04-The Idea of Justification (that is being set right with God), how it arose

The Idea of Justification (that is being set right with God), how it arose The genesis of the idea, and the consequent controversy-in which the great apostle played so decisive a part-is, for all religious people, only too simple and intelligible.

Far back, in the distant past, God made a ‘covenant’ with ancient Israel. He revealed Himself to them as their peculiar God, and they were to be correspondingly His own especial people.

Thus there was solved for Israel, in the days of their primitive life, the first of the two great problems Religion presents to man. That is, How can I establish right relations for myself with God? For the conscience of ancient Israel this riddle was easily answered. It was borne in on their minds, by the channel of revelation, that God had ‘chosen’ them. They had nothing at all to do, but just accept the great fact, and satisfy the conditions thereto (as they were told) attached.

This, at first, was simple and easy. No doubt or hesitation troubled their souls. However, as time advanced, the other great ‘first problem’ began to lift its head. That other great riddle is, Having once secured God’s favour, how can I best retain it? The fact is, the Law and the Prophets, between them, developed strongly the moral sense in Israel. It was not enough even for a son of Israel to have been born of the ‘Covenant’ race, and to have been himself admitted by the God-appointed rite within the Covenant. ‘Right relations’ with God were his (that is, nominally his), but how could he be sure that he had not, by his own ill-conduct, contrived to forfeit his privilege? How could he be assured that he still stood with his God, where he stood in the bygone days of happy innocence? “In Thy sight,” he cried despairingly, “no man living shall be righted!” But plainly he could not rest in that unfruitful conclusion. Something had to be done, and done without delay. The question became acute for religious Israel, when the days of exile were over. Some stalwarts, doubtless, maintained that ‘Abrahamic descent’ was all-sufficient. But many were not content with that ‘high and dry’ position. They set to work with vigour to ‘make their calling and election sure,’ by indefatigable attention to the keeping of the Law. We know of one eminent man, who, drilled in the Schools of the Pharisees, set himself to this ‘Danaid’ task with a devotion fierce and untiring. It was Saul of Tarsus himself. Not for nothing was he born of a right warrior tribe (“after thee, O Benjamin”): not for nothing was he by birth a whole-hearted ‘Nationalist.’ Whatever Ἑβραῖος means, in connexion with the Apostle, it must at the least mean this. And indeed it is hard to believe, in view of his ready use of the Greek Old Testament Scriptures, that he was not in other respects decisively Ἑλληνιστής. Anyhow, we have his own testimony, that in his Jewish days he was “as touching the righteousness which is in the Law” (if that be a right translation) “found blameless.” I take it, he means thereby that, so far as a man was able to ‘right’ himself, by doing whatever the Law bade; he, Paul, had done it. I have said, that Religion offers (the existence of God being taken as certain; though not to be established by any logical process) two problems for man’s solution; How shall I be set right with God? and, How shall I keep myself right? Historically it is the latter which is the problem of ‘justification.’ That is to say the latter problem was the problem of ‘justification’ for the Jew. It was a question for the Jew, how he might ‘qualify’ for a privileged position, ex hypothesi his already. For the Christian on the contrary the problem of ‘justification’ is the problem, how to establish originally right relations. The Christian, at any rate, this is true of the primitive believer-the Christian was not born ‘within the Covenant,’ as the Son of Israel was. Therefore the problem of problems was, for him, the earlier one; for the Jew it was the later. To St Paul himself, accordingly, the question presented itself at the first (in pre-Christian days) in the ‘Jewish’ form. For he was born ‘privileged,’ even beyond the common run of his countrymen. He possessed advantages innumerable. ‘Philippians’ tells us how (in his regenerate days) he regarded these advantages. By a vigorous oxymoron he counted them ‘less than nothing.’ Like the character in Hans Andersen, who asks contemptuously, ‘Do you call that a hill? We should call it a hole,’ St Paul declares he reckoned his ‘κέρδη’ as mere ‘ζημίαν.’ No more would he go about (as he did in these old days) to keep himself ‘right with God,’ by doing and doing and doing. He would not even assume that he started ‘right with God,’ and only had to keep so, by loyalty to the Covenant. His point of view was transformed. All was merged in one great question, How shall I become right with God-right once for all? And the answer came, ‘Through Christ.’ Here was the new way, the God-appointed way. Henceforth he never wavered in heart and soul conviction that ‘justification’ for him was an accomplished fact. He had ‘become right’ with God, ‘in Christ Jesus,’ as a result of ‘faith.’ It was the wholly new beginning of a wholly new existence. But though he had himself escaped from the riddle which beset his countrymen, he had by no means heard the last of it. Other folks were not prepared to accept his solution; yes, even nominal believers. The thing cropped up again (inside the Christian Church) in spite of all his preaching-and just where he would have least expected it. When after a lapse of years (which is one of those mysteries of the Book of the ‘Acts’ we should most dearly love to solve) he had been brought to Antioch by Barnabas, and subsequently despatched, with that very notable saint, on the mission of relief to Jerusalem; he started (as every one knows) the work to which Christ had called him, as the Prince of Mission Preachers. The Churches first evangelised contained (as Zahn declares) ‘a few full-born Jews, a number of proselytes of different grades, and a much larger number of Gentiles,’ and ‘received through Paul the stamp of “law-free” Gentile Churches.’ These early churches, I assume, are the ‘Churches of Galatia.’

It is possible, of course, that at some later date (before ‘Galatians’ was written) the Apostle may have touched the fringe of Bishop Lightfoot’s ‘Galatia,’ with its Celtic population. But Professor Ramsay would appear to have established his main position. The geographical argument appears to me wholly conclusive. The interpretation of Acts 16:6 would (no doubt) be open to question, by itself. But, that Ramsay is wholly right in his grip of St Paul’s ‘objective,’ and in his strong contention that ‘Celtic Galatia’ lay entirely off the track of his evangelistic ambitions, I cannot for a moment doubt. Perhaps it may be of interest to some among Cambridge students, if I say that the Bishop’s lifelong friend told me, shortly before he died, that he was himself a convert to the ‘South Galatian’ theory.

It was amongst these earliest of the numerous Pauline Churches that St Paul first found himself confronted with the question originally raised by Judaisers at Antioch. At Antioch, of course, he must have borne his part in opposing the new heresy. But Antioch, after all, was not primarily his ‘business.’ The Galatian churches were. And though one might have thought that the letter from Jerusalem would have finally settled the question, it obviously did not; though (presumably) it went further, in regard to making concessions to Jewish prejudices, than St Paul himself would have gone.

It was after St Paul had passed (so singularly shepherded by the “Spirit of Jesus”) on his adventurous way to Europe, that the trouble in Galatia came to a head. How the apostle came to know of the inroads, that were made into his earliest converts’ convictions by the ‘Judaic’ emissaries, we cannot determine for certain. He may have learned at Corinth, in the course of his eighteen months’ residence (as in Acts 18:11). If he did, this letter was written from the capital of Achaia, and becomes the earliest of all extant Pauline Letters. On the other hand, the trouble may not have revealed itself to him in all its seriousness, till he found himself once more in his ‘base’ at Antioch (18:22). If so, the letter was written from there before he started forth on his third great Missionary tour. That still leaves the Galatian letter the earliest of its group, though it then is but third of all in date, no longer first. Perhaps the only objection to this latter theory (though it is rather a serious one) is the fact that one would not gather, from the text of the letter itself, that the writer had it in mind to follow close on the heels of the bearer of his Epistle-as he obviously did from the record of ‘Acts.’

About actual date I say nothing. The computation of Pauline chronology is a fascinating problem; but it belongs to those who are experts. All I am concerned about is the order of events, and not the actual years, in which they severally befell. There is fairly substantial agreement with regard to the latter: and (even were there not) it would not much affect the purpose of this Essay, which is to set forth what St Paul taught upon a topic, which was at once for him, at one stage of his career, of singular importance, and touches all religion, in all time, very deeply and decisively. Let us then get to the text and ponder its mysteries!