09 Pauline Theology

CHAPTER IX. PAULINE THEOLOGY.

IT will be seen that the thoughts of the preceding chapter throw much light upon many points in the Pauline theology, which is the complement of the Johannine theology of love, but in no way opposed to it. The two theologies will be found to blend in perfect harmony in the light of this great truth of God.

First of all we can see how the Pauline teaching on the opposition of flesh and spirit is illuminated by the doctrine of evolution of which something was said in the last chapter. The flesh is the non-moral part of man, that part of him which belongs, if we may so say, to the " cosmic process," which is in opposition to the moral, for the " cosmic " is self-asserting, the moral self-restricting. There is nothing in the " flesh " which is in itself evil, for in the very epistle in which the contrast between flesh and spirit is specially insisted on St. Paul speaks of Jesus Christ being " born of the seed of David according to the flesh " (kata sarka) [Romans 1:3. Romans 1:17] and again speaking of Israel he says of them : " whose are the fathers, and of whom is Christ as concerning the flesh (ex wn o cristoj to kata sarka) who is over all, God blessed for ever." [Romans 9:5.] But though Christ was God manifest in the flesh, He was not kata sarka, for concerning this St. Paul writes : " For they that are after the flesh (kata sarka) do mind the things of the flesh ; but they that are after the spirit the things of the spirit. For the mind of the flesh is death ; but the mind of the spirit is life and peace : because the mind of the flesh is enmity against God ; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be : and they that are in the flesh (en sarki) cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh but in the spirit (en pneumati) if so be that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you. But if any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwelleth in you, he that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead shall quicken also your mortal bodies through his Spirit that dwelleth in you." [Romans 8:5-11.]

We see then that the sarx in St. Paul corresponds with the kosmoj in St. John. " Love not the world (ton kosmon) neither the things that are in the world (ta en tw kosmw). If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the vainglory of life (tou biou) is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof ; but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever." [1 John 2:15-17.] But the kosmoj is not in itself evil any more than the sarx is with St. Paul. It is St. John who records the words : " God so loved the world (ton kosmon), that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God sent not the Son into the world (ton kosmon) to condemn the world but that the world (o kosmoj) through him might be saved." [St.John 3:16;John 3:17. It is not worth while to discuss here whether these are the Lord’s own words or a comment by St. John himself on what the Lord had just before said. See Westcott’s St. John.] But to return to St. Paul. It is instructive, in illustration of what has been said above on the sarx to recall his famous " allegory " of the two covenants in Gal. iv. Here he writes : " It is written, that Abraham had two sons, one by the handmaid, and one by the freewoman. Howbeit the son by the hand- maid is born after the flesh (kata sarka) ; but the son by the freewoman is born through promise (di epaggeliaj), which things contain an allegory," which allegory he then sets forth, and then continues : " Now we brethren, as Isaac was, are children of promise. But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit (ton kata pneuma) even so it is now."

It will be noticed that the first time St. Paul speaks of Isaac as being " through promise," the second time as being " according to spirit " (kata pneuma). The point of this seems to be that Isaac was the son of his father’s old age when the natural desires of the flesh not wrong in themselves, yet self-asserting would have abated. It was not according to fleshly desire but according to the promise of God that Isaac was conceived. Hagar and Sarah, then, or Ishmael and Isaac, taken by St. Paul to represent the two covenants, might be taken also to represent the cosmic and the spiritual.

We pass next to St. Paul’s doctrine of justification and consider this also in the light of the thought of last chapter. And I think we shall see at once that it shines forth with a wondrous light. For according to the Gospel of Creation, God sees what presents itself to our eyes as the cosmic in a process of be- coming spiritual as having attained its end. It is impossible for us creatures of time and space to enter into this great thought, but feebly as we can penetrate the eternal we can discern that what to us is becoming, to God is. God then sees us as we are meant to be and looks not upon our sins for judgment save so far as we are living in sin and continuing therein. When then men, seeing what God calls them to be, respond to the call and seek to become obedient to the truth of life as Christ has taught it, they are invited to see themselves as God sees them ; they are justified that they may become sanctified. "There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, condemned sin in the flesh : that the ordinance of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit." [Romans 8:1-4.]

We may compare the words of St. John’s Gospel : " He that believeth on him is not judged : he that believeth not hath been judged already, because he hath not believed on the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the light is come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light; for their works were evil. For everyone that doeth ill hateth the light, and cometh not to the light, lest his works should be reproved. But he that doeth the truth cometh to the light, that his works may be made manifest that they have been wrought in God." [St. John 3:18 ff.]

" Justified " in Pauline language means ’ declared just,’ ’ forgiven,’ ’rescued from the judgment,’ which judgment only threatens men until they become obedient to the truth of God.

Faith too, the faith by which man is justified, is in St. Paul essentially a product of the moral reason. Man sees a perfect spiritualising of human life effected by Christ Himself and believes that the same operation is possible for himself by the grace of the Holy Spirit. He enters then upon the life of self-renunciation, having crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts, without fear of judgment.

If it were required to define in words the difference between the theology of St. John and that of St. Paul, it might be said that, among other differences, this stands out clear: while St. John sees the essential nature of God, St. Paul discerns more particularly the divine economy. This difference can be illustrated by setting side by side with St. John’s dogmatic statement " God is Light " that of St. Paul : " Seeing it is God that said, Light shall shine out of darkness, who shined in our hearts, to give the light of the know- ledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." [2 Corinthians 4:6.] And by St. John’s words " God is Love " we set what St. Paul says: u God commendeth his own love to- wards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."

Characteristic of St. Paul’s point of view are those fine outburts of praise and wonderment which occur in the Epistle to the Romans: "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God ! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past tracing out ! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor? or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of him, and through him, and unto him are all things. To him be the glory for ever. Amen." [Romans 11:33-36.] And again: "Now to him that is able to stablish you according to my Gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which hath been kept in silence through times eternal, but now is manifested, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the eternal God, is made known unto all the nations unto obedience of faith ; to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory for ever. Amen." [Romans 16:25--27.] And in keeping with these recognitions of the wisdom of the divine economy are those words of the Apostle in the Epistle to the Ephesians : " Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ : even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blemish before him in love : having foreordained us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, which lie freely bestowed on us in the Beloved : in whom we have our redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in him unto a dispensation of the fulness of the times, to sum up all things in Christ, the things in the heavens, and the things upon the earth ; in him, I say, in whom also we were made a heritage, having been foreordained according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his will ; to the end that we should be unto the praise of his glory, we who had before hoped in Christ; in whom ye also, having heard the word of the truth, the gospel of your salvation in whom, having also believed, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is an earnest of our inheritance, unto the redemption of God’s own possession, unto the praise of his glory." [Ephesians 1:3-14.] With this we may compare but the passage is too long to add to an already long quotation the opening words of the third chapter of this same epistle, in which the manifold wisdom of God is exhibited in the unfolding purpose of the ages, the mystery of universal redemption.

It is characteristic of St. Paul’s view of the divine economy that he recognises the working of God, even where God Himself was unrecognised but unconsciously served. "Rulers are not a terror to the good work, but to the evil. And wouldest thou have no fear of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise from the same : for he is a minister (diakonoj) of God to thee for good." [Romans 13:3; Romans 13:4.] And again: "For this cause ye pay tribute also ; for they are ministers of God’s service (leitourgoi gar qeou eisin), attending continually upon this very thing." [Romans 13:6.] And in keeping with this is the Apostle’s view of the divine justice overruling all : " For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law : and as many as have sinned under law shall be judged by law ; for not the hearers of a law are just before God, but the doers of a law shall be justified : for when Gentiles which have no law do by nature the things of the law, these, having no law, are a law unto them- selves ; in that they shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness therewith, and their thoughts one with another accusing or else excusing them ; in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men, according to my gospel, by Jesus Christ." [Romans 2:12-16.] But everywhere in St. Paul, though the thought of the divine economy seems more prominent than that of the divine character, yet this latter is unmistakably taken for granted, and is essential to the understanding of the other. The great divine purpose goes steadily forward to its fulfilment. And this purpose is not simply a renewed social order, though it includes this ; it is humanity, redeemed humanity, becoming a sharer in the divine life. It is humanity "according to God" (kata qeon). We feel all through in reading St. Paul that man’s moral life is a reflection of the Divine, and that by it man is to come to a knowledge of the Divine. His doctrine of the New Man is no mere positivist conception of a perfected humanity which can be satisfied with itself. It is humanity not by itself, but in its relation to God. "This I say therefore and testify in the Lord, that ye no longer walk as the Gentiles also walk, in the vanity of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardening of their heart ; who being past feeling gave themselves up to lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. But ye did not so learn Christ; if so be that ye heard him, and were taught in him, even as truth is in Jesus ; that ye put away, as concerning your former manner of life, the old man, which waxeth corrupt after the lusts of deceit ; and that ye be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new man, which, after God, hath been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth (ton kainn anqrwpon ton kata qeon ktisqenta en dikaiosunh kai osiothti thj alhqeiaj)" [Ephesians 4:17-24.] This expression "the new man who is created kata qeon" is a striking one. We have not in the words kata qeon merely an equivalent of upo qeou, as if God were the Author of the Creation here spoken of, true as this would be. If we compare the parallel passage in Colossians 3:10 " Seeing that ye have put off the old man with his doings, and have put on the new man which is being renewed unto knowledge after the image of him that created him " we cannot but be reminded of the purpose of man’s creation from the first " God created man in his own image." This conception of man kata qeon will then assist us to understand St. Paul’s doctrine of Sanctification (agiasmoj). Man’s moral life is not obedience to rule on pain of punishment, but a sharing in the divine life; not a law, but a life.

St. Paul teaches holiness then, not morality; or rather it would be truer to say he links morality with holiness, which is its interpretation. Needless to say St. Paul’s conception of sanctification is emphatically ethical. Here are some exhortations of his in which the word ’sanctification’ occurs three times consecutively : " For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye abstain from fornication ; that each one of you know how to possess himself of his own vessel in sanctification and honour, not in the passion of lust, even as the Gentiles which know not God ; that no man transgress, and wrong his brother in the matter : because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as also we forewarned you and testified. For God called us not for uncleanness, but in sanctification. Therefore he that rejecteth, rejecteth not man, but God, who giveth his Holy Spirit unto you." [1 Thessalonians 4:3-6.]

It is unfortunate that the sameness of root, in the original, of the words for ’ sanctification ’ and ’ holy ’ in the expression ’ Holy Spirit ’ is lost in translation. Holiness would of course not do as the rendering of agiasmoj which denotes rather the progress and advancement into a state of holiness than the final attainment of it; God has called us in a process of being hallowed. The cosmic process is to the Christian exchanged for a spiritual process.

We must not take ’ Sanctification ’ as if it were only in antithesis with ’ uncleanness ’ and synonymous with ’ cleanness.’ That would be to narrow the meaning of it, and to forget the connection, which must never be forgotten, between holiness and God himself, of which connection we are reminded here by the words : " He that rejecteth, rejecteth not man but God, who giveth his Holy Spirit unto you." This process of hallowing is the work of the Divine Spirit Himself, bringing men into their true relationship with God, which true relationship can never be realised except by man’s recognition of God’s own Character as Holy. Man becomes voluntarily enslaved to God, rendering Him a willing obedience, and in so doing has his "fruit unto sanctification, and the end eternal life." [Romans 6:22.]

St. Paul in that wonderful appreciation of his, contained in the Epistle to the Romans, of the wisdom of the divine economy, in the preparation for the gospel of Christ, dwells on the purpose served by the law. He teaches that it set before men a standard of righteousness without. Through the commandment sin was seen to be exceeding sinful. The law served to awaken the conscience which else had not known sin. To be made to know what separates from God is the first step towards establishing a relationship with Him. Therefore the Law was holy, and the commandment holy, and righteous and good. The moral law then is the expression of the divine will, not arbitrary (for it were absurd to think of arbitrariness in such a connection) but necessary. Only by it could man be brought to know the Divine Character. In the conscience is heard not the voice of man, however consentient, but the voice of God Himself. The Law was holy. "He that rejecteth, rejecteth not man but God." No one can say then that St. Paul’s teaching is not moral, or that it could have any other result than the inculcation of a high morality ; but men are made to see themselves in their true relation not only to man but to God. We revert once more to those words in the grand opening chapter of the Epistle to the Ephesians which speak of God " having chosen us out for Himself in Christ before the foundation of the world (pro katabokhj kosmou), that we should be holy and without blemish before Him in love."

What a conception we have here ! It may be thought that this is purely speculation, and hardly appropriate to the actual facts of life. But if it be not the truth, how did man ever attain to such a conception? It is harder to believe that this is useless speculation than it is to believe that we have here the truth of man’s being as it is revealed by the teaching of the Divine Spirit.

We have in these words of St. Paul a statement of God’s eternal purpose. What we now call the evolution of the universe is seen to be not purposeless or aimless. From the first (pro katabokhj kosmou) God has chosen out a people for Himself, that they should be holy and without blemish before Him. Here is redeemed humanity viewed from the Divine standpoint. Man is to be holy, consecrated to God, and he is to be with- out blemish, that is, a perfect and acceptable offering to a Perfect Being. The language is the language of sacrifice ; the metaphor is sacrificial. The sacrifice is holy because offered to God, and the character of the victim must correspond with the character of Him to whom it is made. There must be no blemish. [The epithetamwmojis used in the LXX. in this sense. See Light- foot’s note on this verse in Notes on Epistles of St. Paul, p. 313.] And it is God Himself who is here represented as deciding upon the fitness of the offering that is made to Him. We are to be without blemish before Him (katenwpion autou). As Bishop Lightfoot says of this : " God Himself is thus regarded as the great mwmoskopoj who inspects the victims and takes cognizance of the blemishes." But while there is inherent in this con- ception the thought of judgment, that is not the chief thought of the passage. For if God Himself has made choice of the offering which is to be made to Him, then He Himself can purify His own offering. The thought is to encourage rather ’ than to terrify. [Note the mention of Adoption (nioqesia) in verse 5.] The same thought of the Divine cleansing of the offering made to Himself is prominent in another figure used by St. Paul in a later chapter of the Ephesian Epistle. " Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself up for it that he might sanctify it (agiash), having cleansed it by the washing of water with the word, that he might present the church to himself a glorious church (endoxon), not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish (agia kai amwmoj)." [Ephesians 5:25-27.]

We do not stand in our relation to God as individuals merely, but as members of one body. This thought will be further developed in the chapter on the Holy Catholic Church. But while it must be acknowledged that we do not enter into the divine life alone as so many independent units, we must yet never forget the important truth that man’s moral and spiritual life cannot be interpreted only in relation to his fellows, nor can we explain the conscience of the individual in relation merely to the claims upon him of the society in which he lives. Society cannot create a conscience except there be already a conscience in the individuals composing it. The moral value of man lies in his individual personality, even though it may require an environment of society to give his moral personality a field of action. Society does not make the personality or create its responsibility. As Dr. Martineau has well said : " Mere magnitude of scale carries no moral quality ; nor could a whole population of devils by unanimous ballot confer righteousness upon their will and make it binding on a single Abdiel. Such as the natures are, separately taken, such will be the collective sum; no crowd of pigmies can add themselves up into a God ; and self- love multiplied by self-love will only become self-love of higher power." [Religion, p. 67.]

There is of course an element of truth in the doctrine that the human conscience is from the society. For as Dr. Martineau says again : " If you will take ’society’ to mean the affiliated multitude of consciences, the common council of responsible 1 Seat of Authority men, then it is most true that the moral authority which we acknowledge, is brought to an intense focus in our minds by the reflected light of theirs ; and we should but dimly own it, did they not own it too." But the fact that society expects something of us, while it may quicken our sense of duty, does not create it. To return to St. Paul. We may say that the thought of holiness in his writings is that of consecration, the notion of such consecration being associated with that of fitness. Man in Christ is consecrated to God; man possessed by the Holy Spirit of God enters into the mind of Christ and the spirit of His obedience. The Divine Spirit changes man and by degrees makes effectual his original consecration. Such a gradual process is suggested by the word agiasmoj (sanctification) which is not the same as agiothj (holiness), which refers rather to the final character whereto the agiasmoj is directed. The actual expression, ’ the Holiness of God,’ does not find a place in St. Paul’s writings, unless we take tou qeouin 2 Corinthians 1:12 to depend both on agiothti and on eilikrinia a dependence which is, to say the least, extremely doubtful. In the Epistle to the Hebrews, which, though not Pauline in authorship is yet Pauline in doctrine, the term holiness (agiothj) is used as defining the divine character, in which Christians are called upon to share. In the twelfth chapter of the epistle the divine chastening is said to be for our profit that we may share God’s holiness (eij to metalabein thjagiothtoj autou). The thought of sharing the divine character is particularly appropriate to the general tenor of the passage in which the Sonship of Christians to the divine Father is specially insisted on. To speak of men as sons of God would be, of course, extremely inappropriate, unless there were some common type of character between the Divine and Human. Perhaps this thought is not absent from the words of 2:11 : " For both he that sanctifieth and they that are sanctified are all of one." But such a thought is not the only one, for in these words special stress is being laid on the oneness of the human nature of Jesus and those whom He is pleased to call His brethren. And in the Epistle to the Hebrews as in St. Paul’s own epistles, we find the notion of consecration very prominent, and the Christian consecration is regarded, as in St. Paul, in connection with the bringing to perfection. [See Bishop Westcott’s note onHebrews 2:10(teleiwsij).] That is to say, there is not merely consecration, but what we should call sanctification, which is the process of consummating the final purpose of that consecration. And the meaning of human consecration is understood only by the offering of Jesus Christ Himself to fulfil the divine will.

"When he cometh into the world he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, But a body didst thou prepare for me ; In whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hadst no pleasure :

Then said I, Lo, I am come
(In the roll of the book it is written of me)
To do thy will, O God."

Saying above, Sacrifices and offerings and whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein (the which are offered according to the law) then hath he said, Lo, I am come to do thy will. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second. In the which will (en wi qelhmati) we have been sanctified (hgiasmenoi esmen) through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." [Hebrews 10:5-10.] But there is, to say it again, no suggestion of arbitrariness in the divine will. The divine will cannot be dissociated from the divine character. It is absolutely necessary for man being relative, and having nothing that he has not received, to learn the divine character by obedience to the divine will.

Christ perfectly fulfilled the divine will and manifested the divine character under the conditions of earth. To interpret the thought contained in the words " A body didst thou prepare for me," Bishop Westcott says : " The King, the representative of men, recognises in the manifold organs of His personal power His body the one fitting means for rendering service to God. Through this in its fulness He can do God’s will. Not by anything outside Himself, not by animals in sacrifices, not by the fruits of the earth in offerings, but by the use of His own endowments, as He is enabled to use them, He will accomplish that which God designed for Him to do." But as we have already seen the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews presently goes on to speak of sharing the divine holiness, implying that the fulfilling of the divine will as made known to man, under the conditions of his essentially relative position, was an entering into the knowledge of the divine character. And we may put this the other way and say that the knowledge of the divine character, that thought about God which I set forth in the last chapter, enables us, in a way unknown before, to take our place in the fulfilment of the divine will.

I am convinced then that the Gospel of Creation as I tried to set it forth in the preceding chapter throws a flood of light on the whole of the Pauline teaching respecting (1) Flesh and Spirit, (2) Justification and Sanctification