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  ST PAUL'S CONCEPTIONS OF LAST THINGS
  by H.A. Kennedy
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Kennedy's scholarly theological study examining eschatology in Paul's thought,
establishing that teachings on the 'Last Things' were central to early Christian
theology and exploring how Paul developed his understanding of death,
resurrection, judgment, and the consummation of God's purposes.

  Chapters: 8

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS
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    1. 00.2. Preface
    2. 01. The Place of Eschatology in St Paul's Religious Thought
    3. 02. Formative Influences in St Paul's Conceptions of The Last Things
    4. 03. Additional Note to Chapter II: The Pauline Eschatology and Hellenism
    5. 03. St Paul's Conceptions of Life and Death
    6. 04. St Paul's Conceptions of The Parousia and the Judgment
    7. 05. St Paul's Conception of the Resurrection
    8. 06. St Paul's Conception of the Consummation of the Kingdom Of God

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  CHAPTER 1: 00.2. PREFACE
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Preface The following chapters are a study in the history of early Christian
thought. This description fixes the method and the limits of the investigation.
When I had the honour of being appointed to the Cunningham Lectureship, I chose
the subject here discussed, for reasons which may be briefly summarised. In an
investigation of Paulinism, undertaken for another purpose, I had been growingly
impressed by the vital bearing of St Paul’s eschatological outlook upon his
theology as a whole. His conceptions of the Last Things were manifestly factors
of supreme importance in the organisation of his religious thought. Yet there
seemed to be no department in which greater confusion prevailed as to the
precise interpretation of his statements. Evidences of this were patent even in
the works of well-equipped students of New Testament theology. Further, one was
well aware that in the innumerable publications of modern times having the Last
Things for their theme, all sorts of arguments in support of the most
conflicting theories had been founded on passages selected from the writings of
St Paul.

Such considerations as these suggested the propriety of a fresh investigation of
the sources, an investigation which should keep in close touch with the genesis
of the apostle’s thought. From this standpoint, large use has been made of the
prophetic books and the later apocalyptic literature, while the developments of
the Synagogue-theology have also been kept in view.

Two features, pre-eminently, have emerged into prominence for my own mind as the
result of the inquiry. The one is the necessity of grasping the great religious
conceptions of the Old Testament in their original setting, if we are to
penetrate into the texture of the Pauline theology. For the apostle clearly
reveals himself as “an Hebrew of the Hebrews,” and carries forward in a large
atmosphere the most splendid traditions of the prophets. His new Christian
experience, indeed, seems to have quickened within him a finer sensitiveness to
the deeper elements in the earlier revelation. The other feature which impresses
one most powerfully is the decisiveness with which St Paul has laid the
foundation of the Christian hope of Eternal Life, not in any vague speculations
concerning human personality in the abstract, but in the relation of the
individual soul to the risen Lord, Jesus Christ. He attains his end without any
of those theoretical surmises as to existence which have brought confusion into
so many modern discussions. Life in Christ is for him something larger than
existence. It is existence raised to its highest power-the supreme,
unsurpassable reality.

If these pages contribute in any measure to a clearer vision of the inspiring
prospect which the apostle reached through knowing “the power of Christ’s
resurrection,” the labour spent upon them will not have been in vain. In view of
what has been said above as to the intimacy of St Paul’s relation to the Old
Testament, there will be nothing surprising in the acknowledgment that I owe
more than I can tell to the class lectures of my late revered teacher, Dr A. B.
Davidson. The published literature to which I am under obligations is referred
to throughout.1 [Note: My MS. was in the press before Sokolowski’s
recently-published monograph, Die Begriffe Geist und Leben bei Paulus in ihren
Beziehungen zu einander (Gött., 1903), came into my hands.] I must also express
my deep indebtedness to my friend, the Rev. H. R. Mackintosh, D.Phil., Aberdeen,
who was good enough to read the proofs, for many valuable suggestions and
criticisms.

H. A. A. KENNEDY.

Callander, March 1904.


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  CHAPTER 2: 01. THE PLACE OF ESCHATOLOGY IN ST PAUL'S RELIGIOUS THOUGHT
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Chapter I THE PLACE OF ESCHATOLOGY IN ST PAUL’S RELIGIOUS THOUGHT

Few provinces of religious thought have possessed a more perennial interest for
the average man than that which is concerned with conceptions of the Last
Things. The religious ritual of primitive races is pre-eminently associated with
the events which follow the cessation of earthly existence. The sacred books of
ancient peoples are peculiarly rich in eschatological speculations. We have only
to recall the Egyptian Book of the Dead, the Babylonian epic of the Descent of
Istar, the Bundehesh of the Persian Avesta, to realise the remarkable
fascination of the unseen world and its experiences for the naïve theologians of
antiquity. The Nekyia of the Odyssey and the Sixth Book of Vergil’s Æneid no
doubt reflect the popular beliefs, and also, in their turn, react upon them. The
quaint Apocalypses of post-canonical Judaism are almost wholly engrossed with
the events of the End. And as the history of religion is traced down the
centuries, those periods are rare which do not give evidence of the absorbing
attraction with which Eschatology is invested for human thought and
imagination.1 [Note: Dr Fairbairn probably does not exaggerate when he says: “To
the thinker, the theological is the distinctive side of a religion; but to the
multitude, the eschatological … Christianity has exercised a greater command
over peoples, though not over individual minds, by its Eschatology than by its
Theology.”-Studies in the Philosophy of Religion and History, p. 154.] The
Christian faith has not been exempt from this inherent bias of religious
speculation. The New Testament gives no scanty space to conceptions of the Last
Things. And in so doing, it serves itself heir to the spirit of Old Testament
prophecy. It is natural to expect that a man like St Paul, so deeply imbued by
nature and training with the traditions of his nation, and so earnestly absorbed
in its Messianic hope,2 [Note: The fact of his devotion to the Law is evidence
of this. For the meaning of zeal for the Law in Judaism lay in its conception of
the covenant between God and His people. Devoted observance of the Torah on
their part was the condition of God’s fulfilment of His promises, notably the
inauguration of the Messianic epoch (see especially Marti, Geschichte d.
Israelit. Religion, p. 289).] would continue even from his Christian standpoint
to assign a peculiar prominence to the occurrences of the final epoch. In any
case, as we shall presently discover, his course was marked out for him by the
evangelic tradition. The teaching of Jesus Himself had contained a remarkable
eschatological strain. This reappears in most of the New Testament writings. But
perhaps nowhere is it found so closely woven into the texture of the primitive
theology as in the Letters of St Paul. Accordingly, a study of his conceptions
of the Last Things is of fundamental importance for his whole Christian outlook.
In them is most fully revealed the transformation which Christianity produced in
this region of thought. We can trace the workings of the apostle’s religious
experience as he starts from the inherited beliefs of Judaism, modifies these
under the influence of his new relation to the risen Christ, and transfers the
emphasis and the accent from the letter to the spirit. But St Paul has also laid
the foundation for the Eschatology of the Christian Church. That has in some
important respects deviated from its Pauline basis. It is therefore of value to
reach as accurate and comprehensive a view as possible of the form in which his
conceptions of the Last Things took shape. Thereby we shall be able to check the
accretions of subsequent ecclesiastical theories. And at a time when discussions
of the Future State and kindred topics appear to possess a growing fascination
for the public mind, it should help towards sanity of judgment and a due respect
for the limits of human knowledge, to aim at a closer acquaintance with the
eschatological teaching of one who did not shrink from the frank confession, “At
present we see in a mirror only dim outlines, but then face to face. At present
my knowledge is a fragment, but then shall I know as completely as I have been
known.”1 [Note: The objection may be brought against our inquiry that it is
illegitimate to speak of a specially Pauline Eschatology. Thus, e.g., Wrede:
“There is a Pauline doctrine of redemption, a Pauline doctrine of justification,
but there is-to speak cum grano salis-no Pauline angelology and eschatology, but
only a Jewish or primitive-Christian” (Aufgabe u. Methode d. sogenannten
Neutestamentlichen Theologie, p. 66). Even granting the general accuracy of this
assertion, we should consider it well worth while to make a careful examination
of the Pauline conceptions as representing the best type of primitive-Christian
Eschatology. We will readily admit that the apostle has much in common with the
average beliefs of the earliest Christian communities. But it is precisely the
points at which he deviates from these, not only in details and definite
representations, but still more in general breadth of outlook and caution of
judgment, which appear to us of primary importance in the history of
Christianity.]

Perhaps no more important contribution has been made within recent years to the
interpretation of the New Testament than the accentuation of the eschatological
strain which runs throughout its literature. The dream of that little group of
disciples who formed the nucleus of the Christian Church was a purified
theocracy. In this they were true to the highest expectations of Jewish
Apocalyptic. When their Master preached the Kingdom of God, a willing echo
responded from their hearts. For prophets and psalmists had seen glorious
visions of a time when God’s purpose for His people should be fulfilled: when
the genuine Israel should rejoice beneath the Divine sway: when the holy nation
should be a light to lighten the Gentiles. The Baptist had announced that the
Kingdom was at hand. When the disciples had reached the point of confessing that
Jesus was the Christ, they thereby virtually acknowledged that the rule of God
had already begun: the coming age (αἰὼν μέλλων, עוֹלָםהַבָּא) was casting its
shadow upon the course of the present. Their conviction was for ever established
by their experience of the risen Lord. A momentous problem which pressed upon
their minds was the reckoning of the time when the new Æon should break in. The
mysterious hints concerning the future which their Lord had given them were hard
to comprehend and adjust. The main impression they had gained was the
expectation of His speedy return and the accompanying world-judgment. Perhaps
they foreshortened the perspective. Perhaps the wonder of the new Christian
movement, with all its amazing experiences, seemed to demand a rapid development
of events up to the great consummation of the Parousia. Just as the Old
Testament prophets, when they felt the currents of Providence quickening in any
direction, looked for the immediate entrance of Jehovah into the world-history,
and saw the fortunes of the nations ripening for a final decision, so the
phenomena of the dispensation of the Spirit seemed to promise to the ardent
hearts of the first Christians the immediate close of the earthly and secular
era, and the ultimate separation for glorious ends of the community of
believers. Thus an eager upward gaze characterises the New Testament epoch. It
will be modified by its immediate environment. When worldly opposition to the
Gospel is most stubborn, when the persecution of the saints rages most fiercely,
the cry, “Come quickly, Lord Jesus,” will rise with more piercing intensity.
When the wrath of man is restrained, and the Christian society is suffered to
expand and flourish, the yearning for the Parousia will take the form of a
heightened activity in preparing the way of the Lord. St Paul shares to the full
in the dominant mood of his age. It is evident that the burden of his early
missionary preaching was a Christian version of the Baptist’s older message:
“Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.” For he reminds the Thessalonians
of their response to his Gospel in these words: “Ye turned to God from idols to
serve the living and true God, and to await His Son from heaven, whom He raised
from the dead, even Jesus, who delivers us from the coming wrath” (1
Thessalonians 1:9-10).1 [Note: Of course this conviction of a speedy fulfilment
is a commonplace of eschatological expectation, cf. Apoc. Bar., xx. 6, “For they
(i.e. the times) will come, and will not tarry”;Revelation 1:1, “Things which
must shortly come to pass”; and Smend (Z.A.T.W., 1885, p. 236), “The essence of
Apocalyptic is the certainty of the immediate nearness of the Messianic future.”
See also Volz, Jüdische Eschatologie, p. 164.] In subsequent chapters the
several conceptions of the Last Things which bulk most largely in the pages of
the apostle must be dealt with. For the present we shall briefly examine the
eschatological implications which lie deep in his view of religion.

It might be difficult, in the case of so many-sided a religious nature as that
of St Paul, to attempt to sum up in a single conception that which he regarded
as the supreme blessing of the Christian calling. Some might identify it with
the forgiveness of sins, some with the condition of the justified person. Some
might describe it under the vague term salvation, others might find it in
fellowship with Christ, and others still in eternal life.2 [Note: Thus Steffen:
“At least as strong as, indeed, even more powerful than the experience of the
forgiveness of sins, is his joy regarding the certainty of an eternal life … He
sighed, as scarcely any other has done, beneath the curse of the transiency of
all that is earthly” (Z.N.T.W., 1901, ii. p. 124). So also Titius: “Since (for
Paul) the conception of life is the decisive one for religion as contrasted with
that of righteousness, and since, accordingly, the conception of resurrection
has, in the representation of salvation, preference to that of judgment, the
view of the pneumatic life in Christ has preference to the conception of
justification, while at the same time, in this latter, attention to the ethical
nature of the new life falls into the background” (Paulinismus unter d.
Gesichtspunkt d. Seligkeit, p. 270).] All these statements are certainly
justifiable, as expressing each a side of the truth in which the mind of the
apostle can rest with perfect satisfaction. They are all, moreover, consistent
with one another, for they are all closely linked with his personal Christian
experience. The forgiveness of sin, justification, salvation-these represent one
primary aspect of it. The possession of the Spirit, fellowship with Christ,
eternal life, set forth another of equal value. The result of his meeting with
the risen Jesus was the creating within him of a new life. “If any man be in
Christ, he is a new creature” (2 Corinthians 5:17). He shares in the eternal
life of his Lord. He possesses the Spirit of Christ. “If any man have not the
Spirit of Christ, he is none of His” (Romans 8:9). But this wonderful
relationship in which his soul recognises an immediate contact with the Divine
has nothing arbitrary about it. It is God’s response to his faith, faith in
Jesus Christ as the Propitiation for sin, as the Mediator of forgiveness, as the
Saviour in whom men may be reconciled to God. Without pursuing for the present
the discussion of the organic connection between these two normative aspects of
Christianity, according to St Paul,1 [Note: See an instructive discussion by
Steffen, of “The relation of Spirit and Faith in Paul” (Z.N.T.W., 1901, H. ii.
pp. 115 ff., 234 ff). Steffen distinguishes too sharply between the “mystical”
and the “ethical” aspects of St Paul’s religious consciousness.] we have to
inquire how far they imply, in their content, a forward gaze. We may select
Justification as typical of the one side of the relationship, and the Life in
the Spirit as representing the other. Now Justification and the New Life may be
so accurately described as the two foci of the Pauline system, that if we
discover an eschatological bias in them, we may safely postulate such a
background for the whole world of his religious thought.1 [Note: Wrede’s caution
is thoroughly to the point: “In proving that Paul always looks to the future, it
is not enough to emphasise certain passages. It must be shown that all the chief
conceptions of his doctrine of salvation, and especially those which one would
like to interpret otherwise, bear in themselves a reference to the future, or
are definitely determined by expectations of the future” (Th. L.Z., 1894, Sp.
131).] In the first place, let us briefly sum up St Paul’s teaching on
Justification. We are justified freely by the grace of God through the
redemption which is in Christ Jesus (Romans 3:24). God has manifested His grace
(ἐχαρίτωσεν) to us in the Beloved, in whom we have redemption through His blood,
the forgiveness of transgressions (Ephesians 1:6-7). This new relation to God,
this new standing which we have in His sight, is His response to our faith. He
looks upon us, not as we are in ourselves, but as we are in Jesus Christ, His
dear Son, who died in our stead (2 Corinthians 5:14-21). What we could not do,
that Christ has done, done for us (Romans 8:3-4). Therefore in the boldness of
faith we can claim the saving benefits of His death for ourselves. Thus, having
been justified as the result of (ἐκ) faith, we have peace with God through our
Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 5:1). In Him we are made heirs of God, assured of His
fatherly love. These are the first stages in our new relation of reconciliation
to God: the first stages, and not the consummation. There is still a race to be
run: there is still an inward conflict to be faced: there is still a goal to be
reached, the prize of God’s high calling in Christ Jesus (Php 3:14). “If, when
we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much
more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life” (Romans 5:10 : cf.
ver. 9, “Much more, having been justified now (νῦν) by His blood, we shall be
saved through Him from the wrath”). The apostle rejoices, indeed, in the
assurance of God’s forgiveness for Christ’s sake. He is confident that there is
now (νῦν) no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1). But
the passages which have been quoted, the crucial passages for this conception,
clearly show that, in the midst of his joy, he looks forward with yearning to
the completion of salvation which awaits the believer in the day of God’s final
decision. Justification may truly be called the anticipation of salvation, the
anticipation of the final judgment. But St Paul-who, for all his Christian
idealism, is too sadly acquainted with the struggles of the life in the
flesh-craves the realisation of that blissful future, when sin and death and
judgment are no more to be reckoned with. There is no real inconsistency between
the two positions. His outlook is absolutely true to religious experience. The
joy of God’s favour in the present earthbound life is at best a broken joy. “We
were saved by hope; but hope that is seen is not hope; for what one sees, why
does he hope for? But if we hope for that which we do not see, by patient
endurance we eagerly expect it” (Romans 8:24-25). The believing soul dare not
trust itself. It has staked its all upon the grace of God made manifest in
Christ. It remains conscious of its extraordinary debt to that grace. Thus, in
the tremulousness of such self-distrust, and keeping in view the lofty heights
of spiritual excellence to which he is summoned in the knowledge of the power of
Christ’s resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, St Paul speaks with
humble caution: “If haply I shall attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not
that I have attained already, or have been already perfected, but I follow
after, in the hope that I shall indeed grasp that for which I was grasped by
Christ Jesus” (Php 3:11-12). Quite plainly, then, from the standpoint of a
justified man, the apostle’s gaze is turned eagerly towards the future. He knows
himself to belong to the σωζόμενοι, but the salvation (σωτηρία) is a process
which culminates when the exalted Christ shall return in glory, and both the
dead and the living shall be transformed into perfect fitness for His
fellowship. Probably it is stating the truth too strongly to say, with Titius,
that in Paul’s “hope, not in his present possession of salvation, lies the
crucial point for his personal feeling” (p. 21)1 [Note: The opposite tendency is
found in the assertion of Beyschlag, that “hope … does not, in the case of Paul,
as in the case of Peter and the other original apostles, form the centre of
gravity of subjective Christianity: he finds that in a belief in the salvation
that has appeared in the fact of the Cross” (N.T. Theol., E. Tr., ii. p. 254).
But that salvation, as St Paul conceives it, has hope in the very heart of it.]
. The man who can exclaim with exultation, “Who shall separate us from the love
of Christ,” and then, after weighing all his perils, can triumphantly affirm,
“Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved
us,” is surely sufficiently aware of the surpassing worth of the salvation which
has already been brought near to him. Yet the statement points in the true
direction. “This present evil age” (Galatians 1:4) hampers the fulfilment of
God’s saving purpose. The coming era,2 [Note: It is a one-sided view of Pauline
Christology which would affirm that “the entire function of the Son of God, who
has appeared in the flesh, consists in the introduction of this close of the
world which leads to the final death of the flesh” (so Holtzmann, N.T. Theol.,
ii. p. 196). But the side which is here exaggerated has too often been ignored
by expositors of the New Testament.] the era of the perfected Divine order,
which will be inaugurated by the Parousia of Christ, the Resurrection, and the
Judgment, will be the entire vindication of the believer. The full meaning of
his justification will appear when he is openly acknowledged by the Judge. The
eschatological element in Justification is fully borne out by St Paul’s use of
the terms σωτηρία and σώζεσθαι. The noun does not occur very frequently in his
writings, but its usage is unmistakable. In 2 Corinthians 7:10 it is contrasted
with θάνατος, in Php 1:28 with ἀπώλεια. In Romans 13:11, the eschatological
character of the conception appears with decisive clearness: “It is time for you
now to be roused from sleep; for now is our salvation nearer than when we
believed. The night has advanced, the day (i.e. of the Lord) is at hand.” The
same thought lies behind his exhortation to the Philippians: “Work out your own
salvation to the end” (σωτηρίαν κατεργάζεσθε, Php 2:12). Here the main emphasis
falls on the final issue. Salvation is only accomplished, is only, in the
complete sense, realised, when Christ shall appear. It seems to us by no means
accidental that in the Pauline Epistles the word appears most commonly in the
phrase εἰς σωτηρίαν, in which the idea of a goal to be reached is quite obvious.
An instructive instance is 1 Thessalonians 5:9 : “For God did not appoint us
with a view to wrath (εἰς ὀργήν), but with a view to the obtaining of
salvation.” Noteworthy, and fully corroborating this position, is the antithesis
of salvation to wrath. For ὀργή is an eschatological term, and, in the Epistles,
invariably denotes the condemnation of the judgment day.1 [Note: The term has
already come to have this application in Judaistic literature. Cf. Jub., xxiv.
30; Slav. Enoch, xliv. 2.] Another example worthy of notice is 2 Thessalonians
2:13 : “God chose you from the beginning with a view to salvation.” The phrase
εἰς σωτηρίαν is explained or supplemented, a few clauses further on, by the
words, “with a view to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Here again our contention is amply verified, for “glory,” as we shall see
afterwards, is one of what may be called the technical terms of New Testament
Eschatology. It is needless to refer to the contrast several times drawn between
οἱ σωζόμενοι and οἱ ἀπολλύμενοι, a contrast which points self-evidently to the
final issues of human character. But it is worth while to lay stress on the
remarkable expressions in Romans 5:9-10, which have been already quoted: “We
shall be saved through Him from the wrath,” and “we shall be saved by His life.”
These statements, which occupy a fundamental place in the apostle’s argument,
can have nothing in view but the experience of the redeemed believer at the
Parousia of Jesus Christ. A further illustration of the position we are
emphasising is to be found in the term ἀπολύτρωσις, which is a kind of synonym
for σωτηρία.2 [Note: Titius describesσωτηρίαandἀπολύτρωσιςas being merely
negative expressions for equipment with life (p. 54). It is so far true that St
Paul regards eternal life as the supreme blessing of the End for believers. The
terms, however, may be just as strictly taken as positive expressions for
deliverance from sin. And it is easy to trace the connection between the two
sides of the conception, when we remember the apostle’s statement inRomans 6:23,
that “the wages of sin is death.”] Justification is effected “through the
redemption which is in Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:24). When we investigate the full
content of “redemption,” according to St Paul, we discover that it includes
certain remarkable elements. Thus, from Romans 8:23, “We also ourselves groan
within ourselves, eagerly expecting (our) sonship, the redemption of our body,”
the true scope of ἀπολύτρωσις may be ascertained. It is not exhausted in the
forgiveness of sins, and the deliverance from their guilt and dominion. It
stretches into the future, and embraces the transformation of the bodily nature
which Christ shall accomplish by changing it “into the likeness of the body of
His glory” at the Parousia (Php 3:21). The same idea meets us in Ephesians 1:14,
where St Paul speaks of the Spirit as “the pledge of our inheritance with a view
to the redemption of the purchased possession” (i.e., the entire life and
constitution of the believer). This is repeated in Ephesians 4:30, where again
he describes believers as being sealed by the Spirit, “with a view to the day of
redemption” (εἰς ἡμέραν ἀπολυτρώσεως), the day, of course, when Christ shall be
revealed.1 [Note: On the eschatological aspect of Justification, see especially
Kölbing, S.K., 1895, pp. 1 ff.; Pfleiderer, Paulinism, i. pp. 227, 228; Wernle,
Der Christ u. die Sünde bei Paulus, pp. 22, 100 ff. This last suggestive
discussion is marred here and there by unqualified statements. Thus, e.g., “The
Christian receives through justification the right to all the blessings of the
Messianic community, without an ethical transformation being derived from it,”
as if the faith in Christ which justifies is not ethical from itsvery raison
ďêtre. The same paradoxical character is found in the author’s main contention,
as e.g., p. 112: “The doctrine of the walk in the Spirit is so enthusiastically
set forth, and so completely regulated by the hope of the Parousia, that no
place is left for sin in the life of Christians.”]

It might be felt, however, that the conception of Justification was one which,
from its very essence, possessed eschatological bearings.1 [Note:
“Righteousness, Judgment, Parousia, are indissolubly connected” (Cremer,
Rechtfertigungslehre, p. 350).] The idea of acquittal or condemnation
presupposes a judgment. And from the apostolic standpoint, that judgment takes
place at the end of the present era, and constitutes the inauguration of the
future Kingdom of God. It is otherwise when we turn to the second focal
conception of St Paul’s religious thought, the Life in the Spirit. At the first
glance it appears as if there were little room here for a relation to the Last
Things. “In Paul,” says J. Weiss, “the eschatological tension is strongly
counterbalanced by his Christ-mysticism. He who, through the Spirit, is united
with Christ and lives in Him, has surmounted space and time” (Die Predigt Jesu
vom Reiche Gottes, p. 61). Nevertheless, in this province also, we discover the
very same trend. The Life in the Spirit is the direct result of St Paul’s first
contact with Christian realities. The revelation to him of the risen Jesus was
necessarily the revelation of the Messiah. The hope of his fathers was actually
realised. The ends of the world had come. He was now living in the last time.
But this revelation was not merely to him. It was also in him (Galatians 1:16 :
ἀποκαλύψαι τὸν υἱὸν αὐτοῦ ἐν ἐμοί, “to reveal His Son in me”). He had not only
been convinced of the existence of that Jesus whom he persecuted. The living
Lord had laid hold on his life (Php 3:12 : κατελήμφθην ὑπὸ Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ). He
had become its energising principle. It was no longer he that lived, but Christ
that lived in him (Galatians 2:20). It was so amazing a transformation for a
human experience, that he could, in all soberness, call it a new creation. But
this transfigured life, with all its potency, with all its victorious energy,
was, of necessity, grievously hampered. Its medium for the present was a fleshly
nature, liable to sin and weakness and decay. Ideally, indeed, the flesh was
crucified: annulled through fellowship with the death of Christ (Romans 6:6;
Romans 6:2; Galatians 5:24). That was its ultimate fate-a fate as to which there
could be no question. As a matter of real experience, the flesh still warred
against the spirit, thwarting its impulses and often defeating its strivings
(Galatians 5:16-17). The law of sin and death had been abolished for those who
were in Christ Jesus. The law of the Spirit of life in Him had taken its place
(Romans 8:2). But that new law, the law of liberty (cf.Galatians 5:1) could not
have free scope for its workings under present earthly conditions. It was the
spirit of sonship which Christians had received, for God had sent forth the
Spirit of His Son into their hearts, crying, Abba, Father. So that they were now
heirs of God, joint-heirs with Christ (Galatians 4:6-7; Romans 8:15-17). Yet
that Spirit was only the first-fruits (ἀπαρχή, Romans 8:23) of the glorious
heritage one day to be possessed. Even for the children of God (Romans 8:16) it
was a time of waiting, of sighing, of groaning: they must still yearn for the
perfected sonship (8:23). This relation to God, when consummated, involved a
transformation of the whole man, not only of spirit, but of body. And the
redemption of the body, which meant its conformity to the glorified body of
Christ (Php 3:21), would be the final stage of the Spirit’s operation. For the
present, the life-giving Spirit was possessed only as pledge (ἀρραβών, Ephesians
1:14). Such an earnest pointed continually forward. Even the mute creation
sympathised with the craving of believers for their future inheritance of bliss
(Romans 8:22). They were linked together by the ardent yearning to be delivered
from the bondage of corruption (φθορά, Romans 8:21), and to attain to
indissoluble life. At this point we can clearly perceive the eschatological
bearing of St Paul’s idea of the possession of the Spirit. The peculiar function
of the Spirit is to impart life (ζωοποιεῖν, e.g., 2 Corinthians 3:6, τὸ δὲ
πνεῦμα ζωοποιεῖ, “the Spirit makes alive”; cf.1 Corinthians 15:45, ὁ ἔσχατος
Ἀδὰμ εἰς πνεῦμα ζωοποιοῦν, “a life-creating Spirit”). That gift fortifies its
possessor against the doom of death. For, “the gift of God is eternal life (ζωὴ
αἰώνιος) in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23). Its true significance is
revealed in the words of Romans 8:2 : “If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus
from the dead dwell in you, He that raised Christ Jesus from the dead shall
quicken (ζωοποιήσει) also your mortal bodies through His Spirit, which dwelleth
in you.” Plainly, the full realisation of this life belongs to the events of the
End, is finally attained in the Resurrection.

We have briefly considered the eschatological trend in the two primary
conceptions of St Paul’s religious thought. But his wistful yearning for the
future, blissful consummation is everywhere visible. The hope that lies in front
of him is in very truth the anchor of his soul. It is no casual thought which he
expresses in the words, “By hope we were saved” (Romans 8:24). When tribulation
presses on him, he contrasts “the light affliction which is for a moment” with
“the exceeding and eternal weight of glory” which is its issue (2 Corinthians
4:17). When he reflects on his own experience, he comes to the conclusion that
“the sufferings of the present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory
which is to be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18). If the Christians’ confidence in
Christ belongs only to this life, then are they of all men most miserable. The
present is the time of imperfection. “We know in part and we prophesy in part,
but when the consummation (τὸ τέλειον) shall have come, then that which is
fragmentary (τὸ ἐκ μέρους) shall be abolished” (1 Corinthians 13:9-10). The
principle of his life, in a word, is to look, not at the things which are seen,
but at the things which are not seen. “For the things which are seen are
temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:18).

Before proceeding to examine St Paul’s conceptions of the Last Things, so far as
that is possible, in detail, it will be of advantage to observe the form in
which these conceptions are presented, and the limits within which the apostle
has chosen to move. Such an inquiry will provide us with cautions for our
further investigation. It will place us on our guard against illegitimate
inferences from the statements of the Epistles. It will supply us with certain
regulating principles for our estimate of St Paul’s positions. It will suggest
to us the kind of questions we have a right to put, and the lines on which we
may expect to be answered. The whole treatment of the Last Things in the New
Testament is noteworthy for its freedom from exaggeration, its habit of
abstaining from precise definition, its tacit acknowledgment of the mystery of
the unseen world and the future life. This can only be realised after a careful
study of the parallel Eschatologies in other sacred literatures, and the curious
cross-questionings of the future which meet us in modern times.1 [Note: “The
spirit of man coveteth divination” (Lord Bacon).] The contrast is decisive, when
we place, for example, the teaching of Jesus side by side with the speculations
of the Jewish Apocalypses. In the former, details are conspicuously absent.
There is no elaborate delineation of the events which belong to the consummation
of all things. There is no highly-coloured portrayal of the bliss of Paradise,
or of the doleful gloom of Gehenna. The grotesque pictures of the renewal of
nature are altogether lacking: so is the vivid scenery which forms the
background of the Judgment and God’s final victory over evil.2 [Note: We fail to
see any ground for Holtzmann’s sharp polemic against Haupt for laying emphasis
on the lack of highly-coloured pictures in the Eschatology of Jesus (N.T.
Theol., i. p. 335, note 3). Haupt would, of course, admit the use of figurative
descriptions. This is all that can be asserted of the “great feast,” “eating of
bread,” “thrones of judgment,” etc., which Holtzmann quotes as examples of
“colours.” Haupt’s statement does not seem to us one-sided: “The conception
ofζωήin its full meaning-the supra-earthly Divine life-is the central thing for
Jesus, which He always keeps in view. He who has that has all, and there is no
advantage in laying stress on the peripheral features. So we find in Him no
answer to all the questions which are usually treated in connection with the
Resurrection. When thisἀνάστασιςis to come, how the body of the consummation
will be related to the present body, how to the condition in Hades … all these
are questions which do not exist for Him. He believes in the power of God (Mark
12:12), which can establish life in all directions, and it is enough for Him
that this life will be a heavenly one, analogous to that of the angels and of
God Himself” (Eschatolog. Aussagen Jesu, p. 92).] A similar antithesis reveals
itself if we compare St Paul’s conceptions with, say, the Persian Eschatology,
which some scholars regard as an influential factor in Jewish beliefs. Here,
side by side with remarkable spiritual intuitions, there appears a crude
realism. Thus the restraint and caution of St Paul’s idea of the life after
death are thrown into relief by the minute delineation of the journey of the
soul, e.g., in Vendîdâd, xix. 27-33, where we read that the pious soul, after he
has departed, is met by a beautiful virgin, the incarnation of his own good
deeds. She conducts him over the Hara-Berezaiti (the sacred mountain, now
Elburz): she bears him upwards from the bridge çinvat into the road of the
spiritual divinities. Vohu-manô, the good spirit, rises to greet him; then with
joy the soul of the faithful passes into the presence of Ahura-Mazda (see
Söderblom, La Vie Future d’après le Masdéisme, pp. 88-91). Doubtless the
explanation of this contrast which we have been emphasising lies in the fact
that the normative element of New Testament Eschatology (Gospels and Epistles)
is to be found in the religious consciousness of those who gave it shape. The
careful and sensitive reader has always the impression that Jesus and His
apostles, in dealing with the Last Things, are perfectly well aware that they
must use imagery derived from human life, as lived under its ordinary earthly
conditions, to body forth processes which belong altogether to the suprasensible
world.1 [Note: One of the chief flaws in Kabisch’s Eschatologie des Paulus is
the persistently literalistic treatment of metaphorical language. At the same
time, it must be remembered that for New Testament writers the boundary lines
between fact and symbol were far less rigid than for modern minds.] To interpret
the picture of judgment in Matthew 25:1-46 by a crass literalism, is to ignore
the most valuable instrument of the preacher, the use of impressive figure, to
say nothing of the fact that our Lord, as a true man, must constantly have
thought in pictures.1 [Note: Cf. Haupt, op. cit., p. 159: “The designedly
pictorial character of His utterances, which are only the individualising and
plastic expression of religious and ethical ideas, is, in this department,
entirely analogous to the manner in which He is wont to express Himself in other
provinces.”] We need only reflect upon our own conceptions of the events of the
End, in order to discover how large a place must be given to metaphor, if we are
to deal with that region of religious thought at all.2 [Note: See Paradise Lost,
bk. v. 571-577:- “What surmounts the reach Of human sense, I shall delineate so,
By lik’ning spiritual to corporal forms, As may express them best, though what
if Earth Be but the shadow of Heaven, and things therein Each to other like,
more than on earth is thought.”]

Further, the writers of the New Testament must employ language which will find
some point of contact with the minds of their hearers or readers. And so they
are content to move more or less among the conceptions of the Last Things
current with their audience, modifying these when it is needful to bring into
prominence some spiritual aspect of the question which is, as yet, unfamiliar.
In the light of this fact, it is almost ludicrous to find St Paul’s
eschatological ideas discussed at times in a tone of disparagement, because they
so frequently harmonise with the teachings of Judaism. The conceptions of the
Parousia and the Judgment must have constituted, as we shall see, a most
powerful element in the missionary preaching of the apostle. Then, as now, the
solemn issues of life possessed a unique force of appeal to the conscience.
Would not that force have vanished if St Paul had been led to approach his
hearers from a more theoretical or philosophical standpoint? We know that he
found his most ready converts in the God-fearers (οἱ σεβόμενοι τὸν θεόν) who
were already acquainted with the Old Testament and the doctrines of the
Synagogue. It was in accord with the remarkable preparation of the Diaspora for
the Christian Gospel that the apostle’s affirmations concerning the Last Things
should follow the general outlines laid down by the Scriptures and the teaching
of post-canonical Judaism. More noteworthy, as we shall discover, is the freedom
with which he deviates from traditional views, or rather transforms them for use
in the service of the faith of Christ.1 [Note: See especially, Titius, pp.
47-49; Reuss, Histoire de la Théologie Chrétienne, ii. p. 211.]

It may be said without exaggeration that St Paul has no Eschatology. By that we
mean that he has never approached the subject in a systematic fashion.2 [Note:
Cf. Deissmann (Th. L.Z., 1898, Sp. 14): “What is called the ‘Eschatology’ of
Paul has little that is ‘eschatological’ about it … Paul did not write de
novissimis … One must be prepared for a surging hither and thither of great
thoughts, feelings, expectations.”] A man of his speculative cast of mind, and
one whose supreme hope was bound up with the glorious, unseen future, must often
have been borne along in flights of ardent search, if by any means he might
pierce the darkness lying round the borders of the world where Christ now ruled.
But while he delights to dwell on certain sides of the eschatological problem,
and seems, at first sight, to give these a disproportionate place, he does not
even supply the materials for constructing anything in the nature of a scheme,
far less does he attempt to reach such a construction for himself.1 [Note: This
is in harmony with his general theological method, which is aptly described by
Prof. Ramsay (Expos., vi. 6, p. 86): “Paul sees like a man. He sees one side at
a time. He emphasises that-not indeed more than it deserves-but in a way that
provokes misconception, because he expresses one side of the case and leaves the
audience to catch his meaning, to sympathise with his point of view, to supply
for themselves the qualifications and the conditions and the reservations which
are necessary in the concrete facts of actual life.” Cf. A.B Davidson onHebrews
12:1: “Even a writer of Scripture may be allowed to throw out a brilliant ideal
conception without our tying him down to having uttered a formal doctrine.” In
this avoidance of rounded-off system the apostle is true to the traditions of
his nation. “You can make a digest and system of their (i.e. the Rabbinic) law,
but a system of their theology you can only make with the utmost caution and
many reservations” (Montefiore, J.Q.R., xiii. p. 171). From this point of view,
Weber’s well-known work, Die Lehren de’s Talmud, must be checked by Bacher’s
admirable collections, Die Agada der Tannaiten, 2 vols., 1884-1890.] It is
difficult, in examining the religious thought of a born theologian like St Paul,
to refrain from attempting to classify it within the confines of a dogmatic
plan. And when an investigator, of set purpose, refuses to deal with his
teaching on these lines, he is supposed to be doing an injustice to the apostle.
It is surely no discredit to St Paul that he did not attempt to bind himself
down to a logical sequence in his views of Christian truth.2 [Note: Cf.
Fairbairn, Philosophy of the Christian Religion, p. 440: “Paul, as he lives
before us in his Epistles, is a man who holds many men within him-so many … that
we may describe him as the most unintelligible of men to the analytical reason
of a critic who has never warmed to the passion or been moved by the enthusiasm
of humanity; but the most intelligible of men to the man who has heard within
himself the sound of all the voices that speak in man.”] He is logical enough
when his spiritual experience demands it, but a large part of his affirmations
regarding the religious life and destiny of men is thrown off, as occasion
prompts, in vague hints, in outbursts of intense spiritual emotion, in pictures
set within the framework of his inherited training, in arguments devised to meet
the needs of a particular church or a particular group of converts. As Professor
Gardner finely expresses it, “His writings do not constitute a philosophic
system, because they are not purposefully hammered out, but fused by an intense
heat from within … His basis is not only certain principles worked out to their
logical results, but also experiences, like flashes of lightning, which lit up
the cave of consciousness, and melted its contents into new and sometimes
irregular forms” (Historic View of Christianity, pp. 217, 218). Obviously,
therefore, we need never be surprised to find gaps in the hypothetical system
for which our minds crave.1 [Note: See a most instructive paragraph in
Drummond’s Philo, i. p. 186: “While a system of thought is still growing, its
successive stages and ultimate logical results disclose themselves only by
degrees. For a time an explanation may be deemed sufficient which contains,
unperceived and unresolved, a variety of problems destined to try the skill of
future inquirers: we are not justified in forcing on one of its earliest
exponents its implicit contents, which may never have become explicit in his
consciousness. The critical historian is apt to be impatient of vagueness, and
in a question which appears to him inevitable, and did in fact arise inevitably
in the course of the development, he will have it that each writer must have had
an opinion one way or the other: whereas to many thinkers the question may never
have occurred, and were we able to propound it to them, we should find them
unprovided with an answer.” Pfleiderer, Paulinism, i. p. 259 ff. (E. Tr.),
greatly exaggerates the lack of cohesion in Pauline Eschatology.] Especially, in
a department like Eschatology, in which words and images derived from prosaic
earthly experiences have to translate for human minds the mysterious events and
processes of a life raised above material limitations, we may expect to move
among half-truths, dim symbols of realities, paradoxical statements which refuse
to be harmonised.1 [Note: That perplexities of this kind belong to the very
nature of Biblical Eschatology, is well brought out by Laidlaw (Bible Doctrine
of Man, p. 223): “There are two distinct lines on which … these disclosures
(i.e. of eschatological truth) are set forth. The first is that which we may
call “personal,” for in it the future is spoken of as part of the development of
an individual human being.… The other is that which we may call
“dispensational,” when these last events are spoken of on the public scale as
moments in the development of the kingdom of heaven, or of the dispensation of
redemption in the hand of the Lord Jesus Christ. Thoroughly to connect these two
in a complete system of eschatology, is a task for which our theology is
confessedly incompetent.… The Scripture itself does not give us a complete view
of these connections.”] We believe, indeed, that St Paul’s eschatological
conceptions have a far greater mutual congruity than some recent investigators
have been willing to recognise. But in an age when the notion of development is
regarded as the key to all problems, it is perhaps natural that scholars should
use it in explaining certain phenomena which look like antinomies in the Pauline
Epistles. This view has been worked to its furthest limit by Sabatier,
Pfleiderer, Teichmann, and others. Such a possibility must, of course, be
admitted; but when we consider the very brief space of time within which all the
extant letters of the apostle were written, we may well be on our guard against
straining this line of argument.2 [Note: Cf. Denney (Death of Christ, p. 115):
“To suppose that a great expansion of his (Paul’s) thoughts took place between
the letters to the Thessalonians and those to the Corinthians, is to ignore at
once the chronology, the nature of letters, and the nature of the human mind.”]
If at any point there appears to be a change of view or a modification of
statement, it is safer to look for the cause in the immediate occasion of the
writing, or in some marked crisis in St Paul’s experience which has led him to
recast his earlier conclusion. An alteration of standpoint, for example,
regarding the state entered immediately after death, is often supposed to have
taken place in the apostle’s mind in the interval between the writing of the
First and Second Epistles to the Corinthians.1 [Note: So, e.g., Holtzmann, N.T.
Theol., ii. p. 193; Teichmann, Die paulinischen Vorstellungen von Auferstehung
u. Gericht, p. 39. Cf. also Beyschlag, N.T. Theol., ii. pp. 270, 271.] This is
held by some expositors to be the result of theological development. By others
it is regarded simply as a more or less arbitrary modification of view. While
others still attribute it to the terrible perils through which St Paul had
passed during his sojourn at Ephesus.2 [Note: See2 Corinthians 1:8.] If there be
any such change of conception, a question which must be examined in detail in a
subsequent chapter, the last-named hypothesis is certainly the most satisfying.
But after all, it must be borne in mind that, as a distinguished theologian once
said in our hearing, a man may have several Eschatologies. That is putting the
matter summarily, but the remark is abundantly true to experience. Probably most
of us are conscious of the fact in our own religious thought.3 [Note: Account
should certainly be taken of the peculiar habit of the Semitic mind. See a
luminous statement by Dr E. Caird (Newspaper Report of Gifford Lectures,
Glasgow, 1902): “It (i.e. the Hebrew mind) lived … in the consciousness of an
unanalysed whole of experience, and represented it now in one aspect and now in
another, as one might stand before a sea that was illuminated from moment to
moment by flashes of lightning.” This seems to us as truly as it is strikingly
expressed. It contains the key to many problems of New Testament thought.] Its
real explanation lies in the nature of the problem with which we are dealing.
Our Lord Himself, as we have seen, in place of setting forth any definite
instruction as to the unseen world and the future destiny of men, spoke at all
times in pictures, only making clear the spiritual side of the mystery, namely,
the certainty for the believer of unbroken fellowship after death with the
eternally-living God. It was the same with the apostles. They also confine
themselves, as a rule, to hints and illustrations. In their missionary preaching
they emphasise one aspect or group of aspects of the Last Things. When they come
to detailed arguments, dealing with particular difficulties, a different phase
of the subject gains a momentary prominence. It is no concern to them if some of
the details do not admit of inclusion in a general scheme. Indeed we need never
expect entirely harmonious pictures in this province of thought. For the
profoundest imagination is soon baffled when it attempts to depict the
inexpressible realities of the heavenly world in terms of earthly experiences.1
[Note: See Schleiermacher, Der christliche Glaube, iv. pp. 209, 220; Orr,
Christian View of God and the World, pp. 334-336.] No perfect definiteness is
attainable; rather a distant adumbration which must be estimated as nothing
more. If we should be confronted at any points in St Paul’s eschatological
thought by conceptions which seem to overlap each other, or images which, if
expanded to their furthest limits, appear to leave an unresolved residuum, we
must not only bear in mind the cautions already laid down, but we must also
endeavour to realise by the use of the philosophical imagination that ideas,
which from our standpoint present an aspect of mutual exclusiveness, might seem
far more consistent if we could take up our position in that world of thought to
which the first Christian writers belonged.1 [Note: See an admirable treatment
of assumed contradictions in Pauline Eschatology in Bornemann’s edition of Meyer
on Thessalonians (Meyer,5-6 1894), pp. 186, 534-536. Cf. Jülicher, Einleitung in
d. N.T., p. 27. Deissmann, in an instructive review of Teichmann’s Paulinische
Vorstellungen von Auferstehung u. Gericht (Th. L.Z., 1898, Sp. 14), points out
the danger of mixing up Nebeneinander with Nacheinander.]

Further, in attempting to grasp St Paul’s conceptions of the Last Things, we
must not begin by putting certain definite questions to which we demand an
answer. The function of New Testament theology is to understand the statements
of the apostolic writers “from within their ideas and experiences.” We must be
prepared to recognise that some of those eschatological problems which press
most heavily upon us, did not appeal to the apostle at all. Others, on which we
care for nothing but a definite decision, St Paul is content to leave on a
borderland of mystery. While, occasionally, he takes considerable pains with
matters which have come to be more or less remote from our religious interest.
These facts are fully explained by the long interval which separates our time
from the Apostolic Age. It is a false conception of inspiration which would
expect St Paul to satisfy all our questionings even within his own sphere. The
inspiration of the apostle is an equipment of the Spirit for the work he has
immediately to do. Certainly much of that work was to be for all time, but its
conditions were determined by given historical facts. And one of the fundamental
truths of God’s operation in history is a gradual change in the mental
perspective of nations and individuals.

Enough has been said to show that it is impossible to discover anything in the
nature of a system of Eschatology, a group of logically related and wholly
coherent conceptions of the Last Things, in the Pauline Epistles. We find,
indeed, many distinct and momentous affirmations, many fragments of doctrines,
respecting certain facts and events of the End. Some of these are an echo of
popular ideas, some remain fixed beliefs, fundamental data for the apostle,
whenever he chances to deal with eschatological questions. But however
unsystematic they may be in their nature and form, we are not for that reason to
imagine that they were only of secondary importance in the judgment of St Paul.
The attempt has been made in the earlier part of this chapter to prove that an
eschatological element lies in the very centre of his religious thought. But he
lays no stress on those scenic features which are so prominent in most
speculations on the Last Things. It is extremely suggestive to observe that in
the Imprisonment-Epistles, written apart from the heat of controversy, written
when their author has leisure to survey the complete bearings of his Christian
knowledge, and is plainly rejoicing with a serene gladness in the solidity and
majesty of the Christian certainties, he delights to sum up his forecasts of the
Last Things under the general designation of Hope. Undoubtedly this aspect of
his thought is prominent throughout the Epistles. As early as his letter to the
Galatians, we come upon the remarkable affirmation of his Christian position in
these words: “We through the Spirit by faith eagerly expect the hope of
righteousness” (ἐλπίδα δικαιοσύνης, i.e., the hope which righteousness brings or
guarantees, chap. 5:5). In Romans, side by side with more detailed conceptions
of the End, the idea of Hope stands in the foreground. Apart from the classical
passage in chap. 8, which we quoted at the outset in dealing with the
eschatological strain in his doctrine of Justification, we find the apostle
asserting in chap. 5:5 that “the (i.e. Christian) hope does not put to shame,
because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy
Spirit given to us.” The only definition of this Christian hope is that it rests
on the assurance of the love of God imparted by the Holy Spirit.1 [Note: Cf. the
hope of enduring life in several Psalms, a hope which was also based on the
assurance of God’s faithfulness (virtually = His love). A striking parallel is
Wisd. 3:4:ἡ ἐλπὶς αὐτῶν ἀθανασίας πλήρης. J. Weiss suggestively observes that
the fundamental note of the preaching of Jesus was hope, “undoubtedly a hope
certain of its end, but still always hope” (Die Predigt Jesu v. Reiche G., p.
71).] In the Imprisonment-Epistles he leaves his conception of Hope still more
undefined. “The hope laid up for you in heaven” (Colossians 1:5), “the hope of
glory” (Colossians 1:27), “the hope of His calling” (Ephesians 1:18), “one hope
of your calling” (Ephesians 4:4)-these are typical descriptions of the blissful
consummation which awaits the believer.2 [Note: This conception, like all those
which are normative for St Paul, has its roots in the Old Testament. “One can
see how closely the meaning which life has in the sum of religious thoughts in
the Old Testament, coheres with the character of hope, which pre-eminently
determines the stamp of this religion. It is not the beginning of things which
the Old Testament emphasises: everything stretches into the future. On this is
founded the healthiness of their religion” (Kleinert, S.K., 1895, p. 711).] It
might be an exaggeration to say that at this stage in his Christian career the
apostle prefers to turn aside from all statements of detail, and to rest in a
blessed certainty around which he leaves a margin of mystery. Yet one feels that
such a view lies at least in the direction of the truth. Certainly, in those
letters which form the climax of his religious thinking, he deals very slightly
with the pictorial elements of Eschatology, choosing rather to select and
emphasise those aspects of it which have a directly spiritual value. This is in
genuine harmony with the teaching of our Lord Himself. He varies His imagery, He
changes the picture, but underlying every metaphor and every illustration are to
be found certain commanding spiritual affirmations which bear with immediate
force upon the central issues of human destiny. And the apostle has
unquestionably transformed the prophetic-apocalyptic traditions of Judaism from
which he started, in the spirit of Jesus, and under the influence of His
teaching. It is not, of course, to be supposed that St Paul has wholly renounced
the original framework of his conceptions. Statements, for example, in
Philippians, which is probably the latest of the Imprisonment-Epistles, remind
us vividly of his earlier eschatological utterances. But, as the result of
advancing Christian experience, and a more complete surrender to the power of
the Spirit, he has discovered where to place the accent in his teaching on the
Last Things. He is more concerned about the essential realities, and less about
their temporary expression. May we not suppose that the apostle’s experience is
a picture in miniature of the experience of the Christian Church in this
dimly-lit and mysterious province of her thinking? May we not believe that, in
the purpose of her Divine Guide, she also is led forward from the material
vestments of eschatological conceptions to the great spiritual certainties which
they enwrap? In this historical process the teaching of St Paul must prove of
permanent value, since, by reason of his Divinely-trained instinct, he remains a
master in the delicate and precarious operation of discerning between the letter
and the spirit.1 [Note: Cf. Titius, p. 289: “The expectation of the Parousia
continues, and is still, for a whole century, a powerful guarantee for the
self-realisation of the Church and a stimulus to more ardent effort, but the
distressing effect of its delay has disappeared. They can look forward to it
with calmness. And this altered mood is above all else the life-work of the
apostle Paul … It is his life-work, in spite of the fact that he himself, as
regards his personal feeling, is rooted in the eschatological-enthusiastic
condition of mind, and abides by that.” Mr Myers’ beautiful lines are scarcely
true to the apostle’s outlook:- “OH THAT THY STEPS AMONG THE STARS WOULD
QUICKEN!

OH THAT THINE EARS WOULD HEAR WHEN WE ARE DUMB!

MANY THE HEARTS FROM WHICH THE HOPE SHALL SICKEN, MANY SHALL FAINT BEFORE THY
KINGDOM COME.”-ST PAUL, P. 24.

They bear the impress of a wearier age.]


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  CHAPTER 3: 02. FORMATIVE INFLUENCES IN ST PAUL'S CONCEPTIONS OF THE LAST THINGS
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Chapter II FORMATIVE INFLUENCES IN ST PAUL’S CONCEPTIONS OF THE LAST THINGS In
the preceding chapter we have attempted to show that St Paul does not possess
anything in the nature of a balanced or well-defined system of eschatological
beliefs. But from the necessity of his Christian standpoint, as one who holds an
ethical view of the world and human life, and as a firm believer in the future
of the Kingdom of God, that Kingdom which has already begun to take shape, he
will often have to deal with the Last Things. For the moral order and purpose of
the universe, which have been illumined by the revelation of Jesus Christ, must
be clearly vindicated to the Christian consciousness. Hence, although his
conceptions of events and processes in this obscure realm find an utterance
simply as the occasion prompts, and although no questions as to the due
proportions or the respective prominence of separate subdivisions of Eschatology
ever concern the apostle, we may be prepared to discover certain fundamental
lines of thought which usually regulate his eschatological discussions. Thus we
are not dealing with casual statements which St Paul has thrown off without
reflection, statements to which he would not assign the weight of firm
conviction. Eschatological considerations, as we have seen, occupy a foremost
place within his mental horizon. They must have been constantly emphasised in
his missionary preaching, as may be gathered from the letters to the
Thessalonians and Corinthians. Probably the lacunæ, which sometimes puzzle us as
we read these discussions, could often be filled up by his readers from their
recollection of his oral instructions.1 [Note: Cf. Bornemann on Thessalonians
(Meyer, 5-6), p. 534.] Famous passages like 1 Corinthians 15:1-58 and 2
Corinthians 5:1-10 are sufficient proof that St Paul had devoted careful thought
to the events of the End. Accordingly, there are certain clear landmarks which
serve to guide us through the domain of his Eschatology. These may come into
view, at times, in the most isolated fashion. The apostle may never have
occasion, at least in his extant Epistles, to follow out his main positions to
their logical conclusions. But there is a group of crucial certainties among the
“Things to Come,” round which his thought invariably revolves.2 [Note: Titius
remarks with justice that St Paul selects for special treatment the two aspects
of Eschatology to which a saving interest belongs, the Resurrection and the
Judgment (involving, of course, the Parousia). In each of these he can sum up
salvation as a whole (pp. 50, 51).] They may be roughly classified as the
Parousia or Final Advent of Christ, the Resurrection from the dead, and the
Consummation of a redeemed and glorified humanity, in which the universe reaches
the goal of the Divine purpose. Obviously, these great conceptions will draw
others in their train. Death and Eternal Life, the State after death, Judgment
and Retribution, the Inheritance of the Saints-all are implicated in the data
with which he starts, although we cannot forecast, from their relative
importance to our minds, the proportions which they will assume in the
discussions of the apostle.

As soon as the primary conceptions of which he treats are stated, we recognise
that some of them at least are common to all systems of religion.1 [Note:
“Eschatological conceptions seem generally, in all religions, to belong to the
most ancient animistic group of ideas” (Schwally, Leben nach d. Tode, p. 6).] In
one shape or other, eschatological beliefs belong to primitive man. In several
ancient faiths they occupy the forefront. In all they are necessarily interwoven
with men’s fundamental religious ideas. And they will usually be linked to these
in their cruder forms.2 [Note: Cf. Jeremias (Babylon.-Assyr. Vorstellungen v.
Leben nach d. Tode, p. 107): “In no province of religious thought has the
original Semitic popular tradition so lastingly endured in the Old Testament as
in the ideas of the fortunes of man after death.” See also Davidson on the Old
Testament idea of death: “This idea is not strictly the teaching of revelation …
it is the popular idea from which revelation starts; and revelation on the
question rather consists in exhibiting to us how the pious soul struggled with
this popular conception and strove to overcome it, and how faith demanded and
realised … its demand that the communion with God enjoyed in this life should
not be interrupted in death” (onJob 14:13-15). This general consideration is
largely normative for the methods of Pauline Eschatology.] Accordingly, we ought
to mark the essential difference in origin between them and other prominent
factors in St Paul’s theology. Justification may be taken as an instance in
point. No doubt it would be true to say that we find the roots of this
epoch-making doctrine to some extent in the Old Testament, and to a greater
still in Judaism. The righteousness of God and His demand for righteousness in
men are paramount ideas in prophets and psalmists. And to the Hebrew mind,
righteousness “is not so much a moral quality as a legal status” (W. R. Smith,
Prophets of Israel, p. 72), a judgment of God that we are right with Him. In the
later extra-canonical literature, righteousness according to the law is the
chief aim of every devout Jew. His deeds of obedience procure merit for him with
God. God weighs his actions in the balances, and one side or other prevails. He
is accepted or he is condemned.1 [Note: See, e.g., 4 Ezra 3:34 : “Now,
therefore, weigh our sins and those of the inhabitants of the world on the
balance, that it may be discovered to which side the turn of the scale
inclines”; Enoch xli. 1, lxi. 8. Cf. Weber, Lehren d. Talmud, pp. 272, 273 et
al.; Volz, Jüdische Eschatologie, p. 95.] It is easy to discover that in these
ideas we have the mental atmosphere in which St Paul’s great doctrine
originates. But its centre of gravity is wholly changed. So many new factors
intervene, that the transformation of the conception is far more conspicuous
than its connections with pre-existing Jewish thought. Faith in Jesus Christ as
the sole ground of justification alters so completely the older views of the
soul’s relation to God, that we are ushered into a new world of spiritual
phenomena. The very terms employed have been filled with a fresh content. In
essential respects, the doctrine has become the converse of its counterpart in
Judaism. It is natural that it should be otherwise with the data of St Paul’s
Eschatology. While a truly recreating power has entered that domain also, we may
still expect to deal largely with current beliefs and current imagery. An
Eschatology will not call so quickly for change as a Theology or a Soteriology.
It will adapt itself but slowly to the higher stages of spirituality which may
have been reached in the doctrines of God or salvation. The reasons are obvious.
Men represent the Last Things to their minds by means of pictures. They possess
a kind of eschatological scenery. This stamps itself upon their imagination from
childhood. By degrees they may fully recognise that it is crude and imperfect.
But it serves as a rough, working instrument of thought. Meanwhile the more
central truths within their spiritual vista may have been undergoing a silent
but essential modification. It may be long before it is borne in upon them that
they must readjust the various positions of their tacitly-held theological
system for the sake of congruity. For imagery, unlike abstract thought, is
exceedingly flexible. And we unconsciously read into the familiar pictures the
new spiritual significance which has been independently attained. In the case of
St Paul, we cannot, indeed, overestimate the remoulding power of his Christian
experience in the province of Eschatology. But we shall be better able to
appreciate the range and depth of the transformation if we endeavour to realise,
in brief outline, first, the heritage of belief he carried with him from the Old
Testament, and second, the Judaistic background which must, to some extent, have
affected his conceptions of the Last Things.

Before making this attempt (and it can only be done within narrow limits), let
us guard against the prejudice which often attaches itself to such methods of
investigation. We have no sympathy with those who reduce great factors in the
spiritual or intellectual history of the race to mere bundles of influences
which can be discovered and classified by minute analysis. This is dull
pedantry. The transcending personality is immeasurably greater than all those
forces which have fostered his development. The secret of his mastery among his
fellows is just that elusive and yet commanding individuality which refuses to
be tracked, which welds together in itself all that is of worth in its
environment, repelling, attracting, selecting, transfiguring, impressing upon
the whole mass of its experience the stamp of its own unique power. Yet, on the
other hand, it is no disparagement, even to a master in the science of the
Divine like St Paul, to take account of the intellectual habits amidst which his
mind received its bent, to try to discover how he dealt with the beliefs and
convictions which he found existing, to trace his relation to contemporary
thought, in order that we may more accurately estimate the influence of his
personal Christian experience. Obviously, the attempt has to be made with
delicacy and caution, for the workings of spiritual forces are not mechanical
processes. “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound
thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every
one that is born of the Spirit.” Moreover, it has to be remembered that no stage
in the religious or ethical development of a people is accidental or
unimportant. Some investigators, for example, seem to assume that when they have
referred a particular view or speculation to later Judaism or to the Rabbis,
they have thereby proved its worthlessness as a normative element in Christian
theology. It appears to us that this is an utterly unscientific procedure. If we
believe in any Divine purpose leading on humanity to purer and higher
apprehensions of spiritual truth, we must assign no secondary place to that
movement of thought which was the immediate precursor of the religion of the New
Testament. In attempting to estimate the influence of the Old Testament on St
Paul’s Eschatology, we shall begin by noticing more generally the lines along
which such influences may be traced. The Old Testament contains chiefly an
Eschatology of the nation. In this is revealed the organic connection of its
Eschatology with its theology. Jehovah is the God of Israel rather than of the
individual Israelite. His covenant is made with His people. In the Old
Testament, the solidarity of the nation stands always in the forefront. It is
the unit with which Jehovah enters into relations. Hence the fulfilment of the
Divine purpose, the realising of the Divine order, must be looked for on
national rather than on individual lines.1 [Note: Probably Prof. Charles does
not overstate the truth in asserting, that “never in Palestinian Judaism, down
to the Christian era, did the doctrine of a merely individual immortality appeal
to any but a few isolated thinkers” (Encycl. Biblica, i. col. 1347).] Such facts
largely account for the absence of any clear or well-defined utterances on those
problems of the End which have a paramount interest for us. The favourite ideal
of the prophets is a purified Israel, which, according to some of them, shall be
the centre of light for the whole world.2 [Note: This is the view ofMicah
4:1-2;Isaiah 2:2-4; Isaiah 11:9-10. On the other hand, Amos, Hosea, and Joel
seem to restrict the future blessedness to their own people. See Drummond,
Jewish Messiah, pp. 186 ff.] This regenerated kingdom absorbs their thoughts on
the consummation of all things. Israel shall become in the fullest sense God’s
people, and He will be their God. The scene of the perfected theocracy is this
earth, often conceived as renewed and glorified (Isaiah 65:17; Isaiah 66:22).1
[Note: Such a conception is true to a typical dogma of Apocalyptic which affirms
that the end is to be like the beginning. Cf. Barn. vi. 3;ἰδού, ποιῶτὰ ἔσχαταὡς
τὰπρῶτα. See Gunkel on 4Ezra 7:11(in Kautzsch), and cf. Enoch xlv. 5; Jub. iv.
26; 4 Ezra 7:75 et al.; and Volz, op. cit., pp. 296, 297.] An era of unbroken
felicity fills up the horizon. Probably to their minds it is eternal. For, as Dr
Davidson was wont to express it, the events they ascribed to the Messianic age
were equivalent to those which we assign to the time following the Second
Advent. There is no terminus ad quem in that epoch. From another point of view,
the kingdom is really synonymous with heaven. For God’s presence is enjoyed in
it without let or hindrance.

Different writers present varying pictures of the events which lead up to the
establishment of the Divine order. In some the figure of the Messianic King
occupies a prominent place. This is true, e.g., of Isaiah (11:1), Micah (5:2),
and Zechariah (9:9). In the second part of Isaiah, the Servant of the Lord is
the great instrument of Jehovah’s operations. But most of the prophetic writers
agree in ushering in the crisis of transformation by a definite event, the Day
of the Lord. For Jehovah’s own presence and working are the most inspiring of
all Messianic hopes (so Dr Davidson). This is a day of judgment, and also of
vindication. Its character, like all manifestations of Jehovah, is ethical. It
comes laden with terror and destruction for the enemies of God: it marks out for
favour and salvation His chosen people. It is the day when the Divine purposes,
which have been slowly ripening, come to maturity. From that time forward the
new reign of righteousness is firmly established, whether God, or His
vicegerent, the Messiah, be directly conceived as Ruler. (On the parallel
existence of these two conceptions in O.T., see Davidson, Old Testament
Prophecy, pp. 311, 312.) Old Testament writers depict this epoch in glowing
colours, but the details are vague, and the outlines more or less fluctuating.
It is obvious that we need not expect to find any coherent forecasts of the time
when these decisive occurrences shall break in upon the common order of human
life. It is characteristic of the prophetic vision, to compress great moments
within a brief space (so Dr Davidson). But the prophets had their expectations
heightened when they saw rapid and crucial movements shaping themselves in the
history of their nation. Sudden revolutions and catastrophes, overwhelming
disasters like the Babylonian invasion and conquest, seemed to portend a speedy
intervention of the Divine arm. At such times, when the bulk of their
fellow-countrymen had already begun to recognise the punishment of their
stubborn sinfulness, the hopes of the prophets were bound up with the righteous
remnant (e.g.Isaiah 6:13), the holy kernel of the nation, of whose existence
they were assured, and who must ultimately form the nucleus of the realised
Kingdom of God. Now, however nationalistic their conception of the Kingdom might
be in its earlier stages, such a limitation was bound to be ultimately
transcended. Their contact with the great empires of Assyria and Babylon must
have immensely widened their conception of the world. And already the germ of
universalism was to be found in the intimate relation between their Eschatology
and their Theology. The great spiritual fact, which was the basis of their
faith, the unity of God, must finally lead them to its corollary, the unity of
mankind. And the rule of God being, necessarily, a righteous rule, there must
follow the idea of a moral renovation of humanity.1 [Note: Cf. Davidson in
H.D.B., iv. 121; Drummond, Jewish Messiah, p. 328.] We can see, therefore, how
all along their conceptions of the Last Things contained the potentiality of a
world-wide application: how the way was being prepared for more transcendental
conceptions of Judgment and Salvation.

There is no lack of material, as is evident, for reconstructing in a rough
fashion the general prophetic picture of the End, or rather, final epoch-a
picture which, in its main outlines, we can trace also in the Psalms. Its
original basis, the conviction that the scene of God’s Kingdom will be a
regenerated earth; that its centre will be the holy city Jerusalem; that from
thence God, or His representative the Messianic King,2 [Note: It is interesting
to note the rarity of the Messianic idea in the literature of the Maccabæan
period. Apparently the triumph of the Maccabees satisfied the popular hopes. It
was the experience of hardship and calamity that followed, which kindled the
Messianic Hope throughout the nation as a whole. Cf. Drummond, op. cit., p.
269.] will rule in wisdom and righteousness and mercy over Israel and those
Gentiles who have come to the light which shines from Zion-this conviction will
necessarily involve the use of imagery derived from human experience.3 [Note:
“The moral and religious element is the essential part of the prophecy, the form
in which it is to verify itself is secondary. The form was of the nature of an
embodiment, a projection or construction, and the materials of which the fabric
was reared were those lying to the hand of the prophet in each successive age”
(Davidson, op. cit., p. 126).] No doubt the prophets themselves are often
conscious that their images are only inadequate approximations to the truth
lying within their field of vision, for the transfigured earth and the new
Jerusalem will be the home of spiritual forces, expressions of the Divine
energy, such as men have never dreamed of. Still, the features of the picture
will be essentially anthropomorphic; the sounding of the trumpet, which summons
to the great assize; the Theophany itself, with its awe-inspiring accompaniments
of fire and tempest and glowing clouds; the voice of thunder, which will shake
the earth; the valley of Hinnom, where the bodies of the slain shall be consumed
in heaps, or left a prey to the worms. No other setting could so vividly have
represented to their contemporaries the terrific realities of judgment and
retribution, and the consummation of blessedness for all who have been faithful
to their covenant with Jehovah. May we not say that it is almost impossible to
give practical value at any time to the conceptions of the final transcendent
processes of God’s moral order, without calling to our aid the ordinary human
realisations of penalty and judgment? The prophecies of the Book of Daniel may
be regarded as standing by themselves in this connection.1 [Note: Closely
parallel are the Visions of Zechariah (see Smend, Alttest. Religionsgeschichte,
p. 473).] They belong to that influential department of Jewish literature known
as Apocalyptic. They are concerned almost exclusively with the events of the
End. They deal in a mysterious, perhaps one might say, in an esoteric manner,
with those movements of history which lead up to the manifestation of the
kingdom of the saints of the Most High. In an exceedingly compressed form, the
fortunes of the chosen people, as these are moulded by the sway of successive
foreign princes, are traced through a group of symbolic visions. In chap. 11,
certain remarkable characteristics are ascribed to some of the most impious
heathen kings, gross irreligion and daring sacrilege and overweening insolence,
which appear to the seer’s mind as the culmination of an almost superhuman
wickedness. The colours of this picture seem to have made a profound impression
on readers of the prophecy, for, as we shall discover, they reappear frequently
in the apocalyptic tradition, and supply a setting for some of the most obscure
of St Paul’s eschatological forebodings.

Even from this meagre outline, which will be filled in, more or less, in
subsequent chapters, we receive a glimpse of the eschatological background which
lies behind the religious thought of St Paul. It is, indeed, a current fashion
to minimise his relation to the ancient Scriptures of his people, as compared
with his indebtedness to the teachings of post-canonical Judaistic literature,
in its various branches. Thus, e.g., Weizsäcker: “The same apostle, who freed
the oldest Christianity from the limitations of the Jewish people and its
religion, has, perhaps, chiefly contributed, on another side, to retain the
Jewish spirit in it” (Apostol. Zeitalter, p. 105). We must understand here by
the “Jewish spirit,” that which prevailed in the Rabbinic circle in which St
Paul received his early training. Now, as we shall have frequent occasion to
show, his writings reveal every here and there affinities with his native
environment. But the remarkable fact remains that these affinities are largely
superficial, that they disclose themselves at the circumference rather than at
the centre of his thought. It is the spirit of his religion which is essentially
alien to contemporary Judaism and in profound harmony with the prophets and
psalmists of the Old Testament. In this he is a true follower of his Master.
Jesus also felt in His deepest consciousness the enduring significance of the
Divine revelation as contained in the Old Testament. He recognised its permanent
elements, and used them in His own presentation of spiritual truth. He found in
the spirit of prophetism the genuine evidence of a direct fellowship with God,
and hence a discernment of the eternal principles of the Divine operation. St
Paul occupies a similar standpoint. We know, indeed, that the apostle employed
Scripture proofs, repeatedly, according to the fashion of his time, regarding
the original historical sense of passages as of minor importance in comparison
with their bearing on the facts of the Christian dispensation (e.g., Romans
4:24; Romans 15:2; 1 Corinthians 10:11).1 [Note: See Clemen, S.K., 1902, p. 178
ff.] But this is a phenomenon of superficial importance as compared with his
farreaching appreciation of the inward vitality of the prophetic religion.2
[Note: Cf. Heinrici on 2 Corinthians (Meyer, 8 1900), p. 451.] He is able to lay
aside the fantastic imaginations and the pedantic hair-splitting which have
obscured so much that is of high ethical worth in Rabbinic theology. As the true
successor of the great prophets, who has discovered in the Christian revelation
the summing up and attainment of their highest ideals, he is equipped by the
very possession of their spirit for the world-embracing vocation of missionary
to the nations. The truth is that his conversion seems to have sent him back
with fresh vision to the Old Testament. However ready he shows himself to
emphasise the preparatory, pædagogic purpose of the law enshrined in it, he
assimilates by an inherent sympathy its most lofty spiritual doctrines, and
esteems them with an intensified devotion, just because their deepest and
perennial significance dawns upon him in the light of his fellowship with the
Lord. Here and there he may make a purely dialectic use of passages for
argument’s sake, a use so foreign to our habits of thought that we are apt to do
injustice to a man whose reverence for the Divine revelation was as profound as
his spiritual life. To realise his genuine sympathy with the purest strain in
Old Testament religion, we have only to compare him with subtle thinkers like
Philo, with ardent enthusiasts like the Jewish apocalyptic writers, or with
devout Christians like the Apostolic Fathers. This man, from the vantage-ground
which he has found in Christ, recognises in prophet and psalmist real mediators
of God’s self-disclosure to mankind. While the stream of Divine revelation has
been infinitely deepened and broadened, it has not left the rivulets of
prophetic inspiration to stagnate in isolated pools.

It need hardly be said that the apostle has transformed the prophetic ideas of
the Old Testament under the influence of the new Christian revelation. Thus the
culmination of the Providential development is found in Jesus Christ, the
crucified and risen Son of God, in whom all things are finally summed up
(Ephesians 1:10). Acceptance in the day of judgment is determined by men’s
attitude to the Gospel of Christ (Romans 4:25; Romans 5:8-10; Romans 14:9;
Romans 14:18; 1 Corinthians 3:11). Hence, of course, it follows that all
national restrictions have vanished. For “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there
is neither bond nor free, there is neither male or female.” All are “one man in
Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). But this higher stage in the knowledge of God to
which men have been called in no way conflicts for the apostle’s mind with the
prophetic principle. It is the copestone of the great edifice of salvation.
Therefore it is not too much, we believe, to assert that St Paul has
rediscovered the Old Testament for himself as a Christian, and the Church has
inherited the benefits of his discovery. The Old Testament has furnished the
apostle with a remarkable teleology. Strangely enough, he makes scanty use of
that expression for the new Divine order which crystallised the deepest
conceptions of the prophets, and was so frequently found upon the lips of
Jesus-the Kingdom of God. Yet the terms in his Epistles which perhaps most
nearly express its meaning, σωτηρία and ζωή, are much more closely linked to the
Old Testament standpoint than might at first sight appear. In our next chapter
we shall examine the conception of ζωή in detail, and its Old Testament basis
will then become abundantly clear. We have already observed that σωτηρία and its
cognates seem uniformly, with St Paul, to have an eschatological significance.
The beginning of the saving process, indeed, may be so described, and any
particular stage in its development. But in his use of the term the apostle, as
we have sought to show, keeps ever in view the events of the last time, more
especially the ὀργὴ θεοῦ, “the wrath of God,” which must form part of the
revelation (ἀποκάλυψις) of the exalted Lord. Salvation, in its full sense, is
final deliverance from the Divine wrath and judgment. For St Paul, as for all
the earliest Christians, the Day of the Lord is as cogent a reality as for the
ancient prophets. The Incarnation has by no means made it superfluous. Rather
has its meaning received new clearness. For men are now in a position to give
definiteness to its conditions. Christ is to be the Mediator of the Divine
judgment on sin. Sin culminates in the rejection of Him whom God has sent.
Salvation is the ultimate deliverance, wrought through faith in Christ as the
Redeemer, from the penal consequences of men’s disobedience to God. This
decisive σωτηρία, with all the blissful consequences which flow from it both now
and hereafter, may be justly termed a Pauline equivalent for the Kingdom of God.
It belongs to the community of believers. It is realised now, so far as that is
possible under the conditions of earthly life, in the Christian brotherhood.
Already it is their possession ideally. From the Parousia onwards, all
restrictions shall have been removed. And the saints will enter on their eternal
heritage, which is ζωὴ αἰώνιος.

Thus the Day of the Lord, which for the prophets was to be the inauguration of
the new era, continues to hold its prominence in St Paul. And he has no
hesitation, more especially in his earlier Epistles, in using the ancient
imagery to describe its accompaniments. Noteworthy instances occur in the
Epistles to the Thessalonians. There we find a veritable mosaic of quotations
from, and reminiscences of, the Old Testament, the books chiefly drawn upon
being Isaiah and Daniel. God’s Son is to come from heaven with all His holy
ones. Cf.Zechariah 14:5; Daniel 7:13. 1 [Note: The O.T. parallels throughout our
discussion must be examined in the LXX. For, as a general rule, St Paul used the
Greek Bible.] He is to descend with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and
the trumpet of God. Cf.Isaiah 27:13; Exodus 19:11; Exodus 19:13; Exodus 19:16-18
.2 [Note: This parallel is peculiarly remarkable.] The Day of the Lord will
surprise them as a thief in the night. Cf.Joel 2:1-11, especially ver. 9. The
Lord Jesus is to be revealed from heaven in flaming fire. Cf.Isaiah 66:15;
Psalms 18:8; Exodus 24:17; Deuteronomy 4:24. He takes vengeance on them that
know not God. Cf.Isaiah 35:4; Jeremiah 10:25. They are punished with destruction
from the face of the Lord and from the glory of His power. Cf.Isaiah 2:10. He
shall be glorified in His saints. Cf.Isaiah 66:5; Isaiah 49:3; Psalms 68:1-35ad
init.3 [Note: Bornemann (on2 Thessalonians 2:6-10) supposes that verses 7b-10a
are a portion (perhaps altered here and there) of an early Christian psalm or
hymn. The following is a remarkable group of parallels which he gives to show
the O.T. basis of the passage:-Isaiah 61:2;2 Thessalonians 1:6-7; 2
Thessalonians 1:10;Isaiah 66:4f., 14 f.;2 Thessalonians 1:6; 2 Thessalonians
1:8;Lamentations 3:63;2 Thessalonians 1:6;Obadiah 1:15;2 Thessalonians
1:6;Isaiah 63:4; Isaiah 63:7;2 Thessalonians 1:6;Isaiah 19:20;2 Thessalonians
1:6;Isaiah 59:18;2 Thessalonians 1:6;Jeremiah 25:12;2 Thessalonians 1:8;Isaiah
29:6;2 Thessalonians 1:8;Isaiah 4:2ff;2 Thessalonians 1:10;Ezekiel 38:23;2
Thessalonians 1:10; 2 Thessalonians 1:12;Ezekiel 34:8;2 Thessalonians
1:5-6;Psalms 78:6;2 Thessalonians 1:8;Daniel 7:9; Daniel 7:21f;2 Thessalonians
1:10-11;Isaiah 49:3;2 Thessalonians 1:10; 2 Thessalonians 1:12;Ezekiel 39:21;2
Thessalonians 1:10;Ezekiel 35:4;2 Thessalonians 1:6;Jeremiah 15:21;2
Thessalonians 1:8;Isaiah 4:5;2 Thessalonians 1:9;Isaiah 2:10;2 Thessalonians
1:9;Ezekiel 28:22;2 Thessalonians 1:10; 2 Thessalonians 1:12.

Possibly we have here some evidence for Weizsäcker’s hypothesis that St Paul
“arranged a kind of system of doctrine in the form of proofs from Scripture for
use in giving instruction” (Apost. Zeitalter, p. 113; see also p. 119).] The
portrayal of the “man of lawlessness” in 2 Thessalonians 2:1-17, whatever other
elements it may contain, has certainly modelled many of its features on various
passages in Daniel. Notable parallels to the passage will be found in Daniel
11:30 to end, 5:20, 23, 7:25, 8:23-25. This last reference is suggestive. In the
LXX. of Daniel 8:23-25 (both versions) we have the picture of a king who shall
arise “when their sins are fulfilled” (πληρουμένων τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν αὐτῶν). The
filling up of the tale of their sins is the signal for a terrible crisis. Here
we come upon one of the most marked points of contact between St Paul’s
expectation of the Parousia and the Old Testament. It is instructive for his
whole point of view. At the time when the letters to the Thessalonians were
written, the apostle appears to have been peculiarly impressed by the attitude
of his own nation towards the Gospel. Not only did they refuse to accept the
message of salvation for themselves, but in heathen cities like Thessalonica and
elsewhere they stirred up the inhabitants against the Christian missionaries.
Their methods were so shameful and their enmity so bitter, that Paul saw in
their conduct a sort of concentration of the spirit of evil. In his view, they
were wholly ripe for judgment: the wrath had come upon them to the full (ἔφθασεν
ἡ ὀργὴ εἰς τὸ τέλος). Everything seemed to await the direct intervention of God.
Of course there were other elements in his experience which helped to quicken St
Paul’s expectation of the Parousia, as we shall discover in chap. iii. The
position under review, however, is absolutely true to the prophetic standpoint.
For to the minds of the prophets the rapid development of spiritual forces in
any direction seemed to presage the Day of the Lord. At the same time, it is
important to note that this Christian adaptation of the prophetic outlook is
largely confined to the predominantly missionary Epistles. It is much less
marked, for example, in the letters to Corinth, where the apostle has to deal
with a quick-witted, argumentative community, who have intellectual difficulties
on eschatological questions such as the Resurrection.1 [Note: We do not ignore
such passages as1 Corinthians 7:25-31.] No doubt the Macedonians were a simpler
people, and St Paul finds it fitting to set the events of the End before them by
the help of impressive imagery. Probably in this direction rather than in that
of a development of the apostle’s views, we may look for an explanation of the
diversity in his presentation of eschatological conceptions.

We have been considering the influence of the Old Testament upon St Paul in one
or two of its aspects, from the side of its Eschatology of the nation. This may
perhaps appear to us of secondary interest, as compared with the final condition
of the individual. All recent discussions of the subject have taught us how we
must approach the Old Testament treatment of immortality and its cognate
conceptions. The best scholars are agreed that not until a late date in the
history of religious thought in Israel did such questions appeal for
discussion.1 [Note: Jeremias suggestively points out that, in the case of the
peoples of the Euphrates valley, “occupation with the claims of this world
absorbed all their religious interest. There is no room for that painful
reflection and philosophising as to the Whence and Whither of the soul, which
was so characteristic of the Egyptian people” (Babylon.-Assyr. Vorstellungen, p.
2).] At the first glance, a fact like this seems to place the religion of which
it is true on a lower level than the faiths of contemporary peoples, which
reveal many highly-developed conceptions of the life after death. But such a
conclusion is by no means warranted. Other elements in the religion must be
taken into account. Thus, in Egypt, as Wiedemann points out, we have “the unique
spectacle of one of the most elaborate forms of the doctrine of immortality side
by side with the most elementary conception of higher beings ever formulated by
any people” (Ancient Egyptian Doct. of Immortality, p. 2). That is the precise
converse of the condition of belief in Israel. The prophetic conception of God
is marvellously pure and lofty. He is pre-eminently the Living and the Holy One.
He fills existence as they know it. The supreme question of religion is their
actual attitude towards Him. The enjoyment of His favour, as that was evidenced
by a happy and prosperous life, they regarded as their highest boon. Length of
days and material blessedness were the rewards of righteousness and obedience.
This earthly life was precious as the scene of fellowship with Jehovah. The
dreary, shadowy existence in Sheol2 [Note: Probably the original popular notion
was that of the family grave, as indicated, e.g., by the recurrence of the
phrase, “he was gathered to his fathers.” Gradually there arose the conception
of a “unified realm of shadows,” “the house of meeting for all living” (Job
30:23). See Bertholet, Israelitische Vorstellungen v. Zustand nach d. Tode, p.
18.] meant the privation of that and all other privileges. Only the living could
praise God. The dead were shut out from access to Him in the land of silence.
But as reflection on human life and destiny was deepened, perplexing problems
forced themselves on earnest minds. On the one hand, the trials of righteous
men, and the good fortune of many who were ungodly, undermined the simple and
straightforward theory of religion which had been prevalent. Facts refused to
square with it. Thus there arose the intellectual and moral demand for a future
order of things, in which the apparent inequalities of the present should be
adjusted, in which righteousness should be recompensed and evil visited with
punishment. The reference of this spiritual balancing of accounts to a future
life which was ultimately arrived at, is scarcely enunciated in the Old
Testament, although in the Book of Job and several Psalms most significant hints
and foreshadowings of it are apparent. In the epoch of the canonical writings it
seems still to be assigned to a purified State existing under earthly
conditions, in which the sway of God is supreme. But from another standpoint, a
closer approximation was made to the New Testament conception of immortality. In
various Psalms, notably the sixteenth, the forty-ninth, and the seventy-third,
we find remarkable expressions of confidence in God.1 [Note: We are scarcely
prepared to believe, with Charles, that for the authors ofPsalms 49:1-20; Psalms
73:1-28. Sheol is the future abode of the wicked only, and heaven of the
righteous (Eschatology, pp. 73, 74). They do indeed recognise clearly the
distinction between the righteous and the ungodly, but the emphasis of their
hope is not laid upon the escaping from punishment and the attaining to bliss.
It is the thought of overcoming death, the common lot of men, and the conviction
that their life of fellowship with God will not be interrupted, which buoys up
their souls. The Psalms contain no material for such detailed conceptions as
Charles would derive.] The godly in Old Testament times had reached a
marvellously vivid sense of the Divine fellowship. The full emphasis of their
piety was laid upon this experience. It determined their philosophy of life.1
[Note: Cf. the apt words of Dr Salmond: “It (i.e. the O.T.) deals not with what
man is, but with what he is to God” (Christian Doct. of Immortality, p. 217).]
They possessed a unique sensitiveness to the Divine presence.2 [Note: “The
consciousness of God (in the O.T.) is God’s giving Himself in the consciousness”
(Davidson, H.D.B., i. p. 741).] It was no metaphor in their religion. Now this
intense realisation of the nearness of the spiritual world in the present would
largely account for their slowness in attaining a full-fledged doctrine of
immortality. But it forms also the basis of those yearning utterances in the
Psalms which we have mentioned. As they became more self-conscious, more
introspective, the horror of death grew upon them. The cessation of all
activity, bodily, intellectual, spiritual; the nerveless and phantom-like
existence of the under-world became a grim nightmare. And the deeper their
religious consciousness, the more profoundly they were affected. To conceive of
a state in which they should be isolated from God, in which communion with Him
was impossible-that was the bitterest element in their notion of Sheol.3 [Note:
In the Babylonian religion, “the blessedness of the pious is fellowship with the
gods: abandonment by the gods is the punishment of the wicked.… The certainty of
being snatched from the saving hand of the gods in death is the bitterest drop
in the cup of death” (Jeremias, op. cit. pp. 46, 48).] And so by the sheer force
of their religious vitality they are carried past the current, popular beliefs,
and crave an unbroken union with God. Not only so, but their deepest experience
and their confidence as “covenant members of the theocracy,” assure them of such
a relation. Their forecast of the future may be vague enough, but they refuse to
contemplate an interruption of the Divine fellowship by death. Even if God
cannot abide with them through death, He will by some merciful provision ransom
them from it. This belief is, to all intents and purposes, a belief in
immortality.1 [Note: It may be truly said that when the ideas of “communion with
God” and “life” become synonymous, the religious belief in immortality is
already there. See Schultz, O.T. Theol. (E. Tr.). ii. p. 82.] It is the
inevitable result of their religious development. For “immortality is the
corollary of religion. If there be religion, i.e. if God be, there is
immortality, not of the soul, but of the whole personal being of man, Psalms
16:9” (Davidson, Job, p. 296). It is easy to see how this conviction prepared
the way for the doctrine of the Resurrection on its more spiritual side. There
were, indeed, various influences which led to the formation of this great
conception. Some of these will come before us in our brief survey of the
eschatological development of Judaism, and among them will be found several
elements which do not possess a directly religious value. For there is possible
a view of the Resurrection which leaves it little more than a piece of
eschatological scenery. Such was not the conception which takes a central place
in the teaching of St Paul. It touched his religious life in its deepest
essence, communion of life with the risen Christ. But that experience upon which
all his hopes of the future were based, is really the crowning development of
the remarkable conviction which finds expression in the Old Testament psalm: “I
have set the Lord always before me: because He is at my right hand, I shall not
be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth: my flesh also
shall dwell in safety. For Thou wilt not leave my soul to Sheol; neither wilt
Thou suffer thy godly (or beloved) one to see the pit” (Psalms 16:8-10).1 [Note:
The sense of vagueness of which we are conscious in the utterances of the
above-quoted Psalms, is due to the fact that the eternal fellowship with God to
which they point is conceived not so much post-temporally, as rather
super-temporally. See Kleinert, S.K., 1895, p. 726.]

Perhaps enough has been said to indicate generally the lines on which both the
direct and the indirect influence of Old Testament conceptions of the Last
Things upon the mind and speculation of St Paul may be expected to reveal
themselves. Separate details will frequently demand consideration in subsequent
chapters. One caution, however, ought to be noted before we pass from this
subject. There can be little doubt that St Paul, as we shall try to show later,
was powerfully influenced by the apostolic tradition of the eschatological
teaching of Jesus. This is revealed, for example, with remarkable clearness in
those passages which we have singled out as intimately related to the prophetic
teaching. The most striking instance is to be found in 2 Thessalonians 2:1-17.
The parallels between that chapter and the discourse of Jesus on the Last
Things, as reported in Matthew 24:1-51 (and parallels), are unmistakable. Cf.2
Thessalonians 2:1 with Matthew 24:31; Matthew 2:2 with 24:6, 2:3 with 24:12, 4,
2:4 with 24:15, 2:9 with 24:24. It is no exaggeration to say that Matthew
24:1-51 is the most instructive commentary on the chapter before us. It may be
difficult to determine in what form this material lay before St Paul, but it is
impossible to resist the conclusion that he was familiar with it.1 [Note: The
curious position has been assumed (e.g. by Bousset), thatMatthew 24:1-51is to be
explained by2 Thessalonians 2:1-17(see The Antichrist Legend, p. 23). This is
surely one of the paradoxes of New Testament criticism.] No doubt the
eschatological utterances of Jesus must have constituted a prominent element in
the apostolic preaching and instruction. Perhaps no portion of the tradition of
His ministry would appeal so powerfully to Christian circles, at a time when to
believers the end of the age seemed imminent. Thus there is always the possible
hypothesis that St Paul availed himself of the conceptions and the imagery of
Old Testament Eschatology partly through the medium of the sayings of Jesus. But
many of his applications of the earlier ideas are so distinctive, that we may
safely attribute them to a patient and careful study of prophets and psalmists
in the Greek version of the Old Testament. We lay stress on the version because,
to an extent not yet sufficiently recognised, the thought of St Paul, and not
merely his language, has been profoundly moulded by the LXX. Perhaps this is
most apparent in a noteworthy subdivision of his eschatological speculation; we
mean, the psychology which lies at its foundation. In the strictest sense,
indeed, the apostle has no system of psychology.2 [Note: This holds good of the
Biblical writers as a whole. As Dr Davidson expressed it, Biblical “Psychology”
is a part of its ethics. It is not a physiology of the mind.] And it is vain to
attempt to construct one.3 [Note: An example may be found in Simon’s Psychologie
d. Ap. Paulus, Göttingen, 1897. Simon approaches the Epistles from a definite,
philosophical standpoint, and uses their material in accordance with his
psychological scheme. The discussion sheds little new light on the thought of
the apostle.] But he was deeply interested in the mental and spiritual basis of
religious experience. He was obliged to reflect on those functions of the inner
life of man to which Divine influences attached themselves. He is in no sense
scientific in his use of psychological terms. And if we presuppose or expect a
rigorous terminology, we shall often miss his meaning. But he must employ an
analysis of the religious consciousness, and his usage is closely related to the
Old Testament, especially as it is interpreted by its Greek translators. In
treating of St Paul’s fundamental conceptions of the Last Things, we shall
require to examine his use of such important terms as ψυχή, πνεῦμα, νοῦς, and
others; and in order to appreciate the special aspects under which he views
their content, it will be always needful to keep in touch with the Old
Testament, bearing in mind that the apostle has used, for the most part, the
Septuagint translation. It seems to us fairly clear that Hellenic and even
Hellenistic influences play a small part in his psychological conceptions as
compared with the tradition of the Old Testament, slightly modified by its
adaptation to a Greek terminology.

We have already emphasised the fact, that at times the influence of the Old
Testament upon St Paul’s eschatological thought must probably be conceived as
mediated by the teaching of Jesus. A similar hypothesis might be put forward, as
we bring within our view another great epoch of religious thought with which the
apostle stood in close contact, namely that of Judaism. It may be difficult to
decide how far Judaism was a direct channel of Old Testament influence for St
Paul. And the question is really of little importance. But it immediately
touches our investigation to inquire to what extent the apostle was affected by
the conceptions of the Last Things current among his contemporaries.1 [Note: The
discussion of this subject in Thackeray’s Relation of St Paul to Contemporary
Jewish Thought (London, 1900), pp. 98-135, is rather a collection of notes than
a coherent investigation. The truth is, that Judaistic influences cannot be
treated in severance from the other elements in the Eschatology of the apostle.]
It is reasonable to expect that the atmosphere in which he was trained must have
had a permanent meaning for his thinking.2 [Note: Dr Bruce appears to us to have
overstated the truth when he says: “On no subject, perhaps, was Paul, in his way
of thinking, more a man of his time than on that of Eschatology” (Expos., iv.
10. p. 300). This applies almost exclusively to the framework. The spirit and
central principles of his eschatological conceptions were totally divergent from
those of Pharisaism. We are all men of our time as regards the drapery in which
we clothe our ideas of the Last Things.] The profoundest spiritual genius is, to
some degree, a product of his surroundings. That fact in no sense collides with
a genuine inspiration. For the Divine Spirit never works, so far as His
operations are disclosed to us, independently of human thought. The highest
spiritual truth must ever resemble a gem in a setting (cf.2 Corinthians 4:7).
The setting cannot possess the same worth as the precious jewel it encloses, yet
without it the jewel would be lost, or damaged, or prevented from being worn. We
know with some accuracy the nature of St Paul’s environment. He was educated as
a Pharisee. The Rabbi at whose feet he sat as a pupil was Gamaliel, the first of
the seven famous teachers who were distinguished by the title Rabban (“our
Master”), and grandson of the celebrated Hillel. It would be unwise to lay too
much stress on Gamaliel’s personal idiosyncrasies, in estimating his influence
on Paul. Tradition tells us that he was versed in Greek literature, an uncommon
accomplishment for a Pharisee. This is borne out, perhaps, by the account of his
tolerant attitude towards the Christians in the book of Acts, an account
suspected by Baur on the ground of the persecuting zeal displayed by his pupil.
A judgment of this kind reveals the dangers to which the critic is exposed in
endeavouring to trace the influence of one mind upon another. It is much easier
to tabulate probable points of contact under certain definite headings, than to
follow out those subtle hints of shaping forces which are the truest indications
of indebtedness of thought. It is possible that, under Gamaliel’s tuition, St
Paul may have moved in a larger air than some of his contemporaries. But at
best, there was a Pharisaic tradition which would be normative for his earlier
theology.

It has been pointed out on a preceding page (p. 49), that the apostle goes back
to Daniel for many features in one, at least, of his eschatological pictures.
But Daniel belongs to a class of writings which had gained a great vogue in the
time of our Lord, and long before that. Jewish apocalyptic literature is a
species of the genus prophecy. It is by no means accidental that its products
did not appear until after the era of the great prophets. A profound and
inspiring religious literature must necessarily be the result of an intense and
far-reaching spiritual movement in a nation or community. It is a spontaneous
creation. It is the expression of a new kindling of spiritual intuition. It
endures as a commanding type. But after the movement has done its work, after
its vital energy has been diffused, there usually follows a period of greater or
less stagnation. There are always earnest minds concerned about the spiritual
prosperity of their time, and they attempt, by a process of reflection, to tread
in the footsteps of their predecessors. They have a model to imitate. They can
copy the phrases, and to some extent, the thoughts of the former days, but the
inspiration is lacking. We are conscious of an artificiality in the whole
standpoint of the apocalyptic writers. It is prophecy severed from history. The
Old Testament prophets follow the track of movements, beginning to reveal
themselves in the present, out into the future, interpreting the development by
their insight into the eternal moral principles of the Divine operation, which
they have gained by their experience of history and their fellowship with God.
The apocalyptic writers turn the history of the past and present into prophecy,
by mechanical methods. This they place in the mouth of some seer of the bygone
ages, Enoch, or Moses, or Baruch. They recognise the doleful experiences of
their own people. They are sadly conscious of their present prostration as a
nation. Their political life is gone. They are only a downtrodden religious
community. As individuals, also, they are exposed to suffering, in spite of
their acknowledgment of the true God. Yet amidst all their depression, the
amazing characteristic which has been a permanent possession of this indomitable
people, comes to the rescue and asserts itself. Their hopefulness cannot be
quenched. To the ancient seers of the Apocalypses has been granted a glimpse
into the age-long development of the secret purposes of God. The calamitous
experiences of this present world, in which righteousness seems to be crushed
and godlessness to triumph, are not the conclusion of the whole matter. In
direct antithesis to this Æon there is the new Æon, “the world to come.” In it
both the righteous community and the righteous individual will be recompensed
according to their deeds. No doubt there is a terrible obverse side to the
coming retribution, for a woeful fate awaits the sinner, and sin is the
transgression of the Divine law. But this apprehension is seldom found in the
earlier Apocalyptists.1 [Note: See Gunkel (in Kautzsch), pp. 338, 339. He
connects with this thought the feelings of St Paul before his conversion.] They
console themselves with the hope of eternal life. The apocalyptic writers, to
use Prof. Charles’s expression, really present “a Semitic philosophy of
religion” (Book of Enoch, p. 23). Thus righteous individuals can find comfort in
the knowledge that their trials are only part of a universal plan of God.2
[Note: See Gunkel, op. cit., p. 357. Bousset, Offenbarung Johannis (Meyer, 5),
p. 5, has the interesting suggestion that the Judaistic conception of the world
“as a unified whole, developing according to definite laws, was derived by
Judaism from the outlook presented to it through its historical experience by
the arising of the inwardly-unified world-power and civilisation of Greece. At
the moment when Judaism, which had again wakened up to national consciousness,
met the dominant power of Greece, there arose with Daniel Jewish Apocalyptic.”
This idea has to be modified by the recollection that the Jewish conception of
God in its ethical and spiritual transcendence was bound to lead up to a unified
view of the world. This would be the main factor: the influence to which Bousset
refers could be only secondary. And a further secondary motive in the advance to
this position must have been the effect upon the mental outlook of the Jews of
their dispersion among the nations.] In the new epoch, which will be inaugurated
by a stern crisis of judgment, the enemies of Israel and of God will be
destroyed or subjugated. God will vindicate Himself and His people. Evil will be
extirpated. The sovereignty will belong to the righteous. The End will be
brought back into the likeness of the beginning, when “God saw everything that
He had made, and behold it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). Obviously, in this
view of the future, a view which was promulgated with enthusiasm, there is a
mingling of political with religious elements. And we know how that combination
remained influential in the later development of the Messianic Hope. It was a
momentous step in the history of religion when Jesus stripped the faith He was
shaping into universal validity of this hampering constituent. St Paul was the
true successor of his Lord when, in nascent Christianity, he gave the deathblow
to all thoughts of a national prerogative.

It is important to notice that, in apocalyptic literature, the pictures of the
Last Things have become far more detailed. The judgment, the torments and
destruction of the wicked, the bliss of the righteous-all these are portrayed in
forcible colours, and with a bewildering variety of images which are often
fantastic and grotesque. And now, for the first time, a conception of vital
import is added to Jewish Eschatology. The Resurrection begins to occupy a fixed
place among the events of the final period of transition. Probably the actual
conception originated directly in the consciousness that the future purified
theocracy, the earnestly-desired Messianic Kingdom would be incomplete, were it
not to include those godly members of the nation who had not survived to see it
established. Such a feeling would be intensified by the events of the cruel
persecutions under tyrants like Antiochus Epiphanes. Some of the noblest
representatives of Judaism had perished as martyrs. It was impossible to believe
that they could never have a share in the glory of their nation, for whose
redemption they had suffered.1 [Note: “Tacitus remarks that the Jews only
attributed immortality to the souls of those who died in combats or punishments”
(Renan, L’Antechrist, p. 467, quoting Hist. v. 5). Can this dictum of the
historian have any connection with the view in the text?] Must not God Himself,
by the exercise of His almighty power, deliver them from Sheol, and restore them
to a life of felicity among their brethren? Thus the idea of resurrection is
prepared for by their confidence in the Divine retribution.2 [Note: Cf. Cheyne
onIsaiah 26:19. Plato also regards the ideas of retribution and immortality as
involved in each other. See Zeller, Plato, p. 408.] We can see the originally
intimate connection between the hope of Resurrection and the Messianic Hope. It
was at a later date, when the reign of Messiah was regarded as preliminary to
the final Æon, that the two expectations became separated.3 [Note: See Schürer,
H.J.P., ii. 2. pp. 175, 176.]

It must not, however, be supposed that this far-reaching conception would be
attained along any single line of reasoning or belief.4 [Note: Gunkel (Schöpfung
und Chaos, p. 291, note 2) apparently believes that the emergence of the
Resurrection-doctrine in Judaism is due to Babylonian influences. Stave (Ueber
d. Einfluss d. Parsismus auf d. Judenthum, p. 203) finds traces of indirect
Persian influence. “Precisely the circumstance that the doctrine of resurrection
occurs in close union with an apocalyptic view of the world, which has a
noteworthy connection with Parsism, leads to this conclusion. In this general
apocalyptic view, there are several features which more than prove … Persian
influence. To these belong the universal-historical survey of history, its
periods and their restriction to a definite space of time, which ultimately
issues in the doctrine of a real world-renewal: the development of the power of
evil spirits … and their defeat at the last judgment, and finally the doctrine
of the beginning of future retribution in Sheol, transferred to Hell, from which
resulted the separation of the ungodly from the pious immediately after death.”
It seems to us that there is little need to have recourse to these extraneous
influences for the explanation of the Resurrection-idea. As parallel religious
phenomena they are of high interest and value, for they reveal a persistent
trend of human thought in the spiritual domain. It is more reasonable to look
for the origins of such a conception in the spiritual experience of Judaism
itself. It would be absurd to deny the contact between Judaism, on the one hand,
and Babylonian and Persian influences on the other, and the cosmological strain
which appears in the former may, at least, be partly due to Persian stimulus
(see Bousset, Religion d. Judenthums, p. 478), but epoch-making conceptions like
the one before us cannot be interchanged like counters. They rather presuppose a
gradual growth from roots fixed deep in the soil of the religious consciousness.
That such presuppositions existed in Judaism we hope to have shown in the text.
See also Bertholet, Vorstellungen v. d. Zustand n. d. Tode, p. 27; Böklen,
Verwandtschaft d. jüd.-christ. mit d. parsisch. Eschatologie, pp. 147-149.] We
have seen how some of the psalmists uttered a religious protest against the
thought of separation from the living God. It may be difficult to discover
whether they had a definite idea of resurrection: in any case, they groped
eagerly after it. We have also to keep in mind the individualistic trend of
religious thought which had revealed itself from the days of Jeremiah onwards,
and was propagated by the influence of the Diaspora. While the righteous State
or community still occupied the foreground, the individuals who composed it
could never again be ignored. Hence, in the pseudepigraphal literature of
Judaism anterior to and contemporary with St Paul, the fates of godly and
ungodly persons in the future world have become a favourite subject of
discussion. Participation in that eternal life which is attained through the
Resurrection, and exclusion from it, are themes which now stand in the forefront
of Jewish theology.

We need not attempt, within the space of a few pages, to give any adequate
sketch of the eschatological conceptions of Judaism. This for obvious reasons.
On the one hand, Eschatology may be said to form the main content of a whole
branch, and that perhaps the most important branch, of later Jewish literature,
the apocalyptic. On the other, there are so many modifications of the leading
conceptions, and these are so frequently presented in a highly pictorial guise,
that they could not be summed up under a few general headings. When treating of
St Paul’s conceptions in detail, we shall have occasion to discuss their
parallels in Judaism. All that can be done at present is to state in a few
paragraphs the main categories with which the apostle, from his early training,
must have been acquainted. In endeavouring to sketch even the fundamental
positions of Judaistic Eschatology, one is perplexed by the confusing nature of
the facts which have to be dealt with. It is impossible to assign a definite
eschatological standpoint to many of the writings, as in certain very important
instances, such as the Ethiopic Enoch and the Apocalypse of Baruch, there are
sections which proceed from various hands and belong to different dates. To add
to the complication, leading scholars are by no means agreed as to the dividing
lines between these various sections. As an example, we may refer to the
divergent theories described on pp. 9-20 of Prof. Charles’s Book of Enoch. Not
only so, but again and again the same writer shows an elasticity in his
conceptions of the Last Things which seems to make classification impossible.1
[Note: Cf., for example, the wide variation in the significations ofòåÉìÈí
çÇáÌÈà, as described by Cheyne, of Psalter, p. 414; Castelli, .Q.R., i. p. 320.]
This is altogether natural in such a province of thought. We shall find that, to
some extent, it holds good for St Paul himself. But it imposes the necessity of
extreme caution in any attempt to construct from the extant literature the
current eschatological doctrines of Judaism. Even so able an investigator as
Prof. Charles has, in our judgment, not always avoided the danger of making
affirmations which are too definite, in stating the positions occupied by
individual apocalyptic writers. We must content ourselves here with somewhat
broad generalisations. The chief differences between the Eschatology of the Old
Testament, if we may apply that name to a group of dim surmises and vague
yearnings, and that of Judaism (and to these we mainly confine ourselves), seem
to be due to the developments of the doctrine of a Divine retribution.1 [Note:
“Already in the Exhortations of Enoch (chaps. xci.-civ.), the belief of
retribution in the future has become the shibboleth of the pious. The ungodly
receive a new distinguishing mark: they become the deniers of retribution after
death, deniers of judgment, and consequently blasphemers and representatives of
an Epicurean worldliness. In the opening chapters of Wisdom … the conception of
judgment forms the essential distinction between the pious and the ungodly”
(Bousset, Religion d. Judenthums, p. 174). It is interesting to note the
extraordinary emphasis laid upon the idea of retribution in the Christianity of
the second century a.d. See, e.g., Von Engelhardt, Das Christenthum Justins, p.
199: “[For Justin] belief in God means belief in retribution.”] Thought still
wavers as to the scope of this process. Some writers are inclined, at least, to
keep in the forefront the future bliss of Israel as a nation, and the future
woes of her heathen oppressors. But individualism steadily makes its way. And
while in certain books it has reached full maturity, it has left its mark, more
or less, upon all. Hints have already been given as to the causes which have
brought the idea of future retribution into so marked a prominence. The
phenomenon reveals a quickened sense of the moral order of the universe, backed
up by an undying confidence in the Divine purpose for Israel. Separate thinkers,
no doubt, would reach the conception in its clearness entirely along the line of
reflection on the hard problems of personal life. The godly, whose lot here is
one of suffering and sorrow, must some day reap the fruit of their devotion to
righteousness. The sinners, who enjoy an unaccountable prosperity on earth, must
ultimately pay the penalty for their disobedience. Parallel to this development
of the conception would be the other, already manifest enough in the prophets,
as we have seen, which was determined by the fortunes of Israel. So far as the
present order of things could be judged, their situation was one of paralysing
hopelessness. They had been trodden down by heathen foes. They had had to submit
to a foreign tyranny. Where was Jehovah, the God of Zion? And then, at the
moment when all seemed lost, God had interposed. The victories of the Maccabæan
rising kindled new hopes. There was still to be a future for God’s chosen
people. Signs were dawning of a new era. The day was hastening on when they
should be vindicated before all nations, when their oppressors should be
overwhelmed with awful judgments. Thus the developed conviction of Divine
retribution took a pre-eminent place in their religious thought. Perhaps we may
say that the two great eschatological results of the doctrine were: (1) the
transformation of the old idea of Sheol, (2) the Resurrection from Sheol. These
came to be linked with the Advent of Messiah, the final Judgment, and the Future
State both of righteous and of sinners. In attempting to trace the history of
those developments, we must bear in mind that the literature with which we are
dealing stretches, roughly speaking, from about 200 b.c. to 100 a.d. During this
period there must have arisen various alterations in feeling.1 [Note: For the
vagueness of the Messianic Hope during this epoch, see Drummond, Jewish Messiah,
p. 199 ff.] For after the glorious revival of the early Maccabæan age there came
that era of decline which ended, after some discreditable episodes, in the
submission of the Jews to the hated yoke of Rome. Naturally, therefore, in
writings belonging to the latter part of the epoch with which we are concerned,
we shall find the centre of interest transferred from the nation to the
individual, for there are now national and antinational parties within Judaism,
and the bliss of the End is reserved for those who have remained true to the God
of their fathers. As it happens, the writings we possess spring chiefly from the
Pharisaic school. Their thoughts all circle around the Messianic Hope, however
variously they may conceive of its realisation. The majority of the writers
belong to the Quietist wing of the sect, and that standpoint, of course,
regulates their eschatological conceptions.

We have seen that in the Old Testament, Sheol denotes the under-world, the
receptacle of the dead, both righteous and wicked. Its inhabitants possess an
existence which cannot be called “life.” They are excluded from contact with God
and man. No moral distinctions appear to prevail. A striking picture of their
dreary plight is set before us in Isaiah 14:1-32, in a highly dramatic form. But
a change of view begins to be manifest. The currents of thought, which have been
briefly described above, make themselves felt. Thus when we come to examine the
Book of Enoch, in some respects the most influential of all Jewish Apocalypses,
belonging in its earliest sections to the second century b.c., we are confronted
by a remarkable development. Sheol has now become an Intermediate State. All men
enter it at death, but it has a very different significance for various classes.
According to chap. xxii. of this work, assigned by Charles to a date, at the
latest, anterior to 170 b.c., it has four divisions. The first contains the
souls of the righteous who suffered a violent, unmerited death. The second also
is allotted to the righteous, but to such as have escaped the hard fate of their
brethren. The third is for sinners who escaped punishment in this life. “Here
their souls are placed in great pain, till the great day of judgment and
punishment and torture.” The fourth is reserved for sinners who did suffer in
this earthly life, and therefore incur a milder penalty afterwards. “They shall
be with criminals like themselves, but their souls shall not be slain1 [Note:
This “slaying” does not imply annihilation. See Enoch, chap. cviii. 3.] on the
day of judgment.” We have here a more detailed analysis of Sheol as the
Intermediate State than is usually to be found, but it reveals the position
which has been reached by an authoritative thinker at the beginning of the
second century b.c.2 [Note: This is apparently the first occurrence of the idea
of separate compartments in Sheol (cf. Clemen, Niedergefahren zu d. Toten, p.
148). For a fourfold lot in the state after death according to Plato, see
Zeller, Plato, p. 394. Contrast the Rabbinic doctrine of the school of Schammai:
“The Schammaites taught that there were three classes: the first two are those
mentioned inDaniel 12:2; the third, in whose case merits and guilt are balanced,
incur purifying fire, in which those to be purified waver up and down until they
rise out of it purified, according toZechariah 13:9;1 Samuel 2:6. The scholars
of Hillel, however, gather from the words “rich in mercy” (Exodus 34:6), that
God allows the decision for this third class to incline towards mercy: it must
have been with regard to them that David wrotePsalms 116:1-19” (Bacher, Agada d.
Tannaiten, i. p. 18). Almost exactly parallel to this middle state is the
Pehlevi conception of hamîstakân, see Söderblom, La Vie Future a’après le
Mazdéisme, pp. 125-128.] The righteous1 [Note: The idea of Hades as the
provisional abode of the righteous after death is the ordinary Pharisaic one.
See Schwally, Leben n. d. Tode, pp. 166-168.] and one portion of the ungodly
rise to be finally judged. The former (see chap. v. 7-9), after their
resurrection, are, apparently, to live an untroubled life on this earth. The
latter will be condemned to Gehenna, the proper hell, which is thus definitely
separated from Sheol. The other group of sinners remains in Sheol for ever. We
need not expect to find this view reappearing without alteration in other
writings. Indeed, in the remaining sections of Enoch there are important
divergences from it. Thus, in the section embracing chaps. xci.-civ., which
Charles assigns to 134-94 b.c., Sheol appears to be synonymous with Hell.
Probably this arises from the circumstance that in this section the writer (as
so frequently in Judaism) thinks only of a resurrection of the righteous.2
[Note: The expectation of a universal resurrection seems to be taught
distinctly, for the first time, in the Similitudes of Enoch (i.e., chaps.
xxxvii.-lxx.); see especially chap. li. 1-3; and cf. xxxviii. 1, 6; xlv. 1-3;
lxi. 5.] The wicked continue in the condition which they entered after death.
That is a state of misery and condemnation. This writer, however, does not
presuppose a temporary abode of the righteous in the place of woe. He possesses
the conception, which appears repeatedly in Apocalyptic, of certain special
chambers, designated in 4 Ezra promptuaria (e.g., 4:35, 41, 5:37, 7:32, 95),
reserved for the righteous, where they are kept in peace until the final
judgment. The same view is to be found in the Apocalypse of Baruch, chaps. xxi.
23, xxiv. 1, xxx. 2 (where see Charles’s notes). As an instance of the
flexibility of eschatological ideas of Sheol (and the state after death) during
the period under review, we may refer to the Slavonic Enoch,1 [Note: The book,
which is held to be a product of Alexandrian Judaism (see Charles, Eschatology,
pp. 251-253) departs at this point, in any case, from the ordinary position of
Hellenistic Eschatology, which leaves no room for a doctrine of Sheol or an
intermediate state, affirming that souls, at death, receive their final reward
of blessedness or torment. But Bousset has given good ground for asserting that
“a sharp distinction between Alexandrian and Palestinian eschatology does not
exist” (Religion d. Judenthums, p. 260). In case the discussion in the text
should create misconception, it ought to be noted that up to a late period in
apocalyptic literature there are still traces to be found of the idea of a
universal realm of the dead. See especially, Volz, Jüdische Eschatol., p. 289.]
perhaps written in our Lord’s lifetime, in which, to begin with, a portion of
the heavenly region is reserved as the place of final torture for the wicked
(chap. x.). In a later passage, however, the writer speaks (chap. xl. 12) of
seeing “the mighty Hell laid open” in the under-world, the Old Testament Sheol.
Thus the earlier and later notions remain side by side in this apocalypse
without reconciliation, a phenomenon which is characteristic of eschatological
speculation. To sum up on our special question, it may be said with accuracy
that the main current of apocalyptic literature ends by recognising two
contrasted abodes for the righteous and the wicked. The one is Heaven
(occasionally Paradise). The other is Gehenna (sometimes identified with Sheol).
Our conclusion may seem, indeed, at variance with statements already made as to
the hope of a purified theocracy, in which, after the destruction of all their
stubborn heathen foes, God or His representative, the Messiah, should rule from
Zion over a restored Israel and those Gentiles who had submitted to Israel’s
dominion. That prospect shines forth clearly in the prophets. And there are many
reflections of it in the earlier apocalyptic writings. But while, as truly
national, it remains deeply rooted in the popular consciousness, another
tendency of thought grows up beside it. This is the larger outlook, so
noteworthy in Apocalyptic, which is occupied with the coming Æon of glory, as
opposed to the present, with its depression and gloom. As the cleft between them
becomes deeper, the hopes concerning the future grow ever more transcendent. No
doubt we find them blended in strange and bewildering combinations in some of
the writings of Judaism (see Volz, op. cit., p. 2). But gradually the more
spiritual ideas press to the forefront. They fit in with the wider view of the
world and its destiny which is forced upon the Jews by their contact with other
civilisations. Finally the ultimate goal of the world-history assumes a far
larger importance in the apocalyptic writings than the crowning destinies of
Israel. The righteous and the sinners as such come to occupy as prominent a
place as Israel and the heathen. A great extension of categories is manifest.
The redemption of Israel is enlarged into the future bliss of the godly. God’s
judgment upon the foes of the chosen nation becomes the universal judgment in
which each individual receives the verdict of the Judge. Instead of a renewal of
the Holy Land, a renovation of the world is proclaimed. Side by side with the
doctrine of the permanence of the Messianic community stands that of the
permanence of the individual, which finds its chief expression in the conception
of the Resurrection. In this expectation of the new Æon, the coming blessedness
assigned in the earlier period to Palestine and Jerusalem is associated with
Heaven, the future dwelling-place of the saints of God. Of course, all the
forces which will constitute the coming Æon are already in existence. The
supra-mundane order of things and the heavenly world have existed from eternity.
As yet that world is veiled, concealed. The main function of the Apocalypses is
to penetrate its secrets, to unfold its mysteries. Hence the supra-mundane
position of God, His transcendence, and that of all those conditions which await
His servants, assert themselves with growing persistence in Apocalyptic.
Sometimes it is difficult to determine how far the nationalistic hope
preponderates, and how far the transcendental. In 4 Ezra, e.g., the national and
universal Eschatologies are found in close conjunction. But the interesting
phenomenon may be noted that the doctrine of Chiliasm, the earthly reign of
Messiah for a thousand years, is, in its origin, due to the attempt to harmonise
the earlier and the later groups of ideas. It is, as Gunkel tersely expresses
it, “a compromise between the ancient hope of the prophets which belongs to this
world, and the modern, Jewish transcendental hope” (on 4 Ezra 7:28, in
Kautzsch). The intermediate, Messianic kingdom becomes the scene for the
realisation of those earthly blessings so long held in prospect. The great
Judgment and the Resurrection of the dead usher in the final epoch.1 [Note: See,
e.g., Volz, op. cit., pp. 62-67.] Hence, when the world is spoken of within the
circle of ideas occupied with the coming Æon, it is the world as renewed, the
“new heaven and new earth.” In close correspondence with the widening cleft
between the two types of eschatological expectation described above, and the
growing predominance of the more spiritual conception of the new Æon
(עוֹלָםהַבָּא), is to be found the emergence into clearer view and more
authoritative position of the momentous doctrine of the Resurrection.

We have seen how several psalmists passionately demand a continuance of
fellowship with God in defiance of death. Probably their strongest expressions
rather imply a miraculous deliverance from death than that which we mean by a
resurrection. The idea may have assumed clearer shape under the pressure of the
terrible experiences of persecution in the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes. In
Isaiah 26:19 (belonging to a section of the book, chaps. 24-27, which most
scholars hold to be post-exilic), there is a remarkable utterance, which forms a
kind of link between the cravings of Job and the Psalms, and the developed
theory of Judaism. Its expressions, indeed, are not isolated. The way has been
prepared for them by imagery like that of Hosea 6:2, and (more emphatically)
Ezekiel 37:1-28. Here, it seems to be the nation, returned to its desolated
land, that is speaking. “Thy dead” (as if addressing the land) “shall live: my
dead body shall arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is a
dew of lights, and the earth shall bring forth (to life) the shades.” This bold
assertion is doubtless born of the conviction that God’s purpose for the remnant
of His people is incomplete, if those who perished in the downfall of the
nation, and those whose graves had been left behind in the land of exile, have
no share in the final restoration. It is of great significance to trace the
leadings of the Divine Spirit in the human consciousness towards the attainment
of this remarkable resurrection-hope. It is the claim of the people upon their
God. And that continues to be the dominant motive in the formation of the
conception. After a further period of depression under the Seleucidæ, the
Maccabæan rising, as we have noted, again kindles glad expectations. And the
demand that those who have died as martyrs for their faith should not be
excluded from the felicity of their people, takes this unique shape.

It is very difficult to make definite statements as to the precise scope of the
Resurrection in the view of the apocalyptic writers. Professor Charles, whose
authority in this department is universally acknowledged, affirms, in a note on
Enoch li. 1, that “no Jewish book except 4 Ezra teaches indubitably the doctrine
of a general resurrection, and this may be due to Christian influence.”1 [Note:
Bousset boldly declares: “We ought at least to say that the Jewish conception of
resurrection has developed under the influence of Eranian Apocalyptic into the
universal conception of a general resurrection and the world-judgment” (Religion
d. Judenthums, p. 480). In our judgment, this statement can neither be affirmed
nor denied. For lack of sufficient evidence, the question must be left open. But
we are inclined to agree with Söderblom (La Vie Future d’après le Mazdéisme, pp.
316-318) in holding that such a hypothesis is not necessary. There are elements,
that is to say, in Judaism itself, containing the germs of the development in
question. The conception of a final transcendent Divine retribution for the
individual, combined with the earlier prophetic idea of the Messianic judgment,
as it must often have been, would necessarily give rise to the picture of the
world-judgment, in which the ultimate fates of men are decided. With a view to
this event, there must be a universal resurrection.] “The whole history of
Jewish thought,” he asserts, “points in an opposite direction.” No doubt there
is much truth in the latter statement, but, unless we are permitted to read a
great deal between the lines, it is precarious to dogmatise upon the question.
Dr Charles himself admits that a resurrection of all Israel is assumed, e.g., in
Daniel 12:2; Enoch 37-70, 83-90, etc.; 2Ma 7:1-42; 2Ma 12:43-44; Apoc. Bar.
l.-li. 6 (see his notes on Enoch li. 1). If that be so (although we are not
quite convinced of it), it will require great caution to distinguish in several
of the places quoted between a general and an Israelitish resurrection. But it
may be frankly acknowledged that the more comprehensive view was, at least, very
limited. Many passages plainly pre-suppose that only the God-fearing will enjoy
the high privilege of resurrection. That is to be expected, when we recall the
religious basis of the doctrine. And it is natural that members of the chosen
community should exhaust the category of the righteous, as, for the writers of
that period, in the narrowest sense, salvation was of the Jews. As examples of
the restriction in question, we may quote Psalms of Solomon 3:13-16: “The
destruction of the sinner is for ever, and he shall not be remembered when He
(i.e. God) visiteth the righteous; this portion of the sinner is for ever. But
they that fear the Lord shall rise to everlasting life, and their life shall no
more fail in the light of the Lord” (cf. 14:6, 15:15); Apoc. Bar. xxx.: “And it
shall come to pass after these things, when the time of the advent of the
Messiah is fulfilled, and He shall return in glory (i.e. to heaven, so Charles,
Ryssel), then all who have fallen asleep in the hope of Him shall rise again.
And it shall come to pass at that time that the treasuries shall be opened in
which is preserved the number of the souls of the righteous, and they shall come
forth.… But the souls of the wicked, when they behold all those things, shall
then waste away the more. For they shall know that their torment has come and
their perdition has arrived.” So Josephus, Ant., xviii. 1 (3), in describing the
views of the Pharisees, states that they hold that for evil souls “an eternal
prison is appointed” (εἱργμὸν ἀίδιον προτίθεσθαι), for the good, “an easy way of
coming to life again” (ῥᾳστώνην τοῦ ἀναβιοῦν). This is probably, in general, the
doctrine current in the Rabbinic literature. Various important passages, quoted
by Weber (Lehren d. Talmud, pp. 372, 373), admit of no other interpretation.
That there were traces of the wider view, however, is shown by a discussion
between Eliezer b. Hyrkanos and Joshua b. Chananja. In an argument on the
Resurrection, Eliezer proved the exclusion of the Sodomites from Genesis 13:3,
while Joshua proved from Psalms 1:5, that “sinners” should rise to judgment, not
indeed in the congregation of the pious, but in that of the impious (Bacher,
Agada d. Tannaiten, i. p. 141; see, on the whole question, Volz, op. cit., pp.
246, 247). It is possible that, as Schwally (Leben nach d. Tode, p. 151) and
others suppose, the resurrection-hope originated rather as a popular belief, and
then, gradually penetrated to the more learned classes. In any case, when the
subject became a matter of reflection and study, thinkers would attempt to
adjust the resurrection-doctrine to their general views of the world and human
life. Accordingly when we come to a book like 4 Ezra, written probably within
the last twenty years of the first century a.d., it is not unreasonable to
expect a wider outlook. This work is peculiarly interesting and important for
our inquiry, as originating probably in the same circle of thought as that in
which St Paul himself had moved, and forming a kind of compendium of
contemporary Judaistic Eschatology (see Gunkel in Kautzsch, p. 348; and Volz,
op. cit., p. 31). Like the apostle, 4 Ezra despises the fantastic, mythological
ideas prevalent in Apocalyptic. He scarcely speculates at all on the fate of
sinners, leaving that, as St Paul does, shrouded in darkness. He is content, at
times, to allow what one might almost call divergent strains of eschatological
theory to remain side by side, without apparent consciousness of their
discrepancy. Speaking generally, it may be said that his horizon is far wider
than that of the earlier apocalyptic writers. And the assertion is exemplified
by his references to the Resurrection. According to his conception, it appears
to be universal. His language is unmistakable. “The earth restores those who
rest in it; the dust sets free those who sleep therein; the chambers yield back
the souls which were entrusted to them. The Highest appears on the Judge’s
throne; then comes the end, and pity passes away; compassion is remote;
longsuffering has disappeared; my judgment alone will remain, truth will stand,
faith will triumph; reward follows after; retribution appears; good deeds awake;
evil ones sleep no longer. There appears the hollow of pain, and opposite, the
place of reviving. The oven of Gehenna becomes manifest, and opposite, the
paradise of blessedness” (4 Ezra 7:32-36).1 [Note: Cf. his many expressions of
dread at the thought of the world-judgment. That presupposes a general
resurrection.]

We have attempted very briefly to trace the main developments of eschatological
doctrine in the thought of Judaism as the immediate background and environment
of St Paul’s mental life. Perhaps enough has been said to indicate the nature of
the conceptions with which the apostle, from his earliest days, must have been
more or less familiar. It ought not to be difficult, when we are dealing with
his separate eschatological ideas, to discover approximately how far he accepted
and how far he modified the traditional theories of his nation. But we must now
turn to that factor whose influence was supreme in shaping the eschatological as
well as every other element in his religious thought, his personal Christian
experience.2 [Note: Holtzmann puts the truth expressively when he says: “It
(i.e., St Paul’s entire system of doctrine, Lehrbegriff) … simply means the
exposition of the content of his conversion, the systematising of the
Christophany” (N.T. Theol., ii. p. 205).] Here we are concerned with one of
those mysterious problems which really elude matter-of-fact discussion. The
conversion of St Paul has a place among the most remarkable events in all
spiritual history. Numerous and ingenious attempts have been made to minimise
its significance, or, at least, to account for it on purely natural grounds.
Great stress, for example, has been laid upon the psychological preparation of
Saul the Pharisee.3 [Note: See, especially, Holsten’s acute discussion, Die
Christus vision d. Paulus in his Zum Evangelium d. Paulus u. Petrus, pp. 2-114.]
The process is conceived on some such lines as these. In the heat of Saul’s
persecuting zeal his mind has been disturbed. Probably before now he has been
tormented, at times, by the consciousness of failure perfectly to keep the
Divine law. And thus he is often uncertain as to his standing before God. He
cannot help contrasting the calm confidence and heroism of the followers of the
crucified Nazarene with his own experiences of inward turmoil. Their demeanour,
their spirit, the triumphant loyalty which does not quail even before
death-these things leave an overpowering impression on his ardent and sensitive
nature. He envies them their firm assurance. It has something unique, something
superhuman about it. His opposing faith begins to tremble. He has gained a
partial knowledge of the history and claims of Jesus from the preaching of the
apostles. As he reflects on these elements in the Christian Gospel, and compares
them with the predictions of the Old Testament, he becomes inwardly less and
less positive concerning his own legal status. At length the crisis comes, when
his whole being has been wrought up to high nervous tension by the scheme he has
undertaken-a scheme by which he strives to hide from himself the doubts which
torture him. “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?” The voice is the echo of his
surging thought and feeling. But it attaches itself to the image of that Figure
which haunts him night and day. He can hold out no longer. The Crucified has
conquered. No doubt there is a measure of truth in such hypotheses. We cannot
conceive a nature like that of St Paul remaining indifferent to the evidences of
Christian certainty of which he was so frequently a witness. Not only so, but
the very words reported in the narrative of his conversion, “It is hard for thee
to kick against the goads,” are full of significance. They show that deep
misgivings concerning his religious position were asserting themselves in his
inmost soul. Plainly (and this is borne out by passages, e.g., like Romans
7:1-25) the painful conviction was pressing itself upon him, that by the deeds
of the law no flesh is justified. And his whole nature craved a right standing
before God. The very fact that he had to defend his position against a
honeycombing doubt, would urge him forward more fiercely than ever as a champion
of Judaism. But there is no evidence to prove that he suspected the real truth
to lie in the direction of the new sect of the Nazarenes. Their position was a
blasphemy against God. Their so-called Messiah had been crucified as a common
criminal. What insolence to see in him the culmination of God’s revelation to
His people! St Paul had been nurtured on the Messianic Hope of Israel. What a
caricature was this of the glorious fulfilment for which devout Jews had
yearned!1 [Note: Beyschlag supposes that St Paul’s antipathy to the claims of
Jesus did not rest on the fact of His shameful death (seeDeuteronomy 21:23: “He
that is hanged is the curse of God,” applied by St Paul to Christ inGalatians
3:13), but was the result of their opposite conceptions ofδικαιοσύνη παρὰ
θεῷ(S.K., 1864, pp. 245-247). It is very probable that this last consideration
should be included. But it appears to us that the total inversion of the Jewish
conception of Messiah and His work in the life and experiences of Jesus,
culminating in the disgrace of the Cross, must have been the decisive factor in
leading Saul the Pharisee to despise and thwart, with all his might, the
Messianic faith of the first Christians. The passages quoted above corroborate
this view.] They spoke, indeed, of a resurrection of Jesus, their Messiah,1
[Note: This notion also had nothing to correspond to it in the beliefs of
Judaism (see Teichmann, Paulin. Vorstellungen v. Auferst. u. Gericht, p. 34).]
but no one had seen Him save some of their own company. The young Pharisee was
far from being at peace within himself. Yet he would never dream of expecting to
find it among the deluded rabble whom he was hounding to their death.

Then his life was suddenly cleft in twain. It would be absurd to look for a
perfectly clear or detailed account of an experience like this. The immediate
effect of it, both on the mind and the whole sensory system, would be far too
overwhelming to admit of any explicit analysis of the circumstances. But the
accounts in Acts seem to show a remarkable agreement with the brief references
in the Pauline Epistles. The definite points are these. In 1 Corinthians 15:8 he
makes no distinction between his own “sight” of Jesus and that of the other
apostles to whom He showed Himself after His resurrection: ἔσχατον δὲ πάντων …
ὤφθη κἀμοί. It is worth while noting that the word used here for His “appearing”
(ὤφθη) occurs in one of the strongest passages bearing on the Resurrection, Luke
24:34 : “The Lord has really risen and appeared to Simon.” Similarly in 1
Corinthians 9:1 : “Have not I seen (ἑόρακα) Jesus our Lord?” In striking accord
with these passages, the accounts of the incident in Acts do not describe it as
a “vision,” although this idea was perfectly familiar to the historian. For he
tells of a vision (ὅραμα) which appeared to Paul at Troas (16:9); of another at
Corinth (εἶπεν … ὁ κύριος ἐν νυκτὶ διʼ ὁράματος τῷ Παύλῳ, 18:9). He speaks of
the apostle as being ἐν ἐκστάσει in the temple at Jerusalem, and seeing the Lord
(22:17, 18). Also, he describes the knowledge which Ananias of Damascus received
concerning Paul as given ἐν ὁράματι. We quote these instances simply to show
that for the writer of Acts there was a distinction between St Paul’s first
experience of the risen Jesus and some other experiences which came later. As we
shall see in a moment, the reports on which he based his narrative agreed in
relating a phenomenon perceived by his senses, a light which shone round about
him.1 [Note: Chap. 9:3,περιήστραψεν φῶς; 22:6, περιαστράψαι φῶς; 26:13,
περιλάμψαν … φῶς.] Klöpper (ad loc.) finds a reference to the extraordinary
event in 2 Corinthians 4:6, where the apostle speaks of “the illumination of the
knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (φωτισμὸν τῆς γνώσεως τῆς
δόξης τοὺ θεοῦ ἐν προσώπῳ Χριστοῦ). The concluding words appear to him to
present the outer and objective side of the experience whose inward aspect is
described by the preceding phrase, “who shone in our hearts” (ὃς ἔλαμψεν ἐν ταῖς
καρδίαις ἡμῶν). While we would not lay the stress of any argument on this
passage, Klöpper’s interpretation ought not to be summarily dismissed.2 [Note:
Heinrici refuses to allow such a reference, because he holds, (1) that the
expression of details in the passage is regulated by the quotation of the
creative word (ὁ θεὸς ὁ εἰπών· ἐκ σκότους φῶς λάμψει) in the opening clause, and
(2) that the words “in our hearts” (ἐν ταῖς καρδίαις ἡμῶν) exclude a personal
confession on the part of the apostle (see his notes ad loc.). The latter
objection is by no means valid, for both in the preceding and following verses
it is plain that St Paul has himself chiefly in view, although he invariably
usesᾑμεῖς. Cf. the convincing verses at the beginning of chap. 3. As to the
former, we should have an equal right to assert that the creative word about the
light was introduced just because of its analogy with the experience which the
apostle had in his mind.] Some weight has been attached to the important
expressions in Galatians 1:15 : “When it pleased Him … to reveal His Son in me”
(ἐν ἐμοί), as bringing into prominence the inward nature of the experience. But
Lightfoot (ad loc.) gives excellent reasons for taking this clause in close
connection with the words immediately following, “that I might preach Him,” etc.
(ἵνα εὐαγγελίσωμαι αὐτόν), and understanding “He that called me by His grace” (ὁ
… καλέσας διὰ τῆς χάριτος) as a reference to the actual event on the Damascus
road.

Although there are some variations in the separate accounts of the occurrence as
given in Acts, these do not touch the central phenomena in the experience. The
following facts, at least, stand out in clear relief. (a) A great light from
heaven suddenly shone round about the traveller, as he journeyed. (b) From the
shock of this dazzling appearance, Saul falls prostrate on the ground. (c) He
hears a voice, which he discovers to be that of Jesus, speaking to him in words
which he can understand. The divergences in the narratives relate to his
companions. It is easy to realise how vague and conflicting reports of their
impressions of the event would speedily circulate. In the case of so unique and
mysterious a phenomenon, we have no criteria whereby to estimate their
situation. They saw (ἐθεάσαντο) the light, but no person (μηδένα).1 [Note: Had
the narrator of the story inActs 9:1-43been disposed to embellish his history or
to draw on his imagination, as some critics have suggested, we can scarcely
conceive of his leaving the details in this colourless condition. He had a
magnificent opportunity here of supplementing the tradition.] In Acts 9:7 they
are described as ἀκούοντες … τῆς φωνῆς. In 22:9 we read, τὴν δὲ φωνὴν οὐκἤκουσαν
τοῦ λαλοῦντός μοι. It is possible that this variation, when examined closely,
has real significance. They may have heard a vague sound (φωνῆς, genitive), and
yet not the articulate, intelligible voice (φωνήν, accusative), which fell upon
St Paul’s ear with a definite meaning (see Brugmann, Griechische Grammatik,3 pp.
385, 386).1 [Note: Cf. the incident narrated inJohn 12:28-30.] In any case,
their experience cannot affect St Paul’s part in the event, unless we venture to
assert that all percipient intelligences, when placed in the same situation,
must necessarily be affected in the same manner and degree by some phenomenon
which comes within the field of sensation. This would be a rash position to
adopt, even with reference to those objects for which we can account by
definable natural laws. But it is wholly precarious, when we are concerned with
the mysterious borderland which lies between the physical and the spiritual. A
wise and comprehensive psychology will hesitate to assert, in presence of the
strange variety of evidence which is brought within its ken, what is possible or
impossible in this dimly-lighted region. When we consider the extraordinary
gradations of capacity in human intellects for apprehending different aspects of
scientific or philosophical truth, when we bear in mind the varied stages of
refinement in the sense-perception of separate individuals, it would be, in the
highest degree, hazardous to rule out as incredible an abnormal intensity of
sensitiveness to spiritual forces expressing themselves in forms the most fitted
to achieve their aims. It is, indeed, useless to speculate on the objective
phenomena which came within St Paul’s horizon.2 [Note: Prof. James speaks of
“one form of sensory automatism,” which he calls a photism, an “hallucinatory or
pseudo-hallucinatory” phenomenon. To this class he assigns St Paul’s “vision”
and Constantine’s Cross in the sky (Varieties of Relig. Experience, p. 252). He
quotes several modern instances, but we must confess that we fail to see that
they are, in any sense, valid parallels to the experience of St Paul. The
subjects of these phenomena immediately recognise that they were altogether
mental. Years after, St Paul with the utmost calmness uses Christ’s appearance
to him as a proof of Christ’s “bodily” (i.e., as we shall see = possessing a
spiritual organism) resurrection, and hence also as a proof of the future
“bodily” (in the sense already described) resurrection of believers. (See also
Beyschlag, S.K., 1864, p. 226.)] But we know with certainty the immediate
inferences which he drew from them. He became absolutely convinced that Christ
was risen from the dead and reigning in glory. These convictions laid so firm a
grasp upon him as to transform his whole life and aspirations. That he himself
regarded the crucial event as more than a spiritual experience, is clear from
the plain, matter-of-fact language which has been quoted above: “Have not I seen
the Lord.” And he uses these terms with the express purpose of vindicating his
apostleship against his detractors, who reduced it to a lower level than that of
the other twelve apostles, partly on the ground that they had seen and known
Jesus, while he had not. There is no trace throughout the epistles of any doubts
thrown upon the occurrence, although no accusation could have been more
conveniently brought against St Paul by his opponents than that his apostolic
status was based upon a mere vision. The truth is, that the epoch-making crisis
in the apostle’s life can only be explained along the lines which he himself has
indicated. In view of the manifold attempts which have been made to prove a
gradual, psychological development, terminating in a remarkable and entirely
subjective experience, it is interesting to note the verdict of so fearless and
unprejudiced a critic as H. J. Holtzmann. “It is certain,” he says, “that the
apostle himself knows nothing of a gradual process, which had led him nearer to
Christianity, but only of a sudden halt to which he was brought in the midst of
an active career. He recognises only an instantaneous transformation, but no
bridge which had conducted him from one bank to the other (Php 3:5-9). He looks
upon himself, in 2 Corinthians 2:14, as a suddenly-subdued rebel, whom God leads
in triumph about the world.… Wholly unassailable, personal testimonies, which
corroborate the essential contents of our narrative (i.e. in Acts) with powerful
demonstration” (Hand-Commentar,3 Bd. i. Abtheil. ii., pp. 70, 71).1 [Note:
Holtzmann notes the number of separate accounts of St Paul’s conversion, a
number without any parallel in the book of Acts, which is to be explained from
the fundamental significance of the event, op. cit., p. 59). Cf. Gunkel
(Wirkungen d. heiligen Geistes bei Paulus,2 p. 75), on St Paul’s conception of
the Christian life as established by a break, by the inroad of the supernatural,
a new thing, i.e., “the Spirit of God.”] But account must also be taken of the
development of St Paul’s Christian experience. This meeting with the risen Jesus
does not remain an isolated event in his history. It forms the starting-point of
a remarkable series of religious phenomena. Henceforward he knows himself to be
in real contact with the exalted Lord. His inner life has been brought into
relation with the Divine πνεῦμα, which is the life-principle in the ascended
Christ. The incoming and indwelling of that πνεῦμα produces a new creation. His
human existence receives a new basis. “Christ liveth in me” (Galatians 2:20 ff.:
perhaps the most crucial passage for his conception of the new life). We dwell
upon this entire experience, because it is of decisive importance for St Paul’s
eschatological conceptions. The Resurrection of Jesus Christ, indeed, may be
described as the foundation of all that is most vital, all that is most central
in the apostle’s view of the Last Things. That tremendous fact is sufficient
proof to Paul of the life beyond death. The risen Christ is the First-fruits of
them that sleep (1 Corinthians 15:20). For those who have fallen asleep in
Jesus, resurrection is a certainty (1 Thessalonians 4:14). And it will take
place on the lines of the resurrection of Jesus (1 Corinthians 6:14).

We believe that the apostle arrived at his conception of the resurrection-body,
the spiritual organism, by reflection on this amazing event in his personal
history. He was convinced that he had met Jesus, and by some marvellous method
the risen Lord had impressed upon him His own objective reality. It was not a
mere inward thrill of his soul, as under some hidden, spiritual influence. It
was the stamp of a personal revelation which was left upon him. It was the same
kind of revelation, in his judgment, as that made to Simon Peter and John and
the rest, after the Resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:4-8). Plainly, they were
thoroughly conscious of a “bodily” presence, and yet it was quite distinct from
His former state, for now He was raised above the ordinary conditions of a
material organism.1 [Note: See some suggestive thoughts in Westcott, Revelation
of the Risen Lord, p. 68; and cf. Forrest, Christ of History, p. 153: “The
temporary union in Him (i.e. the Risen Christ) of two diverse modes of being
will not seem strange to us, if we realise that only by this means could God
assure us that the redemption of Christ was no less the rectification of the
material than of the spiritual universe. Yet it is precisely such an assurance
that is needed to give religious faith a final basis and guarantee, by showing
that it cannot be explained as a psychical hallucination.”] He could manifest
Himself when the doors were shut. He could vanish from their sight in a moment.
St Paul believed his experience to be in line with theirs. Does it not seem
probable, therefore, that he formulated his doctrine of a spiritual “body” as a
direct inference from his wonderful contact with the risen Christ? This
conception would necessarily be corroborated by the subsequent course of his
religious experience. Through faith in the living Lord, he was conscious of
intimate fellowship with Him. This fellowship was mediated by the πνεῦμα.
Occasionally he identifies the πνεῦμα with the living Christ (2 Corinthians
3:17-18; Romans 8:2). Sometimes he speaks of τὸ πνεῦμα τῆς υἱοθεσίας (Romans
8:15), or τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ (Galatians 4:6). Sometimes he ascribes to the Spirit an
independent existence, the Life of God operating upon the life of man in a
personalised activity (e.g., Romans 8:9; Romans 8:14; Romans 8:16; 1 Corinthians
2:10; 1 Corinthians 12:3; Ephesians 4:30et al.). In any case, the πνεῦμα is the
death-conquering principle in Jesus Christ. It was in virtue of the πνεῦμα τῆς
ἁγιωσύνης that He rose from the grave (Romans 1:4). It is this πνεῦμα, which is
His life, that acts directly upon the souls of those who cling to Him in lively
faith (Romans 8:2). They may therefore be said to possess the πνεῦμα (Romans
8:9). And their possession is also the pledge of their victory over death
(Romans 8:23; 2 Corinthians 5:4-5). The flesh perishes, the spirit survives
(Romans 8:10). But it does not lose individuality; that is to say, it bears on
the personality into the glorified life. That personality retains its identity
with its past. The spirit has an “organism” (σῶμα) corresponding to itself (1
Corinthians 15:44 f.). The organism of humiliation (ταπεινώσεως) is changed into
the organism of glory (δόξης), which is the form (σύμμορφον) of Christ’s exalted
life (Php 3:21).

We are also inclined to suppose that the circumstances of St Paul’s experience
of the risen Christ on the Damascus road helped to contribute certain pictorial
elements, if we may so call them, to his conception of the future glorified
life. His conception of δόξα, by which, as we saw in our last paragraph, he
describes the spiritual organism of Christ (σῶμα τῆς δόξης, Php 3:21) is a
highly suggestive one. We must return to it in a future chapter, but it is
necessary at this stage to point out its connection with the apostle’s
impression of the exalted Lord. No doubt the basis of the idea is to be found in
express form in the Old Testament. In ancient Israel, God’s real presence, His
actual self-revelation conceived as living energy, was constantly associated
with His glory (כָּבוֹד). Cf., .g., Exodus 40:34, “The glory of the Lord filled
the Tabernacle”; Ezekiel 1:28, “This was the appearance of the likeness of the
glory of the Lord.” These, and numerous other instances which might be quoted,
present the more material side of the conception, God’s presence, as it were,
revealing itself to the senses. From this aspect of the conception was derived
the notion of the Shekinah, so frequently found in the Targums, .g., Targum on
Isaiah 60:2 : “In thee the Shekinah of the Lord shall dwell, and His glory shall
be revealed upon thee.” The Shekinah is the localised presence of God, . Enoch
xiv. 20: “And the great Glory sat thereon, and His raiment shone more brightly
than the sun.” Hence light radiates from the place of His earthly abode. But the
Old Testament has also a more figurative conception of God’s glory; see, .g.,
Psalms 19:1, “The heavens declare the glory of God,” .e., are a witness to His
omnipotent energy; Psalms 104:31; “The glory of the Lord shall endure for ever,”
.e., His power and authority, as manifested in the universe; Habakkuk 2:14, “The
earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord”; Psalms 63:2,
“To see Thy power and Thy glory.” And there are many instances which seem
capable of being assigned to either aspect, such as Isaiah 40:5, “The glory of
the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together”; Ezekiel 39:21;
“I will set my glory among the heathen”; Isaiah 58:8, “Then shall thy light
break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily; and
thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the Lord shall be thy
rereward.” In close connection with the conception of God’s glory, it must be
borne in mind that is the symbol of salvation in the Old Testament. Hence, in
many post-canonical writings, the life of the blessed is pictured as radiance,
the result of their fellowship with the God whose most characteristic
self-manifestation is conceived as light. See, .g., See, .g., Ps. Sol. 3:16,
“Their (.e., the risen God-fearers) life shall no more fade in the light of the
Lord”; Enoch xxxviii. 4, “The light of the Lord of Spirits is seen on the face
of the holy and righteous and elect”; civ. 2, “Soon ye will shine as the stars
of heaven; ye will shine and ye will be seen.”1 [Note: For numerous additional
examples, see Grill, Untersuchungen über die Entstehung d. vierten Evangeliums
(Tübingen, 1902), i. p. 265.] In the New Testament there are traces of the same
conception, kept, however, within careful limits. St Paul speaks, e.g., of the
“inheritance of the saints in light.” It is quite possible to exaggerate this
and other statements of the apostle in a grossly materialistic direction, as,
e.g., Kabisch has done (passim) in his Eschatologie d. Paulus.1 [Note: For an
excellent caution against literalising the metaphor of light as applied to the
Divine nature and Spirit, see Drummond, Philo, i. pp. 217, 218.] But it would
almost appear as if his experience on the journey to Damascus confirmed or gave
a new meaning to the familiar imagery of the Old Testament for the mind of St
Paul. There, at least, he received the impression of a radiant light shining
about him. And it is probable that when afterwards he attempted to picture the
unseen future of those who should be with Christ, he was led, under the
influence of the supra-earthly manifestation which had burst upon him, to
conceive a condition of glowing brightness, the effulgence of the God of glory
Himself. It would be hazardous to press this conception of δόξα (as we shall
afterwards see), for its Old Testament basis reminds us that its content is apt
to fluctuate between the actual and the figurative; but it is highly probable
that it formed a real element in the thought of the apostle. The recognition of
a foundation for his ideas of the Last Things in his personal Christian
experience, is supremely important in estimating the limits of his Eschatology.
We have already treated of its fragmentary character. We have already observed
that there are certain sides of the subject which he has barely touched.
Probably when we remember the facts of his own history, which were of such
paramount importance in fixing the direction of all his religious thinking, it
will be easier to understand why he has merely alluded to, or even passed by in
silence, some aspects of the question, fraught with far-reaching significance.
Thus, in the light of the circumstances which we have been considering, we can
discover why his utterances on Eschatology are chiefly positive. This is not the
usual trend of modern speculation. Such topics as Eternal Punishment, the fate
of the Lost, the Intermediate State, etc., have called forth the most animated
discussion. St Paul does little to satisfy his reader’s curiosity on such
problems. His letters are addressed to Christian communities. The main interest
for him and for them is the promise of eternal life in Christ. And the certainty
with which he clings to this glorious prospect is founded on the conviction,
reached at the crisis of his history, that Christ has risen, and become the
First-fruits of them that sleep. Hence even such apparently central questions as
that of a general resurrection receive little elucidation on his pages. He looks
out upon the problems of the Last Things, not from a speculative, very seldom
even from a theological, standpoint, almost invariably from that of Christian
faith and experience. And after all, is not this by far the most momentous
aspect of the field to keep in view? The supreme fact which makes Eschatology a
subject of living interest, at least to Christians, is the pledge of immortality
assured through the risen Christ. Men cannot, indeed, refrain from asking
questions concerning the fate of those who have passed away without apparently
laying hold of the mercy of God extended to them in the Redeemer. The processes
of moral retribution press heavily upon human minds. And it is possible to give
the rein to innumerable speculations regarding the future destinies of the world
and its relations to the kingdom of God. Many of those speculations never
appealed to St Paul. Subjects like Conditional Immortality or Eternal Punishment
certainly did not present themselves to his mind in the guise or in the terms
which form the battle-ground of modern discussions. Yet if we endeavour to place
ourselves at his point of view, and to become familiar with the precise
significance of his language, we may at least gain valuable hints as to the
truths involved in such discussions. We emphasise the “point of view” and the
“precise significance of his language,” because St Paul is often cited in modern
books as an authority for views which he would not have understood, as a witness
to theories foreign to his entire method of thought. Keeping in mind, therefore,
that his eschatological ideas are, in the main, of a positive character, as
arising out of his personal contact with the risen Christ, we shall be obliged
in the subsequent chapters to give more ample space to the Eschatology of the
Christian life and the Kingdom of God.

But, before leaving the present phase of our inquiry, there is a further
subdivision of the Formative Influences in St Paul’s conceptions of the Last
Things which we must very briefly notice: the Christian tradition of the
eschatological teaching of Jesus. To discuss this difficult subject with any
degree of fulness, would require a separate volume. It must suffice for our
purpose to endeavour to trace in a few sentences the fundamental parallels
between the thought of the Master and that of His apostle. Both of them make
large use of the terms and ideas current in their time. Both lay the basis of
their Eschatology in the Old Testament revelation. Both of them employ as their
formal starting-point the hopes which possessed the hearts of their
fellow-countrymen. The background and environment of the eschatological teaching
of Jesus, as of Paul, have been outlined in the former part of this chapter. It
remains simply to recognise those transformations of Jewish Eschatology wrought
by Jesus, which Paul assumes as axioms in representing the Last Things both to
himself and to his readers.

It is quite self-evident that, after his conversion, St Paul must have gone back
to the teaching of Jesus as authoritative for the Christian Church. While the
glorified Christ who had appeared to him would always remain the predominantly
normative factor for his religious thought,1 [Note: For the subordination of
interest in the detailed sayings of Jesus and the events of His earthly life to
that in the crucified and risen Messiah, in the early Apostolic Age, see the
remarkable essay of Von Soden, Das Interesse d. apostol. Zeitalters an der
evangel. Geschichte in Theolog. Abhandlungen C. v. Weizsäcker gewidmet, pp.
113-169 (Freiburg i. B., 1892).] we can easily conceive with what eagerness the
apostle, in the light of his new and wonderful experiences, would inquire into
the actual views of God and the world which the Master had set forth in His
earthly career. That through converse with the Twelve and others he became
acquainted with these, is plain from the background of his thinking throughout
the Epistles. The intimate relation of his doctrine to that of Jesus is
sometimes ignored because it does not always appear upon the surface. But a
deeper penetration reveals a remarkable kinship of spiritual ideas.
Comparatively often he directly refers to words of Jesus.2 [Note: See Titius,
pp. 11, 12.] And these references are, no doubt, merely a sample of his practice
in his oral instruction. Numerous important parallels to the sayings of Jesus
may be noted in his ethical teaching.1 [Note: See Titius, pp. 13-15; cf. Von
Soden, op. cit., pp. 127-129.] But more important than these, which may often be
accidental, is the common basis of their central religious conceptions. We can
only call attention to those which seem most decisive for Eschatology. We shall
have occasion to show in a subsequent chapter how, in what may be called the
more “pictorial” conceptions of the Last Things, Jesus, as well as His apostles,
used the current imagery of His time, an imagery which had descended from the
prophets, and was extended, often in grotesque directions, by the apocalyptic
writers, to set forth the great crises of the future, the Parousia and the
Judgment. He spoke with absolute conviction of His own coming, His personal
intervention in the consummation of all things. He proclaimed His place as Judge
in the final decision of human destinies. To express these momentous facts, He
employed the only kind of terms which would convey the lessons He sought to
enforce upon His hearers. As will be clearly seen at a later stage, St Paul was
very directly influenced by the tradition of Jesus’ teaching concerning the
Parousia and Judgment. For the same pictures appear in the Epistles, and the
same elements in the situation are emphasised. For the Parousia, we may quote
the following parallels:2 [Note: See Titius, pp. 15, 16.]Mark 14:62 = Romans
13:11 ff.; Matthew 24:19 ff. = 1 Thessalonians 3:4; 1 Corinthians 7:26; 1
Corinthians 7:28 (preparatory woes); Matthew 24:43 = 1 Thessalonians 5:2;
Matthew 24:31 = 1 Thessalonians 4:15 ff.; Matthew 24:42 = 1 Thessalonians 5:6 f.
On the Judgment, the following are noteworthy: Matthew 25:31-32 = 2 Corinthians
5:10; Matthew 19:28 = 1 Corinthians 6:2; Mark 12:36 = 1 Corinthians 15:25. But
more decisive for St Paul’s relation to the teaching of Jesus are the deeper
elements of his eschatological thought. Two of these we would emphasise: his
conceptions of the basis of the Future Life and the nature of the Future Life.

Again and again Jesus uses the term “Life” (ζωή) to sum up the whole range of
the blessings of salvation which the believer is to inherit. In the Fourth
Gospel the attribute “eternal” (αἰώνιος) is usually added. The objection may be
raised that the prevalence of the epithet in that Gospel is due to the fact that
our Lord’s conceptions have passed through the mind of the writer, who delights
to view the Christian verities sub specie æternitatis, but for whom “eternal”
means primarily that which belongs to the coming Æon, the higher order of
things, and thus is virtually equivalent to “supra-earthly.”1 [Note: See Haupt,
Eschatol. Aussagen Jesu, p. 84 f.] Whether this objection have force or not, it
is plain that in the Synoptic Gospels, where the epithet αἰώνιος occurs very
seldom, ζωή by itself really includes all that is involved in the idea of
“eternal”. This appears even from the ideas with which it is contrasted. These
are ἀπώλεια (Matthew 7:13-14), τὸ πῦρ τὸ αἰώνιον (Matthew 18:8), τὴν γέενναν
(Matthew 18:9; Mark 9:43; Mark 9:46). In Matthew 19:16-17, he answers the phrase
ζωὴν αἰώνιον, spoken by the young ruler, with the simple ζωὴν. This usage had
already existed in Jewish literature, see e.g., Ps.Song of Solomon 14:6, 9:9;
2Ma 7:14 .2 [Note: See Dalman, Worte Jesu, p. 129.] It was not, therefore, the
conception of “Life” (virtually equivalent to participation in the Kingdom of
God) that was new on the lips of Jesus. The difference consisted in the
conditions which He laid down for possessing it; and the spiritual view of the
Kingdom in which it was to be possessed, which He substituted for that of
Judaism. The knowledge of God as the Father, and the fellowship which was the
outcome of that knowledge, constituted the idea of Life for Jesus. In this real
relationship, a sharing in the very life of God, the whole future was embraced.
It was indeed the pledge of immortality. The truth is tersely stated in His
discussion with the Sadducees: “God is not the God of the dead, but of the
living” (Mark 12:27). To be brought into genuine contact with God, to know God
in His actual character, was in itself the assurance of perfected life in
communion with God for ever (cf.John 17:3). This is precisely the position which
is occupied by St Paul. The God who has revealed Himself to him in Christ is
worthy of all confidence. He has “sent forth the spirit of His Son into our
hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Therefore thou art no longer a slave, but a son;
and if a son, then an heir (i.e. of the eternal inheritance) through God”
(Galatians 4:6-7). It is on that fatherly love which has been proved towards him
by the death of Christ (Romans 5:8) that St Paul takes his stand. “I am
convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor
powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any
other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in
Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39). As already a son of God in Christ
Jesus, he possesses the earnest of the Spirit. This is the pledge of completed
redemption in the future. And his confidence is marvellously corroborated by his
actual experience of the risen Christ. He was raised from the dead by the glory
of the Father (Romans 6:4). “Now, if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the
dead dwell in you, He that raised from the dead Christ Jesus shall quicken also
your mortal bodies through His Spirit dwelling within you” (Romans 8:11).

St Paul is also in harmony with his Master on the all-important question of the
nature of the Future Life. Here again we must refer to our Lord’s discussion
with the Sadducees. In a single sentence He describes the condition of the
risen. “When they rise from the dead they neither marry nor are given in
marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven” (Mark 12:25). In Luke it is
given in the following form: “The sons of this age marry and are given in
marriage, but those accounted worthy to attain that (coming) age and the
resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage: nor can they
any more die, for they are like the angels (ἰσάγγελοι), and are sons of God,
being sons of the resurrection” (20:35, 36). That is to say, they possess a
heavenly or spiritual organism, and are conformed to the likeness of God. Jesus
merely hints in these words at the non-earthly nature of the risen life. There
is no trace of the idea, so prevalent in Judaism, that, in the first instance at
least, the dead should be raised in the form in which they had been buried.1
[Note: Cf. Apoc. Bar. l. 2: “For the earth shall then assuredly restore the
dead, which it now receives, in order to preserve them, making no change in
their form, but as it has received, so shall it restore them, and as I delivered
them unto it, so also shall it raise them.” It must be noted, however, that the
final form of the righteous, after their resurrection, is often represented as
angelic. See, e.g., Enoch li. 4; Apoc. Bar. li. 5, 10.] The whole process is
conceived to be of a supra-earthly character.1 [Note: See Haupt, op. cit., pp.
89-92; Feine, Jesus Christus u. Paulus, pp. 181, 182.] The apostle follows the
same lines. Titius has pointed out parallels to or reminiscences of Jesus’
interview with the Sadducees in 1 Corinthians 15:1-58. He compares 1 Corinthians
15:34 with Mark 12:24, and 1 Corinthians 15:33 with Mark 12:24; Mark 12:27. He
regards 15:35 ff. as an illustration of the “power of God” (Mark 12:24). And in
the contrast between χοϊκός and ἐπουράνιος (15:40, 47-49) he finds a
reminiscence of ὡς ἄγγελοι ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς (Mark 12:25).2 [Note: Pp. 15, 16.]
It is easy to recognise the intimate connection between the conception of Jesus
and that of Paul. The “image of the heavenly” (εἰκόνα τοῦ ἐπουρανίου) which
risen believers are to wear in virtue of their σώματα πνευματικά is the precise
equivalent of the ἰσάγγελοι, which is found in Luke 20:36. Both of these ideas
find a fitting expression in the σῶμα τῆς δόξης αὐτοῦ of Php 3:20, which is to
be the transfigured form of the earthly organism. In Jesus and in Paul, as
contrasted with Judaism, the emphasis is laid on heaven, not as a new and
glorious dwelling place, but as a new type of life, the perfected life of God.
In this idea there has been accomplished a transformation of the current
Eschatology.

We have attempted no more than a bare outline of the close kinship between Jesus
and Paul as that can be traced in the two basal conceptions of their
eschatological teaching. Frequent occasions will occur in subsequent chapters of
pointing out the influence of the Master on the apostle.


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  CHAPTER 4: 03. ADDITIONAL NOTE TO CHAPTER II: THE PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY AND HELLENISM
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Additional Note to Chapter II THE PAULINE ESCHATOLOGY AND HELLENISM

Among those influences which in some form or other have contributed to the
shaping of St Paul’s Conceptions of the Last Things, various competent
theologians have included that of Hellenism. And there is nothing in the nature
of the situation to preclude such a possibility. The century in which St Paul
wrote was one famous for the popularising of philosophical doctrines. In all the
chief centres of civilisation throughout the Roman empire, the philosophical
lecturer was a familiar figure. His knowledge was often superficial enough, but
it became a fashion to attend his prelections, and if he proved a lively and
elegant speaker he might count on a large audience. Hence the favourite ideas of
Platonism, of the Stoa, of Epicurus, were in circulation widely. At least, every
person who pretended to be educated must have had a superficial acquaintance
with them. It might be imagined, no doubt, that this condition of popular
thought would not affect the Jews, the members of the Diaspora, found in every
province of the imperial dominions. They were famed for their exclusiveness.
Their one bond of union as a people was their attachment to the religion of
their fathers. They prided themselves on their isolation. But their cosmopolitan
experience began to tell on their nationalistic prejudices. Even around their
own Synagogues, the focus of their life and worship, a fringe of Gentiles had
gathered, attracted by the Jewish Monotheism, which met a strong craving of that
age, and eager to learn more of that purer morality which stood in so sharp a
contrast to their own social environment. Through special circumstances such as
these, and the more vague and general influence of the Zeit-Geist, they were
compelled, however reluctantly,1 [Note: See, e.g., Menzel, Der griech. Einfluss
auf Predigeru. Weisheit Salomos, 1889.] to enlarge their horizon, and admit into
their thought speculations which had sprung from a foreign source.

But there were thinkers here and there who showed no such reluctance, who
yielded themselves cordially to this growing Hellenic influence, who assimilated
the doctrines of Plato and the Stoics so far as loyal Jews could assimilate
them, and in their own fashion bridged the cleft between Judaism and Hellenism.
These writers mainly belonged to the famous school of Alexandria, a stronghold
of Jewish life and influence; their best known representatives are Philo and the
author of the Book of Wisdom. It is impossible for us here to examine Philo’s
Eschatology. But, speaking broadly, it is genuinely Greek in character,
assimilating Platonic influences in the most conspicuous fashion, departing
wholly, for example, from the expectation of a quickening of the complete
personality in a future life. This latter deviation rests on his belief that the
body is entirely antagonistic to the soul. But this antagonism he ascribes, not
to the fact that the body is material, but that it is merely phenomenal, and so
transient, in contrast to the “world of eternal ideas amid which reason lives.”1
[Note: See Drummond, Philo, ii. p. 297.] “It is not possible,” he says, “while
dwelling in the body and the mortal genus, to hold communion with God” (Leg.
Alleg. iii. 14). As might be expected, he spiritualises all the common
eschatological ideas. “The true Hades is the life of the wicked man exposed to
vengeance with uncleansed guilt, obnoxious to every curse” (Congr. Erud. Gr.
11). The death which is his wages is “to live always dying, and to endure, as it
were, death deathless and unending.” It is “to be haunted with unmingled grief
and fear” (Praem. et Poen. 12). The virtuous, on the other hand, shall leave
behind them the strife and necessity and corruption of the lower world, and come
to the Unbegotten and Eternal, the city of God, the mystical Jerusalem which
signifies the vision of peace (Somn. ii. 38; Quis rer. div. her. 58).2 [Note: We
take the translations from Drummond’s invaluable work (ii. pp. 322, 323).] These
extracts suffice to show how completely the spirit of Hellenic philosophy has
penetrated this remarkable Jewish thinker. The same influences assert
themselves, although less prominently, in the Wisdom of Solomon.3 [Note: Its
close connection with the Wisdom-literature of the Old Testament has not been
sufficiently recognised in current discussions. For a similar contact between
Judaism and Greek philosophy, see the marked traces of Stoic influence in the
discourse on the Devout Reason as Mistress of the Desires, in 4 Maccabees.]
Several of the stable elements in Jewish Eschatology remain side by side with
those which are purely Hellenistic, and so irreconcilable positions are held
simultaneously. Thus there appears, e.g., the notion of a Day of Judgment; but
how this is combined with the unquestionable teaching of the book, that the
souls of the righteous, immediately after death, appear in the presence of God
and enter perfect blessedness, there is no indication. In any case, the
conception of immortality is wholly spiritual. This book is of special interest
for our discussion, inasmuch as an intimate relationship has been assumed
between it and St Paul. Indeed, it may be said that the Hellenistic Judaism of
Alexandria has usually been regarded as the main instrument in bringing the
apostle into contact with Hellenism, for we may leave out of account the
far-fetched theory of Teichmann that St Paul became acquainted with Greek ideas
by means of the apocalyptic literature. If this close connection can be
established, it would be reasonable to expect further traces of the effect of
Greek speculation on the apostle’s thinking. An interesting monograph has been
written on the subject by Prof. E. Grafe in Abhandlungen … C. von Weizsäcker
gewidmet. Grafe finds proofs of St Paul’s dependence on Wisdom, not merely in
thought, but even in language. In 1 Corinthians 2:1-16, for example, in
agreement with Pfleiderer (Urchristentum, pp. 161, 257), he compares verses 8,
10, 11 with Wisd. 9:7, 2:9 with 7:28, 2:10 with 7:27, 2:14 with 9:14, 2:15 with
9:11, 2:16 with 9:13 (p. 278). It appears to us, that unless one came to the
passages prepared to find parallels, the correspondences would scarcely appeal
to him. Take, e.g., the famous statement of 1 Corinthians 2:14 : ψυχικὸς δὲ
ἄνθρωπος οὐδέχεται τὰ τοῦ πνεύματος τοῦ θεοῦ· μωρία γὰρ αὐτῷ ἐστιν, καὶ οὐ
δύναται γνῶναι, ὅτι πνευματικῶς ἀνακρίνεται. Its companion passage runs thus:
λογισμοὶ γὰρ θνητῶν δειλοί, καὶ ἐπισφαλεῖς αἱ ἐπίνοιαι ἡμῶν, Wisd. 9:14. It is
hard to see wherein the kinship lies. St Paul’s words refer to a great principle
of the spiritual life: the Wisdom-passage is one of those general maxims with
which the Book of Proverbs has made us familiar. Grafe finds corroboration for
the parallelism in the repeated occurrence of σοφία in 1 Corinthians 2:1-16 and
in chaps. 7 and 9 of Wisdom, with which the comparison is made. But the
apostle’s introduction of σοφία is entirely due to its antithesis, μωρία,
“folly,” the term by which the cultivated Greeks described the preaching of the
Cross. They demand a Gospel which shall be σοφία, suiting their intellectual
presuppositions. St Paul has a σοφία to preach, namely, God’s wonderful
redemptive purpose, whose profound depths can be set before those who are
mature. The σοφία of Wisd. 7 and 9. is identical with that of Proverbs 8:1-36,
the auxiliary of God in creation, that genuine knowledge, that moral insight
personified, which forms the basis of all true life. The Book of Proverbs would
supply an equally relevant parallelism. Grafe identifies the σοφία of St Paul
with the πνεῦμα ἅγιον which occasionally occurs in Wisdom (p. 278). There is
certainly much force in this equation, but the remarkable conception of Proverbs
8:1-36 seems, in our judgment, to approach even nearer the Pauline idea of the
πνεῦμα. In any case, the intimate relation between σοφία and the Divine πνεῦμα
has its roots entirely in the Old Testament, where the Spirit of God is the
principle of all the highest phenomena of moral and intellectual life. Grafe
further points out that the idea of the body as a σκῆνος, tent, for the soul (2
Corinthians 5:1, Wisd. 9:15), “is a fundamental thought of Alexandrian
philosophy.” But our exposition of the Pauline passage reveals the essential
contrast of thought underlying their respective uses of the term. It is strange
to find so careful a student of St Paul as Prof. Grafe asserting (p. 276) that
for the belief in immediate fellowship with Christ after death, “the apostle has
found a conception which helps him in the spiritualistic hope of the
Alexandrians” (he compares Php 1:23 with Wisd. 3:1-3, 6:20). To begin with, the
passage quoted says nothing about immediate fellowship with Christ after death:1
[Note: See chap. v. pp. 272-273.] if it did, the apostle, in accordance with his
central conception of the Resurrection and its accompaniments, must have
conceived it on totally different lines from the “spiritualistic hopes of the
Alexandrians.” But the feature in Paulinism which is supposed to reveal most
plainly the influence of Hellenic thought is his conception of the antithesis
between σάρξ and πνεῦμα. The significance of the antithesis, as our chapter on
the Resurrection shows, lies at the very basis of the profoundest portion of his
Eschatology. If the apostle has shaped his ideas under the guidance of Greek
speculation at this point, it must be admitted that a foreign element has
penetrated deep into his thinking. The question is, Does St Paul hold a
dualistic conception of human nature? Does he believe that matter, flesh (σάρξ)
is essentially evil, that the human consciousness is defiled for the very reason
that it is clothed in a material form? This is asserted, among others, by
Holsten, who finds in St Paul the contrast between the wholly sensual nature of
mortal flesh and the pure essence of the eternal Spirit (see, e.g.,Paulin.
Theol. pp. 80-84); by Holtzmann, who, however, supplies a hint towards the true
understanding of the problem when he says: “Like his ethic,1 [Note: The italics
are ours.] this new (i.e. pneumatic) Eschatology is built upon the Hellenistic
antithesis of flesh and spirit” (N.T. Theol. ii. p. 195); and by Prof. Percy
Gardner, “Put in the form in which it appears in Romans, the doctrine of the
evil flesh is one familiar to students of ancient religion as one of the main
tenets of the mysteries in later Greece” (Historic View, p. 224). What are the
facts? To begin with, St Paul was no metaphysician. We never find in him any
attempt at a theoretical solution of the great problems of the world. True to
his Old Testament basis, his statements about flesh and spirit must be
understood wholly in the light of his own practical relation to God. When we
examine them from that standpoint, it is easy to discover that they are for him
matters of religious experience. His meaning is made plain by such a statement
as that of Romans 8:7 : “The mind of the flesh is hostile to God, for it is not
subjected to the law of God, nor can it be. They that are in the flesh (ἐν
σαρκί) cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit,
inasmuch as (εἴπερ) the Spirit of God dwelleth in you.” This is not metaphysics.
This is a contrast between the actual condition of human nature, untouched by
the Divine power, and the nature as directly influenced from above. It is the
bodily nature, as he has discovered it in himself, continually biassed towards
sin, which he places in antithesis to that Divine, supernatural might, which
alone is able to rescue it from the thraldom of evil. How little ground there is
for attributing to St Paul the metaphysical theory that the flesh is inherently
evil, is evident from such an affirmation as that of Galatians 2:20, “No longer
do I live, but Christ lives in me; but what I at present live in the flesh (ἐν
σαρκί), I live by faith, faith in the Son of God,” etc. The fact of the matter
is that σάρξ may be translated “body” as correctly as “flesh.” It was used in
that sense, even in Greek philosophical circles, at the time when St Paul wrote
(see Zeller, Theol. Jahrbücher, 1852, pp. 293-297). But in the case of the
apostle, for whom the relation of life to God was the supreme interest, it was
wholly natural, when he thought of man as distinguished from God, to describe
him as “flesh,” in contrast to “spirit.” And thus the distinction easily passed
into an opposition; for man, as he had discovered in his personal experience,
was under the sway of sin and could not break its yoke, apart from the aid of
the Spirit, who is the Divine, supernatural Agent. Plainly, therefore, the
antagonism of which the apostle is conscious between σάρξ and πνεῦμα is a moral
and not a metaphysical antagonism, and it is one discovered, not by the path of
speculation, but from the humiliating experiences of actual life.1 [Note: It is
worth observing, in passing, that St Paul recognises the presence of evil in
spirits, who have no share in the flesh at all (cf.Ephesians 2:2), while Christ,
who was sent “in the likeness of the flesh of sin” (i.e. in the likeness of
human flesh, human nature, which, as a fact of experience, is sinful), was
without sin (see Müller, Doct. of Sin, i. pp. 346-348).] Siebeck, writing as a
historian of psychology, well expresses the facts when he says: “In no passage
do the Pauline psychological views deny their Hebrew origin.… As in Plato, the
circumstance that God’s being was conceived ethically had the consequence that
its dialectic antithesis, matter, receded into the position of ‘evil,’ so also
in Paul the flesh becomes, on the ground of that natural antithesis to the moral
contrasted pole of the Divine Spirit, the bearer of sin and weakness”
(Geschichte d. Psychol. 1ter Th. 2te Abth., p. 311). If any further evidence
were needed, it might be found in St Paul’s central conception of the
Resurrection, in which all his arguments are directed to the establishing, not
of a break between the present and the future life, but of “an organic link
between the temporal and the eternal,” that link whose existence has been
demonstrated for him by his own experience of the risen Christ, in whom the
human and the divine are perfectly united in the σῶμα τῆς δόξης αὐτοῦ (Php
3:21). But while firmly controverting the presence of any philosophical dualism,
the result of Hellenic or Hellenistic influence, in the foundations of St Paul’s
eschatological thought, we would by no means deny the appearance in his writings
of many spiritual tendencies which associate him with the deepest currents of
contemporary Greek philosophy. Yet it is, in most cases, a kinship independently
reached. If they agree in a lofty conception of God, which sets in bold relief
the imperfections of human life; if they are both conscious of a conflict
between good and evil in the human soul, which can nevertheless be surmounted by
a communion of man with the Divine; if they are at one in exalting the spiritual
life as that alone worth living, because it is the pathway to the true goal of
existence,1 [Note: See an admirable paragraph in Titius, pp. 286, 287.] -their
agreement should not be traced to any direct interchange of ideas. The fulness
of the time had come. The most earnest minds of ancient Hellenism were groping
towards the same vision which for the Christian apostle had made all things new.


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  CHAPTER 5: 03. ST PAUL'S CONCEPTIONS OF LIFE AND DEATH
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Chapter III ST PAUL’S CONCEPTIONS OF LIFE AND DEATH

It is obvious that if we are to form a true conception of St Paul’s forecast of
the Last Things, we must endeavour to discover with as much accuracy as possible
the precise force of certain fundamental terms which constitute the elements, so
to speak, of his eschatological construction. Pre-eminent among these are the
basal ideas of Life and Death.

Nothing has been the cause of greater confusion and error in estimating the
apostle’s point of view than the tacit assumption that his use of terms is
identical with ours. Indeed, the more familiar the terms, the more unhesitating
the assumption. As a consequence, lines of argument have been frequently drawn
from statements of St Paul, which he would not ave understood, far less
sympathised with. We believe that this erroneous hypothesis is especially
misleading in the instance before us. Life and Death are notions belonging to
the common stock. It scarcely occurs to us to inquire whether their connotation
is the same for us as it was for a Jewish apostle in the first century of our
era. But the inquiry is of supreme importance, as we shall find, for our whole
discussion. As an example of the misconceptions which may arise from neglecting
to penetrate to the foundation of an idea, we may quote a few sentences from
Matthew Arnold’s St Paul and Protestantism. “Paul’s conception of life and
death,” he says, “inevitably came to govern his conception of resurrection. What
indeed … is for Paul life, and what is death? Not the ordinary physical life and
death;-death, for him, is living after the flesh, obedience to sin; life is
mortifying by the spirit the deeds of the flesh, obedience to righteousness.
Resurrection, in its essential sense, is therefore, for Paul, the rising, within
the sphere of our visible earthly existence, from death in this sense to life in
this sense” (p. 143). There could scarcely be found a more glaring
misrepresentation of the apostle’s thought than that contained in these
sentences, as we hope immediately to show. And the words are the more
misleading, inasmuch as they emphasise to the exclusion of all others, an
element which, of course, does belong to St Paul’s ideas of life and death. The
error really springs from an ignoring of the Old Testament background, out of
which the apostle’s conceptions emerge. This source of confusion too frequently
reveals itself, even in the discussions of trained theologians.1 [Note: See,
e.g., Kabisch’s discussion of θάνατος in St Paul (Eschatol. d. Paulus, p. 101).
So, to a slighter extent, Prof. Beet’s treatment of “life” and “death” (Expos.
iv. 1. pp. 203-207) suffers from a neglect of the roots of these conceptions in
theOld Testament and Judaism. It is more important to keep these sources in view
than to refer to the Homeric ideas.] The inferences, therefore, which may or may
not be deduced from many important affirmations of St Paul regarding Life and
Death must depend on the exact content which these terms held for him.

Let us deal with the negative concept in the first place. Careful readers of the
Old Testament must have observed the horror which death inspires in the Hebrew
mind. One or two instances may be quoted. In Psalms 88:2-5 we have this appeal:
“Let my prayer come before Thee: incline Thine ear unto my cry; for my soul is
full of troubles, and my life draweth nigh unto Sheol. I am counted with them
that go down into the pit: I am as a man that hath no strength: cast off among
the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, whom Thou rememberest no more:
and they are cut off from Thy hand.” A similar note is heard in Psalms 6:3-5 :
“My soul also is sore vexed: and Thou, O Lord, how long? Return, O Lord, deliver
my soul: save me for Thy loving-kindness’ sake. For in death there is no
remembrance of Thee: in Sheol who shall give Thee thanks?” In giving thanks for
his recovery, Hezekiah expresses his fear at the approach of death: “I said, In
the noon tide of my days I shall go into the gates of Sheol; I am deprived of
the residue of my years. I said, I shall not see the Lord, even the Lord in the
land of the living: I shall behold man no more when I am among them that have
ceased to be. My habitation is removed, and is carried away from me as a
shepherd’s tent: I have rolled up like a weaver my life; He will cut me off from
the loom.… Like a swallow or a crane, so did I chatter; I did mourn as a dove:
mine eyes fail with looking upwards.… But Thou hast in love to my soul delivered
it from the pit of corruption … For Sheol cannot praise Thee, death cannot
celebrate Thee: they that go down into the pit cannot hope for Thy truth”
(Isaiah 38:10; Isaiah 38:12; Isaiah 38:14; Isaiah 38:17-18). The description of
Sheol in Job 10:20-22 sheds light on their shuddering apprehensions: “Let me
alone … before I go whence I shall not return, even to the land of darkness, and
of the shadow of death: a land of thick darkness, as darkness itself; a land of
the shadow of death, without any order, and where the light is as darkness.”
According to the Old Testament conception, life is the opportunity for all joy,
for all good. Death, indeed, is inevitable. And its calamity is mitigated when
it presents itself as the close of a long earthly career, rich in well-being.
The man who dies full of years and honour is like a shock of corn reaped when it
is wholly ripe (Job 5:26). The life of such an individual is carried on in his
descendants (Psalms 103:17).1 [Note: These conditions diminished the horror of
death also for the Greeks. Cf. Kaibel, Epigramm. Gr. 68,ὅλβιον εὐγήρων
ἄνο[σον]…τύμβος ὅδʼ εὐθάν [ατον … ἕχει]; also C.I.A. 2, 2541,εὐδαίμων δʼ ἔθανον
παίδων παῖδας καταλείπω[ν] (Herkenrath, Studien zu d. griech. Grabschriften,
Feldkirch, 1896, p. 27).] But death under any other conditions is an utterly
doleful fate. It robs men of all prospect. It shatters human power and
capacities. It is a paralysis of the entire personality.2 [Note: Death, in the
Old Testament, “is the phenomenon which we observe” (A. B. Davidson, H.D.B., i.
p. 739). The recognition of this tersely stated truth would often have saved
pages of useless discussion.] For throughout the earlier stages of Hebrew
religion, there is no thought of one part of the person surviving death. The
spirit, indeed, the ruah, which has been imparted by God, cannot die. It returns
to Him who gave it (Psalms 146:4; Ecclesiastes 12:7). But the nephesh, the
natural principle of life, which is closely dependent on the ruah, and is the
bearer of the personality, shares in the fate of the physical organism. It is
not a mere separation of soul and body. For the conception of a disembodied soul
is foreign to Old Testament thought. It belongs to Hellenism, as e.g., Plato,
Cratylus, 403 b.: ὅτι τε γάρ, ἐπειδὰν ἅπαξ τις ἡμῶν ἀποθάνῃ ἀεὶ ἐκεῖ ἐστι,
φοβοῦνται, καὶ ὅτι ἡ ψυχὴ γυμνὴ τοῦ σώματος πάρʼ ἐκεῖνον ἀπέρχεται, καὶ τοῦτο
πεφόβηνται: “For they fear that, when once any of us dies, he is always there,
and of this also they are afraid that the soul, disembodied, departs to him”
(i.e. Pluto). For the Hebrew, death is the reducing of the person, in the
sum-total of his energies, to a nerveless and phantom-like existence in Sheol,
the place of assemblage for the dead. There, no moral distinctions prevail.
There is a dreary equality among the shades (rephāîm). Up to this point, we may
find parallels in other ancient civilisations. Thus the Greeks reveal the dark
shadow which death casts across the gladness of their life by the epithets which
describe it on their sepulchral inscriptions, epithets such as “bitter,”
“ruinous,” “relentless,” etc. Euphemisms were far rarer in this connection than
in modern times. The under-world stretches hopelessly before the wistful gaze of
men. It is called φθιμένων ἀέναος θάλαμος, “the eternal chamber of those who
have withered” (so an inscription in Kaibel, Epigr. Gr. cxliii. 2, quoted by
Herkenrath, op. cit., p. 22. See also pp. 19, 21, 24). The bucolic poet
Theocritus has the mournful line, ἐλπίδες ἐν ζωοῖσιν, ἀνέλπιστοι δὲ θανόντες:
“Among the living hope endures, but hopeless are the dead” (Idyll. iv. 42). It
was the same in the Roman world. Catullus laments: Nobis quum semel occidit
brevis lux, nox est perpetua una dormienda: “When once the short-lived light has
vanished, we all must sleep through an unbroken night” (v. 5 f.). And Seneca,
speaking of the courage of Socrates, tells how he remained in prison, ut duarum
rerum gravissimarum hominibus metum demeret, mortis et carceris: “that he might
set men free from the fear of two most grievous fates, imprisonment and death.”
But there can be little doubt that the horror of death was heightened for Hebrew
minds by the predominantly religious cast of their thought. The value of the
present life is immensely enhanced by the fact that it is only with the living
that God can enter into relation. He is conceived pre-eminently as the living
God, and only the living can respond to His claims. The true purpose of life,
indeed, is fellowship with God. It has often occasioned surprise, that so devout
a people as the Hebrews should, for generations, have rested content with the
conception of an earthly relationship to Jehovah. Probably the explanation is
due to the circumstance that that relationship was one of peculiar intimacy, of
unique power and reality. They felt the Divine presence with a wonderful thrill
of immediate consciousness. Human life from beginning to end could be alive with
God. Hence a long and prosperous existence is the recognised mark of God’s
approval, the most convincing evidence of true piety. “Honour thy father and thy
mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth
thee” (Exodus 20:12). “If thou were pure and upright, surely now would He awake
for thee and make the habitation of thy righteousness prosperous” (Job 8:6).
“For evil-doers shall be cut off, but those that wait upon the Lord, they shall
inherit the earth. For yet a little while and the wicked shall not be: yea, thou
shalt consider his place, and it shall not be. But the meek shall inherit the
earth, and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace” (Psalms
37:10-11). For the earlier stages of their religious reflection, death is that
which robs of all blessedness.1 [Note: On the special horror of death felt by
the Jews, see Smend, Alttest. Religionsgeschichte, pp. 504, 505. An interesting
aspect of the same fundamental idea appears in Philo, who, as Drummond points
out, regards the body as antagonistic to the soul, “not because it is material …
but because it is phenomenal, transient, mortal” (Philo, ii. p. 297).] They that
go down to Sheol cannot praise God. All bonds of intercourse with the Most High
are snapped. Sometimes the dead are described as if existing in the under-world
almost beneath the sway of another tyrannical power. There is a kind of
personification of Death, resembling that of the Greek Hades, when it is said in
Psalms 49:14 : “Like sheep they are laid in Sheol; death shepherds them.”2
[Note: In ancient literature it is hard to distinguish between a person and a
personification. Animistic ideas lie deep in the naive, popular consciousness.
Bousset, grouping together such passages asIsaiah 25:7f.; 4 Ezra 8:53; Apoc.
Bar. xxi. 23; Test. Levi 18;1 Corinthians 15:26; 1 Corinthians 15:55, all of
which treat of the destruction of death at the end, would relate the figures
ofθάνατος,Hades (cf.Revelation 20:13), and the angel of Hades closely to that of
the devil, finding in them personal opponents of God (Religion d. Judenthums, p.
241, note 3). So also Kabisch on1 Corinthians 15:20(Esch. d. P., p. 162) and
Titius, p. 220 (on sin and death in Paul). We need hardly refer to the frequency
of such personifications in Greek literature. A striking instance is Pindar,
Olymp. ix. 35-38. “In the Vosges … Death’s personality is accepted as an act of
creation. ‘Votre vie aura un fin,’ God said to Adam, ‘et la mort fut créée’ ”
(Edin. Review, 1902, p. 381).] But further elements disclose themselves in the
conception. It may be difficult to fix the time at which the connection between
sin and death came to be emphasised in the popular consciousness.1 [Note:
Probably this doctrine was based on a literal interpretation ofGenesis 3:1-24.
So Denney onRomans 5:12. See especially Wisd. 2:23 f:ὅτι ὁ θεὸς ἕκτισεν τὸν
ἄνθρωπον ἐπὶ ἀφθαρσίᾳ, καὶ εἰκόνα τῆς ἰδίας ἰδιότητος ἐποίησεν … φθόνῳ δὲ
διαβόλου θάνατος εἰσῆλθεν. St Paul was in all likelihood acquainted with this
book. Cf. 1 Clem. ad Cor. iii.,ζῆλον ἄδικον … ἀνειληφότας, διʼ οὗ καὶ θάνατος
εἰσῆλθεν εἰς τὸν κόσμον; and Evang. Nicod., chap. 23, p. 736,ὦ ἀρχιδιάβολε, ἡ
τοῦ θανάτου ἀρχή, ἡ ῥίζα τῆς ἁμαρτίας. Mr F. R. Tennant has sought to show in
his recent work, The Sources of the Doctrines of the Fall and Original Sin
(Cambridge, 1903), that the earliest indication of the idea that death is a
consequence of our first parents’ sin, occurs inSir 25:24. From that time
onwards it appears frequently in Judaistic literature-e.g., Enoch lxix. 11;
Slavon. Enoch xxx. 16; Apoc. Bar. liv. 15; 4Ezra 3:7. It was the usual teaching
of the Rabbis. In commenting upon 4 Ezra 7:11, which he compares withRomans
5:12f., Mr Tennant remarks: “In neither place is it explained how Adam’s sin
made his posterity sinful. Perhaps in neither case had the writer developed or
received any definite theory on the point” (p. 229). His own view is that St
Paul has “clothed the current notion of Adam as the cause of human death, and
the root of human sin, in the language of his mystical realism” (p. 266).
Certainly St Paul has given us nothing in the nature of a theory on the subject,
but is not his conception of race-solidarity something deeper than a Judaistic
speculation? Strangely enough, to most primitive peoples, death seems an
abnormal event, and immortality the normal course. (See C. P. Tiele, Inleiding
tot de Godsdienstwetenschap, ii. p. 197 f.; qu. by Söderblom, op. cit., p. 52.)]
In any case it was a natural inference to draw. Sin separates from God. In their
view, this is also true of death. Unrelieved death was felt to be a judgment, a
doom. Sin and death were inextricably interwoven. “The soul that sinneth, it
shall die” (Ezekiel 18:4; cf. the Genesis-narrative, chap. 2:17: “In the day
thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die”). In the prophetic period the
religious horizon is extended. The vision of the future glory of the Kingdom of
God dawns upon the broken nation. Thus the darkness of death is deepened. Not
only is it an event which deprives of the present opportunity of fellowship with
Jehovah, but it also shatters all prospect of coming blessedness. Further, the
frailty and transiency of which it is the crowning proof, the sharp pangs which
accompany its approach, the unsightliness and decay which follow its presence,
the bitter pain of soul it inflicts on those who are left behind-all these, its
associations, impress them as an outrage upon a creation made in the image of
God. Plainly, therefore, we may say that for the Hebrew mind the physical fact
has a spiritual significance. And so viewed, it is only typical of that
remarkable strain of thought, discernible throughout their reflection on the
universe, which assumes that the physical is always the medium, the vehicle of
the moral, such being its purpose and meaning in the Providential order. Thus
death is only intelligible to them in the light of the weakness and sinfulness
of humanity. And surely at this point their conception bears witness to the
great truth of the ultimate unity of the physical and spiritual worlds, a unity
which we regularly break up in our theoretical arguments, and as regularly
presuppose in our working, personal experience.

We know that a striking change passed over the Jewish view of the condition of
things ushered in by death. This was stimulated by the powerful influence of the
doctrine of a Divine retribution, a doctrine which took shape, as we have seen,
amidst the strange revolutions of the fortunes of the Jewish nation. There had
been various isolated yearnings for uninterrupted fellowship with God. Several
remarkable psalms give ample proof of that. We can scarcely suppose that the
idea of a resurrection, as we understand it, passed before the psalmists’ minds.
Rather was it the passionate cry that, in some miraculous manner, God would
deliver them from the gloomy lot of Sheol. But in the Maccabæan period these
cravings and hopes took a more concrete form. Victory had roused afresh the
sense of national unity. God’s people were still a factor to be reckoned with.
The glorious heritage of the past could still be honoured and defended. The
triumphal mood was not, indeed, of long duration. Too soon the people again
became conscious of their bondage. But an inextinguishable hope had been
kindled. The present was the Æon of distress and anguish, in which God’s arm
seemed to be shortened. But it was only the precursor of the great Æon to come,
when the holy seed should be vindicated, when the Divine purpose for Israel
should be laid bare in the eyes of all the nations. Who, then, were to share in
that era of felicity? Necessarily, the remnant of the people, the survivors of
the chosen stock. Yet, as we have noted, this did not satisfy the sentiment of
the nation. Were the heroes of their history, the men who had shed their blood
for the faith, to have no part in the joyful restoration? The sense of justice
revolted from the thought. The omnipotent God could rectify the inequality. His
power could invade Sheol. He could bring the righteous dead to life again. This
bold conviction laid the foundation for the great resurrection-hope. Now they
could follow the workings of the Divine retribution. Resurrection would be the
recompense at least of the eminently righteous. Nevertheless, the expectations
of many devout hearts must have been mingled with fear. Would they live to see
the redemption of Israel? If not, had they any right to expect a place amongst
those favoured ones whom God should ransom from the grave? The more tender their
consciences, the more hesitating would be their hope. Superficial minds might
picture a resurrection which was little more than a mechanical scene amid the
events of the end. The deeper and more earnest thinkers, conscious of failure
and transgression, would still view death with gloomy forebodings, for the hope
which shone beyond was flickering and dim.

Perhaps enough has been said to account for their dread of death, as that
appears in the Old Testament and in the Hebrew mind. It is time now to ask, What
relation does the Pauline conception of death hold towards that which we have
been considering? Unless we have strong evidence to the contrary, we must
believe that the apostle uses the term in its current significance. But we have
distinct corroboration of the fact. As it happens, St Paul makes very definite
statements concerning death. “As by one man sin entered the world, and death by
sin, and so death hath come upon all men, in that all have sinned” (Romans
5:12). “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). “O wretched man that I am, who
shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (Romans 7:24). He speaks of “the
law of sin and death” (Romans 8:2). He describes “the sting of death” as sin (1
Corinthians 15:56). Death is the last enemy to be destroyed in God’s warfare
with evil (1 Corinthians 15:26). The final issue of God’s redeeming purpose is
that death is swallowed up in victory (1 Corinthians 15:55). These examples, and
there are many more, may help us to realise the prominent elements in the
apostle’s view of death. Of course there are passages where he uses it in an
apparently colourless sense, but it is only by following such clues as these
just given that we can penetrate to his real inner thought.

Evidently, for St Paul, as for the men of the Old Testament, death signifies
something far deeper than the natural close of life. Too commonly a false
analysis has been made of his conception. His idea of death has been qualified
by various limiting adjectives. Thus the apostle is supposed in some passages to
speak of “physical” or “natural” death; in others of “ethical,” in others still
of “spiritual.” In some places he is assumed to have “temporal” death before his
mind, in others “eternal.” We believe it is no exaggeration to assert that such
distinctions would have been meaningless for St Paul. In this respect he is
thoroughly true to the essential nature of Hebrew thought. Theirs was a
synthetic view both of life and of death.1 [Note: See this admirably brought out
by Dr Davidson in Expos. v. 1, p. 330.] And no fact has to be borne more
carefully in mind than this when we attempt to estimate the conceptions of St
Paul. For him death is one indivisible experience. It is the correlative of sin.
Like all the Biblical writers, he never distinguishes between “moral” (or
“spiritual”) and “physical.” It is to miss the permanent ethical element in the
apostle’s thinking, when the assertion is made that the physical experience of
death in itself was the supreme evil to the mind of St Paul. Thus Kabisch, to
whom the merit belongs of emphasising the bearing of this aspect of that
experience on the apostle’s feelings, is led into exaggeration and consequent
misconception by ignoring the other aspects which have to be reckoned with.
“Sin,” he says, “came (according to St Paul) into the world. But this, in
itself, is not the evil, were it not that by it death also came into the evil,
were it not that by it death also came into the world. For we actually find the
apostle dwelling upon the thought, that without law, sin is not imputed.
Therefore the misery does not lie in sin itself, but in that which is decreed on
account of it” (i.e. death, Esch. d. Paulus, p. 86).1 [Note: Cf. Kabisch, pp.
88, 89: “There are religious views which receive no support from this deep,
overpowering impulse to live, which puts other ideas in the background. To them
pure death, the mere cessation of existence, is not the most dreadful thing
which can be conceived.… (For Paul) death, passing away, is the sum of all that
is fearful.… By the æsthetic, equally with the ethical side of his
consciousness, it (i.e. death) is abhorred.” Such assertions are untrue to the
whole basis of Pauline theology. They cannot be supported by any relevant
evidence. The same misconception, arising from an illegitimate partition of the
apostle’s thought, is found in an otherwise most suggestive discussion of
Steffen’s: “How greatly at times, in certain moods of his religious life, the
physical-hyperphysical outweighs the ethical, may be recognised for Paul in the
fact that his powerlessness under the law culminates in the crushing utterance
of woe, ‘Who shall deliver me from the body of this death.’ He sighed, as none
other has done, beneath the curse of the transiency of all that is earthly,”
(Z.N.T.W., 1901, H. 2, p. 124). It is the transiency, as charged with the issues
of sin, that weighs him down.] This appears to us a complete distortion of the
apostle’s teaching. However obscure may be the reference to the imputation of
sin in Romans 5:13 (a statement belonging to a passage which, as Dr Denney well
expresses it,2 [Note: Expos. vi. 4, p. 304.] “in spite of the enormous place it
has filled in the history of dogma, is hardly more than an obiter dictum in the
Epistle to the Romans”), St Paul asserts in the preceding sentence that death
passed upon all men, because all sinned (ἐφʼ ᾧ πάντες ἥμαρτον). In whatever
speculative fashion the apostle may have conceived the connection between the
sin of Adam and that of his descendants, we know from his whole religious
outlook that when he makes the statement, “all sinned,” he can never have in
view an unmeaning, mechanical fiction. Apart from any theorising on inherited
guilt, we have his position clearly stated in Romans 3:23 : “all sinned (πάντες
γὰρ ἥμαρτον) and fall short of (ὑστεροῦνται) the glory of God.” All are
blameworthy. Death, therefore, in St Paul’s view, is not something which works,
as it were, mechanically. It is, as it speaks to the sensitive conscience, the
shadow of the wrath of God. It is for that reason the apostle shrinks from it in
terror. “Who shall deliver me from the body of this death” (Romans 7:24). He
exults to think of a time when its sway shall be abolished. “O death, where is
thy sting? O death, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the
strength of sin is the law: but thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory
through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:55-57). The latter passage is
decisive for the view we advocate. Not the mere physical experience, not the
mere consciousness of mortality, nor, on the other hand, a spiritual doom
ushered in by death, but viewed as belonging entirely to the soul, and out of
relation to the physical experience:-not with alternatives such as these have we
to deal in estimating St Paul’s standpoint, but with an event which includes and
implies them all. This quailing in the presence of death is very marked
throughout the New Testament, and a careful appreciation of it is of real
importance for the comprehension of early Christian thought. We may recall the
striking instance in Hebrews 2:14, where Christ is said “through death” to
destroy “him that hath the power of death-that is, the devil”-and to set free
“those who through fear of death were, throughout the whole of their life,
subject to bondage.”1 [Note: AN INTERESTING PASSAGE MAY BE QUOTED FROM BOSWELL’S
LIFE OF JOHNSON:-“I EXPRESSED A HORROR AT THE THOUGHT OF DEATH. MRS KNOWLES:
“NAY, THOU SHOULDST NOT HAVE A HORROR FOR WHAT IS THE GATE OF LIFE.” JOHNSON
(STANDING UPON THE HEARTH, ROLLING ABOUT, WITH A SERIOUS, SOLEMN, AND SOMEWHAT
GLOOMY AIR): “NO RATIONAL MAN CAN DIE WITHOUT UNEASY APPREHENSION.” MRS KNOWLES:
“THE SCRIPTURES TELL US, ‘THE RIGHTEOUS SHALL HAVE HOPE IN HIS DEATH.’ ”
JOHNSON: “YES, MADAM; THAT IS, HE SHALL NOT HAVE DESPAIR. BUT, CONSIDER, HIS
HOPE OF SALVATION MUST BE FOUNDED ON THE TERMS ON WHICH IT IS PROMISED THAT THE
MEDIATION OF OUR SAVIOUR SHALL BE APPLIED TO US-NAMELY, OBEDIENCE; AND WHEN
OBEDIENCE HAS FAILED, THEN, AS SUPPLETORY TO IT, REPENTANCE. BUT WHAT MAN CAN
SAY THAT HIS OBEDIENCE HAS BEEN SUCH AS HE WOULD APPROVE OF IN ANOTHER, OR EVEN
IN HIMSELF UPON CLOSE EXAMINATION, OR THAT HIS REPENTANCE HAS NOT BEEN SUCH AS
TO REQUIRE BEING REPENTED OF?…” BOSWELL: “THEN, SIR, WE MUST BE CONTENTED TO
ACKNOWLEDGE THAT DEATH IS A TERRIBLE THING.” JOHNSON: “YES, SIR. I HAVE MADE NO
APPROACHES TO A STATE WHICH CAN LOOK ON IT AS NOT TERRIBLE” (IV. 297, 298,
BIRRELL’S ED.). CF. THE DICTUM OF LA ROCHEFOUCAULD: “EVERYTHING THAT IS MOST
CALCULATED TO PERSUADE THAT DEATH IS NOT AN EVIL HAS BEEN WRITTEN … YET I DOUBT
WHETHER ANY SENSIBLE PERSON EVER BELIEVED IT, AND THE TROUBLE TAKEN IN ORDER TO
PERSUADE OTHERS AS THE WRITERS THEMSELVES OF IT SHOWS PLAINLY THAT IT IS NO EASY
ENTERPRISE. EVERY MAN WHO CAN SEE DEATH AS IT IS, FEELS IT A TERRIBLE THING.”
PROF. SHALER TREATS THE FEAR OF DEATH FROM A VERY DIFFERENT STANDPOINT. “IT IS
WELL TO REMEMBER,” HE SAYS, “THAT THE INSTINCTIVE FEAR OF DEATH IS NOT, AS OUR
FOREFATHERS DEEMED IT, A DREAD OF COMING TO A PLACE OF JUDGMENT, THOUGH THAT
IDEA HAS ADDED TO THE PANG. ITS SOURCE IS TO BE LOOKED FOR IN OUR ANIMAL
ANCESTRY, WHERE THIS FEAR, BLIND AND UNCONSCIOUS OF ITS OBJECT, WAS ABSOLUTELY
DEMANDED FOR THE FIT PRESERVATION OF THE INDIVIDUAL” (THE INDIVIDUAL, P. 200).
BUT DOES THIS EXPLANATION LEAD US ANY DEEPER INTO THE MEANING OF THE EXPERIENCE
FOR A RATIONAL, ETHICAL BEING?]

Plainly, this recoil from death is precisely in line with that which we have
noted in the Old Testament. Death is regarded as separation from God. The tender
conscience shudders at the prospect as merited separation. So death, conceived
as the final word on human destiny, becomes the synonym for hopeless doom.
Probably, therefore, St Paul could not picture a more appalling penalty for sin
than death, and all that death, in its complete paralysis of the personal being,
must involve. With his tremendous experience of the inner conflict between self
and the holy law of God, and of all the misery which that conflict stirred
within him, he perhaps felt little need of emphasising extraneous penalties in
addition to the awful crisis of death. A death which was death pure and simple,
with the sharp sting of sin in it, with nothing to mitigate the soul’s isolation
from the living God, with no hope or prospect in it, an existence robbed of all
that makes existence worth having, would loom before his eyes as an overpowering
judgment. As we shall see presently, this view of death sets in an
extraordinarily vivid contrast the revelation of eternal life made in Jesus
Christ. Indeed, to recognise its significance to the full, we require to have
before our minds the apostle’s view of the “life everlasting.”1 [Note: It is not
our aim in this investigation, even if we were competent for the task, to
examine St Paul’s conceptions of such experiences as death or life in the light
of current scientific theory. Unquestionably, biological science would rule out
as irrelevant the intimate connection between sin and death which is so
important for the apostle. And yet science can only go a very short distance in
pronouncing upon the meaning of death. “It must be admitted,” says Weissmann
(and we quote from him as a representative biologist), “that we can see no
reason why the power of cell-multiplication should not be unlimited, and why the
organism should not therefore be endowed with everlasting life. In the same
manner, from the physiological point of view, we might admit that we can see no
reason why the functions of an organism should ever cease. It is only from the
point of view of utility that we can understand the necessity of death … I
consider that death is not a primary necessity, but that it has been secondarily
acquired as an adaptation … Death is to be looked on as an occurrence
advantageous to the species as a concession to the outward conditions of life,
not as an absolute necessity, essentially inherent in life itself … (Death) is
an adaptation which first appeared when, in consequence of a certain complexity
of structure, an unending life became disadvantageous to the species” (Essays
upon Heredity, ed. 2 (E. Tr.), i. pp. 23, 25, 111). Of course, this theory
regards man merely as an animal. But, viewing him as a self-conscious ethical
being, must not the union of his rational life with the bodily organism be
conceived differently from the relation of the vital functions of the “lower”
animals to their bodies? And keeping in mind the break, which science has never
surmounted, between rational and merely animal life, may we not conceive, even
from the scientific standpoint, a situation in which, for self-conscious
persons, “utility,” coinciding with a domination of the spiritual over the
material, might have demanded the transition of the individual into a higher
stage of life, without the occurrence of the adaptation called death? In the
event of man’s acting in perfect harmony with his highest good, might not the
whole organism have followed other lines of development which would have still
further differentiated it from that of inferior species, and more directly and
immediately assimilated it to the nature and existence of God?] But before we
leave St Paul’s conception of θάνατος as a bare and gloomy fact of human
existence, a fact which, in the words of Professor Kähler, “as we sinners
experience it, has remained the preacher of responsibility,” it is necessary to
examine briefly the closely related term ἀπώλεια, “destruction,” as it is
employed in the Pauline Epistles. This is of importance, because many arguments
have been based upon it, in the attempt to establish the theory of annihilation,
which forms so essential an element in the hypothesis of Conditional
Immortality. We must confine ourselves to St Paul, but his use of the term and
its cognates is sufficiently clear and instructive. The noun ἀπώλεια occurs but
rarely in the apostle’s writings. There are about a dozen instances of the verb,
ἀπολλύναι. In 2 Thessalonians 2:3, he describes the “man of lawlessness” by the
epithet, “son of ἀπώλεια.” In Romans 9:22, he speaks of “vessels of wrath fitted
out for ἀπώλεια.” The camaraderie of Christians in courageous adherence to their
faith is to be to their adversaries a proof of their ἀπώλεια, but of the
Christian’s σωτηρία (Php 1:28). And to the same Church he writes of a group of
nominal members of the Christian community, who are “enemies of the Cross of
Christ, whose end is ἀπώλεια” (Php 3:18-19). The verb occurs most frequently as
a designation of those who reject the Gospel of Christ: they are οἱ ἀπολλύμενοι
as opposed to οἱ σωζόμενοι (so 1 Corinthians 1:18; 2 Corinthians 2:15; 2
Corinthians 4:3; 2 Thessalonians 2:10). In Romans 2:12, it is said of those who
sinned without having the law (ἀνόμως), that without having the law, ἀπολοῦνται.
The fate of those Israelites in the wilderness who were bitten by the serpents
(Numbers 21:6) or died of the plague (ib. 14:37) because of their murmurings, is
described by the same term (ὑπὸ τὼν ὄφεων ἀπώλλυντο … ἀπώλοντο ὑπὸ τοῦ
ὀλοθρευτοῦ, 1 Corinthians 10:9-10). If Christ be not risen, then those who fell
asleep in Christ ἀπώλοντο (1 Corinthians 15:18). The apostle, in recording his
own trials as a worker for Christ, speaks of himself and his fellow-labourers as
“cast down, but not ἀπολλύμενοι” (2 Corinthians 4:4; 2 Corinthians 4:9). In two
interesting passages where he is dealing with Christian liberty and its
responsibilities, he warns his brethren to walk warily: μὴ τῷ βρώματί σου
ἐκεῖνον ἀπόλλυε, ὑπὲρ οὗ Χριστὸς ἀπέθανεν (Romans 14:15), “Destroy not with thy
meat him for whom Christ died”; ἀπόλλυται γὰρ ὁ ἀσθενῶν ἐν τῇ σῇ γνώσει, ὁ
ἀδελφὸς διʼ ὃν Χριστὸς ἀπέθανεν (1 Corinthians 8:11), “For he who is weak is
destroyed by thy knowledge, the brother on whose account Christ died.” The only
other occurrence of the verb is in 1 Corinthians 1:19, where he quotes part of
Isaiah 29:14 from the LXX.: ἀπολῶ τὴν σοφίαν τῶν σοφῶν, καὶ τὴν σύνεσιν τῶν
συνετῶν ἀθετήσω, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and make void the
understanding of the prudent.” This quotation is interesting as occurring
immediately after his use of the phrase οἱ ἀπολλύμενοι, indicating that it is in
harmony with the usage of the Septuagint. It is evident that in all of the above
passages which bear on the future destiny of men, ἀπώλεια is used as the
antithesis of σωτηρία, and ἀπόλλυσθαι of σώζεσθαι. The question of existence is
not before the apostle’s mind at all. Blessedness and its converse are the ideas
which concern him. In one or two of the instances quoted, the verb is exactly
equivalent to ἀποθνήσκειν (so 1 Corinthians 10:9-10; also 1 Corinthians 15:18,
where ἀπώλοντο = “died” in the ordinary sense of the word, “died without the
possibility of a blessed resurrection”). The verse from the LXX. is, of course,
figurative, thus showing the wide sense in which the apostle knows the verb can
be used. And in this respect, the two remaining passages are extremely
suggestive. He is warning against the damage which may be done by a reckless and
selfish use of Christian liberty. Hence we may translate, “Do not ruin by what
you eat, that brother for whom Christ died”: “For he that is weak is damaged (or
ruined) by your knowledge, the brother on whose account Christ died.” Quite
obviously, there is no hint of “destruction,” or “extinction” here. He speaks,
as we speak, of one man “ruining” another without in any way meaning to specify
in what this ruin will formally issue.1 [Note: Many instances of this sense
ofἀπόλλυμιcan be given from later Greek. The following are taken from an
interesting paper by Prof. Massie in Expos. ii. 2, pp. 64-70. Polyb. xxxii. 19:
“They did not wish the people in Italyκατʼ οὐδένα τρόπον ἀπόλλυσθαι(to become in
any way demoralised)”διὰ τὴν πολυχρόνιον εἰρήνην. In Dion Chrysost. xxxi. 348 c,
the phraseτοῖς ἐσχάτως ἀπολωλόσιis used as a description of immoral character,
“those who are utterly abandoned.” Plutarch (De Cupid. Divit. chap. vii.),
pointing out the bad training which misers give their children, says: “The
children they think to educateἀπολλύουσι καὶ προσδιαστρέφουσι(they ruin and
pervert).” In his Vita M. Antonii, 66, he describes Antony at Actium as fleeing
after the woman (Cleopatra)τὴν ἀπολωλεκυῖαν ἤδη καὶ προσαπολοῦσαν αὐτόν(“who had
already ruined him, and would ruin him yet more.”)]

We have already pointed out how largely St Paul’s terminology, as well as the
complexion of his thought, was affected by the usage of the LXX. Now ἀπώλεια and
its cognates are frequently found in the Septuagint. In the numerous examples
which we have examined, its significance varies from what we should call a
“calamity” to “destruction” in the sense of death, and the doom which that
involves. Thus, Ezekiel 29:12 (of Egypt), δώσω τὴν γῆν αὐτῆς ἀπώλειαν, where it
means “desolation,” or “devastatation” (Heb. שְׁמָמָה); Jude 7:25, καταστρωθῆναι
… ἐν δίψῃ καὶ ἀπωλείᾳ μεγάλῃ, co-ordinated with “thirst” = “sore calamity”;
Proverbs 6:15, ἐξαπίνης ἔρχεται ἡ ἀπώλεια αὐτοῦ, where ἀπώλεια = Heb. אֵיד,
distress, calamity (lit. = that under which one bends, .D.B.); Isaiah 54:16,
ἔκτισάσεοὐκεἰςἀπώλειανφθεῖραι = destruction (in the sense of “kill” = Heb.
שָׁחַת). Perhaps our word “ruin” would most adequately cover the various
applications of ἀπώλεια. Of special importance and value for our discussion is
the use of ἀπώλεια and kindred words in the of Solomon, a book which shows some
singularly interesting points of contact with Pauline thought.1 [Note: Grafe (in
Abhandlungen C. v. Weizsäcker gewidmet, pp. 253-286) attempts to show that St
Paul derived from Wisdom “a large number of words, ideas, and illustrations” to
express “conceptions and convictions gained from other sources”; while “in a few
not unessential points he shows himself materially influenced by Wisdom, in his
doctrine of predestination, in his eschatology, and in his criticism of
heathenism and its idol-worship” (p. 286). We are unable to accept his arguments
for the latter position (see Additional Note, p. 344 f.). But there is much to
be said in favour of his statement “that Paul, even if Wisdom were not his
source, repeatedly shows a contact in expression with significant conceptions
and groups of conceptions belonging to Hellenism, conceptions which, on the one
hand, exercised the most powerful influence on the higher part of the heathen
world, and on the other, by reason of the depth and earnestness of their
content, could most readily form an alliance with Christianity” (loc. cit.).]
The godless, we read, are to be wholly destroyed by God: εἰς ὕβριν ἐν νεκροῖς
διʼ αἰῶνος. ὅτι ῥήξει αὐτοὺς ἀφώνους πρηνεῖς … καὶ ἕως ἐσχάτου χερσωθήσονται
(Wisd. 4:19). This last expression, ἕως ἐσχάτου χερσωθήσονται, is one of the
strongest conceivable for destruction. The verb has a more intense force than
ἀπόλλυμι. Yet the writer continues, καὶ ἔσονται ἐν ὀδύνῃ, “and they shall be in
anguish.” Thus their destruction is by no means conceived as annihilation,
although it is described in the most drastic and vivid terms. They still possess
a conscious existence, which, however, is sheer ruin, so far as the idea of life
is concerned. The same notion is met with in apocalyptic literature. Thus, e.g.,
Enoch cviii. 3 has the following description of the ungodly: “Their names shall
be blotted out of the book of life and out of the books of the holy ones, and
their seed shall be destroyed for ever, and their spirits shall be slain, and
they shall cry and make lamentation in a place that is a waste wilderness, and
they shall burn with fire where there is no earth.” Cf. Enoch xcix. 11, xxii.
13. This is true to the Hebrew standpoint. The ungodly are destroyed. That is,
they lose all true life, all that would count as life to a Jew. But they do not
lose conscious existence.1 [Note: Cf. the Babylonian conception: “The body
decays in the grave (Shalamtu = name given to the corpse, ‘that which is done
with’), but the soul lives in the gloom of Hades, and in that abode of horror
leads an immaterial shadow-like existence” (Jeremias, Babylonian Conception of
Heaven and Hell, p. 31).] Here, for example, they are still in anguish. The same
interpretation will be found to hold strictly for St Paul. In his Epistles,
ἀπώλεια and ἀπόλλυσθαι are the exact antithesis of σωτηρία and σώζεσθαι. Both
sides of the contrast are concerned with the true life of the individual. It may
be noted that repeatedly in the LXX., ἀπώλεια is the translation of אֲבַדּוֹן,
the place of ruin in Sheol for the lost or ruined dead. All that makes life
worth living is destroyed for them. The existence they still possess cannot be
called life at all. That has been lost, shattered. But even able writers ignore
this distinction between “life” and “existence.” Thus Ménégoz: “It is not only
Paul’s anthropology, but also the Pauline idea of redemption that is opposed to
the understanding of death as anything else than the abolition of existence”;
and again, “The whole theological system of Paul falls to pieces if death be
understood to mean anything else than the suppression of existence” (Le Péché et
la Rédemption d’après St Paul, pp. 78, 84).1 [Note: Dr Petavel, a leading
exponent of this theory, defines Annihilation in his sense of the term as “the
gradual diminution of the faculties possessed by the individual ego, and the
final extinction of that master faculty by which we take possession of the other
faculties” (Problem of Immortality, p. 202). We are not here concerned with
arguments for or against Annihilation as a theory, but we have no hesitation in
asserting that a definition like the above would have appeared altogether
irrelevant to St Paul. He deals with a different set of categories.] Similarly,
Mr Edward White, commenting on the words εἰς ὄλεθρον καὶ ἀπώλειαν (1 Timothy
6:9), affirms that “the Greek language does not afford two stronger expressions
than these for denoting the idea of literal death and extinction of being” (Life
in Christ, p. 383). A closer acquaintance with Hebrew and Jewish modes of
thought would have shown those writers who have established their view of
annihilation on such New Testament terms as ἀπώλεια, ἀπόλλυσθαι, ὄλεθρος,
κ.τ.λ., the impossibility of such a deduction. What moderns are apt to forget
is, that for the Old Testament writers and for St Paul, the question of the
existence of the person had no interest whatsoever. They were not concerned at
all with considerations of immortality in the abstract. It was life which
occupied their thoughts: the life of the community or the individual: that is,
existence in touch with God. When that contact was lost, the outlook for the
person was the most hopeless they could imagine. For death could then signify
for him (in St Paul’s view) nothing else than the experience in which the
meaning of sin for God should be most overpoweringly felt. This is unmitigated
disaster, ἀπώλεια, ruin.1 [Note: CF. A. B. DAVIDSON (EXPOS. V. 1, P. 333): “THEY
(I.E. OLD TESTAMENT SAINTS AND PROPHETS) DID NOT REASON THAT THE SOUL WAS
IMMORTAL FROM ITS NATURE-THIS WAS NOT THE KIND OF IMMORTALITY IN WHICH THEY WERE
INTERESTED-THOUGH FOR ALL THAT APPEARS THE IDEA THAT ANY HUMAN PERSON SHOULD
BECOME EXTINCT OR BE ANNIHILATED NEVER OCCURRED TO THEM.” SIMILARLY, PROF.
ROBERTSON SMITH: “WE HAVE NO REASON TO SUPPOSE THAT THERE EVER WAS A TIME WHEN
THE HEBREWS HELD THE ANNIHILATION OF THE SOUL IN DEATH. BUT THE CONTINUED
EXISTENCE OF THE REPHAIM … IS NEVER THOUGHT OF AS LIFE: NAY, IT IS THE VERY
CONTRARY OF LIFE, OPPOSED TO IT AS DARKNESS IS TO LIGHT” (EXPOS. I. 4, P. 356).
SEE ALSO, FOR ST PAUL’S VIEW, AN ADMIRABLE PARAGRAPH BY F. KÖSTLIN, JAHRB. F.
DEUTSCHE THEOL., 1877, P. 275. FOR INSTANCES OFἀΠΩΛΕΙΑAND COGNATES IN JUDAISTIC
LITERATURE, SEE VOLZ, OP. CIT., PP. 282, 283.] From the positions that have been
stated, it is not difficult to approach St Paul’s conception of Life, which is,
perhaps, the most important of which we have to treat in view of the discussions
before us. Let us begin, as before, with the Old Testament background of the
conception.

Ζωή and ζῆν, the terms employed by the apostle, are almost invariably in the
Septuagint translations of the Hebrew חַיִּים and חָיָח. These Hebrew words are,
of course, frequently equivalent to “life,” “live,” in our common usage, as
applied to the ordinary physical existence of mankind. Briggs, Brown, and
Driver, in their Hebrew Lexicon, remark of חָיָח that it often has “the pregnant
sense of fulness of life in the divine favour.” Instances are, .g., Deuteronomy
8:3, “Man doth not live by bread only, but by everything that proceedeth out of
the mouth of the Lord doth man live”; Isaiah 38:16, “O Lord, by these things
(God’s promises?) men live, and wholly therein is the life of my spirit”;
Ezekiel 33:19, “When the wicked man turneth from his wickedness, and doeth that
which is lawful and right, he shall live thereby”; Habakkuk 2:4, “A righteous
man by his faithfulness shall live” (“such a character has in it the quality of
permanence,” Davidson, loc.); Psalms 80:18, “Quicken Thou us, and we will call
upon Thy name”; Ecclesiastes 7:12, “The excellency of knowledge is that wisdom
preserveth the life of him that hath it”; Deuteronomy 30:15, “See, I have set
before thee this day, life (חַיִּים) and good, and death and evil”; Proverbs
8:35, “Whoso findeth me, findeth life”; Psalms 133:3, “There the Lord commanded
the blessing, even life for evermore” (חַיִּיםעַד־הָעוֹלָם). The lexical note
quoted above does no more than justice to the Old Testament conception of Life.
It emphasises the large content that is included in it, a content amply attested
by the examples which have been given. This wide significance of the idea of
life is in full accord with the essential attitude of the Old Testament to
natural phenomena. Their importance, for it, consists in their capacity of
revealing the moral forces which work in and behind them. The Old Testament
writers have no abstract interest in the meaning of life. Such statements as
those of modern biological science that “perfect correspondence (to environment)
would be perfect life” (so Herbert Spencer, Principles of Biology, i. p. 88),
lie outside the region of their reflection. And yet, by a slight alteration we
might affirm that, for them, perfect life consists in “perfect correspondence”
with God.1 [Note: Cf. Mr Mivart’s interesting admission from the scientific
point of view: “It is impossible to adequately define life without taking into
our definition the idea of ‘an end’ in the orderly changes which it presents,
and it seems needless to include within it a reference to the environment”
(Contemp. Review, xxxv. p. 707).] It is just because He is the all-absorbing
environment for their thought, that Life, like every other fundamental
conception, assumes in the Old Testament a predominantly religious cast. We may
gather, therefore, from the instances cited above, that there is a blending of
the physical and the religious. Take Deuteronomy 8:3 : “Man doth not live by
bread only, but by everything that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth
man live.” We should be apt, in such a statement, to distinguish between the
physical and the spiritual. The Old Testament writers are conscious of a unity
in which the physical is always included, but taken up, as it were, into a
higher synthesis. Of typical significance is the affirmation of Psalms 36:9 :
“With Thee is the fountain of life.” Life, in its fulness, springs from God.
This truth is emphasised by the Creation-narrative of Genesis 2:7, in which it
is said of God (we quote the Septuagint on account of its importance for St
Paul’s thought): ἐνεφύσησεν εἰς τὸ πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ πνοὴν ζωῆς, καὶ ἐγένετο ὁ
ἄνθρωπος εἰς ψυχὴν ζῶσαν, “He breathed into his face the breath of life, and man
became a living soul.” Life, that is to say, is the result of the impartation of
the ruah of God. Ruah (πνεῦμα in the LXX. and St Paul) is the energy of God,
going forth and acting, the energy of God in its definite operations. God, to
the Hebrew, is pre-eminently the Living One. The chief factor in his conception
of God is that of activity, an activity whose power cannot be limited. See,
e.g., Jeremiah 10:10-12, “The Lord is the true God; He is the living God, and an
everlasting King: at His wrath the earth trembleth, and the nations are not able
to abide His indignation.… He hath made the earth by His power, He hath
established the world by His wisdom, and by His understanding hath He stretched
out the heavens”; Daniel 4:34-35, “I blessed the Most High, and I praised and
honoured Him that liveth for ever: for His dominion is an everlasting dominion,
and His kingdom from generation to generation: and all the inhabitants of the
earth are reputed as nothing: and He doeth according to His will in the army of
heaven, and among the inhabitants of earth: and none can stay His hand, or say
unto Him, What doest thou?”1 [Note: Grill (Untersuchungen, etc., i. p. 237)
calls attention to the interesting fact that the New Testament writers, when
they speak expressly of God as the “living,” conceive the being of God as Power,
in thorough accordance with the Old Testament usage and conception (cf.Matthew
26:63;Acts 14:15;Matthew 16:16; Matthew 16:18-19;1 Thessalonians 1:9;Hebrews
9:14;2 Corinthians 3:3).] Kleinert points out that side of the life of God which
is related to “enjoyment” is scarcely found in the Old Testament: it only
appears in relation to His activities; see, e.g., Psalms 104:31 : “The glory of
the Lord shall endure for ever: the Lord shall rejoice in his works”; also,
Zephaniah 3:17; Isaiah 62:4; Joshua 3:10, (S.K., 1895, p. 701). He notes further
that all God’s living energy is borne along by the constant knowledge and
willing of itself: that is to say, it is personal (op. cit., p. 706). This
conception of God as the Living is most intimately related with the Hebrew idea
of Him, not precisely (in the earlier stages of thought) as Spirit, but always
as having Spirit.1 [Note: See Siebeck, Zeitschr. f. Völker-Psychol. xii. p.
392.] Thus His most characteristic operation is the breathing out of His
spiritual energy (ruah, N.T. πνεῦμα). The result in the creation of man is that
he becomes εἰς ψυχὴν ζῶσαν, “a living soul.” That is to say, man is constituted
a “person.” He possesses a principle of life (nephesh, in the New Testament,
ψυχή), a rational principle with an intelligent side, or faculty, which St Paul
designates by νοῦς. The Divine side of his personality may be termed the ruah,
the human the nephesh, yet it would be hazardous to draw too sharp a distinction
between them. It is important to note that in the Creation-narrative this
“living soul” is ascribed only to Man 1:2[Note: “According to Bammidbar rabba,
chap. xvi., the first man, as the image of God, received eternal life: his
transgression made him mortal” (Weber, Lehren d. Talmud, p. 208). Cf. the
relation of Wisd. 2:23 f. toGenesis 1:26; Genesis 2:7; Genesis 2:3; and see
Grimm’s instructive note on Wisd. 2:23. Philo draws a sharp contrast between
theδύναμις ζωτική, or physical principle of life, and theδύναμις λογική, or
rational principle. The former belongs to all living organisms (ζῶα); the
latter, found in theνοῦς, belongs exclusively to man, and differentiates him
from the mereζῶον(see Quod. det. pot. insid. sol., 82, 83, C. W.).] “It is this
capacity for moral and spiritual action,” says Kleinert, “in short, the
distinctively human, which entirely determines the specific appreciation of life
and the value of life, in the Old Testament” (loc. cit., p. 679). At death,
according to the Old Testament, the Divine ruah is withdrawn, and there can be
no life without that: hence, with the paralysis of the whole person, the nephesh
is shattered, ruined. We can already discern the preparation for a more
spiritual psychology (although it is scarcely permissible to use so formal a
term) such as we discover in the writings of St Paul.

But, to return to the Old Testament, Life is the supreme blessing. “See, I have
set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil” (Deuteronomy 30:15).
“Whoso findeth me (i.e. wisdom), findeth life” (Proverbs 8:35). “Wisdom
preserveth the life of him who hath it” (Ecclesiastes 7:12). This last passage
(and it is only one of many which might be adduced) clearly shows that the
physical permanence of life is to be included in what may appear the purely
“spiritual” statements of those which precede it. Some of the verses quoted on a
former page, more especially a group which is well represented by Psalms 80:18,
“Quicken (literally, ‘make us to live’) us, and we will call upon Thy name,” may
appear, at the first glance, to have an entirely spiritual connotation. Yet when
we bear in mind the Hebrew conception of life as the inbreathing of the Divine
ruah, it would be probably an exaggeration to assert that there was no trace of
a physical element involved.1 [Note: “Life (in the Old Testament) is what we so
call when we see it, the subsistence of the complete personality in the unity of
its parts, body and soul” (A. B. Davidson in H.D.B., i. p. 739). Cf. Kleinert,
S.K., 1895, pp. 700-725, for the various religious aspects of Life in the Old
Testament.] When we pass on to the Apocryphal and Pseudepigraphal literature, we
still move among Old Testament ideas, but these have been strikingly modified.
We may mention one or two significant passages in 2 Maccabees, where πνεῦμα and
ζωή are directly co-ordinated: e.g., 7:22, τό πνεῦμα καὶ τὴν ζωὴν ὑμῖν
ἐχαρισάμην-“I granted to you your spirit and your life”; 14:46, ἐπικαλεσάμενος
τὸν δεσπόζοντα τῆς ζωῆς καὶ τοῦ πνέυματος … τόνδε τὸν τρόπον μετήλλαξεν-“Calling
upon Him who is Lord of life and spirit … in this manner he departed.” These
find a close parallel in Ezekiel 37:5 : Ἰδοὺ ἐγὼ φέρω εἰς ὑμᾶς πνεὺμα ζωῆς … καὶ
δώσω πνεῦμα μου εἰς ὑμᾶς καὶ ζήσεσθε· καὶ γνώσεσθε ὅτι ἐγώ εἰμι κύριος-“Behold,
I bring to you the spirit of life … and I will put my Spirit into you, and ye
shall live, and ye shall know that I am the Lord.” Quite clearly, ζωή depends
immediately on πνεῦμα. In the pseudepigraphal writings, we find, as we should
expect, the Old Testament idea of Life (with the physical side largely in
evidence) as a recompense of righteousness. See, for example, Sibyl. Orac. iv.
45: “The righteous shall remain on the fruitful earth, as God gives them spirit
and life and grace.” This is a higher form, however, of the conception than that
which appears, e.g., in Enoch v. 9: “They (i.e. the righteous) shall not be
punished all the days of their life, nor shall they die of plagues or
visitations of wrath, but they shall complete the full number of the days of
their life, and their lives shall grow old in peace, and the years of their joy
shall be many, in eternal happiness and peace, all the days of their life.” We
are here reminded forcibly of the beautiful picture in Zechariah 8:4 : “Thus
saith the Lord of Hosts, There shall yet old men and old women dwell in the
streets of Jerusalem, and every man with his staff in his hand for very age.”
There is nothing transcendental in these delineations. But now there comes into
far greater prominence what we may designate the eschatological conception of
Life. A few examples will make this clear. Slavon. Enoch l. 2, “Ye shall inherit
the endless life1 [Note: Bousset notes how the expressionçÇéÅé òåÉìÈídominates
apocalyptic literature. He gives numerous examples (Religion d. Judenthums, p.
263). . Volz, Jüdische Eschatol., p. 306 (on the simple idea “live”): “The most
universal but most pregnant word for participation in salvation is ‘to live’ … =
be blessed (saved), in 4 Ezra 7:21, 129, 8:6; Ps. Sol. 14:3, 15:13
(opp.ἀπόλλυσθαι) … the blessed (saved) are the , Apoc. Bar. xlix. 2, li. 11
(vivimus, 4 Ezra 7:67); they attain to life … = be blessed (saved), 4 Ezra 7:137
f.” “In 85d onLeviticus 18:5, we see a characteristic transference from the
present to the future; it is said there: ‘He who keeps the law receives thereby
life in the coming Olam: if thou sayest, In this Olam, is not his end death?
Therefore it is to be explained, He shall live thereby in the coming Olam’ ” (.
cit., p. 326).] which is to come; Ps. Sol. 3:16, “They that fear the Lord shall
rise to life everlasting, and their life in the light of the Lord shall no more
fail”; ib. 9:9, “He that doeth righteousness heapeth up life for himself with
the Lord”; Sibyl. Orac., prooem, 84, 85, “Those who reverence the true and
everlasting God inherit life (i.e., inhabit evermore the green garden of
Paradise); Apoc. Bar. xlii. 7, “Corruption shall take those that belong to it,
and life those that belong to it.” Here we have precisely the idea which the New
Testament calls “eternal life,” and the later Jewish literature “the life of the
future Æon” (see Dalman, Worte Jesu, pp. 129-131, where a brief summary is given
of the process by which this conception has been reached). This forms, in our
Lord’s discourses, the antithesis to ἀπώλεια (see, e.g., Matthew 7:13-14). It is
largely equivalent, in His use of it, to the expression which predominated in
His teaching, “the Kingdom of God.”1 [Note: See Haupt, Eschatol. Aussagen Jesu,
pp. 85, 86. Von Schrenck puts the facts aptly: “That condition in which the rule
of God is to be fully realised, and the children of God in fellowship with one
another and in untroubled bliss are to see God and rejoice in His rule-that will
beζωή” (Die johanneische Anschauung von “Leben,” p. 37). He notes how Jesus took
the Danielic and contemporary expectation of an eternal life and deepened it in
accordance with His religious-ethical view of the comingβασιλείαof God. Volz
traces the eschatological conception of “Life” through the following stages: (1)
= Continuance, as presupposition of participation in salvation; (2) =
Participation in salvation; (3) = Sum of blessings in the period of salvation;
(4) = Eternal blessedness (see Jüdische Eschatol., pp. 326, 327).]

It is important to observe that the Old Testament idea of Life does not stand in
isolation from this later conception. We can see already how the difference
between them is bridged over in such passages as the following:-Ps. Song of
Solomon 13:9, “The life of the righteous endureth for ever”; Wisd. of Song of
Solomon 3:2-4, “In the eyes of the foolish, they (i.e. the righteous) seemed to
have died, and their departure was reckoned a misery … but they are in peace.
For even if they were punished according to the view of men, their hope was full
of immortality” (Song of Solomon 1:15, “righteousness is immortal”);2 [Note: Cf.
the remarkable parallel in Philo (Quod det. pot. xlix, C.W.):ὁ μὲν δὴ σοφὸς
τεθνηκέναι δοκῶν τὸν φθαρτὸν βίον ζῇ τὸν ἄφθαρτον. The same idea is highly
elaborated in Enoch cii. 4-civ.] Apoc. Bar. xiv. 13, “These (i.e. the righteous)
without fear leave the world, and trusting with joy, they hope to receive the
world which Thou has promised them.”3 [Note: A suggestive parallel from Greek
religion is to be found in Soph. Frag. 753 (N):ὡς τρὶς ὅλβιοι κεῖνοι βροτῶν, οἳ
ταῦτα δερχθέντες τέλη(i.e. those initiated into the mysteries at Eleusis)μόλωσʼ
ἐς Ἅιδου· τοῖσδε γὰρ μόνοις ἐκεῖ ζῆν ἔστι, τοῖς δʼ ἄλλοισι πάντʼ ἐκεῖ κακά. See
Rohde, Psyche,2 Bd. i. p. 294. Rohde points out that the continued life of the
soul after its separation from the body was not so much taught at Eleusis as
presupposed, for “this belief lay at the foundation of the universally-diffused
soul-worship. What the initiated at Eleusis gained was a more vivid idea of the
meaning of this existence of departed souls, which was left empty in the
conceptions which lay at the basis of soul-worship” (loc. cit.).] Here, the
thought of the continuity of the life of the righteous in the present with that
which awaits them after death, is brought into full prominence.

It is difficult to determine precisely what theory these writers held as to the
basis of the endurance of life in the righteous. Possibly hints towards the
comprehension of such a theory may be found in passages like Slavon. Enoch xxx.
8: “I ordered My wisdom to make man of seven substances … his spirit from My
spirit and from the wind.” There is an immortal element in man, which, if
rightly cherished, will be the pledge of immortality. This thought finds unique
expression in Wisd. Song of Solomon 2:23, 24 (a passage already referred to,
which cannot, however, be taken as a typical example of the literature or period
in question): “God created man for incorruption (ἀφθαρσία), and made him a copy
of His own peculiar essence (ἰδιότης), but by envy of the devil death entered
the world, and they that are of his portion make trial thereof.” It is quite
possible that these writers (like Ecclesiastes 12:7) conceived the πνεῦμα as
returning to “God who gave it,”1 [Note: Cf. and contrast Inscr. of Antiochus of
Commagene (69-34 b.c.):σῶμα … πρὸς οὐρανίους Διὸς Ὠρομάσδου θρόνους θεοφιλῆ
ψυχὴν προπέμψαν, εἰς τὸν ἄπειρον αἰῶνα κοιμήσεται (Cumont, Textes … relatifs aux
Mystères de Mithra, ii. 89).] in the case of those who had defied God’s will and
yielded to the sway of evil. But it would be unsafe, where opinions are so vague
and fluctuating, to attempt even the outline of any hypothetical theory. From
the foregoing brief investigation, we are able to realise the ideas which were
in the air, more especially among the Pharisaic circles in which St Paul
received his early training. It should prove of genuine interest to attempt to
discover the new and the old in his formulation of his great primary
conceptions. What content, then, did the idea of ζωή have for the apostle? The
idea, even in its deeper suggestions, was, probably, in no sense foreign to his
earliest thinking. Indeed, certain hints afforded by the Epistles would lead us
to believe that the question of a true, victorious, indissoluble life was a
pressing one for St Paul even in his pre-Christian days. There can be no doubt
that the craving for life in the fullest sense of the term, is a factor of
immense weight in the religious consciousness. A recent philosophical writer has
said: “Not God, but life, more life, a larger, richer, more satisfying life, is,
in the last analysis, the end of religion. The love of life at any and every
level of development, is the religious impulse” (Prof. Leuba, Monist, xi. p.
572: quoted by James, Varieties of Religious Experience, p. 507). In the form in
which it is here expressed, this dictum is an exaggeration, but certainly an
exaggeration in the true direction.1 [Note: Cf. Tennyson’s well-known lines:-
“Thou wilt not leave us in the dust.

Thou madest man, he knows not why- He thinks he was not made to die, And Thou
hast made him: Thou art just”

(In Memoriam, Prelude); and James (Human Immortality, p. 11), “The whole subject
of immortal life has its prime roots in personal feeling.”]

“The universe,” writes Prof. James, “with every living entity which her
resources create, creates at the same time a call for that entity, and an
appetite for its continuance” (Human Immortality, p. 78). We have seen that
death was an experience at which St Paul shuddered.1 [Note: For the Judaistic
fear of death, see Weber, Lehren d. Talmud, pp. 325, 326.] The correct
interpretation of 2 Corinthians 5:1 ff. (as we shall discover) adds emphasis to
what has already been urged on this point. No thought has such power to kindle
his soul into exultation as that of the final and complete vanquishing of the
last enemy, which is death. But this is not all. Life, genuine life, in its
widest connotation, appears to him as the original purpose of God for humanity.
He speaks of the commandment of God as intended for life (Romans 7:10 : ἡ ἐντολὴ
ἡ εἰς ζωήν). He makes a very remarkable statement in Galatians 3:21 : εἰ γὰρ
ἐδόθη νόμος ὁ δυνάμενος ζωοποιῆσαι, ὄντως ἐκ νόμου ἂν ἦν ἡ δικαιοσύνη: “If a law
had been given which was able to make alive, then, essentially, righteousness
would have sprung from the law.” These words let us see deep into the texture of
the apostle’s religious thought. The supreme discovery which he has made is that
of his own flagrant misconception of the way of salvation. He believed that he
could attain complete satisfaction and peace with God by keeping the
commandments. But this turned out a hopeless effort, and he then discovered that
faith in Jesus Christ could do for him that in which the law was powerless. It
authenticated itself to him as the means by which he could realise his true end.
In the passage before us he identifies the highest conceivable purpose of God
with ζωοποιεῖν, “making alive.” But it is no incidental reference. The more
closely we examine his religious outlook, the more distinctly shall we find that
it is dominated by the conception of Life. Nothing reveals the fact more clearly
than its relation to the apostle’s conception of Justification, and its cognate,
Salvation. Thus in Romans 5:1-21, which sums up his discussion of justification
by depicting its blessedness, the final contrast in which the humanity which
starts from Adam is placed over against the humanity which originates in Christ,
resolves itself ultimately into the supreme contrast between life (ζωή) and
death (θάνατος). Life is, in fact, the issue and goal of justification (see the
remarkable phrase in verse 18, εἰς δικάιωσιν ζωῆς, “justifying which confers or
leads to life”). The normative function of this idea for his entire thought is
no less marked in the succeeding section of Romans, which deals with the state
of grace. Here again, the inference they are to draw from their new relation to
Christ, that relation which he has described as “buried with Him by baptism into
death,” “united together with the likeness of His death,” is that they are now
“alive (ζῶντας) unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (6:11), or, in another
place, as “made free from sin and become servants of God,” they have their
“fruit unto holiness, and the end (τὸ τέλος) everlasting life” (6:22). It is
scarcely necessary, in view of some preceding sections in this discussion, to
point out the prominence of the conception of Life in the group of ideas which
centre round salvation. A typical example is 1 Corinthians 1:18 : “The preaching
of the Cross is to them that perish (τοῖς ἀπολλυμένοις) foolishness; but unto us
which are being saved (τοῖς σωζομένοις) it is the power of God.” The issues of
those two decisive processes which must sift mankind are obviously the very same
as have been emphasised above: ἀπώλεια and σωτηρία. Ἀπώλεια and θάνατος are, of
course, synonymous for the apostle. Σωτηρία is merely the negative conception
for that gift of God which is contrasted with θάνατος in Romans 6:23, namely,
eternal life (ζωὴ αἰώνιος) “in Jesus Christ our Lord” (cf. the words of Romans
5:10, which strikingly corroborate our position, “If, when we were enemies, we
were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, having been
reconciled, we shall be saved in His life,” σωθησόμεθα ἐν τῇ ζωῇ αὐτοῦ).1 [Note:
Titius, pp. 53-55, is very suggestive on this whole subject. See also p. 186:
“The essential meaning of the kingdom of God is for Paul as for Jesus, life (in1
Corinthians 15:50βασιλείαalternates withἀφθαρσία) and glory (cf.1 Thessalonians
2:12). The conception of blessing leads us to the same connection. In itself of
universal meaning, and embracing all the Divine benefits, it is already in the
Old Testament referred to the Messianic benefit of Life (cf.Deuteronomy
2:26-28with 30:15, 19;Jeremiah 21:8), and as inMatthew 25:34; Matthew 25:41, so
also inGalatians 3:1-29, Abraham’s blessing is fully identified with eternal
life. This shows the manner in which the conception of life is introduced into
the context (3:11, 12) which treats of blessing and cursing.” “It was life,
which all these rules (i.e. the ritual of the Avesta) were destined to propagate
and to foster: strong and wholesome life as they understood it, the life of the
body which must not suffer diminution by sin or by want or by bad treatment …
the life of the soul which is nourished by holy instruction and the adoration of
God; the life of the race … the life of nature” (Söderblom, op. cit., p. 115).]
Life, that is to say, is for St Paul the summum bonum. Life eternal (ζωὴ
αἰώνιος) is the supreme reward for a course of perseverance, through faith, in
righteousness: it is the gift of God which is richly bestowed in Christ Jesus.2
[Note: It is scarcely relevant for Grill to remark (Untersuchungen, i. p. 323):
“How little determinism (election, working of Spirit, etc.) asserts itself in
the Pauline consciousness at the expense of subjective conditions, or of the
purely ethical manner of attaining final salvation, is evidenced by the fact
that in the whole of the Pauline section of the New Testament world of ideas,
the attribute ‘eternal’ is never applied to the present Christian life.” Surely
this is not a point which calls for emphasis, seeing that theζωήwhich St Paul
attributes to believers now virtually partakes of all the qualities embraced
under the termαἰώνιος. As Haupt suggestively points out in dealing with the
teaching of Jesus, the epithetαἰώνιοςshows a tendency throughout the New
Testament to pass from its quantitative sense of “endlessness” into the
qualitative idea of “supra-earthly,” having the quality of that Æon in which the
dominion of God is complete (see Eschatol. Aussagen Jesu, p. 84). Undoubtedly
the beginning of this transition is visible in St Paul, as Grill himself
practically admits a few sentences before (loc. cit.). Indeed, his definition of
“Life,” as used in the Fourth Gospel, might hold of the apostle’s conception:
“Life … is the continuous, organically-unified activity of a capacity of forces,
imparted by God through Christ to receptive (believing) men, according to its
nature renewing itself continually and perfecting itself from its Divine source,
which not only (and this in the first instance) in a wholly spiritual fashion on
the side of consciousness, ethically, and in a moral-intellectual manner, is
effectual as a principle of development, but also forms the real condition for
physical glorification, the spiritual bodily perfecting of the human
personality, and from the beginning evokes the feeling of attaining blessedness”
(op. cit., p. 306). This definition, although inordinately cumbrous, is both
deep and comprehensive.]

Let us briefly endeavour to reach the basis of St Paul’s thought on the subject.
We have seen that the great blessing of the future order of things, in which
God’s sway should be paramount, was already in the literature of Judaism
frequently summed up as life, or eternal life.1 [Note: An interesting summary of
the history of this conception in Judaism is given by Dalman, which we here
abridge.Daniel 12:2first speaks of the “everlasting life” (çÇéÌÅé òåÉìÈí) of the
pious; then in the first pre-Christian century, Ps. Sol. 3:16 (. 13:9); Enoch
xxxvii. 4, xl. 9 (. lviii. 3); lxii. 14 (see Slavon. Enoch lxv. 10);2Ma 7:9; 2Ma
7:36;4Ma 15:3. Also in the Onkelos-Targum, which does not speak of the “future
Æon,” the conception has found a place asçÇéÄéÄ òÈìÀîÈà(Leviticus 18:5), meant
in this sense. Thus the collocationéÄéÄçÅé áÌÀçÇéÄéÄ òÈìÀîÈà, “He shall live in
the eternal life,” makes clear in the passages cited, and in the Targum
onEzekiel 20:11, Hosea 14:10, thatçÇéÄéÄ òÈìÀîÈàis in these regarded as
equivalent toòÈìîÈà ãÀàÈúÅé. The rest of the older Jewish literature has the
expression “eternal life” almost exclusively when it stands in contrast to
“perishable life.” Numerous examples (Worte Jesu, pp. 127-128.)] This included
all that we mean by “physical” life, but it evidently regarded this as directly
sustained by the power and fellowship of God. Our difficulty was to discover how
this sustenance of life was mediated, and on what lines the original “natural”
life of the body was raised, so to speak, to a higher power, charged with the
potentiality of eternity. When we turn to the writings of St Paul, we are left
in no such perplexity. It will always, indeed, be impossible to reach a complete
analysis of delicate spiritual experiences; but the apostle has set forth
clearly enough the general features of his own appropriation of the Divine gift
of life, its conditions, and its channel. Whatever St Paul may have carried with
him from his training in a devout Jewish home and subsequently in the schools of
the Pharisees, the unique spiritual crisis of his own life formed the regulating
factor in his conceptions of the Divine workings in human experience. It may be
difficult for us to construct any coherent picture of the objective phenomenon
which was presented to the Pharisee as he journeyed to Damascus: objective we
say expressly, for there are no arguments which can weigh against the calm
conviction exhibited by St Paul as to this event. For except on the ground of
unshaken conviction, no man, who, in describing other visions and revelations,
employs so entirely different a tone, could have uttered the bare statement,
“Have not I seen Jesus our Lord?” (1 Corinthians 9:1). But after all, the more
important part of this extraordinary crisis, practically, was the spiritual
transformation of which the apostle was conscious. This, or rather the result of
this, he describes in language which fits in with remarkable aptness to that
section of his thought which we are discussing. “I have been crucified with
Christ, and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me, and the life
which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith, faith in the Son of God, who
loved me and gave Himself for me” (Galatians 2:20). Here we have placed before
us with unmistakable clearness what he conceives to be the genesis of the new
life in him. The first clause holds the key. The Christ whom St Paul met on his
memorable journey was the Christ who had been crucified. We know what that
tremendous fact meant for the apostle. He found in the Crucified the
propitiation for his sins. He found in His atoning death the supreme revelation
of the love of God, the love of God as forgiving love, welcoming the sinner,
setting him in a new relation to God, and also in a new relation to sin. His own
response to that marvellous love was faith, complete trust in the Christ who had
died for him, and by that faith he made Christ’s death his own. Sin became to
him what it was to Christ. He was through faith introduced into a new
environment, the environment of the victorious Lord. Henceforward, he breathes
the atmosphere of that new realm, the realm of grace. He lives its life. As all
careful readers of the Epistles must have observed, the apostle regards the
whole grand experience of salvation from two points of view, the one of which is
really the obverse of the other. In a number of important passages the prominent
conception is that of dying to sin with Christ, and living in Him to God. A
striking example is Romans 6:5 ff.: “If we have been engrafted into the likeness
of His death, we shall be also into the likeness of His resurrection, knowing
this that our old man was crucified along with Him, that the body of sin might
be annulled with a view to our no longer serving sin.… Now, if we die along with
Christ, we believe that we shall also live along with Him, knowing that Christ,
having risen from the dead, no more dies; death no longer rules over Him. For in
that He died to sin, He died once for all; but the life He lives, He lives to
God. So also do you conclude yourselves to be dead (νεκρούς) as regards sin, but
living as regards God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your
mortal body, so as to obey its lusts, nor offer your members to sin as tools of
unrighteousness.” Here is the new life looked at from the human side, from the
side of man’s response to the divine mercy made manifest in Christ crucified for
him. By faith in the virtue of that atoning death, the believer identifies
himself with it. He shows his willingness to throw off the yoke of sin and to
enter the service of righteousness. The best proof of his willingness, the best
evidence of the meaning of his faith, is the actual refusal to yield his members
as tools of unrighteousness (Romans 6:13). Accordingly, such an expression as
that quoted at the outset, “I have been crucified with Christ,” has a large and
rich content. The fleshly nature has entered on a process of annulment and
abolition, because in Christ it is cut off from its old environment, sin. Faith
has brought the personality, as a whole, into contact with that new principle of
life which belongs to the living Christ who was raised on account of our
justifying (διὰ τὴν δικαίωσιν ἡμῶν), and the new life is really the full
expression and self-evidencing of justification. But this wonderful process can
be viewed also from its complementary side, namely, the operation of God in
Christ, the activity of the Holy Spirit. We cannot, indeed, think of the two
sides as apart from each other. For, as Prof. Denney admirably expresses it,
“The faith which abandons itself to Christ is at the same time a receiving of
the Spirit of Christ, or of what to experience is the same thing, Christ in the
Spirit; there are not two things here, but one (the italics are ours), though it
can be represented in the two relations which the words Faith and Spirit
suggest” (Expos. vi. 4, p. 426). This intimate connection is strikingly shown,
e.g., in Galatians 5:5 : “For we by the Spirit (πνεύματι), as the result of
faith (ἐκ πίστεως), eagerly await the hope of righteousness” (ἐλπίδα
δικαιοσύνης, lit., the hope which righteousness guarantees). But it is natural
to find that the apostle, in speaking of the new life of the believer as
something which has passed beyond its initial stage, the dawning of faith in
Christ crucified, which unfolds the high possibility of breaking with sin once
for all on the basis of God’s forgiving love, should think most frequently of
the power which sustains the new relationship, and is none else than He who has
reconciled the sinner to God. Christ, that is to say, is his new life-principle.
This fact he realises in a particular form. “The law of the Spirit of life in
Christ Jesus made me (v.l., thee) free from the law of sin and death” (Romans
8:2). “If Christ be in you, the body is dead on account of sin, but the Spirit
is life on account of righteousness” (8:10). “Christ in” him, is equivalent to
the “Spirit of life,” or the Spirit which is life. He lives by the Spirit
(cf.Galatians 5:25 : εἰ ζῶμεν πνεύματι, πνεύματι καὶ στοιχῶμεν, “If we live by
the Spirit, let us take each step by the Spirit,” στοιχεῖν referring to the
details of conduct). Here we touch a fundamental aspect of St Paul’s religious
experience. The primary importance of his meeting with Christ lay in the fact
that, in response to his faith in the crucified and risen Redeemer, his soul was
brought into a marvellous new contact with a power outside himself, which he
could only attribute to the living Lord. This he could describe as the Spirit of
God, or of Christ, dwelling in him. Henceforward he is led by the Spirit of God
(Romans 8:14 : ὅσοι γὰρ πνεύματι θεοῦ ἄγονται,οὗτοι ὑιόι εἰσιν θεοῦ). “The
Spirit itself (αὐτὸ τὸ πνεῦμα) bears witness with (συμμαρτυρεῖ) our spirit that
we are children of God” (Romans 8:16). Here he concentrates his thought on the
Divine part in the new life of salvation. Unquestionably, the existence of faith
is presupposed all through, faith in the Son of God who loved him and gave
Himself for him. Only by such means can his nature be linked to the Divine, the
supernatural, the activity which springs from the living God. It was of no
concern to him to inquire as to the relation in time, or sequence, of faith to
the possession of the Spirit. Both were included in the same glorious unity of
spiritual illumination. Both must ultimately be traced to God. “For by grace
have ye been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, to God belongs the
gift” (θεοῦ τὸ δῶρον, Ephesians 2:8). The Spirit, therefore, is the Divine
factor, working in the believing soul and sustaining the life of faith.

It will be of interest to ask, How is this gift of the Spirit, which is the
principle of the new life, related to the apostle’s psychology? As we have
already observed, St Paul has, strictly speaking, no psychology. The phenomena
of the inner life interest him solely on their religious side. He accepts in
general the Old Testament view of the constitution of man, perhaps regulating
his thought especially by the Creation-narrative in Genesis 2:1-25. According to
the Old Testament, as we have seen, man consists of flesh (bāsār), soul
(nephesh), and spirit (ruah). We need, it is true, to exercise caution in
analysing the difference between nephesh and ruah. Ruah is not higher than
nephesh, neither is it, strictly speaking, distinct from it. Rather is it
nephesh possessing or manifesting power. All influences from God are influences
from His ruah. And the immortal part of man, as ruah, receives these
influences.1 [Note: These latter sentences are condensed from MS. notes of Dr A.
B. Davidson’s lectures.] We noted, at an earlier point in our discussion, that
at death the nephesh, as the bearer of the personality, descends into Sheol,
while the ruah, which was the quickening influence in the person, returns to God
from whom it came. Conceptions such as these lie at the basis of St Paul’s view
of the constitution of man. Only, as we might expect, certain important
modifications have to be observed. The conception of “flesh” (bāsār, σάρξ),
which predominates in the Old Testament as an inclusive description or
definition of the bodily nature,1 [Note: FOR THE USE OFΣΑΡΞAS DESIGNATING THE
BODY, EVEN IN GREEK PHILOSOPHICAL LITERATURE OF THE FIRST TWO CENTURIES A.D.,
SEE ZELLER, THEOLOG. JAHRBÜCHER, 1852, PP. 293-297.] has, of course, an
influential place in Paulinism. Side by side with it in the writings of the
apostle, there appears the cognate term σῶμα, not often found in the Septuagint
as a translation of bāsār, which may perhaps best be rendered in English as
“organism.” The term, that is to say, is colourless as compared with σάρξ. The
latter, in St Paul’s usage, almost always implies the bodily nature in its
present condition, the bodily nature as we know it in experience.2 [Note: See
Cremer, in Herzog3 vi. p. 104.] It has already been pointed out that the apostle
is not interested in the physical side of man as such. Its ethical import is
that which concerns him. In this aspect of it, he is too well aware that it is
corrupted by sin. We see nothing in his writings to justify the hypothesis so
frequently charged upon him, that he took a dualistic view of human nature,
holding the inherent evil of matter. The constitution of matter is a problem
which would never appeal to him.3 [Note: Cf. Denney: “The Flesh belongs not to
his psychology-he has no such thing-but to his moral and religious experience:
it is that in him which does not submit itself to the law of God, and cannot,
but lives in the perpetual revolt of sin. It is common to ask how Paul conceived
man’s nature to have become what it is, or whether he conceived it to have been
what it is from the beginning. These are questions to which no answer is
supplied: they are questions, indeed, which it would have been as impossible for
Paul to answer as it is for us.… We know what the Flesh means as soon as we have
a conscience at all, and memory reaches no further, if indeed as far” (Expos.
vi. 3, pp. 291, 293).] Man as a living person is made up of body (flesh) and
soul (spirit). Man as a person is sinful: from that the apostle concludes that
those elements in him which compose his personal being, are, as a matter of
experience, tainted by sin. At this point we touch a difficult problem in St
Paul’s religious terminology. As we know it, σάρξ, the flesh, is corrupt. So is
the ψυχή, the soul, which is the inward principle of the σάρξ, like the nephesh,
the bearer of the personality, the natural life-centre of the individual.
Neither of these can be conceived without the other. Σάρξ is meaningless apart
from ψυχή. And ψυχή is never posited except as informingσάρξ.1 [Note: See, e.g.,
Lüdemann, Anthropologie d. Ap. Paulus, p. 4; also p. 33.] But the ψυχή has what
one may call a higher side. This the apostle generally designates νοῦς, the
power of moral discernment, perhaps virtually equivalent to our term
“conscience.”2 [Note: The late, semi-philosophical term συνείδησις occurs
repeatedly in the Pauline Epistles, but almost exclusively where he is
discussing questions of Christian liberty. Henever employs it when describing
the processes of the new life which reveal themselves in the depths of Christian
experience. The word is probably one of the few links which directly associate
him with the intellectual activity of contemporary Hellenism.] A closely allied
expression is ὁ ἔσω ἄνθρωπος. Both of these terms (or in the case of the latter,
an exact parallel) are to be found in Greek philosophy. In its philosophical
usage, νοῦς denotes, according to Siebeck (Geschichte d. Psychologie, i. 2. p.
52), “the thinking spirit, that part of the soul peculiar to man, which animals
do not possess, linked to no bodily organ, in its deepest essence un-become
(ungeworden) and incorruptible.” Plato (Republic, ix. 589 A.) speaks of τοῦ
ἀνθρώπου ὁ ἐντὸς ἄνθρωπος, which seems an exact equivalent of the Pauline
phrase. It would be, of course, unsafe to infer that these conceptions occur in
their Hellenic sense in St Paul. As regards the last-named, there is no need to
look for its basis in Platonic thought. “The man within” is an idea which might
quite naturally be found in popular currency. In St Paul’s usage it seems
practically identical with νοῦς, in the sense of that part of man’s nature to
which Divine influences and appeals will usually attach themselves. It is that
aspect of the innermost life of man which lies open to God.1 [Note:ΝΟῦΣOCCURS
VERY RARELY IN THE LXX. WHEN IT DOES, IT USUALLY TRANSLATES THE
HEBREWìÅáORìÅáÈá, HEART.] In the New Testament, νοῦς is almost confined to the
Pauline Epistles. If St Paul did not adopt the term from contemporary Greek
thought,2 [Note: The Aristotelianνοῦς, e.g., really finds its New Testament
parallel inπνεῦμα. See Siebeck, Zeitschr. f. Völker-Psychol. xii. pp. 397, 398.]
as is quite probable, he certainly modified it according to his own view of
man’s inner constitution.

Now, if the apostle had restricted himself to the use of the terms we have been
considering, to express the factors in human consciousness, apart from the
Divine operation, it would be a perfectly simple matter to delimit his
conceptions. Thus we should be able to assert without reservation that, wherever
he uses πνεῦμα to denote an element in the inner life of man, he has in view
either the direct gift of the Divine πνεῦμα imparted to the individual, or the
human soul in its new condition as transformed by the Spirit of God. As a matter
of fact, this may be stated as his normal standpoint. The conception of πνεῦμα
has become gradually spiritualised, if we may so say, in Jewish thought. From
the earlier Greek conception of it as a kind of air or breath, which came to be
regarded as the bearer of vitality and a link between σῶμα and ψυχή, it had
reached, among the Stoics, the position of the creative principle (the πῦρ
τεχνικόν) through which the organic development of all things takes place. It
was at the same time “the all-penetrating, quickening power and soul of the
world, the breath of life in all, and as such the deity itself.” Hence, from
being conceived as the most highly refined “body,” it came to be regarded as
λόγος, reason. This aspect of πνεῦμα was developed by the Jew Philo, and
naturally it came to be affected by the intensely ethical and spiritual
character of the Old Testament conception of God.1 [Note: See, on the whole
development, Siebeck’s admirable essay in Zeitschr. f. Völker-Psychol. xii.,
especially pp. 373-395. Cf. his Geschichte d. Psychol. i. 2. pp. 148-155.] St
Paul carries the process to its highest point. For him the πνεῦμα, according to
his normal view, is the Spirit of God, mediated through the exalted Christ. In
one passage he expressly identifies the Spirit with Christ: “Now the Lord is the
Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:17; with this may be compared ver. 18, καθάπερ ἀπὸ
κυρίου πνεύματος, “as from the Lord who is (the) Spirit”). The indwelling of the
πνεῦμα is the basis and pledge of eternal life in the believer. We shall return
to this point: but a difficulty must first be noted. There are about a dozen
passages in which St Paul uses πνεῦμα in a looser sense. It is needless to
enumerate all of these here. The following examples will suffice: 1 Corinthians
2:11, “For who of men knoweth the things of man save the spirit of man (τὸ
πνεῦμα τοῦ ἀνθρώπου) which is in him” (cf.Romans 8:16, “The Spirit itself
beareth witness with our spirit that we are children of God”) a passage in which
a distinctly human πνεῦμα is contrasted with the Divine; 1 Corinthians 5:3,
“Being absent in the body but present in the spirit” (τῷ πνεύματι, cf. 7:34,
16:18; 2 Corinthians 2:13), where he uses πνεῦμα in a popular or colloquial
sense; 1 Thessalonians 5:23, “May your spirit and soul and body, in their
entirety, be preserved blamelessly” (ὁλόκληρον ὑμῶν τὸ πνεῦμα καὶ ἡ ψυχὴ καὶ τὸ
σῶμα ἀμέμπτως … τηρηθείη), where we should suppose (with Dr A. B. Davidson) that
this is a rhetorical combination, not to be interpreted prosaically, or as
representing any psychological theory of the apostle’s. We need not be in any
way astonished at these exceptions to his stricter usage. Nor is there occasion,
with Holsten (Paulin. Theologie, pp. 10-11), to look for special reasons why St
Paul should employ πνεῦμα of the human spirit. No thinker is strictly accurate
in his terminology. There are freer moods in which he avails himself of current
terms, entirely unconscious of the fact that pedantry will demand uniformity in
his language. There is some force, also, in the observation of Titius (p. 240,
note 1), that St Paul, “with the exception of 1 Corinthians 2:11, nowhere speaks
of the spirit of man, not even in 1 Corinthians 5:3; 1 Corinthians 5:5; 1
Corinthians 7:34, etc., but of the spirit of the Christian, and nowhere is this
Christian determination of the spirit without importance in the context,”
although we doubt whether this distinction was to any large extent before the
apostle’s mind in the relevant passages. But to return to his strict conception
of the πνεῦμα. This implies undoubtedly the entrance of a new factor, the Divine
energy into the inner life. He gives various descriptions of the experience.
These are all involved ideally in the first genuine contact of the soul with God
in Christ through faith. When the soul recognises the love of God in Christ as
the Saviour, and appropriates that forgiving love by faith, it is brought into
touch with God as living, and dealing with it. This is, in St Paul’s view, an
experience of the Divine πνεῦμα. Yet we find him urging it, at times, on those
who have already been baptised. It is absurd to say (with some expositors) that
the apostle associated the reception of the Spirit with baptism. Had this been
the case, baptism would not occupy the comparatively insignificant place which
it does in his teaching. Baptism is indeed a vivid picture or illustration of
the saving process. On the one hand, it sets forth the unseen experiences which
are attained through faith. As the baptised person is plunged out of sight in
the water, and then rises out of the cleansing element a member of the Christian
community, so does the believer, who by faith appropriates the benefits of
Christ’s atoning death and resurrection, pass out of contact with the sinful
life of the flesh, annulled on the Cross, and rise in fellowship with the risen
Lord to newness of life in the Spirit. But, obviously, the picture also
symbolises the relation of the believer to the Spirit. For all that has happened
to him in the experience of salvation, his death to sin (immersion beneath the
water), and his entrance upon a new life (emergence from the water), is really
accomplished for him in response to his faith, accomplished by the Divine
operation; is the work, as St Paul would put it, of the Holy Spirit.
Necessarily, in that sense, the experience of baptism emphasises the reality and
significance of the gift of the Spirit, and thus quickens the believer’s
consciousness of its possession.

What happens in the reception of the Spirit may be described as an ἀνακαίνωσις
τοῦ νοός, “a renewing of the νοῦς” (Romans 12:2). From the remarkable
collocation in Ephesians 4:23, ἀνανεοῦσθαι … τῷ πνεύματι τοῦ νοὸς ὑμῶν, “to be
renewed in the spirit of your mind,” we may infer that St Paul regards the
Divine πνεῦμα as taking possession of the νοῦς. This implies that there is now a
new moral centre of the personal life. Yet we must not conceive the Divine
Spirit as passing over, as it were, into the subjective, regenerated life of the
believer. For the apostle always regards the Divine energy as continuing to act
on the life of the believer as a distinct objective power.1 [Note: See Weiss, N.
T. Theol. (E. Tr.) i. p. 477.] This is evident from Romans 8:16. The person
becomes πνευματικός, “spiritual,” instead of ψυχικός, “natural” (virtually
equivalent to “conditioned by human nature as such”). The ψυχή, or soul, which
is the substratum, so to speak, of the νοῦς, is overshadowed, or rather
supplanted in the government of the personality, by the πνεῦμα, which becomes
the basis of the new life. Thus the new life may be said to be at the same time
supernatural and psychologically mediated. It is very doubtful whether any trace
remains of the more ancient quasi-physical side of the conception.
Unquestionably πνεῦμα can mean “breath” and “wind,” and some theologians imagine
that St Paul does presuppose, in a sense, and inbreathing (material in the most
refined degree) of the Divine life. Pfleiderer, for example, speaks of the
πνεῦμα, according to St Paul’s view, as “in itself a transcendent physical
essence, a supersensuous kind of matter, which is the opposite of the earthly,
sensuous materiality of the σάρξ” (Paulinism, i. p. 201). Kabisch holds that in
St Paul “the πνεῦμα has a kind of physical, or, to put it better, metaphysical,
substantial quality” (Esch. d. Paulus, p. 113). We can find no evidence in the
Epistles for this position. It seems to attribute to the apostle an analysis of
the new Divine life altogether foreign to his method of thought. But, bearing in
mind his synthetic conception of life, to which we have already referred, we are
justified in affirming that this experience affects what we should designate the
physical life of the believer. This, at least in its essential element, shares
in the quickening (ζωοποιεῖν), which is a main function of the πνεῦμα. Probably
it would be truer to the apostle’s conception to say that the whole person is
quickened by the life-giving Spirit. Nothing less can be the meaning of the
strong words of Romans 8:11 : εἰ δὲ τὸ πνεῦμα τοῦ ἐγείραντος τὸν Ἰησοῦν ἐκ
νεκρῶν οἰκεῖ ἐν υμῖν, ὁ ἐγείρας ἐκ νεκρῶν Χριστὸν Ἰησοῦν ζωοποιήσει καὶ τὰ θνητὰ
σώματα ὑμῶν διὰ τοὺ ἐνοικοῦντος αὐτοῦ πνεύματος ἐν ὑμῖν: “If the Spirit of Him
who raised Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised from the dead Christ
Jesus shall quicken even your mortal bodies through His Spirit dwelling in
you.”1 [Note: Cf. Titius: “When he speaks of the Spirit which makes alive (2
Corinthians 3:6;1 Corinthians 15:45), of the life of Jesus Christ, or of the
Spirit in believers (Galatians 2:20; Galatians 5:25;2 Corinthians 4:10-12; 2
Corinthians 5:15;Romans 6:4; Romans 6:11; Romans 6:13; Romans 8:2; Romans 8:6;
Romans 8:10), we must not interpret the ‘life’ metaphorically, as in1
Thessalonians 3:8, but in addition to the spiritual, ethical reference, the
supernatural must necessarily be maintained. He deals with thereal, higher life,
… which … forms a transition-stage to that (i.e. eternal life)” (p. 263). The
truth is, as Pfleiderer well expresses it, that “the two ideas of the ζωή, the
‘eschatological’ [a far better description than ‘transcendent-physical’ which
healso employs, e.g. i. p. 204], and the ‘ethical’ interpenetrate one another”
(Paulinism, i. p. 206). It has to be remembered that St Paul would never
consider each by itself apart.] This quickening has nothing spasmodic or
abnormal about it. It is a gradual, orderly process, thus described in 2
Corinthians 4:16 : ἀλλʼ εἰ καὶ ὁ ἔξω ἡμῶν ἄνθρωπος διαφθείρεται, ἀλλʼ ὁ ἔσω ἡμῶν
ἀνακαινοῦται ἡμέρᾳ καὶ ἡμέρᾳ: “But although our outward man decays, our inner
man is renewed from day to day.” We shall have to discuss later on the relation
of this process to the genesis of the σῶμα πνευματικόν, the “spiritual body,”
which is to be the organism of the glorified believer. Enough, however, has been
said to indicate the steps which St Paul presupposes in the inauguration of new
life in the individual, and his conception of its psychological mediation.

We are now, therefore, in a position to summarise his precise conception of
Life. In many passages, of course, he uses ζωή in the more or less colloquial
sense of existence in the world: e.g., Romans 8:38 f., “I am persuaded that
neither death nor life … shall be able to separate us from the love of God”; Php
1:20, “According to my hope that … Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether
by life or by death”; 1 Corinthians 15:19, “If in this life we have only hoped
in Christ.” On these it is unnecessary to comment. At the other extremity, ζωή
has for him the definite sense of a future reward or boon which God will bestow.
This may be designated as its “eschatological” usage. In this sense, ζωή is
generally qualified by the adjective αἰώνιος. The phrase invariably denotes life
looked at in prospect, in its complete realisation. Ἀιώνιος is an eschatological
adjective. But even here, where the future outlook is so prominent, ζωή seems
usually to be regarded as the end, or the crowning-point, or the reward, or the
harvest, of a preliminary course of experience and discipline which leads up to
it. Thus, in Romans 2:7, ζωή is the recompense of perseverance in righteous
conduct and of the quest for glory and immortality; in Romans 5:21, it is the
goal and aim of the reign of grace through Jesus Christ; in Romans 6:22, it
expresses the end (τέλος) or climax of the life of freedom from sin and bondage
to God, and hence it is further defined as the gift of God (in contrast with the
wages of sin) in Christ Jesus. Finally, in Galatians 6:8, the apostle designates
as ζωή the harvest reaped ἐκ τοῦ πνεύματος by him who sows εἰς τὸ πνεῦμα.
Plainly, there is an organic connection between ζωή and that human experience of
which it is the culmination. It is in no sense an acquirement added on at death
or judgment or the inauguration of the coming Æon. Ἀιώνιος shows what is its
quality. It partakes of the nature of God Himself, and of the new glorified life
which He introduces. It is eternal. There are one or two passages which contain,
apparently, this shade of meaning, although αἰώνιος is lacking: e.g., Romans
5:17, “Those receiving the superabundance of grace, and of the gift of
righteousness, shall reign in life through one, Jesus Christ”; also Php 4:3,
“Whose names are in the book of life” (ἐν βίβλῳ ζωῆς). But St Paul always
regards life as a present possession of the believer. As such, it is the direct
result of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and may even be termed the actual
presence of the Spirit in the human personality. We have seen how the apostle
conceives this endowment, as related to the natural inner constitution of the
individual. Most typical instances are: Romans 8:2, “The law of the Spirit of
life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and death”; 8:6, “The mind
of the spirit is life and peace”; 8:10, “If Christ be in you, the body is dead
(νεκρόν) because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.” This
last example leads us to one or two passages in which the ζωή of the believer is
represented as the very ζωή of the exalted Christ: so 2 Corinthians 4:10-11,
“Always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, in order that the life
also of Jesus may be manifested in our body; for always we, the living, are
delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus may be
manifested in our mortal body”; Colossians 3:4, “When Christ shall be
manifested, our life (ἡ ζωὴ ἡμῶν), then you also will be manifested with Him in
glory.” With these verses may be compared the remarkable expression of Ephes.
4:18: “Alienated (ἀπηλλοτριωμένοι) from the life of God.” This life, as we have
noted, belongs to earthly experience: e.g.2 Corinthians 4:12, “Life works
(ἐνεργεῖται) in you.” It is by no means something abnormal. It was God’s
original design for man, for ἡ ἐντολή, the commandment of God, was one designed
for life (ἡ εἰς ζωήν, Romans 7:10). “If a law had been given, able to make alive
(ζωοποιῆσαι), righteousness would essentially have sprung from the law,”
Galatians 3:21). The possession of “life” is really the ideal of humanity. It
forms the content of the Gospel of Christ which is a savour from life unto life
(2 Corinthians 2:16). It is a transformation of the former condition, which was
also, in a sense, ζωή. Through the power of the Spirit, the believer receives
καινότης ζωῆς (Romans 6:4). The transformed life, which necessarily includes the
“physical,” swallows up death (which also, for St Paul, includes the “physical”
aspect), and passes on into the eternal world (2 Corinthians 5:4; 1 Corinthians
15:54).

All the evidence which we have examined corroborates our earlier statement that
St Paul’s view of Life is synthetic. He would not have affirmed of the believer
that originally he possessed a natural life, but, when he surrendered himself to
Christ, received a spiritual. The new life is a renewal of the old from its very
foundations. It is not a renewal of one part but of the whole. It embraces the
physical (to use our distinctions) as well as the ethical or religious. For St
Paul, the sum of the believer’s experiences is a unity. Life includes the
totality of his energies. It cannot be divided up into provinces, of which one
may be contrasted with another. Its only contrast lies in Death. Death for the
apostle means the ruin of the whole personality. Life means its triumphant
continuance in the power of the Spirit beyond the barriers of earth and time, in
conformity with the nature of the glorified Christ, who is the Image of the
invisible God.


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  CHAPTER 6: 04. ST PAUL'S CONCEPTIONS OF THE PAROUSIA AND THE JUDGMENT
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Chapter IV ST PAUL’S CONCEPTIONS OF THE PAROUSIA AND THE JUDGMENT At the stage
we have reached in our inquiry, a difficulty occurs as to the question of
method.

St Paul’s statements regarding the Parousia are most intimately interwoven with
his treatment of the Resurrection. Both belong to that inbreaking of the era of
salvation, in which time is no longer reckoned. Yet his conception of the
Resurrection is so crucial for the apostle’s Eschatology, that it inevitably
demands a separate discussion for itself. It is not easy to decide between the
respective claims of the two groups of ideas as to priority of handling.
Perhaps, however, a truer perspective will be gained in our presentation of St
Paul’s forecast of the future, if we deal first with the Parousia, and its chief
content, the Judgment, and then pass on to the Resurrection, a subject which
takes us into the very heart of his religious thought and experience.
Unquestionably, in the former province, as we shall discover, he has followed
much more closely what may be called the prophetic tradition. In the latter, he
has remoulded current notions by means of that creative power which sprang from
his wonderful contact with the risen Lord. The careful reader of the Pauline
Epistles must be forcibly impressed by their constant references, in one form or
another, to that event which the Christian Church is accustomed to designate the
Second Coming of Christ. This emphasis on the Parousia is, indeed, by no means
peculiar to St Paul. All the New Testament writers seem to assign to it a like
prominence. In proof, we have only to cite such passages as James 5:8 : “Be ye
also patient; stablish your hearts; for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh”; 1
Peter 4:7 : “The end of all things is at hand; be ye therefore sober, and watch
unto prayer”; Hebrews 10:25 : “Exhorting one another, and so much the more, as
ye see the day approaching.”1 [Note: It is characteristic of all intense
eschatological expectation to look for a speedy development of events.
Cf.Revelation 1:1, “To show unto His servants things which must shortly come to
pass.” The earlier Jewish Apocalypses reveal the same trait: cf. Apoc. Bar.
xxiii. 7, “My salvation has truly drawn nigh, and it is no longer distant as
formerly”; also Enoch li. 2, “He (i.e. the Messiah) will choose out the
righteous and holy among them, for the day of their redemption is near.”
Davidson refers to the same phenomenon in the O.T., “the peculiarity of
prophecy, which compresses great momenta into a brief space, which brings up
great movements close upon the back of one another, and takes them all in at one
glance of the eye.” He compares our Lord’s prophecy of the End in which “the two
great events which He has in view-the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of
the world-seem immediately combined,” and offers the hypothesis that “there may
have been a powerful exercise of the intuitional faculty which presented the
events together, taking little note of time, or contracting the time into what
seemed a period of a very few years” (O.T. Prophecy, p. 353).] These are typical
of a large class of passages. And the fact stands out in bolder relief, owing to
the comparative receding of the conception in the later periods of the history
of the Church.

It may be well to inquire at the outset into the special reasons which should be
assigned for the phenomenon in question, although, in attempting such an
inquiry, we must confine ourselves to the apostle Paul. In many passages, more
especially in the earlier Epistles, he seems to expect the Parousia in his own,
or, at least, in his readers’ lifetime. Writing to the Thessalonians, he
rejoices at the success of his ministry among them, and reminds them how they
turned “to God from idols, to serve the living and true God, and to await His
Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the
coming wrath” (1 Thessalonians 1:9-10).1 [Note: It is of importance to notice
that St Paul’s interest attaches to the Parousia solely along redemptive lines.
For him, certainly, its vital import lies in the assurance that it is to be a
deliverance from judgment and all that that involves.] He prays that their
hearts may be “blameless in holiness before our God and Father, at the Parousia
of our Lord Jesus” (1 Thessalonians 3:13). He reassures those who were
distressed because some of their friends “had fallen asleep,” by the affirmation
that “we, the living, who survive to the Parousia of the Lord shall not
anticipate (φθάσωμεν) those who fall asleep. For the Lord Himself shall descend
from heaven with a commanding word (κελεύσματι), with the voice of the archangel
and the trumpet of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first, then we, the
living, who survive, shall be snatched up with them in the clouds to meet the
Lord, into the air, and then shall we be ever with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians
4:15-17). He seeks to relieve their perplexity as to the precise time of the
Parousia, by declaring that they are not in darkness so that “the day” (i.e. of
the Lord) should come upon them (καταλάβῃ) as a thief. They are “sons of the
light and of the daytime,” therefore it accords with their character to watch
and live soberly (1 Thessalonians 5:4-6). He prays that their “spirit and soul
and body in their entirety (ὁλόκληρον) may be preserved blameless at the
Parousia of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thessalonians 5:23). In his second letter
to Thessalonica, his expectation appears to be no less vivid. To his persecuted
converts he predicts a stern judgment of God upon their cruel enemies, and for
themselves “rest along with us at the revelation (ἀποκαλύψει) of the Lord Jesus
from heaven with the angels of His might in flaming fire … when He shall have
come to be glorified (ἐνδοξασθῆναι) among His saints” (2 Thessalonians 1:6-10).
The Parousia of the Lord Jesus Christ and their “gathering together”
(ἐπισυναγωγή) to Him, had become events of such acute and vivid anticipation at
Thessalonica-apparently, in part, at least, from an exaggerated impression based
on his teaching-that he is obliged to correct their expectation of its immediacy
(2 Thessalonians 2:2). His expectant mood continues more or less throughout the
letters to the Corinthians and the Romans. Thus, he gives thanks for the rich
gifts bestowed on the Corinthian Christians as they eagerly await
(ἀπεκδεχομένους) “the revelation (ἀποκάλυψιν) of our Lord Jesus Christ,” and
expresses his confidence that they will prove without reproach “in the day of
our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 1:7-8). He entreats them not to be misled
by adversaries into hasty criticism of his work “before the time … until the
Lord shall have come” (1 Corinthians 4:5). In view of what he believes to be the
shortness of the interval (ὁκαιρὸςσυνεσταλμένοςἐστίν), he advises them to make
no new family ties, “for the fashion of this world passes away” (1 Corinthians
7:29; 1 Corinthians 7:31). And in the climax of the great Resurrection-passage
he can look forward to a day when those of them who have not fallen asleep-and
he appears, from the form of the sentence, to include himself-shall be
transformed “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet” (1
Corinthians 15:51-52). In the second Epistle the emphasis on the probable
imminence of the Parousia is by no means so marked. Indeed, we may even go the
length of saying that the apostle seems to have a presentiment that he will not
survive until that great crisis. This is suggested by such passages as 2
Corinthians 4:14; 2 Corinthians 4:16; 2 Corinthians 5:1 ff, 6-10. Some exegetes
have accounted for the less vivid statement of his expectation by the serious
perils through which he had lately passed at Ephesus (see 2 Corinthians 1:8-10;
2 Corinthians 6:4-10), perils which unquestionably have left their mark upon
this Epistle. Perhaps no such definite reason need be given.1 [Note: HEINRICI
OBSERVES WITH FORCE, THAT SO FAR FROM THESE GREAT DANGERS IN ASIA LEADING HIM TO
GIVE UP ALL HOPE OF EXPERIENCING THE PAROUSIA, HIS REMARKABLE DELIVERANCE FROM
THEM MUST HAVE STRENGTHENED IT (SEE HIS NOTES ON2 Corinthians 5:4F.).] A man of
the apostle’s richness and variety of spiritual experience cannot be tied down
by the logic of any merely external sequence of events. At certain moments in
his career the vista of the Kingdom of God would lengthen out for him, at others
it would seem to contract. Nothing, indeed, is more fitted to convince us of the
futility of postulating schemes of gradual development in St Paul’s Eschatology
(as, e.g., Sabatier, Teichmann, Holtzmann, and others have done) than his
utterances on the nearness of the Parousia.1 [Note: Of course we should admit
the possibility of very considerable variation as to details in the apostle’s
conceptions at different times, for the simple reason that neither in Judaism
nor in primitive-Christian circles does there seem to have been any rigid
eschatological system (see this point well argued in Bornemann’s Thessalonians,
p. 186). Where we fail to trace any marked development, is in his presentation
of the great central conceptions of Eschatology. Holtzmann is obliged to have
recourse to the theory, based on2 Corinthians 5:1-7, that St Paul, having given
up his old idea of resurrection, hopes, immediately after death, to be carried
to Christ in heaven. “But this,” he is forced to admit, “was certainly conceived
only as an exceptional case, affecting merely himself and a few companions in
spirit and fortune, as otherwise a total transformation of his entire
eschatology must be assumed,” etc., etc. (N.T. Theol. ii. p. 193). This
hypothesis of the “exceptional case” appears to us fatal to his idea of St
Paul’s development, for we can find no further evidence to support it.] For
while his expectation has receded in 2 Corinthians, it revives in the Epistle to
the Romans. In the eighth chapter he gives expression to eager yearnings for the
redemption (ἀπολύτρωσις) of the body (8:23). We know from other passages that
this redemption was to be accomplished at the Parousia. In chap. 5 he exults “in
the hope (ἐλπίδι) of the glory of God.” In the later letters, as we shall see,
ἐλπίς often represents his conception of the future of salvation. Towards the
close of the Epistle his statements are more definite. “And this, knowing (or,
taking note of) the season (καιρόν, fitting opportunity), that it is already
high time for you to rise from sleep: for now our salvation (σωτηρία, always
used by the apostle of the final, completed salvation) is nearer than when we
believed. The night has advanced, the day is at hand” (Romans 13:11-12).1 [Note:
AT THE SAME TIME, IN ROMANS ALSO, THE POSSIBILITY OF DYING BEFORE THE PAROUSIA
IS BY NO MEANS EXCLUDED: CF. 14:8, “FOR WHETHER WE LIVE, WE LIVE UNTO THE LORD;
AND WHETHER WE DIE, WE DIE UNTO THE LORD; WHETHER WE LIVE THEREFORE, OR DIE, WE
ARE THE LORD’S.”] Undoubtedly, in Colossians and Ephesians, the outlines of his
expectation are far more vague than in the earlier letters. The term ἐλπίς often
exhausts his Eschatology (e.g., Colossians 1:5; Colossians 1:23; Ephesians 1:18;
Ephesians 4:4). Still, the expression παραστῆσαι, in Colossians 1:22, “to
present you holy and blameless and without reproach before Him,” the same word
used of the apostle himself in 1:28, “that we may present every man perfect in
Christ,” together with the striking statement in 3:4, “when Christ shall be made
manifest, who is our Life, then you also will be made manifest with Him in
glory,” remind us that his early conviction continues to weigh with him. In
Philippians it is of importance to notice the blending of the two diverging
elements in his outlook. By this time, in his Roman prison, he feels no
certainty and no desire of surviving to the great crisis of the Lord’s
appearing: “I am constrained between the two alternatives, having the desire to
depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better” (Php 1:23). He speaks
of his converts at Philippi as “being a cause of glorying” to him “in the day of
Christ,” and thus testifying to the efficacy of his labours. But immediately he
goes on to contemplate the possibility of “being poured out as a libation upon
the sacrifice and service” of their faith, a contingency which he can meet with
joy, although it means death for him (2:16, 17). And in the magnificent
statement of his own Christian experience in chap. 3, he uses these remarkable
words: “If perchance I may attain unto the resurrection from the dead” (3:11).
It seems evident from the context that here he has in view a personal possession
of the life-giving power of the risen Lord, whereby he also may share in the
Resurrection, thus obviously accepting the probability of death before the
Parousia. Yet, side by side with these possibilities for himself, he has high
hopes of a different kind for his readers. He is assured that God who began His
good work in them “will finish it up to the day of Jesus Christ” (Php 1:6). From
St Paul’s standpoint these words must almost certainly mean a process carried on
in their lifetime. He prays that they may be pure, and kept from giving offence
in the day of Christ (1:10). Nevertheless, if he seems to separate himself in
some places from his expectations for them, there is no such distinction drawn
in that most memorable passage where he exclaims: “Our commonwealth is in
heaven, from whence also we eagerly expect the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ,
who shall transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the
body of His glory, according to the energy whereby He is able even to subdue all
things to Himself” (Php 3:20-21). And in the closing chapter of the Epistle, in
an exhortation to reasonableness and calmness of spirit, he declares to them,
“the Lord is near” (Php 4:5; see a similar setting for the thought in James
5:8-9).1 [Note: In spite of his idea of a development in St Paul’s
eschatological conceptions, Holtzmann frankly admits his enduring expectation of
a speedy end of the world (N.T. Theol. ii. p. 188).]

Having now the evidence in considerable fulness before us, let us attempt to
answer the question proposed at the outset: For what reason does St Paul lay so
remarkable an emphasis upon the conception of the Parousia? Here, as in all
investigations of the teaching of the Epistles, an important caution has to be
noted. Certain truths, and certain special aspects of these truths, come into
prominence simply because they are problems of peculiar interest to the
Christian communities addressed. Thus, as we have hinted, the large place given
to the Parousia in the First and Second Epistles to the Thessalonians is due to
the perplexing questions which centred around it for the minds of the converts
in that Church. For precisely the same reason, we have the elaborate discussion
of the Resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15:1-58. At the same time, the phenomena we
have observed throughout his Epistles are enough to suggest that the Parousia
must have occupied an important place both in the thought and the teaching of St
Paul. And I believe that we are put upon the right track for ascertaining the
significance of this fact, when we look carefully into its character and setting
in those letters in which it bulks most largely, namely, 1 and 2 Thessalonians.
For there we are at once impressed by the noteworthy parallelism between the
language of the apostle and many passages in the Synoptic Gospels. Take a
typical example. In the second chapter of 2 Thessalonians, St Paul warns his
friends against the panic which had seized them as to the immediate approach of
the Parousia, and points out certain conditions which he believes must be
fulfilled, ere this tremendous crisis can break in upon the present order. “We
beseech you, brethren, concerning the Parousia of our Lord Jesus Christ and our
gathering together (ἐπισυναγωγῆς) to Him, that ye be not quickly shaken from
your mind nor perturbed” (θροεῖσθαι) (2 Thessalonians 2:1-2). Compare with this,
Mark 13:27 : “Then shall He send forth His angels, and shall gather together
(ἐπισυνάξει) the elect from the four winds” (parallel in Matthew 24:31).
Further, in Mark 13:7 (parallel in Matthew 24:6) we read: “But when ye hear of
wars and rumours of wars, be not perturbed (θροεῖσθε): these must happen, but
the end is not yet.” The apostle goes on in verse 3 to warn them against
deception (cf.Mark 13:5, “Take heed lest any one deceive you”; Matthew 24:4),
and to announce the revelation of the “man of lawlessness” (ὁ ἄνθρωπος τῆς
ἀνομίας). In Matthew 24:12 the same expression is found: “On account of the
multiplying of lawlessness (διὰ τὸ πληθυνθῆναι τὴν ἀνομίαν), the love of many
shall grow cold.” In his description of the “man of lawlessness,” St Paul speaks
of him as “sitting in the temple of God, giving himself out to be God” (verse
4). We may compare Matthew 24:15 : “When, therefore, ye see the abomination of
desolation, predicted by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place” (Mark
13:14, “standing where it ought not”). The presence (παρουσία) of the lawless
one is depicted in verse 9 as being “according to the working of Satan, with all
power and lying signs and wonders, and with all injurious deceit for those who
are perishing.” The parallel in Mark 13:22 is noteworthy: “There shall rise up
false Christs and false prophets, and shall work signs and wonders, to deceive,
if possible, the elect” (parallel in Matthew 24:4). The above are striking
instances of verbal agreement between St Paul and the Synoptic tradition of our
Lord’s eschatological discourse. But there is far more to be noted than a group
of verbal coincidences. The more closely we examine the eschatological sayings
of Jesus, especially as these are reported in Mark 13:1-37 with its parallels,
Matthew 24:1-51 and Luke 21:1-38, the better can we appreciate St Paul’s
emphasis upon the Parousia. But at this point we are confronted by one of the
most perplexing problems of interpretation which the New Testament presents. It
is well known that many scholars, following, with various modifications,
Weiffenbach (Der Wiederkunftsgedanke Jesu, 1873), have regarded the discourse on
the Last Things, related in Mark 13:1-37 and its parallels, as a combination of
at least two separate sources. One of these is held to be an authentic tradition
of the words of Jesus. The other, consisting of verses 7-9a, 14-20, 24-27,
30-31, is considered, on this hypothesis, to be a Jewish-Christian Apocalypse,
composed not long before the Fall of Jerusalem. Some plausible arguments may be
adduced for the theory. But definite reconstructions of this kind appear to us
highly precarious. Ingenuity can always rearrange a text to suit its
preconceptions. (J. Weiss, e.g., makes the Apocalypse consist of verses 8,
14-15, 17-20, 23b-27; see S.K., 1892, p. 246 ff.) The same section can be
adapted to fit various critical schemes. Thus Haupt (Die eschatol. Aussagen
Jesu, pp. 25-34), following a similar method, reaches a different, and in our
judgment, equally specious analysis of this discourse of Jesus. It would be
unwarrantable to preclude processes of redaction or interpolation in the
composition of the Gospels, but hypotheses carried out with such precision as
the above, assume an acquaintance with the conditions under which ancient
documents took shape, or came to embody traditions, which has no foundation in
fact. The apocalyptic elements in the passage may readily be accounted for by
the influence of Old Testament prophecy, more especially of a book like Daniel,
with which Jesus was certainly acquainted, and which provided a symbolism more
or less familiar to His hearers (see Stevens, N.T. Theol. pp. 156, 157;
Beyschlag, N.T. Theol. i. p. 188, et al.). There is nothing improbable, however,
in the supposition that this mysterious discourse consists of kindred sayings of
Jesus grouped together in the earliest documents-a phenomenon natural in itself,
and usually assumed in the case of the Sermon on the Mount, as reported in
Matthew, and elsewhere.1 [Note: See Weisse, Die Evangelienfrage, pp. 167-170;
Haupt, op. cit., p. 24.] Such an hypothesis would account for the fact that here
we seem to find references to at least two groups of events; the Destruction of
Jerusalem, and the Parousia in the strict sense of the term. Cognate words of
our Lord are to be found in Mark 8:38; Mark 9:1 (parallel are Matthew 16:27-28;
Luke 9:26-27), and Luke 12:36-46 (parallel in Matthew 24:43-51).

It is quite impossible to determine whether any of these predictions had been
committed to writing by the time St Paul wrote his earliest Epistles. But
whether that be so or not, many of them, at least, must have formed part of the
oral tradition with which the Christians of that age would become acquainted
sooner or later. Certain ideas must have come to be regarded as fundamental.
Jesus had often spoken to His disciples, in one form or other, of His own
Parousia.1 [Note: Teichmann fails to find a basis for the Parousia-expectations
of the early Christians in the words of Jesus. He supposes that Jesus Himself
was not convinced of His own second coming. On a par with this hypothesis is the
argument he uses to establish it, which consists in a quotation ofMatthew
27:46;Mark 15:34;Luke 17:20f. The former two passages give the word on the
Cross: “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me.” The latter is the well-known
saying: “The Kingdom of God cometh not with observation” (op. cit., p. 12,
note). For the real facts of the case, we need only refer, e.g., to Haupt, op.
cit., pp. 119-121; and (from a different standpoint) to Holtzmann, N.T. Theol.
i. p. 312.] It was to be a coming in glory (see Matthew 25:31; and compare Mark
13:26, Matthew 24:30, Luke 21:27). It was to be a sudden event: like the
lightning-flash darting across the sky from east to west (Matthew 24:27; Luke
17:24). There was therefore a danger that it should overtake them unawares.
“Observe, then,” He warns them, using a familiar illustration, “that if the
master of the house had known in what watch the thief was coming, he would have
watched, and not suffered his house to be broken through. For this cause, be ye
also ready, for at an hour when ye think not, the Son of Man cometh” (Matthew
24:43-44; parallel in Luke 12:39-40). And then, changing the figure, He
pronounces that servant blessed whom his master, when he returns, shall find
busy with his appointed task. “But if that servant shall say in his heart, My
lord delays his return; and shall begin to beat his fellow-servants … and to eat
and drink with the drunken, the lord of that servant shall come in a day when he
expects him not, and at an hour of which he knows not, and shall cleave him in
twain, and appoint his portion with the hypocrites” (Matthew 24:46-51; parallel
in Luke 12:43-46). Of similar import are the parables of the Ten Virgins and the
Talents (Matthew 25:1-30). In the former, the emphasis is laid on the necessity
of preparation for a sudden and incalculable event. This is, to a large extent,
true also of the latter, only the efforts put forth by the servants are more
prominent than the master’s return, which, however, still remains the decisive
moment in the whole picture. It is noteworthy that in this parable the
expression occurs: “After a long time the lord of those servants cometh, and
reckoneth with them” (ver. 19). Many interpreters have taken for granted that an
integral part of Jesus’ conception of His Parousia was the expectation of its
nearness (so, e.g., Holtzmann, N.T. Theol. i. p. 312). Various passages,
certainly, can be quoted in favour of this impression. But if His utterances, as
a whole, on this mysterious question, are viewed in their mutual relations, it
will be evident, we believe, that to concentrate attention on the greater or
lesser nearness of the Parousia is not Jesus’ purpose. Rather, to quote a very
apt remark from J. Weiss (Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes, p. 69), “The essential
point in the preaching of Jesus (i.e. concerning the Kingdom of God) is not the
greater or lesser nearness of the crisis, but the thought that the Kingdom of
God now comes with absolute certainty. The crisis is inevitable; salvation no
more a dream but an undoubted reality.” (So also, in essence, Baldensperger,
Selbstbewusstsein Jesu,1 p. 148: “The nearness of the Parousia is, in a certain
sense, only another concrete, intelligible expression for its absolute
certainty.”) This is a true appreciation of the balance of His thought, and it
completely accords with the remarkable statement in Mark 13:32 (parallel in
Matthew 24:36): “Concerning that day or hour knoweth no one, not even the angels
in heaven, nor the Son, only the Father.” And on this statement follows the
direct warning: “Watch, therefore, for ye know not when the lord of the house
cometh” (Mark 13:35; parallel in Matthew 24:42). The Coming, moreover, of the
Son of Man, was to be the signal for Judgment. This idea is indicated in the
dealing of the master with his servants in the Parable of the Talents. A vivid
pictorial description of the scene is given in Matthew 25:31-46. It reveals some
remarkable transformations of the Old Testament “Day of the Lord,” its ancient
prototype. Jesus, the Son of Man, is judge. We have no more pictures of noise
and battle. It is essentially a judgment of individuals according to their
conduct. It is an ethical verdict upon the manner in which they have used their
opportunities.1 [Note: See an interesting paragraph in Briggs, The Messiah of
the Gospels, pp. 311, 312.] But certain conditions must be fulfilled before the
arrival of the crisis is possible. “The Gospel must first be preached to all the
nations” (Mark 13:10). Compare Matthew 24:14 : “This Gospel of the Kingdom shall
be preached throughout the whole world for a testimony to all the nations, and
then shall come the end.” Further, there must be a period of fierce opposition
and cruel persecution for the followers of Jesus, in which their endurance shall
be put to a severe strain (Mark 13:9b, 11-13; parallel are Matthew 24:9-13, Luke
21:12-19). Deceivers also will arise, with pretentious claims, attempting to
seduce even Christian disciples, who must keep unceasingly on their guard (Mark
13:21-23; parallel in Matthew 24:23-26), lest they renounce their loyalty and
deny their Lord. It is little wonder that our Lord’s predictions of the
destruction of Jerusalem should have been blended in the Synoptic tradition with
His utterances concerning the Parousia and accompanying Judgment. For to the
first generations of Christians, more especially those who were Jews, this
overwhelming event appeared as an appalling proof of the Divine sentence of
doom, pronounced on the guilty nation which had crucified the Messiah of God.
There can be no doubt that it is often an exceedingly delicate operation to
separate between Jesus’ utterances regarding the Parousia and those which
concern what He frequently designates the “coming” of the Kingdom of God. At
various points the two conceptions seem to merge into one. So largely is this
the case, that here and there even the Parousia itself partakes to some extent
of the nature of a process, with preparatory elements in it. Instructive, in
this connection, are the words of Jesus to the high priest: “From this time
forward (ἀπʼ ἄρτι) ye shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of
power, and coming on the clouds of heaven” (Matthew 26:64). And we can by no
means summarily dismiss that interpretation of the perplexing words in Mark 9:1
(parallel in Luke 9:27), “Verily I say unto you, That there be some of them that
stand here, which shall not taste of death, till they have seen the Kingdom of
God come with power,” which sees in them a forecast of the remarkable events of
the day of Pentecost (so, e.g., Beet, Last Things, p. 45). Many scholars,
indeed, taking these words in their Matthæan form (“Verily I say unto you, There
be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of
Man coming in his Kingdom”), regard them as direct evidence that Jesus expected
to return within that generation. Although we are unable to assent to that
hypothesis, it must be noted that, in its barest form, it by no means involves
the consequences which are frequently deduced from it. Thus Prof. Huxley argues:
“If he (i.e. Jesus) believed and taught that (i.e. his speedy return), then
assuredly he was under an illusion, and he is responsible for that which the
mere effluxion of time has demonstrated to be a prodigious error” (Collected
Essays, vol. v. p. 303). Such a statement reveals a complete misunderstanding of
the inherent nature of prophecy. Unless the process of history be conceived as
wholly mechanical, all the details of a prophetic forecast must necessarily be
conditioned by the actual factors operative in the process. The Parousia of
Jesus had, for Him, a vital relation to the whole redemptive purpose of God. But
He openly disclaimed a full knowledge of the external bearings of that purpose
(Mark 13:32). These, from the very nature of the case, must be more or less
contingent. For human wills are concerned in the great development of history as
well as the Divine. God operates by means of second causes. That Jesus was fully
alive to this aspect of the situation, is abundantly clear from His express
teaching as sketched above.

We are now in a better position to understand the ideas concerning the Parousia
which prevailed in early Christian circles, when the Epistles were written. They
were based, as we have endeavoured to show, on various remarkable utterances of
Jesus,1 [Note: It is important to note that the circle of events which St Paul
groups round the Parousia are no mechanical reproduction of current Judaistic
ideas, but all take their colour from his own experience of the risen Jesus.
See, e.g., Stähelin, Jahrb. f. deutsche Theol., 1874, p. 218.] and these came
more prominently into the foreground of Christian thought, owing to the
experiences through which the group of disciples had passed. Their Master had
been crucified. That was a paralysing blow to their high hopes. But He had
vanquished death, and His resurrection was the pledge that His claims were true,
and their faith wholly justified. Yet they must have felt from the outset that
His saving purpose could not end with His exaltation. The Kingdom of God, whose
foundation He had laid, must grow until it should reach its full development.
This was a truth He had often taught them in His parables. A time must come when
the development was complete, and the Divine intention realised. Then the Lord
must return and vindicate His claims and dominion before a wondering humanity.
The day of universal reckoning would be the final decision for all men. It was
the end of the present Æon, the ushering-in of the future eternal world. This
view of the events which should inaugurate the perfected rule of God received
immense support among the early Christians from the prophetic pictures of the
future in the Old Testament. Without entering into any detailed examination of
the various books and the varying aspects of the subject which they present,1
[Note: A conception peculiar to the later prophetic writers, and notably the
Book of Joel, is that of the “Day of the Lord,” not as a single event, but
rather as “a series of Divine acts.” This modification, which no doubt owes its
origin to the facts of their personal experience, is of paramount importance for
the New Testament view of the Parousia. See Cheyne, Origin of Psalter, p. 380,
note x. Prof. Charles gives a good classification of the various prophetic
conceptions of the “Day of the Lord” in E.B. i. coll. 1348-1353.] we must call
attention to the dominating conception of the Day of the Lord. Perhaps the
expression originated, as some scholars (e.g., W. R. Smith, Prophets of Israel,
p. 397) suggest, in phrases like the “day of Midian” (Isaiah 9:4), the day made
famous by a victory of Israel over her enemies. In any case, it has come to
stand for that era or crisis in which Jehovah will manifest Himself to the
world. To His faithful people it will be a day of great joy. “Let the heavens be
glad, and let the earth rejoice … let the field exult, and all that is therein:
then shall the trees of the wood sing for joy before the Lord, for He cometh:
for He cometh to judge the earth” (Psalms 96:11-13). In this coming, Jehovah
will vindicate His chosen nation. His true reign will begin. “The Lord alone
shall be exalted in that day. And the idols shall utterly pass away” (Isaiah
2:17-18). It is the beginning of a great redemption for Jerusalem. “O thou that
tellest good tidings to Jerusalem, lift up thy voice with strength: lift it up,
be not afraid: say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God. Behold, the Lord
God will come as a mighty one, and His arm shall rule for Him: behold His reward
is with Him, and His recompense before Him” (Isaiah 40:9-10). But there is
another side to the picture. It is a time of terror for the enemies of the
people of Jehovah. “Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision, for the
day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. The sun and the moon are
darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining. And the Lord shall roar from
Zion, and utter His voice from Jerusalem, and the heaven and the earth shall
shake, but the Lord will be a refuge unto His people, and a stronghold to the
children of Israel” (Joel 3:14-16). “Behold the Lord will come with fire, and
His chariots shall be like whirlwinds: to render His anger with fury, and His
rebuke with flames of fire” (Isaiah 66:15). “Behold, one like a son of man came
with the clouds of heaven … and there was given him dominion and glory and a
kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages should serve him” (Daniel
7:13-14). But if it is a day of judgment for the heathen, Israel shall not
wholly escape. For in Israel there are many who are not true worshippers of
Jehovah. “I will turn my hand upon thee, and throughly purge away thy dross”
(Isaiah 1:25). “And it shall come to pass at that time that I will search
Jerusalem with candles … And I will bring distress upon them, that they shall
walk like blind men, because they have sinned against the Lord” (Zephaniah 1:12;
Zephaniah 1:17). The very fact that it was an entrance of Jehovah into the
course of the world-order, imparted to the Day a wide significance. It was a
crisis which should inaugurate a new condition of things. It involved a
transformation of the material universe. “Behold I create new heavens and a new
earth” (Isaiah 65:17). “The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad: and
the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose” (Isaiah 35:1). From being a
day, it expands into an era. That era is often regarded as the Messianic age. To
the prophets, as Dr A. B. Davidson used to point out, it is entirely
homogeneous. There are no incidents within it. It is the ideal period, in which
all the moral principles which have emerged in history are at length finally
perfected.

It is needless to say that the conception of the Day of the Lord, in one form or
other, continues to hold its place in Judaistic literature. Thus, in Sibyl.
Orac. iii. 796 ff., a detailed description is given of the signs which presage
the end of all things. This is identical with the establishment of a Divine
kingdom “for all times, over all men,” which will be an era of peace (Sibyl.
Orac. iii. 767 ff.). The idea is specially prominent in the Book of Enoch. Its
very first chapter depicts the Judgment. “The great holy One shall go forth from
his dwelling, and the God of the world (or the Æon, virtually = the eternal God)
shall come from thence to Mount Sinai, and He shall be visible with His hosts,
and shall appear in the strength of His might from the heaven of heavens. Then
shall all men be afraid … and great fear and anguish shall seize them to the
ends of the earth. The high mountains shall be shaken, they shall fall and pass
away, the high hills shall sink and melt in the flame as wax before fire. The
earth shall be rent in pieces, and everything upon it shall perish, and a
judgment shall take place upon all. But with the righteous shall He make peace,
and protect the elect. Grace shall rule over them, and they shall all belong to
God. They shall have His good pleasure and be blessed, and the light of God
shall appear to them. And behold. He comes with myriads of saints, to hold
judgment upon all, and He shall destroy all the ungodly, and shall correct all
flesh on account of all the ungodly acts which ungodly sinners committed” (Enoch
i. 3 f.). In the Book of Similitudes (Enoch, chaps. xxxvii.-lxxi.) the
descriptions are still more remarkable, as here the Messiah is a central figure.
Thus, in chap. xlv. 3 f., we read: “On that day shall mine Elect sit on the
throne of glory, and shall deal with a selected portion of their (i.e. men’s)
deeds. Their spirit shall be strengthened within them when they see mine Elect,
and those who have implored my holy name. On that day will I cause mine Elect
one to dwell in their midst, and I will transform heaven, and make it for an
everlasting blessing and light. I will transform the earth, and make it a
blessing, and cause mine elect ones to dwell upon it: but those who commit sin
and misdeeds shall not enter it. For I have beheld my righteous ones, and
satisfied them with salvation, and set them before me. But for sinners I have
the judgment in store, to extirpate them from the surface of the earth.” With
this we may compare lxix. 27: “He (i.e. the Son of Man) sat on the throne of his
glory, and the sum of judgment was committed to him, the Son of Man, and he
causes the sinners and those who have beguiled the world, to disappear and to be
destroyed from off the face of the earth.” Our last example is from Apoc. of
Bar. lxxii. 2 ff., “After the miraculous signs, of which thou wast told before,
when the peoples are set in confusion and the time of my Messiah is come, then
shall he summon all peoples, and some he shall preserve in life, and some he
shall slay … (lxxiii. 1). And after he has humbled all that is in the world, and
has sat down for ever in peace on the throne of his kingdom, then gladness shall
be revealed, and rest shall appear.” An elaborate picture follows of the
blessedness of the Messianic kingdom. Instances might be multiplied from the
apocalyptic writings to show the position which this group of conceptions
occupied throughout the whole course of Jewish religious thought, and it is
natural to find them prominently represented in the literature of the Synagogue
(for examples, see Weber, op. cit., pp. 371, 375-380). But enough has been said
to indicate their paramount importance for the theology of Judaism (see the
important section in Volz, op. cit., pp. 257-270). To show how powerfully these
prophetic anticipations affected St Paul, we have to turn not only to his
thought but even to his language. Parallel, e.g., to the description of the
Parousia in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, is Joel 2:1; Joel 2:11 (LXX.): σαλπίσατε
σάλπιγγι ἐν Σειών, κηρύξατε ἐν ὄρει ἁγίῳ μου … διότι πάρεστιν ἡμέρα κυρίου, ὅτι
ἐγγύς … καὶ κύριος δώσει φωνήν αὐτοῦ πρὸ προσώπου δυνάμεως αὐτοῦ, ὅτι πολλή
ἐστιν σφόδρα ἡ παρεμβολὴ αὐτοῦ: “Blow with the trumpet in Zion, make
proclamation in My holy mountain … because the day of the Lord is at hand, for
it is near … and the Lord shall put forth His voice before the face of His
power, for very great is His camp.” With this may be compared some remarkable
resemblances from the account of the Theophany at Sinai, given in Exodus 19:1-25
: e.g., verse 16, καὶ ἐγίνοντο φωνὰι καὶ ἀστραπαὶ καὶ νεφέλη γνοφώδης ἐπʼ ὄρους
Σεινά, φωνὴ τῆς σάλπιγγος ἤχει μέγα …; verse 17, καὶ ἐξήγαγεν Μωυσῆς τὸν λαὸν
εἰς συνάντησιν τοῦ θεοῦ …; verse 18, τὸ δὲ ὄρος τὸ Σινὰ ἐκαπνίζετο ὅλον διὰ τὸ
καταβεβηκέναι ἑπʼ αὐτὸ τὸν θεὸν ἐν πυρί: “And there were voices and lightning
flashes and a misty cloud on Mount Sinai; the sound of a trumpet blared loudly …
And Moses led forth the people to meet God … Now the mountain Sinai gave forth
smoke everywhere, because God had descended upon it in fire.” In 2 Thessalonians
1:7-10, we have a mosaic of reminiscences from the prophets: e.g., Zechariah
14:5, ἥξει κύριος ὁ θεός μου, καὶ πάντες οἱ ἅγιοι μετʼ αὐτοῦ: “The Lord my God
shall come, and all His holy ones with Him” (cf.2 Thessalonians 1:7); Isaiah
66:15, ἰδοὺ γὰρ κύριος ὡς πῦρ ἥξει … ἀποδοῦναι ἐν θυμῷ ἐκδίκησιν αὐτοῦ καὶ
ἀποσκορακισμὸν αὐτοῦ ἐν φλογὶ πυρός: “For behold the Lord shall come as fire,
with wrath, to render His vengeance and His rejection with a flame of fire”;
Jeremiah 10:25, ἔκχεον τὸν θυμόν σου ἐπὶ ἔθνη τὰ μὴ εἰδότα σε: “Pour out thy
wrath upon the nations which know thee not” (cf.2 Thessalonians 1:8); Isaiah
2:10, εἰσέλθετε εἰς τὰς πέτρας … ἀπὸ προσώπου τοῦ φόβου κυρίου καὶ ἀπὸ τῆς δόξης
τῆς ἰσχύος αὐτοῦ: “Enter into the rocks … from the presence of the terror of the
Lord, and from the glory of His power” (cf.2 Thessalonians 1:9); Isaiah 49:3,
δοῦλός μου εἶ σύ, Ἰσραήλ, καὶ ἐν σοι ἐνδοξασθήσομαι: “Thou art my servant,
Israel, and in thee will I be glorified” (cf.2 Thessalonians 1:10). In 2
Thessalonians 2:4 ff., a comparison with the Book of Daniel yields most
important results. As a parallel to the description of the “man of lawlessness”
(ver. 4), we may quote Daniel 11:36, καὶ ὑψωθήσεται ὁ βασιλεὺς καὶ
μεγαλυνθήσεται ἐπὶ πάντα θεόν, καὶ λαλήσει ὑπέρογκα, καὶ κατευθυνεῖ μέχρις οὗ
συντελεσθῇ ἡ ὀργή: “And the king shall be exalted, and shall be magnified
against every god, and shall speak swelling words, and shall experience
prosperity until the wrath be fulfilled”; (cf.Ezekiel 28:2, where the ruler of
Tyre says: θεός εἰμι ἐγώ). In Daniel 7:27, the last king that shall arise,
λόγους πρὸς τὸν ὕψιστον λαλήσει, “shall speak words against the Highest.” In
Daniel 8:23-25, a king is described who shall come forth, πληρουμένων τῶν
ἁμαρτιῶν αὐτῶν, “when their sins have reached a climax” (cf.1 Thessalonians
2:16, εἰς τὸ ἀναπληρῶσαι αὐτῶν τὰς ἁμαρτίας πάντοτε); several of his
characteristics correspond to St Paul’s delineations in the passage before us.
And the whole paragraph, Daniel 11:30-40, abounds in traits which are more or
less combined in the apostle’s description (especially ver. 4). For ver. 8 we
may refer to Isaiah 11:4, ἐν πνεύματι διὰ χειλέων ἀνελεῖ ἀσεβῆ: “By his breath
(or spirit), through his lips, he shall destroy the ungodly,” a passage which
depicts the operations of Messiah. And we must not omit the remarkable parallel
in Enoch lxii. 2 ff., “The Lord of Spirits seated him (i.e., Messiah) on the
throne of His glory, and the spirit of righteousness was poured out upon him,
and the word of his mouth slew all the sinners, and all the unrighteous were
destroyed before his face. And there shall stand up in that day all the kings,
and the mighty, and the exalted, and those who hold the earth, and they shall
see and recognise him, how he sits on the throne of his glory, and righteousness
is judged before him, and no lying word is spoken before them. Then shall pain
come upon them as a woman in travail.… And one portion of them shall look on the
other, and they shall be terrified, and their countenance shall fall, and pain
shall seize them, when they see that Son of Man sitting on the throne of his
glory.”1 [Note: Cf. Ps. Sol. 17:41,ἐλέγξαι ἄρχοντας καὶ ἐξᾶραι ἀμαρτωλοὺς ἐν
ἰσχύι λόγου;Job 4:9,ἀπὸδὲπνεύματοςὀργῆς αὐτοῦ(i.e.κυρίου)ἀφανισθήσονται.] The
associated picture of Judgment in 1 Corinthians 3:13-15, recalls Zechariah 13:9,
διάξω τὸ τρίτον διὰ πυρός, καὶ πυρώσω αὐτοὺς ὡς πυροῦται τὸ ἀργὺριον, καὶ δοκιμῶ
αὐτοὺςὡςδοκιμάζεταιτὸχρυσίον: “I will bring the third part through the fire, and
will refine them as silver is refined, and will test them as gold is tested.”
The same imagery is to be found in Malachi 3:3, and a most striking parallel
occurs in Testament of Abrah. xciii. 10,
δοκιμάζειτὰτῶνἀνθρώπωνἔργαδιὰπυρός·καὶεἴτινοςτὸ
ἔργονκατακάυσειτὸπῦρ,εὐθὺςλαμβάνειαὐτὸνὁ ἄγγελοςτῆςκρίσεωςκαὶ
ἀποφέρειαὐτὸνεἰςτὸντόποντῶνἁμαρτωλῶν,πικρότατονκολαστήριον·εἴτινοςδὲτὸ
ἔργοντὸπῦρδοκιμάσεικαὶμὴ ἅψεταιαὐτοῦ,οὗτοςδικαιοῦται: “He tests the works of men
by fire; and if any man’s work is consumed by the fire, straightway the angel of
judgment taketh him and carrieth him away into the place of sinners, a most
bitter abode of punishment; but if the fire shall test any man’s work, and shall
not touch it, he is justified.” The description of retribution in Romans 2:5-9
has a marked Old Testament background. With verses 5-7 we may compare Psalms
110:5, κύριοςἐκδεξιῶνσουσυνέθλασενἐνἡμέρᾳ ὀργῆςαὐτοῦβασιλεῖς: “The Lord on thy
right hand broke in pieces kings in the day of His wrath”; Proverbs 24:12,
κύριοςκαρδίαςπάντωνγινώσκει… ὃςἀποδίδωσινἐκάστῳκατὰτὰ ἔργααὐτοῦ: “The Lord
knoweth the hearts of all … who rendereth to every man according to his works”;
Jeremiah 17:10,
ἐγὼκύριοςἐτάζωνκαρδίαςκαὶδοκιμάζωννεφρούς,τοῦδοῦναιἑκάστῳκατάτάςὁδοὺςαὐτοῦ: “I,
the Lord, am He that searcheth hearts and testeth reins, to give to each
according to his ways.” The penalties with which the unrighteous are visited, we
find foreshadowed in such passages as Isaiah 8:22,
καὶεἰςτὴνγῆνκάτωἐμβλέψονται·καὶ ἰδοὺ
ἀπορίαστενὴκαὶσκότος,θλίψιςκαὶστενοχωρίακαὶσκότοςὥστεμὴβλέπειν: “And they shall
look down towards the ground, and behold grievous perplexity and darkness,
tribulation and straits and darkness, so that men cannot see.” The examples
quoted will suffice to reveal the religious environment in which St Paul’s
pictures of the Parousia and the Judgment took shape. One important caution for
exegesis may be noted. It is evident that he has lavishly appropriated the vivid
metaphors of the prophets just as they stand. It is altogether illegitimate,
although the practice is quite common, to interpret with a prosaic literalism in
the New Testament those bold poetic images, so dear to the Eastern mind, which
readers of the Old Testament like St Paul knew how to estimate in their true
significance. But further, we may expect that the apostle’s conceptions of these
all-important events will also be regulated by the Old Testament delineations.
But before we endeavour to examine his ideas of the Parousia and the Judgment,
it is worth while observing that the expectations he seems to have had of their
imminence, must have been, in a large measure, stimulated by the prophetic
teaching. We have seen that various mysterious predictions of Jesus might
naturally lead to the hope that His Second Advent was not far distant. And the
rapid progress of the Gospel through his own labours and those of his
fellow-apostles would suggest to St Paul a speedy preparation of mankind for the
Coming of the Lord. The hope thus kindled must have been powerfully fanned by
the influence of Old Testament prophecy with its eager expectancy. It has
already been observed that when the prophets saw a quickening of the currents of
Providence in any direction, they looked upon that as prefiguring the Day of the
Lord. It seems to us that St Paul occupied precisely the same position. There
were various reasons why he should take this attitude. To begin with, there was
his own religious experience. By means of his contact with the risen Lord, he
knows himself to be a partaker of those high spiritual privileges which the
prophets had seen afar off and had dimly foreshadowed, as ushering in the new
dispensation.1 [Note: See especially, Gunkel, Wirkungen d. heiligen Geistes b.
P.2 p. 65.] He felt as if he stood at the close of one Age (αἰών) and at the
beginning of another. That other, the era of the Spirit, had already begun to
project itself into human life. He can speak of himself as belonging to those
“on whom the ends of the ages have come” (εἰςοὓςτὰτέλητῶναἰώνωνκατήντηκεν, 1
Corinthians 10:11). The present is the age which is evil (τοῦαἰῶνοςτοῦ
ἐνεστῶτοςπονηροῦ, Galatians 1:4). But it is passing away
(παράγειγὰρτὸσχῆματοῦκόσμουτούτου, 1 Corinthians 7:31). The future,
ὁαἰὼνὁμέλλων, is that in which the Kingdom of God must prevail. It will be
inaugurated by a crisis like the Day of the Lord. That Day is for the Christian
apostle necessarily transformed into the Parousia of Christ, who is the
vicegerent of the Father, to whom He has committed all judgment. But besides,
the period in which St Paul wrote his Epistles was characterised by a thrill of
expectancy. “The numerous popular tumults of a politico-religious kind” (we
quote the words of Schürer, H.J.P., ii. 2, p. 149) “which took place in the time
of the Roman procurators, give sufficient evidence of the feverish tension with
which a miraculous intervention of God in history and the appearance of His
kingdom on earth were expected.” And finally, the circumstances which attended
St Paul’s own work as a missionary were in themselves prophetic, for just as the
prophets, above all Ezekiel and Daniel, look for the crisis as the culmination
of a movement in which evil has reached a height,1 [Note: In Judaistic
literature this notion, it is interesting to observe, appears most prominently
in 4 Ezra and the Apocalypse of Baruch, both of them works belonging, in all
probability, to the half-century in which St Paul wrote his epistles. See, e.g.,
4 Ezra 5:1-13, 6:11-26, 9:3-4; Apoc. Bar. xlviii. 25-41, and esp. lxx. Drummond
refers to Sotah ix. 15, Synhed. 97a, from the Mishnah-literature (Jewish
Messiah, p. 209).] so the apostle, more especially in his earlier Epistles,2
[Note: Beyschlag considers that “according to the later and maturer view of the
apostle, it is not so much the final culmination of the evil and obduracy of
mankind as the victory of the Gospel and the conversion of the world which calls
down from heaven the exalted Christ, and brings in His visible dominion of the
world” (N.T. Theol. ii. p. 260). So also Titius (p. 48), who makes this a
distinguishing feature between St Paul and Jewish Apocalyptic. As a matter of
fact, we must conceive both ideas as blended together in his thought all along.
Certainly the culmination of evil appears to impress him peculiarly at the time
when the letters to the Thessalonians were written. The same phenomenon is found
in Judaistic literature. The closing period witnesses an abnormal outbreak of
evil, e.g. Jub. xxiii. 14 calls the generation then living “the evil
generation”; Sibyl. Orac. v. 74 speaks of “the last time in which there shall be
utterly depraved men”; 4Ezra 5:1foretells days in which “the realm of truth
shall be hidden, and the land of faith without fruit” (see Volz, op. cit., pp.
179-180).] discerns the ripening of forces of wickedness, which, he believes,
presages the end. This conviction is most vividly disclosed in 1 Thessalonians
2:15-16, where he describes the Jews as “those who killed the Lord Jesus and the
prophets, and bitterly persecuted us, and please not God, and are opposed to all
men,1 [Note: Cf. the remarkable parallels from classical writers in T. Reinach’s
Textes … relatifs au Judaisme, e.g. pp. 284, 295, 303 ff., which disclose the
hatred excited by the Jews.] preventing us from speaking to the Gentiles that
they might be saved, in order to fill up the measure of their sin always. But
the wrath (ἡ ὀργή) has come upon them to the uttermost.” It is easy, bearing
these words in mind, to discover why the Parousia so impresses the apostle at
this stage in his activity. The iniquity of his own fellow countrymen is
rampant. It takes the most daring form it has ever assumed in prompting the
persecution of those who preach the Messiah of God to the heathen. This is an
appalling provocation of the Divine judgment. “The wrath” (ἡ ὀργή), the peculiar
eschatological visitation of the Divine retribution,2 [Note: SEE B. WEISS, N.T.
THEOL. I. PP. 305-306.] is about to sweep down upon them. This will be the first
act in the new order of things. The Parousia, the Judgment, the Resurrection of
those who have fallen asleep in Jesus-all these tremendous events belong to the
same experience.3 [Note: Stevens aptly summarises the essence of the related
conceptions in the following sentence: “As the kernel of the teaching about the
Parousia is the assurance of the triumph of Christ’s kingdom, and that
concerning the Resurrection is the certainty of immortality, so the teaching
concerning Judgment centres in the principle that human life and action bring
forth fruit after their kind, and that every man shall receive from God his just
recompense of reward” (A. J. Th., Oct. 1902, p. 677). For a fine poetic
rendering of St Paul’s expectations, see F. W. H. Myers’ St Paul, pp. 10, 11.]
The foregoing suggestions give a clue to the meaning of St Paul’s vivid
expectations, wherever they occur in his writings. It is not that he possesses
any time-schema. He never professes, any more than his Master, to know when the
Parousia will take place. When it does come, it will be sudden, “like a thief in
the night” (1 Thessalonians 5:2).1 [Note: Cf.2 Thessalonians 2:1-2, and Heinrici
on1 Corinthians 15:20-22. The question as to when the End will come is a
pressing one for apocalyptic literature, e.g.: Apoc. Bar. xxiv. 4, “What will
happen to our enemies I know not, and when thou wilt visit thy works”; 4 Ezra
6:59, “If the world has been created on our account, wherefore have we not this
our world in possession? How long is it to remain thus?” Sibyl. Orac. iii. 55:
“When will that day come?” The most divergent answers are found (see Volz, op.
cit., pp. 162 ff.). St Paul’s feeling is echoed in such a passage as Apoc. Bar.
xxi. 8: “Who … alone knowest the consummation of the times before they come.”
Volz notes that in Rabbinic Judaism the less confident mood is more common than
in Apocalyptic, p. 171.] But at times, when the attitude of God’s foes appears
peculiarly defiant, when the work and saving purpose of God seem to be hindered
by a daring outbreak of iniquity, he feels compelled to foreshadow that climax
of human history at which the authority of the exalted Messiah asserts itself,
and Christ shall appear to vanquish all wickedness, to vindicate the righteous
will of God, and to establish finally the Kingdom which shall endure for ever.
From the standpoint of the believer, the yearning which underlies the
expectation of the Parousia may be fitly expressed in the words of Psalms 80:3 :
“Cause Thy face to shine, and we shall be saved.”

Let us now look more in detail at his conception of the Parousia. Not much
requires to be said about the term παρουσία. In the LXX. the noun seems almost
without exception to mean “arrival,” although there are several instances of the
verb in the sense of “being present.” In the New Testament the noun usually
seems to have the idea of “arrival” in it, although there are one or two
undoubted examples of the simple meaning “presence” (2 Corinthians 10:10; Php
2:12; perhaps 2 Thessalonians 2:8).1 [Note: Bruston interprets the term παρουσία
of the “presence” of Christ in heaven. According to his exposition of St Paul’s
teaching, each believer at death is ushered into the “presence” of the glorified
Christ. The final crisis is the unveiling of Christ’s presence along with the
saints who are in His fellowship before the gaze of the living. His efforts to
attain these results by exegesis of the Epistles are more quaint than
convincing. (See Revue de Théologie et de Philos., 1895, p. 486 ff.).] The
difference of signification is of comparatively little importance, as either
would suit the conception. For the arrival of Christ in visible guise on the
scene of earthly history, is, after all, only the unveiling of One who is never
truly absent from the fortunes of His followers. That this very idea was before
the apostle’s mind, is proved by several passages where he definitely speaks of
the “unveiling” of Christ.2 [Note: Cf. 4Ezra 7:28: Revelabitur enim filius meus
Messias (so Gunkel: Jesus = Christian correction) cum his qui cum eo, et
jocundabit qui relicti sunt annis quadringentis.] See, e.g.: 1 Corinthians 1:7,
“Awaiting the unveiling (ἀποκάλυψιν) of our Lord Jesus Christ”; 2 Thessalonians
1:7, “To you, who are in tribulation, rest with us at the unveiling (ἀποκαλύψει)
of our Lord Jesus from heaven with the angels of His power”; Romans 2:5, “The
day of the unveiling of the righteous judgment of God.” The expression occurs
three times in the same sense in 1 Peter (1:7, 1:13, 4:13). In Romans 8:19, St
Paul has the remarkable statement that “the eager expectation of the creation
earnestly looks for the unveiling of the sons of God.” Hort, who justly traces
back the apostolic usage to the words of Jesus Himself in Luke 17:30 :
“Similarly shall it be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed” (ᾗ ἡμέρᾳ
ὁυἱὸςτοῦ ἀνθρώπουἀποκαλύπτεται), observes that there is nothing in any of the
passages, “apart from the figurative language of 2 Thess., to show that the
revelation here spoken of is to be limited to a sudden preternatural theophany.
It may be a long and varying process, though ending in a climax. Essentially, it
is simply the removal of the veils which hide the unseen Lord, by whatever means
they are withdrawn” (on 1 Peter 1:7). For St Paul, at least, the climax holds
the chief interest. He believes in a definite moment when the veils are to be
withdrawn.

Nevertheless, in marked contrast with the prophetic descriptions of the Day of
the Lord, the apostle scarcely ever paints a picture of the Parousia. The only
real instance occurs in the earliest of his letters, 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18.
There he depicts the Lord as descending from heaven with a commanding word
(κελεύσματι), with the voice of the archangel and the trumpet of God.1 [Note:
Teichmann discusses elaborately the details of theκέλευσμα, theφωνή, and
theσάλπιγξ, summing up the whole event as follows: “While Christ is on His way
from heaven to earth, He commands (κελεύσματι) the dead, who have been wakened
from their slumber by the call of the archangel and the blowing of the trumpet
of God, now in actual reality to arise” (op. cit., pp. 22, 23). He criticises
Kabisch for identifyingκελέυσμα, φωνὴ ἀρχαγγέλου, andσάλπιγξ θεοῦ. Surely the
latter is nearer the truth. It is highly improbable that St Paul ever worked out
the picture in its minutiæ. He is simply making use of the traditional imagery
belonging to a Theophany. SeeExodus 19:16ff. (to which reference has already
been made). We may here refer to the noteworthy parallel to this appearance of
Christ for judgment and the resurrection of the dead which is found in the
Persian religion. See Darmesteter, Ormazd et Ahriman, p. 227: “The day of great
decision stands in close connection with Soshyos, the Messiah of Parsism, whose
function is to awake the dead, to bring immortality into the world, and to
endure the last decisive struggle with Angra Mainyu.” See also Söderblom, op.
cit., p. 224.] Both dead and living shall be snatched up together in the clouds,
to meet the Lord in the air. It is of little value to inquire into the precise
significance of the words εἰςἀέρα. As Stähelin notes (op. cit., pp. 229-230),
they emphasise the ideal character of the whole transaction, which takes place
in a region exalted above this earth. Similarly, the clouds (ἐννεφέλαις) are
viewed in their common Biblical significance as the mediating space between
heaven and earth, which forms, as it were, the pathway into the unseen world
(cf.Acts 1:9 : ἐπήρθη,καὶνεφέληὑπέλαβεναὐτὸνἀπὸτῶνὀφθαλμῶναὐτῶν; Revelation
11:12 : ἀνέβησανεἰςτὸνοὔρανονἐντῇνεφέλῃ, see Stähelin, op. cit., p. 225). The
immediate goal of this meeting with Christ is left indefinite. We cannot decide
whether, in St Paul’s view, the ἀπάντησις was for the purpose of escorting the
Lord back to earth (so Schmiedel on 1 Thessalonians 4:13 f., and, with reserve,
Stähelin, op. cit., p. 228) in accordance with the old prophetic anticipations,
or whether it was the prelude to their accompanying Him to heaven, although this
hypothesis would appear more congruous with the general direction of the
apostle’s thought. In passages where we might expect the use of vivid imagery,
such as 1 Corinthians 15:1-58, it is entirely absent. One or two touches,
indeed, are added in other places to the picture described above. Thus, in 2
Thessalonians 1:8, the revelation of the Lord Jesus is said to be with the might
(δυνάμεως) of His angels, in a fiery flame, (ἐνπυρὶφλογός).1 [Note: Kabisch
baselessly supposes that fire, which he describes here as “pneumatic,” “the
effect of the spiritual substance of the exalted Christ”, will be the instrument
of judgment on the ungodly (p. 246). This crude materialism continually mars a
discussion which is full of suggestion for Pauline Eschatology.] Fire was a
characteristic symbol of Old Testament Theophanies, see Exodus 3:2; Exodus
19:18; Psalms 18:9-15; Ezekiel 1:13; Deuteronomy 4:24, etc. Again, in 1
Corinthians 6:2-3, he speaks of the saints as judging the world, apparently
indicating thereby that they should form the retinue of the returning Lord.
Cf.Revelation 2:26-27; Revelation 20:4; Wisd. 3:8 (κρινοῦσιν [i.e., οἱδίκαιοι]
ἔθνηκαὶκρατήσουσινλαῶν); Daniel 7:27; Matthew 19:28. 1 [Note: See Weiss, ad
loc.: “As they (the disciples) stood next to Jesus in His earthly activity, so
will they have the most intimate share in the honour of the exalted Messiah; and
as they preached the Gospel to the twelve tribes (cf. 10:5, 6), they will
pronounce their judgment according as they have received or refused this offer
of salvation.” Parallels in Judaistic literature are to be found in Enoch i. 9
(already quoted); 4 Ezra 13:52 : “As no one can investigate or know by
experience that which is in the depths of the sea, so no one of the inhabitants
of earth can behold my Son or His companions (Gunkel interprets as = ‘angels’)
until the hour of His Day” (cf. 7:28). Cf. Volz, Jüd. Eschatol. p. 33.] This
lack of pictorial drapery is another reminder of the remarkable sobriety and
self-restraint of the apostle in dealing with those eschatological events which
gave free play to the most extravagant fancies of Jewish apocalyptic writers.
Evidently, apart from Old Testament reminiscences, St Paul was not concerned
about framing an imaginary scene, in which the events of the Day of the Lord
should group themselves harmoniously. Probably the reason is, that, as Titius
puts it, “he does not possess a definite programme of the course of the
apocalyptic development” (p. 152). In all likelihood, the longer he lived and
knew his Lord, the less interest did he feel in forecasts of occurrences for
which there was no human standard of comparison. The Coming or Unveiling of the
exalted Lord, in close agreement with Old Testament teaching, is, in one aspect
of it, for judgment. This conception, as it appears in St Paul’s writings, must
now be examined with care. Various designations of the crisis occur in the
Epistles. In 1 Thessalonians 1:10, it is called “the coming wrath” (ἡ ὀργὴ ἡ
ἐρχομένη); in Romans 2:5, “the day of wrath and of the revelation of the
righteous judgment of God”; in Romans 2:16, “the day when God judgeth the hidden
things of men according to my Gospel.” In 2 Corinthians 5:10, he declares that
“we must all be made manifest before the judgment-seat of Christ”; in Romans
14:10, “we shall all appear at the judgment-seat of God”; and he continues, “It
is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to Me, and every
tongue shall give honour (ἐξομολογήσεται) to God.” (Cf. Enoch xlviii. 5: “All
who dwell on earth shall fall down and bow the knee before Him, and shall bless
and laud and celebrate with song the Lord of Spirits”; also lxii. 6, 9, 10,
lxiii.) In 1 Corinthians 3:13, the apostle speaks of the event as “the day”
(cf.2 Thessalonians 1:10, “that day”). Perhaps its most characteristic title for
him is “the day of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 1:8), “the day of
Christ Jesus” (Php 1:6), or simply, “the day of Christ” (Php 2:16; Php 1:10).1
[Note: We have an instance of that almost wilful misapprehension of St Paul’s
thought which shows itself here and there in Kabisch’s treatment of Pauline
Eschatology, in the emphasis which he lays uponἡμέρα κυρίουas the “time of
light” as opposed to the era of darkness (p. 236).] These designations at once
reveal the intimate connection of the apostle’s idea of judgment with the
prophetic conception of the “Day of the Lord.” Only, on the one hand, the
horizon has immensely widened. On the other, the somewhat vague pictures of
God’s judgment which the prophets clothe in various forms, have given place to
the definite intervention of the exalted Lord, Jesus Christ, armed with complete
authority. Here it is plain that St Paul has taken his stand on the teaching of
Jesus Himself For there can be no doubt whatever that one of the lofty claims
which our Lord put forward with emphasis and frequency, was His position as the
Judge of the final destinies of mankind. It will suffice to refer to such
familiar passages as Matthew 7:22-23; Matthew 13:41 f., 25:31 f. This was the
point, we may say, at which the foundations of a distinctly Christian
Eschatology were laid There was nothing to correspond to it in Judaism. There
could not be, for the Jews had never conceived of a Messiah who should pass
through a career of earthly activity, a career checked by death, and then return
as the medium of God’s final purpose for the universe. The truth took firm hold
of the apostles. Again and again, in the history of their labours, we find it
set in the forefront. See Acts 10:42; Acts 17:31; Acts 24:25. This was
inevitable. For the proclamation of judgment must ever be one of the most
powerful weapons in the hands of the missionary. It is one of those appeals
which first find an echo in the burdened conscience. When, as in their
preaching, it was a judgment wielded by that Saviour whom they knew, its
solemnity and terror must be tempered by the pity of eternal love.1 [Note:
Wernle, who is rightly alive to the importance of the judgment in missionary
preaching, misconceives both the facts and the apostle’s position when he
writes: “The preaching of judgment has only this aim: it does not attempt to
make men better, but to make believers. By this preaching of judgment, Paul
draws heathen to Christianity: that is different from giving Christians in the
Church comfort as regards their sins” (Der Christ u. die Sünde bei Paulus, p.
99). It is this isolating of the various elements of the Christian Gospel in a
mechanical fashion which leads to the discovery of contradictions in Paulinism,
where there are none. St Paul, no more than the modern intelligent Christian,
looks upon the Christian life as a tightly-shut compartment into which the
believer enters, and which he can never leave. The reminder of judgment is quite
as necessary in the ordinary work of the Church, as in making appeals to those
who are still outside.] The judgment of Christ is destined for Jews and heathen
alike. St Paul has passed far beyond a purified theocracy. This broader outlook,
as we have seen, had already established itself in Judaism. It was bound to
accompany the emergence into prominence of the influential eschatological
doctrine of the two Æons. The very statement of such a conception implies its
universal bearing. The Judgment, which marks the transition between the old Æon
and the new, would be meaningless unless it embraced all mankind.1 [Note: Cf.
Bousset, Religion d. Judenthums, p. 246.] “The day of judgment will be the end
of this period (and the beginning) of the future immortal period in which
corruption has passed away” (4 Ezra 7:113). It is final, for it inaugurates the
end of the present. It is the inevitable preparation for the pure and perfected
Kingdom of God.2 [Note: This aspect of the judgment is specially prominent in
the second example quoted from Matthew above.] But even if this stage in the
conception had not been reached in Judaism, the world-central position of the
exalted Christ for St Paul would necessarily have involved its formulation. He
is the Saviour and Lord of all. He is “the Image of the invisible God, the
First-born of all creation.… All things were created by Him, and for Him: and He
is before all things, and by Him all things consist” (Colossians 1:15;
Colossians 1:17). His Gospel is the winnowing-fan which sifts humanity. Men’s
attitude to Him and to the revelation of God which He has given, is the
touchstone of their eternal destiny.

There are several features of St Paul’s conception of judgment which claim
special attention. Here, as in the case of the Parousia, there is an almost
complete lack of scenery. We seem to pass into a new atmosphere, when we turn
from the exuberant and often bizarre fantasies of the Jewish apocalyptic writers
(e.g., Enoch, Slavon. Enoch, Apoc. Bar., even 4 Ezra) to the solemn, restrained,
and genuinely ethical statements of the apostle, whose mind appears to be wholly
concentrated on the spiritual issues. No less marked is the contrast between the
comparative prominence assigned to this conception in the Pauline Epistles and
the pseudepigraphal literature. In the latter group of writings, it stands in
the forefront. These authors delight to linger over its circumstances. Such a
predilection, no doubt, is partly due to the fact that their faith largely
consists in the conviction of Divine retribution: that the condemnation of the
ungodly (more especially the foes of Israel) and the vindication of the
righteous (more especially Israelites) absorb their interest in the future of
the Kingdom of God. It is true that in the later apocalyptic books, as, e.g.,
Jubilees, the idea of the Judgment falls into the background owing to the belief
that reward or punishment is meted out immediately after death (see Clemen,
Niedergefahren zu d. Toten, p. 149). This applies in particular to the writings
of Hellenistic Judaism. In the Wisdom of Solomon, indeed, mention is made of a
day of judgment (ἡμέραδιαγνώσεως, ἐξέτασις, ἐπισκοπὴψυχῶν, this latter term
ἐπισκοπή, with the verb ἐπισκέψασθαι, Latin, visitare being a sort of technical
expression in apocalyptic literature for the return of God to judgment; cf.
Ps.Sol. 15:12; Apoc. Bar. lxxxiii. 2; Enoch lx. 6); but it is exceedingly
difficult to combine it with the conception of retribution for the individual
immediately after death, a conception dominant in this branch of Jewish thought,
which did not admit a resurrection of the dead.1 [Note: See Bousset, op. cit.,
p. 282. It is of interest to note that, in later Jewish Apocalyptic, the chief
feature connected with the Judgment is the practical issue, that the ungodly
reap their punishment, and the pious their reward. See Volz, op. cit., p. 85.]
But even in 4 Ezra, which probably belongs to the last quarter of the first
century a.d., and so ranks among the latest products of its class, room is left
for a final allotment of penalties and rewards at the End.

Probably St Paul’s comparative reticence as to the Judgment, and the lack of
elaborate treatment of the event in his letters, should be connected with the
nature of his conception of salvation. The sinner who is justified by faith,
receives already a new standing before God. “There is, therefore, now (νῦν) no
condemnation (κατάκριμα) to those that are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after
the flesh but after the Spirit” (Romans 8:1). They already belong to the class
designated as οἱ σωζόμενοι (1 Corinthians 1:18; 2 Corinthians 2:15). There
awaits them the final salvation, ἡ σωτηρία. See, e.g., Php 2:12, τὴν ἑαυτῶν
σωτηρίαν κατεργάζεσθε; Romans 1:16, δύναμις γὰρ θεοῦ ἐστιν εἰς σωτηρίαν; Php
1:28, ἥτις ἐστὶν αὐτοῖς ἔνδειξις ἀπωλείας, ὑμῶν δὲ σωτηρίας. The converse of
σωτηρία is invariably ἀπώλεια, and there are those who belong already to οἱ
ἀπολλύμενοι. Their end (τέλος) is ἀπώλεια (Php 3:19). They have rejected the
gospel of Jesus Christ. They have despised the riches of God’s goodness and
forbearance and longsuffering, and hence, in accordance with their hardness and
impenitence of heart, they treasure up for themselves wrath in view of the day
of wrath, and revelation of the righteous judgment of God (Romans 2:4-8).

It is, perhaps, difficult to realise how the apostle would adjust this
conception of salvation and all that it involves to the more traditional idea of
a judgment day, when each shall be rewarded according to his deeds. For,
obviously, in a very real sense, God’s judgment on the believer, according to St
Paul’s view, has already been pronounced in the act of justification. He has
received the forgiveness of his sins in Jesus Christ. How can there be any
further place for acquittal or condemnation? So also, on the other hand, those
who have refused to surrender to the love of God, established in the Cross of
Christ, have thereby, in the apostle’s estimation, pronounced their own
judgment. “If our Gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: in whom the
god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the
light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, who is the Image of God, should shine
unto them” (2 Corinthians 4:3-4). The problem is, to find some mediation between
that aspect of St Paul’s thought which may be called retribution, which seems to
look exclusively to God’s final verdict on human conduct, and the other, which
we know as justification, of whose effects we are conscious already in the
present. This difficulty has led to misapprehensions of St Paul’s conception.
Thus Reuss asserts that the final Judgment is a purely Jewish-Christian idea,
“having no natural link with the evangelical doctrine of Paul.” For, from the
fact of union with Christ, it follows that judgment takes place on this side of
the grave (Histoire de la Théol. Chrét. ii. p. 221). Teichmann considers that St
Paul has two parallel but irreconcilable ideas of judgment, the one ethical, the
other belonging to the close of history (op. cit., pp. 81-83). For Christians,
he holds, the latter must be done away with, for in their case St Paul leaves
out of account all human action. Everything, with them, rests on faith and the
bestowal of the Holy Spirit. There is no room for a final judgment as to their
deeds (p. 103). These are examples of a type of criticism which is constantly
applied to the apostle’s doctrine. And at first sight it seems plausible enough.
Yet this apparent incongruity of thought, on which so much stress has been laid,
really pervades all Christian experience. A lively faith assures believers that
God has begun His good work in them; nevertheless, most of them. must tremble as
they anticipate, in their inmost self-knowledge, the verdict of Him who is the
Searcher of hearts. Not only so, but justification has no meaning, cannot be
understood, apart from its practical results. No one was ever more fully alive
to this than St Paul himself. The sixth, seventh, and eighth chapters of Romans
are sufficient proof of it. Those who have been fully justified must, from the
nature of the case, walk after the Spirit, and not after the flesh. To continue
heedlessly in sin, is to make void the grace of God. “How shall we, that are
dead to sin (i.e. have broken our connection with our sinful environment in
Christ Jesus), live any longer therein?” (Romans 6:2). “No,” says the apostle,
and he is speaking to believers, “if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die”
(Romans 8:13). So that there is no real contradiction between that group of
ideas which centre round justification, and a statement like Galatians 6:8 :
“Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap; for he that soweth to his own
flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption (or destruction, φθοράν), but he that
soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.” The forgiven
man must live as one who is under the profoundest obligations to the grace of
God, and the only fulfilment of such obligations is a life of righteousness.
That life, which is the sowing to the Spirit, is possible solely through the
Spirit’s aid, and His aid is given exclusively to those who abide in fellowship
with Christ (Romans 8:8-10). Now, as we have hinted above, believers will always
be conscious of their utterly imperfect service. The clearer their knowledge of
God, the more glaring must appear to them the contrast between what they are and
what they might have been. Hence the final verdict of God upon their completed
lives is for them no mere dramatic scene, belonging to a stage of reflection
which is now antiquated. It meets a craving of human conscience which can find
full satisfaction in no other direction. Accordingly, it is altogether untrue to
the workings of the spirit of a Christian to say that St Paul has clung by force
of tradition to the Old Testament conception of the Day of the Lord, while his
real idea of judgment bears no relation to it. The same kind of profound paradox
runs through all his deepest thoughts. For example, he can say in one place
(Romans 8:16), “The Spirit beareth witness with our spirit that we are children
of God”; and yet in another (Php 3:11), “If haply I may attain unto the
resurrection from the dead”; (see 1 Corinthians 4:4; and cf. the utterance of
Jochanan b. Sakkai, Tanchuma, Schofetim, sect. 7, qu. by Volz, op. cit., p. 118,
“Woe to us in the day of judgment, woe to us in the day of correction”). In an
exultant mood he can exclaim (Romans 8:33), “Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God’s elect?”; but at a later time (Php 2:12), “With fear and
trembling, work out your own salvation to the end” (κατεργάζεσθε). And all who,
like the apostle, set the loftiest spiritual ideals before them, while never
distrusting the grace of God, which is able to keep them from falling, will ever
distrust themselves, lest in the end they should prove unworthy of God’s high
calling in Christ Jesus.

It does not appear as if St Paul had worked out in any detail the actual events
and processes of the final Judgment. If we view this solemn crisis, however, in
close connection with the rest of his teaching, it is plain that the judgment of
the σωζόμενοι will be their admission into the heritage of glory. That is to
say, he regards it as decisive confirmation of that earlier acceptance of them
in Christ, the confirmation which absolutely fixes their eternal destiny.1
[Note: Cf. Clemen, Niedergefahren zu d. Toten, p. 143; Titius, p. 152; also
Castelli, J.Q.R., i. p. 343. Charles puts the facts strikingly: “(Paul) teaches
that at the consummation of the universe, all rational beings will receive their
due unto the full. According to the doctrine of the kingdom, individual members
cannot reach that consummation apart from the consummation of the blessedness of
all” (Eschatology, p. 399). This brings out an element in the conception which
St Paul does not explicitly emphasise, but which, even from his relation to the
Old Testament, not to speak of the teaching of Jesus, must have been tacitly
present to his mind.] They shall obtain “everlasting life” (Romans 2:7; Romans
6:23; Galatians 6:8).1 [Note: These passages are most instructive for the light
they shed upon St Paul’s twofold conception of Judgment. This twofold
conception, in a more elementary form, is also apparent in the literature of
Judaism; see Volz, op. cit., pp. 111-115.] For the ἀπολλύμενοι, judgment will
mean the experience of the ὀργή of God. Its effect is exclusion from the Kingdom
of God. Such exclusion is nothing else than ἀπώλεια.

Perhaps one reason why St Paul speaks so seldom in detail regarding the
Judgment, and never apparently fixes a definite place for it in the sequence of
the Last Things,2 [Note: See Heinrici on1 Corinthians 15:22.] may be found in
the fact that he seems usually to have the living in view. As we have noted, he
does not expect that the End is far distant. Whether he survives to that day or
not, he deems it probable that many of his brethren will. So that such questions
as the relation of an Intermediate State, or of the Resurrection, to the
Judgment, do not come prominently within his horizon.3 [Note: Cf. Wernle,
Anfänge, etc., p. 174; Orr, Christian View, p. 335 f.] He writes concerning the
Day of the Lord, not with a theoretical but with a practical interest. He
desires to set its grave issues before members of those Christian communities
which are dear to him, men and women who may themselves experience the Parousia.
Hence, he treats the Judgment altogether from the side of its spiritual
significance, refraining from all curious speculations as to its method and
guise. Moreover, in a number of important passages, he is thinking exclusively
of Christians. It is so, for example, in 2 Corinthians 5:9-10 : “Wherefore also
we make it our ambition, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him.
For all of us must be made manifest (φανερωθῆναι, shown in our true colours)
before the judgment seat of Christ, that each may receive the things done in the
body, according to what he did, whether good or worthless” (φαῦλον). The context
of this passage makes it clear that he has believers in his mind. It is the last
clause alone which might suggest, and has suggested, the opposite. But, as it
happens, we find an entirely relevant parallel in 1 Corinthians 3:12-16. In this
section of the Epistle he is dealing with the work of Christian teachers. He
himself had laid the foundation. But the crucial point is, What kind of building
is being erected upon it? “Let each,” he says, “take heed how he raises a
building upon it” (ἐποικοδομεῖ, verse 10). But, be that as it may, “if any one
builds up upon the foundation (τὸνθεμέλιον = ἸησοῦςΧριστός) gold, silver,
precious stones, wood, hay, stubble, the work of each shall be made manifest
(φάνερονγενήσεται): for the day shall declare it, because by fire (ἐνπυρί)) it
is laid bare (ἀποκαλύπτεται), and the fire itself shall test each man’s work of
what quality (ὁποῖον) it is. If any man’s work, which he built up, shall remain,
he shall receive a reward; if any man’s work shall be consumed, he shall be
punished (ζημιωθήσεται), but he himself shall be saved, yet in such a way as by
fire.” He recognises the many imperfections in the service and activities of
Christian workers. These will be made manifest in the day of judgment. God’s
welcome to them must necessarily be affected by the greater or less degree of
unworthiness (φαῦλον) which the sum of their life discloses, so that, even
within the sphere of salvation, men shall receive according to the things done
in the body. St Paul accepts, that is to say, the conclusion which commends
itself to every reasonable mind-a conclusion authenticated by our Lord Himself
in the parables of the Talents and the Pounds-that in the future consummated
Kingdom of God, each will receive that portion for which his spiritual
capacities have fitted him. This truth has not received the emphasis in New
Testament theology to which it is entitled. “It is neither according to
Scripture, nor to moral instinct, to depict the Final Judgment as implying that
all in whom the same set of character exists receive an equal reward or penalty.
It is strange how much the doctrine of a destiny proportionate to the measure of
fidelity or failure, so perpetually on our Lord’s lips, has become a ‘lost
theological principle.’ It must be recovered, if we are to bring the fundamental
conceptions of a final Judgment and a final Kingdom of righteousness into
relation with the moral facts of life” (Forrest, Christ of History, etc., p.
367).1 [Note: Cf. Cone, New World, 1895, p. 299; and for a fine imaginative
rendering of the thought, Dante’s Paradiso, xxxii. 50-58. Degrees of bliss form
a prominent doctrine in the Persian religion. The highest blessedness is to
reach the “House of Hymns” (garôtmân): the next highest condition is called the
“best existence,” and is divided into the “space of the sun,” that “of the
moon,” and that “of the stars.” These are attained according as certain special
virtues have been practised (see Söderblom, op, cit., p. 128). For numerous
examples in Jewish literature, more especially the Rabbinic, see Volz, op. cit.,
pp. 366, 367.] From these passages and from others, notably, e.g., 1 Corinthians
4:5, “Do not come to any judgment (i.e. on St Paul and his work) before the
time, until the Lord come, who shall bring to light the hidden things of
darkness, and shall reveal the schemes of many hearts” (cf. the exact parallel
in Romans 2:16, “the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ
according to my Gospel”), it is evident that the idea which stands out most
sharply before him in connection with the process of judgment, is the revelation
of the secrets of human souls to themselves and probably to others, the testing
of human character by a severe experience, which he symbolises by fire. These
ideas have their anticipations in the Old Testament and in the literature of
Judaism. As to the revealing of the hidden realities of human character, we may
quote Proverbs 24:12 (LXX.), “The Lord knoweth the hearts of all … who shall
render to every man according to his deeds”; Ecclesiastes 12:14, “God shall
bring every work into judgment with every secret thing, whether it be good or
whether it be evil.” The same thought appears in such passages as Sir 1:30, “The
Lord shall reveal thy secrets, and in the midst of the assembly (συναγωγῆς)
shall cast thee down”; Apoc. Bar. lxxxiii. 1 ff., “The Most High shall assuredly
hasten the times, and He shall assuredly bring on His hours. And He shall
assuredly judge those who are in His world, and shall visit in truth all things
by means of all their hidden works. And He shall assuredly examine the secret
thoughts, and that which is laid up in the secret chambers of all the members of
man, and shall make them manifest in the sight of all, with reproof.” Cf. the
Arabic poet Zuhair: “Whatever men seek to hide from God, He knoweth: it is
reserved, laid up in writing, and kept in store against the day of reckoning”
(qu. by Bevan, Daniel, p. 123). The idea occurs repeatedly in Jewish literature,
e.g., Enoch xlix. 4, lx. 5; Slav. Enoch xlvi. 3: “When God shall send a great
light, by means of that there shall be judgment to the just and unjust, and
nothing shall be concealed.” The closely-related conception of a testing as by
fire is foreshadowed by similar expressions in the prophets, e.g., Zechariah
13:9, “I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them
(πυρώσω in LXX.) as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried”;
Malachi 3:2-3, “But who may abide the day of His coming (= the Day of the Lord),
and who shall stand when He appears? for He is like a refiner’s fire (πὺρ
χωνευτηρίου), and like fuller’s soap: and He shall sit as a refiner and purifier
of silver; and He shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and
silver.”1 [Note: See also the remarkable passage already quoted from Testament
of Abraham xciii. 10, and a very materialistic picture in Sibyl. Orac. iii.
80-91; and cf. the most striking parallel of the ordeal by fire in the Persian
religion, “The two blessings (i.e. salvation and immortality) mayest thou give
(in harmony) with the holy spirit, O Mazda Ahura, by means of the decision with
fire” (Yasna xlvii. 6). “The last judgment … will dispense to men reward and
punishment. Then the earth will be purified by the fiery metal-stream. All men
shall enter the fire-stream, which is felt by the pious like a bath in tepid
milk, by the wicked as a frightful torture … With the tribulation of earth, the
fire devours also the hell of Ahriman and the serpent” (F. Justi, Preussische
Jahrbücher, Bd. 88, Hft. 1, p. 242; cf. Böklen, op. cit., pp. 119, 121). The
idea of fire as a purifying agent occurs in the Alexandrian Fathers-e.g. Clem.
Alex., Strom. vii. 6, p. 851:φαμὲν δʼ ἡμεῖς ἁγιάζειν τὸ πῦρ, οὐ τὰ κρέα, ἀλλὰ
τὰς ἁμαρτωλοὺς ψυχάς· πῦρ οὐ τὸ παμφάγον καὶ βάναυσον, ἀλλὰ τὸ φρόνιμον λέγοντες
τὸ διϊκνόυμενον διὰ ψυχῆς … τὸ πῦρ; also Origen, c. Celsum iv. 21:οὐκ ἀρνούμεθα
οὖν τὸ καθάρσιον πῦρ, καὶ τὴν τοῦ κόσμου φθορὰν ἐπὶ καθαιρέσει τῆς κακίας καὶ
ἀνακαινώσει τοῦ παντός.] The thought which underlies those statements of St Paul
which we have quoted, is entirely in accord with much recent philosophical
speculation on the ultimate issues of life.1 [Note: See, e.g., F. C. S.
Schiller, Riddles of the Sphinx, pp. 399, 400.] No future life can be conceived
without the consciousness of self-identity. But this consciousness must depend
on memory. Is there not profound truth in the idea that the self-identity of a
personality fully realised will rest upon a memory wholly unclouded, in which
all past experience, and every part of it, is grasped, as it were, in one
perception. Would not such a perception in itself prove a tremendous factor in
the process of retribution?2 [Note: For a very concise and well-balanced summary
of St Paul’s conception of Judgment, see Heinrici on2 Corinthians 5:10.]

We must defer to a later chapter the consideration of St Paul’s teaching on
future bliss and future punishment. And the relation of the Parousia and the
Judgment to the Resurrection can be more conveniently treated when that central
province of his Eschatology is under review. But it is necessary, before
quitting the subject of the Parousia itself, to examine the difficult passage
which deals with the mysterious figure of the “man of lawlessness” (2
Thessalonians 2:3-12). Considerable light has been shed upon this whole
conception by recent studies in the history of religion. Of these we shall
endeavour to make use, but we must first form as clear an idea as possible of St
Paul’s statement in 2 Thessalonians 2:1-17. The statement is not made for its
own sake, but to correct the erroneous notion prevalent at Thessalonica that the
Parousia was to take place immediately. The apostle declares that certain events
must precede it. The first of these he names the “apostasy” (ἡ ἀποστασία).
Apparently coincident with the “apostasy,” or closely subsequent to it, is the
revelation (ἀποκαλυφθῇ) of the “man of lawlessness” (ὁ ἄνθρωποςτῆςἀνομίας), “the
son of destruction, who opposes and raises himself up against every one called
God, or object of reverence (σέβασμα), so as to take his seat in the temple of
God, giving forth (ἀποδεικνύνταἑαυτόν) that he is God.” But this revelation is
for the present hindered. “Ye know the restraining force” (τὸκατέχον). Already,
indeed, “the mystery of lawlessness” (τὸμυστήριοντῆςἀνομίας) is in operation.
“Only, the restrainer is now (present), until he be taken out of the way
(ἐκμέσουγένηται). And then shall be revealed the lawless one, whom the Lord
Jesus shall slay by the breath of His mouth (τῷπνεύματιτοῦστόματοςαὐτοῦ), and
destroy by the radiance (ἐπιφανεία) of His Parousia; whose whole coming (or
appearance, παρουσία) is according to the power of Satan, sheer force (so
Weizsäcker, admirably), signs and wonders of lying, sheer deception of
unrighteousness for the lost, for the reason that they did not receive the love
of the truth to their salvation. Therefore God sends them the power of deception
that they should believe falsehood, so that they all might be judged who did not
believe the truth, but had their pleasure in unrighteousness.” In examining this
description, certain preliminary points may be noted. The dimness and vagueness
in the outlines of the figure here presented may be partly explained by St
Paul’s statement in verse 5: “Do ye not remember that while I was yet with you I
spoke to you of these things?” There is no need for him to do more than recall
to their minds the remarkable picture whose details he must have explained to
them orally in his preaching at Thessalonica. This is no doubt a consideration
which may often serve to explain perplexing allusions in the apostolic writers.
Further, as we have already discovered, a number of features in the description
have noteworthy parallels in the Book of Daniel, a writing of extraordinary
significance and importance for the early Christian Church. These parallels are
echoed in the New Testament in the great eschatological discourse of Matthew
24:1-51 (parallel in Mark 13:1-37, in 1 John 2:18 f., 4:3, and in Revelation
13:1-18 (especially verses 4-7, 13-15).1 [Note: Holtzmann exaggerates when he
says that there is no real parallel to our passage in the New Testament
exceptRevelation 13:5-8; Revelation 13:12-17; Revelation 16:9-11(N.T. Theol. ii.
p. 192).] Can we find any clue to the genesis of this conception of a Person in
whom the forces of evil are concentrated, rising up in blasphemy, seducing men
by deceit, giving himself out as the antagonist of the true God? Several recent
investigators have come forward with attempted solutions of the problem. W.
Bousset, in particular, who has made a careful and exhaustive study of the
subject (Der Antichrist, Göttingen, 1895; E. Tr. by A. H. Keane, The Antichrist
Legend, 1896), endeavours to trace the conception through a long tradition, back
to the old Babylonian myth of the Dragon which stormed the abode of God. The
next phase he finds in the wicked angel of Judaism, Belial2 [Note: M.
Friedländer attempts to prove that in the last pre-Christian century Beliar was
the demonic embodiment of an antinomian spirit which pervaded a very powerful
Jewish sect, designatedîÄéðÄéíin the Talmud. He lays great stress on the
character of Beliar as the seducer, from the LXX. translation of “children of
Belial,” byἄνδρες παράνομοιinDeuteronomy 13:13, and comparesJudges 19:22; Judges
20:13;Proverbs 6:12;2 Samuel 23:5-7. As we approach the Christian era, he holds,
Beliar grows beyond the range of anything human, until at length he represents
Satan in human form (. Sibyl. Orac. ii. 63-75). Along these lines he comes to be
the prototype of Antichrist (Der Antichrist in d. vorchristlichen jüdischen
Quellen, Gött., 1901). There are probably true elements in this hypothesis, but
its basis seems decidedly questionable. . Volz, . cit., p. 77, who, among
various instances of renegade Jews designated “sons of Belial,” quotes
Kidduschin, 66a, where an evil adviser, who stirs up the Maccabæan princes
against the Pharisees, is called a Belial. This application of the name to
Jewish apostates corroborates the view ofὁ ἄνομοςwhich has been taken in the
text.] (or Beliar), who becomes the ruler of the ethereal region (cf. “The
prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of
disobedience,” Ephesians 2:2), and thus a rival to the Divine power. The
tradition, which culminates in the conception of Antichrist, he regards as an
esoteric doctrine handed down orally in Judaism. Various traits derived from
contemporary circumstances are added from time to time to the hateful figure,
which is the incarnation of insolent wickedness. Thus, in the epoch of Daniel,
the blasphemy and cruelty of Antiochus Epiphanes supply some prominent features.
While, for the minds of the early Christians, it is natural that this demoniac
power, which was opposed to God and all goodness, should be transformed into the
idea of a false Messiah, who arises out of Judaism, which had rejected and
crucified the true Christ, and appears among the Jews in Jerusalem, doing
wonderful works by the help of Satan, and ultimately seating himself in the
temple of God. Bousset goes the length of saying, that in all probability “man
of lawlessness” is a translation of the Hebrew Belial1 [Note: Cf. the preceding
note.] (for his theory, see The Antichrist Legend, especially pp. 30, 128, 137,
144, 155, 165, 166, 182).2 [Note: Gunkel agrees with him as regards an
eschatological tradition which goes back to the primitive Babylonian conception
of the conflict between order and chaos, symbolised by the struggle between
Marduk, the supreme god of Babylon, and Tiamat, the dragon of the abyss.
“Theἄνομος-expectation of 2 Thessalonians,” he says, “is not the arbitrary
invention of an individual, but only the expression of a belief which had arisen
throughout a long history, and was at that time widely circulated … Since Daniel
(11:36), it is declaredthat this culmination of evil (expected by Judaism) would
be embodied in a man who insolently violates everything sacred, even the temple
of God in Jerusalem. Cf. also3Ma 1:1-29, Ps.Song of Solomon 1:1-17” (Schöpfung
und Chaos, p. 221).]

There is probably a mixture of fact and mere hypothesis in these statements. The
notion of an esoteric, eschatological tradition handed down orally in Judaism,
is a pretty theory, but where are we to find a sure basis for it? We are by no
means certain that clear traces of it are to be discerned in Revelation 11:1-19,
in the Beast that comes up out of the abyss and makes war with the two
witnesses, and kills them.3 [Note: M. R. James (in his article on “Man of Sin,”
H.D.B.) agrees with Bousset in this identification.] For symbolic figures of
this description (having their basis, no doubt, in popular mythology) occur in
the most arbitrary fashion throughout the whole province of apocalyptic
literature. Compare the various Beasts of Daniel, the symbolic oxen and heifers
and sheep of Enoch (lxxxv.-xc.), and the three-headed eagle rising out of the
sea and the roaring lion of the forest in 4 Ezra (11, 12). To emphasise the fact
that the scene of these occurrences (in Revelation 11:1-19) is Jerusalem (so
Bousset, p. 20), contributes little to the matter in hand. For in the Apocalypse
(in accordance with its Old Testament background) Jerusalem is necessarily a
central point in the drama of history. Bousset makes reference to the
eschatological discourse of Jesus in Matthew 24:1-51, assuming that “the
distinctly apocalyptic part is a fragment of foreign origin introduced amid
genuine utterances of the Lord” (p. 23). This is an assumption which we have
already seen grave reasons to doubt. But after making it, he finds it needful to
apply 2 Thessalonians 2:1-17 to explain the passage. In our judgment, it seems
much more probable (and we think that our investigation so far goes to prove it)
that echoes of a genuine tradition of Jesus’ words are to be found in the
statements of St Paul. But we are astonished to find that the hypothesis of an
oral, esoteric teaching is mainly based on eschatological commentaries of the
Fathers, such as Hippolytus, Irenæus, and Victorinus of Pettau. This is, at
best, a precarious foundation on which to rest. The mere figure of Antichrist,
perhaps mainly derived from 2 Thessalonians 2:1-17, and viewed in the light of
(a) the sayings of Jesus as to false Christs and false prophets, (b) the
references in the Johannine Epistles to deceivers (who are called ἀντίχριστοι),
(c) the mysterious Beasts of the Apocalypse (largely reflecting the appalling
impression of Nero’s cruelties), (d) the picture of Antiochus Epiphanes in
Daniel 11:1-45, and (e) Ezekiel’s descriptions of the attacks of Gog upon the
chosen people (chaps. 38, 39), was sufficient in itself to inflame the
imaginations of spiritualising commentators, and to produce a whole apparatus of
accompanying details which require no link of connection with an earlier
esoteric tradition. At the same time, without attempting any elaborate
discussion of the Antichrist-doctrine, we can certainly gather from an
examination of the passage in 2 Thessalonians 2:1-17 that the idea is not one
which sprang up in a moment, or as the result of the speculations of any single
individual. Thus in Ezekiel 38:1-23 (already cited), we find the conception of a
final assault of a heathen prince upon the people of God. “It shall come to pass
in the latter days that I will bring thee against my land, that the nations may
know thee, when I shall be sanctified in thee, O Gog, before their eyes (verse
16).… Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel, thou and all thy hordes, and
the peoples that are with thee: I will give thee unto the ravenous birds of
every sort, and to the beasts of the field to be devoured” (39:4, R.V.).1 [Note:
Cf. Apoc. Bar. xli.: “The last ruler of that time shall be left alive, when the
multitudes of his hosts are destroyed, and shall be bound with chains. And they
shall take him up to Mount Zion, and my Messiah shall convict him of his
insolent deeds, and he shall gather and set before him all the deeds of his
hosts. And afterwards he shall put him to death.” Bousset’s remarkable quotation
from Sibyl. Orac. iii. 46 ff. is regarded by Jülicher, on good grounds, as of
Christian and not Jewish origin, and as referring to Simon Magus (Th. L.Z.,
1896, Sp. 379). The enormous literature which sprang up in the early Christian
centuries round the name and fortunes of Simon Magus is, in itself, a proof of
the inherent tendency to speculations of the Antichrist type in connection with
a far-reaching religious movement. The same phenomena are to be found in the
heretical books of the Middle Ages.] This conception may have been allied with
some popular tradition, but it would be unwise to dogmatise. In Daniel 7:1-28,
we find something of a parallel picture. The seer has the vision of the fourth
Beast “dreadful and terrible … it devoured and brake in pieces and stamped the
residue with the feet of it.… I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the
Ancient of Days did sit.… His throne was like the fiery flame, and His wheels as
burning fire.… I beheld them because of the voice of the great words which the
horn spake: I beheld even till the beast was slain, and his body destroyed and
given to the burning flame” (verses 7, 9, 11). Here, again, there is the
destruction at the end of time of a brutal and boastful force which has risen
against the Most High. Its destruction prepares the way for the possession of
the kingdom by the saints of the Most High (verse 22). In Daniel 11:1-45 there
is that portrayal of a profane and blasphemous king, with which, as we have
seen, St Paul is familiar. “His heart shall be against the holy covenant.… Such
as do wickedly against the covenant shall he pervert by flatteries.… And the
king shall do according to his will; and he shall exalt himself, and magnify
himself above every god, and shall speak marvellous things against the God of
gods: and he shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished: for that which
is determined shall be done” (verses 28, 32, 36). Probably most of these traits
belong to Antiochus Epiphanes, whom the seer may have regarded as fulfilling
some terrible expectation associated with the End. In any case, bearing in mind
all that we have already demonstrated as to St Paul’s relation to the prophetic
teaching, it seems clear enough to us that in passages such as those above, we
come upon the more immediate background of the apostle’s thought. Only, the
conception of a final struggle between God and evil,1 [Note: This dominating
idea of the Persian religion finds expression in a vaguer, and also in a more
precise form. Thus, as a rule, we find merely the general expectation that the
powers of evil will be vanquished, and will vanish, no surmises being made as to
their definite fate. Thus, Yasna xxx. 10: “Then shall be beaten down, then shall
be broken the army of the Druj.” But at times, more definite statements are
made: e.g., Bundehesh xxx. 31 f., “Thereafter the snake Gôkîhar is consumed in
the molten metal” (Böklen, op. cit., p. 128; cf. Hübschmann, Jahrb. f. prot.
Theol., 1879, p. 226). This latter idea belongs to the same type of conceptions
as the Jewish Antichrist; cf. the conception of Azi Dahâka, originally a
mythical monster, who appears at the End, as the incarnation of evil, and is
slain by a hero who rises from the dead. He is placed in Babylon (Söderblom, op.
cit., p. 258, note).] we might almost say, between God and the Devil,2 [Note:
Cf. Bousset (Religion d. Judenthums, p. 486): “The figure of Antichrist is … in
all probability, nothing more than an anthropomorphising of the Devil.”] before
the end, is of course determined and coloured by the circumstances and
experiences of his own time. Thus, in Ezekiel, the conflict is between the
heathen prince Gog and Jehovah Himself. In Daniel, it is the God of gods (i.e.
the God of Israel, see Bevan, ad. loc.) whose indignation shall be visited upon
the impious and insolent king of the north. The figure of Antichrist has not yet
taken definite shape, for there is no mention of a Messiah as occupying a
central place in the culminating collision between good and evil. But for the
first Christian circles, of necessity, all the events of the End have a
Messianic bearing. For them the cause of God has its supreme representative in
the Christ of God. Now, plainly, Jesus Himself had given strong and frequent
warnings against false Christs and false prophets who should strive to deceive
their fellows (e.g., Matthew 7:15; Matthew 24:4 f; Luke 17:21; Luke 17:23,
etc.). As a matter of history, the Jewish nation had rejected the true Messiah.
What could be more natural than that the apostle, his mind steeped in the
prophetic delineations of the future, delineations which would receive a new
significance and importance in the light of those predictions of Jesus which had
been reported to him, should expect the appearance of a false Messiah, whose
very coming and influence should be a judgment upon the Jewish nation for their
daring opposition to the redemptive purpose of God? Obviously, he would be
inclined to attribute to such a figure, whose outlines remained still vague and
obscure, any features of surpassing ungodliness which might impress themselves
on his mind at the time. We are therefore disposed to believe that the
remarkable description, for example, which occurs in 2 Thessalonians 2:4 (ὁ
ἀντικείμενοςκαὶ
ὑπεραιρόμενοςἐπὶπάνταλεγόμενονθεὸνἢσέβασμαὥστεαὐτὸνεἰςτὸνναὸντοῦθεοῦκαθίσαι,
ἀποδεικνύνταἑαυτόνὅτιἐστὶνθεός), while closely related to Daniel 11:36, is
directly connected with the sacrilegious conduct of the demented Roman Emperor
Caligula, who, from his enthusiasm in propagating the cult of the Cæsars, went
the length of attempting to place a statue of himself in the Temple at
Jerusalem. To every devout Jew, and to the Christians also, who believed that
they stood in the true succession of the chosen people, such an action revealed
an almost incredible depth of daring impiety.1 [Note: So also Schmiedel on2
Thessalonians 2:1-12; Findlay, art. “Paul” in H.D.B.] It is probably impossible
to trace all the various elements which may have contributed to St Paul’s
mysterious conception of the “man of lawlessness.” Certainly it is a gross
exaggeration when Reuss speaks of the “celebrated passage on Antichrist, in
which he (i.e. St Paul) repeats word for word, although with an appearance of
mystery, the theory drawn by the Rabbis from the Book of Daniel” (Histoire de la
Théol. Chrét. ii. p. 211). This is an instance of a type of inaccuracy of which
the author is often guilty. As a matter of fact, our authorities for the
Rabbinic theory are later by several centuries than the writings of St Paul.
Hence, extreme caution is needful in discussing the influence of the
Synagogue-theology on his conceptions. Even when we do examine the “theory”
about which Reuss speaks so confidently, we find a crucial difference between it
and the statements of the apostle. “Throughout the Talmudic literature,” says
Weber, “we meet the idea that the Roman dominion must be stamped out if the
Messianic kingdom is to be erected. Thus, in the days of Messiah, there shall
stand at the head of this kingdom a powerful ruler, who unites in himself all
enmity against God and hatred against God’s people. He is called Armilus,1
[Note: Supposed by some scholars to be a corruption or reminiscence of Romulus.]
and is the øùÑéòàκατʼ ἐξοχήν.… This Armilus, the last and greatest oppressor of
the community, shall the Messiah slay by the word of his mouth and the breath of
his lips (Targ. of Jonathan on Isaiah 11:4)” (Lehren d. Talmud, p. 349). As we
shall see in a moment, this attitude by no means tallies with that of St Paul
towards the Roman Empire. Yet, as might be expected, there are undoubted
affinities between the apostle’s view and the tradition of the Synagogue. But
whatever may have been the exact lines along which St Paul reached the thought
of a combination of evil in that strange figure, designated by him the “man of
lawlessness,” it appears to us that the description given sheds some valuable
light on the manner in which he expected his conception to be realised. It is
apparent that he has no definite historical personage in view. So much seems to
be implied in the use of the term ἀποκαλύπτειν (verses 3, 6, 8) to denote his
appearance on the scene of action. We are led to infer from the term, that the
principle embodied bulks more largely before his mind than the person in whom it
finds expression. Further, his ἀποκάλυψις is connected with an event which St
Paul names ἡ ἀποστασία, “the apostasy.” This can only mean a revolt against God.
Therefore it must take place among the people who acknowledge the true God, i.e.
the Jews.1 [Note: So also Weiss, N.T. Theol. i. pp. 307, 308; Charles,
Eschatology, p. 381, note 1: Bousset, Antichrist, passim.] But the title given
to the leader of the revolt corroborates our hypothesis. His characteristic is
ἀνομία, lawlessness. He is ὁ ἄνομος, the lawless man. He is untrue to the
highest tradition of the race. Defying the law, he defies the God who has
promulgated it. Now we saw at an earlier stage that the apostle was led to his
expectation of the speedy coming of the End by the aggravated sinfulness of the
Jews. They had committed the unspeakable crime of crucifying the promised
Messiah. Not content with this, they instigated and carried on a most relentless
persecution of those who bore testimony to the Resurrection of the Crucified (1
Thessalonians 2:14-16). These facts explain his assertion that the “mystery of
lawlessness is already in operation” (2 Thessalonians 2:7). His life is
embittered by their unscrupulous machinations. He feels that they are completing
the full tale of their iniquities (πληρουμένωντῶνἁμαρτιῶν). The Divine wrath is
accumulating upon them. It only requires the final culmination of evil in the
ἄνομος, the “son of destruction,” to usher in the last act in the drama of human
history, the Parousia of the Messiah, the destruction of the supreme foe of God
and godliness. But the final outburst of impiety (to proceed from within
Judaism, ut sup.) was, for the present, being hindered. There was a restraining
force which interfered, τὸκατέχον or ὅκατέχων. Until this ceased to act, the
closing catastrophe would be averted.1 [Note: Cf. Bousset (Antichrist, p. 123):
“The mention of one distinct premonitory sign occurs in nearly all the sources.
The end is at hand when the Roman Empire perishes.”] We agree with those
scholars who recognise in this preventing power the Roman Empire and its
government. It is evident, both from his Epistles and from Acts, that St Paul
experienced and valued a certain protection on the part of the Roman
authorities. Christianity had not reached the formidable dimensions to which it
attained fifty years later. The disputes it occasioned appeared in the eyes of
the Roman officials to turn exclusively on questions of Jewish law and custom.
The obscurity of the sect of the Nazarenes told in the apostle’s favour.
Probably more frequently than our documents inform us, the secular arm
intervened to shield him from the fanatical rage of his fellow-countrymen. Could
anything be more intelligible than that St Paul should see in this impartial
State the main bulwark against the forces of injustice and impiety which menaced
his work at every turn? To us, looking back along the course of history, and
able to estimate the true proportions of empires and kingdoms, it may appear
altogether incongruous to bring two such unequal magnitudes as Rome and Judaism
into a relation of this kind. To the apostle, nurtured in the magnificent
traditions of his country and his race, the nation to whom belonged the promises
of God overshadowed all others. Although he did not survive to see it, the last
awful struggle round the walls of the holy city must have appeared to the
eye-witnesses a struggle for life or death, involving the triumph or the doom of
one of the opposing forces. It is of interest in this connection to note that
long after the destruction of Jerusalem, the leader of the fierce Jewish
insurrection against Hadrian in 132 a.d., Simon Bar-Cochba (Numbers 24:17), was
greeted by the famous Rabbi Akiba as the King Messiah, and in this rôle
attracted great masses of adherents. Thus the expectation of a false Messiah,
who should by delusive signs and wonders produce an impression on his
fellow-countrymen, was in no sense an unreasonable one. The place assigned by St
Paul to the Roman power in the development of the events of the End, supplies a
needful caution in our estimate of his expectation of the Parousia. Apart from
this, indeed, he distinctly declares to the Thessalonians that the Day of the
Lord is not imminent (ἐνέστηκεν). But his reference to the restraint of the
Imperial government suggests that the apostle must have been prepared, even in
those early days, to allow the intervention of a lengthened period ere the End
should break in. For assuredly, at the time when he wrote, there was little to
presage any speedy collapse of the mightiest Empire of the world. From our point
of view, we may be surprised that the apostle laid so strong an emphasis on an
event which, in reality, was so far distant. But he never professed any minute
knowledge as to times and seasons. His judgment was mainly formed by observation
of the spiritual processes advancing in mankind. At times it appeared to him as
if the world must soon be ready for Christ. At times it seemed as if the
ripening of evil demanded the Judgment of the Messiah. But we never find him
lamenting the delay of the End. Even when his thoughts of the Parousia are most
vivid, he never undervalues the ethical significance of his present opportunity.
In truth, it may be said that the early Christian belief in the nearness of the
Second Advent was one of the most momentous and inspiring influences for
holiness in the primitive Church. It was a call to watchfulness and prayer, a
call to strenuous effort and solemn preparation.1 [Note: See especially1
Thessalonians 5:23. The verse is an indication of how the apostle dealt with the
expectation.] Perhaps it did more than any other impulse to raise the life of
the young Christian community to a lofty level, and to keep it there. For they
lived in the expectation of Christ, their returning Lord, as those who must buy
up the time.2 [Note:Sanday andHeadlam suggestively note how the parousia belief
preserved the elasticity ofChristianity, as the apostles, from its influence,
“never realised that they were building up a church to last through the ages.…
they never wrote or legislated except so far as existing needs demanded.… they
never admonished or planned with a view to the remote future.”-commentary
onRomans, p. 380.]


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  CHAPTER 7: 05. ST PAUL'S CONCEPTION OF THE RESURRECTION
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Chapter V ST PAUL’S CONCEPTION OF THE RESURRECTION No other conception of his
Eschatology has received such elaborate treatment at the hands of St Paul as
that of the Resurrection. Yet perhaps in no province is there more room left for
the raising of perplexing questions. In one aspect of it, the full delineation
of the event and process which he has given, is due to the pressure of
circumstances. In the course of his missionary labours, more especially in the
province of Achaia, that subject of his teaching which proved the chief
stumbling-block to his quick-witted and combative Greek audiences was the
Resurrection of the dead. It was not that their minds were prejudiced against
the idea of a life after death. Owing to Platonic and other influences, this
conception had long been familiar in intellectual circles. No doubt, by the
middle of the first century a.d., it must have filtered down into popular belief
as, at least, a speculation worthy of attention. Indeed, we have good evidence
for its widespread diffusion in many interesting sepulchral inscriptions (see
Lehrs, Vorstellungen d. Griechen über das Fortleben nach d. Tode). Its influence
would be stimulated by that strong impulse of ethical aspiration which marked
the opening centuries of our era. In all probability, the formulation of the
doctrine of immortality by Plato himself, owed as much to the intense moral
interest which formed part of his conviction of future retribution, as to his
metaphysical speculations on the nature of the soul (see Zeller, Platonism, p.
404). That element weighed powerfully with the Stoics, who held an unrivalled
position as religious teachers in the era with which we are concerned. But a
belief in immortality was a different thing from a belief in resurrection. The
latter would be usually regarded as a grotesque superstition, tenable only by
barbarian peoples. Diogenes Laertius, in the preface to his great collection of
the doctrines of the philosophers, seems to look at it from this standpoint when
he refers to the notion ἀναβιώσεσθαι κατὰ τοὺς Μάγους … τοὺς ἀνθρώπους καὶ
ἔσεσθαι ἀθανάτους. The notion of a higher organism (σῶμα) was that which
repelled the Hellenic mind. It was altogether contrary to their dualistic view
of human nature (e.g. the Platonic).1 [Note: 1 “As long as we have this body,
and an evil of that sort is mingled with our souls, we shall never fully gain
what we desire; and that is the truth.… It (i.e. the body) fills us with
passions and desires and fears, and all manner of phantoms, and much
foolishness.… In truth, we have learned that if we are to have any pure
knowledge, we must be free from the body; the soul in herself must behold things
as they are” (Phædo, 66, B, C, D). At the same time, it should be noted that
some eminent interpreters of Plato’s doctrine of immortality (e.g., Susemihl,
Genetische Entwicklung d. Platonischen Philosophie, i. p. 461) explain it as
implying that absolute incorporeality can never be reached, and that in the
future life man will possess a higher kind of body, having a closer conformity
to the soul which sways it.]

Those philosophers, also, who attempted to surmount this dualism by a higher
synthesis were apt in the process to lose any true conception of personality as
surviving death. Probably the majority of Greek thinkers would have assented to
the definition of Chrysippus (Nemes. de nat. hom. p. 81): ὁ θάνατός ἐστι
χωρισμὸς ψυχῆς ἀπὸ σώματος-“Death is the separation of soul from body.” How
powerfully this idea worked, may be realised from the fact that Jewish thinkers
who came under the influences of Hellenism, no longer shared with their
contemporaries the doctrine of a personal resurrection, but conceived of a
purely spiritual immortality, which they sought to express in terms akin to
Plato. Thus Philo: ὅρος ἀθανάτου βίου κάλλιστος οὗτος, ἔρωτι καὶ φιλίᾳ θεοῦ
ἀσάρκῳ καὶ ἀσωμάτῳ κατεσχῆσθαι (De Fuga et Invent. iii. 122, C. W.): “This is
the noblest definition of an immortal life, to be possessed by a fleshless and
bodiless love and friendship for God.” Compare his definition of death: χωρισμὸν
καὶ διάζευξιν ἀπὸ σώματος (De Abrahamo, iv. 56, C. W.). The same idea is found
in Wisdom, which affirms of the pious dead (3:1), δικαίων δὲ ψυχαὶ ἐν χειρὶ
θεοῦ, καὶ οὐ μὴ ἅψηται αὐτῶν βάσανος1 [Note: Also 9:15:φθαρτὸν γὰρ σῶμα βαρύνει
ψυχήν, καὶβρίθει τὸγεῶδες σκῆνος νοῦν πολυφρόντιδα.] : “Now the souls of the
righteous are in the hand of God, and torment shall not touch them”; cf.4Ma
13:13-15, ἑαυτόυς, ἔλεγον, τῷ θεῷ ἀφιερώσομεν ἐξ ὅλης τῆς καρδίας τῷ δόντι τὰς
ψυχάς, καὶ χρήσωμεν τῇ περὶ τὸν νόμον φυλακῇ τὰ σώματα. μὴ φοβηθῶμεν τὸν
δοκοῦντα ἀποκτενεῖν. μέγας γὰρ ψυχῆς ἀγὼν καὶ κίνδυνος ἐν αἰωνίῳ βασάνῳ κείμενος
τοῖς παραβᾶσιν τὴν ἐντολὴν τοῦ θεοῦ 2 [Note: See Grimm on 4 Maccabees, p. 289.
Heinrici gives an interesting summary of related Pagan ideas as contrasted with
the resurrection-doctrine of St Paul. We condense it here. (1) Simple returning
of the soul into its abandoned earthly shell. So Plato of the Pamphylian Er,
Repub. x. 614 f.; cf. Pliny, Hist. Nat. vi. 55, Similis … de adservandis
corporibus hominum et reviviscendi promissa Democrito vanitas, qui non revixit
ipse. (2) Periodic wanderings of souls through the temporal life; so Pythagoras.
(3) Secret doctrines of the Orphics, who promised the initiated immortality and
a preeminent place in Elysium (cf. Welcker, Griech. Götterlehre, 2. pp. 514 f.,
561 f.; Heinrici, 1 Cor. pp. 466, 467).] : “ ‘With our whole heart,’ they said,
‘we will consecrate ourselves to the God who gave our souls, and let us offer
our bodies as a defence of the law. Let us not fear him who supposes that he can
slay us. For grievous is the soul-conflict and peril which is reserved in
eternal torment for those who have transgressed the commandment of God.’ ”

There was no place for a resurrection in Greek habits of thought as to the Last
Things. Hence, although, in accepting the Christian Gospel, they had also
accepted the fact that Jesus Christ was risen from the dead, the Corinthian
Christians, e.g., were inclined to regard His experience as abnormal, an event
on a par with the miraculous process of the Incarnation, but by no means
regulative for the Christian brotherhood as a whole. So the apostle is obliged
to set forth in detail the position at which he has arrived, largely as an
inference from his own experience of Christ risen. It is impossible to say
whether the content of his famous exposition in 1 Corinthians 15:1-58 had for
long been a possession of his thought, or whether the objections raised by his
opponents at Athens, Corinth, and elsewhere, have for the first time compelled
him to draw out into clearness conceptions which merely lay in germ within his
mind. It is conceivable that the question asked by the perplexed Corinthians, in
the letter to which we have St Paul’s reply, was the main reason which led him
to formulate in its minutiæ his doctrine of the σῶμα πνευματικόν. Yet it seems
to us more probable that he had reached his position gradually, as the result of
prolonged reflection. We know what gave the impulse to such reflection. St Paul,
indeed, as a Pharisee, was perfectly familiar with the idea of resurrection. In
discussing the apocalyptic literature of Judaism, we have observed how the
doctrine took shape and gained currency. There is abundant evidence from the
Gospels, Acts, Josephus,1 [Note: Antiq. xviii. 1. 3,ἀθανατόν τε ἰσχὺν ταῖς
ψυχαῖς πίστις αὐτοῖς εἶναι καὶ ὑπὸ χθονὸς δικαιώσεις τε καὶ τιμὰς οἶς ἀρετῆς ἢ
κακίας ἐπιτήδευσις ἐν τῷ βίῳ γέγονεν, καὶ ταῖς μὲν εἱργμὸν ἀίδιον προτίθεσθαι,
ταῖς δὲ ῤᾳστώνην τοῦ ἀναβιοῦν; B.J., ii. 8. 14,ψυχήν τε πᾶσαν μὲν ἄφθαρτον,
μεταβαίνειν δὲ εἰς ἓτερον σῶμα τὴν τῶν ἀγαθῶν μόνην, τὰς δὲ τῶν φαύλων ἀίδίῳ
τιμωρίᾳ κολάζεσθαι.] and the Talmudic treatises, that the notion was prevalent
in Pharisaic circles. “Gamaliel proved the Resurrection from the Bible in answer
to the challenge of the Sadducees, by pointing to passages from the three
portions of Scripture (i.e., Law, Prophets, and Hagiographa), namely,
Deuteronomy 31:16, Isaiah 26:19, Song of Solomon 7:10; and when they did not
allow these proofs, convinced them by Deuteronomy 1:8, or according to others,
Deuteronomy 4:4 (Sanh. 90b)” (Bacher, Agada d. Tannaiten, i. p. 87). But in the
religious thought of the Synagogue it had remained somewhat of a mechanical
event, an adjunct of the great Judgment. By many it was regarded as a privilege
of the righteous Israelite, by a smaller number as universal, thus becoming a
more or less unrelated item among the circumstances of the End, whose ethical
significance could scarcely be estimated, inasmuch as there seemed to be no
basis for it in the phenomena of the earthly, personal life. Indeed, if we may
judge by the Talmudic literature, there seems to have been little that was
spiritual about the conception. It was a restoration from Sheol, by the power of
Messiah, to a temporal life. And “the future body, as to material and
organisation, was conceived as essentially of the same quality as the present”
(so Weber, Lehren d. Talmud, p. 353). This view is corroborated by the
Apocalypse of Baruch, e.g. chap. i. 2: “For assuredly the earth gives back at
that time the dead which it now receives, in order to preserve them, without
altering anything in their appearance; but as it has received them, so it gives
them back, and as I have committed them to it, so it causes them to rise.”1
[Note: In Enoch cviii. 11, on the other hand, we find a parallel view to that of
St Paul.] At no point in his conceptions of the Last Things has St Paul produced
so remarkable a transformation as in his doctrine of the Resurrection. We need
not even here, indeed, expect a complete, rounded-off system of ideas. Gaps
remain at various points. The apostle claims no completeness for his views. “At
the present my knowledge is a fragment; at that time I shall know as completely
as I am known” (1 Corinthians 13:12.) Some of the traditional conceptions lie,
as it were, side by side in his mind with those which he has attained through
the creative power of his Christ-possessed spirit. He is not concerned about
their mutual adjustment. But the whole trend of his spiritual life, the whole
genesis of his Christian experience, compels him to place the fact and the
significance of the Resurrection in the foreground. We have seen in a former
chapter how this man yearned for fulness and certainty of life. Death, as he
originally conceived it, was unrelieved horror. The Pharisaic idea of
resurrection would probably do little to mitigate the gloom, for after all it
was only an hypothesis. One might reach, no doubt, a strong degree of
probability that God must be true to those who trusted and obeyed Him, that He
must in the end secure their deliverance and blessedness. But how was conviction
on the question to be attained? Did not the facts of the spiritual life
expressly militate against such certainty? No man was ever more sensitive to a
mental situation of this kind than St Paul. It was not that he doubted for a
moment the righteousness of God. That was perfect, flawless. It overawed him; it
presented itself to him as the highest attribute of the Divine nature. It was
his own standing before the Holy One for which he feared. This status was most
precarious, as he was compelled to view it. He was eager to obey the Divine
will. But he felt his fleshly nature rudely thwarting him. Even if, on reviewing
each day’s life, he could assure himself that, on the whole, he was striving to
please God, a sudden temptation, or the memory of one, intruded to shake his
confidence. Then, once more, he was plunged into anxiety as to the proportion of
merit and demerit in his conduct, as it lay bare to the searching gaze of the
Judges 1:1-36[Note: See Weber, Lehren d. Talmud, pp. 271-273.] Where was there a
place for calm assurance regarding the final issues of his relation to God? Must
he drift on to the end, tormented by anxiety as to the Divine verdict on his
career, with no sure foundation for the hope of eternal blessedness? These,
doubtless, were the questions which surged within him when he met the risen
Christ. This meeting brought him a wonderful solution of his various
perplexities. To begin with, Jesus of Nazareth must be what He claimed to be,
the promised Messiah of God, in whom all the hopes of Israel were to be
realised. The disgrace and scandal of the Cross were swallowed up in the glory
of the Resurrection. Nay, rather, they enhanced its glory. For the shame and
desolation of Calvary, in the light of all that followed, were no meaningless
tragedy. “God was in Christ,” even Christ the crucified, “reconciling the world
unto Himself.” “He was delivered up for our transgressions, and was raised for
our justifying” (Romans 4:25). As risen, He proved Himself to be in closest
contact with God. For it was by virtue of the Spirit of holiness, the Spirit
which is God’s, that He rose from the dead, and “was declared (or, determined,
defined, ὁρισθέντος) the Son of God in power” (Romans 1:4). Necessarily, when
viewed in its full range and significance, the Resurrection of Christ must usher
in a new world of spiritual experiences. As risen, the exalted Lord did not
remain in solitary isolation from humanity. Precisely the reverse was the case.
His rising inaugurated the dispensation of the Holy Spirit. The marvellous,
Divine gift was the response to faith in Him who had broken the bonds of death.
The risen Christ became the source of a mighty diffusion of spiritual power, of
spiritual life, among His believing followers. They came into actual touch with
the Divine.

St Paul speaks of that which he has experienced. Since that day on the Damascus
road, he has become a new man (καινὴ κτίσις). The sight he received of the risen
Lord has kindled faith and conviction within him: not mere conviction of a truth
which may be expressed in the words, “Jesus of Nazareth is not dead, but alive”;
but devotion to the living Person whom he has seen and come to know in His true
character as Saviour: such devotion, that there grows up a communion between
them, a fellowship of spirit with spirit: so true a union, that the apostle can
only say that he possesses the Spirit (πνεῦμα) of Jesus Christ, that the actual
life which he now lives as a human being, that life in its unity and entirety,
depends not on him or on anything that originates with him, but rests in the
power and life of Christ, depends on his faith in the Son of God, who had loved
him and given Himself for him. We are in danger of repeating ourselves, in thus
laying fresh emphasis on St Paul’s conception of the new life; but we must
follow this course even at the risk of such repetition, for we have here the
unmistakable basis of his doctrine of the Resurrection.

We can now see how he reached the goal of his yearnings, absolute certainty as
to eternal life, and the kind of certainty for which he craved, one which bore
upon human existence as a unity, and did not involve its disintegration into
soul and body. The new life which St Paul knows he has received from the risen
Christ, is one which embraces the entire personality. Greek thinkers could
picture with complete satisfaction an immortality of the soul, of the
disembodied spirit. In all probability the apostle was more or less acquainted
with the Jewish-Alexandrian literature, particularly the Hellenistic Wisdom of
Solomon, in which the Greek conception of immortality is adopted, and fused with
an Eschatology which, in many respects, remains Judaistic. Teichmann adduces
various parallels to prove a close kinship between this book and St Paul (pp.
69-71). There may be some affinities on such points as the conception of σοφία
in Wisdom as compared with the πνεῦμα-doctrine of the apostle, but even these
may be grossly exaggerated. And Teichmann has yielded to the temptation (see,
e.g., p. 74, an extraordinary overstatement).1 [Note: Grafe’s estimate of the
relationship between St Paul and Wisdom is much more careful (Abhandlungen …
Weizsäcker gewidmet, pp. 253-286, esp. the closing pp.). But even his results
have to be accepted with reservation; see, e.g., Gunkel, Wirkungen d. heiligen
Geistes,2 pp. 79-81; Titius, p. 245.] The question before us provides a test. So
far from being content with the Hellenistic idea of immortality, the apostle
remains wholly loyal to the genuine Hebrew tradition. The Old Testament never
regards the bodily organism in itself as the principle of evil. The notion of
the body as the prison of the soul (σῶμα σῆμα) is wholly alien to it. For, as
Prof. Robertson Smith points out, “a religion which lays so much stress on man’s
vocation to lordship over the creation (Genesis 1:1-31, Psalms 8:1-9)
necessarily recognises the bodily organism through which this is realised as
something more than a seat of low desires. Not the soul, but the soul equipped
with a body, constitutes man as God created him, and as He desires to restore
him” (Expos. I. iv. p. 352). We can see how direct a bearing this view must have
on St Paul’s conception: how it opens to him a vista for all creation; how it
enlarges his idea of the future life of man, and gives a profounder meaning to
the thought of resurrection. It is the entire person, who is to rise to a new
life; πνεῦμα (or ψυχή), apart from σῶμα, is meaningless, a barren formula. And
the condition of the exalted Christ, as he conceives it, confirms him in his
position. The objective impression which St Paul has received of his Lord is
manifestly that which he would describe as a σῶμα πνευματικόν. In our judgment,
his doctrine of the resurrection “body” is proof positive of that. The organism
is removed from earthly and fleshly limitations. It is wholly subordinate to and
under control of the πνεῦμα. How this difference affected his perception of the
risen One, the apostle does not attempt to delineate. But enough is said to
indicate that one effect upon him at least was that of brightness, of light.
Whether that description is employed merely as a symbol or picture, we cannot
tell. Perhaps, too, it is difficult to say how far we can be helped in
representing to ourselves St Paul’s conception by the narratives of the
appearances of Jesus to the disciples after His resurrection. Those appearances
took place under mysterious conditions. Obviously they were altogether
occasional and unexpected, yet they were given to companies as well as to
individuals. This fact is noteworthy. Further, the disciples had some difficulty
in recognising their Master. Even after they had seen Him once or twice, their
perplexity remained. He had undergone a certain transformation. In traditions so
divergent as the Synoptic and the Johannine, attention is directed to His power
of presenting or withdrawing Himself suddenly.1 [Note: Cf., e.g., M‘Connell
(Evolution of Immortality, p. 162): “We seem … to be in the presence of
something which is both material and immaterial, something which is cognisable
by the senses, and which, at the same time, plays fast and loose with
sense-perceptions.”] The descriptions given are remarkable for their sobriety
and restraint. One is never conscious of any bizarre element in perusing them.
Yet we find nothing parallel to them in the rest of the New Testament. They are
confined to our Lord’s post-resurrection existence. But they appear to us, in
not a few points, to adjust themselves with remarkable accuracy to St Paul’s
idea of the σῶμα πνευματικόν. But let us endeavour to come closer to the
apostle’s doctrine, and attempt to realise how he conceived the process and the
event of Resurrection. Whatever may have been his former view of the matter, it
is plain that we must seek the basis of his final conception in the Resurrection
of Jesus Christ Himself and all its consequences. Not that this will carry us
the whole way. For we find little trace in the Epistles of any reflection upon
the inner spiritual movements of the life of Jesus. We have no hints as to the
silent history of the three days between the Cross and the Resurrection.1 [Note:
“There is nothing in this paragraph (i.e.Romans 10:5-10) beyond the most general
statement that Christ was in the world of the dead, and was raised from it by
God” (Salmond, Christian Doctrine of Immortality, p. 525).] Further, the process
of super-physical activity in the existence of the exalted Christ must be on a
different level from that which belongs to His followers, just because of His
position as κύριος. It is rather the fundamental principles and the final issues
of his doctrine that we must seek in his conception of the Resurrection of Jesus
Christ, than any details or precise stages in that experience, such as appeal to
our inquisitive minds as we ponder the fact of resurrection for ourselves. Nor
must we neglect the consideration that, as the apostle reflected on the
momentous crisis which had occurred in his own life through the power of the
risen Lord, he would necessarily interpret it in the light of the teaching of
Jesus. We have already noted in chap. ii. the remarkable parallels between 1
Corinthians 15:1-58 and the narrative of our Lord’s discussion with the
Sadducees in Mark 12:18 f., Luke 20:27 f. Jesus had spoken of the future life of
the risen as being ὡς ἄγγελοι (Luke 20:36 -ἰσάγγελοι). Now St Paul can connect
his personal experience not only with the evidence of his fellow-apostles, but
also with the authoritative statements of the Lord Himself. The phenomenon of
the journey to Damascus at least helps him to apprehend what ἰσάγγελος really
involves. And from whichever of the two standpoints he regards the
resurrection-life, he must be conscious of the extraordinary transformation
which is wrought. Just as his impression of the risen Lord, which formed the
turning-point in his career, was an altogether unique and solitary event in his
experience, so must we regard the Resurrection of believers as entirely of its
own kind, an event which cannot be measured by any human criteria. This
conception he must have felt to be fully confirmed by the actual sayings of
Jesus, several of which are full of suggestion in their bearing on the question
before us. Thus, for example, in Matthew 19:28, He speaks of the future
condition of glory as the παλινγενεσία, which virtually means a new order of
existence, a re-creation of all things. And intimately related is the noteworthy
phrase occurring in Luke 20:36, where the risen are called τῆς ἀναστάσεως υἱοί,
“sons of the resurrection,” a phrase which certainly implies a fresh
commencement of being, their entrance into a sphere in which their whole nature
is transfigured. Hence, as Haupt points out (op. cit., p. 91), ἀνάστασις, in
Luke 20:35, is used as a synonym for αἰὼν ἐκεῖνος, and is practically equivalent
to the inauguration of a supra-earthly condition of life-substantially, the
perfected Kingdom of God. A remarkable extension of the thought which we have
been considering, is to be found in St Paul’s description of Christ in Coloss.
1:18 as πρωτότοκος ἐκ τῶν νεκρῶν: “the First-born from the dead.” The expression
is of course to be read in the light of a preceding verse (15), which describes
Him as the εἰκὼν τοῦ θεοῦ τοῦ ἀοράτου, πρωτότοκος πάσης κτίσεως, “the Image of
the invisible God, the First-born of all creation.” The idea is expanded by
verse 16, τὰ πάντα διʼ αὐτοῦ καὶ εἰς αὐτὸν ἔκτισται: “All things have been
created through Him, and with a view to Him.” It is further illumined by the
statement of Romans 8:29, προώρισεν [αὐτοὺς] συμμόρφους τῆς εἰκόνος τοῦ υἱοῦ
αὐτοῦ, εἰς τὸ εἶναι αὐτὸν πρωτότοκον ἐν πολλοῖς ἀδελφοῖς: “He predestinated them
to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order to His being First-born among
many brethren.” The same thought is expressed by a different metaphor in 1
Corinthians 15:20, where Christ as risen is named ἀπαρχὴ τῶν κεκοιμημένων, “the
First-fruits of them who have fallen asleep.” Here the risen believers are
looked upon as a new family, a new class or lineage, if we may so say, in the
human race. And as He who heads the line is the Image of God, the Instrument and
Ideal of creation, this new spiritual progeny of His for the first time fulfils
the original purpose of creation: they are re-created through Him in that image
of God which mankind lost or made of none effect by disobedience.1 [Note: In the
Avesta, the resurrection is also associated with a saviour, Astvatereta, born of
a virgin and the seed of Zarathustra. He achieves the resurrection with six
companions. “Saosyant and his auxiliaries are all servants of the Lord, so that
we may quite well say that the resurrection is wrought by the power of the Lord,
or by the Amesa Spentas (Yast 19, 22)” (Söderblom, op. cit., p. 261).] Hence,
the Resurrection, of which His is the type and norm and pledge, initiates that
glorious era which is decisive for the whole universe, in which God sees His aim
attaining complete realisation.

It may be said that for St Paul, resurrection, final salvation (σωτηρία),
eternal life, are all designations of the same great hope viewed from divergent
standpoints. The statement of this fact at once discloses the foundation of the
apostle’s doctrine. Whatever steps he had taken or omitted to take to reconcile
his present position with that which he held as a Pharisee, his supreme interest
in the Resurrection is due to the place which it occupies in the culmination of
the development of the Christian man. For St Paul, Christianity is the condition
of being in Christ (ἐν Χριστῷ). The implications of that condition, indeed, are
many, and we cannot dwell upon them now. At all events, it involves possession
of the πνεῦμα, the Divine Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, the πνεῦμα ἅγιον. The
important consideration to keep before us here is that the πνεῦμα is a
regenerative principle or power for the whole existence, for the personal life
as a unity. What effect, then, does the apostle conceive the indwelling of the
Divine πνεῦμα to produce upon the nature of the individual? It is one of gradual
but complete transformation. It is a metamorphosis into the same likeness as
Christ, from glory to glory (2 Corinthians 3:18). The “glory” which he here
speaks of can be no mere outward semblance, as some have held. The context,
especially verses 15, 16, shows clearly that he is thinking of inward
transformation and illumination in the first instance; nor can any other meaning
be assigned to the clause which qualifies the verse referred to above, “we all
with unveiled face reflecting the glory of the Lord,” for the unveiled face is
really equivalent to the unveiled heart of verse 16. But how, we may ask, does
this process affect the bodily nature, or what relation does it bear to our
present material constitution? Professors Tait and Balfour Stewart, in their
ingenious treatise on the Unseen Universe, assuming the possession of “a frame
or rudiments of a frame connecting us with the invisible universe, which we may
call the spiritual body,” proceed to speculate in these terms: “Each thought …
is accompanied by certain molecular motions … in the brain: and parts of these
are stored up in that organ … to produce … physical memory. Other parts … are …
communicated to the spiritual or invisible body, and are there stored up,
forming a memory which may be made use of when that body is free to exercise its
functions … We can … well imagine that, after death, when the spiritual body is
free to exercise its functions, it may be replete with energy and have eminently
the power of action in the present, retaining also, as we have shown above, a
hold upon the past, … and thus preserving the two essential requisites of a
continuous, intelligent existence” (p. 200). It would be absurd to look for any
similar attempt on the part of St Paul to investigate scientifically the process
by which he conceives the regenerated spirit, or the spirit-possessed
personality, to dominate the purely material elements in the nature. Yet from
hints he lets fall we can catch some of the outlines of his thoughts. “Flesh and
blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God,” he asserts (1 Corinthians 15:50), “nor
does corruption inherit incorruption.” Here is one of the apostle’s axioms.
Flesh is, of course, the material substance of the earthly life: the blood was
regarded by the ancients as containing in itself the vital principle. Cf.Sir
14:18 : οὕτως γενεὰ σαρκὸς καὶ αἵματος, ἡ μὲν τελευτᾷ, ἑτέρα δὲ γεννᾶται. The
outward man perishes: the inward man (ὁ ἔσω ἄνθρωπος) is renewed from day to day
(2 Corinthians 4:16). And for St Paul ὁ ἔσω ἄνθρωπος signifies that side of
human nature which is sensitive to Divine influences: that side on which the
Holy Spirit operates. The renewal here spoken of (ἀνακαινοῦται) cannot be
analysed further than as the effect of the Spirit’s operation.1 [Note: “The
crucial question then is, When and under what conditions does the spirit begin
to establish a nexus with a physical basis of life which may be more abiding …
We want the continuous life of the individual … Where … does personality begin?…
Only at the point where the sense of relationship with other personalities
begins. But this is the place where the moral faculty (= Paulineνοῦς) emerges …
Until moral sensibility becomes self-conscious … there is … no personality to be
immortal” (M‘Connell, op. cit., pp. 179, 180).] But plainly, in St Paul’s view,
the present material body has nothing to do with the Resurrection or the future
Kingdom of God, although this by no means involves the absence of all that
corresponds to the bodily organism of the earthly life.2 [Note: Must it not be
an organism modelled after the earthly type rather than that foreshadowed by St
Paul, that T. H. Green has in view when he speaks of “a renewed embodiment”
being “but a return to that condition in which we are parts of nature, a
condition from which the moral life is already a partial deliverance?”
Theσῶμαwhich the apostle conceives of is “the organism for the self-realising of
a spiritual power” (so Schmiedel, Holtzmann’s Hand-Commentar, p. 125), “the
organ of the will’s self-expression” (Titius, p. 63), a neutral conception. It
is only a part of nature, in so far as nature is a direct expression of the
Divine purpose. But it is wholly removed from the present, earthly order of
existence. Cf. Paradise Lost, Bk. v. 469-484:- “O Adam, one Almighty is from
whom All things proceed, and up to him return, If not depraved from good,
created all, Such to perfection, one first matter all, Indued with various
forms, various degrees Of substance, and in things that live of life; But more
refined, more spiritous, and pure, As nearer to him placed or nearer tending,
Each in their several active spheres assigned, Till body up to spirit work, in
bounds Proportioned to each kind. So from the root Springs lighter the green
stalk, from thence the leaves More aëry, last the bright consummate flower,
Spirits odorous breathes: flowers and their fruit Man’s nourishment, by gradual
scale sublimed To vital spirits aspire.”] The precise question which the apostle
sets himself to answer in detail in the famous resurrection-passage is that
which asks, “With what kind of body do they come?”-i.e. at the Resurrection (1
Corinthians 15:35). It is quite possible, as Heinrici suggests (Comment. on 1
Cor., p. 469), that the difficulty may have been raised by the Apollos-party at
Corinth. For Apollos, as trained in the schools of Alexandria, would naturally
have become familiar with the idea of a purely spiritual immortality. This the
Corinthian Christians would be bound to admit. Indeed, from their own special
circumstances, they must have been powerfully influenced in its favour. For
their charismatic endowment was unique, and the doctrine of the πνεῦμα, which
was the foundation of a practical belief in immortality, must have had an
unusual prominence among them. In any case, the question sprang from a very
natural perplexity. It is interesting to find echoes of it in various
directions. It appears to have been a frequent subject of discussion in the
schools of the Synagogue. There, strongly realistic conceptions prevailed, in
marked contrast to the view of the Christian teacher. Thus, e.g., the school of
Schammai concluded from the reviving of the bones (Ezekiel 37:1-28) that it
would take place in the reverse order from the formation of the child in the
mother’s womb; the school of Hillel taught that the new formation of the rising
person corresponded entirely to the formation of the growing man, proving this
from Job 14:10 f., where the verbs in the future really point to that which is
future (Bacher, op. cit., i. p. 19). So also, in answer to a question of the
Emperor Hadrian regarding the resurrection of the body, R. Josua b. Chananja
replied that the new body would be constituted out of an almond-shaped bone in
the vertebral column; for this, as he showed by experiments, was indestructible
(Bacher, op. cit., i. pp. 178, 179). In the apocalyptic literature, also, the
problem presents itself. “In what form shall they go on living who are in life
at Thy day? Or how can their subsequent glory at that time continue? Shall they
in some way at that time put on their present form, and be clad with those limbs
which are bound with bands, which are now in sin, and by which sins are
committed? Or dost Thou transform in some way those who have been in the world,
just like the world itself?” (Apoc. Bar. xlix. 2, 3).

St Paul’s elaborate answer to the question is characteristic of his whole
treatment of eschatological subjects. He dwells with insistence on points which
we might pass over, while many aspects of the inquiry which would appeal to us
for discussion, he barely touches.1 [Note: Cf. the silence of Jesus on similar
matters of the End; and see Haupt, op. cit., p. 92 ff.] Yet his answer and the
background of thought which it presupposes are very remarkable. His elucidation
of the problem starts with the well-known analogy to the sowing of seed, an
illustration which, as purely analogical, must not be unduly pressed. Here, in
all likelihood, he could count upon his readers’ sympathy. For the growth of the
seed supplied one of the most powerful and impressive symbols in the popular
religion. In the mystic rites of Eleusis, the conception of a life beyond death
was dimly foreshadowed by scenes based upon the silent and wonderful processes
of vegetation, as they unfolded themselves in the progress of the seasons.2
[Note: See Heinrici on1 Corinthians 15:36. Rohde, Psyche,2 Bd. i. p. 288 ff.,
holds, however, that there was little connection between the Eleusinian
mysteries and the events of harvest, etc. The relationship he considers to have
been greatly exaggerated. “After Sôshyans comes, they prepare the raising of the
dead, as it says that Zaratûst asked of Aûharmazd this: ‘Whence does a body form
again which the wind has carried and the water conveyed? and how does the
resurrection occur? Aûharmazd answered thus … When by me corn was created, so
that, scattered about in the earth, it grew again and returned with increase; …
when that which was not was thus produced, why is it not possible to produce
again that which was’?” (West’s transl. of Bundehesh, chap. 30, qu. by
Söderblom, 226, 227).] The Stoics, also, were accustomed to dilate upon the
seed, with its mysterious hidden potency, which gradually developed into a
perfected organism. Their interest in its growth was heightened by their notion
that its essence was spirit, which they conceived as breath or air (πνεῦμα), and
air for them was identical with the Logos, the rational principle pervading the
universe (see Drummond’s Philo, i. pp. 83 f., 102). From these facts we can
gather the relevance of St Paul’s illustration to the audience he has in view.
Perhaps, indeed, he had learned something of its use from the Rabbinic schools,
for in Sanhedr. 90 b., R. Meir is reported as saying: “The corn of wheat is
entrusted naked to the earth, and comes again to life with a multitude of
clothing: shall the pious who are buried in their garments not also rise
clothed?” (see Bacher, op. cit., ii. pp. 68, 69). Again we are struck by the
advance the apostle has made beyond his early environment.

“What thou sowest is not made alive except it die” (1 Corinthians 15:36).1
[Note: Cf.John 12:24: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a grain of wheat
fall into the ground and die, it abideth by itself alone; but if it die, it
bringeth forth much fruit.”] The seed deposited in the earth will not put forth
a living stalk or ear until its present phase of existence dissolves or
disappears, to make room for existence of a fuller and more advantageous kind.
The seed does not really die, because the germ of life is already there and only
demands a favourable environment in which to develop, according to the law of
its being. But it must die to its existing condition as bare, unsown grain, else
its life can never burst the enclosing shell and come to maturity. “And what
thou sowest, not the body (σῶμα) which is to be dost thou sow, but a bare grain
(γυμνὸς κόκκος), it may be of wheat or any other: but God giveth it a body
according as He willed (καθὼς ᾐθέλησεν), and to each seed a body of its own”
(verses 37, 38). The question we should naturally ask at this point is, How
would St Paul, in his thought, connect the γυμνὸς κόκκος with its future σῶμα?
What, for him, is the organic link between them? His answer is extraordinarily
typical. It is the only one we can expect him to give, and it is given in the
clause immediately following: “The sovereign power of God.” “He giveth it a body
according as He willed” (ἠθέλησεν, “the aorist denotes the final act of God’s
will, determining the constitution of nature,” so Edwards ad loc. admirably). No
theory can be founded on such a statement. It does not imply any unique act of
creation. It is wholly irrelevant to deduce from it, as Teichmann is inclined to
do, that St Paul held the pre-existence of resurrection-bodies in heaven (p. 53,
note 1). The conception is entirely true to the Hebrew standpoint. For to them
“God was all in all. Events were all His work, and all immediately His work. All
the changes on the earth in history and life were but the effects of an unseen
power operating within all things” (Davidson, Expos. v. i. p. 327). The
apostle’s outlook is excellently illustrated by Genesis 1:11 : “And God said,
Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree
yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth; and it
was so” (καὶ ἐγένετο οὕτως, in the Bible which St Paul used). The last clause is
a sufficient rationale of the process for the apostle. The crucial matter for
him at this point consists in each seed having a body peculiar (ἴδιον) to
itself. This body will be the one best fitted to fulfil the functions of the
life which informs it. Through it that life will find its most appropriate and
effective expression. St Paul is well aware that the difficulty which perplexes
his Corinthian friends turns upon the revivifying of the present material body,
the σῶμα σάρκινον. This, as we have seen, was the current popular idea among the
Jews, and possibly those Jewish teachers, so inimical to St Paul, who found
their way to Corinth, may have insisted on the doctrine in its grossest form.
“You must not imagine,” he proceeds to argue in verse 39 f., “that there is no
other kind of σῶμα but that consisting of σάρξ, which you possess. Just as there
are marked differences as regards the flesh of various members of the animal
creation, so there are divergent groups of σώματα.” It is quite possible that
here he may have in his mind the statement of Genesis 1:26 : “Let us make man in
our image, after our likeness, and let them rule the fish of the sea, and the
fowl of the air, and the cattle, and all the earth, and every creeping thing
that creepeth upon the earth.” In any case, a remarkable instance of difference
may be seen in the contrast between heavenly bodies (σώματα ἐπουράνια) and
earthly bodies (σώματα ἐπίγεια). His thoughts have already begun to turn in the
direction of the σώματα πνευματικά which occupy the central position in his
conception. The course which he follows gives an instructive glimpse into the
workings of his thought. We have already seen that the impression left upon him
by his contact with the risen Christ was that of a bright radiance. The term
which expresses this impression, although there are, as we shall find, deeper
elements lying within it, is almost invariably δόξα, “glory” (as our version
always translates it, but involving the idea of “brightness”). How, then, is he
to give his readers a vivid picture of his own mental conception of the σῶμα
πνευματικόν the “spiritual” or “glorified” body which will be possessed by the
believer when he is conformed to the body of the glory of Christ? (Php 3:21). He
can point them to the heavenly bodies, as we still call them. They, in their
beauty and brilliance, most strikingly picture the future semblance of redeemed
believers. In various passages of the Old Testament the stars are spoken of as
living, personal agents. Some of these, indeed, are poetical, as, e.g., Judges
5:20 (“The stars in their courses fought against Sisera”), and Job 38:7 (“The
morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy”). But
others can scarcely be so described. Thus, in 1 Kings 22:19, the prophet Micaiah
says: “I saw the Lord sitting on His throne, and all the hosts of heaven
standing by Him on His right hand and on His left.” In Deuteronomy 4:19, there
seems to be the idea that the peoples of the earth are assigned to their rule or
guardianship. A similar conception is perhaps implied in Isaiah 6:1 (see Gunkel,
Schöpfung u. Chaos, p. 9). And we may compare Isaiah 14:12-13 : “How art thou
fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning … for thou hast said in thine
heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of
God.” In the vision of Daniel (8:9-11), the little horn “waxed great, even to
the host of heaven; and it cast down some of the host and of the stars to the
ground, and stamped upon them. Yea, he magnified himself even to the prince of
the host.” There is the same personification in Enoch lxxxii. 9 f.: “This is the
law of the stars … these are the names of their leaders.” Similarly, in
Revelation 9:1, we read of “a star falling from heaven to earth, and there was
given to him the key of the pit of the abyss.” The poet recalls the ancient
idea, when he puts these words in the mouth of Beatrice:- “Cause too thou
find’st for doubt In that it seems That spirits to the stars, as Plato deemed,
return.”

Paradiso, iv. 23-25.1 [Note: Plato looks upon the stars as living beings, “whose
souls must be higher and diviner than human souls, in proportion as their bodies
are brighter and fairer than ours.” See, e.g., Timaüs, 40 D: τὰ περὶ θεῶν ὁρατῶν
καὶ γεννητῶν. Theseθεοὶ ὁρατοὶ καὶ γεννητοὶare none other than the stars.
Probably this Platonic idea was the basis of Philo’s opinion that the stars were
animated beings, who mediated between God and earthly creatures. Volz points
out, as one of the elements in the Judaistic conception of the final Judgment,
that the stars lose their power. Hitherto they were frequently regarded as
spirits competing with God (op. cit., p. 263).]

It would be hazardous to say that St Paul attributed any personal life to the
heavenly bodies. But, from the evidence adduced above, we can see how closely
they were associated for the Hebrew mind with the conception of the Divine
power. Hence, whether personified in the strict sense or not, they would
naturally present themselves as witnesses for a purer and more glorious kind of
existence than could be inferred from mere earthly phenomena. The total
impression they make, St Paul goes on to show, is quite distinct from that made
by earthly bodies (verse 40). Yet even they are not monotonously uniform. “There
is one kind of glory (δόξα) of the sun, and another of the moon, and another of
the stars, for star differeth from star in glory” (verse 41).1 [Note: Cf.
(Plato) Epinomis, 986 B (Stallb.):μία μὲν [δύναμις] ἡλίου, μία δὲ σελήνης· μία
δὲ τῶν πλανητῶν ἅστρων. See Paradiso, ii. 139:- “And as the soul, that dwells
within your dust, THROUGH MEMBERS DIFFERENT, YET TOGETHER FORM’D, IN DIFFERENT
POWERS RESOLVES ITSELF; E’EN SO THE INTELLECTUAL EFFICACY UNFOLDS ITS GOODNESS
MULTIPLIED THROUGHOUT THE STARS; ON ITS OWN UNITY REVOLVING STILL.

DIFFERENT VIRTUE COMPACT DIFFERENT MAKES WITH THE PRECIOUS BODY IT ENLIVENS,
WITH WHICH IT KNITS, AS LIFE IN YOU IS KNIT.”]

These words are used with an important purpose in view. While the σῶμα of the
believer is to be changed from σάρξ, which by its very essence decays, into
δόξα,2 [Note: Cf. Apoc. Bar. li. 3, 9, 10: “As for the glorious appearance of
those who now on the basis of My law have done righteously … their radiance will
gleam in manifold forms.… And time cannot age them, for they shall dwell in the
heights of that world, and be like the angels, and be comparable to the stars.”
See an important paragraph in Volz on the connection between the blessed (dead)
and the stars, op. cit., pp. 360, 361.] which is a Divine element, the
individuality which has been exhibited by the σῶμα σάρκινον will by no means
disappear.3 [Note: SMYTH, IN OBSERVING THAT THE MATTER OF LIFE IS ALWAYS
CHANGING, WHILE THE FORM REMAINS IDENTICAL, QUOTES LOTZE’S STRIKING COMPARISON
OF THE BODY TO THE RIPPLE ROUND SOME HIDDEN STONE IN A STREAM, A COMPARISON
WHICH PHYSIOLOGY SHOWS TO BE TRUE (OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHTS, P. 161).] The
σώματα πνευματικά in the apostle’s view will preserve their identity. As each
σπέρμα has its ἴδιον σῶμα, so each renewed spiritual nature will possess its
distinct and characteristic σῶμα πνευματικόν. Now, according to modern
metaphysics, “all completely real Being is individual, by virtue of the fact
that it is a finally determinate expression of a purpose” (J. Royce, Conception
of Immortality, p. 33, note 3). Can we conceive such individuality apart from a
distinct self-realisation of the spirit, which in turn demands some type of
organism for its self-expression? Is St Paul’s forecast of the σῶμα πνευματικόν,
after all, a mere old-world speculation, possessing a purely historical interest
for students of early religious thought? It is easy for Professor Gardner to
assert that “the notion of a spiritual body, as opposed to a body of flesh and
blood, is one which exists almost everywhere among peoples at a lower range of
civilisation” (Historic View of New Testament, pp. 223-224), and to refer to
Tylor’s Primitive Culture for instances. These belong to a wholly different
category from St Paul’s conception. “That the apparitional human soul” says Mr
Tylor, “bears the likeness of its fleshly body, is the principle implicitly
accepted by all who believe it really and objectively present in dreams and
visions. My own view is that nothing but dreams and visions could have ever put
into men’s minds such an idea as that of souls being ethereal images of bodies”
(i. p. 450). And again: “To the philosophy of the lower races it is by no means
necessary that the surviving soul should be provided with a new body, for it
seems itself to be of a filmy or vaporous corporeal nature, capable of carrying
on an independent existence like other corporeal creatures” (ii. 19). Mr Tylor
quotes a saying of Swedenborg, that man’s spirit is his mind, which lives after
death in complete human form (the italics are ours). Where can we find anything
corresponding to these notions in the apostle’s words? Does he ever hint that
his σῶμα πνευματικόν is to “bear the likeness of the fleshly body,” or that it
is to be of “a filmy or vaporous corporeal nature?” Or does he at any time
connect with it the idea of “complete human form?” Critics of St Paul’s
conceptions ought first to be sure that they realise what these are, a result
which can only be achieved by the study of them in the context of his whole
thought. The equipment of each regenerated life with a corresponding and
distinctive organism (σῶμα) is the point he has reached, when he sums up his
discussion in the words: “So also is the resurrection of the dead” (verse 42).1
[Note: Lightfoot (onPhp 3:2) has the extraordinary note, that “the general
resurrection of the dead, whether good or bad, isἡ ἀνάστασις τῶν νεκρῶν(e.g.1
Corinthians 15:42); on the other hand, the Resurrection of Christ, and of those
who rise with Christ, is generally[ἡ] ἁνάστασις [ἡ] ἐκ νεκρῶν(Luke 20:35;Acts
4:2;1 Peter 1:3). The former includes both theἀνάστασις ζωῆςand theἀνάστασις
κρίσεως(John 5:29); the latter is confined to theἀνάστασις ζωῆς.” But there is
absolutely no evidence for this definite assertion. The passage quoted for the
“general resurrection” quite plainly applies only to the resurrection of
believers. How could the ungodly be described in the New Testament as risingἐν
ἀφθαρσίᾳ, ἐν δόξῃ, ἐν δυνάμει? But that is evidently the kind of resurrection
the apostle is thinking of in1 Corinthians 15:42.] The next paragraph is one of
considerable difficulty. The familiar words of the Burial Service, “It is sown
in corruption, it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in dishonour, it is
raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a
natural body (σῶμα ψυχικόν), it is raised a spiritual body (σῶμα πνευματικόν),”
may be interpreted in two divergent senses. Certainly our first impulse is to
refer the “sowing” here spoken of to the burial in the grave after death. The
emphasis seems to be laid upon the contrast between σπείρειν and ἐγείρειν. Hence
the decision will turn on the scope or range which the latter verb is held to
embrace. If it denote exclusively or primarily the definite experience of
resurrection, then it appears to us that σπείρειν, in spite of other
difficulties which may be raised, must directly describe the experience of death
and its accompaniments and consequences. But many scholars (e.g., Calvin,
Milligan, F. Köstlin, Heinrici, Teichmann, Charles) presuppose a wider outlook
on the part of the apostle. They believe he has in view, not the mere point of
time occupied by the Resurrection, but the entire new resurrection-life on which
the believer enters; the condition of immortality, glory, power, the life of the
“spiritual organism.” If that be so, σπείρειν must also have a wider
significance. No doubt in both cases St Paul has prominently before him the
actual experiences which mark “the transition from the earthly to the heavenly
life,” but he does not restrict his view to these. Thus σπείρειν will mean, to
quote Charles (Eschatology, p. 392), “the placing the vital principle or spirit
in its material environment here on earth, where, even as a seed gathers to
itself a body from the matter around it, so the spirit of man fashions for
itself a body out of the materials around it.”1 [Note: It is surely needless for
Titius to hold that “Paul has found a point of departure for his appreciation of
the spiritual Ego as the particular kernel of man in the Wisdom of Solomon” (p.
65). St Paul had sufficient spiritual originality, aided by profound
self-knowledge gained by introspection, to discover this truth for himself.]
Milligan (Expos. iv. 2, p. 36) will not even allow that σῶμα is the strict
subject of σπείρεται (verse 42), holding that “it is less the body alone than
the body regarded as the outward organ and experience of the man that he has in
his eye.” We cannot admit that σῶμα in verse 44 is too far distant to allow of
its being taken as the subject of σπείρεται. But it is quite possible that the
apostle here thinks of σῶμα in a vague sense, such as that stated above, and it
certainly will not affect his argument to accept this larger vista. To assert,
however, as Milligan does (loc. cit., p. 37), that the terms “dishonour” and
“weakness” are too wide for suitable application to the body at the time when it
is committed to the dust, is not warranted. In our judgment, it is precisely the
appropriateness of these terms to the time of burial and dissolution which would
justify the more restricted view of σπείρεται. The point at which an obscure
problem in the interpretation of St Paul’s thought presses upon us, is found in
the affirmation, “It is sown a natural (ψυχικόν) body; it is raised a spiritual
(πνευματικόν) body.” To begin with, it may be noted that these all-important
adjectives are really the apostle’s own coinage. No light can be shed on them
from the Old Testament. The Greek version of it, which is so frequently helpful
in the exegesis of the Pauline writings, fails us here. The terms can only be
understood from the apostle’s own use of them. Do the words which have been
quoted, it may be asked, in any sense elucidate St Paul’s idea of how or when
the great transformation takes place? Do they mean that this process is
accomplished between death and resurrection? We do not believe that this precise
question was before his mind at all in the present passage, nor indeed to any
large extent at any time. We shall have to discuss a little further on some
statements which have a bearing upon the problem, but here it would seem that he
is concerned exclusively with the contrast between the two organisms, the
“natural” and the “spiritual,” more especially on the side of their genesis.
Accordingly, when he goes on to state, “If there is a natural body, there is
also a spiritual” (verse 44), he simply bring out definitely that which lies at
the basis of his whole Christian psychology. The ψυχή, the natural principle of
being, the life-force in the individual, has by God’s appointment an organism
corresponding to itself, the σῶμα ψυχικόν, the body whose substance is σάρξ,
with all which that, in the actual condition of human nature, implies; whose end
is necessarily φθορά, decay. How this body has arisen, it does not occur to him
to speculate. It is due to the creative might of God. The πνεῦμα, on the other
hand, the Divine gift, the power which enters human nature in response to faith,
and changes it so that henceforward it is governed by a Divine principle, will
be equipped with an organism corresponding to itself, the σῶμα πνευματικόν, the
“body” which has no fleshly element inherent in it, which therefore enters upon
ἀφθαρσία, incorruption, immortality, as its necessary sphere of existence.1
[Note: Titius goes beyond legitimate inference when, remarking that Porphyrius
has the idea of an aëry, pneumatic body, with which the soul has clothed itself
in its descent through the planetary system, he continues: “If one adds the
through thatφύσιςconsists of damper, colder, and more solid pneuma than theψυχή,
the analogy to the Pauline conception of a pneumatic body is manifest” (p. 245,
note). There is no basis for such a conclusion in the Epistles. Inasmuch
asψυχικόςdoes not mean for St Paul, “composed ofψυχή,” for we know that he holds
theσῶμα ψυχικόνto be made ofσάρξ, we have no right to argue thatπνευματικόν,
which is invariably its antithesis, means for him “composed ofπνεῦμα.” Nothing
seems to us more remarkable than the sobriety and caution with which he avoids
throughout any approach to such positions which he might very naturally have
held. Cf. the strange parallel in the Persian religion, which teaches that the
risen body is not identical with that of the world, but spiritualised
(Söderblom, pp. 263, 264).] Here it is worth while to emphasise the difference
between St Paul’s standpoint and our own. For us it would have been of profound
interest had the apostle set himself to trace the nature of the process by which
he conceived the σῶμα ψυχικόν to be metamorphosed into the σῶμα πνευματικόν.2
[Note: It is mere arbitrary speculation when Kabisch affirms: “Evidently his
(i.e. St Paul’s) thought is that theπνεῦμα, even after death, remains dwelling
in the shell of mortal bodies, while the soul goes into Sheol” (p. 288); and
again, “Through union with Christ, not only is a body hidden within, created,
which can now rule the dead body of flesh, and afterwards come forth in glory,”
etc. (p. 294). This is to read into the apostle’s conception one’s own
synthesis.] We would fain discover what might be called his spiritual biology.
St Paul is scarcely at all concerned with intervening links or stages. The broad
results suffice for him. If he can go back to the causes, and then point forward
to their finished effects, he has accomplished all that is of moment for the
purpose he has in view. Now that is precisely what he does. He appeals first of
all (verse 45) to an authoritative statement of Scripture: [ἐγένετο]1 [Note: THE
BRACKETED WORDS ARE INSERTED BY HIMSELF.]ὁ [πρῶτος] ἄνθρωπος [Ἀδὰμ] εἰς ψυχὴν
ζῶσαν. He supplies the correlative clause from his own Christian knowledge: ὁ
ἔσχατος Ἀδὰμ εἰς πνεῦμα ζωοποιοῦν. It is easy for him to derive the σῶμα
ψυχικόν. It is the heritage handed down from the first member of the human race,
who was by nature ψυχὴ ζῶσα, “a living soul,” and this as the result of the
Creative inbreathing (ἐνεφύσησεν) of the breath of life (πνοὴν ζωῆς).2 [Note: DR
MATHESON’S INTERESTING COMMENT IS MORE SUGGESTIVE INDEPENDENTLY THAN TRUE TO ST
PAUL’S THOUGHT. “MAN’S ESSENCE … WAS HIS PHYSICAL BEING.…” (THE BREATH OF GOD’S
OWN LIFE) “IS SOMETHING ADDED TO MAN.” [ST PAUL COULD NOT HAVE DISSOCIATED THESE
TWO IDEAS.] “IT IS BREATHED ONLY ‘INTO HIS NOSTRILS.’ THE IDEA IS THAT OF
SUPERFICIALITY.” [NOT CERTAINLY FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF GENESIS, BUT ONLY AS
COMPARED WITH ST PAUL’S DEEPER CONCEPTION.] “… HUMAN NATURE, EVEN WERE IT
UNFALLEN, IS NATURALLY FRAIL. THE DIVINE BREATH OR SPIRIT WHICH IS IN IT SIMPLY
HOVERS OVER ITS SURFACE.… ACCORDING TO THIS (I.E. PAULINE) INTERPRETATION OF
GENESIS … IT IS NOT MERELY FROM SIN THAT MAN WANTS DELIVERANCE; IT IS FROM THE
INCOMPLETENESS OF HIS ORIGINAL NATURE.” [ST PAUL WOULD ATTRIBUTE THE
INCOMPLETENESS WHOLLY TO SIN.] “HE WANTS A PERFECT UNION OF BODY AND SOUL.… THE
FIRST ADAM WAS SIMPLY A LIFE WHICH, IN ONE SOLITARY DIRECTION, BLOSSOMED INTO A
SPIRIT. THE SECOND ADAM WAS FROM THE OUTSET A SPIRIT WHICH, BY ITS POWER OF
INFINITE DIFFUSIVENESS, HAS CREATED FOR ITSELF A BODY OF NATURAL LIFE” (EXPOS.
II. 5, PP. 193, 194).] We may compare and contrast Philo’s view of man’s
creation: πᾶς ἄνθρωπος κατὰ μὲν τὴν διάνοιαν ᾠκείωται λόγῳ θείῳ, τῆς μακαρίας
φύσεως ἐκμαγεῖον ἢ ἀπόσπασμα ἢ ἀπαύγασμα γεγονώς, κατὰ δὲ τὴν τοῦ σώματος
κατασκευὴν ἅπαντι τῷ κόσμῳ· συγκέκριται γὰρ ἐκ τῶν αὐτῶν, γῆς καὶ ὕδατος καὶ
ἀέρος καὶ πυρός: “Every man, as regards his mind, has been brought into close
affinity with the Divine Logos, being an impression, or particle, or effulgence
of that blessed nature; but as regards the constitution of his body, he is
related to the whole universe, for he has been compounded of the same elements,
earth and water, and air and fire” (De Opific. Mundi, 146, C. W.; cf. Slav.
Enoch xxx. 8, “I ordered my Wisdom to make man of seven substances … his spirit
from My spirit, and from the wind”). It is highly suggestive by means of such a
comparison to discover the divergent points which have been reached by two
thinkers of Jewish birth and mental inheritance, who go back with equal
reverence to the Creation-narratives of Genesis, and yet are led to base upon
them superstructures of thought so foreign to each other, the one moulded by the
speculations of Hellenic philosophy, the other transformed by the power of a
living experience of Christ. St Paul does not here discuss the moral
significance of the constitution of human nature. He does not even go so far as
to assert, with the Book of Wisdom, that “God created man for immortality.” He
deals exclusively with what may be called the natural basis of human
personality, no doubt regarding it from his normal standpoint, namely, that of
one who knows what it has become. There is no trace of πνεῦμα there. He only
finds ψυχὴ ζῶσα, of course regarded as the gift of God, as everything is, which
exists in the physical universe. As ψυχή differs from πνεῦμα, so there must be
in his mind a real emphasis on the distinction between ζῶσα, “living,” and
ζωοποιοῦν, “life-creating.” The distinction is one which lies at the root of his
whole Christian conception of existence. Life in man is only raised to its
highest power, only attains its proper fulness and significance, when it is
renewed, made over again by the entrance of a Divine force, none other than the
Spirit, the creative energy of the Founder of the new humanity, the last Adam,
Him who has regained Paradise for mankind.1 [Note: CF. M‘CONNELL (OP. CIT., P.
145): “THE TRANSIT FOR THE INDIVIDUAL MAN FROM THIS STAGE OF BEING TO THE ONE
WHICH LIES BEYOND, WE BELIEVE TO BE A QUESTION OF THE VIGOUR OF MORAL
PERSONALITY.”] This is the form in which St Paul clothes that idea of existence
which the philosopher would designate the highest “reality.” In this remarkable
constitution of things, the apostle will not allow any haphazard element of
arbitrariness. It is from first to last an orderly sequence, a rational
expression of the will and aim of God. “Not in the first place the ‘spiritual’
but the ‘natural,’ thereafter (ἔπειτα) the ‘spiritual’ ” (verse 46). Perhaps in
laying down the sequence he is struck by the parallel between human history and
the experience of the individual. But he has to go a step further in order to
set forth the contrast in its full significance. It is not enough to show the
origin of ψυχή and πνεῦμα. He must disclose the background of their several
origins. He appeals to the same authorities as before: the Old Testament
narrative of Creation on the one hand, and the facts of Christian history on the
other. “The first man was out of the earth (γῆς), “earthy” (χοϊκός). This is a
paraphrase of Genesis 2:7: καὶ ἔπλασεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν ἄνθρωπον χοῦν ἀπὸ τῆς γῆς.2
[Note: CF.Wis 15:11:ὅΤΙἠΓΝΟΗΣΕΝ ΤὸΝ ΠΛΑΣΑΝΤΑ ΑὐΤὸΝ ΚΑὶΤὸΝἐΜΠΝΕΥΣΑΝΤΑ
ΑὐΤῷΨΥΧὴΝἐΝΕΡΓΟῦΣΑΝ ΚΑὶ ἐΜΦΥΣΗΣΑΝΤΑ ΠΝΕῦΜΑ ΖΩΤΙΚΟΝ.] Hühn imagines that in
Genesis 1:26 (P) St Paul found the creation of the heavenly Adam, in 2:7 (J)
that of the earthly, in accordance with Jewish Midrashim1 [Note: So Philo. The
generic man was created first (ἐποίησεν,Genesis 1:27), subsequently the species
Adam (ἔπλασεν,Genesis 2:7). See Drummond, Philo, ii. p. 275.] (see
Alttestamentlichen Citate.… im Neuen Testamente, p. 176). There is no foundation
for the hypothesis, so far as we can discover, in the passage before us. “The
second man is from heaven.” These further statements connect the inferiority of
the mere ψυχή or natural principle of life with its derivation from χοῦς and γῆ
(cf.Wis 7:1, εἰμὶ … γηγενοῦς ἀπόγονος πρωτοπλάστου), the superior worth of
πνεῦμα with its being a heavenly power and personality. The two types of
humanity must correspond to their respective heads. “Of the same quality (οἵος)
as the earthly (χοϊκός) are they who are earthly, and of the same quality as the
heavenly (ἐπουράνιος) are they who are heavenly” (verse 48). Meanwhile (perhaps
all along), his thoughts have risen to the Second Man as being now in heaven.
But the two contrasted types are not fixed. This is the wonder of his Gospel.
“Even as we bore the likeness (cf.Genesis 5:3, καὶ ἐγέννησεν κατὰ τὴν εἰδέαν
αὐτοῦ καὶ κατὰ τὴν εἰκόνα αὐτοῦ) of the earthly, we shall bear (reading
φορέσομεν with Weiss and W. H., mg.: the whole context favours the future,
because he is rapidly working up to that view of the future life which he
desires to set before them) also the image of the heavenly.” His argument is
complete. He has shown them from the analogy of the sowing of seed, that the
same life-principle can clothe itself in altered bodily semblance; nay more,
that the very meaning of what seems to be death in the natural world, may only
be a transition to a fuller life, clad in a more perfect organism. The
transformation does not mean loss of identity. For “body” is not restricted to a
single type. Even on earth there are different species of bodily organism. Still
more remarkable is the contrast between earthly and heavenly bodies; and even
those heavenly bodies, whose common characteristic is δόξα, are manifold in
their types. Why should it be difficult, then, he asks, to comprehend the nature
of the Resurrection? Not the body of flesh, the self-expression of the ψυχή,
that in which man lives his natural life and in which he dies, is that which
will be raised up as the organism of his future glorious existence, for it is
subject to weakness and corruption. It has a merely natural history. It is the
clothing of the common principle of life which belongs to all humanity, as
descended from its first member. But that does not exhaust the possibilities of
the race. There is a new humanity, which derives its life not from an earthly
principle, but from a heavenly Spirit. Its Head is the exalted Lord, who took
upon Him human nature, who never laid it aside, but has glorified it, and shown
what it may become. He is not a disembodied spirit. He possesses a σῶμα, not of
material substance, but πνευματικόν, corresponding to and expressing the life
which He lives. That life is now “heavenly,” and it awaits all who are His. They
shall exchange the body of their humiliation for the body of His glory.1 [Note:
“So every spirit as it is most pure And hath in it the more of heavenly light,
So it the fairer bodie doth procure To habit in, and it more fairly dight With
chearefull grace and amiable sight; For of the soule the bodie forme doth take;
For soule is forme, and doth the bodie make.”

Spenser: An Hymne in Honour of Beautie. In the Persian religion the soul of the
pious is, on entering Paradise, clad with heavenly raiments. This idea is first
clearly seen in the Pehlevi-literature, but there are traces of it in the Avesta
(Yast xiii. 49 f.) Cf. Bundehesh xxx. 28: “This, too, it says, that whoever has
performed no worship … and has bestowed no clothes as a righteous gift, is naked
there” (Böklen, op. cit., p. 62). So also in the Rig-Veda (x. 14, 8), the dead
are bidden to “become united to a body, and clothed in a shining form” (see
Fairbairn, Studies, p. 116). For evidence that in Jewish literature the
resurrection-body is usually conceived in a materialistic fashion, see Volz, op.
cit., pp. 250-253.] Yet the apostle will guard still further against
misconceptions. “This, I say, brethren (in case any should continue to be
troubled by the old objections), that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom
of God, neither does corruption inherit incorruption” (verse 50). It is easy to
see how their perplexity was bound up with the notion of the resurrection of
that body of flesh which they actually possessed in their human life. How much
of the confusion associated with this doctrine has rested, and still rests, on
the same misconception! The apostle’s view, on the contrary, is one of
far-reaching significance. We can scarcely formulate any idea of the future
condition of the individual life, which seems so fully to satisfy the
requirements of our thought. “As we progress,” says Mr Schiller, “the higher
intellectual and moral qualities … tend to predominate in consciousness over the
physical functions. For the physical processes tend to become unconscious.
Consciousness, therefore, is less engrossed by the mechanism of life. Hence the
body itself becomes more and more fitted to be the body of a spiritual being,
better and better adapted as the vehicle of a life which is more than physical.…
The time may come when Matter will no longer offer any obstacles to our wishes,
and when, in sober truth, Man will with a word precipitate a mountain into the
sea.… It is enough for him (i.e. the philosopher) to assert … that a will
completely congruous with the Divine would needs have a complete control of the
material” (Riddles of the Sphinx, pp. 301, 305). From an entirely different
standpoint, we have the statement of Professors Balfour Stewart and Tait: “If we
are to accept scientific principles, one of the necessary conditions of
immortality is a spiritual body, but we as resolutely maintain that of the
nature of this … we are, and must probably remain, profoundly ignorant” (Unseen
Universe, p. 8).1 [Note: See also Orr, Christian View, p. 136: “The whole
tendency of modern inquiry is to draw the two sides of man’s nature-the material
and the spiritual, the physical and the metaphysical, the physiological and the
mental-more closely together”; and cf. some suggestive remarks by McTaggart,
International Journal of Ethics, xiii. pp. 164, 165.] Is it too daring to hold
the conviction that St Paul has a uniquely wonderful vision of the possibilities
of a perfect spiritual development, such as that outlined above? May not the
σῶμα πνευματικόν be the final instance of the organism belonging to “a will
completely congruous with the Divine?” This would be an additional corroboration
of his derivation of the conception from his personal experience of contact with
the risen, perfected Christ, the crown and goal of humanity. We know too little
of the connection between mind (will, etc.) and body, to assert what may or may
not be possible in the way of organism for the living spirit; yet it appears to
us that Hebrew thought was more in accord with the sanest scientific speculation
than Hellenic, in that it postulated some type of embodiment of the personality,
whether now or in a future life.1 [Note: It is easy, indeed, to see from the
instances supplied by Greek and Roman writers that deliverance from the present
body, in its present conditions, was the consideration which weighed with them
in conceiving a purely spiritual immortality. Cf. Seneca, Ep. 102: Alia origo
nos exspectat, alius rerum status.… Detrahetur tibi haec circumjecta novissimum
velamentum tui cutis, detrahetur caro et suffusus sanguis … detrahetur ossa
nervique firmamenta fluidorum et labentium. Dies iste, quem tanquam extremum
reformidas, teterni natalis est.] But the apostle has to reckon with a problem
which must inevitably present itself to his readers. He and they were prepared
for a speedy occurrence of the Parousia. That was the event which should usher
in the Resurrection. They could now form some conception of the experience of
their deceased friends. But what of themselves? How were the survivors, the
living, to pass into the final Kingdom of God? This was, in some respects, the
most pressing matter of all. For there can be little doubt, from all that we
know of St Paul’s teaching, that his thoughts dwelt more on the future condition
of those living when Christ should appear, than on that of the dead.2 [Note:
There is some force in Haller’s contention: “It (i.e. the Resurrection) was
mainly (i.e. for St Paul) only a reviving of bodies not long dead, and thus not
subjected to total dissolution” (Zeitschr. f. Th. u. K., 1892, p. 291).] There
can, to his mind, be no distinction between the two groups. “We all (i.e. the
survivors) shall be transformed” (ἀλλαγησόμεθα).3 [Note: “None of the ‘we all’
(verse 51) shall die … all of the ‘we all’ shall be changed” (Milligan, Expos.
iv. 4, p. 24).] The transformation will be the work of a moment. It is the
putting on by the mortal of a immortality. “The dead shall rise incorruptible,
and we shall be “transformed” (verse 52). Naturally, he assumes that both cases
the final experience is the culmination a preparatory process. It is not a
sudden, unrelated exercise of Divine power, although Divine power throughout at
the back of it. It is the blossomings, so to speak, of the new life, the life of
the πνεῦμα already implanted. The presence of the Divine Spirit is for the
apostle a sufficient cause of all these crowning experiences. He never troubles
himself with reflection details.

We have considered St Paul’s central conception at some length, but there remain
varioius related points which call for investigation. It has been supposed by
many scholars (e.g., Reuss, Holtzmann, Teichmann, Pfleiderer, Cone, Clemen,
Schmidel, etc.) that, in the interval between 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians,
St Paul advanced to a new and more spiritual view of resurrection. The passage
chiefly cited in support of this theory is the important and somewhat
complicated paragraph in 2 Corinthians 5:1-10, notably ver. 8: “We choose rather
to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.” This statement is
held to be corroborated by such affirmations as Php 1:23 : “Having the desire to
depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better.” St Paul has drifted
away, we are told, from that conception of the Resurrection which he has stated
in the earlier Epistles, more especially in 1 Corinthians 15:1[Note: See
Schmiedel on 2 Cor. (Holtzmann’s Hand-Commentar. pp. 238-241); Holtzmann, N.T.
Theol. ii. p. 193; Reuss, Histoire de la Théol. Chrét. ii. p. 220; Cone, New
World, June 1895, p. 308; Teichmann, op. cit., pp. 59, 61-67; Clemen,
Niedergefahren zu d. Toten, p. 144; Charles, Eschatology, pp. 395-401. Curiously
enough, in the Persian religion, which recognises a judgment at the end of the
world, this judgment has been transferred at a later period to the moment which
follows death. “According to the Avesta, the separation after death is
accomplished by God without a judgment or any particular tribunal” (Söderblom,
op. cit., p. 95). Volz notes a parallel process in Jewish literature: “From
Hades the path leads to Paradise and Heaven by way of the receptacles guarded by
angels, and, instead of the Intermediate State before the Resurrection, there is
ultimately found the immediate transference of the individual into the full
blessedness of the future” (op. cit., p. 146).]

He now believes that immediately after death the soul of the Christian is
clothed with its new and appropriate organism, and passes into the immediate
presence of God. From this standpoint, the idea of a remarkable crisis at the
end of the age becomes superfluous. The soul has already reached its fulness of
glory. There is no place for any higher mode of fellowship. The hypothesis is
put forward that the apostle was led to this alteration of view, as he became
better acquainted with the Hellenistic literature of Alexandria (see, e.g.,
Pfleiderer, Urchristentum, pp. 161, 293, 298). However attractive the conception
may appear to our minds, we cannot find that the apostle reached it, at least in
the clear-cut, definite shape in which it is described by the writers to whom we
have referred. The hypothesis really springs from a literalistic, pedantic
interpretation of St Paul’s statements. It seems impossible for some exegetes to
rid themselves of the notion that when this fervid, ardent missionary, glowing
with intense spiritual life, sat down to write to a community of his Christian
friends and converts, he could not avoid composing an outline of systematic
theology. No account is taken of his varying states of feeling, no account is
taken of the many-sidedness of his spiritual experience. Men forget that, in the
reachings-forth of his religious faith and imagination, he must often, like
Christian thinkers in all ages, overleap wide distances of time and space, must
ignore definite and prosaic details, must embrace in his mind vast stretches of
the spiritual world.

Probably we shall most easily appreciate his standpoint in the passages cited
above, if we attempt to review the famous paragraph in 2 Corinthians 5:1 ff. Let
us first endeavour to trace the line of thought which was uppermost with St Paul
when he wrote the verses under consideration. This is determined by the
conclusion of chap. 4, which must never be separated from the opening of chap.
5. In 4:16-18, he emphasises the contrast between the weariness and trouble of
the earthly life even for the Christian, and the glory which awaits him in the
unseen eternal future. This contrast, it must be noted, remains vivid to his
mind throughout the discussion (Volz quotes some remarkable parallels from
Jewish literature, p. 156). The present and the future, the seen and the
unseen-these are the opposing magnitudes round which his thoughts centre. “For
we know that if our earthly house consisting in this tent1 [Note: Cf. Wisd.
9:15, whereτὸ γεῶδες σκῆνοςis used as an equivalent toσῶμα, in the preceding
clause; alsoIsaiah 38:12. “Mine habitation is removed and is carried away from
me as a shepherd’s tent.”] (the σῶμα τῆς σαρκός, the σῶμα ψυχικόν) be dissolved
(καταλυθῇ, lit. broken up), we have a building from God, a house not made by
hands, eternal in the heavens.” There is no reference here to the detail of
time. He does not yet specify a period. The ἔχομεν (“we have”) is simply
equivalent to “there awaits us as a sure possession.” Bousset shows a
disposition to emphasise minutiæ, altogether alien to the apostle, when he
supposes that, in speaking of the οἰκία ἀχειροποιητός, St Paul shares the idea
(found in various religions) that the soul, ascending to heaven, receives its
new body on the threshold of the eternal dwelling of God (Archiv für
Religionswissenschaft, iv. 2, p. 144). The apostle’s assertion is merely a
repetition in another form of the statement in 1 Corinthians 15:38, “God giveth
it a body.” “And indeed for this reason (so we take ἐν τούτῳ with Heinrici) we
groan (a remarkable parallel is Romans 8:23, ‘Even we ourselves groan within
ourselves, eagerly looking for our sonship, the redemption of our body,’ an
utterance which arises out of the precisely identical contrast of ‘present
sufferings’ and ‘future glory’), craving to put on over us (ἐπενδύσασθαι) our
habitation which is from heaven (i.e., ‘the house not made with hands,’ ‘the
building from God,’ the σῶμα πνευματικόν), seeing that, as a matter of fact (εἴ
γε καὶ, the γε and the καὶ must be duly emphasised), when we have put it on1
[Note:Ἐνδυσάμενοιmust be read here with, syrr., cop., etc.; for, as Heinrici
most cogently shows,ἐκδσάμενοιwas introduced as a correction, when the idea
which led to the addition of this clause, namely, the abolishing of the notion
of a joyless vegetation of the unclothed soul in Hades, necessarily disappeared
from the later Christian period which was no longer concerned with the
controverting of heathen ideas.] we shall not be found naked” (i.e. disembodied
spirits, a notion abhorrent to the Hebrew mind. It is to drag into the passage
an irrelevant idea, to suppose with Charles, Eschatology, p. 394, and Beyschlag,
N.T. Theol. ii. p. 270, that in using the term γυμνοί, he is thinking of the
fate of unbelievers.) “For in truth we who are in this (lit. ‘the’) tent groan,
being depressed, because we do not wish to strip ourselves (ἐκδύσασθαι, or ‘be
stripped’), but to put on (i.e. our habitation = the σῶμαπνευματικόν) over us
(ἐπενδύσασθαι), in order that our mortality may be swallowed up by life.”1
[Note: Klöpper’s interpretation goes beyond a legitimate exegesis of the
apostle’s language: “What Paul does not wish is that every trace of the old
house should be taken from him, and that the new should simply take the place of
the old. He wants to keep a germ of the old somatic organism, which would form
the bond of connection between the earthly and heavenly condition of existence,
and secure the continuity and identity of the old and the glorified human being”
(Jahrb. f. d. Theol. 1862, p. 43). St Paul does not seem to have cared one whit
for “traces” or “germs” of the old organism. He was impatient to be clothed with
the new. He longed for this to happen without delay. If the Parousia were to
come soon, and so make his transformation possible, the process must necessarily
be an “overclothing” of the old by the new, although he never speculates on the
process or method.] We are inclined to believe that these words give a hint of
St Paul’s earnest desire and hope of surviving to the Parousia, and so escaping
the terrifying experience of death. For it is difficult to suppose that
ἐκδύσασθαι can mean anything else than the parting with the body of flesh.
Strangely enough, we have no information as to the apostle’s conception of the
state after death of those who had died or should die before the Parousia. As
has been already pointed out, such considerations did not appeal prominently to
his mind, for he regarded the End as near. Apart from the ordinary verb,
ἀποθνήσκειν, the term usually employed by St Paul for the death of believers is
κοιμᾶσθαι. Obviously it was a most appropriate word, not only as containing the
consoling picture of rest, but also as lending itself to the central Christian
idea of “awaking,” being raised or roused to blissful fellowship with the Lord.
The metaphor occurs very frequently in the Old Testament, in passages where
there is no thought of a resurrection: e.g., 2 Samuel 7:12, 1 Kings 2:10
(numerous instances in this book), etc., etc. The LXX. usually translates it by
κοιμᾶσθαι (most often equivalent to Heb. שָׁכַכ, lit. “lie down”). It is also
current among the Greeks. Herkenrath, in his valuable Studien zu d. griechischen
Grabschriften (Feldkirch, 1896), gives interesting examples of sleep as a
euphemism for death in epitaphs, although these are isolated as compared with
gloomier conceptions of the under-world (see esp. pp. 21, 28). It is scarcely
necessary to refer to its usage in classical poetry, such as Iliad, xi. 341;
Sophoc., Electr. 509. In Judaistic literature, the idea appears in a more
elaborated form. This is natural, seeing that the doctrine of resurrection has
now become prominent. Hence we find passages like 4 Ezra 4:37, “He disturbs them
not and wakes them not, until the appointed measure is made up”; 7:32, “The
earth shall give back those who sleep in it, and the dust those who dwell in
that silence.” This writer does not apply the idea of rest to the ungodly: e.g.,
7:80, “Such evil souls do not enter the chambers of rest, but must at once hover
about wretchedly, with constant sighs and groans.” The same thought appears in
the Apocalypse of Baruch: see, e.g., xi. 4-5, “Our fathers laid them to sleep
without pain, and the righteous-behold they slumber in the earth in peace: for
they have not experienced this tribulation, and have not even heard of that
which has befallen us.” And in the Book of Wisdom, belonging to another branch
of the literature altogether, we read (4:7), δίκαιος δὲ ἐὰν φθάσῃ τελευτῆσαι, ἐν
ἀναπαύσει ἔσται: “But a righteous man, though he die before his time, shall be
at rest.” Probably among the early Christians the belief prevailed that every
one, after death, went to Hades: cf.Matthew 27:52-53; Matthew 12:40; 1 Peter
3:19; Ephesians 4:9 (and see Kattenbusch, Th. L.Z., 1902, Sp. 14; Clemen,
Niedergefahren zu d. Todten, pp. 143 f., 151 f. Clemen excepts from the general
lot the case of certain privileged individuals, especially martyrs). Thus
Irenæus, adv. Hæres, v. 31, 2, has the statement: Si ergo Dominus legem
mortuorum servavit, ut fieret primogenitus a mortuis et commoratus usque ad
tertiam diem in inferioribus terræ. But it would be altogether illegitimate to
deduce from St Paul’s use of κοιμᾶσθαι any imaginary hypothesis of an
Intermediate State. We dare not attribute to the apostle any theory of a sleep
of the soul, or of a meditative condition of calm waiting in preparation for a
fuller bliss (so Matheson, Expos. ii. 5, pp. 197, 198; Martensen, Dogmatics, pp.
457-463). Nor may we infer any notion of semi-consciousness or the like.
Schmiedel supposes, on the ground of the expressions λυπῆσθε and μὴ ἔχοντες
ἐλπίδα in 1 Thessalonians 4:13, that St Paul conceives of the Intermediate State
as an unsatisfying, troubled condition (ad loc.). But their grief and
apprehension do not refer to the Intermediate State, as is quite evident from
verse 14, but to the uncertainty of resurrection at the Parousia. Simon, again,
taking Php 1:23 as his basis, speaks of the Intermediate State as one in which
we enter into closer union with Christ than was possible in this life, “a dreamy
expectation of the life which will come with the day of Resurrection” (Psychol.
d. Paulus, p. 11); but where is there any trace of this in the Epistles? Holsten
imagines that the apostle regards dead believers as γυμνοί, bodiless, sleeping
πνεύματα in the abyss (Paulin. Theolog., p. 130). For his theory, he refers to 2
Corinthians 5:3, and 1 Corinthians 15:37. If our interpretation of these
passages has been correct, it is plain that this is an explanation which can
only be forced upon the text. All we are justified in concluding from the
writings of St Paul is, that for him death could not bring the believer into any
situation which meant separation from his Lord. The fellowship was still
imperfect in his view, but it was removed by an infinite gulf from the condition
of those who had spurned the gift of the Divine πνευμα.1 [Note: Cf. Heinrici on2
Corinthians 5:10: “There remains for him as for all Christians, apart from all
time-considerations, the truth that leaving the body has for its direct
consequence going to the Lord. Therefore he never expresses himself as to the
nature of the state between death and resurrection, but only emphasises the fact
that all, whether they experience the Parousia or die before it, have a share in
the Resurrection and the new life.” The earlier documents of the Persian
religion, e.g., the Gathic Hymns, have no reference to an Intermediate State.
This appears much later under the designation hamîstakân, reserved for those in
whose case the difference between good and evil is slight (Söderblom, op. cit.,
p. 125). On “sleep” = Intermediate State in Jewish literature, see an excellent
paragraph in Volz, p. 134.] At the same time, we need not be surprised that the
sensitive mind of the apostle shrank from the severing of the bonds which knit
the spirit and the body together. As we sought to show in a former chapter, the
article of death possessed a peculiar horror for St Paul. And in view of this
fact, we believe there is some warrant for supposing that, in the passage from 2
Corinthians with which we have been dealing, he does express a yearning to
escape the pang of dissolution and to experience that transformation to
immortality, the immortality of the σῶμα πνευματικόν, which is the sure heritage
of those who shall meet their returning Lord (see also Heinrici on 2 Corinthians
5:1 ff.). On the other hand, it may be legitimate to interpret verse 4 in a
different sense. In emphasising the contrast between the present and the future,
the apostle complains of the burden of the fleshly, bodily existence. But then,
perhaps struck by the conception of the future life which is most familiar to
his friends at Corinth, he goes on to affirm: “It is not merely to get rid of
the carnal, material body we long; it is not for a condition of spiritual
nakedness, a disembodied existence of the spirit: our hope, our glory, is in the
new spiritual organism which we look forward to possessing.” Whichever of these
alternatives be truest to St Paul’s thinking here, we are safe to say that it is
the perfected development, expressed in the σῶμα πνευματικόν, which fills his
mind. Hence he proceeds (2 Corinthians 5:5): “He that prepared (κατεργασάμενος)1
[Note: Cf.Exodus 39:1(LXX.):πᾶν τὸχρυσίονὃκατειργάσθη εἰς τὰ ἔργα; and see
Liddell and Scott’s Lexicon.] us for this very aim is God, who gave us the
pledge of the Spirit. Having confidence, therefore (= on this ground, the pledge
of the Spirit), always, and knowing that when at home in the body (the σῶμα
σάρκινον) we are absent from the Lord (for we walk by faith not by sight), we
have confidence indeed, and choose rather to be absent from the body and to be
at home with the Lord.1 [Note: CF. TEST. ABR. XCV. 23:ἤΓΓΙΚΕΝ ἡΜΕΡΑ ἐΝ ᾗ ΜΕΛΛΕΙΣ
ἐΚ ΤΟῦ ΣΩΜΑΤΟΣ ἐΚΔΗΜΕῖΝ ΚΑὶ ἔΤΙ ἄΠΑΞ ΠΡὸΣ ΤὸΝ ΚΟΡΙΟΝ ἔΡΧΕΣΘΑΙ(QU. BY TEICHMANN,
P. 72).] Wherefore also we make it our ambition, whether at home (i.e. in the
body) or absent (i.e. from the body), to be well-pleasing to Him.” Plainly, no
theory of an altered conception of the future life of believers can be reared on
these latter sentences (verses 6-8). The apostle simply reasserts his confidence
(the οἴδαμεν of verse 1 is resumed by the θαρροῦντες and θαρροῦμεν of verses 6,
8) that the condition of the believer which is in prospect, and which is
guaranteed by the pledge of the πνεῦμα, is infinitely preferable to that in
which he is at present situated. In view of the glory in store for all who are
God’s, it behoves them to strive after His obedience. “For all of us (i.e.
Christian believers) must be manifested before the judgment-seat of Christ, that
each may receive the things done by the body, according to what he has done,
whether good or worthless.” We cannot refrain from quoting an admirable summary
by Wernle, which expresses with absolute accuracy our own view of the apostle’s
position as represented in the passage which we have been discussing. “The man
who wrote the great Resurrection-chapter in 1 Corinthians,” he says, “did not
possess the capacity for altering his opinions which belongs to the modern
theologian. For him, his hope which he there expresses, is a truth for which he
is willing to live and die. Even from his prison at Rome, he writes: ‘If I may
attain the resurrection from the dead.’ Resurrection-Transformation-Judgment,
are the absolutely fixed elements in Pauline Eschatology.… The yearning to die
and to be with Christ is for him the same thing as the hope of resurrection. His
yearning overleaps all between death and resurrection, and hurries to its goal
for reunion with Jesus. [Wernle compares the attitude of the martyr Ignatius.]
For religious hope, death, resurrection, coming to God, are always the same, not
for Paul alone. In the same way, the passage about the dissolution of the bodily
tabernacle and overclothing with the new garment refers to the transformation at
the Resurrection and to nothing else.… At bottom, all that happens to his body
before the Resurrection is quite indifferent. For he has found the consolation,
‘If we live, we live unto the Lord; if we die, we die unto the Lord: therefore
whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s’ ” (Anfänge, pp. 175, 176). This
paragraph deals directly with the important parallel in Php 1:23. There also St
Paul contrasts his actual condition with that which awaits him. For the present,
he is a prisoner in a Roman dungeon, soon to be placed upon his trial, hindered
from that work which is his absorbing passion. In the future he has the
inspiring prospect of a blissful fellowship with Christ which can never be
broken. His thought transcends all experience of an Intermediate State, an
interval between death and the full consummation of blessedness. He only sees
the earthly life, on the one hand, and Christ, in whom his life is hid, on the
other. What may happen between cannot interfere with his glowing conviction that
his salvation is independent of death. His position is virtually in line with
the pregnant words of Wis 6:19, “Immortality causes to be near to God.”1 [Note:
See also an interesting paragraph in Titius, p. 62; and cf. Whittier’s lines:-
“And so beside the silent sea I wait the muffled oar; No harm from Him can come
to me On ocean or on shore.

“I know not where His islands lift Their fronded palms in air, I only know I
cannot drift Beyond His love and care.”

(Qu. by Prof. Orr.)]

Throughout our discussion of St Paul’s conception of the Resurrection, it must
have been apparent that attention has been directed exclusively to that event as
it affects believers. In this we have followed closely the attitude of the
apostle himself. His utterances on the Resurrection are restricted to the
Christian community. Various reasons can be assigned for his procedure. To begin
with, he is replying to a group of difficult questions, brought expressly before
him by members of the Church at Corinth. These perplexities concern their own
future. They have nothing to do with any general theory of the future condition
of mankind. Indeed, such general theories never appear to have had much interest
for St Paul; and a large amount of the misconception which has prevailed in all
ages of the Church as to his views on the more outlying sections of Christian
truth, is due to the persistent attempt to attribute to him a complete and
systematised Weltanschauung, built up on the lines on which we construct our
own, a scheme of thought in which the various problems of existence are stated,
in their mutual relationships, very much as they appeal to the modern mind. It
would be going beyond our due limits to assert that the apostle never attempted
to arrange the bearings of his thought in a rational and orderly fashion. But in
an historical inquiry like the present, we are restricted to our evidence. We
may essay to fill up the lacunæ which present themselves, from our own
presuppositions, or from a particular modern standpoint. But we have no right to
assume that St Paul would have assented to our methods. His absorbing interest
is the experience of the Christian man. To his mind, that was, and continued to
be, an unceasing discovery of surpassing grandeur and glory. It had not yet been
toned down by the misunderstandings, the bitternesses, the worldly pressure of
the centuries. The apostle felt himself to be moving in the midst of the
operations of awe-inspiring and transcendent Powers. The exalted Lord, the Holy
Spirit, were, for his daily experience, living Persons. And the same experiences
he knew to be possible for all who were willing to surrender themselves to the
sway of Christ. It was his business to press this wonderful opportunity upon Jew
and Gentile alike, to win all whom he could reach to the satisfying obedience of
his Lord. It need not, then, surprise us that he found little time or
inclination for pushing his speculations into all the nooks and crannies of
human life and destiny.1 [Note: Cf. 4Ezra 8:35-36: “For truly I shall not
trouble myself about that which sinners have prepared for themselves, about
death, judgment, and destruction; but rather will I rejoice in that which the
righteous have won, home-coming, redemption, and recompense.” The more profound
and sensitive feeling of St Paul would scarcely have permitted so blunt an
utterance. Dr Denney’s words are suggestive for the line of thought we have been
following: “It is necessary, if we are to reflect in our minds the true
proportion and balance of scriptural teaching, to escape from this preoccupation
with individuals and exceptions, and to get into the centre and foreground of
our thoughts-God’s purpose to perfect His kingdom and glorify His people”
(Studies in Theology, p. 246).] The question of a general resurrection lies
outside St Paul’s horizon, at least so far as definite discussions of the event
are concerned. Indeed, from the very nature of his doctrine of resurrection, we
can easily perceive how it must have been so. Its operating principle, its
cause, we may go the length of saying, is the power of the new Divine life in
the believer’s nature-that is, the saving power of God. “If the Spirit of Him
who raised Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He who raised from the dead Christ
Jesus, shall also make alive your mortal bodies by His Spirit dwelling in you”
(Romans 8:11). Plainly, therefore, the resurrection of unbelievers must proceed,
in the apostle’s judgment, on different lines. It cannot follow the norm of the
Resurrection of Jesus Christ, which determines that of Christians. It is useless
to speculate as to how he conceived of it. An instance of such speculation may
be quoted from Schaeder’s article, “Auferstehung d. Todten,” in Herzog,3 ii. p.
223: “The opinion of the apostle must have been that non-believers would rise in
the same body which they formerly possessed. And then those of them who are
acquitted in the Judgment, experience a transformation of their body into the
spiritual body of believers already risen; the rejected, with their bodies, fall
a prey to death.… They experience in the Resurrection the deliverance from death
won for them by the Resurrection of Christ. But owing to their rejection in the
Judgment, they must go back into death.” This crude hypothesis seems amply to
justify the caution expressed above. At the same time it does appear to us
probable, in view of his whole conception of the End, so far as it can be pieced
together, that St Paul left room for some doctrine of a general resurrection.
Unquestionably he possessed the conception, as we have already seen, of a
universal judgment (see, e.g., 1 Corinthians 6:2; 1 Corinthians 11:32; Romans
2:5-12). But he never works out this conception in detail. The pictorial
elements which he introduces are vague and undefined. How the judgment of the
ungodly, which for them is ἀπώλεια, is related in his mind to the events of the
End, it is impossible to determine from the materials of the Epistles. But the
fact that he does presuppose such a judgment as a definite accompaniment of the
Parousia of Christ, would lead us to infer some process in the nature of a
resurrection preceding it, in the case even of those who have not become
partakers of the πνεῦμα. Otherwise, he must be supposed to agree with the
tradition of the Talmudic literature, in holding that “he who has no future
reward will also have no part in the Resurrection. He remains in death, and has
been already judged in death” (Weber, Lehren d. Talmud, p. 373).1 [Note: It is
interesting to note thatἀπώλειαas a translation ofàÂáÇãÌåÉï(Job 26:6,Revelation
9:11), is synonymous with Sheol (see Beer on Enoch li. in Kautzsch). On the
stages in the belief in a resurrection of the ungodly, see a terse statement in
Schwally, Leben nach d. Tode, pp. 171, 172.] It may no doubt be said that the
conception of a universal judgment, so far as its elements have an objective
aspect, is simply a portion of the popular religious consciousness of the time,
which the apostle has retained, without endeavouring to adjust it to his
profounder and more spiritual conceptions.1 [Note: “It is not given to any man
to see all the consequences that follow from his own thinking. He may quite
conceivably hold, in the scheme of his beliefs, propositions that are
inconsistent with each other” (Orr, Christian View, p. 43).] This is a
supposition which even the soberest and most restrained Christian thought ought
not to reject à priori. The very highest endowment of a human soul with the
Divine Spirit can never turn the consciousness into an isolated automaton. Any
assertions or positions resting on such an assumption, make it impossible for us
to understand or appreciate the self-revelation of God, which is a process in
history. But in St Paul’s case, as in that of all the New Testament writers, we
must be content to form our estimate of his conceptions solely from the evidence
which we possess. Various problems may remain, for which we should desire to
have his solution. It is safer to acquiesce in the situation with a wise
suspense of judgment, than to supply plausible hypotheses of our own.2 [Note:
Cf. the lack of adjustment between the conceptions of judgment and the future
life of righteous and ungodly in Wisdom (e.g., 3:1 ff., 4:20 ff.). “Jewish
sources also show insecurity on this point. According to Josephus’
representation of the Pharisees’ doctrine, only the good haveῥᾳστώνη τοῦ
ἀναβιοῦν, and will receive other bodies, while the bad are punished in Hades
(cf. Dillmann, A.T. Theol., p. 410). This evidence is confirmed by2Ma 7:9; 2Ma
7:11; 2Ma 7:23; 2Ma 12:43-45.… Ps. Sol. 3:12, which only know a resurrection to
life. Enoch lxi. 5 speaks only of a resurrection of the elect, yet in li. 1, 2
there is a general giving-forth of the dead, among whom the righteous are
chosen. But the general resurrection is in xxii. 13 restricted to this extent
that the ungodly, who are already sufficiently punished, are not raised (xc.
18); while renegades from Israel are cast into Gehenna (xc. 26; cf. xxvii. 23).
On the other hand, Apoc. Bar. l., and Test. xii. Patr. xii. 10, clearly teach a
general resurrection. In consequence, in 4Ezra 7:28-28(cf. Apoc. Mosis xiii.),
the event of resurrection is doubted. Obviously, this latter is the latest and
most secondary idea, which one must not forthwith presuppose in Paul” (Titius,
p. 51, note 1). This note is most suggestive as to the fluidity of
eschatological belief, a phenomenon which is highly natural in a province where
standards of comparison and the language of human life must prove inadequate.
Volz notes, with reference to Rabbinic theology, that it is impossible to
determine clearly whether they taught a resurrection of all men, or only of all
Israel (op. cit., p. 247).]

It is of comparatively little importance to attempt to determine the place of
the Resurrection among the events of the End. In his earlier Epistles, at least,
we can gain a general idea of the apostle’s conception. The signal of the End is
the Parousia itself, the manifestation of the Lord for judgment, and the
completion of salvation. Contemporaneous with the Parousia are the Resurrection
of believers and the transformation of the living (Christians), who are then
revealed in glory along with their glorified Lord. Their judgment can only mean,
as has been pointed out in a former chapter, the unfolding to themselves in the
presence of Christ of the comparative worth of their life and service.

We have already referred to the frequent use of ἀποκάλυψις and ἀποκαλύπτειν in
this connection. On the basis of their usage, Prof. Bruston has propounded a
theory which, he believes, abolishes some of the main difficulties attending St
Paul’s conceptions of the Last Things. He holds that the apostle employs the
verb ἐγείρειν in two different senses, “habitually, to express the
revivification of the believer at the moment of death, and the clothing of him
in a new body, spiritual or heavenly (so, e.g., in 2 Corinthians 5:1 ff.; Php
1:23), and sometimes, more rarely, to express the appearance or manifestation of
their glorified bodies to the living at the moment of the Parousia (1
Corinthians 15:23; 1 Corinthians 15:52; 1 Thessalonians 4:16). In the later
Epistles he uses precisely for this second conception the noun ‘manifestation’
(Romans 8:19), and the verb ‘to appear’ (Colossians 3:4)” (Revue de Théol. et
des Questions Religieuses, Jan. 1902, p. 80). We have in this chapter attempted
to show that St Paul does not set forth two contradictory conceptions of the
Resurrection in these two groups of passages, but only lays the emphasis on a
different moment of thought. Further, it is inconceivable that he should make
use of the rarer and altogether abnormal sense of the crucial term ἐγείρειν,
without any caution or explanation, in those passages where he is dealing
expressly with difficulties which have been brought before him, and where, if
anywhere, he must state his own theory. But while far from accepting Bruston’s
theory, we cannot help fancying that the apostle’s employment of the terms
ἀποκάλυψις ἀποκαλύπτειν, and φανερωθῆναι, reveals the presence of a profounder
strain in his eschatological thought. It may quite well mark a process in which
he begins to feel a certain inadequacy in those traditional and more external
elements of Eschatology which still remained in his consciousness. This is a
growth which might be expected in the maturing of his spiritual life. Possibly
the very fact that he ignores all discussion or characterisation of an
Intermediate State, points to the supreme importance which he assigns to the
future manifestation of believers with Christ in their σώματα πνευματικά,
whatever be the stages or experiences which constitute their rising to glory. Be
that as it may, it appears to us highly significant for the progress of his
thought that in the Imprisonment-Epistles, which stand so late in his career, St
Paul delights to sum up his outlook into the future in the simple term ἔλπις.
Perhaps, as he penetrated deeper into the relation of the believer to his Lord,
the events of the Coming Æon and its inauguration paled into insignificance in
the light of that perfected fellowship which was the final goal of them all.
Perhaps, as he sought to fathom the treasures of wisdom and knowledge which were
hidden in Christ, he felt less confidence even in the prophetic forecasts which
had been a stable element in his eschatological thought. Perhaps he grew more
and more to distrust the use of earthly imagery and pictures drawn from human
experience, to body forth the circumstances of a life belonging to another
order. Will not the Christian Church act wisely in following the example of her
great spiritual teacher? “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered
into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love
him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit” (1 Corinthians 2:9-10).
And the Spirit reveals spiritual truth, not physical or external processes. The
Spirit is the Divine pledge of a future life hid with Christ in God, not the
historian of a sequence of outward events framed in the setting of this temporal
world. At the most, it is enough for the apostle to give his readers
approximations to the great, saving, final experiences. It is enough so to
present these as to inspire them with the splendid certainty of Christian hope.
It will suffice for St Paul, as their spiritual father, with unfaltering faith
to affirm, “Of this I am confident, that He which hath begun the good work in
you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Php 1:6). Do Christian men
require any further assurance for their future?


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  CHAPTER 8: 06. ST PAUL'S CONCEPTION OF THE CONSUMMATION OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD
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Chapter VI ST PAUL’S CONCEPTION OF THE CONSUMMATION OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD In the
present chapter we must attempt not so much to describe St Paul’s conceptions of
certain additional events of the End, as rather to gather together various
hints, more or less vague, which he has thrown out in his Epistles, and from
these to present as clear a view as we can reach of his foreshadowing of the
final Consummation. Part of our task will be to carry a stage or two further
some of the conceptions which have occupied us already, and to fill in the
outline of a larger setting or background for these. And we will also endeavour
to bring out into bolder relief several aspects of the Pauline Eschatology,
which have hitherto only been touched in passing.

Students of New Testament theology during the past decade have grown weary of
the endless, and it must be said, somewhat uninspiring, discussions which have
centred round the idea of the Kingdom of God. The teaching of Jesus has had
frequently to suffer violence that it might square with the pet theory of
theologians. After all, there still prevails a large divergence of opinion as to
the meaning and content of this ruling thought of the Master. Thus, e.g.,
Ritschl defines Jesus’ doctrine of the Kingdom of God as “not the common
exercise of worship, but the organisation of humanity through action inspired by
love.”1 [Note: Justification and Reconciliation, vol. iii. (E. Tr.) p. 12.]
Haupt, on the other hand, holds that Jesus regards the Kingdom, “not as a
fellowship, but as an organism of heavenly-i.e. supernatural-blessings, gifts,
and forces, which are to operate in humanity, and transform it into the province
of the rule of God.”2 [Note: S.K., 1887, p. 383.] Kähler speaks of Jesus’
preaching of the Kingdom as His “veiled self-assertion,” as contrasted with the
Gospel of Christ, which is “His revealed and fully unfolded self-assertion.”3
[Note: Gehört Jesus in d. Evangelium, p. 22.] Orr describes it as that idea
which “defines the aim and purpose of God in Creation and Redemption.”4 [Note:
Christian View of God and World, p. 354.] Whatever be its most accurate
definition, in our judgment even so (apparently) rich a concept as this is far
too meagre to embrace the spiritual outlook of Jesus Christ. But we willingly
allow that its formulation and application have been very fruitful, both for the
comprehension of the basis of Christian thought, and for the relating of Jesus’
view of His Gospel to the needs of present-day religion. In the midst of all
diversities of interpretation, most competent New Testament scholars admit that
Jesus’ idea of the Kingdom included a distinctly eschatological element. We say
“included,” for it is surely a case of theorising run mad to put forward the
hypothesis, which J. Weiss defends so strenuously in his Predigt Jesu vom Reiche
Gottes, that the conception of Jesus was nothing else than eschatological. Such
a position can only be established by the clumsy device of arbitrarily weakening
the force of those passages in the Synoptic Gospels which are its refutation.
The Kingdom, in our Lord’s view of it, was unquestionably the Messianic kingdom,
foreshadowed from of old under various guises. But then it was Messianic in the
same sense in which He was the Messiah. No unprejudiced reader of the New
Testament needs to be reminded of the contrast between His conception of Himself
and the Messianic forecasts dimly adumbrated in the Old Testament, and worked
out in greater or less detail in Judaistic literature and the theology of the
Synagogue. For Him the religious aspect of Messiah and His kingdom was all in
all. Surrender to the gracious rule of God as Father which He proclaimed, and
all the blessedness of fellowship with God which that surrender brought in its
train, constituted in His view the true aim of life for individuals and for the
world. On this basis, the certainty of the Kingdom was, at one stroke,
dissevered from all political and national contingencies. It was a certainty
planted in the religious consciousness. Hence Jesus, in the midst of humiliation
and rejection, could regard the fortunes of His Kingdom with unbroken calm. For
He felt the pledge of its consummation in His own experience, in that union of
life with God which must be the supreme ideal for humanity. The soul which is
made conscious of that life is, at the same time, made sure that God’s
all-embracing purpose of good must be fulfilled. The community which knows that
life of God, and is ruled by it, already forms the nucleus of the Kingdom.1
[Note: Ritschl expresses, with characteristic insight, the transformation of the
kingdom-idea which Jesus wrought: “While the Divine purpose in the world is
bound up with the naturally conditioned unity of the Israelitish nation, the
position of this nation in the world is made dependent upon legal and political
conditions and material advantages, which as such are of a mundane order, and do
not correspond to the supra-mundane position of the one God. Thus there was
forced upon Israel the necessity of always postponing to a future, which never
became present, the reconciliation between its position in the world and God.
Jesus rose above this standpoint, and introduced a new religion by setting free
the lordship of the supra-mundane God from national and political limitations,
as well as from the expectation of material well-being, and by advancing its
significance for mankind to a spiritual and ethical union, which at once
corresponds to the spirituality of God, and denotes the supra-mundane end of
spiritual creatures” (Justification and Reconciliation, vol. iii. (E. Tr.) p.
455). See also the instructive parallelism and contrast between the Synoptists
and the Rabbinic writers with regard to the Kingdom of God, in Volz, op. cit.,
pp. 299, 300.] It was this religious aspect which He pressed home upon the
hearts of His disciples and those who assembled to listen to His preaching. As
soon as it was appreciated and began to assert itself in human lives, He knew
that the foundation of the Kingdom had been laid in the world. But inevitably,
from this point of view, it must have a forward look. He plants the seed (Mark
4:26-29). It germinates and begins to spring up. But the process, although
present from the first-present in its essence and living reality-is at best but
tardy. Thus the gaze of the Husbandman will always be directed to the distant
end-the harvest-time-when the fruit of His toil is ripe for the ingathering, and
His original aim is completely realised.

It would lead us too far afield even to attempt the briefest examination of the
eschatological element in our Lord’s conception of the Kingdom. But hints of it
have already been presented. In our discussion of the Parousia, we had occasion
to quote many passages from the Gospels directly bearing upon it. These prove
beyond doubt that Jesus looked forward to a time, known only to the Father, when
the Kingdom which he had already founded in the world should enter upon a new,
which was to be the final, stage of its development. The Son of Man was to come
“in the glory of His Kingdom.” There was to be the inauguration of that splendid
epoch which He once names the παλινγενεσία (Matthew 19:18), “the new birth” (of
things), in which His loyal followers should find a high recompense, in which
fidelity to Him should rank as the most honourable distinction. Several
passages, in the order in which the Synoptic Gospels place them, seem to hint
that this coming epoch might be near. But the unparalleled impression made on
the minds of the first generation of Christians by the destruction of Jerusalem
(70 a.d.) and all the disturbances which led up to that crisis, has probably
introduced complications into the eschatological discourses. This Synoptic
tradition, as we have already noted, exerted a powerful influence upon the
thinking of St Paul. He could receive it, not merely as stamped with the
authority of Christ Himself, but also as embodying and bringing to a fit
culmination all the foreshadowings of the great prophetic men. The experiences
and historical development of the people of Israel seemed, of course, to the
apostle to supply the mould within which the highest spiritual life of humanity
was to shape itself. No other conception could appear so truly adapted to set
forth the future advance in the apprehension of God and His revelation, and in
the realisation of His will in the world, as that of the Theocracy, the Divine
rule of men. Only, it had to be raised above all nationalism, had to be viewed
in the immense range of its significance and possibilities, had to be left
unrestricted, so that it should, on the one hand, take the form of the
brotherhood, the society, the Church (the side of organisation, if we may so
call it); while, on the other, it stood for a Divine power, a Divine redemptive
purpose, a Divine life actually working in individuals, and thus making the
spiritual community possible as God’s representative in the world. When we think
of the largeness of scope belonging to this whole point of view, we are better
able to understand the actual position of the apostle Paul.

It must appear strange, at first sight, that the central term of the Synoptic
tradition, βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ (or τῶν οὐρανῶν), should occur, comparatively
speaking, so rarely in the Pauline Epistles. When it does appear, it is
generally used in a predominantly eschatological sense. Thus, in 1 Thessalonians
2:12, it is directly combined with the eschatological term, δόξα (τοῦ θεοῦ τοῦ
καλοῦντος ὑμᾶς εἰς τὴν ἑαυτοῦ βασιλείαν καὶ δόξαν). In 2 Thessalonians 1:5, it
is found in the phrase, εἰς τὸ καταξιωθῆναι ὑμᾶς τῆς βασιλείας τοῦ θεοῦ, “that
you may be deemed worthy of the Kingdom of God,” a collocation which vividly
reminds us of the words of Jesus in Luke 20:35, καταξιωθέντες τοῦ αἰῶνος ἐκείνου
τυχεῖν καὶ τῆς ἀναστάσεως τῆς ἐκ νεκρῶν, “being accounted worthy to attain the
future Æon and the Resurrection from the dead,” and is really a direct parallel
to them.1 [Note: Cf. the phrase common in Rabbinic writings: “To be worthy of
the future Æon” (see Dalman, Worte Jesu, p. 97). J. Weiss (op. cit., p. 107 f.)
is justified in emphasising the connection at many points between Jesus’
conception of the Kingdom of God and that of theαἰὼν μέλλων.] We need scarcely
observe that its bearing is wholly future. This may also be said of its
employment in 1 Corinthians 15:24, a passage which will demand careful
consideration later on. To the same category must be referred those statements
of the apostle which speak of an “inheriting” of the Kingdom. Such are- 1
Corinthians 6:9, “Know ye not that unrighteous men shall not inherit the Kingdom
of God”; Galatians 5:21, “They that do such things shall not inherit the Kingdom
of God”; Ephesians 5:5, “Every fornicator, or impure person, or covetous man …
hath not an inheritance in the Kingdom, of Christ and of God”; 1 Corinthians
15:50, “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God.” This last example
clearly shows the sense in which St Paul uses the term, which is evidently that
of the future epoch of the consummation, the era of a new and spiritual order of
existence.2 [Note: See also Wernle, Reichsgotteshoffnung, pp. 2, 3.] Of
precisely similar significance are his words in Romans 8:17, although the term
“Kingdom” does not occur in that context: “If children, also heirs, heirs of
God, joint-heirs with Christ, if so be that we suffer with Him, that we may also
be glorified with Him.” This passage is so typical for another aspect of the
Kingdom in St Paul’s writings, that we must return to it. Meanwhile it is fair
to say that no one with any true appreciation of Paulinism can restrict the
apostle to the purely eschatological sense of the word, or the idea which it
embodies. Thus, in 1 Corinthians 4:20, he declares that “the Kingdom of God is
not in word, but in power,” and from the context it is plain that the “power” is
something not expected in the future, but now present, and capable of being put
to the proof. We may compare the answer of Jesus in reply to the Pharisees who
asked Him when the Kingdom of God should come: “The Kingdom of God cometh not
with observation (μετὰ παρατηρήσεως, practically = ‘as an event which causes a
sensation’).… For behold the Kingdom of God is within (or, ‘in the midst of,’
ἐντός) you” (Luke 17:20-21). This instance gives a suggestive hint as to St
Paul’s interpretation of the Synoptic tradition, with which he must have been
familiar; and it is corroborated by such affirmations as Romans 14:17, “The
Kingdom of God is not eating and drinking (the questions which had stirred up
controversy in the Christian brotherhood), but righteousness, and peace and joy
in the Holy Spirit; for he that in this matter serves Christ is well-pleasing to
God, and approved by men.” Here it is noteworthy that membership in the Kingdom
and serving Christ are deliberately identified. In Colossians 1:12-14, also, he
gives thanks to the Father, “who delivered us from the power of darkness, and
transferred (μετέστησεν) us into the Kingdom of the Son of his love, in whom we
have the redemption, the forgiveness of our sins.” The Kingdom, to his mind, is
obviously a realised fact, a sphere already existing. Perhaps he would call it
at its present stage, more strictly, the “Kingdom of Christ;”1 [Note: J. WEISS
SUPPOSES THAT THE IDEA OF AΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΑ ΤΟῦ ΧΡΙΣΤΟῦ, AS DISTINCT FROMΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΑ ΤΟῦ
ΘΕΟῦ, IS “A PRIMITIVE-CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION FOUND IN THE NEW TESTAMENT, FIRST IN
PAUL, AND NOT IN THE TEACHING OF JESUS” (OP. CIT., P. 41). THIS IS PRECISELY
WHAT MIGHT BE EXPECTED, AND IS QUITE IN LINE WITH THE METHOD OF JESUS’
SELF-REVELATION, AS DESCRIBED IN THE SYNOPTISTS. IF IT WERE NECESSARY, THE ROOTS
OF THE TWO CONCEPTIONS COULD BE TRACED BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. THE ONE, AS
DALMAN POINTS OUT, “ATTACHES ITSELF TODaniel 7:14; Daniel 7:27, WHERE THE
DOMINION IS GIVEN FIRST TO THE ‘SON OF MAN,’ THEN TO THE SAINTS OF THE HIGHEST.
THE OTHER RESTS ONDaniel 2:44, ACCORDING TO WHICH ‘THE GOD OF HEAVEN’ WILL AT
THE END SET UP AN EVERLASTING ‘DOMINION,’ WHICH DESTROYS ALL OTHER DOMINIONS”
(WORTE JESU, P. 109).] that would explain the remarkable utterance of 1
Corinthians 15:24, “Then the end, when He shall have delivered up the Kingdom to
His God and Father.”

Some scholars (e.g. Bornemann on 2 Thessalonians 1:5) endeavour to account for
the comparative rarity of the term in the Epistles, by supposing that all the
time the idea lay in the background of the apostle’s thought, and that the
Christian communities to which he wrote were so familiar with it from his oral
teaching, and so ready to take it for granted, that it required no direct
emphasis. We cannot say that such an hypothesis carries conviction. It is hard
to reconcile with the method of St Paul. His favourite conceptions are not kept
in the background, but have a habit of asserting themselves with remarkable
prominence throughout his writings. We are far more inclined to believe that the
idea of the Kingdom, which was certainly very familiar to him, has been clothed
by St Paul in various guises. And these are not difficult to identify, as we
shall discover. The fact must be related to the teaching of Jesus Himself. We
have already pointed out that the bare conception of the Kingdom does not
suffice to contain all the breadth and depth of the revelation of Jesus. Again
and again, for example, He uses the idea of the family to express the highest
relationship between God and men. It is scarcely necessary to give instances,
but we may refer to such well-known passages as Matthew 7:9-11; Matthew 11:25
f., 5:43-48, 6:1-8; Luke 15:11 f. Here it is not the relation of ruler and
subjects which He has in view, but that of father and children. Titius, indeed,
endeavours to show that in the East there is no sharp distinction between the
State and the family, and accordingly, that when Jesus speaks of God’s fatherly
relation to men, the thought of the Kingdom is still implied. In proof of his
position, he quotes the remarkable phrase, “the children of the Kingdom,” which
occurs in Matthew 8:12; Matthew 13:38 (p. 32). We would not deny that there is
some force in the contention. But the very fact that the kingdom-idea has to be
so enlarged as to become virtually a different (although it may be a related)
conception, verifies our position. The example we have chosen is most suggestive
for St Paul, as revealing one of the highest aspects in which he has remodelled
the kingdom-idea, possibly on the basis of the teaching of Jesus. In the words
which were quoted from Romans 8:17, “If children, then heirs, heirs of God,
joint-heirs with Christ,” the apostle brings the two related thoughts into
intimate connection. The position of “children of God” is attained by the
reception of the Spirit. The Spirit teaches the believer in whom He dwells to
cry, “Abba, Father” (ver. 15). The Spirit attests their own conviction that they
are children of God (ver. 16). None other than children can inherit the future,
eternal Kingdom. This passage shows how the central teaching of the apostle, his
teaching on the Spirit and the sonship (υἱοθεσία) of believers, may be directly
related to the idea of the Kingdom. But a further evidence of the form in which
the idea possessed him is to be found in his doctrine of the Lordship (κυριότης)
of Christ. This, for St Paul, is no mere title of adoration. Its typical
significance appears in the designation which he frequently gives himself in the
opening sentences of his Epistles, δοῦλος Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ. It is shown also by
such utterances as Romans 12:11, τῷ κυρίῳ δουλεύοντες; Colossians 3:24, τῷ κυρίῳ
Χριστῷ δουλεύετε. Here we touch the very root of the matter. For the apostle,
the idea of the Kingdom is really concentrated in the person of the exalted
Christ. He is Lord of the realm of His δοῦλοι. They prove their membership in
His Kingdom by serving Him faithfully. In the end they shall receive “the
recompense of the inheritance” (ἀπὸ κυρίου ἀπολήμψεσθε τὴν ἀνταπόδοσιν τῆς
κληρονομίας, Colossians 3:24, quoted above). As Feine well sums it up, “The
reason why Paul did not carry on Jesus’ preaching of the Kingdom is given in 2
Corinthians 1:20 : ‘Howsoever many are the promises of God, in Him is their yea’
” (Jesus Christus u. Paulus, p. 172). But to realise the profoundness with which
the apostle conceives the idea of the Kingdom, from the point of view which has
been illustrated by our last quotations, we must refer to his far-reaching
doctrine of the Body of Christ, the unity and mutual service of the members of
the ἐκκλησία in the exalted Lord, their life-principle and Head.1 [Note: Thus,
e.g., Kaftan holds that St Paul really continues Jesus’ preaching of the
Kingdom, in the emphasis he lays on the fellowship of life which believers share
with the glorified Christ (see Das Wesen d. christlichen Religion,2 p. 253).]
New Testament theology has been too apt to lay exclusive stress on the
individualism of St Paul. And truly, in his great conceptions of the genesis of
the Divine life in the soul, and the liberty of the Christian man, that aspect
of his thought can scarcely be over-estimated. But the liberty, based on a
genuinely personal relation to Christ the Redeemer and Revealer of the Father,
carries with it immense responsibilities, responsibility as regards the brethren
(the members of the same elect family or society) for whom Christ died, and in
mutual interaction with them, direct responsibility to the Lord Himself. Full
justice must be done to those momentous passages, occurring with growing
frequency as his life advances, in which the apostle earnestly reminds his
readers of the duties of the “members” to the “body” (see Romans 12:1-21; Romans
13:1-14; Romans 14:1-23; Romans 15:1-6; 1 Corinthians 12:1-31; 1 Corinthians
13:1-13; 1 Corinthians 14:1-40; Colossians 1:13-23; Colossians 2:18-19;
Ephesians 1:9-10; Ephesians 1:22-23; Ephesians 2:18-22; Ephesians 4:1-24), and
exults in the unifying of all jarring elements through the possession of the
same Spirit in the one Lord and Head.

Throughout our discussion we have been mainly occupied with the eschatological
conceptions of St Paul in their bearing upon individuals, and that aspect must
at no stage be allowed to slip out of view. But we must also leave room for the
broader sweep of his spiritual vision. We must avoid one-sidedness in the
presentation of the apostle’s thought, by emphasising the loftier flights of his
religious intuition. The Pauline doctrine of the New Life and of the πνεῦμα, its
creative principle, has been examined at length. We have attempted to follow the
development of the πνευματικοί up to that stage at which they are raised from
the dead by the power of God, through the instrumentality of the indwelling
Spirit. From the time of resurrection, at all events, they possess a σῶμα
πνευματικόν, which is the fitting organism and expression of their
Divinely-imparted life. This crucial event, with all its accompaniments, is
placed in intimate connection with the Parousia of the Saviour and the final
Judgment of mankind. We must now inquire, What is to be the culminating
experience, according to St Paul’s view, of those who belong to Christ, who
possess the pledge of the Spirit? Their future condition is described by the
apostle under various vivid pictures. One of the most significant represents
them as transformed into the image (εἰκών) of Christ (2 Corinthians 3:18; Romans
8:29; cf.1 John 3:2, “It doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that,
when He shall appear, we shall be like Him,” ὅμοιοι αὐτῷ). We can discover the
profound sense which belongs to this term from its use in Colossians 1:15 : “Who
(i.e. Christ) is the Image (εἰκών) of the invisible God, the First-begotten of
every creature” (or, “all creation,” πάσης κτίσεως). Here, plainly, εἰκών has a
cosmic significance. It bears a relation to the Divine purpose in the universe
from the beginning. It is normative for the whole Divine self-expression which
we call “creation.” Not mere semblance is implied in St Paul’s use of εἰκών, but
semblance resting on identity of nature, community of being. Thus for believers
the apostle expects not only fellowship with Christ, but a real assimilation to
His Divine nature. That expectation is expressed in clear language by the
remarkable statement of Php 3:21, which asserts that Christ “shall transform the
body of our humiliation (the σῶμα σάρκινον or ψυχικόν) into conformity with
(σύμμορφον) the body of His glory (σῶμα τῆς δόξης αὐτοῦ = σῶμα πνευματικόν),
according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things to
Himself.” In this passage, as has already been noticed, σῶμα does not mean mere
form, but the form which corresponds to the inner principle of life, the
self-realising, self-revealing nature. The same event or experience he
designates in Romans 8:23 by the words, “the redemption of our body” (τὴν
ἀπολύτρωσιν τοῦ σώματος ἡμῶν; cf.Ephesians 1:14, ἀπολύτρωσιν τῆς περιποιήσεως,
“redemption of that which has been acquired,” illustrated by Acts 20:28, τὴν
ἐκκλησίαν τοῦ θεοῦ, ἣν περιεποίησατο διὰ τοῦ αἵματος τοῦ ἰδιόυ, “which He
purchased by His own blood”).1 [Note: Perhaps the phrase may be a reminiscence
ofPsalms 74:2,μνήσθητι τῆς συναγωγῆς σου ἦς ἐκτήσω ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς· ἐλυτρώσω ῥάβδον
κληρονομίας σου: “Remember Thy congregation which Thou didst purchase from the
beginning: Thou didst redeem the staff of Thine inheritance.”] The phrase is
typical of his manner of thought. A redemption of the soul would not satisfy
him. He cannot conceive a true personal life on that basis. It must be a
redemption of the whole person as a unity. And he finds a basis of certainty for
that high prospect in the experience of the risen Lord, who cannot be regarded
as a mere disembodied, glorified Spirit, but has been exalted in the
glorification of His whole nature, His Spirit (the πνεῦμα ἁγιωσύνης) controlling
all things, and yet endowed with an organism which preserves the continuity of
His human nature, and is the perfectly appropriate embodiment of His Spirit,
which is the “Ego.” But that is the nature in which He became incarnate, so
conferring unique dignity on human life, and claiming the creation of God for
its Creator. This claim is now, in very deed, to be made good, made good in Him
who is “the First-begotten among many brethren” (Romans 8:29). In Him human
creatures are to become truly sons of God, for His Spirit which the believer
receives is the “spirit of sonship” (πνεῦμα υἱοθεσίας, Romans 8:15; Galatians
4:5-6), which remoulds the whole nature into fitness for a place in the Divine
Family.

It has been noted in a former chapter, as a fundamental axiom of eschatological
thought, that “the End is to be as the Beginning.” Thus, in 4 Ezra 7:30, we read
that at the opening of the new epoch “the world shall be transformed into the
silence of the primitive time, for seven days, as in the beginning.” One of the
questions which Baruch puts to God is, “Shall the structure of the world return
to its original nature?” (Apoc. Bar. iii. 7). And Enoch tells how the angel
Uriel showed him all the laws of the heavenly lights and all the divisions of
time, “until the new eternally-enduring creation is made” (Enoch lxxii. 1). The
Christian Father, Barnabas, expresses the conception distinctly, ἰδού, ποιῶ τὰ
ἔσχατα ὡς τὰ πρῶτα (6:13). It is easy to dismiss this axiom as part of an
artificial scheme, devised by apocalyptic writers for the sake of securing a
rounded-off completeness in their speculations on the Last Things. But the
attitude of the apostle reveals the kernel of truth which lies within. Through
the defacing influence of sin, humanity has failed of its high purpose in the
Divine mind. It has failed to show forth the untarnished glory of its Divine
source. Man’s God-given power of free choice has issued in disobedience to the
Highest. But that is not the conclusion of the whole matter:

“My own hope is a sun will pierce The thickest cloud earth ever stretched; That
after Last returns the First, Tho’ a wide compass round be fetched; That what
began best, can’t end worst, Nor what God blessed once, prove accurst.”

(Browning, Apparent Failure, vii.) The Second Adam, who is from heaven, has
become the Founder of a renewed humanity-not its Founder, as standing apart from
it, and looking upon His work in aloofness, but as having brought the Divine
into a relation of intimacy with it, in full accord with the original purpose of
God. As the εἰκών of the Invisible God, as having eternal relations to the
Father, Christ is essentially the πρωτότοκος πάσης κτίσεως, “the First-begotten
of every created thing,” its norm and type, that which sets for it its true end,
“for in Him were created all things in heaven and on earth … all things have
been created through Him, and with a view to (εἰς) Him” (Colossians 1:15-16).1
[Note: Cf. and contrast Philo, De Confus. Ling. 146, C.W.:κἄν μηδέπω μέντοι
τυγχάνῃ τις ἀξιόχρεως ὢν υἱὸς θεοῦ προσαγορεύεσθαι, σπουδαζέτω κοσμεῖσθαι κατὰ
τὸν πρωτόγονον αὐτοῦ λόγον.] Here we discover what, for the apostle’s mind, is
His essential cosmic significance. But now this significance has been unveiled
to men, can be understood by humanity in the new creation (בְּרִיתחֲדָשָׁה in
Rabbinic literature, see Weber, p. 382, καινὴ κτίσις in St Paul, e.g.Galatians
6:15), of which Christ, as perfected and carrying with Him all the fruits of His
redemptive work, is the life-giving principle, for He is “the beginning (ἀρχή,
basis, precisely = our “first principle”), the First-begotten (πρωτότοκος, same
term as above) from the dead (the aspect which bulks most largely in the
apostle’s vision), in order that He might become (γένηται, for Christ’s glorious
position as exalted κύριος is always represented by St Paul as the culmination
of the process which the Epistle to the Hebrews calls the τελείωσις) of the
first rank (πρωτεύων) among all” (ἐν πᾶσιν, no doubt purposely left indefinite,
including every province of creation), Colossians 1:18. The Incarnation, the
accomplishment of His redeeming purpose through death, the Resurrection, all
these processes and events were needful to disclose to men the marvellous aim of
God, and to begin the realisation of the aim on the stage of human history. We
can discern, therefore, what lofty heights of thought lie around St Paul’s
conception of the future of redeemed humanity. These, indeed, are only
adumbrated in such expressions as transformation into the εἰκών of Christ,
conformation to the body of His glory; but in view of what he has outlined in
Colossians and elsewhere, we can discover that they involve perfect assimilation
to the very nature of God. That this will include a transfiguration of the
material, is plain from the apostle’s confident expectation of the ἀπολύτρωσις
τοῦ σώματος, the redemption of the body, a redemption which, as we shall see
later, extends to universal creation (Romans 8:18-23). Hence St Paul, in face of
the marvellous vision which bursts upon his soul, gives thanks to the Father,
“who hath made you capable (ἱκανώσαντι) of your share (τὴν μερίδα) in the
heritage (τοῦ κλήρου)1 [Note: Cf. Enoch lxviii. 7: “For he (i.e. the Son of Man)
shall preserve the portion of the righteous.” “ ‘To take possession of the
future Æon’ (κληρονομεῖν) is a favourite Jewish expression, whose use can be
proved from the end of the first century onwards” (see Dalman, Worte Jesu, p.
102 f., where numerous examples and parallels are given from Old Testament and
apocalyptic literature; and also Volz, p. 306).] of the saints in light” (ἐν
φωτί), Colossians 1:12. This description, which focusses in itself various hints
to be found throughout the Epistles, calls now for consideration. We have had
occasion in previous chapters to notice St Paul’s predilection for describing
the condition of future bliss by terms which imply brightness and radiance. In
estimating the effect of his conversion-experience upon the shaping of his
eschatological conceptions, we briefly sketched the Old Testament basis of his
idea of δόξα, “glory”; an idea which plays so prominent a part in his forecasts
of the life to come. We saw that God’s revealed presence, was constantly
designated His “glory,” as, e.g., in Isaiah’s vision of “the Lord sitting upon a
throne, high and lifted up,” the Seraphim cry to one another, “Holy, holy, holy
is the Lord of Hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory” (Isaiah 6:3). Yet
almost always, the overpowering sense of radiance which is created by His
presence in those who realise it, is accompanied by a no less irresistible
impression of His unchanging and unceasing might, the energy which is the
self-expression of the living God. His whole environment is one of glory in the
senses named. “They shall speak of the glory of Thy kingdom, and talk of Thy
power” (Psalms 145:2). “Who is this King of glory? The Lord of Hosts, He is the
King of glory” (Psalms 24:10). “Let them praise the name of the Lord … His glory
is above the earth and heaven” (Psalms 148:13). The conception is especially
prominent in Isaiah 40:1-31; Isaiah 41:1-29; Isaiah 42:1-25; Isaiah 43:1-28;
Isaiah 44:1-28; Isaiah 45:1-25; Isaiah 46:1-13; Isaiah 47:1-15; Isaiah 48:1-22;
Isaiah 49:1-26; Isaiah 50:1-11; Isaiah 51:1-23; Isaiah 52:1-15; Isaiah 53:1-12;
Isaiah 54:1-17; Isaiah 55:1-13; Isaiah 56:1-12; Isaiah 57:1-21; Isaiah 58:1-14;
Isaiah 59:1-21; Isaiah 60:1-22; Isaiah 61:1-11; Isaiah 62:1-12; Isaiah 63:1-19;
Isaiah 64:1-12; Isaiah 65:1-25; Isaiah 66:1-24, where the glory of the Lord is
virtually equivalent to His saving revelation (see, e.g., Isaiah 40:5; Isaiah
60:1; Isaiah 06:2). In the postcanonical literature we can trace the idea in
certain concrete and closely-related forms. On the one hand, “glory” is used as
a description of the Divine presence and sphere of existence. On the other, it
is the designation of that future bliss which awaits the righteous, who are thus
conceived as sharing in the condition of God. Examples of the former are, 4 Ezra
7:78, “Then the spirit severs itself from the body, and returns to Him who has
given it, in order to do reverence before the glory of the Highest”; ibid., 91,
“At first they behold with pure delight the glory of Him who takes them to
Himself.” Closely related is the phrase which accurs repeatedly in Enoch, “the
throne of His glory,” e.g., Leviticus 4:1-35, lxi. 8. For the latter, we may
refer to Apoc. Bar. xv. 8, “This world is for them trouble and labour, with much
strenuousness, and that which is to come a crown with great glory”; xlviii. 49,
“I will tell of their blessedness, and will not be silent in praising their
glory, which is kept prepared for them”; 4 Ezra 8:51, “Do thou rather reflect on
thine own lot, and inquire into the glory which thy brethren are to inherit”;
and cf. Enoch lviii. 3, “The righteous shall be in the light of the sun, and the
elect in the light of eternal life.” The Rabbinic literature contains the same
line of thought. Thus in the world to come (Olam Habbâ), the righteous shall sit
with crowns on their heads, and enjoy the radiance of the Shekinah (i.e., the
localised presence of God, an idea prevalent in the Targums). From the
brightness of the Divine glory there streams forth a brilliance which the
Targums and Talmud name זִיו. This effulgence fills the heavenly spaces (Weber,
pp. 160, 385). In the Messianic age, God’s presence is shown by the glory which
rests on the face of each person (., 304).1 [Note: For the equivalent in Hebrew
and Jewish literature of the terms “face,” “form,” and “glory” of Jehovah, see
Cheyne, Origin of Psalter, p. 431, note p. He refers especially to the very
significant passage,Exodus 33:18ff.] These terms implying radiance and
splendour, of which “glory” is a typical instance, have taken a permanent place
in the Christian vocabulary, and we all make constant use of them without
realising their full content. Perhaps it belongs to the common sense of
Christian experience to preserve a certain margin of vagueness and mystery in
their usage. But probably we lose something by ignoring their linguistic basis,
and the origin of their existence in our religious terminology. We speak of “the
saints in glory.” We sing- “Ten thousand times ten thousand, In sparkling
raiment bright; The armies of the ransomed saints,

Throng up the steeps of light.”2 [Note: Cf. in the Avesta, Yast xxii. 15, which
describes the soul of the righteous, after death, as coming, with the fourth
step it takes, into the “unending light”; while that of the ungodly (according
to Yast xxii. 33) comes into the “unending darkness” (see Böklen, op. cit., p.
60.) “Heaven is represented, above all, as the abode of light (Yast iii. 1;
Yasna xix. 6; Vendîdâd xxii. 1), and light is used in a figurative as well as in
its proper sense” (Söderblom, op. cit., pp. 97, 98).] No words of the New
Testament come so readily to our lips, when we speak of the future state of the
redeemed, as those which place them in the environment of pure radiance.
Probably, if we were asked to define more strictly what we meant-e.g., by the
glory we assign to departed believers, we should translate it into
“blessedness,” “felicity,” “perfect rest,” and the like. But it is possible, by
a study of the apostolic terms, to penetrate deeper into the conception. St Paul
does not employ those expressions at random. When he speaks, as above, of “the
heritage of the saints in light,” he has, we believe, a more or less definite
conception before his mind-that conception whose Hebrew and Jewish background we
have endeavoured to fill in. But it seems to us to stand closer to the Old
Testament than to Judaistic literature. The latter, when it speaks of the
“glory” of God, emphasises rather what we may call the sensuous side of the
idea. It thinks of the condition of radiance which characterises the Divine
sphere of existence. The Old Testament keeps ever in the forefront the Divine
might and energy, of which the radiance is the symbol.1 [Note: See Grill,
Untersuchungen, i. p. 274.] We can easily discover St Paul’s main thought by
looking at one or two instances. In Colossians 1:11 the phrase occurs,
“strengthened with all power, according to the might of His glory.” Here κράτος,
“might” is singled out as the content of the δόξα of God, in its bearing upon
believers. The very same idea is found most vividly in Ephesians 3:16, “That He
might grant unto you to be strengthened with power, according to the riches of
His glory through His Spirit in your inner man.” Here there is an addition of
great importance, consisting in the intimate connection indicated between δόξα
and πνεῦμα. And a remarkable feature of that side of the conception is presented
by Romans 6:4, “as Christ was raised from the dead through (διά) the glory of
the Father.” It is needless to observe in these passages how prominently the
element of might in δόξα discloses itself. Yet the apostle does not leave out of
sight the thought of God’s self-revelation, as a revelation, although with the
utmost skill and insight, he takes care to avoid all materialistic conceptions.
It is important to look at his use of δόξα in the third and fourth chapters of 2
Corinthians, for that is characteristic of its significance for his mind, in its
related shades of meaning. He speaks in chap. 3:7 of the “glory” of Moses’
countenance as he came forth from communion with God, a glory which the children
of Israel could not gaze upon; so that their leader was obliged to veil his
face. But this was a fading reflection, and he adds the comment that the very
reason why they were not to look upon that glory was its transiency (3:13). In
contrast to that experience of Old Testament times, St Paul places the
experience of the Christian dispensation in which “we all, with unveiled
countenance, reflecting as in a mirror1 [Note: The mirrors of the ancients were
of metal, and so gave forth a blurred and broken image.] (or, beholding as in a
mirror) the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image (εἰκόνα), from
glory to glory, inasmuch as (this influence proceeds) from the Lord the Spirit”
(3:18, καθάπερ ἀπὸ κυρίου πνεύματος). Quite evidently this δόξα, which is the
aim and result of the believer’s transformation even now, is the direct effect
of the Spirit, is that change which the Spirit produces. It is, for the present,
a process going on in the inner man (εἰς τὸν ἔσω ἄνθρωπον, Ephesians 3:16,
sup.), that is to say, a wholly spiritual process, none other than the imparting
of the life and might of God. To make this doubly clear, he has inserted the
word κυρίου, the exalted Lord. Here, plainly, there is no thought of anything
sensible, any visible semblance. That is also true of his remarkable utterance
in chap. 4:3, 4: “Now if our Gospel is indeed hidden, in the case of the
perishing it is hidden, in whom the God of this age blinded the thoughts of the
unbelieving, so that the enlightening (φωτισμόν) of the Gospel of the glory of
Christ (who is the εἰκών of God) should not irradiate (αὐγάσαι) them.” Believers
have a contrary experience. “It is the God, who said, Light shall shine out of
darkness (Genesis 1:3), who shone in our hearts with a view to (πρός) the
enlightening of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (4:6).
But it must be noticed that in 3:18 he speaks of the transformation of believers
as a process which passes through various stages. It is ἀπὸ δόξης εἰς δόξαν. 1
[Note: Schmiedel (ad loc.) comparesPsalms 84:7: “They go from strength to
strength, every one of them in Zion appeareth before God.”] The present stage is
confined to what we, from the point of view of our earthly, physical existence,
must call “the inner man.” But, as we have seen, St Paul looks forward to a time
when the conditions of life shall be altered, and the renewed spirit shall have
complete control of its organism, its individualising σῶμα. Then it will have
reached the final stage of δόξα. That means complete assimilation to Him whom he
calls κύριος τῆς δόξης, “the Lord of glory.” It is perhaps easier to see now why
he is so fond of using Light and its associated ideas to set forth the great
effects of the indwelling of the Spirit. We have had occasion repeatedly to
refer to his conception of the exalted Christ as clothed in a “body of glory”
(esp. Php 3:21). It has also been pointed out that the impression made upon him
by the “vision” on the Damascus road was one of overpowering radiance. Hence,
while great caution is needful, lest we should attribute crassly literalistic
notions to St Paul for which there is no warrant, the evidence seems to justify
us in affirming that he believed the σῶμα πνευματικόν, the organised condition
of the believer as finally conformed to his Lord, to possess a character of
radiance which he never attempts more closely to define, a radiance which
distinguishes the self-expression, if we may say so, of the Divine πνεῦμα. In
this way we can understand more clearly such phrases as that from which our
discussion started, the description of the future condition of blessedness as
“the inheritance of the saints in light.” They are not wholly metaphorical,
although the nature of the “glory,” which is their most characteristic feature,
is left entirely uninvestigated. They rest on a conception which has shaped
itself in St Paul’s mind (and probably the minds of other apostles)1 [Note: Cf.
the narratives of the Transfiguration of Jesus, in which occur the vivid
expressions:ἔλαμψεν τὸ πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ ὡς ὁ ἥλιος, τὰ δὲ ἰμάτια αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο
λευκὰ ὡς τὸ φῶς(Matthew 17:2);τὰ ἱμάτια αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο στίλβοντα λευκὰ λίαν(Mark
9:3). In Luke, His raiment is described asἐξαστράπτων, “coruscating,” and His
heavenly visitants are spoken of asὀφθέντες ἐν δόξῃ(Luke 9:29; Luke 9:31).] as
the result of personal, spiritual experiences, and in harmony with the Old
Testament pictures of Theophanies (cf., e.g., Ezekiel 1:4 ff.; Psalms 18:7-13;
Psalms 50:1-3, etc.), in which no symbol seemed so appropriately to set forth
the combined brilliance and energy of the Divine self-manifestation as that of
light or fire.1 [Note: In our judgment, it is needless to expect any real light
on St Paul’s conception of the future condition of believers from the mysterious
words of2 Corinthians 12:1-4. He himself acknowledges that the experience which
he describes asἁρπαγέντα…ἕως τρίτου οὐρανοῦandἡρπάγη εἰς τὸν παράδεισον, was an
ecstatic one (“whether in the body or outside the body, I know not”).
Certainlyπαράδεισος, in this passage, must mean, as it often does in Judaistic
literature, a part of heaven itself, for theἄρρηταῥήματαcan be none other than
the words of God. Cf. Sibyl. Orac, prooem. 85, 86:ζωὴν κληρονομοῦσι, τὸν αἰῶνος
χρόνον αὐτοὶ οἰκοῦντες παράδεισον ὄμως ἐριθηλέα κῆπον. Probably Paradise is here
pictured as in the “third heaven” (see Gebhardt in Luthardt’s Zeitschr., 1886,
p. 569, who gives cogent reasons for holding that St Paul here understands by
“the third heaven,” not the third of the Rabbinic series of seven heavens which
is = the cloud-heaven, but the highest sphere of heaven in the religious sense).
This is borne out by Slavon. Enoch viii. 1, 3, 8: “And these men took me from
thence and brought me to the third heaven, and placed me in the midst of a
garden (cf.κῆπονabove), a place such as has never been known for the goodliness
of its appearance.… And in the midst (there is) the tree of life, in that place
in which God rests when He comes into Paradise. And I said: ‘What a very blessed
place is this.’ ” Cf. Enoch lx. 8: “On the east of the garden, where the elect
and righteous dwell.” Bousset traces the root of St Paul’s ecstatic experiences
to his Rabbinic past (Archiv f. Religionswiss. iv. 2-144 ff.).] As the apostle
pictures that future kingdom of redeemed believers, all transfigured into the
likeness of their Redeemer and Head, the whole scene glows and quivers with
radiant splendour.2 [Note: Cf. Philo, De Josepho, 146, C. W., who describes the
nature of heaven as “an eternal day without night and without shadow, for it is
lighted by inextinguishable and unalterably pure radiance”; 4 Ezra 7:42 (of Day
of Judgment), “Not mid-day or night or dawn, not gleam or brightness or shining,
but wholly and alone the radiance of the glory of the Most High.” (See also
Enoch lviii. 3 f., already quoted.) According to the Persian religion, men shall
cast no shadow in heaven (see Böklen, op. cit., p. 135). In a hymn of praise to
Ahuza-Mazda, the worshippers speak of a time when, “united with parents and
family, under trees through which a green-gold light sparkles, we solemnly move
with rhythmic motions” (see F. Justi, Preuss. Jahrbücher, lxxxviii. H. 2, p.
243). See the splendid vision of the Light of Paradise, in Dante’s Paradiso,
xxx. 100 ff. (Cary), “the yellow of the rose-perennial, which, in bright
expansion, lays forth its gradual blooming, redolent of praises to the
never-wintering sun.”] Is there an obverse side to this glorious picture? How
does St Paul deal with the future condition of those who have turned a deaf ear
to the appeal of the Gospel of Christ? It is of importance to notice that when
he does treat of this awe-inspiring subject, he has almost exclusively before
his mind those who have actually rejected the word of salvation. Indeed, the
only passage where he deliberately takes a larger view is peculiarly
interesting, as revealing the remarkable breadth and scope of his thought. “For
when-soever the heathen, which have not the law, do by nature the things of the
law, they, although not having the law, are a law unto themselves, inasmuch as
they show forth the effect (τὸ ἔργον) of the law written on their hearts”
(Romans 2:14-15). This is an extraordinary standpoint for a man brought up in
“the straitest sect of the Pharisees.” In general, however, he restricts his
outlook. And surely with reason, for he writes, not as a dogmatic theologian,
who must handle each element in the situation, and mutually adjust them, but as
a devoted missionary concerned about the special needs of some Christian
community, and his letters have always to be regarded, in the first instance, as
genuine missionary-documents.1 [Note: The emphasising of this fact (sometimes
unduly) is one of P. Wernle’s great services to the interpretation of early
Christian thought.]

Some exegetes have endeavoured to demonstrate, mainly on the basis of 1
Corinthians 15:21-22; 1 Corinthians 15:28; Romans 5:12-21; and the obscure
passage, Ephesians 1:10, that St Paul has the conception of a universal
salvation. Passing by the last-cited reference in the meantime, let us attempt
to reach the apostle’s meaning in the other sections named. To begin with, it is
of supreme importance to interpret any isolated affirmations of a writer in the
light of his general view of things, so far as that can be gathered from his
writings as a whole. Now, whatever difficulty there may be in mutually adjusting
some of the less essential details in St Paul’s religious teaching (and we have
in our discussion been confronted by some of these perplexities) he is certainly
not a writer who leaves his readers in doubt on the central themes of his
Gospel. That Gospel is pre-eminently a setting-forth of the method of human
salvation, the indispensable conditions of eternal life. These conditions have
burst in upon the apostle with all the force of an epoch-making revelation. If
anywhere he feels sure of his ground, it is here. Accordingly, he makes as plain
as the terms he employs can make them the spiritual processes by which a human
soul is justified in the sight of God, is united to the living and exalted Lord,
and receives the supernatural gift of the Holy Spirit. Apart from these saving
momenta, if we may so describe them, he has no conception of salvation at all.
As to a period of probation after death, in which these redemptive
opportunities, neglected during earthly existence, might again be offered and
seized, he says not a single word. In fact, as we have noted, the idea of an
Intermediate State is one which seems never to have appealed to him, and it is
ignored as of secondary importance. Yet, if it were a condition which appeared
to him in any way to make feasible the redemption of those who, in blindness,
refused the grace of God while living their present life, we can scarcely
conceive that so large-hearted a missionary as St Paul, who yearned with a
surpassing ardour for the salvation of his fellows, should fail at least to
express some faint hopes of a possible restoration of such as had died without
God and without Christ in the world. Plainly, the main outlines of his doctrinal
teaching leave no place for, and suggest no approximation to, a theory of
universal salvation. We are quite alive to the force of such passages as Php
2:9-11, “Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him the name that
is above every name, that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow … and that
every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord”; and Colossians 1:19-20
(a true parallel), “It pleased the Father that in Him should all fulness dwell;
and having made peace through the blood of His cross, by Him to reconcile all
things unto Himself.” The apostle, it seems to us, is quite clear as to the
universal scope of the Divine purpose of mercy. But he realises also that there
are proud and perverse wills which steadfastly refuse to bow to that purpose.1
[Note: See, e.g., Ménégoz, Le Péché et la Rédemption d’après St Paul, pp.
131-133, 143, 144.]

Just as little is any such theory to be found in those paragraphs of the
Epistles which are usually quoted for it. Let us consider 1 Corinthians
15:21-22, in the first instance, as here he is specially occupied with the
experience of death and a future life: “For seeing that by man (came) death, by
man also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ
all shall be made alive.” These verses must on no account be isolated from their
context. Solitary proof-texts have wrought more havoc in theology than all the
heresies. St Paul has just declared that Christ is the first-fruits of them that
have fallen asleep (verse 20). He never applies κοιμᾶσθαι to any but believers.
Here he states that Christ, as risen, is the first and choicest sheaf reaped of
that which is to be a glorious harvest of risen souls. And then he turns to his
favourite contrast of the first and second heads of the race. He was evidently
versed in that Adam-theology which seems to have been current in the Rabbinic
schools of the day, and more than once it supplies the framework of his
discussions.1 [Note: “As the sentences which Paul utters concerning the fall of
Adam and its meaning inRomans 5:11, are on precisely the same lines as those of
4 Ezra, Baruch, and the later Talmudic anthropology, we must affirm that already
in the first half of the first Christian century, the Adam-theology was
circulating in Rabbinic circles” (Bousset, Religion d. Judenthums, p. 389). See
also Bacher, op. cit., i. p. 36.] The comparison must obviously be taken in the
widest sense. “Through man, death; through man, resurrection of the dead.” In
these words there is no question as to the range embraced by the contrasted
experiences. But when he adds, “For as in Adam (τῷ Ἀδάμ, the head of the genus)
all die,” a fact which is universally admitted, he does not feel any necessity
for qualifying the “all” whom he has in view in the antithetical clause by such
additions as οἱ πιστεύσαντες or οἱ δικαιωθέντες (δεδικαιωμένοι). As a matter of
fact, the words of the clause are themselves sufficiently clear to prevent
misunderstanding. All his readers knew well enough what to be ἐν τῷ Χριστῷ meant
for the apostle. That is the central note of his theology, the pivot on which
everything hinges. And even if this were not sufficient proof, there is
abundance of further evidence in the verb ζωοποιηθήσονται. For this term only
applies to those who have received the gift of the πνεῦμα, those who in this
present have become “new creatures” (see 1 Corinthians 15:36; 1 Corinthians
15:45, Romans 8:11, where the ζωοποιεῖν is entirely dependent on the πνεῦμα
ἐνοικοῦν ἐν ὑμῖν. Cf. Charles, Eschatology, p. 391.) “In Adam,” we may
paraphrase the words, “all who belong to Adam’s family must die. Similarly, in
Christ, all who belong to Christ shall be made alive.” The passage in Romans is
almost an exact parallel to this. Here, again, the two heads and the two
families are before his mind. On Adam’s side, transgression, condemnation,
death; on the side of Christ, free gift of grace, justification, life. The
closest similarity is to be found in 5:19, “For as through the disobedience of
the one man the many were constituted sinners, so also by the obedience of the
one shall the many be constituted righteous.” It is evident that he is not
employing terms with any strictness, or he would have substituted πάντες (as in
verse 12) for πολλοί in the first clause. As it is, he uses πολλοί to correspond
to the second πολλοί, whom he already has in view. The same usage appears in
verse 5, where he only affirms that οἱ πολλοὶ ἄπεθανον, to bring the clause into
sharp contrast with “the many” who have enjoyed the free gift of God’s grace,
although a sentence or two before, in verse 10, he has deliberately affirmed,
εἰς πάντας ἀνθρώπους ὁ θάνατος διῆλθεν. But over and above these most valid
considerations, it happens that St Paul himself has supplied the materials for
the limitation which we are defending. For, in verse 17, the future victorious
life is restricted to οἱ τὴν περισσείαν τῆς χάριτος καὶ τῆς δωρεᾶς τῆς
δικαιοσύνης λαμβάνοντες, “those receiving the superabundance of grace and of the
gift of righteousness,” where the participle shows that he has in view those
whom he elsewhere designates οἱ σωζόμενοι. It is safe to conclude that no
definite and unmistakable traces of a universalistic doctrine are to be found in
the Pauline letters, while the whole content of his soteriology, as well as many
distinct affirmations, points the other way.1 [Note: Cf. Wernle, Anfänge, pp.
174, 175.]

There is a strange disproportion between St Paul’s treatment of the future
destiny of unbelievers and that accorded to it in modern times. And, looking at
the matter from the largest point of view, the advantage lies on the side of the
apostle. He was not possessed by any painful curiosity. He knew that he had
found eternal life in Christ Jesus. That fact gave its decisive basis to his
Eschatology. The influence upon his heart and mind of the crucified and risen
Messiah fixed for ever the point of emphasis in his outlook upon the future. He
was able to ignore many aspects of the Last Things on which Jewish and Christian
Apocalyptic had set great importance. To go to Christ, to be with Christ,
overshadowed all the accompaniments of the End. He knew that nothing could
separate His followers from the love of Christ in time or in eternity.2 [Note:
See this fact well brought by Bornemann in his introductory remarks on the
section,1 Thessalonians 4:17-18; 1 Thessalonians 5:1-10. “Felicity in the heaven
of Mazdeism consists above all in being with the Lord; ‘yes, in truth, in the
worlds where dwells the Lord’ ” (Yasna lxiii. 3), (Söderblom, op. cit. p. 101).]
Of what use, then, or profit could it be for him to speculate on the fate of
those who had rejected the choicest gift which had ever been offered them? What
possible value could accrue to the Christian communities whom he addressed in
his Epistles from any discussion of the penalties which awaited the stubborn and
disobedient? Doubtless he would sympathise with the words of 4 Ezra 9:13,
“Enquire not further how the ungodly are to be tormented, but rather investigate
the manner in which the righteous are to be saved.” One may even question
whether in his missionary preaching he laid strong emphasis on the doom of the
impenitent in comparison with that on the bliss of the redeemed. So much dearer
were the positive aspects of the Christian faith at all times to this man than
the negative.1 [Note: See Reuss, Histoire de la Théol. Chrét. ii. p. 237. In the
sacred books of Persia, also, a far deeper interest is shown in the journey of
the pious soul from earth to heaven than in the contrasted fate of the impious
(see Söderblom, op. cit., p. 86).]

Whatever be the precise reason, there is extraordinarily scanty material in the
writings of St Paul on which to build up anything like a detailed theory on this
most awe-inspiring of all subjects. Yet we cannot but believe that he has said
enough to permit of our drawing clear inferences of a more or less general kind.
The terms he employs to denote the fate of the unbelieving are: ὄλεθρος (1
Thessalonians 5:3; 2 Thessalonians 1:9), θάνατος (e.g., Romans 6:23; Romans
8:6), φθορά (Galatians 6:8), ἀπώλεια, ἀπόλλυσθαι (1 Corinthians 1:18; 1
Corinthians 10:9; 1 Corinthians 15:18; 2 Corinthians 2:15-16; 2 Corinthians 4:3;
Romans 2:12; Php 1:28; Php 3:18), ὀργή (e.g., 1 Thessalonians 5:9; Romans 2:5;
Romans 2:9; Romans 5:9). The last-named term applies strictly to the visitation
of sinners at the Day of Judgment. It expresses the reaction of God against
persistent sin. Necessarily it is an idea common to the other descriptions of
doom which have to be examined. These combine to form a group of conceptions
which have the one idea of “destruction” linking them together. In one instance
(2 Thessalonians 1:9), the much-debated adjective αἰώνιος is joined to ὄλεθρος.
In another (Php 3:18), St Paul speaks with tears (κλαίων) of some “whose end
(τέλος) is destruction” (ἀπώλεια; cf.Romans 6:21, τὸ γὰρ τέλος ἐκείνων θάνατος).
The two questions which have bulked most largely in modern discussions of the
problem before us are: (1) the nature, (2) the duration, of that experience
which the apostle habitually views as “destruction.” In a preceding chapter, in
dealing with St Paul’s conception of death, we endeavoured to show that this was
an experience which he never attempted to analyse. He looked at the fact
synthetically, and the thought of it filled him with horror. He felt no need of
further inquiry into the nature of death, as it visited those who did not
possess the life-giving (ζωοποιοῦν) Spirit of the living Lord. Their death could
only be regarded as sheer doom and disaster. Distinctions, such as “physical”
and “spiritual” in the sphere of death, possessed, as we saw, no significance
for the apostle. In a previous investigation, also, we sought to guard against
unwarranted deductions which might be drawn from his use of the terms ἀπώλεια,
ἀπόλλυσθαι (and cognates such as ὄλεθρος and φθορά). Destruction, like death,
means for St Paul paralysis of life: its negation, its undoing. For him it is
not a question of existence-that is to say, not a physical or even a
metaphysical problem. The problem belongs altogether to the religious sphere.
The use of ἀπώλεια (and its related terms) in the LXX. (which is of primary
importance in an inquiry like the present), or in ordinary Greek literature, by
no means connotes such ideas as that of annihilation or the extinction of
consciousness. Such speculations would have appeared meaningless to the apostle.
For him, as for Hebrews and Greeks alike, there would probably always remain in
the background the notion of a dreary, wretched existence, removed by the whole
infinitude of God from that which he designated “Life.” Hence, if we proceed to
ask how St Paul understood what is commonly termed the “punishment” of the
impenitent, it is sufficient to reply that he could conceive no more awful doom
than that of separation from God, that exclusion from the bliss of the heavenly
Kingdom, called by our Lord, τὸ σκότος τὸ ἐξώτερον, “the darkness outside,” in
contrast to the joy and brightness of the marriage-festival of the King (cf. Ps.
Sol. 14:6, “their inheritance is Hades and darkness and destruction” [see Volz,
pp. 284-285], and “the obscure world,” which is a designation of hell in the
Avesta, Vendîdâd 5, 62 [Söderblom, op. cit., p. 104]), which was involved in
ἀπώλεια, and made the condition of such persons one of hopeless ruin.1 [Note:
Contrast the “wise Agnosticism” (the phrase is Dr Orr’s in discussing the
teaching of Scripture on eternal punishment) of St Paul with the attempted
theories of the Synagogue-theologians (see Weber, pp. 327-330, 373-380). Philo’s
teaching as to the bliss of the righteous and the condemnation of the wicked is
tersely summed up by Volz, op. cit., pp. 143, 144.] It is because the modern
mind has failed rightly to estimate the meaning of “life” and “death,” for the
first Christians, and especially for St Paul, that it has exhausted its energies
in striving to extract from the New Testament a decisive verdict as to the
nature and conditions of future punishment.

We have noted that there are only two passages which explicitly shed any light
on the apostle’s idea of the duration of doom. In one, he speaks of a
“destruction” (ὄλεθρος) which is αἰώνιος (2 Thessalonians 1:9). In the other, he
describes a class of persons “whose end is destruction” (ἀπώλεια, Php 3:18). A
large number of expositors, of whom Farrar and Cox may be cited as leading
representatives; have expended a vast amount of ingenuity in the attempt to rid
the adjective αἰώνιος of its natural, and apart from this controversy,
invariably accepted sense, “eternal,” in the writings of the New Testament.
These discussions reveal with striking clearness the difference between the
early Christian and the modern standpoint. Yet, in our judgment, the evidence,
both detailed and general, tells completely against the modern hypothesis. We
know, for example, that in the metaphysical arguments of Plato, αἰώνιος is
synonymous with our term “eternal” (see, e.g., Timæ. 38 D, ἡ μὲν οὖν τοῦ ζώου
φύσις ἐτύγχανεν οὖσα αἰώνιος; Legg. 904 A, ἀνώλεθρον δὲ ὂν γενόμενον, ἀλλʼ οὐκ
αἰώνιον, ψυχὴν καὶ σῶμα). Aristotle, De Cælo, i. 9, 15, gives an interesting and
important definition of αἰών: “The limit (τὸ τέλος) which embraces the time of
each man’s life, outside of which there is nothing by nature, is named each
man’s epoch (αἰών). Similarly, the limit of the whole heaven, and that which
embraces all times and infinity (τὴν ἀπειρίαν) is αἰών, taking its name from ἀεὶ
εἶναι” (sic). We have referred to the philosophical usage, since this is so
frequently appealed to in exegetical discussions, although for our own part we
believe that such an appeal often confuses the issues, inasmuch as the apostolic
writers used the popular terminology of their day. Accordingly, when we turn to
the LXX., which reflects the colloquial language, we find the phrase, εἰς τὸν
αἰῶνα (or, εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας), employed as the equivalent of the idea which we
express by the English collocation, “for ever.” Now we quite readily admit that
αἰών and αἰώνιος may be used to express, not merely endless time, but longer
periods or epochs, as we commonly designate them. Thus, as Heinrici (on 1
Corinthians 10:11) observes, αἰών can be joined, e.g., with γενεά, generation
(see Colossians 1:26). In this aspect it passes over into the sense of κόσμος,
world; cf.Hebrews 1:2, “By whom also He made τοὺς αἰῶνας,” virtually, “the
worlds”; 11:3, “By faith we discern that τοὺς αἰῶνας (‘the worlds’) were framed
by the word of God.”1 [Note: See also Beet, Last Things, pp. 118-123.] This
phase of the meaning of αἰών has been laid hold of, and upon its basis has been
framed the adjective “æonial” (= “age-lasting”), a translation which has been
rashly supposed to solve the problem for the New Testament writers. But such an
interpretation in no sense alters the situation as we find it in St Paul. For
him, as for all his Jewish and Christian contemporaries (see, e.g., Volz, p.
270), the whole providential order of things is divided into two great epochs, ὁ
αἰὼν οὗτος, co-extensive with the present world, and evil, as not yet
subordinated to the Divine dominion (see, e.g., Romans 12:2, 1 Corinthians 1:20,
2 Corinthians 4:4, Galatians 1:4, etc.; οἱ αἰῶνες in 1 Corinthians 10:11,
probably from the idea of the present epoch being made up of a number of smaller
subdivisions of time), and ὁ αἰὼν ὁ μέλλων, the coming age, the era of the sway
of God, attained through the mediation of Christ. The actual phrase is only
found in St Paul’s writings in Ephesians 1:21, and the parallel, οἱ αἰῶνες οἱ
ἐπερχόμενοι, in Ephesians 2:7. He has preferred to substitute for it such
phrases as ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ (see Dalman, Worte Jesu, p. 120), or, what is
almost an equivalent, “eternal life.” We need not linger here over the various
and conflicting opinions which prevailed in Jewish thought as to the point of
time at which the αἰὼν μέλλων (עוֹלָםהַבָּא) should begin. An admirable account
of these, terse and yet adequate, may be found in Marti, Geschichte d. Israelit.
Religion, pp. 295-299. The one epoch, in St Paul’s view, is drawing on towards
its close. The ends of the age (τῶναἰώνων, 1 Corinthians 10:11) have overtaken
them. The new era, in which the rule of God shall be established, is soon to set
in. That era, however, from the very nature of the case, has no termination. So
strictly is this true, that at length the adjective αἰώνιος, in many Johannine
passages, seems to lose the time-notion, and rather to express the qualitative
idea of “supra-earthly,” becoming virtually equivalent to “transcendent,
perfect.”1 [Note: See Haupt, Eschat. Aussagen Jesu, pp. 83-85. Haupt shows that
in the third section of Enoch this same usage appears. The examples in Volz, pp.
286, 287, 328, 368, 369, clearly prove that in Jewish books the eternity of
bliss and woe was the normal doctrine.] The age of God’s dominion is necessarily
final. If St Paul does not describe it as “eternal,” in so many words, it is
because the conception is self-evident to his readers. “The things which are
seen are temporal; the things which are unseen (τὰ μὴ βλεπόμενα, primarily, the
future epoch of blessedness and transfigured life) are eternal” (2 Corinthians
4:18). The other passage which was quoted (Php 3:18), occurring in one of the
latest of his writings, bears out our conclusion to the full. If the apostle
affirms ἀπώλεια to be the “end” (τέλος) of a certain group of persons, it is
plain that he thinks of something decisive and final. And it is important to
observe that τέλος means far more than “termination.” It denotes the issue as
expressing and manifesting the goal of the whole course. It is parallel to his
utterance in Galatians 6:8, “He that soweth to his own flesh, shall of the flesh
reap destruction” (φθοράν). It is also in strict accord with the general tenor
of his teaching. To the one group of his hearers, the knowledge of Christ which
he proclaims in the Gospel is a “savour from life unto life”; to the other (οἱ
ἀπολλύμενοι), “a savour from death unto death.” The result is one which may well
overawe the reflective mind, and the apostle, it is clear, feels its terrific
pressure, for he adds, “And who is sufficient for these things?” (2 Corinthians
2:15-16). But it is time to turn from that part of St Paul’s thought which deals
with the future destinies of individuals, and to reach some conception of the
manner in which he pictured to his mind the actual consummation of all things.
At this point we are confronted by one or two perplexing problems, problems
which mainly arise from the brevity of his descriptions, and his habit of
throwing out isolated hints rather than of entering into detailed statements. It
is perhaps most convenient to begin with the important paragraph in 1
Corinthians 15:22-28 : “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be
made alive. But each (ἕκαστος) in his own order (τάγμα): the first-fruits
Christ, thereafter those who belong to Christ at His Parousia; then (εἶτα) the
end, when He shall have handed over the kingdom (βασιλείαν) to His God and
Father, when He shall have abolished every rule and every authority and power.
For it is needful for Him to reign until He shall have put all his enemies under
His feet. As the last enemy is abolished death (ὁ θάνατος): for all things He
(i.e. God) subordinated under His (i.e. Christ’s) feet. But when it is said
(εἴπῃ, a quotation from Psalms 8:7, πάντα ὑπέταξας ὑποκάτω τῶν ποδῶν αὐτοῦ) that
all things have been subordinated, it is evident that He (i.e. God) is left out
who subordinated all things to Him (i.e. Christ). But when all things shall have
been subordinated to Him (i.e. Christ), then the Son Himself also shall be
subordinated to Him (i.e. God) who subordinated all things to Him (i.e. the Son)
that God may be all in all.” With this passage we may combine the difficult
statement of Ephesians 1:9-10 : “(God) having made known to us the mystery
(μυστήριον = “secret now revealed,” see Hatch, Essays in Biblical Greek, pp. 58,
59) of His will, according to His good pleasure which he purposed in Him (i.e.
Christ) with a view to a dispensation (οἰκονομίαν, lit. “arranging” or
“ordering”) of the fulness of the times (this, in Judaistic literature, is the
time of Messiah’s entrance to restore Israel politically and spiritually, see
Marti, op. cit., p. 295), to sum up (ἀνακεφαλαιώσασθαι) all things in Christ,
the things in heaven and the things on earth (cf. verses 20-22, “Having raised
Him from the dead, and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, high
above every rule, and authority, and power, and lordship, and every name that is
named not only in this age but also in that to come; and subordinated all things
beneath His feet, and gave Him as Head over all things to the Church”). The
verses quoted from 1 Corinthians supplement those conceptions of St Paul
concerning the Last Things which have already been the subject of our
consideration. These we followed up to their climax along certain lines in the
case of individuals, both believers and unbelievers. Now we have to keep before
us a larger development. The paragraph starts with the resurrection of deceased
believers and the transformation of the living. “In Christ all shall be made
alive” (ζωοποιηθήσονται). The word τάγμα in the next sentence, translated
“order” in our version, means more strictly “division,” “troop,” or “group.” In
the LXX. (also in Aquila, Theodotion, and Symmachus) it is the rendering of the
Heb. דֶּנֶל, lit. “banner,” “ensign”: hence, like Latin , the troop or company
marshalled under the same colours (see Dillmann on Numbers 2:2). Thus Polybius
uses τάγμα as the equivalent of the Latin , a subdivision of the legion, .g. .
ii. 69, 5: κατ ̓ ἄνδρα καὶ κατὰ τάγμαἁμιλλᾶσθαι. Possibly the introduction of
τάγμα may be due to a difficulty the Corinthians may have felt because their
dead Christian friends did not rise on the third day, or soon after death, like
their Lord. But more probably the apostle employs the conception because he
recognises two “groups” of the risen.1 [Note: There is a curious parallel in the
Persian Eschatology. According to Bundehesh xxx. 7, men will rise in a
determined order: first, Gaya Maretan, the original man, then Mastya and
Mastyana, then the rest of mankind. Böklen, in quoting this statement, refers to
Vita Adæ et Evæ xlii., and Apoc. Mosis xiii. 41, which affirm that Adam shall
first be raised, then his posterity (op. cit., p. 109).] The one contains none
but Christ Himself: He stands solitary and unique: He is the First-begotten from
the dead, the First-fruits (ἀπαρχή) of those that have fallen asleep. Thereafter
(ἔπειτα) the other group appears, and it is composed of those who belong to
Christ at His Parousia. Evidently the παρουσία defines the point of time as
ἔπειτα.

It is at this stage that perplexities have been dragged into the discussion.
Grimm (Z. w. Th., 1873, pp. 399 ff.), Kabisch (op. cit., pp. 259, 260),
Teichmann (p. 108), and others have put forward the hypothesis that between the
ἔπειτα (defined as above) and the following εἶτα, an intervening period must be
assumed, of indefinite duration, in which Christ rules over His kingdom, and
gradually subdues all His enemies. This period is made equivalent to the
Millenium of the Apocalypse. Students of Paulinism are not in a position to
determine whether the apostle did or did not hold this conception. But on the
basis set before us in our present passage, we have no hesitation in asserting
that it would be most precarious and unwarranted to build up any such theory.1
[Note: So also Titius, pp. 47, 48; Charles, Eschatology, pp. 389, 390; Reuss,
Histoire de la Théol. Chrét, ii. p. 227 et al.] Here, again, there is a danger
of being misled through ignoring St Paul’s standpoint. We are accustomed to
think of Christ’s conquest of the opposing forces of evil as a long and gradual
process. That is the appearance of things as it presents itself in the fortunes
of the Kingdom in this world. But St Paul, in the words we are reviewing, has
before his mind a different series of events altogether. We might almost say
that for him these unique experiences of the End are timeless. After speaking of
the Resurrection in the clause beginning with ἔπειτα, he goes on to describe the
final culmination of the history of redemption in the sentence which opens with
εἶτα. Numerous examples in the New Testament demonstrate that εἶτα by no means
presupposes an interval of any duration between the preceding clause and that
which it introduces. See, e.g., John 13:4-5, “Taking a towel, He girded Himself,
then (εἶτα) He puts water into the basin”; 19:26, 27, “He saith to His mother,
Woman, behold thy son. Then (εἶτα) saith He to His disciple, Behold thy mother.”
In this same chapter of 1 Corinthians, there are some very instructive instances
of the usage in connection with the various appearances of the risen Jesus to
His disciples, e.g. verse 5, “He appeared to Cephas, then (εἶτα, a few hours
intervening at most) to the twelve; verse 6, “Thereafter (ἔπειτα) He appeared to
above five hundred brethren at once …; (verse 7) thereafter (ἔπειτα) He appeared
to James, then (εἶτα) to all the apostles” (these various events being all
embraced within a few days). But apart from linguistic considerations, which
evidently do not favour the theory, our position is corroborated by the actual
statements made here by St Paul. The end (τὸ τέλος),1 [Note: Although we always
hesitate to differ from Heinrici, we can by no means agree with his
interpretation ofτὸ τέλοςin this passage as “the point of time in which … this
Age ceases, and all that must happen before the entrance of the complete rule of
God is accomplished.” It is rather the culmination of the events which usher in
the new Æon. For a concise summary of Rabbinic teaching as to the relation
between the Messianic period and the coming Æon, see Volz, op. cit., p. 63.] the
final consummation, the perfect realisation of the Divine aim, is made possible
“when He shall have abolished every rule (ἀρχήν) and every authority (ἐξουσίαν)
and power” (δύναμιν). This might appear to justify the notion that in St Paul’s
view He has still to wage a conflict with many authorities and powers. But how
does the case actually stand? In Colossians 2:15, he boldly declares of Christ:
“Having hurled aside (ἀπεκδυσάμενος, lit. stripped off Himself) the rules (τὰς
ἀρχάς) and the authorities (τὰς ἐξουσίας), He made a show of them openly (or
boldly, ἐν παρρησίᾳ), triumphing over them in it” (i.e. the Cross). That
province of His dominion, therefore, has been attained. He has baffled,
defeated, defied all “the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places”
(Ephesians 6:12).

It would lead us too far aside from the main course of this investigation to
examine with care St Paul’s conception of those mysterious, spiritual forces,
antagonistic to the Divine dominion, which, in the passage before us, he names
ἀρχαί, ἐξουσίαι, and δυνάμεις. To these he adds κυριότητες in Ephesians 1:21
(cf.ἀρχαί and ἐξουσίαι in Ephesians 3:10), and in 6:12 the group consists of
ἀρχαί, ἐξουσίαι, κοσμοκράτορες τοῦ σκότους τούτου, τὰ πνευματικά τῆς πονηρίας ἐν
τοῖς ἐπουρανίοις. In Colossians 1:16, he speaks of θρόνοι, κυριότητες, ἀρχαί,
and ἐξουσίαι, while the latter two classes appear in 2:10, 15. We may associate
with these the strange figure of Ephesians 2:2, ὁ ἄρχων τῆς ἐξουσίας τοῦ ἀερός,
τοῦ πνεύματος τοῦ νῦν ἐνεργοῦντος ἐν τοῖς υἱοῖς τῆς ἀπειθείας. Probably in most
of these passage, the recurring terms describe invisible powers of evil. As God
has His hosts, those ministers of His that do His pleasure, so the apostle
pictures a hierarchy of wickedness, waiting on the bidding of the “prince of the
power of the air.” But this can scarcely be held of Colossians 1:16, and perhaps
not of Colossians 2:10. Possibly we have a parallel to these mysterious powers
in the four angels of Revelation 7:2, “to whom it was appointed to hurt the
earth and the sea.” So, in Revelation 14:18, we read of an angel “who had power
over fire.” But this is uncertain (cf. the observations of Volz as to the
two-fold view of the stars in Jewish dogmatic, on the one hand as examples of
obedience, on the other as demonic forces opposed to God, p. 298). In any case,
we find many points of contact between this world of ideas and the Jewish
apocalyptic writings. Thus, in Enoch lxi. 10, 11, it is said of the Messiah, “He
shall summon the whole army of heaven, all the holy ones on high, the army of
God, the Cherubim, Seraphim, and Ophanim, all the angels of the authority
(ἐξουσία), all the angels of the lordships (κυριότητες), the elect ones, and the
other powers (δυνάμεις) which are upon terra firma and above the water, and they
shall raise one voice.” Slav. Enoch xx. 1 tells how Enoch was brought to the
seventh heaven, “and I saw there a very great light, and all the fiery hosts of
great archangels, and incorporeal powers, and lordships, and principalities, and
powers; Cherubim and Seraphim, and the watchfulness of many eyes.” In Jub. ii. 2
there is a description of the creation of the various spirits which serve before
God: “The angels of the Presence … the angels of the spirit of the wind, the
angels of the clouds of darkness and of the snow and of the hail and of the
frost, and the angels of the sounds and of the thunderbolt and of the lightning,
and the angels of the spirits of cold and heat and winter … and of all the
spirits of His works in the heavens and on earth, and in all the abysses of the
deep and of darkness and of evening,” etc., etc. And Enoch lxxxii. 10 ff. gives
an elaborate catalogue of the “leaders” (ἄρχοντες) of the stars, who rule the
progress of the seasons. Parallels to these strange lists are to be found in
later writings, both Jewish and Christian. Thus, in the Syriac Apocalypse of
Adam,1 [Note: Published by Renan, Journal Asiatique, Sér. V. tome ii. p. 458 f.,
qu. by Bousset, Archiv f. Religionswiss. iv. H. 3, p. 269.] a classification of
angels is given, corresponding to the seven heavens, according to which ἄγγελοι
rule over men, ἀρχάγγελοι over beasts, ἀρχαί over clouds, snow, and rain,
ἐξουσίαι over the heavenly bodies, δυνάμεις are the guardians against demons,
κυριότητες have the sway over kingdoms, while θρόνοι do service before the
throne of Messiah. No doubt in a book like this, the direct influence of the New
Testament might be suspected. But the tradition apparently belongs to Judaism.
For in a quaint mediæval treatise of magic, of Jewish origin, the
Schemhamphorasch Salomonis Regis,2 [Note: Horst’s Zauberbibliothek, iii. pp. 134
ff. (qu. by Bousset, loc. cit.).] the same classification is adjusted to the
gods of the Roman Pantheon. Saturn is identified with θρόνος, Jupiter with
κυριότης, Mars with ἐξουσία, Sol with δύναμις, Venus with ἀρχή, Mercury with
ἀρχάγγελος, and Luna with ἄγγελος. Evidently we have here a curious angelology,
apparently unknown to the Old Testament, although a hint of it appears in Daniel
10:13, where the “prince” (LXX. ἄρχων) of the kingdom of Persia, that is, the
angel who is set over the kingdom, is mentioned, and as his antagonist, Michael,
“one of the chief princes,” named in Jude 1:9, “the archangel,” ἀρχάγγελος, and
described in Revelation 12:7 as warring against the dragon. And again, in Daniel
12:1, he is designated “the great prince” (ὁ ἄρχων ὁ μέγας), the guardian angel
of Israel (ὁ ἑστηκὼς ἐπὶ τοὺς υἱοὺς τοῦ λαοῦ σου). In the apocalyptic literature
of which Daniel is the prototype, the conception of the hierarchies of spirits
is enormously developed, no doubt incorporating many elements of popular
tradition, until it finds a permanent place in late Jewish theology.1 [Note: IT
IS POSSIBLE THAT PERSIAN INFLUENCE HAS CONTRIBUTED TO THIS DEVELOPMENT. SEE
STAVE, PARSISMUS, PP. 175, 196 F., 203; BOUSSET, RELIGION D. JUDENTHUMS, PP.
472, 473; MOULTON, ART. “ZOROASTRIANISM,” IN H.D.B. ON ST PAUL’S CONCEPTIONS IN
THIS PROVINCE OF THOUGHT AS A WHOLE, SEE EVERLING, DIE PAULINISCHE ANGELOLOGIE
UND DÄMONOLOGIE. IT CONTAINS MANY EXAGGERATED STATEMENTS, BUT GIVES A FAIR
SURVEY OF THE FIELD. OF IMPORTANCE FOR THE SUBJECT IN GENERAL IS MICHAEL, BY W.
LUEKEN, GÖTT., 1898.] In all likelihood the prominence of these groups of
intermediate spiritual beings in the apocalyptic period is mainly due to the
feeling of the remoteness of God. His transcendence, as we have seen, was a
characteristic belief of later Judaism. In their craving to have some access to
God, the apocalyptic writers fill in the gulf that lies between earth and heaven
with a multitude of mediating supra-earthly existences. The New Testament only
affords us the rarest glimpses into this strange realm, for the spiritual
peerlessness of Jesus Christ banishes these dim figures of the invisible world
into the darkness, whence they emerge again in the writings of the heretical
sects, more especially of Gnosticism. In the Jewish tradition, they seem, for
the most part, to be in the service of the Most High, exemplifying the
description of Hebrews 1:14, “ministering spirits” (λειτουργικὰ πνεύματα);
cf.Psalms 103:21. St Paul appears not to have wholly departed from it, for his
language in Colossians 1:16 at least is neutral. This may be due to the special
circumstances of the Colossian Church, where Jewish influences were probably
shaping a kind of incipient Gnosticism (cf. 2:18 ff.). But in any case, several
of the instances we have quoted from the Epistles are unmistakable, notably
Ephesians 6:12, “our conflict is not with flesh and blood, but with rules
(ἀρχάς), with authorities (ἐξουσίας), with the world-governors of this darkness,
with spiritual powers of wickedness in the heavenly places,” and the passage
which we are considering. It is conceivable that the apostle, feeling no need of
the mediation of angels between God and the world, once the supreme revelation
in Christ, the Head of all things, has been given, applies the terms which were
originally used in a good or a colourless sense (personifications of powers of
nature) to those unseen forces of wickedness which strive against the complete
establishment of the Divine Kingdom. The question cannot be decided on the basis
of our evidence. But it is altogether groundless to rear on this foundation the
theory of a cosmic dualism in St Paul. He does not think of the present world as
being, from its very essence, under the control of Satan, in contrast to the
future era when God shall be supreme. For him the Old Testament principle is
authoritative, that the world is God’s world, as created by Him and destined
ultimately to fulfil His purpose. The passages we have already discussed,
bearing on the cosmic significance of Christ, are sufficient evidence of this.
But necessarily, on the foundation of his own experience, he is conscious of the
existence of opposing forces, which have to be subdued before God’s right to His
own can be fully vindicated.1 [Note: SEE ALSO TITIUS, P. 247. UNDOUBTEDLY SUCH A
DUALISM IS COMMON IN JUDAISTIC LITERATURE, AND REVEALS THE “IMMENSE PROSTRATION
OF POST-EXILIC JUDAISM” (J. WEISS). PERHAPS THE FORMS IN WHICH IT CLOTHES ITSELF
ARE RELATED TO PERSIAN INFLUENCE; SEE STAVE, EINFLUSS DES PARSISMUS AUF D.
JUDENTHUM, P. 196, AND PORTER, ART. “REVELATION,” H.D.B. IV. P. 246. CERTAINLY
ONE OF ITS RESULTS WAS TO INSPIRE A MORE TRANSCENDENTAL VIEW OF SALVATION.] In 1
Corinthians 15:24, therefore, when read in the light of Colossians 2:15, he
takes for granted that a great part of the victory has been already won by the
triumphant Saviour, won in principle (cf. Chrysost. on θάνατος in this passage:
τῇ μὲν οὖν δυνάμει καὶ νῦν κατήργηται, τῇ δὲ ἐνεργείᾳ τότε), that is to say,
like His victory over sin, won for all who are willing to shelter themselves in
the great Victor. The “rules” and “authorities” and “powers” have been reduced
to impotence against those who will arm themselves with the panoply of God (see
Volz, pp. 270, 271). But Christ must still reign until all His enemies have been
subdued. This reign, according to St Paul’s view, is not one which begins after
the Parousia. He has left behind him the Messianic Hope of Judaism. The rule of
Christ has begun with His exaltation as κύριος, Lord; He already sits on the
throne, and His advent at the last is simply the culmination of His sway (so
also Charles, Eschatology, p. 390). Are there any foes which still hold out? The
apostle has one supreme Power in his mind, which apparently continues to defy
the royal supremacy of Christ. That Power is Death. His expression, ὁ θάνατος,
almost personifies it. “As the last enemy, death is abolished.” When “he” has
been vanquished, Christ’s dominion is complete.1 [Note: WE MAY COMPAREIsaiah
25:8, “HE WILL SWALLOW UP DEATH IN VICTORY”;Hosea 13:14, “O DEATH, I WILL BE THY
PLAGUE; O GRAVE, I WILL BE THY DESTRUCTION”; 4 Ezra 8:53, “THE GERM OF SIN IS
SEALED UP FROM YOU, SICKNESS IS TAKEN AWAY, DEATH IS HIDDEN, HADES HAS
DISAPPEARED”;Revelation 20:14, “DEATH AND HADES WERE CAST INTO THE LAKE OF
FIRE.” BOUSSET FINDS IN THIS CONQUEST OF DEATH AN ASPECT OF THE FINAL CONFLICT
BETWEEN GOD AND THE DEVIL, WHO IS LORD OF DEATH (RELIGION D. JUDENTHUMS, PP.
241, 242). THERE MAY BE SOME GROUND FOR THE HYPOTHESIS, BUT IT WAS QUITE NATURAL
TO PERSONIFY DEATH VAGUELY, AND EXULT OVER HIS DOWNFALL.] Obviously, this final
destruction of death is revealed by the event of the Resurrection, when the
redeemed of the Lord prove by their rising that they also are stronger than
death-that the indwelling might of the πνεῦμα of Christ has vanquished the
darkness of the grave. Thus, in our judgment, the argument to be drawn from St
Paul’s own words is decisive against a protracted struggle between Christ and
His adversaries after the Parousia. But even had it been impossible to appeal to
definite statements, we could not associate with the thought of the revelation
of the returning Lord a further process of conflict with human conditions. This
would be utterly alien to the apostle’s standpoint. Take, as an instance of his
point of view, his description of the fate of the “lawless one,” “whom the Lord
Jesus shall destroy by the breath of His mouth, and abolish by the manifestation
of His coming” (2 Thessalonians 2:8); or, recall the pictures of judgment in 2
Thessalonians 1:7-10, and Romans 2:5-10. These passages make it indubitably
clear that, in the apostle’s idea of it, the crowning revelation of the exalted
Christ is one which overwhelms and renders powerless all opposing forces,
whether human or diabolic.2 [Note: SEE VOLZ, P. 302. A REMARKABLE PARALLEL IS
FOUND IN THE PERSIAN DOCTRINE OF THE FINAL CONFLICT OF GOOD AND EVIL. AFTER
LASTING THROUGHOUT THE COURSE OF THE WORLD, IT IS ENDED BY THE ANNIHILATION OF
EVIL ON THE LAST DAY. AHURA MAZDA, THE AMSHASPANDS, THE TRUE WORD, AND SRAOSHA
ON THE ONE HAND, STRUGGLE WITH ANGRA MAINYU, THE ANTI-AMSHASPANDS, THE WORD OF
LIES, AND AÊSHMA, ON THE OTHER SIDE-BUNDEHESH XXX. 29 FF. (SEE BÖKLEN, OP. CIT.,
P. 125; HÜBSCHMANN, JAHRB. F. PROT. THEOL. 1879, PP. 225, 226; SÖDERBLOM, OP.
CIT., PP. 267, 268.)]

Probably this is the stage in God’s redemptive purpose which is before St Paul’s
mind, when, in Ephesians 1:10, he speaks of the Divine intention “to sum up
(ἀνακεφαλαιώσασθαι) all things in Christ, the things in heaven and the things on
earth.” The expression is difficult, and there is no parallel to it in the New
Testament.1 [Note: The phrase inActs 3:21,ἄχρι χρόνων ἀποκαταστάσεως πάντων ὦν
ἐλάλησεν ὸ θεός, is no true parallel, and only appears so because of the
misleading translation in A.V., “until the times of restitution of all things,
which God hath spoken.” There should be no comma after “things,” and, as Dalman
shows, the Syriac version gives the correct sense, “until the fulfilling of the
times of all that God hath said,” etc. (Worte Jesu, pp. 145, 146).] Gunkel (on 4
Ezra 12:25, in Kautzsch) holds that ἀνακεφαλαιοῦν is “certainly an apocalyptic
term; at the end of the world-history all the evil that is diffused and
isolated, and in the same way also the good, shall be summed up.” There may
possibly be traces of this conception lying in the background of the apostle’s
thought. In any case, it seems to us that the idea is virtually equivalent for
him to the statement in 1 Corinthians 15:28, “When all things shall have been
subordinated to Him” (i.e. Christ). No doubt it includes more than the
subordination, for the idea of summing-up seems to be related to his conception
of Christ as the root-principle of all creation. “He is before all things, and
in Him all things consist” (συνέστηκεν, Colossians 1:17; the whole passage,
Colossians 1:15-19, is the best commentary on the thought). The development and
final issue must correspond to the original intention of the Creator. The
world-plan is a unity. This unity is realised in the Eternal Son, who became
incarnate, accomplished redemption, conquered sin and death (to the apostle’s
mind the great forces of disturbance in the Divine order), and has been exalted
at God’s right hand to claim that universal adoration which is His due (Php
2:9-10). In His Incarnation, He has become the type and pattern for humanity; in
His atonement for sin, He has reconciled men to God; in His resurrection and
glorified life, He reveals that splendid vista which is the consummation of
perfected human nature. “As the inferior stages of existence are summed up in
man, who stands at the head of earthly creation, and forms a first link between
the natural and the spiritual, so are all stages of humanity summed up in
Christ, who in His person as God-man, links the creation absolutely with God”
(Orr, Christian View, p. 284).1 [Note: See also Weizsäcker, Apost. Zeitalter, p.
120.] Bearing in mind that it involves this aspect, we may note that intimate
connection with the idea of subordination to which reference has already been
made. Now, when this subordination is viewed in the light of its context, it
means that evil has been finally vanquished, so that it can no more raise up its
head in defiance of the exalted Lord. The continuous existence of impenitent
sinners, which might seem to conflict with that victory as affecting the
completion of the divine purpose, is a question which lies outside the apostle’s
horizon. He is only concerned with the antithesis of life and the loss of it. It
means that redeemed humanity has now reached its full assimilation to its Lord
and Head. His Divine σῶμα (τοῦ σώματος, τῆς ἐκκλησίας, Colossians 1:18) has
reached its maturity. There is no dissension between the Head (ἡ κεφαλή,
Ephesians 1:22) and His members (τὰ μέλη). His life circulates through them in
unimpeded richness. They have now attained “to the measure of the stature of the
fulness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13). They, the ἐκκλησία, make up “the fulness of
Him that filleth all in all” (τὸ πλήρωμα τοῦ τὰ πάντα ἐν πάσιν πληρουμένου,
Ephesians 1:23). God’s aim is secured, the aim of “reconciling through Him (i.e.
Christ) all things unto Himself, having made peace through the blood of His
cross, whether the things on earth or the things in heaven” (Colossians 1:20).
Thus Christ is “all and in all” (πάντα καὶ ἐν πᾶσιν, Colossians 3:11). The
summing-up and the subordination each describes the crowning of the Father’s
purpose in His exalted Son.

It is comparatively easy to understand the application of St Paul’s words to
“the things that are in heaven.” We are not so ready to give its full force to
his equally emphatic declaration about “the things on earth.” He takes a large
view of creation. For him the whole universe is animated by the breath of the
Divine life.1 [Note: Cf. Wisd. 1:14:ἔκτισεν γὰρ εἰς τὸ εἶναι τὰ πάντα καὶ
σωτήριοι αἱ γενέσεις τοῦ κόσμου, καὶ οὐκ ἕστιν ἐν αὐτοῖς φάρμακον ὀλέθρου, οὔτε
ᾅδου βασίλειον ἐπὶ γῆς.] The moral and spiritual order extends to the material
world. Existence as a whole is connected in one process. There is “one spiritual
life,” as Dr E. Caird expresses it, “which flows out from God to the Creation,
and which flows back to Him again through man, the highest of all the creatures”
(Evolution of Religion, ii. p. 125). The being of the material world has been
affected by that sin which human self-will has introduced into the universe. It
has been subjected to futility, to vain striving (τῇ γὰρ ματαιότητι ἡ κτίσις
ὑπετάγη, Romans 8:20). We may compare 4 Ezra 7:11 : “For your sakes, indeed, I
created the Æon; but when Adam transgressed my commandments, the creation was
judged.”1 [Note: SEE GUNKEL (AD LOC.), WHO CALLS THE CONCEPTION OF A FALL OF
CREATION “A COMPROMISE BETWEEN THE OLD OPTIMISTIC VIEW OF THE WORLD, WHICH IS
ONLY RECOGNISED FOR THE PRIMITIVE AGE, AND THE MODERN PESSIMISTIC VIEW OF
JUDAISM, WHICH HOLDS GOOD FOR THE PRESENT.” BUT THE GROWTH OF SUCH AN IDEA IS
QUITE CONCEIVABLE WITHOUT ANY SUCH EXPLANATION.] It is under the sway of φθορά,
decay. The very process which is the pathos and doom of human life is the law of
the universe also. And the sensitive heart of the apostle overhears the
complaint of creation. It becomes animate to his mind, as the offspring of God’s
creative will, and its sigh for permanence, for the realisation of purpose, for
perfection, catches the ear of his soul (Romans 8:19-22), and echoes in sympathy
with his own craving for complete, victorious life. Now if there is to be a
redemption (ἀπολύτρωσις) of the material body, a rescue of it from the bondage
of decay, an inspiration of it with an immortal existence, a prospect which for
St Paul is a glorious certainty, why may not the redemption go further: why may
not it extend to that entire creation which as it left His shaping hand, the
Creator pronounced to be very good? The thought had appeared already in the Old
Testament: e.g., Isaiah 65:17, “Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth”;
Isaiah 66:22, “As the new heavens and the new earth which I will make, shall
remain before me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain”
(cf.Psalms 102:26). It finds frequent expression in apocalyptic literature:
e.g., Enoch xlv. 4, 5, “I will transform heaven and make it an everlasting
blessing and light. I will transform the earth and make it a blessing, and cause
mine elect to dwell upon it”; Jub. i. 29, “And the angel of the Presence … took
the tables of the division of the years … from the day of the new creation
onwards, when heaven and earth and all its creatures are to be renewed”; Apoc.
Bar. xxxii. 6, “Greater than both these tribulations shall be the conflict, when
the Almighty will renew His creation.”1 [Note: “As the sin and death of the
First Adam, the Old Man (ὁ πρῶτος Ἀδάμ, ὁ ἕσχτος Ἀδάμ,1 Corinthians 15:45; ὁ
πρῶτος ἄνθρωπος,1 Corinthians 15:47; ὁ παλαιὸς ἃνθρωπος,Colossians 3:4ff.), were
decisive for the earlier epoch, so will the righteousness of life of the New
Man, the Second Adam, be for the Second” (Gunkel, Schöpfung und Chaos, p. 368).
The same idea is expressed by theπαλινγενεσίαofMatthew 19:28; .Revelation 21:1.
See also the admirable statement of Dr Davidson, which lays bare the basis of St
Paul’s thought: “The great conception of the Old Testament is, that the world is
a moral constitution. Behind the physical world is God, a free, conscious, moral
being; on this side of it and over it, is man, another free, moral being. The
world is but the means of their intercourse. It is this moral character of its
whole constitution, which explains how the external world is always drawn into
the relations of God and man, and reflects these relations according as they are
normal and disturbed, rejoicing and blossoming like the rose in man’s
redemption, and falling into desolation in man’s destruction under God’s wrath”
(Testament Prophecy, p. 209).] For St Paul, the expectation is confirmed by the
future experience of believers as he conceives it. The material universe stands
there as the realm of man’s earthly activity. It is the sphere assigned him for
the present realisation of his relation to God. May it not be that, when the
spiritual reaches its full development, completely conquering and controlling
the material in the person of redeemed man, there shall still be a province for
this new, glorified life, consisting in a transformed and glorified universe in
which that which has been imperfect shall be done away?1 [Note: Cf. Ducasse,
Revue de Théol., July 1882 (summarised by Orr, op. cit., p. 447): “Does not a
new kingdom appear in man?… He is the bond of union between the world of nature
and the Divine world. Why then should it not have been precisely his vocation to
spiritualise matter, and lead it up to the conquest of new attributes?” It is
stating the facts in too speculative a fashion to say with Dr E. Caird, that
inRomans 8:19f., “St Paul combines the idea of the spirituality of God, which
was characteristic of monotheism, with the idea of the immanence of God, which
was characteristic of pantheism, uniting both in one conception by the aid of
the idea of evolution” (Evolution of Religion, ii. p. 125). What we find in the
passage is rather the poetry of the religious imagination.] Perhaps there is a
hint of this prospect in 1 Corinthians 7:31 : “The fashion (σχῆμα) of this world
(κόσμος) passeth away.” There is more than a hint in Romans 8:19-21. The
creation looks with eager longing for the manifestation (ἀποκάλυψιν) of the sons
of God, which is to be a manifestation of glory (verse 18). That manifestation
must have a direct bearing on its own future, for the outlook which lies before
it is deliverance from the bondage to decay, and an entrance upon the liberty of
the glory of the children of God. Such is the splendid vision which opens to the
apostle’s ardent soul.2 [Note: A REMARKABLE PARALLEL IS FOUND IN THE PERSIAN
CONCEPTION OF THE NEW WORLD. “THE DEAREST DREAM OF MAZDEAN PIETY,” SAYS
SÖDERBLOM, “WAS THAT OF LIFE ETERNAL IN A PURIFIED, INCORRUPTIBLE BODY, UPON A
NEW EARTH DELIVERED FROM ALL THAT WHICH AS YET MARS IT.… MEN, HAVING THE
APPEARANCE OF PEOPLE OF FORTY AND FIFTY YEARS, LIVE IMMORTAL, WITHOUT NEEDS,
FREE FROM EVERY EVIL. THE END OF ‘THE PROGRESS’ IS ATTAINED, ‘THE WORLD IS MADE
PROGRESSIVE (FRASEM) ACCORDING TO ITS DESIRE’ (YAST XIX. 89).… THE IDEAL WORLD
OF MAZDEISM IMPLIES NOT MERELY THE EXTINCTION OF HELL, BUT THERE IS NO LONGER
ANY DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HEAVEN AND EARTH. ‘THE EARTH EXTENDS TO THE SPHERE OF THE
STARS’ … MEN CAN EXIST IN HEAVEN WITH THEIR BODIES” (OP. CIT., PP. 269, 270).
SEE ALSO MOULTON, ART. “ZOROASTRIANISM,” IN H.D.B.] Is it not in harmony with
the profoundest intuitions of those who have “The sense sublime Of something far
more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns And the
round ocean and the living air And the blue sky, and in the mind of man: A
motion and a spirit, that impels All thinking things, all objects of all
thought, And rolls through all things.”1 [Note: It is of curious interest to
compare with this forecast one which is thrown out by an evolutionary
philosopher like Herbert Spencer. “Confining ourselves to the proximate and not
necessarily insoluble question,” he says, “we find reason for thinking that
after the completion of the various equilibriums which bring to a close all the
forms of Evolution we have contemplated, there must continue an equilibrium of a
far wider kind. When that integration everywhere in progress throughout our
Solar System has reached its climax, there will remain to be effected the
immeasurably greater integration of our Solar System with other such systems”
(First Principles, p. 536). His conclusion appears to be a succession of
evolutions, “ever the same in principle, but never the same in concrete
result.”]

There still remains one stage to be considered in St Paul’s conception of the
consummation of the Kingdom of God. He introduces it in the paragraph which we
have been examining, at first, without any qualification. “Then the end, when He
shall have delivered up (παραδιδοῖ) the Kingdom to His God and Father” (τῷ θεῷ
καὶ πατρί). Some further light is thrown upon this momentous statement by verses
27, 28. In verse 27, quoting Psalms 8:7 (cf.Psalms 110:1, which our Lord Himself
quotes in support of His Messianic Kingship), he assigns the subordination of
all things under Christ to the direct power of God. Still keeping this fact in
the forefront, he draws the inference that one Power or Authority lies outside
this universal subordination. For manifestly He, by whose operation the
subordination is brought about, cannot Himself be included in it. Not only so;
he takes a further step. There cannot remain two co-equal authorities in the
Kingdom of redemption. For “when all things have been subordinated to Him
(Christ), then the Son Himself also shall be subordinated to Him (God), who
subordinated all things to Him (Christ), in order that God may be all in all”
(πάντα ἐν πᾶσιν). It is of importance to inquire whether there are other
passages in St Paul’s writings which illustrate or elucidate this remarkable
conception. The inquiry is a delicate one, for we know that the apostle
attributed divinity, in its full and essential sense, to Jesus Christ. Various
suggestive utterances may be found which help us to understand his view in the
words before us. We are familiar with such passages as Romans 8:11 : “If the
Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised from
the dead Christ Jesus, shall quicken also your mortal bodies.” Here, and in its
parallels, the potency of the new spiritual life is directly referred to God the
Father, even as regards Christ Himself (cf., e.g., 1 Thessalonians 4:14, “So
also them that sleep through Jesus will God bring with Him”). But the apostle
looks upon this power as mediated by the Son. Thus, in 1 Corinthians 15:57, he
ascribes thanks “to God who giveth us the victory through (διά) our Lord Jesus
Christ.” In 2 Corinthians 5:18, we meet his favourite thought of God as
“reconciling us to Himself through Christ.” It is needless to quote instances of
this conception, as they occur on every second page of the Pauline Epistles. But
repeatedly we find St Paul emphasising the fact that God, as the Father, is both
the primal source and the ultimate goal of all things. Hence he makes such
affirmations as that of Romans 11:36, “For from (ἐκ) Him, and through (διά) Him,
and unto (εἰς, with a view to) Him, are all things”; Ephesians 4:6, where, after
enumerating the binding ties of the Christian brotherhood, “one Lord, one faith,
one baptism,” he names “one God and Father of all, who is over (ἐπί) all and
through (διά) all, and in (ἐν) all”; 1 Corinthians 8:6, “For us there is one God
the Father, from (ἐκ) whom are all things, and we unto (εἰς) Him, and one Lord
Jesus Christ, through (διά) whom are all things, and we through Him”; and we may
add Colossians 1:19-20, “It was the good pleasure (of the Father) that the whole
fulness should dwell in Him (Christ), and through (διά) Him, to reconcile all
things unto (εἰς) Himself (God).” Plainly, from the above passages, a ruling
thought with St Paul is that of God as the final aim of all redemptive
activity.1 [Note: Cf. the suggestive statement of Titius (p. 25): “As with
Jesus, so with Paul, in this new view of God (i.e. as Father), the source of the
whole of salvation is given” (the italics are ours).] All things, indeed, are
summed up in Christ, in whom dwells the complete fulness of the Divine nature in
organised form (σωματικῶς, Colossians 2:9). But Christ Himself carries forward
the Divine purpose to its fulfilment. As the Son, He performs His mediatorial
function; as the Son, in the deepest reciprocal relation of love with the
Father, His life is “with God, for God, in God.” The Divine consummation is
attained when “God is all and in all.”1 [Note: IT IS PERHAPS NEEDLESS TO POINT
OUT THAT ΠΑΝΤΑ ANDἐΝ ΠᾶΣΙΝ(WHICH IS EQUIVALENT TO ΠΑΝΤΑ), IN THE APOSTLE’S VIEW,
HAVE NO REFERENCE SAVE TO THE REDEEMED KINGDOM OF GOD. THIS IS EVIDENT, IF WE
REMEMBER THAT ST PAUL IS HERE OCCUPIED WITH A DISCUSSION OF THE RELATION OF THE
RESURRECTION OF CHRIST TO THAT OF BELIEVERS. HE IS ONLY CONCERNED WITH THOSE
WHO, THROUGH CHRIST, HAVE BEEN SUBORDINATED TO THE SWAY OF GOD. EVERYTHING
BEYOND THE SCOPE OF THE DIRECT DEVELOPMENT OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD LIES OUTSIDE
HIS RANGE. (SEE ALSO AN EXCELLENT NOTE OF HEINRICI, AD LOC.)] The process by
which such a climax of the highest development of life is reached, may be felt
to be suggested by the statement of 1 Corinthians 3:22-23, “All things belong to
you, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.” This relationship is
expressed even more definitely in 1 Corinthians 11:3, “Now I desire you to know
that of every man, the Head is Christ. But the Head of Christ is God.” Here is
an ascending scale, as in the preceding passage, in which God, as it were, gives
unity and complete realisation to the whole series of spiritual relations. It is
from the same point of view that St Paul, in dealing with the supreme glory of
the risen Christ (Php 2:9-11), declares that “God hath highly exalted Him, and
given Him the name which is above every name (i.e., the name κύριος, virtually
equivalent to the Old Testament Jehovah); that in the name of Jesus (often
erroneously taken as τὸ ὄνομα τὸ ὑπὲρ πᾶν ὄνομα) every knee should bow, of
things in heaven and things on earth, and things under the earth, and every
tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the
Father.” The supreme dignity of the risen Christ, that is to say, points beyond
Him to God the Father. Even the most daring human thought can go no further than
the culmination of all things in God.

It would be useless to speculate on the manner in which St Paul conceived this
great consummation to be fulfilled. Unquestionably he would have regarded all
philosophical categories as inapplicable to his momentous theme. For his mind,
its interest and importance are wholly religious. He could not realise a more
glorious issue for the wondrous process which germinated for humanity with the
Incarnation, blossomed in the atoning Passion, and came to full maturity in the
Exaltation, than a re-entrance of the glorified Lord into the depths of the
Godhead, so that His own words should receive their profoundest significance, “I
and my Father are one.” In that crowning end, the Consummation of the Kingdom of
God is accomplished.


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