CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY GIFT OF Alfred C. Barnes Cornell University Library BS2651 .M84 Religion and theology of Paul : the Kerr olin 3 1924 029 293 318 Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029293318 THE RELIGION AND THEOLOGY OF PAUL THE RELIGION AND THEOLOGY OF PAUL THE KERR LECTURES DELIVERED IN THE UNITED FREE CHURCH COLLEGE, GLASGOW, DURING SESSION 1914-15 BY W. MORGAN, D.D. PROFESSOR OF SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY AND APOLOGETICS IN QUEEN'S THEOLOGICAL COLLEGE, KINGSTON, CANADA Edinburgh : T. & T. CLARK, 38 George Street 1917 Printed ty Morrison & Gibb Limited, for T. & T. CLARK, EDINBURGH. LONDON! SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT, AND CO. LIMITED. NEW YORK : CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS. TO MY LIFE-LONG FRIEND W. L. DAVIDSON, LL.D. PROFESSOR OF LOGIC IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN TO WHOM I OWE MORE THAN I CAN EXPRESS THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED viii The Kerr Lectureship of whom no one shall be eligible who, when the appointment falls to be made, shall have been licensed for more than twenty-five years, and who is not a graduate of a British University, preferential regard being had to those who have for some time been connected with a Continental University. V. Appointments to this Lectureship not subject to the conditions in Section IV. may also from time to time, at the discretion of the Committee, be made from among eminent members of the Ministry of any of the Noncon- formist Churches of Great Britain and Ireland, America, and the Colonies, or of the Protestant Evangelical Churches of the Continent. VI. The Lecturer shall hold the appointment for three years. VII. The number of Lectures to be delivered shall be left to the discretion of the Lecturer, except thus far, that in no case shall there be more than twelve or less than eight. VIII. The Lectures shall be published at the Lecturer's own expense within one year after their delivery. IX. The Lectures shall be delivered to the students of the Glasgow College of the United Free Church of Scotland. XII. The Public shall be admitted to the Lectures. PREFACE DURING the last fifteen or twenty years, much has been done to elucidate the Pauline theology, and the chief outcome of the most recent work has undoubtedly been the discovery that Hellenistic religion and religious philosophy were vital factors in its formation. It is not too much to say that a flood of light has been thrown on much that was formerly obscure. A new epoch has been created in the study of the Apostle, with the inevitable result that the older expositions have to a considerable extent become antiquated. While many recent books have dealt with particular aspects of his religion and thought from the standpoint of the newer knowledge, there is not one, so far as the writer knows (with the exception of the sketch in the second edition of Holtzmann's Lehrbuch der neutestamentlichen Theologie)^ that has attempted a full and systematic presentation. To supply this lack is the aim of the present volume. It will give a systematic account of the Apostle's religion and theology in the light of modern research. While primarily intended for students, the endeavour has been made to render it intelligible and interesting also to the non-professional reader. The Epistles on which the exposition is based are Romans, First and Second Corinthians, Galatians, x Preface Philippians, Colossians, and First and Second Thessa- lonians. The Epistle to the Ephesians has not been used as an independent source. My warmest acknowledgments are due to my friend and colleague, Professor E. F. Scott, D.D., not only for revising the proofs, but for constant stimulus and endless suggestion. W. MORGAN. Kingston, Canada, i^th December 1916. CONTENTS PART I. THE REDEEMER AND HIS REDEMPTION. CHAP. PAGE I. Paul's World- View ..... 3 II. Doctrine of Christ's Person : The Historical and Religious Basis . . . . .31 III. Doctrine of Christ's Person: The Speculative Elaboration ...... 53 IV. Redemption from the Demons . 68 V. Redemption from the Law . . . * 73 VI. Redemption from the Tyranny of Sin . . 98 PART II. THE LIFE IN SALVATION. I. Faith and Mystical Union • "3 II. Justification ..... . 146 III. Moral Renewal . ... • iS7 IV. Spiritual Gifts ..... . 163 V. Ethics ....... 178 VI. The Church and its Sacraments 198 VII. The Consummation ..... . 228 VIII. Philosophy of History .... 241 IX. Paul and Jesus 252 Index ........ 271 PART 1. THE REDEEMER AND HIS REDEMPTION. CHAPTER I. Paul's World- View. Jesus Christ, Redeemer and Lord, the redemption He has accomplished or will accomplish, the life in salvation which is the fruit of His redemptive activity — on these three great realities Paul's religion hangs, and they form the subject-matter of his theology. In the innermost shrine of the Apostle's soul stands the figure of the crucified and exalted Jesus. To Jesus he looks as the slave to his master, as the ransomed to his ransomer, as the worshipper to his God ; and he cherishes the idea of a union with Him the most intimate that can be conceived. " I have been crucified with Christ," he can say, " yet I live ; and yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in me : and the life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me." If Paul is domin- ated by the thought of Christ, he is hardly less so by the thought of the Christ-redemption. The Cross is ever before his eyes. It is the great divine fact for which the ages have been waiting, for which they have been pre- paring. Fallen are the hostile powers that from the beginning have enslaved and desolated the life of man : the demons, the Law with its curse, sin seated in the flesh — Christ has triumphed over them in His death. The long and bitter reign of these powers lies behind, and it is a new world on which the sun looks down, a world under 4 The Religion and Theology of Paul the reign of grace and of the Spirit and of the enthroned Christ. That the forces of evil are still active, that the consummation has still to come, the Apostle knows ; but with serene confidence he anticipates the near day when Christ will return to perfect His work ; and he is sure that in the intervening period the believer is safe in Christ's keeping. In this invincible belief in the great redemption accomplished on Calvary and soon to be completed, the note of assurance, boldness, victory, so characteristic of his piety, has its ground. " Who is he who shall condemn ? It is Christ that died. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 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." Finally, Paul's religion has at the heart of it the conscious- ness that it is a life in salvation. Through his faith in Christ he has become a partaker in the great redemption. He is a new man and lives under a new dispensation. Emancipated from the Law, he knows himself justified and a child of God ; emancipated from the sinful flesh, he is conscious of supernatural powers stirring within him, the spring of all his victorious achievement By the grace of God, by the indwelling of the Spirit, by the power of Christ, he is what he is. And his citizenship is in heaven ; from whence also he waits for a Saviour, who shall fashion anew the body of his humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of His glory. It is with the same great realities underlying his piety that Paul is everywhere occupied in his theological activity. In all the evolutions of his thought he has no other purpose than so to expound, commend and defend these realities as that men shall be led to embrace his own faith. He will establish the claim of Jesus to be the one Lord and Saviour, exhibit His moral glory, His divine dignity, His Paul's World- View 5 saving power. He will demonstrate the necessity for the great redemption, demonstrate also its sufficiency, by relating it to man's practical situation in the world, nay, to the constitution of the world itself. He will show what salvation means, the conditions that attach to it, the obligations it imposes, and trace it to its ground in Christ's finished work and continued activity. Throughout, his motive is a practical one. Of speculation, elaboration or system for their own sakes we find nothing. His thoughts are developed to meet the need of the occasion, and they are pursued only so far as edification requires. Substanti- ally his theology and his gospel are one and the same. In attempting to reproduce Paul's gospel we shall follow the order of subjects we have indicated — the Redeemer, His work of redemption, the new life in salva- tion. Strictly speaking, eschatology falls under Christ's redemptive work, but since it represents the consummation of the whole world-drama we have reserved it till towards the end. The last chapter will be devoted to a discussion of the momentous question of the relation of the teaching of Paul to that of the Master. But before proceeding to these cardinal themes a preliminary task must first be undertaken. Paul's gospel is set in the framework of a general world-view, which bears upon it the stamp of the age and cannot without some exercise of the historical imagination be reproduced. From this world-view the categories in which it is stated are derived. In expositions designed for edification it is inevitable that the original framework, foreign as it has to a large extent become, should be for the most part dis- counted, and that the Apostle's essential ideas should receive a more modern setting. With such procedure no fault can be found ; and that it is possible is a proof that these ideas are at bottom of permanent validity. When, however, our aim is to understand Paul's gospel in its 6 The Religion and Theology of Paul historical objectivity, the method is one which cannot be followed. A knowledge of its precise presuppositions and categories becomes then a matter of first-class importance. To obtain such knowledge is the task that lies immediately before us. How does the world mirror itself in the Apostle's mind? What powers does he see active in it? To what goal is it tending? What was the situation that demanded so tremendous an interposition as the descent of the Son of God to earth and His submission to a shameful death? Such are the questions that must occupy us in this opening chapter. Paul's outlook is at bottom that of Jewish Apocalyptic. While conceptions from other sources have, as we shall see, to be taken into account, they are superimposed on an apocalyptic groundwork. This type of religious thought is of such fundamental importance, and we shall have so often to refer to it, that it is necessary at the outset to give some account, however brief, of its main ideas. Jewish Apocalyptic had its roots in the hope held up before Israel by her great prophets, particularly in times of national declension and disaster, of a glorious day in the future, " the day of the Lord," when her oppressors should be overthrown, and she, purified by the fires of affliction, should be exalted to a position of unparalleled splendour and power. Through her fidelity to God and her suprem- acy among the nations God's rule on earth would be visibly realised, and nature itself would be made fairer and more generous to grace the new era. Isaiah, Micah, Jeremiah, the prophet of the Restoration, Zechariah, all point forward to the great consummation and depict it in the most glowing colours. This national hope proved itself vital enough to survive the most disillusioning ex- periences ; but somewhere in the dark days of Persian or Greek ascendancy it was subjected to radical modification Paul's World- View 7 and fitted into a world-view widely different from that of the prophets. The new development of Hebrew religion is character- ised in the first place by a thoroughgoing pessimism. In the eyes of apocalyptic writers the existing world or age is radically and incurably evil, incapable by any conceiv- able reformation of being transformed into a kingdom of God. It is not only that human beings are in the mass hopelessly corrupt, that the reins of power are in the hands of wicked men and that the righteous are a despised and downtrodden remnant. A portentous development of the belief in evil spirits gives to apocalyptic pessimism a still darker hue. The world is the haunt of throngs of such spirits, who, under Satan their head, form a demonic hierarchy. With unwearied activity they prosecute their hellish work, thwarting the will of the Almighty, hounding on the heathen persecutors of His people, inciting men to idolatry and scourging them with disease. To these sinister powers God, by an inscrutable decree, has surrendered the government of the world. Though there is no question of setting up a prince of evil co-ordinate with God, the world is regarded as Satan's rather than God's. Satan is its real master. 1 Over against this demonic hierarchy we find a hierarchy of ministering angels, who form the court of the Almighty and whose business it is to carry into effect His decrees. This belief in angel mediators indicates a trait in Apocalyptic closely akin to its pessimism — a profound sense, namely, of the gulf separating God from creation, and a shrinking from bringing Him into direct contact with it. God is thought of as transcendent, remote from His creatures and trans- acting with them only through intermediaries. But dark as apocalyptic pessimism is, it does not, like that of Buddhism, strike at existence itself. Faith in God 1 Martyrdom of Isa. iii. 4. 8 The Religion and Theology of Paul and in God's promise to Israel is held fast. Only this faith, finding nothing in the present to which it can attach itself, takes refuge in the future and becomes eschatological. In this we have another cardinal feature of apocalyptic religion. The existing world is surrendered to destruction, and interest transferred to a new and glorious world which God will reveal when the first has been swept away. With passionate eagerness the great catastrophe that shall precede the coming of the Kingdom is anticipated, and the horizon scanned for signs of its approach. For that the end is near, that men are living in the last days, is never for a moment in doubt. A mong the looked-for signs are increasing wickedness, devastating invasions, the appearance of the mysterious figure of Antichrist, shakings of the earth and dreadful portents in the heavens. Know- ing that his time is short, Satan will muster his forces for a last onset. These two features of Apocalyptic, its pessimism and its transference of religious interest from the present to the future, are summed up in the doctrine of the two ages or worlds, the present (o aloav o$to<; } 6 feoo-fio? oi>to<; : both terms are used, the reference being at once temporal and local), and that which is to come (o alibv 6 /ieUwv). God, says the writer of 4th Esdras, has not created one age, but two. The first is evil, troubled, transient, laden with a curse ; the second full of glory and immortality (4 Esd. 4 11 - 27 7 12 ' 60 - 113 , Bar. 44° 83 s ). Within this scheme all apoca- lyptic thought moves. Present and future, the actual and the ideal, are set over against each other in dualistic opposition. We have said that the advent of the new world of Apocalyptic must be preceded by the destruction of the old. In this final catastrophe the opening scene will be one of judgment. The Almighty will hold a great assize. For the prophets too the " day of the Lord " was a day Pauls World- View 9 of judgment ; but while in their conception only the living oppressors of Israel are judged, in Apocalyptic the stage has become world-wide. Jews as well as heathen, and what is of still greater significance, the dead as well as the living, will appear at the bar. This belief in a general resurrection and universal judgment forms a landmark in the history of Hebrew religion. We recognise in it the victory of individualism over the old corporate conception of life. It is no longer the nation but the individual that is the religious unit ; the worth of the individual comes to recognition and he is set solitary before God. The fate of men decided, their sentence is forthwith carried into effect The doom of the wicked is variously described, now as destruction and again as eternal torment in hell-fire. In their ruin the devil and his angels are in- volved, and even the material creation. For the righteous, on the other hand, there is reserved a blessed and deathless life in the presence of God. This new existence has its scene not in Palestine, but in a heavenly world created before the natural and kept in reserve until the appointed hour (4 Esd. 8 52 , Bar. 51 8 ). The old demon-ridden age, with its sin and its misery, has run its evil course ; the blessed and immortal age, the reign of God, begins. We have described this drama of judgment and salvation without introducing the figure of the Messiah, so familiar to us from the New Testament. And indeed the part which he plays in it can scarcely be called essential. In some apocalyptic writings — Daniel and the Assumption of Moses, for example — he does not appear at all, and in others the references to him are of the scantiest. Only in the Book of Enoch and the Psalms of Solomon is he a really prominent figure. 1 When he appears on the scene, it is no longer as the prince of David's house and ideal theocratic king of prophetic expectation. The 1 E. F. Scott, The Kingdom and the Messiah, p. 41. io The Religion and Theology of Paul Messiah has become a heavenly being, created before the sun and stars and kept by God in concealment until the fateful hour. And the r61e assigned to him corresponds with his superhuman character. When he descends with the clouds of heaven, it is to act as the representative and agent of the Almighty, Sitting as judge he pronounces sentence on kings and nations. In his name the righteous are saved, and at his hands wicked men and the demonic hosts meet their doom. This apocalyptic conception of things first comes clearly into view in the Book of Daniel, written in the crisis of the Maccabsean struggle (165 B.C.). Its rise may to some extent be explained by the calamitous situa- tion of the Jewish people under Persian and Greek rule. A fulfilment of the prophetic promise through the means which the prophets had in view — inner reform, political revolution, a victorious leader — no longer seemed within the range of possibility. A feeling was abroad, reflected in many of the Psalms, that God had forgotten His people and forsaken the earth. In despair of the present world, faith betook itself to the idea of a future and transcendent world. Such an explanation is, however, only partial. The pessimism and dualism of the apocalyptic outlook, its demonology and angelology, its conception of a death- struggle between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan, its conception of a resurrection of the dead and a final judgment, can be accounted for only on the hypothesis of influence from the side of Persian religion. Apocalyptic was never the faith of more than a circle. Popular messianic expectation, though not unaffected by it, continued to run in more earthly and political lines, attach- ing itself directly to Old Testament prophecy. But if it never gathered to itself the faith of the mass, its religious vitality is attested by the fact that it was the deepest and most earnest spirits that were attracted to it. When the Pauls World- View n last of the great prophetic figures appeared in the person of John the Baptist, it was as a preacher of the apocalyptic judgment and Kingdom. And the same grand consum- mation was before the eyes of Jesus. To prepare men for the coming of the Kingdom was the task to which He knew Himself called. At least in the last days of His life, when the tragic issue of His earthly ministry had become clear to Him, He proclaimed Himself as the Messiah who should come with the clouds of heaven, and taught His disciples to expect His reappearance. It was as an apocalyptic movement that Christianity entered the world. The faith of the disciples, stunned by the shock of the crucifixion, reawakened in redoubled force with the proof afforded by the resurrection appearances that the Master they loved had indeed risen from the dead. The primitive Christian gospel was a proclamation of the crucified Jesus as exalted to the messianic throne, and of His speedy descent to judge the world and bring in the Kingdom. This primitive outlook is also the outlook of Paul. While introducing elements the ultimate effect of which was to transform it, he never for a moment thinks of breaking with it. With both feet he stands on primitive apocalyptic ground. That this is so will become increas- ingly clear as we proceed in our study of his thought. Our immediate task is to show that in Apocalyptic his preach- ing of redemption has, in part at least, its background and setting. At the basis of all the Apostle's thinking and con- stituting its ground-plan there lies the apocalyptic doctrine of the two ages or worlds with its pessimistic and dualistic implications. Standing in the old and evil age, Paul looks with eager longing towards the new. For the first is as full of misery as the second is of glory ; and it was to deliver us out of the first and give us a heritage in the 1 2 The Religion and Theology of Paul second that the Son of God surrendered Himself to death (Gal. i 4 , i Cor. 7 31 , Col. i 12 ). The misery of the evil age consists first and foremost in the fact that man's lot in it is one of hopeless bondage to sin. Sin is not only his guilt but his inevitable fate ; for he has inherited a nature that is radically corrupt and cannot lift a finger to save himself. Apocalyptic writers admit at least a few ex- ceptions to the general sinfulness, but the Apostle will hear of none. " There is no distinction, for all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God" (Rom. 3 23 5 19 7 14 ). In the Law, which is the religious institution of the evil age, men have indeed an ostensible means of salvation ; but situated as they are, powerless to obey its commands, its only effect is to plunge them still deeper into the abyss of sin and to oppress them with the new terror of its curse (Gal. 3™, Rom. 4 15 7 7ff -). Of the grace of God the evil age has no experience, unless indeed as a promise to be fulfilled in the future ; it knows and can know God only as a God of commandment and recompense (Gal. 3 18 " 27 ). Equally foreign to it is the activity of the life- giving Spirit (1 Cor. 2 6ff - 4 20 , 2 Cor. io 4 ). Only after the Christ-redemption has introduced the better day does the reign of grace and of the Spirit open. As the result of sin's dominion, man in the evil age is subjected to another sore evil, that, namely, of death. Mortality is the law of the existing world, as immortality of the world to come (Rom. 5 12ff *). In describing the existing world as evil it is of course the lot of man that Paul has mainly in view. At the same time he thinks of the material creation as also involved in the curse. On it too lies the bondage of corruption : it " groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now " (Rom. 8 20ff -). In Paul as in Jewish Apocalyptic the pessimism of the outlook is deepened by a belief in the all-pervading PauPs World- View 1 3 activity of evil spirits. Everywhere the shadow of these malignant powers falls across his pages. The angels and principalities of Rom. 8 s8 , the thrones, dominions, princi- palities and powers of Col. i 16 , the elemental and astral spirits {cTQiyzia) of Gal. 4 9 and Col. 2 8 , are different classes of demonic beings. To these the evil age is in large measure in subjection (1 Cor. 2 6 ). Satan their head is described as its god (2 Cor. 4 4 ). His power is not absolute — Paul sees in history the unfolding of a Divine purpose which Satan himself must unwillingly subserve — but it is extensive enough to make the world his rather than God's. Very real and very horrible for the Apostle are the machinations of the demonic legions. They entice men to evil and blind their eyes (1 Cor. 7 5 , 2 Cor. 4 3 , Eph. 6 12 ). They are the real objects of heathen worship ; and when men participate in heathen meals, and observe the calendar, they put themselves under their power (1 Cor. io 19 , Gal. 4 9 ). They accuse believers before God, and endeavour to separate them from His love (2 Cor. 2 10 , Rom. 8 35 ). Their malice and cunning lie behind all mischief in the Church. The false apostles are Satan's ministers ; and it is Satan who hinders Paul from coming to the Thessalonians and inflicts on him the thorn in the flesh. In one passage the crucifixion itself is traced to " the rulers of this age," by whom is clearly meant not Pilate and the chief priests, but the angel-powers who used these human agents as their instrument. Ignorant of the real rank of their victim, they unwittingly carried into effect the Divine plan for their own undoing (1 Cor. 2 6 ). The demons in the Apostle's pages are no mere symbolic figures, but personal powers of evil. With them Christ has to wrestle, and His redemption signifies in one aspect of it a deliverance of men from their baleful tyranny. Compared with the part assigned to angels of darkness 1 4 The Religion and Theology of Paul that assigned to angels of light is but inconspicuous. Following Jewish traditions, Paul speaks of the latter as having mediated the Law to Moses and as accompanying Christ at His second coming ; but his conception of Christ as the one mediator stands in the way of his attributing to them more than a scenic role. Being such as we have seen, the evil age or world can have but one end — destruction. And the end is close at hand. Paul expects to see it in his lifetime (i Thess. 4 15 ). As a thief in the night the day of the Lord will come. Christ will descend from heaven with His angels, and the human race be gathered before Him for judgment and sentence (Rom. 14 10 ). We read also of a final struggle between Christ and the demonic powers, ending in their irretrievable ruin (1 Cor. 15 24 ). Saved from the day of wrath, the righteous will ascend with their Lord into the new world of glory and immortality. In all this Paul departs but little from the traditional Jewish scheme. One interpolation of far-reaching im- portance has, however, to be noted. Anterior to the messianic redemption of the last days of which alone Apocalyptic knows, the Apostle introduces another redemp- tion, which, indeed, is the decisive one. In fashion as a man, the Son of God is born into the existing evil world, and through His death destroys or mortally wounds the malignant powers that hold it in bondage. The intro- duction into the apocalyptic drama of this new act to some extent dislocates it. The sharpness of the transition from the old age to the new is blurred. With the death or, more strictly, with the resurrection of Christ the new age has in some sense already begun. Believers are even now living under the reign of grace ; and the Holy Spirit, the great messianic gift, is exercising its renewing activity. In some sense the Kingdom is already present. Instead of the single turning-point of Apocalyptic, the day of Pauls World- View 15 judgment, we have two. It would be untrue to say that in Paul the second is overshadowed by the first ; but this was the final outcome. More and more religious interest was transferred from the redemption of the last day to that already achieved on the Cross. That the apocalyptic conception of things has small title to be called philosophic will at once be evident It belongs to the domain not of reasoned thought, but of mythology. Angels and demons, even the Messiah, are mythological figures ; a war of heaven with hell, a world- catastrophe and a sudden appearance of the Kingdom of God are events in a mythological drama. One may wonder that a gospel expressed in terms of such a world-view found acceptance outside Judaism, in circles more or less leavened by Greek thought. But as a matter of fact Hellenistic paganism had much closer affinities with Apocalyptic than might at first sight appear. In both we find the same deep-seated pessimism with respect to the existing order, and the same belief in the malignant and all-pervading activity of evil spirits. Common to both was the belief in redemption, and the idea that redemption, in one aspect of it at least, consisted in deliverance from the tyranny which the evil spirits exercised. And as we can see from the 4th Eclogue of Virgil, there was current in certain pagan circles something analogous to the messianic hope. Indeed, it is by no means easy to decide how much of Paul's demonology is derived from Jewish, and how much from pagan sources. When he speaks of the heathen as being in bondage to the (TTocxela or astral spirits, and represents Christ as triumphing over principalities and powers on the Cross, it is in all probability the latter rather than the former that supply the background of his thought (Gal. 4 3, 9 , Col. 2 16 ). Although Apocalyptic constitutes the ground-plan of 1 6 The Religion and Theology of Paul Paul's general scheme, it is far from providing him with all or even with the most characteristic categories of his thought. His developed doctrine of the evil age, of man and his sin, the world and its bondage, the Redeemer and redemption, carry us outside the circle of apocalyptic ideas. We cannot in the present chapter introduce all his leading conceptions, but there remain two, which occupy a position so fundamental, and are so closely associated with those already noted, that they may claim to be considered at this point. They are the conceptions of the flesh and the Spirit. In these two conceptions the apocalyptic dualism of the old age and the new, the demonic and the Divine, receives a speculative expression and grounding. From the domain of mythology we are led into that of philosophy or quasi-philosophy. What does the Apostle understand by " the flesh," when he uses the term not in a popular way, as he frequently does, but with a definite dogmatic connotation ? In agreement with Hellenistic psychology, he distinguishes in man's being two elements, soul and body, the inner and the outer man. Flesh is the material living substance of the human body. He can use the terms flesh and body indifferently ; and if the first is of far more frequent occurrence than the second, it is because the body's fleshly constitution is what gives it its character (Rom. 7 24 ). A body composed not of flesh but of heavenly substance would have properties entirely different (i Cor. I5 42ff -). With respect to the fleshly body, we have to note the way in which Paul thinks of its connection with the soul or self. With the antique world in general he conceives the two as separate and relatively independent entities. The body is the soul's garment, and like a garment it can be stripped off (2 Cor. 5 2ff -). It is the earthly tabernacle which the soul inhabits ; and Paul can entertain the idea that in an ecstatic experience he had temporarily left it Paul's World- View 17 behind (2 Cor. i 23 ). Further, the fleshly body is conceived as endowed with a life and activity of its own. It is the seat of impulses that are distinguishable from those of the soul united with it and, indeed, at variance with them (Rom. 7 23 ). When the Apostle speaks of " the mind of the flesh" of ." its affections and lusts," his words are not to be taken as a merely figurative description of the pro- pensities of the natural man. Flesh and soul, if bound up together, retain their separate life and motions, and act reciprocally on one another. The modern idea of the unity of the personality must be dismissed from our mind. And now we come to the main point. The motions of the flesh possess moral quality, and that quality is evil. Fornication, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, jealousies, heresies, drunkenness, revellings and such-like — these are the works to which they provoke (Gal. 5 19ff *). It is not a case of a thing in itself morally indifferent being perverted to evil, but of a thing inherently evil. " The mind of the flesh is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be " (Rom. 8 7 ). While the body is capable of redemption in the sense of being changed into a spiritual body, the flesh is irredeemable. It can have no place in the Kingdom of God ; and the task of the believer is not to transmute its passions and lusts, or even to regulate them, but to mortify and crucify them (1 Cor. IS 50 , Col. 3 5 ). In the flesh Paul in fact finds the spring and principle of sin. Sins of every description, whether bearing a sensuous character or not, are traced back to it (Gal. 5 19ff *). It is everywhere set over-against the Spirit, which is the principle of righteousness, as its moral opposite. " The flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh ; for these are contrary one to the other '* (Gal. 5 17 ). Sometimes, it is true, Paul speaks of sin as a personal power that entered the world, took up its abode in man 1 8 The Religion and Theology of Paul and subjected him to its sway; but such personification cannot be regarded as more than figurative (Rom. 5 12 - 21 516. 23 yny From a multitude of passages it is abundantly clear that for Paul sin means just the motions or lusts of the flesh. As will appear later, these lusts do not become sinful in the full sense of the word, until confronted by the " Thou shalt not " of the Law. Against the interpretation of Paul's teaching here adopted various objections have been urged, but none possessing any real force. The Apostle, it is urged, can speak of glorifying God in the body, of cleansing oneself from all defilement of the flesh ; he can speak of the body as a temple of the Holy Ghost and of its sanctification (i Thess. 4 4 , I Cor. 6 19 - 20 ). But what he means by these assertions is not that the flesh has been altered in its moral character, but only that through the indwelling of the Spirit its sinful lusts have been reduced to impotence. Such then is the fleshly body. How does Paul think of the soul ? It is the inner as opposed to the outer man, the ego or self as distinguished from the body it inhabits and the bodily lusts that exert an evil power over it (2 Cor. 4 16 , Rom. •}*&-*$), More explicitly, it is the mind (1/0O9), the heart, the spirit (Rom. 7 23 , 1 Cor. 2 11 , 2 Cor. 7 1 ). When he describes it as the spirit, the Apostle is simply using popular language and has no intention of suggesting a primordial connection with the divine Spirit. From these designations as well as from the functions ascribed to it, it is clear that Paul thinks of the soul after the Greek fashion as constituted by reason and conscience. It has God's unwritten law imprinted on it, and it is capable of rising through observation of the visible creation to a knowledge of the Creator's eternal power and Godhead (Rom. 2 16 i 20 ). What is more, it has its affinities, not with the flesh — against the domination of which it rebels, though impotently — but with the divine law. Transcribing Pauls World- View 1 9 his pre-conversion experience Paul can say, " I delight in the law of God after the inward man" (Rom. 7 15ff -). But whatever its native leanings, through its connection with the flesh the soul is bound to evil by a chain it can never of itself break, and in cases of flagrant abandonment its spark of light is turned into utter darkness (Rom. I 19 , Eph. 4 18 ). No initiative is conceded to it, and in the drama of redemption it plays not the slightest part. In the natural man the tyranny of the flesh is the all-determining fact. The natural man is carnal (f} 0€ov). He is classed not with humanity, but with >eity. That He stooped to a human lot involved a process F self-emptying and a descent to a mode of existence >reign to His real nature. The same considerations are decisive against the view lat Paul thinks of Christ as an angelic being. And this ther may be added, that when he brings Christ into onnection with the angels it is to set Him over-against nem as their creator, lord and redeemer (Col. i 16 2 10 , 'hil. 2 10 ). Unquestionably for Paul, Christ belongs to the ide of reality we call divine. And His pre-existence rould seem to him an inseparable concomitant of His ivinity. His divinity is the primary fact to which every jrther determination or limitation attaches itself. The conception of Christ as divine and yet as subordi- late to God forms the main content of the title, Son of jod (Rom. i 3 4 9 , Gal. 2 20 ). In the Old Testament this title 3 applied sometimes to Israel and sometimes to the heocratic or messianic king. As thus used it carries no uggestion of a metaphysical relation to God, but connotes nerely a position of dignity, and a relation, on the one side >f love and favour, and on the other of trust and obedience, n the later Jewish literature it appears more than once as 1 title of the Messiah (En. 105 2 , 4 Esd. 7 28 13 27 ); but vhether it was ever current in the Church with a purely nessianic sense must be regarded as doubtful. Certainly is used by Paul the messianic meaning is lost in a higher. That Christ is the Son of God means that He stands to jod in an aboriginal and metaphysical relation. As God's irst-born, He is anterior to and separate from all created beings (Col. i 15 ). The assertion that He was " marked out is Son of God with power by the resurrection of the dead " s not to be taken as meaning that He was then for the irst time elevated to that dignity (Rom. i 4 ). He was Son Doctrine of Christ's Person 57 during His earthly life, though He bore the form of a servant (Rom. 5 10 8 32 ). And He was Son in His pre- existent state : " God sent His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh " (Rom. 8 3 ). Of an adoptionist christology we find no trace. The title Son of God must therefore be regarded as a product of reflection and as serving mainly a theological interest. Indicating as it did divinity and also subordina- tion to God, it supplied some sort of solution to the problem which the elevation of Christ to the throne of Deity raised for the Apostle's monotheistic faith. That it could hardly, without further development of its meaning, be regarded as a philosophical solution will at once be evident. Not till the idea of an eternal Son of God was grounded in some general conception of God and the world could such a claim be made for it. Does the Apostle make any attempt to develop it in this direction ? To his hand there lay the conception of the Spirit The Spirit is for Paul a divine magnitude, the creative source of the new life in man. Already in popular thought it had been brought into close connection with Christ : through the Spirit Christ had been equipped for His messianic task. How natural if the Apostle should regard Christ's divinity as constituted by the fact that the Spirit formed the essential element in His being. Approaches to such a construction we do as a matter of fact find. The Spirit of God is for Paul also the Spirit of Christ, and in at least one passage, as we have seen, Christ and the Spirit are expressly identified. Further, he can speak of deliver- ance from the law of sin and death as effected through the agency of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus (Rom. 8 2 ), and describe Christ as spiritual (irvev\iaTiKoi) and a life-giving spirit (1 Cor. 1 5 45ff *)« It was in virtue of His connection with the Spirit that Christ was marked out by the resurrec- tion as the Son of God with power (Rom. i 4 ). But if these I The Religion and Theology of Paul issages may be regarded as showing an approach to such theory as we have indicated, certainly they do not nount to it. Nowhere does the Apostle contemplate a ew of Christ's divinity that would make it dependent on is possession of the Spirit or on His identification with All that the passages quoted really prove, is that Paul describing Christ's renewing activity was almost in- itably led to do so in terms of the Spirit. A speculative construction of Christ's divine Sonship, ised on the conception of the Spirit, Paul does not >ssess. This, however, does not end the matter. Such construction, though on another basis, meets us in at ast two passages, the first from one of his earlier, the cond from one of his later, Epistles. Let us bring the issages together. Contrasting the objects of Christian ith those of pagan worship, the Apostle writes : " For ough there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or 1 earth ; as there are gods many and lords many ; yet for : there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things id we unto Him (e£ ov ra rrdvra fcal r/fieis ets avrov), and ie Lord, even Jesus Christ, through whom are all things id we through Him (Be ov ra rrdvra teal rifiei? Be avrov) '* Cor. 8 6 ). " In Christ we have our redemption, the rgiveness of our sins : who is the image of the invisible od, born first before all creation : for by Him (iv avrtp) ^re all things created, in the heavens and upon the earth, ings visible and things invisible, whether thrones or >minions or principalities or powers ; all things have :en created by Him and for Him (81 avrov teal els