Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/448

426 PAUL "hid with Christ in God," to be manifested at His coming) ; and similarly sometimes men are regarded as having already died with Christ (Rom. vi. 6-11), and sometimes the Christian s life is regarded as a prolonged act of dying in the " mortification " of the " deeds of the body " (Rom. viii. 13 ; cf. Col. iii. 5). (3) When spoken of as sonship, the conception also varies between that of a perfected and that of a still future " adoption " ; on the one hand " we have received a spirit of adoption" (Rom. viii. 15), so that we are "all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus " (Gal. iii. 26), and on the other hand we are still " waiting for the adoption, the deliverance of our body " (Rom. viii. 23). For, although Christ died for all men (Rom. v. 18 ; 2 Cor. v. 14, 15 ; so in the pastoral epistles, 1 Tim. ii. 4, 6 ; Tit. ii. 11), it does not therefore follow that all men are at once in full possession of the benefits which His death made possible to them. Their righteous- Faith a ness or life or sonship is rather potential than actual. It becomes state of actual by the co-operation of their own mind and will, that is, by mind. the continuous existence in them of the state of mind called trust or " faith." 1 For this view of the place of trust or " faith " St Paul finds support, and may perhaps have found the original suggestion, in the Old Testament. Abraham had believed that God both could and would perform His promises, and this belief " was counted to him as righteousness" (Gen. xv. 6; Rom. iv. 3; Gal. iii. 6); Habakkuk had proclaimed that " the just shall live as a consequence of his faith" (Hab. ii. 4; Rom. i. 17 ; Gal. iii. 11) ; and another prophet had said, " whosoever believeth in Him shall not be put to shame" (Rom. ix. 33, x. 11). The object of this trust or faith is variously stated to be " Him that raised Jesus our Lord from the dead" (Rom. iv. 24; x. 9), "Him that justifieth the ungodly" (Rom. iv. 5), or "Jesus Christ" (Rom. iii. 22; Gal. ii. 16, &c.), or His "blood" (Rom. iii. 25 probably). Hence the statement, that the gospel is "the power of God unto salvation," is limited by the condition " to every one that believeth " (Rom. i. 16). Hence, also, since this state of mind is that by which the death of Christ becomes of value to the individual, while he is said on the one hand to be acquitted or justified by Christ s blood (Rom. v. 9), he is said on the other hand to be acquitted or justified as a result of his faith (Horn. v. 1). Hence, also, the new relation of "righteousness" in which men stand to God, while on the one hand it is "God s righteousness," as being a relation which is established by His favour and not by their merit (Rom. i. 17, iii. 21, 22, v. 17), it is on the other hand a " righteoxisness which results from faith" (ij K TricTTews 5iKa.Lo<?vvT}, Rom. x. 6). From another point of view it is an act of obedience or state of submission (Rom. i. 5, vi. 16, 17, x. 16, xvi. 19, 26 ; 2 Cor. x. 5, 6), being the acceptance by men of God s free gift as distinguished .from " seeking to establish their own righteousness," i.e., to attain to a freedom from sin which their fleshly nature renders impossible (Rom. x. 3). It is obvious that such a doctrine as that of acquittal from the guilt of wrongdoing by virtue of an act or state of mind, instead of by virtue of a course of conduct, is " antinomian," not merely in the sense that it supersedes the law of Moses, but also because it appears to supersede the natural law of morality. It was no wonder that some men should infer, and even attribute to Paul himself the inference, "Let us do evil that good may come" (Rom. iii. 8). The objection was no doubt felt to be real, inasmuch as it is more than once stated and receives more than one answer. (1) One of the answers which Paul gives to it (Rom. vi. 15 sq. ) is due to his conception of both sin and righteousness as external forces. He had regarded sinful acts as the effects of the dominion of a real power residing within men and compelling them to do its will. He now points out that, to those who believe, this dominion is at an end. The believer is not only acquitted from the guilt of sin, but also emancipated from its slavery. He has become a slave to righteousness or to God (Rom. vi. 18, 22). This is stated partly as a fact and partly as a ground of obligation (Rom. vi. 18, 19) ; and the disregard of the obligation, or " building up again those things which I destroyed," brings a man again under the cognizance of God s law as a transgressor (Gal. ii. 18). (2) Another answer is due to the conception which has been mentioned above of the mystical union between Christ and mankind. This also is stated partly as a fact and partly as a ground of obligation. In one sense the believer has already died with Christ and risen with Him : "our old man was crucified with Him" (Rom. vi. 6), "they that are Christ s have crucified the flesh" (Gal. v. 24), "the life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me " (Gal. ii. 20) ; so that on the one hand Christ is said to be in the believer (2 Cor. xiii. 5), and on the other hand the believer is said to be "in Christ," Whichever mode of conceiving the Christian life be adopted, a life of sin is impossible to it : " if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature" (2 Cor. v. 17), and the "new man" which thus comes 1 " Faitli " is not defined by Paul, but his use of the term so nearly re sembles Philo s as to be explicable by it. With Philo it is the highest form of intellectual conviction, being more certain than either that which comes from the senses or that which comes from reasoning; cf., e.g., De prtemiis etpanls c. 5, vol. ii. p. 412, ed. Maiig. into being " is created after God in righteousness and true holiness " (Eph. iv. 24). In another sense this mystical dying with Christ and living with Him is rather an ideal towards which the believer must be continually striving ; it affords a motive for his resistin<* the tendency to sin : " reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus our Lord ; let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body" (Rom. vi. 11, 12). (3) A third answer, which, though less directly given, is even more constantly implied, is that faith is followed by, if it be not coincident with", an immediate operation of God upon the soul which becomes for it a new moral power. For, although in the "natural man" there is an element, "the flesh," over which sin has such an especial dominion as to be said to dwell in it, there is also another element, the "mind" (vovs), or "spirit" (irvfvfj.a), or "inner man" (6 &7w dvOpuiros), which is the slave, not of the "law of sin," but of the "law of God."- Against this the flesh wages a successful war and " brings it into captivity to the law of sin " (Rom. vii. 22-25). The result is that the mind may become " reprobate " (a.56Kifj.os, Rom. i. 28; cf. Col. ii. 18, where the "mind" is so completely under the dominion of the flesh as to be called " the mind of the flesh "), or it may become defiled and ultimately lost (2 Cor. vii. 1 ; 1 Cor. v. 5). It is upon this part of man s nature that God works. By means of faith (Gal. iii. 14), or as a result of faith (Gal. iii. 2, v/5), God gives and men receive His own Spirit (1 Thess. iv. 8) or the Spirit of Christ (Rom. viii. 10 ; Gal. iv. 6 ; Phil. i. 19). Some times the Spirit of God is said to " dwell in " them (Rom. viii. 9 ; 1 Cor. iii. 16), and once the closeness of the union is expressed by the still stronger metaphor of a marriage: "he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit" (1 Cor. vi. 17). This indwelling of, or union with, the Spirit is for the believer a new life ; Christ has become for him " a life-giving spirit " (1 Cor. xv. 45) ; this is a fact of his spiritual nature which will in due time be manifest even in the quickening of his mortal body (Rom. viii. 11), but in the mean time it becomes, like the facts of emancipation from sin and of union with Christ, a ground of moral obligation. " If we live by the Spirit, by the Spirit also let us walk " (Gal. v. 25) ; and the freedom from spiritual death is conditional on the " mortifying of the deeds of the body " (Rom. viii. 13). It will be evident that, although Paul nowhere defines his conception of faith, he did not conceive it as a mere intellectual assent ; it was a complete self-surrender to God (Gal. ii. 20), and on its human side it showed its activity in the great ethical prin ciple of "love," which is the sum of a man s duties to his fellow- men (Gal. v. 6, 14). But, as his conception of the effects of Christ s death, and of the Eschato- nature of faith by which these effects are appropriated by the indi- logical vidual, has, so far as the present life is concerned, chiefly a moral function aspect, and connects itself with practical duties, so, on the other of faith, hand, it comprehends the whole physical and spiritual being of man, and connects itself with his eschatology. The resurrection of Christ is not merely the type of moral resurrection from sin to holiness, but at once the type and the cause and the pledge of the actual resurrection of the body. " If we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also that are fallen asleep in Jesus will God bring with Him" (1 Thess. iv. 14) ; "He which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also with Jesus" (2 Cor. iv. 14) ; "if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him " (Rom. vi. 8). Sometimes the new life of the body is viewed in relation to the mystical union of the believer with Christ : " we which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus sake, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh " (2 Cor. iv. 11) ; and it follows from the conception of the "last Adam " as a "life-giving spirit" that, " as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly " (1 Cor. xv. 49 ; this will follow from the context, even if with most uncial MSS. we read " let us also bear "). Sometimes this new life is viewed as a result of the present indwelling of the Spirit : "if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwelleth in you, He that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies through" (or "because of") "His Spirit that dwelleth in you" (Rom. viii. 11). This redemption or deliverance of the body from the "bondage of corruption" is the completion of the "adoption," "the liberty of the glory of the children of God" (Rom. viii. 21, 23) ; but the nature of the new body is not clearly explained. Sometimes the language seems to imply that this mortal body will be "quickened" or "transformed" (Rom. viii. 11 ; Phil. iii. 21), and the analogy afforded is that of a seed which after being buried reappears in a new form (1 Cor. xv. 36, 37) ; sometimes, on the 2 The relation of vovs to wvfv/j.a has been much discussed ; among contem porary theologians Holsten and Weiss deny the existence of a irvfufjia. in the natural man, Liidemann and Pfleiderer allow it. It is certain that the two words are used in the same sense by Philo ; and it is most probable that they are also so used by Paul. One of many proofs is that in quoting Isa. xl. 13 in 1 Cor. ii. 13 he adopts vovv from the LXX. as the translation of H^l (whereas TTvev/j-a. is the more usual translation), and proceeds to use the phrase vovv XpKTToD for Trvfi fjia. XpicrroC, which the argument requires, and with which it must be identical.