generally, in all forms of its manifestation among heathens, Jews and Christians. It is the entirely universal character of law, that sin breaks and swells up * Reiehe has strikingly failed in his acceptation of this passage ; he holds that the Jewish humanity, comprehended in the apostle's person, is speaking here. The one-sided reference ofthe vijioq merely to the Jewish ceremonial law, is the immediate cause of this clearly false acceptation ; that one-sided reference itself, however, is founded in the doctrinal principles of this learned man. 14 Romans VII. 7, 8. against it (comp. at ver. 13), since it checks the streain of sinful desire in a concrete case by a positive command (£vtoXtj), and by this check urges to such a transgression of the commandment as renders palpable to the man his own moral state. The relation in which Paul in these verses places sin (dpapria), and desire (ImBvpla), is peculiar. It would seem, at first sight, that he considered the imOvuia as the first, the a\moTia as the derived principle. In the sinful act the two are really so related ; the evil desire is the mother of the evil deed (James i. 15); but duapria denotes here the sinful state in general, which in the special case is merely revealed, and for this relation their position is exactly reversed. The Imdvpia, prava concupiscentia, issues from the general, sinful nature of man, as its first manifestation, and then the act follows. Upon nearer consideration of the apostle's words, however, it becomes evident, that he intends the relation of duapria to imOvuia to be exactly so understood here. Sinfulness causes evil desire in all its forms (naoav imOvpiav), to rise up through the law in the inward man (KaTetpydoaTo iv spot); and the Divine commandment against de sire now unveils to man his corruption. A carrying out of the desire into act is not at all in question. The desire itself is sinful, and forbidden in the law, and the man may become conscious of his sinfulness, even by the greatness of the lust, although it should not break forth into outward evil deeds, which indeed is commonly the case. Hence, too, the ovk, imOvpijoeig (Exod. xx. 14 ; Deut. v. 8) is not to be taken, according to Tholuck, with an " and so forth," as though Paul were selecting but one from the many commandments ; it is to be understood as the comprisal of the whole law. Positively, all laws say : love God above everything ; negatively, they all say : suffer not thyself to covet ; that is, cleave not with thy love to any created thing, not even to thyself, but to the Eternal only.* The essence of this imOvuia is not desire in itself, joy in this or that — for the perfect man would have the highest, purest pleasure in all the works of God — but desire, when separate from God, selfish love, es tranged from God. The command ovk. imOvurjoetg, therefore, is nothing less than that man give himself up with all his own desire and joy ; this giving-up, however, is not possible without regenera tion, and hence man can never, as the following discourse demon strates, arrive at peace by the law ; he needs a Deliverer from himself (ver. 24). (Ver. 8, the 6ta ttjc IvtoXtjc, as afterwards, ver. 11, is * The apostle takes no notice of the circumstance which is the rarer case, that even the fright, the terror of sin, may hurl into sin, if the shield of faith is wanting. Evil thoughts, that fill the heart with horror, may, by thj's very terror, which takes away the presence of mind, draw men down into sin. The histories of criminals often afford proof of this. Still, to explain such cases, we might assume, perhaps without exception, either previous moral corruption, or intellectual weakness in conjunction with disease. Romans VII. 9, 10. 15 better connected with dcpopurjv Xafiovoa than with the following words, because the peculiar working ofthe law is thug most definitely indicated.) Vers. 9, 10. — The apostle now, after having expressed the general thought, proceeds in the description of the course of development in the man from its first beginnings ; he describes a state in which sin is as yet dead, and man is living without law. This state of childish unconsciousness is disturbed by the law with its commandment in the case in question. There is a question, however, how we are to conceive such a state of life without law, for the apostle cannot mean the state of infancy proper ; yet, except this, there is no time in the life of man in which it may strictly be said that man is in it without law, and sin without motion.* It may aid essentially in explaining this difficulty, to remark, that the apostle, during his entire discus sion, is not supposing crimes and such outbreaks of sin, which even the magistracy resents, and which draw after them the contempt of the world ; for the law is assuredly able to repress sins of this kind, and man can by the guidance of the law fulfil of his own power so called opera civilia or justitice externa. Birt in such a state of legal action all laws and ordinances appear to man as political, or at least as merely human statutes, and his whole effort is without reference to God ; he avoids sin, not for God's sake, but for its disagreeable external consequences, which to be sure is better than that recklessness which does not even shun consequences, yet still does not satisfy absolute righteousness. With such a state of mind, the apostle has nothing at all to do here. He is speaking rather of that moment when his relation to God dawns upon man, not merely in conception, but in essence and power, and he learns to regard all the commandments and ordinances of the law as Divine, that is, as absolute commandments. The whole time before this moment he calls the life without law, when sin was dead.^ With this accepta tion results, also, what holds equally of all subsequent stages of development, that we are not to suppose this first stage as instanta neously overpast. Unquestionably, indeed, with most men, the discernment of the law, as being the will of the absolutely holy God, takes place instantaneously, and the former and after life may be * Usteri (in the Paul. Lehrbegr. 4th edit. p. 39) supposes this state to be like that of Adam before the fall, which is surely against the apostle's meaning, who considers this State of the deadness of sin itself as a consequence of the fall. f The n afiapria dveCnaev (ver. 9), is not, as Euckert still holds, to be construed "sin again revived," as though it had once been alive (from which conception the reading ££?- eev, which must certainly be set aside, proceeded); ava£ua is rather "to come to life" (aufleben) as c'tviaTT]/ii (in its intransitive tenses) is "to arise, stand up." The coming to life, however, presupposes no antecedent living of that which comes to life, but a slum bering only ofthe life in it. Thus comes to life the slumbering germ of a grain of seed, which had not as yet independently lived. The expression, " to come to li/e again, for the second time," is here wholly inappropriate. 16 Romans VII. 9, 10. clearly distinguished ; but it is only by degrees that the risen light diffuses itself into the different regions of the inward life, and even those who have made progress may have still to experience on iso lated departments, that they were living there without law, since the necessity of applying the Divine law in this or that individual case had been a long. time in becoming to them a matter of hving consciousness. Thus it may be perceived what is meant by the expression ^wpt? vouov dpaoria venpd, without law sin was dead. The deadness of sin does not imply that it has no motion at all ; for its very essence is a disordered life, and must always manifest itself as such, although often negatively only, by failure in fear and love of God ; but it is so far dead without law, as that it is not at first discerned in its nature and in its whole magnitude, without the hght of the law to enlighten its darkness. With that knowledge, however, the sin itself increases : first, because from this knowledge there is generated a resistance which enhances the fierce power of the natural life (ver. 13); next, because the sin, which has entered into the consciousness, is like a germ awakened from slumber, that strives for an ever growing development. Man's self-will champs fiercely the bit that would curb it : the love of knowledge, perverted to curiosity, burns with eagerness to taste the forbidden thing ; and thus through the law sin perfects itself in itself by the heightened action of desire ; granting that it does not, as indeed will but rarely happen, break forth into acts of open criminality. (This phenomenon is so conso nant to experience that it is recognized in the Old Testament, Prov. ix. 17, and even by profane authors. Comp. the noted passage in Ovid. Amor. iii. 4, " Nitimur in vetitum semper cupimusque hega- ta.") To the quickening of sin the apostle immediately attaches the dying of the I, the better self ;* it would seem, therefore, that the latter had been alive before the moment of the law's coming in, that is, that the better had prevailed, and that accordingly this moment would seem to be the signal, not of an advance to the better, but of a retrogression to the worse. And indeed this is Paul's * I believe it may be said that the development of the conflict assumes in many men a different Shape. Sin is with many alive from the beginning, and the better self seema to sleep. The course of conversion with such persons then takes the shape, that the con flict is first developed, when the I awakes from its deep slumbers in the inner man, and opposes itself to the unresisted dominion of the sinful element. The apostle's description, therefore, is not to be understood as prescribing one uniform and invariable process of conversion ; experience indeed shews, that in the life of many converted persons, e. g., Spener's and Zinzendorf's, no such decisive moment occurred as Paul describes in the passage vii. 24 But such as theirs naturally are only to be supposed in the church; with heathens and Jews, as those of whom Paul was immediately thinking, the conversion must necessarily have shewn itself, as Paul represents it ; because with them any abiding in the grace of baptism is out ofthe question, and consequently in them conversion must reveal itself as one marked and instantaneous act by which they enter into the communion of the faithful. Romans VII. 11-13. 17 meaning, as ver. 13 clearly shews ; yet the deterioration is but a seeming one, hke the full, open coming-out of a hitherto lurking disease. As no cure is possible without this, so unless sin be thus forced to shew itself, there is no deliverance from it. The relatively better state, which consists in an amiable temper, and freedom from violent desires, is also but a seeming one, that has no true foundation, and therefore vanishes as soon as the hour of temptation approaches. The coming forth of sin, however, is not, as was before noticed, to be understood of open criimnality and wickedness, from which man on any standard can and must by his own power refrain, but of those inward impulses and subtle workings of sin, which are beyond the cognizance of human judgment. Meantime it is certainly pos sible, even for the gross offender, when the law becomes alive in him, forthwith by penitence and faith, to enter into redemption ; but he may not abuse this position for the purpose of exculpating himself. The actual thief or adulterer may not appeal to his sinfulness as rendering his thus sinning necessary: he could perfectly well have refrained from the deed; but the inward lust no man can of his own power do away ; and it is of the overmastering force of this that the apostle immediately treats here. - Vers. 11-13. — Paul lingers still upon these thoughts,* and exalts the holiness of the law, as an expression of the will of the holy God, so that the cause of its effect in augmenting sin is only to be found in sin itself. The law is but the innocent occasion, the conditio sine qua non; the causa efficiens is the sinfulness of man. The lat ter, therefore, appears (with a glance at Gen. iii.) as a thing prop erly foreign to the man, deceiving even himself. This relation of the eyw, /, to duaprta, sin, is of the highest importance for under standing what follows, and for scriptural anthropology in general. Sin is not the nature, the substance of man himself (as evil generally is nothing substantial, but merely discord, the disturbance of the relations originally ordained by God) ; rather has the germ of the Divine image remained even in fallen man, to which grace knits on her work of bringing him back to God. (Comp. at Rom. ii. 14, 15.) This better germ of life, however, appears in the natural state, when sin has sprung to Hfe, as suppressed by a foreign power, clouded and obscured in its nature, and hence the operation of grace finds ex pression in striving to draw it forth, and give it dominion. Sin, therefore, is not to be considered as a sum of isolated evil actions, any more than good as a sum of isolated good deeds, but both good and evil are elements of life; wherefore, where good or evil has place in a person, the one or the other element, light or darkness, * The delineation ofthe state under the law begins fundamentally at ver. 9, with the kWovanc 6£ rye; hvTo%fjc, the description itself does not properly follow until ver. 14, while vers. 10-13 regard more immediately the moment of transition. Vol. IV.— 2 18 Romans VII. 14 the Lord of the kingdom of light, or the prince of darkness, exercises dominion. Therefore, it is said also, 1 John iii. 8, 6 notuv rrjv duap- riav iK tov dtapoXov ioriv, he that doeth sin is of the devil. But the dominion of sin, when it is allowed, takes the form of amvrr\, deceit, because the I fancies it will find in sin true joy and abiding satis faction, in which, however, it deceives itself. Sin, as discord, is never able to allay that thirst for eternal joy which is planted in every being, for she brings ever in her train the loathing of herself. The law fulfils, then, one of its important aims in bringing this deceit to the consciousness of man ; it manifests the secret hidden nature of evil (tva cpavy dpaoTta), it heightens it in its nature, in order the more surely to awaken disgust at it, and to convert all the desire and love of man to that good, which as internal harmony, appeases the longing for eternity. The words 'iva yevvrat icaO' imep- fioXrjv dpapruXbg ¦>) duaprta, that sin may become exceeding sinful, therefore, are not to be refined on ; they would seem, in this obvious and simple sense to assert that the commandment heightens sin. As a rapidly flowing stream rolls calmly on, so long as no object checks it, but foams and roars when met by any obstruction, just so calmly does the sinful element hold its course through the man so long as he does not stem it ; but if he would realize the Divine command ment, he begins to feel the might of the element, of whose dominion he had as yet not dreamed. (The construction is not without difficulty. To 'AXXd % dpapria the words iuol yeyove Odvaroc are evidently to be supplied from the preceding, but the following 'iva tpavy duapria seems to stand un- connectedly, and some expositors would bracket it as parenthesis, without doubt erroneously. It is better to refer 'tva to the Divine purpose, and consequently to supply : " wherein (namely as sin becomes the cause of death to men) God purposes that." KaO' ¦imegPoXriv = imepPaXXovrwg, is frequently used by Paul. [Comp. 1 Cor. xii. 31 ; 2 Cor. i. 8, iv. 17 ; Gal. i. 13.] The formulais found also in later profane writers. The second tva is to be taken as stand ing quite parallel to the first ; the second clause only illustrates and enhances the thought of the first. Ver. 14 — Hereupon the carnal state of man is opposed to the purely objective Divine nature of the law (the nvevpartKog is to be interpreted as emanation of God, of the trvevua, John iv. 24). Spirit and flesh lust against each other. (Gal. v. 17.) Therefore the I also and the law are against each other, the I would be independent. There is certainly no break to be made here at ver. 14 ; the apostle does not pass to any new representation ; but the change of the tenses — the present being maintained so constantly to the end of the chapter, while hitherto preterites were used — cannot, as al ready observed, be overlooked. We find a generahzation of the Romans VII. 14 19 relations signified in this ; Paul regards, in what follows, man in himself, at all stages of development, in conflict with the law, and, in as far as the old man remains even after regeneration, so far the following description, as has been shewn above, has its truth also for the regenerate man himself* But the question occurs, what conception are we to form of adgi, and its derivative aapuKog ? Schleusner reckons no less than sixteen significations of odpi, which Bretschneider and Wahl have indeed reduced to seven ; still, even these learned men have failed to exhibit any natural sequence in these significations. The following observations may perhaps facili tate a survey of the process by which its various meanings are developed. Sapf, itos, signifies, primarily, the substance of the flesh, as belonging to the hving organism ; as dead it is called Kpeag. In this meaning, as substance of the body, flesh and bones are often connected (e. g., Luke xxiv. 39 ; Eph. v. 30) to indicate emphat ically the material quality. This sensuous signification becomes then applied in -holy writ to spiritual things in two ways. First, flesh is conceived as the visible veil of the spirit, and so far adpi ap pears as an equivalent to ypduua, letter, the veil of the spirit in the Scripture, or to cpavtpov, manifest, in contrast with Kpvnrov, hidden (Rom. ii. 28, 29 ; Col. ii. 1, 5 ; Heb. ix. 10), and denotes the out ward, the outside — the form in contrast with the essence ; next, odpi- signifies the decaying, perishable part of man, in contrast with the eternal, imperishable spirit dwelling in him. This sense appears especially in the forms oapi Kal alua (Matth. xvi. 17 ; 1 Cor. xv. 50 ; Eph. vi. 12) and mioa odpi (Luke iii. 6 ; John iii. 6 ; 1 Pet. i. 24), as signifying the decaying, perishable race of man generally. With the idea of decay is then necessarily given that of sinfulness as its cause ; death penetrated among mankind with sin ; and decay is but death in its gradual diffusion. Accordingly sinfulness itself is also, especially in the Epistles to the Romans and Galatians, directly called odpi, and imOvulat oapKog, desires of flesh (Eph. ii. 3 ; 1 John ii. 16 ; 2 Pet. ii. 18), a vovg oapKog, mind of flesh (Col. ii. 18), o&pa oapKog, body of flesh (Col. ii. 11, compared with Eccles. xxiii. 16), and the hke are spoken of. Finally, this usage is not to be under stood, as implying that the writers of the Bible considered sin as grounded merely in the bodily impulses, as a preponderating sensuality. The odpi is rather to be understood, as embracing the whole psychical life, with all its will and mind ; for without the ani- * That the phenomena here described admit, indeed, a partially universal application, cannot be denied. Vet I think the ground of the apostle's change of tense lies in the vividness of his conception, which naturally leads him to realize and depict the scene as if now actually passing within him. Besides, the point at which he passes from the past td the present is where, having occasion to state a universal truth, " the law is spiritual," and hence to use the present tense, he naturally employs the present in the answer ing clause.' — [K. 20 Romans VII. 14 mating i>vXv (distinguished from ¦nvtvua), the odpi alone cannot even commit sin. It is certainly correct, however, that otipg can be used to denote only human sin, the sin of the world of evil spirits having quite a different character. In this it is of a spiritual nature, and, therefore, incurable ; in the natural man sin has only pene trated the psychical, sensuous nature; the spirit, being oppressed or troubled by sin, may be defiled, but it has not sin in its nature. When in man sin occupies the spirit itself, and proceeds from it, he is then on his way to the sin against the Holy Ghost.* The use of the adjectives oapuKog and odpKtvog may now be easily explained. The latter (2 Cor. iii. 3, is the only place where it is quite ascer tained) answers to our "fleshy" (German fleischem, or fleischig) ; the former is our "fleshly, carnal" (German fleischlich). In the later Greek, the two adjective forms were confounded, and hence many variations are found in the readings ; in the New Testament, however, except in the passage above adduced, oapKtKog should be everywhere read. This form, then, designates alike the merely out ward (Rom. xv. 27 ; 1 Cor. ix. 11), and the perishable, and, there fore, sinful, which latter meaning prevails in the passage before us. The iyd, namely, is so far called aapuKog, as it is controlled by sin ; not, as having sin essentially in itself, for in the course of the follow ing exposition of the apostle it appears as again freed from that foreign dominion, as it was relatively free from it before sin became alive (ver. 9). The expression ¦nsTrpap.evog vnb rfpj dp.aprrlav, sold under sin, also points to the same relation ; the image of one sold for a slave, and in need of being ransomed, lies at its foundation. * Compare more particularly hereon at the important passage, 2 Cor. vii. 1. Very striking observations upon this subject are to be found in Vitringa obs. sacr. (Jense 1723), pag. 660, seqq. Comp. also my opusc. theol. (Berol. 1833), pag. 156, seqq. Mulier, in his excellent work upon sin (Breslau, 1839, B. i. s. 182), thinks my illustration of the notion of cap!; more satisfactory in the treatise upon the Trichotomy than here. I am not aware, however, that I have expressed myself otherwise in the commentary than in that treatise, only I'have here developed my view more fully. The scriptural explanation which Mulier himself gives of aap% I certainly cannot acknowledge to be the right one, and it is impossible for it to sustain itself. Mulier is of opinion that the expression crdp£ does not signify the sinful element in man, but " all that is merely human, the human as denuded of its relation to God, and in contrast to this relation" (p. 184). That wvev/ta, in opposi tion to aapf, is not the human, but the Divine spirit ; vovg or 6 iaa uvdpomog is used in contrast to rapf. But vovg is acknowledged to be a function only of the rcvey/ia, and how the icsa avBpuirog is to be otherwise understood than of the irvevpa, is not to be conceived. But even setting aside this identity of the miev/ia with both the notions which Mulier recognizes as opposite to crap?, the assumption of such contrast itself con tradicts the notion of aclpS, which he has proposed. Paul states here a conflict in the man between the crap? and the vovg, it cannot be that all which is merely human is called cap!;, for that includes the vovg itself ~£up% is the human nature, so far as it is separated from God, and becomes subject to the power of darkness, that is, au/ia and fvxv, in the ir*e^a,,on the contrary, or, taken as faculty, in the vovg, the light has remained to him, a light still in bis darkness; the good impulses proceed from it, as from the cap? the evil Romans VII. 15-20. 21. For the free man only can come into bondage, and becomes free again with his liberation from it. True, indeed, he cannot loose himself from it, but needs a ransomer, and to this point the deduc tion of the apostle leads (ver. 24). Therefore, even the regenerate man may ascribe carnality to himself, in that he, albeit for moments only, has yet to experience the dominion of the flesh. (The reading oldauev is without hesitation to be preferred to the other, 613a uev, which has no manuscript authority at all, and has evidently proceeded merely from the fact that the singular stands elsewhere in the whole passage. But for the very purpose of indicating that the apostle is not expressing merely individual expe riences, but such as belong also to the raGe, the employment of the plural was necessary here at the turning-point of the whole dis cussion.) Vers. 15-20. — The thought just expressed in general terms, iyu oapKtKog elfu, the apostle carries out experimentally in the following verses, and describes in the most vivid manner the fluctuation of desires and thoughts both tempting and fighting against temp tation. The repetition of the same words (ver. 15 recurs in ver. 19, and ver. 16 in ver. 20, word for word) gives in the most touch ing manner the impression of a dreary uniformity in this in ward struggle, before a higher power of peace has revealed itself ia the mind. Still, this repetition is by no means to be con sidered as entirely without purpose ; it is intended rather to lead to ever stronger consciousness of the sinful state, and thereby to ever livelier longing for redemption. In the course of the con flict, too, the more conscious separation of the better self from sin bespeaks progress, which the apostle indicates, not merely by the stronger expression, which marks, as he advances (ver. 22), his joy in the Divine law, but also by the growingly perceptible separation of the old man from the forming new man, and of the law of sin from the law of the Spirit. It is yet to be observed, that here again the apostle's representation is not to be applied to offences such as are punished by human authority ; that no murderer, therefore, or adulterer, or perpetrator of any other act universally regarded as criminal can say, I do what I would not, but I cannot help it. Such an one the apostle would answer : thou hypocrite, thou canst well forbear committing the act, if thou only appliest the natural powers which God has bestowed upon thee. The whole representation regards the inner man, and subtler transgressions of the Divine commandment, e. g., by an over-hasty word. Hence, it has also its perfect truth for the regenerate man,* who is open to * The limit wherein which a regenerate person can still sin, and within which not, can be determined by men only at the extreme limits. We may say, a regen erate person who should commit a premeditated murder or the like, was entirely fallen 22 Romans VII. 15-20. impressions from the more subtile temptations only. But conscience being also more acute in him, his situation is, in reference to his grade of sensibility, quite similar to that represented here, and he is as much in need of daily repentance and renewed forgiveness of sins, as the unregenerate is of the first repentance. It is yet requi site in this passage to consider the relation, of the one and the other self (eyw), of which respectively Paul speaks, to the unity of the per sonality. The one self approves the good, gives assent to the law (ver. 16, ovucprifii tcZ voucf), nay, has its pleasure in it (ver. 22, ovvrj- douat ra vofuo); the other, notwithstanding, commits sin, that is, nourishes desire, evil concupiscence, although hindered by the former from open acts of crime.* In quite a similar manner our Lord also speaks (Matth. x. 39) of a twofold V"OT5 one of which must die, if the other is to be kept. According to the ordinary notion of the soul, as a thing absolute and self-dependent, that generates of itself, at pleasure, alike good and evil, this mode of expression is hard to be explained ; but, as already observed at Matth. x. 39, it becomes quite intelligible when the soul is considered as a receptive nature, penetrated by the powers of light and darkness, that contend in it for the mastery. In the better self, light becomes predomi nant ; in the sinful one, darkness : and the man thus perceives in the unity of his life the duplicity of the struggling elements, that reflect their nature in him ; he has not two souls, but the oneness becomes duality by the powers that are operative in it. By total surrender to the one or the other of these elements, he passes entirely into their nature. Even before Christ, experience led rightly to such a duplicity in the inner man. Besides the well known " video meliora proboque, deteriora sequor" of Ovid (Metam. vii. 19), and besides the expression of Epictetus : 6 dpapTavov 8 ulv OiXet oil notel, Kal b fir) OeXet notel, he who errs does not what he would, and does what he would not (Enchir. ii. 26), the passage of Xenophon (Cyr6p. vi. 1, 21) is particularly remarkable, in which two souls are expressly distin guished, with the entirely correct remark, that the phenomena of the inward conflict, and of attraction to good as well as to evil, cannot be satisfied by the explanation that the same soul addresses itself at one time to the good, at another to the bad, for that in the choice of the one, the attraction towards the other manifests itself at the from faith ; but if a believer should be faulty in a word, or a similar small matter, it would naturally not be considered as itself apostacy. Notwithstanding, even one word may in the Divine judgment, be a very heavy sin, if, e. g., it is intended to wound a neighbour deeply; and circumstances which often God only knows, may exceedingly mitigate a seemingly very heavy sin. The greatness of the temptation, the degree of consciousness and the like, which are beyond human judgment, are instances in point * Bengel says very aptly upon this: "Assensus hominis legi contra semet ipsum prsestitus, illustris character est religionis, magnum testimonium de Deo." Romans VII. 15-20. 23 same time.* Of course, however, the willing of good before regene ration can only be considered as the free will gradually developing itself, as a disposition for true freedom, as mere velleitas. For this OeXetv can only express itself negatively, in checking the outbreak of sin into the gross act ; as soon as the man becomes conscious that the evil desire, as such, is sin, he feels that mere willing is not suf ficient to remove it, even as it is incapable of calhng forth in the heart holy motions and desire for holiness. (The oi yivuoKu, ver. 15, is not to be construed, with Augustine and Grotius, " I approve not," as Reiche still maintains. For al though the conceptions " know," and "approve, be inclined towards," pass into each other, the context here forbids the tautology " be in clined to, love," OeXetv expressing the same thing. We are led so to construe the expression, only because the speaker seems to know well what he does, as at ver. 18 too it is said : olda yap k. r. X. But in this it is overlooked, that although the apostle does know well the fact of the inward conflict, he does not comprehend the cause of this phenomenon, or at least in the described moment of moral de velopment he pictures the speaking subject as perplexed in his view of it ; as it is said, John iii. 8, of the regenerating Spirit, " a man hears and perceives its sound indeed, but knows not whence it cometh and whither it goeth." — Ver. 16. Jivpuprjut is weaker than the following ovvrjdouai, ver. 22, which is distinguished from icprj6op,at, designating malignant joy. The two expressions are found only here in the New Testament. — Vers. 17 and 20, the vwl 61 ovksti is important ; Paul indicates therein, as has been remarked above, a progress ; he is supposing that the man at first himself performs the evil, till the separation of the imOvuia and the vovg is completed in him, and evil hence stands opposed to him, an affliction and burden to his true and proper self. Nwl is not to be understood of time, but is merely inferential. The advance in time is indicated only in the ovKeri.f — Ver. 18. Upon the oIkei iv ry aapKl uov tj duapria, * Reiche, in a strange manner, explains these words ofthe apostle, expressing so pro foundly the general experience of all more earnest men, ofthe ideal and real Jew I The conformity of profane writers with the apostle's expression might surely have taught him better. f No such advance in time is, I think, indicated by ovkcti. By a use frequent in classic Greek and the New Testament, analogous to that of vvv and vvvi, ovnen often denotes not that which has been, and is or will be no longer, but that which naturally would have been, but under existing conditions is not. Thus 2 Cor. i. 23, cpeiiofievog v/cdv ovnert i)16ov, sparing you, Ino longer came, means not, "I no longer came as I formerly did," but " no longer as I otherwise should." See note to pr/iceri, Acts xiii. 34. See Horn. II. Lib.. ii. L 141 ; .aSsch. Prom. 115 ; Sex. Emp. adv. Matth. ii. 42. Hence it is used logically, Rom. xi. 6, el Si x^PiTh ovuhri i? ipyuv, and, if by grace, it is no longer of works (as it otherwise would have, been) ; Gal. iii. 18. Oinin then is here (with "Wahl, Meyer, and De Wette) logical : "as the case stands (vvvi) it is no longer I that do it, as it otherwise would have been," i. e., it follows thence that it is not I that do it. — Nor does any such advance as Olshausen finds seem otherwise indicated. The stronger owrjdo/iai (instead of ovfiijiT]/u)i 24 Romans VII. 21-23. and the OeXetv irapaKetrai uot, comp. at 21, 22.— Ver. 18. A.B.C. and several critical authorities leave out evpioKu, and read only : to (Je Karepyd&oOat, ov. The omission of the verb seems more difficult to explain than its addition, and therefore I prefer the shorter read ing.— Ver. 20. The most considerable authorities, namely the Codd. B.C.D.E.G., omit the first eyw, while the second remains quite un disputed ; the omission seems certainly very proper, for the follow ing iyco, together with duapria, goes back to QeXu and notio, there was therefore no ground for putting iyco at the beginning of the verse ; still this its apparent superfluousness may have been the very reason for its omission.) Vers. 21-23. — The duality within the man, already indicated in the foregoing verses, is now more closely described.* Paul distin guishes the eato avOpunog, inner man (Eph. iii. 16), from the e|w dvOpunog, outer man (2 Cor. iv. 16) ; parallel with the first expres sion he uses vovg, mind,f with the second odpi, flesh, or uiXn, mem bers. Considered in and by themselves, these expressions are not exact equivalents of Kaivbg avdpunog, new man (Eph. ii. 15, iv. 24), or Katvrj KTtotg, new creature (Gal. vi. 15 ; 2 Cor. v. 17), and naXatbg t avOptonog, old man (Rom. vi. 6 ; Eph. iv. 22 ; Col. iii. 9). For the three latter formulae refer only and solely to the production of the new man in regeneration (John i. 13); whereas every natural man has an inward man, a ttvevp,a, spirit, or vovg, mind, or as Peter says (1 Pet. iii. 4), a Kpvnrbg dvOpunog rrjg Kap6iag, a hidden man of the heart. But as far as the transformation in regeneration begins in the nvevua or vovg of the natural man, and the inner man is the condition, we may say, the mother of the new man, so far the mean ings touch one another, and although therefore in the passage before us the state of the regenerate is not immediately the subject of dis course, yet the description, with the modifications above noted, is applicable to this state also. The relation, however, of -nvevua or vovg to odpi or ueXn will be only properly understood from that trichotomy of human nature which serves as a basis to the apos tle's representation.^ Under the sharp contrast, in which Paul places the two above-mentioned parts of man, his unity would be entirely annulled, if we might not, upon the authority of other pas sages of Scripture (especially 1 Thess. v. 23, and Heb. iv. 12), supply seems suggested simply by the endeavour to bring out in heightened contrast the force and malignity of the enslaving principle. Nor indeed does the condition of the man seem anywhere more helpless and hopeless than at vers. 22, 23, 24. [K. * Comp. hereon, and upon the connexion of ch. vii. and viii., Knapp's treatise in the scriptis var. arg. p. 429, seq. f In 2 Cor. iv. 16, however, there is reference also in laa avdporrog to the glorified body. % Comp. hereon my treatise: de trichotomia humanae naturae Nov. Test, scriptoribua recepta, which is printed in my opusc. theol. pag. 143 seq. Romans VII. 21-23. 25 the ibvxrf as the third part, and indeed as that part, in which the man becomes conscious both of the vovg and of the odpi, as his, and which therefore must be considered as the proper centre of his per sonality. The TTvevua (which in the vovg is conceived merely as ability, as capacity), represents the connexion of the ipvxfl with the higher world of spirit, the odpi its connexion with the creature. In the natural state certainly, the spiritual potency of the vovg is dimmed (2 Cor. vii. 1) ; the vovg of itself is in uaratorng, having no power or capacity to conquer (Eph. iv. 18), as even the conscience may be defiled (Tit. i. 15), whence the man is in need of the -nvevua ayiov, the absolute, pure, supreme Spirit, for his perfection : mean time, however, the vovg, even although obscured, forms for the nat ural man an inward hght, that gives him a sort of insight. It is only by a continued resistance that this light is entirely extinguished, and all spiritual power vanishes. (Matth. vi. 23 ; Jude ver. 19.) Accordingly the apostle speaks of a vouog tov voog, that is, of a law coming to the consciousness of man through the vovg. This law, which the man feels himself unable to satisfy, is not, however, given to him autonomously, but God gives it him by the vovg, as the organ susceptible to Divine influences. The two laws therefore are not to be separated, as is still done by Tholuck ; they are entirely identical, but simply conceived according to their more immediate or re moter sources. Thus for the law of sin (vduog rrjg duaprtag), or law of flesh (vouog rrjg oapKog), the law of the devil (vouog tov 6taj36Xov) might be put, since the ultimate cause of the expressions of sin in man cannot be supposed without incitement from the kingdom of darkness and its prince. When, however, a law is assigned to sin itself, which is in its nature opposed to law, it is with a view to in dicate, that in sinful development, no less than in good, there is a constant advance, an incessant urging and assertion of itself. It may be said, that in the department of sin the law of good is re versed ; as in good a constant law of attraction upwards reveals itself, so in evil a constant law of attraction downwards. No thing, as has already been remarked on another passage, is more dangerous and erroneous than the opinion that one evil deed can stand isolated, that a man can commit one or another and then stop. Rather does all evil hang hke a chain together, and every sin mul tiplies the weight of the indwelling evil in frightful progression, until, quicker than the man forebodes, it turns him dizzy and drags him into the deep. But even so the good grows also in itself, and every slight victory furthers the elastic power which impels it up wards. These two potencies, therefore, fight against each other in the i>v%r], as their arena. The self, the I, has the insight into the better, has the OeXetv, wish, a sort of velleitas to do it ; but the KaTEpyd&aOat, performing, is wanting (ver. 18); thus the inward 26 Romans VII. 24. power of action in the man, that which proceeds from the nvEvun, is crippled. Sin makes a prisoner of the " self" (ver. 23), it is a slave in its own house. (No emphasis is to be laid on the expressions fj duapria o'utel, to OeXeiv TrapaKEirat [vers. 18, 20, 21], as though oIkeIv were to express the constant inhering, napaKsloOat the more distant attachment, for ver. 21, napaKEloOat is used likewise of evil. The expression oIkbi iv iuol djj.apriaJ[Yer. 17], is more nearly defined, ver. 18, by ovk oIkeZ iv ry oapKi fiov dyadov. The ovk dyaOov = KaKov, ver. 19, answers to duapria considered as a state : sin is removed out of the nobler, higher potency of the man, the vovg, into the lower, the V"OT oap- kiktj, or the oapi ifivxinrj. [Comp. at ver. 14.] The lower potency denies the higher also, and represses its agency ; but the latter has not in itself the law of discord ; this is the case with the evil spirits only, and with men, when they have by continued personal sin killed the spirit itself. — KaXov is used entirely as the Hellenic mXbv Kaya- 06v in a moral-aesthetic meaning, tre; is similarly used in a moral sense, Eccl. iii. 11. — Ver. 21. The difficult construction of the verse is not entirely cleared by any of the attempts to solve it [consult for them Reiche's comm. ad loc.]; it seems necessary to assume an anacoluthon. With this supposition we must be guided by the leading notion vouog, which must then in ver. 21 be understood as in vers. 22, 23, and thus of the law of God. With regard to the gram matical construction, tov vouov might be annexed to -noteiv. But in this construction, especially maintained by Knapp, alike is the to kuXov* harsh, for which Knapp would improperly read rbv KaXov, and also the repetition of iuoi. Consider further that Paul does not use the form vouov noteiv [it is only found Gal. v. 3] ; that in fine an erepog vouog is spoken of in ver 23, which is explained as vouog duaprtag ; and it seems simplest to take tov vouov as accusative of the object in the sense : " I find then the law, that evil is present with [or besets] me, while I yet wish to do good." The placing rbv vouov before suits this sense very well. — Ver. 23, alxpuXuTtfa, as well as alxuaXoTevio [2 Tim. iii. 6] belongs only to the later Greek, and especially to the Alexandrine dialect. Comp. Phrynichus by Lo- beck, p. 442.) Ver. 24.— Thus, then, Paul had arrived at the proper turning- point in the interior ofthe spiritual hfe, to the complete development of the need of redemption, to the separating of law and gospel. The law has fulfilled its work, when it has awakened repentance, and de spair of a man's own power to exhibit true hohness alike in character and in act (Rom. iii. 20), and is thus become the conductor to Christ * The rd KaXov can only be taken as redundant, unless with Homberg vop.ov, or with Hemsterhuis KaXov is struck out, but for which there are no critical authorities. (Comp. Knapp, scr. v. arg. p. 43V.) Romans VII. 24. 27 (natdayuybg elg XptorSv, Gal. iii 24). Yet it cannot but surprise us that he who thus from intensest longing cries for redemption, longs for this redemption not from sin, or from the law of sin, but from the ouua tov Oavdrov, body of death = o&ua 0vt]t6v} mortal body.* All explanations of this expression, which discard the element of body, are nullified by the definite declarations of the apostle in the preceding part of the discourse, which constantly speaks of the flesh (vxr\ * Could we point out an earlier moment to which we might refer the experience of the redemption of Christ in the spirit, and could this whole section be explained imme diately of the regenerate, we might believe it admissible to take ver. 24, thus, " "Would that I might, now that I am spiritually redeemed, be glorified in body also I" But so the re demption would appear totally accomplished spiritually, and only remain to be completed corporeally; while according to scriptural representation, it needs, as well for the spirit as for the whole man, constantly renewed repetition. f But holy Scripture certainly knows nothing of the heathen view of the body, as a prison of the soul; it is rather to her a necessary organ ; wherefore, even upon the high est stage of perfection, the body again appears, though in a glorified form "Without body, the state of the soul is an imperfect one. (Comp. upon the relation of the body to the soul, Seneca [epist. 65] who expresses himself thereon in a manner nearly approaching the Christian doctrine.) 28 Romans VII. 25. and glorifies at last the body also. As, therefore, -the lusts of the flesh war from beneath against the tfvxfl '> so does the impulse of the spirit sanctify it from above ; hence sanctification must, before all things, be directed to the crucifying" of the flesh (Galat. v. 24 ; 1 Cor. ix. 27), because the spirit comes to have dominion, when the predominance of the flesh is suppressed. But if sin originated pri marily in the nvevua or vovg, so that Paul might have said : duapria oIkei iv tu nvEvuan, sin dwelleth in my spirit, atonement would have been as entirely out of the question for man, as it is for evil spirits, for there had been within us no connecting point for grace. Since, then, even with the regenerate man, the body of death and the old man is hving still, he also has occasion to exclaim : raXatnupog iyib dvOpionog, wretched man that I am; rather in a partial sense, however ; the exclamation being here intended in its full compass, as liberation from the whole former state, and longing for a thoroughly new life, whose peculiar character is described in the subsequent representation. (The expression raXainupog, from rXdo, to suffer, and n&pog, a rOck, a heavy stone, is very suitable for describing the hard pressure under which man is suffering during the dominion of sin. It is found be sides at Rev. iii. 17. — The choice ofthe word pvo\iai is also very sig nificant;* it involves that powerful, energetic snatching forth which is looked for not from any circumstance, but from some spiritually endowed and mighty person, hence rlgue pvoeTat; who will deliver me ? That pvaerat, moreover, includes not merely the communica tion of a new principle of life, but the forgiveness of sins, atonement, the expression mraKptua ovdsv rolg iv Xpior$ testifies. In the words iK tov otiuaTog tov Oavdrov tovtov, the pronoun belongs to ocopuTog, being, according to the known Hebrew use where two substantives are connected, placed after.f ) § 12. Or the Experience of Redemption until the Perfec tion of the Individual Life. (VII. 25— VIII. 17.) To the question uttered in ver. 24 : who shall redeem me ? the apostle answers by a deep but eloquent silence. He points namely " * The whole expression: jig^e (licrerai, expresses, moreover, notmerelythe thought- who wM at last sometime dehver me out of this cheerless state of conflict but also th« thought: who can. The feeling finds vent, thatno human help avails anting he « J" ^ allagJe,W1'h P,ron0unS m ^eek is certainly unusual (comp, Winer's Gr §67. 3 and Meyer ad loc); but the context favours here decidedly the a sumntion of » Hebrew idiom. (Comp. Geseni«s Gr. p. Hi.) For the thought "bodv n Z vlL described death," does not suit the context, Le etvarTSlJZ a S.^fS the following description, from ver. 14, contains no point at all which could lead to th« notion of death in a physical sense. But the combination c^aSt^S^ Romans VII. 25. 29 by it to that invisible and unspeakable act of regeneration, when the man sees heaven open, and perceives the whisper of the Spirit, and therein the presence of God (1 Kings xix. 12), without know ing whence the breathing cometh and whither it goeth (John iii. 8). To signify, however, that here the experience of redemption in his own heart is to be considered as attained, he utters his thanksgiving for this grace to the originator of the work of redemption, God the Father, through Christ, whom he can now from his heart call his Lord.® With this experience an entirely altered state commences within the man, the nature of which the apostle proceeds to de scribe, unto entire perfection, even of the body (viii. 11). While in the former' state the Divine law reflected itself indeed in the vovg, and the wish was stirring in the inner man, that he could keep it, nay, joy in it was perceptible, yet the main thing still was want ing, the KarepyaXeoOai, performing (vii. 18). The vovg could not in freedom serve the law of God,f the "very inner man was taken prisoner by the resisting law of sin. But by experience of the re deeming power of Christ, whereby the vovg is strengthened, the man sees himself enabled, at least with the highest and noblest potency of his being, to serve the Divine law, and thus we no longer find in him the wish merely, but the power of accomplishing also. Mean time the head only, as it were, is as yet lifted up from the raging sea, there is but the redemption of the spirit and mind (dnoXvTpuotg tov nvevuarog or voog), to which afterwards, viii. 23, that of the body (dnoXvTpumg tov aufiarog) must be joined ; the odpt-, and the i/^/CT necessarily to be considered as united with it, the whole inferior region of life, therefore, remains yet subject to the law of sin. Hence even in the regenerate the conflict lasts on, but it has lost its cheer less uniformity ; in the power of Christ he is able ordinarily to conquer in this battle, and if he sometime fall (in lesser things), he knows how quickly to raise himself again (1 John ii. 2) ; so that peace governs now in that higher sphere of human existence, where once the contest was most violent, because there the opposition to rily physical death, as the crowning result of that corruption which has dominion of the whole man. 2&fta tov davarov cannot certainly be : body, which is the cause of Ouvarog, but body which bears in itself the nature of death, = oti/ta Svrrrbv [viii. 10]. The mean ing " mass, whole," according to the analogy of eii is quite inapplicable here. * Should the act of regeneration be supposed- to have come to pass earlier, it would appear strange'that from ver. 9 to 25 the name of Ohrist should not occur ; this entirely agrees with our acceptation. f Stier erroneously understands this of a mere pleasure in the Divine law in the thought of man, of like signification with ovvqdeodat above ; it is, however, more than that, it is the doing of the law in its spiritual import, since in its merely external requisitions the man may keep it even without grace. Such doing only can rightly be called SovXeveiv vofii) Beov, the SovXeveiv vo/^i himpTiag which happens merely with the oup?t is no doing of sin, but a mere remaining exposed to the motions ofthe sinful flesh. (Comp. Galat. v. 17.) 30 Romans VII. 25. sin revealed itself most determinedly. Accordingly they, who be long to Christ, are freed from the condemning conscience, since the living spirit of Christ has made them free from sin and death (viii. 1, 2). This new principle of life, however, is gradually to diffuse itself through the being of the man, until the soul, nay, the body, is glo rified by it, and Christ becomes the life for the whole man, that he may raise him up at the last day. (Comp. Rom. viii. 11, with John vi. 44, etc. At both passages consult my explanation.) Notwithstanding that a most simple consistency results from this conception of the passage, it has been mistaken by almost all the older and later expositors;* nay Reiche would have the whole of ver. 25, which is so essential a member in the apostle's description, considered as a gloss. Most of the others refer the dpa ovv to the whole descrip tion of vii. 14-24 — so that ver. 25 is to represent the same state, which that section describes — and the dpa ovv (viii. 1), either to ch. v., or even, as Tholuck would, to ch. iii. Were no other accepta tion of the passage possible, I would rather, with Reiche, strike out the verse, than adopt so forced an interpretation. Perhaps the false division of the chapters may have prevented the right sense of the words from being found, for it is indeed as improper as it can be. The seventh chapter Ought surely to close with ver. 24, and all would then go on in connexion ; the strict particle of inference dpa and the ydp following at viii. %, 3, on no account allows the thread of the dis course to be broken here. But what can have induced the expositors so unanimously to find the same thing in ver. 25, as is expressed vii. 14-24, while the words so palpably declare something entirely differ ent ? It was believed that as the " law of God" was spoken of above also (ver. 23), the " serving with the mind the law of God" (vol 6ovXevo vouu Oeov), was identical with the " pleasure in that law" (avvi\6ouai ra vouu tov Qeov, ver. 22), and again the " serving with the flesh the law of sin" (6ovXevg) aapKt vofiay duapriag) identical with the before described (vers. 15, 18, 23) dominion of the law of sin. But that is clearly not the apostle's meaning, f In the state of which first the need of redemption was a result, the whole man, the * Glockler only seems to have conceived it rightly; he is, however, too brief in his explanation of the important words for his view to be clearly perceived. f It might be said, it is not: y oup? SovXevet v6/up a/iapnag, but 4yd t$ capti SovXeva v. d., and therefore the I, just as from ver. 14-24, might be supposed as serving sin. But iy6 in ver. 25 is not, as ver. 9 in the iyd diredavov, to be understood as deribting the bet ter part in man, for this is signified by the vovg, which is distinguished from it, and which can now serve the law of God ; but as denoting the personality in general. Now in the regenerate man the flesh is surely not the flesh of another, but his own flesh, his old man consequently he also remains, the flesh merely considered, still as regenerate subjected to the law of sin. Galat. v. 17 is especially important for understanding the whole passage and there principally the words : iva /ir), d dv BeXnTe, ravra rrotrjre. So also here Paul supposes in the believer that possibility of Karepydiecdat, which is wanting in the merelv awakened. Romans VIII. 1. 31 vovg, therefore with him, was unable to serve the law of God, the better self was taken captive by the law of sin. But here the vovg appears as freed, and in this freedom serving the law of God, and only the lower sphere of life remains subjected to the law of sin. The vovg, however, being the ruling principle in the whole man, the law of God rules in it, and by it also in the whole man, although something indeed remains still to be got the better of and brought under, namely, the flesh itself yet captive in the sinful element.* (For EvxapiorS) ™ 9ew the reading x®PlS TV e£ for instance supplied, but to be connected with evxapiorti. The thanksgiving offered to God through Christ testifies the redemp tion wrought by God through Christ. — The avrog eyw is not to be construed " I myself," but ego idem, " I, the one and the same, have in me a twofold element." To be sure avrog in this signification commonly has the article, but the iyd supplies it here.f) Chap. viii. 1. — As the dpa ovv, according to the acceptation given above, is closely connected with the thanksgiving for the experienced redemption, so again is the apa vvv with the description of the state * Meyer makes the following objections to my view : 1. " Had Paul intended to ex press the above idea, he must have reversed the clauses: apa oiv avrog iyi> ry /liv capK.1 SovX.sva) vofiij dftapriag, T& Si vol vofioi Oeov." By no means ; it was necessary that after the thanksgiving the progress should be first adverted to, viz., that now he would with the vovg serve the law of God ; the remaining suffering need only be mentioned afterwards. 2. " According to viii. 2, 3, the redeemed is entirely freed from the lawof sin ;" that is not so ; the regenerate conquers in the conflict with sin ; he has dominion over it, but he is not rid of it ; this entire riddance is not effected until the glorification of the mortal body. 3. "If the redeemed still with the cap? remained subject to the law of sin, Paul could not say, viii. 1, ovSiv upa vvv KaraKpi^a." Answer; Paul can say so with full right, be cause the man is not free from condemnation, on aecount of his subjective condition, "but for the sake ofthe objective work of Christ, which he lays hold of in faith. ¦j- Aiir'dg kyu is much more forcibly and naturally taken " I myself," i. e., "I of myself" (as avrog often in Greek), and thus (with Meyer and De "Wette) contrasted with Sid 'Irjo. Xpiarov. The dpa ovv then refers to the entire preceding delineation, and the whole clause is a resumptive and comprehensive statement, suggested by the mention of his deliverer, of his own previous condition apart from that deliverer. Meyer's arguments against Ols hausen in the preceding note are not satisfactorily set aside. First, as to the reversal of the order of the clause. As it stands, ra fiiv vol, etc., appears as the subordinate and r§ Si caput, etc., as the principal idea, i. e., ""While indeed with the mind I serve the law of God, yet with the flesh the law of sin." Olshausen's view requires, " while, indeed, with the flesh I serve the law of sin, yet with the mind the law of God." As it is, the phrase seems precisely equivalent to vers. 22, 23. "Serving the law of God with the mind" is = to " having pleasure in the law of God after the inward man ;" and " serving with the flesh the law of sin" = " the captivity of the law of sin in the members." It is impossible to establish any material difference in the ideas. Second, the representation in the next chapter shews the man in an essentially different state, the law of the mind not enslaved by the law of the flesh, but the whole man brought into, freedom. That this freedom is not yet consummated, does not affect the radical truth of the representation, which looks at the new principle in its Divine potency, and its certain and complete ultimate triumph. — [K. 32 Romans VIII. 1. of the regenerate, in whom the conflict indeed has not altogether ceased, but is become a victorious one.* Those, who have experi enced redemption, are now in Christ (ol iv XpiOT& 'Irjo.ov) ; that is, by real spiritual communion, by the indwelling of the Spirit of Christ, they are become essentially united with him, members of his body, and as such they are freed from the condemnation (KaraKptua), from the sentence of God's justice that rejects sinners. And this, too, not merely in subjective feeling, so that they now fed the peace of God instead of the curse-, but objectively also, so that their relation to God, and God's position towards them, is become another. The righteousness of Christ is imputed to the believer, so that he is regarded as though he were Christ ; he is precious to God for the * The Editor inclines decidedly to that explanation of the preceding passage which (with the earliest, and most of the recent interpreters) refers it not to the straggle be tween the renewed and unrenewed natures of the Christian, but between the quickened moral sense and the depraved passions of the unregenerate. He does this, not as doubt ing the reality or the depth of the Christian warfare (so invariable an element of the Christian life), but because the other conflict (equally undeniable) seems here more perti nent to the scope of the apostle. His -reasons are mainly the following: 1. The descrip tion ver. 14 seq. is1 introduced by way of accounting for and explaining a statement (ver. 11, seq.) which refers confessedly to a period anterior to regeneration; while the present tense and first person are abundantly explicable on rhetorical principles (see note at ver. 14). 2. The contrast between the state here portrayed and that of the emancipa ted believer immediately following, in chap viii. is too strongly marked and violent to allow of their being both referred to the same character. Granting that under different points of view these opposite modes of delineation might be applied to the 3ame moral state (as is partially possible ; the one representing the tumult of the practical struggle, the other, the completeness of the theoretical emancipation) — yet not certainly in so close proximity. Here the one state passes over into the other as its direct antipodes. 3. The deliverance from this state (25, " through Jesus Christ our Lord"), is the gospel method of deliverance from the fruitlessness and condemnation of legal striving. 4. The description itself is on the whole much more applicable to the struggles of the enlightened unregenerate than to those of the regenerate. If his experiences of pleasure in the law of God aro with diffi culty applied to the awakened natural conscience, his repeated and emphatic statements of utter impotence to fulfil his good purposes, the utter enslavement of his moral nature, are at least quite as inapplicable to the condition of the Christian. ' ' Sold under sin," " To perform what is good I find not," " Captive to the law of sin," " "Wretched man that I am," are harsh expressions, descriptive of a regenerate state, occurring in the midst of a discussion whose very purpose is to exalt the redeeming efficacy of the gospel. On the other hand, the terms "hate," " assent," " delight," are naturally accounted for on the prin- * ciple of stating in a heightened form the strength of the opposing element, for the sake of exhibiting still more forcibly the power of the principle that subdues and enslaves it. And how often in the moral conflicts of life does the man in whom dwell clear views and strong convictions of right say and feel that he loathes the pleasures of sin that enslave - him, and delights in contemplating the good which he has not the moral force to prac tice. Finally, the term " delight," in the English version, is too strong as a rendering of ovvriSouai. " Am pleased with," gives all its necessary import, and as such, it is but a grade above av^nfii, " I assent to." 5. As a negative reason, I regard the passage, thus interpreted, as the fullest and most decisive support of Calvinism in the New Testament None other exhibits in so strong relief the force of natural depravity, the impotence of the human will, and the utter hopelessness of man's condition without the emancipating power of the grace of Christ. — [K. Romans VIII. 1. 33 Beloved's sake, to whom he belongs, and whose life dwells in him. In thorough misconception of the passage, De Wette remarks, " The doctrines of satisfaction and justification are not here to be interpolated ;" as if an exposition of the Christian religious develop ment were possible, unless those doctrines formed the turning-points in it ! It seems, however, singular here, that this change commencing (vvv) with the experience of redemption is derived in this passage from the state of the sinner, not from the objective act of Christ's redemption and atonement, as it was, hi. 25. But this difference of representation is easily explained from the different points of view taken there and here by Paul for his descriptions. There he was viewing the relation altogether objectively ; here he contem plates the subjective appropriation of that objective process. It is not, therefore, in any way his meaning, that forgiveness of sins and dehverance from condemnation is effected by the state of the man ; that takes place only through the sacrificial death of the Son of God ; he merely means, that the subjective appropriation of this act of Christ is first acknowledged and ensues with the actual expe rience of his redeeming power. The cause (Christ's death) and the effect (the regeneration of man) are, therefore, in the life necessarily united ; it is only as considered abstractly that they can be sepa rated and conceived in their different relations. Should, it however, be said, that a condemnation (KaTaKptua) remains still even for the regenerate, since their flesh (and the ^>v%r\ united with it) is still subject to the law of sin (vii. 25) ; it is assuredly right, that where sin is, condemnation is, and that even the regenerate, therefore, is in need of constant repetition of forgiveness of sins when transgres sions occur, be they in the eyes of men of ever so httle importance. (1 John ii. 1.)* But as a tree once grafted is called a more gene rous one, although it may yet shoot water-sprouts below the graft, which may itself as yet be little developed ; so is the regenerate man called perfect, pure, holy, without sin, free from all condemna- * "Upon the sins of the regenerate, Luther thus aptly expresses himself: "If the regenerate had no sin, he would not come so well off. For if I felt not sin, the evil life and conscience, I should never relish so the power of the Divine Word." Sin itself must therefore be the means for ever more urgently seeking the power of Christ. It may be said that this is a dangerous doctrine, for so a man might make light of sin and abuse grace I It is certainly possible ; but upon this possibility it has nevertheless seemed good to God to free the faithful from the yoke of sin. Such knavery of sin that makes an abuse of the holiest gift of God, must also come to light. The truly regenerate, if he trace any tokens of it in himself, will only so much the more zealously abhor sin ; if he did not so, he would be in process of apostacy from faith. The man who only in self-deceit holds himself as regenerate, will, if uprightness be in him, thereby be frightened out of his error. The insincere hypocrite, however, who can calmly carry on such a wanton abuse, fancies indeed he can deceive God and man, but properly only daaMB9"*himself, and has got his reward. Vol. IV.— 3 34 Romans VIII. 2. tion, for the sake of the Divinely pure nature of the new element that is imparted to him, even granting that this element, which bears essentially, within itself its new course of development, may not as yet have overpassed the very rudiments of that development (1 John ii. 13, 14), and may at times be repressed by the stirring powers of the flesh. Thus the seeming contradiction is reconciled, that whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin, because he can not sin, and yet sin still takes place in the old man of the regenerate, which sin!, because the old man is his, must be called his sin also. Nay, even if a regenerate man falls away from faith, the regenerate man, as such, has not sinned, but the old man again grown mighty by that man's fault, has again thrust out the germ of the new man from his nature. But even in the most advanced development of the regenerate, the new man, the Christ in us, is not the ground of favour, but the token of it only ; a truth to be ever kept in view, since he withdraws himself at times entirely from the man ; the ground of acceptance to favour with God is and remains the Christ for us. (As to the state of the text of viii. 1, the mistaken interpre tation of vii. 25 could alone have suggested the change of the weighty vvv into ovv. It is the very mark of the new state of regeneration, and is here entirely necessary. On the contrary, the addition : utj Kara adpKa neptnarovatv, dXXd koto, nvevua [the first half of which only is found in some critical authorities], is wanting in the best Codd. B.C.D.F.G., and betrays itself, moreover, so evidently as a gloss bor rowed from ver. 4, in order to guard against a misconception of the ovSlv KUTaKptua, that it is at all events to be struck out. It is intended to attach a condition, and is to be translated : if so be they walk according to the Spirit, etc. For as merely designating the charac ter of the regenerate, it would run : rolg ov Kara adpKa nspmaTovatv k. t. X.) Ver. 2. — The following representation then describes, as is gen erally acknowledged, the way and manner in which the regenerate has passed into his altered condition. It is not the man himself, but an emancipating, bond-severing power, that draws him from the captivity of sin (comp. vii. 23), namely, the law of the Spirit of life (6 vduog tov nvEvuarog rrjg fo%.) As (John viii. 36) the Son appears as the only one who indeed makes free, so here also it is said : 6 vouog tov nvevuaTog iv XpioT&'Inoov JiXevOepuos ue, the law of the Spirit of life in Christ, etc. It is only that the contrast with the law of sin and of death proceeding from sin may stand more clearly to view, that Christ is here comprehended in the law of the lifegiving Spirit es tablished by him. For in the aorist t)Xev0e'puoe is signified here' not the once-done act of Christ, but, as De Wette rightly observes, the laying hold of the work of Christ's redemption in faith. The pos sibility of this laying hold is, ver. 3, grounded on the act of Christ Romans VIII. 3. 35 Both life and death, however, are conceived in their absoluteness, as Christ himself is called the Life and the Resurrection, being the conqueror of death. (See at John xi. 25.) The name of a vduog, law, too, is assigned to the nvevua rrjg farjg, Spirit of life, with re ference to vh. 22, where the vouog tov 6eov was spoken of, and in contrast with the vouog rijg duaprtag. The expression has its inward truth ; the Divine is in itself that which accords with law ;* but it so represents itself in Christ to man, that it brings with it the power to satisfy the very claims which it establishes. That the faithful, therefore, fulfil the law, is not their own ivork(a,ndL consequently giyes no merit) but God's work in them (Eph. ii. 8-10) by his Spirit that giveth life. Whether, moreover, the expression 6 vouog tov nvevuaTOg rrjg £gm)c is construed like nvuvuarog Kal rrjg Zurjg, or as nvevuarog faonotovvrog, is essentially the same thing as far as regards the thought. For the Spirit is the true life, and, therefore, alone capable of imparting it, of animating death itself. Ver. 3. — The incapacity of the law (as a Divine institution for salvation) to dehver man from sin, made, as Paul had set 'forth at large in the beginning of the epistle, the other way necessary, namely, the sending of the Son of God in the flesh, to attack sin in its root. (To ddvvaTov is to he taken as absolute accusative, " as to the incapability of the law." — 'Ev w = if » a " in that, in as far as," of like signification with &/>' w, comp. at v. 12 [also in classic use, comp. Bernhardy's Syntax, p. 211]. Thus iv & is found, Heb. vi. 17, but not, as De Wette thinks, Heb. ii. 18 ; 1 Pet. ii. 12 ; nor John xvi. 30 ;| in these passages it is the relative with the pre position. — The law might perhaps avail somewhat with the perfect, but the sinfulness of human nature hinders its efficacy. Comp. at vh. 12, 13.) In the description of the sending of the Son of God, all stress is laid upon the identity of the human nature, in which he appeared, with ours. The incapacity of the law to bring forth true holiness, lay not in itself (vh. 12), but in corrupted human nature, which robbed the Divine law of its strength (tfoOevEtyX Hence this sinful nature was to be in Christ's person destroyed in the Divine judg ment (KaTEKptve ttjv auapriav iK ry oapKt). It seems remarkable, how ever, that the apostle uses here the expression, nifirpag tov havTov * The law, the inward-impulse ofthe Spirit, is to be holy and to make holy ; the law of the flesh is, to be unholy and to make unholy. Both lust constantly against each other (Galat. v. 17). Comp. at iii. 27, vouog rrjg ¦Kiareag. \ [A wrong reference.] % "When, Heb. vii. 18, an daBevig Kal dvucjieXeg of the law is spoken of. the expres sion is not to be understood of the nature of the law, but of its working, which is power less on account of the sin of men. Therefore Paul calls it, Galat. iii. 21, fit) Svvd/ievoe £aoiroi?joai. 36 Romans VIII. 3. vlov, sending his own Son (vlog, Son, is used in a strictly proper sense of the eternal, Divine nature of the Son, and the greatness of God's love is intended to be set forth by the kavrov), iv buotuuaTt aapK.bg duapriag, in the likeness of sinful flesh, for by this the human nature of Christ himself seems to be described as sinful. But had Paul meant to say that Christ's human nature (for flesh signifies here, as Rom. i. 3-, by synecdoche, the whole humanity of spirit, soul, and body) was sinful, as fallen human nature is, he must then have written iv aapm, dfiapriag, in sinful flesh, not iv 6 uo t 6 part oapithg dfiapriag, in the likeness of sinful flesh. Adam's nature, too, before the fall, was 4he Suoluua, likeness, of man's nature now ; he became not by the fall specifically another, the same man merely became corrupt. Here it lay in the apostle's course, to bring for ward more immediately the affinity of Christ's nature with ours ; he is silent, therefore, upon the difference between them. This difference however, must be so conceived, that while the Redeemer, cer tainly, before the resurrection, wore no glorified body (ouua rrjg 66%ng) but an humbled one (ouua Tanetvuceug, Phil. iii. 21), which was af fected with the weakness of the flesh (doOiveta rrjg oapKog, 2 Cor. xiii. 4) ; yet his humanity was free from positive sinfulness, as begotten of the Holy Ghost. That weakness then is designed to render possible the temptation (comp. at Matth. iv. 1, etc.), which our Lord had to suffer, in order to become the conqueror over evil (Heb. ii. 14, 17, 18, iv. 15). Thus the two equally necessary points were united in Christ ; connexion with mankind into one true unity of hfe, and exaltation above mankind, that he might lift them out of their misery. ('OuotoTng is properly, analogously to dytorng, the being like, and &uotop,a, that made like, an image. Paul uses it, how ever, also hke duo^g. So Rom. i. 23, v. 14, vi. 5, and, besides,. Phil. ii. 7. James hi. 9, dfioiuotg is found. So also in the LXX., Gen. i. 26.) Now if the sinfulness of human nature were nothing but a mere deficiency, the filling of humanity with the hfe of the Son of God would have sufficed to remove it. But since beside this deficiency in spiritual life there is a real disturbance of the harmony in the inner and outer man, more than the mere incarnation was re quisite, namely, the extirpation of the guilt and the restitution of the disturbed order by the establishment of a central point from which harmony might pour forth through all the spheres of life, as discord had spread itself from Adam (comp. at Rom. v. 12 etc.) This thought, however, is not to be pressed upon the Kal nepl duapriag, which words are rather to be connected with the preceding in the simple sense, " on account of sin," " by reason of sin," as ground for the sending of the Son of God ; but it lies in the Kariicpive rrjv dfiap- riav iv t$ oapri, condemned sin in the flesh.® There is no foundation * Neander (apost. Zeitalt. B. ii. s. 544, note), explains the KareKptve T^v&fiapnavbj: Romans VIII. 3. 37 whatever for finding in the nepe duapriag a reference to the sacrificial death of Christ, so that duapria = dyij should mean sin-offering (comp. at 2 Cor. v. 21). The closing words of the verse, on the con trary, express most decidedly the vicarious and atoning death of the Saviour. For the KariKptve, condemned, evidently looks backward to the oidev KaraKptua, no condemnation (viii. 1), so that the sense of the words is this : no KaraKptua falls on them, because he took it on him; he stands, therefore, in the stead of mankind, bears what should fall on them, and so effects all which the law could not effect, which all comprises in itself the reconcihation of God. As, therefore, in the sending of the Son, the love of God expressed itself, so in the giving of him up his righteousness did; while the Son represents compassion, in that of his own accord he let himself be sent and given up to death. Thus is the Divine righteousness, as its nature requires, thoroughly satisfied, and at the same time a sinful world is saved by love. For the sin condemned in the death of Christ is hot the sin of some, but the sin of the world, which the Lord bore in his flesh (iv ry oapKt scil. avrov), so that the words are equiv alent to the saying of Peter (1 Pet. ii. 24): rag duapTtag rjuuv avrog dvfjveyKEv iv t <3 ouuar t avrov inl to I-vXov, he himself bore our sins, etc. How Christ's suffering and Christ's death can be the suf fering and death of the collective body (so far as they are one with him in faith), became perceptible to us by the idea of the represen tation (comp. at v. 12, etc.), according to which Christ is not a man but the man, the real sum and comprisal of the totality. It is diffi cult, however, to suppose the sin of the collective race in the Holy One, so that they could be condemned in him ; for it may be con ceived, how the Redeemer could be the representative of the holy part of mankind, but it is not so clear how he was able to represent the unholy also, which nevertheless seems to follow from that lan guage. As this consideration was not entered into at the passage v. 12, etc., the following notice may perhaps help to remove the diffi culty in making such relation perceptible. As there is but one personality in the regenerate man, and yet this one person distin guishes in itself the old and new man, and at the same time acknowledges both as its own, so Christ represented in the Divine and human unity of his person the collective members of a race that form one whole. In this race the contrasts of the old and of the new man are set forth as tendencies of good and of evil, and so far, then, as Christ represents the inseparable and indivisible sum, he repre sents also in himself the tendency of sin. Spiritually, indeed, his " he took away sin, broke its power," and appeals to John xii. 31, xvi. 11, where, how ever, Kpivetv means strictly condemn. Neander chooses this explanation because he thinks that he must refer dSvvarov rovvofiov to the Karanpivetv «-r>v duapriav, which is by no means necessary. 38 Romans VIII. 3. holy Being was totally separate from sin, and even bodily he was connected with the world of sin but loosely, since the indwelling Bpirit was graduaUy raising even his body, while yet his earthly sojourn lasted, from the humiliation (raneivuoig) of the natural life to the glory (66ia) of the Divine ; but loose as this his bond with the sinful world was in itself, so intimate did it become through that love, that fills the foreign with its own being.* And in the power of this love the Lord identified himself essentially with sinful humanity, to which he stood related as its new man to the old. As therefore the new man in the regenerate thrusts not from him the personahty that still bears in it the old man, but even identifies himself essentially with it and bears all which the cumbrous weigh* of the old man brings with it ; neither did the Saviour in his sojourn upon earth thrust humanity from him for having in it still its old man, the evil tendency ; but he penetrated even its inmost centre, identified him self entirely with it, and though, indeed, he bore the whole pressure of the world's sin and all its consequences, a sin destined to feel all the weight of Divine justice, yet even thereby he won his very ad versaries, and so transformed the whole into himself. Whilst "he then first became like mankind, afterwards mankind became hke him ! Accordingly neither the taking upon himself the sin of the world on the part of the Son, nor the laying of the sin upon the Son (as the Lamb of Sacrifice) on the part of the Father, is, consistently with this representation, to be considered as a mere act of the will, which bears of necessity a certain arbitrary character ; but as in volved in the incarnation itself. Then has this event its analogy in every act of compassionate love. Whoever would help another pant ing under a heavy burden, must go under it and bear its whole pressure himself; or, to give an example from spiritual things, whoever would bring the salvation in Christ to the Negroes, or any other rude people, must enter into their necessity, must bear all the burden of their corrupted sinful nature, must, as it were, first be come like them, to form them hke himself. Thus also does the * The mystery of love, which causes a passing over into a foreign being, and becomes like it, without giving up its own nature, is treated of at large by the Apostle Paul under the figure of marriage, especiaUy Ephes. v. 25, etc. By the power of love Christ became entirely as the sinful world, so that he, as Luther's expression is, could say with truth, "poor sinner that I am," and remained notwithstanding, in his nature, specifically sepa rate from sin. He only changed with mankind, took their sin upon himself, and gave them his righteousness and blessedness. The possibility of such an exchange becomes perceptible from the nature of evil. Christ could not love sinful humanity as his bride, if it were substantially sin ; but as sin only cleaves to it, he loves the germ of the Divine left in it. If now sin were a mere negation (jir) ov), it could not well be seen how the es sential union with this Divine germ of life could procure suffering and death for Christ ; but if sin is taken to be real disturbance of the original harmony of life, such an union must necessarily have had as its consequence, that the Redeemer was smitten by the whole violence of that discord which sin had generated upon earth. .EomaNs VllI. 4. 39 Lord from heaven lower himself into sinful humanity, and bears essentially its sin, with all- its consequences, of which death is the heaviest. (A reference of ver. 3 to the active obedience of Christ cannot without violence be traced in the words. The connexion is simply this : What the law could not do, Christ can. The law was not able to take away the condemnation ; it served rather only to increase it ; but Christ takes it away, in that he takes it upon him self ; this comes to pass by the vicarious, atoning sacrifice of his death. Unquestionably, indeed, it equally implies that Christ estab lished absolute righteousness, else the condemnation would ever again have generated itself in man : but that is not the chief thought here; it is in ver. 4 that we have the definite idea of active obe dience. The most that can be said is, that as it must constantly be affirmed of the hfe of Christ, that passive and active obedience every moment penetrate each other in him, so even his surrender into death presupposes the highest activity. — We should not at iv t%) oapKi exactly supply avrov, nor again rav dvOpumov ovoav. The expression embraces rather the flesh of Christ and of men together. He represented the totahty ; what, therefore, came to pass in him, came to pass essentially in all. However, the prevailing idea re quires that the sentence should immediately be understood as com pleted thus : Qsbg KareKpive ttjv ajxapriav dvOpunuv iv aaptCi Xptarov, God condemned the sin of man in the flesh of Christ.) Ver. 4. — Now immediately upon the description of the way of God in sending Christ follows the delineation of the work of Christ; what the law could not, the gospel is able to do, in that it condemns sin, namely, to call forth in man the state of true hohness. Evi dently, then, it is not, according to the context, the apostle's meaning, that this state is the condition of partaking in Christ's word, but the consequence. He presupposes already the walking according to the Spirit (nepinaretv Kara nvevua), and this again the experience of the redeeming power of Christ (vh. 25). But as surely as the Catholic view is wrong, so surely are we to reject that exaggerated view of the Protestant interpreters which conceives sanctification as entirely dissociated from the forgiveness of sins. According to the genuine doctrine of the Reformers, which rests upon this apostolic passage, sanctification of hfe necessarily (although at first in germ only) comes with the appropriation of Christ's work, not, however, as a stated condition, but rather as consequence of the forgiveness im parted in free grace without condition. (The nXrjpuOifi iv f)ulv unmistakeably indicates that sanctification of hfe is none of man's own work, but that God in Christ perfects. it in man ; hence oV avrov only need be supplied. We do not' fulfil the law, but the work of Christ is our work ; by his Spirit he im- 40 Romans VIII. 5, 6. parts his righteousness and holiness unto us. The perfection of every individual, therefore, in Christ's life is to be considered as already completed, entirely according to viii. 30 ; as in his death the sin of every individual appears condemned. — The expression dtKaiuua tov vouov comprises all which the law can in any respect whatever require ; it is absolute 6iKaioovvn considered as the com mand of God. — The addition rdig p,r) Kara adpKa k. t. X., would seem, however, to define the r)fj,elg more nearly, so that the sense is : this effect of Christ's appearing applies only to those who walk after the Spirit, and have therefore experienced in themselves the work im plied at vii. 25. Christ's work, indeed, is reckoned for all, but it reveals itself, in its sanctifying efficacy, only when man appropri ates it personally.) Vers. 5, 6. — This state of spiritual walking (koto) nvevua nsptna- teiv) Paul now describes more nearly by its contrast. It is that, namely, in which the believer tarries here below, until his bodily glorification (viii. 11); for if the state be capable of a heightening in itself, yet man can never get fasyond it in his earthly life. Its proper character, however, is best perceived by the KaTa, adpKa nepinarslv, walking after the flesh, = ra rrjg oapKog tppovEtv, being carnally minded, = cppovnua rrjg aap^og, = iv oapicl slvat (ver. 9), and = Kara adptta Zxjv (ver. 12). AU this is consequent on Kara adpKa elvat, which expression is of like signification with yeytvvnuivov iK rrjg oapKog (John iii. 6). The apostle certainly intends by this no life of* open wickedness, but the very state described vii'. 14-24, in which the vovg is taken captive by the law of sin in the flesh. To this,oi>de yap 6vvaratifor neither can it be (viii. 7), in connexion with the d6vvarov tov vouov (viii. 3), most distinctly points. But then " the walking after the Spirit" (neptnarElv Kara, nvevua = cppovslv to, tov nvEvuarog = cppovrjua tov nvsvuaTog = iv nvEvuart slvat ver. 9, and = nvevuart ayeoOai ver. 14 — all this is consequent on Kara nvevua elvat, which expression is of like signification with yeyevvnuEvov iK tov nveouarog, John iii. 6) is the very state described vii. 25, in which the vovg can serve the Divine law, and the odpi only remains subjected to the law of. sin. The walking after the Spirit does not, therefore, exclude attacks on the part of sin, temptations of the flesh, even single smaller transgressions (1 John ii. 1); but the direction of the whole inner man to God, and the victory over sin essentially, and in the whole, is thereby asserted. The advance in the new man, de velopment in the walking in the Spirit, /is altogether not to be considered as a gradual transition of the old man into the new or as a constantly progressing conversion of the former into the latter ; but as in the aggregate of mankind, the tares are developed beside the wheat, and good and evil perfect themselves in parallel series, so .does the old man continue to the last beside the new man • and' it .uomans vm. 5, 6. 41 may not be, that the further the spiritual development advances, so much the nearer an approximation takes place between them, but the reverse ; as spirit and flesh lust continually against each other, so must the Christ in us lust more and more against the old Adam. The right conception of this relation is for this reason of the highest importance, that the view entertained of it by the regenerate man wiU modify and determine his whole effort at sanctification. If he seeks gradually to improve the old man in him, and to wash it clean, he not only undertakes a labour utterly in vain, but he is also in constant danger of falling back under the law, as happened to the Galatians ; nay, this very endeavour is properly the commence ment of the relapse. The old man cannot be sanctified, but he must be crucified, that is, in self-denial given unto death.® From the Spirit, therefore, a constant war must be kept up against the flesh and its lusts. This conflict, however, is but the negative side in the hfe of the regenerate ; the positive activity that furthers his new life is the constant keeping up of intercourse with the originator and the abiding well-spring of this new life. Thereby he receives in ever increasing measure the Spirit (nvevua) from above, and the man born of grace lives and grows, too, ever advancing in grace and by grace. So the man shares rightly law and gospel ; the new man lives in the gospel, the sharpest law is given to the old man by the new, and without being under the law, the man is still not without law, but is hving with the law .of God, of which, certainly, the old man is only in need, since the new man has it in his very nature ; he can not sin (1 John hi. 9), as little as the sun can darken. Regarded from a human point of view, moreover, the possibility of apostacy remains still for every regenerate man upon every grade of develop ment, even upon the highest : that is, that the new man may be thrust aside by the old ; but just as decidedly we must say, that, regarded from the Divine point of view, it is impossible for the elect of God to be overpowered by sin. Were it possible with one, it would be so with all, and then God's plans would be dependent upon man's fidehty ; it might happen that the whole world fell away. This is, of course, inconceivable, and impossible (Matth. xxiv. 24)! Hence, as in Christ's temptation, so freedom and necessity penetrate each other in the regenerate ; their relation will be treated more at large at chaps, ix. and xi. (In the cppovslv, cpp6vr\ua, the permanent direction of the whole in ward being towards something, is expressed ; this alone determines the true character of the man. [Comp. my opusc. theol. pag. 159.] * In this spiritual death ofthe old man the law of the Old Testament maintains, its full right when it requires the death ofthe sinner. But the gracious and righteous God so fulfils his strict justice, that he makes life itself the killer, so that he who dies in the old man first finds in his very death the true life. 42 Romans VIII. 6-9. At viii. 6, comp. the parallel, vi. 23, where, however, ZaJj stands alone, while here elprjvn is united with it.) Vers. 6-8.*— The reason why carnal mindedness works death, is no other than this : because this disposition separates from God (the Fountain of Life). That which is akin to him alone can please the Holy One, but the carnal mind is unable to generate anything well- pleasing to God : even its good works are an abomination to him, because they come from impure, selfish motives. No one, however, can set himself free from himself ; a higher love must come, that attracts him more than his own self. The notion of exOpa, enmity, must not be softened. The carnal man hates God, for he sees hr him the robber only of his lust ; and God hates him according to his hohness ; the two are absolutely and irreconcilably against each other. But with this God hates not man as such, he loves him rather, but he hates the sin in him. This holy hate passes to the regenerate ; he hates in himself and others sin and carnal minded ness, without hating men. (The inabihty in the vovg to submit to the Divine law [viii. 3], is the cause ofthe conflict [vii. 23], and so ofthe want of peace. The abihty to fulfil the law [viii. 4] has God's approval, as his own work, and it gives the soul the taste of peace with God. Ver. 8, 6£ forms no antithesis, but only carries on the same thought.) Ver. 9. — Here, then, the apostle makes the transition to his readers, whom he naturally treats as regenerate, who walk after the Spirit. For if elnsp seems to express a doubt, it is only seeming, as it is not to be construed here like si modo, but as siquidem, as a sure and certain presupposition. (Comp. thereon Hartung's Partikel- lehre, Part i. p. 327, etc., 344, etc., where nip in its relation to ye in its fundamental meaning, is admirably developed. ) The Spirit's be ing in the believer is conceived as an o'ikeiv, dwelling, of him, like vh. 18, where the dwelling of sin in the flesh was spoken of. The Divine Spirit dwells, of course, in that part of human nature most kindred to him, in the nvsvua or vovg. The oIkeXv, dwelling, however, is opposed to that transient presence and inspiration of the Spirit, which appears in the Old Testament, in the prophets, for which the word cpepsoOat is used (2 Pet. i. 21), in contrast to the ayeoOat of the New Testament (ver. 14 ; Galat. v. 18), by which the constant, un broken operation of the indwelling Spirit is signified, the hie of Christ in us, Galat. ii. 20. The oIkeiv is therefore like the ueveiv, abiding, of John (comp. at John i. 33, in the comm.), and the having the Spirit (%«v nvevua), which occurs in the verse before us. In the latter expression the man appears as though he were the possessor and governor of the Spirit, that yet, however, possesses him, and governs his inmost being, by which idea the being his (eanv uvtov) at the end of the verse is to be explained ; to be Christ's, is to be a JiSGHANS Vij.i. 10, 11. 43 member of him, to be governed, guided by him. The opposite would be slvai dtafioXov, to belong to the devil, comp. at John viii. 44. But in fact the man also possesses the Spirit within him (as the husband Indeed is the lord ofthe wife, but yet the wife also possesses the hus band), in so far, namely, as he may drive him away by unfaithfulness, nay, in so far as he has the privilege of conducting this Spirit accord ing to the intended aim (1 Cor. xiv. 32). The words el 6s rig nvsvua Xptarov ovk exei, and if any one hath not the Spirit of Christ, point to this possibility of apostacy, for the question here cannot be of entire unbehevers ; either, therefore, apostates must be meant, or at least those who are in conflict indeed against sin, but have not yet experienced the redeeming power of Christ (vii. 25). At all events the words would seem to contain the warning, that the bene fits of Christ are only to be appropriated when a man is conscious by faith, and the Spirit received in faith, of being a member in the body of Christ. The possession of this Spirit of Christ, however, is of course not to be measured by the mere feeling, the agreeable sen sation of the nearness of God, of comfort, of spiritual joy (for this is too fleeting, and the state of grace may be entirely unimpaired, even in great barrenness and dryness ; nay, in the progress of the inward life, the sweet sensations of the first young love are almost ever disappearing), but by its real effects and fruits. If the man observes not these in himself, and temptations at the same time increase and strengthen, then at all events he is in a doubtful, and contested state. (It is to be observed that the apostle, from vers. 8-11, uses 6e six times in succession. The expressions nvsVua Qeov and Xptarov alternate [comp. besides, ver. 11, 14] ; nvsvua ayiov might have been said [comp. ver. 16]. For Father, Son and Spirit are One, although not One Person; "I am in the Father and the Father is in Me," saith the Lord. [Comp. the Comm. at John x. 30, xiv. 10.) The background of the whole representation before the soul of the apostle is, that whosoever is not Christ's belongs to the king dom of darkness. Independent, man cannot be, by virtue of his whole constitution ; he cannot stand between hght and dark ness ; he must ever incline to the one or the other. Comp. at John viii. 44.) Vers. 10, 11. — The apostle, in conclusion, points at last to the highest stage of the perfection of individual life, to the glorification of the body. As it was said in Paradise, " if thou eatest of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt surely die," so does the enjoyment of the true tree of life, of Christ, bring again to perfect hfe, even of the body.* This passage has its commentary in John . * De "Wette's remark, ad loc, is pertinent: "An inward bodily-spiritual process is here spoken of, not an event occurring from without, as the resurrection is usually understood." 44 Romans VIII. 10, 11. vi., where, Christ represents himself as the hfe in all respects, even of the body. Whatever, therefore, at the transition into the state of regeneration (vii. 25) still remained, viz., " the serving with the flesh the law of sin" (6ovXsvstv t§ oapd v6uur duapriag), is here like wise considered as overcome ; the body also experiences redemption (viii. 23). As body stands here instead of the previous flesh, it is clear that the apostle means decidedly the material portion of hu man existence, of course, however, in union with the whole psychical life, without which there is neither o&ua nor adpi, but Kpsag . But if the body is here called dead (veKpov), it is self-evident that this ex pression is not to signify absolute deadness, for it is intended to describe the hving body itself, in its natural constitution ; it is to be taken rather as duapria vsKpd, vh. 8. The duapria, sin, is called dead, because it does not yet express and make itself known in its true nature, so neither does the body, which, according to its original destination, is something far more glorious than it now appears. Hence it cannot be said thaf veKpog is = Ov-nrog ; the latter expres sion is used in its proper physical sense, viz., mortal, as applicable only to the living ; but the former is . used in a figurative sense. Therefore the passage would be entirely perverted, if, instead of ve Kpov, dvrjTov should be put. For this sinful state certainly the dead ness of the body is so far good, as it lessens the susceptibility to the disturbing and painful .impressions of the outward world (whence the nobler bodily nature of Christ must have enhanced his suffering), but it remains still a most imperfect state, which must be overcome. A sure pledge, then, for the glorification of a man's own body is given by the consciousness of that awakening power dwelling in the Spirit of God, which has verified itself in the waking of Christ from the dead. Finally, the apostle so represents the resurrection, as though it were merely something imparted to the holy, as though there were no resurrection of the wicked. It might certainly be said here, that Paul is treating only of the course of the development of the faithful, that the wicked are out of the question ; but by the similar repre sentation, 1 Cor. xv. 22, where the glance of the apostle seems to comprehend all men, and by the circumstance that he never makes mention of the resurrection of the wicked, and once only of eternal damnation (2 Thess. i. 9), the matter becomes more difficult. The difficulty, however, must be reserved for further discussion at the passage adduced from the Epistle to the Corinthians. (Upon the doctrine of the glorified body comp. more particularly 1 Cor. ,xv.; 2 Cor. v. It has been incidentally noticed at John vi., Even so ; without this conception the scriptural doctrine of the bodily glorification, which is constantly represented as already in process here below (comp. especially at 2 Cor. iv. 10, 11), would be thoroughly unintelligible. But this gradually forming life Of our glori fied material mature is in many, as by a flash of lightning, instantaneously manifested (1 Cor. xv. 52), and so is the resurrection of the dead represented. at Romans VIII. 12, 13. 45 and at the history of the resurrection. — By the readings £ifiv, ifij, the contrast to vEit.p6v is intended to be more distinctly shewn ; for that reason, however, £u?y is surely the original reading. — At' duaprlag and did 6tKatoavvr\g might have been said ; but the accusative points not so much to the means as to the presence, " on account of the sin ex isting in the body, on account of the righteousness communicated by the vovg." — kiKatoovvn is here also the state of 6iKaiov elvat, the 6tKatd- Oifvat. — Zcdonotelv is used of the bodily awakening according to 1 Cor. xv. 22. — At the close of ver. 11, also, the text . rec. has the easier read ing of 6td c. genit. D.E.F.G., however, several translations, and many of the Fathers, have the accusative. Lachmann, with Knapp, has decided for the usual reading ; Griesbach, Koppe, Riicker t, Reiche, on the other hand, decide for the accusative. This I too hold as more appropriate, but not so much because I regard, with Reiche, the gen itive as having arisen from dogmatic principles [in order to represent the Holy Ghost as operating more independently], but simply for the sake ofthe context, in connexion with the stronger critical authorities, and the apparently simpler sense yielded by the genitive. The accusative represents the indwelling of the Spirit as a pledge of the future glorification of the body ; and this enters best into the train of Paul's ideas. 'Evot/csw is found besides at 2 Cor. vi. 16 ; Col. iii. 16, of Divine influence spiritually penetrating the human spirit. Everything material is here of course to be excluded, but the real nevertheless to be maintained ; such expressions are not to be re duced to mere Oriental phrases ; they rather possess hfe and being. As surely as the spirit is immaterial, yet really dwells in the mate rial body, so surely does the Divine Spirit penetrate and unite with the human, without annulling his essence, or confounding his inward laws ; for the human spirit is the very organ of the Divine, and that is a perverse state [sin] if he is not working in it. We have too httle knowledge of the substance of the spirit thoroughly to under stand such penetration of spirit by Spirit ; meanwhile nature offers analogies not to be rejected in the material, for instance, the pene tration of electric or magnetic streams.) Vers. 12, 13. — These verses seem to interrupt the chain of the discourse, which proceeds again, in strict connexion with the fore going, at ver. 14. They give the impression of a commenced exhortation, which is not completely carried out. We might form a strict connexion by referring the ueXXete dnodvtjoKetv, ye shall die, and tffOEoOe, ye shall live, definitely to the glorification of the body, with the following sense : " Since such glory (of bodily trans formation) awaits us, we are so much the more obligated to hve ac cording to the spirit, that we may not lose such glorification, but receive it." Then " the mortifying the deeds of the body" would very fitly denote advancing bodily sanctification, which is considered 46 Romans VIII. 14, 15. as a means to bodily glorification. And the " dying" and " living" would not merely indicate the general states of misery and happi ness (which, after the special glorification of the body, would be but tame), but render prominent the obtaining and losing this grace of bodily glorification. Now that tfjv, living, should signify glorification, can make no difficulty, for this is in fact the con summation of life, and therefore, at John vi. 40, and frequently, Zwrjv aluvtov e%ew, having eternal life, stands equivalent to the being raised up at the last day. It might, however, appear more difficult, that ueXXets dnoOvrjoKstv should mean : " Te will not obtain the resurrection." Still, if we consider that at John vi. 50, ui) dnoOavelv, not dying, also is used as = dvaoraotg iv ry ioxdrn Tjuspa, resurrection in the last day, consequently, that "dying" is taken as equivalent to not attaining to the resurrection, and that, further, the apostle supposed the time of our Lord's com ing again to be near, and was hoping still to be while in the body clothed upon (2 Cor. v. 2, etc.); then the bodily dying of the carnal may, without hesitation, be taken synonymously with the loss of bodily glorification ; and it cannot here be taken otherwise, if a strict connexion is to unite this verse with what precedes and fol lows. The mere general observation, that those who walk after the flesh die, would be, for the special thoughts immediately preceding and following, altogether too feeble, and a mere repetition of what was said at viii. 6, etc. (Comp. upon dcpeiXeTng at i. 14. The relation of debtor has re ference to the connexion entered into with Christ. [Comp. vi. 18.] — The npdlstg, deeds, denote here the individual sinful tendencies of the old man, his members, as it were, which must be crucified [Gal. v. 24]. The hfe of the regenerate, therefore, as already observed, is to be a gradual crucifying of the old man, not a bettering of it ; the holy, but imparted hfe, is in the new man only. So the man becomes per fect, and yet continues poor in humility, for what he has is God's work, not his property. — The'reading oapKog is seemingly more con formable to usage than oduarog, but for that reason it is certainly a mere correction. Paul uses ouua also in such combinations; comp. vii. 24.) Vers. 14, 15.— Most naturally now, with the above explanation of the preceding verses, the subject continues. The mortifying of the deeds of the flesh is a being led by the Spirit, and therefore not (hke the former striving described vh. 14-24) an anxious legal task work, but a labouring in joyous spirit, as for one's own cause, as the sons of the house work for themselves in their Father's business. We do not deny ourselves, in order to be saved thereby, but because, by grace, we, are saved in hope. Participation in the sufferings of the Son of God, kut' iioXfjv, secures also our participation in his Romans VIII. 16. 47 glory, that is, in entire perfection, the glorification even of the body (viii. 17-23). Those who are born of the flesh are flesh, those born of the Spirit are spirit (John iii. 6). AU the spiritual (nvsouartKoi) therefore, in the true sense of the word, are children of God, of the absolute Spirit (John iv. 24). Thus Paul reaches by legitimate de duction the idea of " sons of God" (viol Beov), which he maintains as the thread of his argument until ver. 17, and still pursues in the following weighty section (from viii.t 18). The being led by the Spirit of God (ayeaOat nvevfiaTi Beov), accordingly, is not to be understood of the influence of a foreign power, giving, as it were, its impulse from without, but is to be considered as the element of hfe, as determining the character and being, so that the Spirit of God generates also, where he works, a higher heavenly consciousness, a man of God, a son of God.* This sonship of God, however, men receive merely as derived, from the orignal Son, the Logos, the uovoyzv-ffg and npuroTOKog (viii. 29). The difference of ayeaOat (Galat. v. 18) and cpipEoOat (2 Pet. i. 21) was spoken of above at ver. 9. But here Paul is not contrasting the permanency of the Spirit's operation in the New Testament, with its alternating character in the Old, but bondage with freedom or sonship. In the Old Testament, God meets man as the holy, righteous principle, foreign to the sinner, hving externally to mankind, opposing to him his strict requirements and awakening the fear of God (