Part 49

In the Apostle's habit of thought there is a certain antique _realism_ which renders many of his doctrines and reasonings almost unpresentable before a modern imagination. With our sharp notions of personality, of the entire insulation of each mind as an individual entity, of the antithesis of inner self to the outer everything, we are quite out of St. Paul's latitude, and shall be perpetually taking for figures and personification what had a literal earnestness for him. The universe is with him full of Agents that for us are only Attributes,--the theatre of certain _real_ principles (_i. e._ principles having existence independent of us), that carry out their tendencies and history among themselves, and upon and through individual men, as organs or media of their activity. Thus, _Sin_ is neither the mere voluntary unfaithfulness of the transgressor, nor the person of the tempter; but _both_ of these; and that not apart from one another or alternately, but blended together under the conception of a universal element of evil, having its objective focus in Satan and its subjective manifestation in man. In like manner its opposite, _Righteousness_ (Justification), is not exclusively human rectitude, or the Divine justice, or _quasi_-goodness substituted for genuine; but less ethical than the first, less forensic than the last, and more ontological than either; that element, we may say, in the essence of God which sets man at one with Him, and is the common ground of their harmonious relation. Around these two contrasted principles, others, equally conceived as real elements, and misunderstood as mere attributes or phenomena, group themselves on either side. With the former is _Death_,--the pair being _gemini_, not simply joined by decree of God in time, but inseparable _in rerum natura_, co-ordinates by physical necessity; and _Flesh_, the material or medium that furnishes the endowments of sense, and instinct, and the natural will, and affords to Sin its seat and hold upon us; and _Law_, the discriminating light that parts the mixture of good and evil, and, on entering into us, brings the slumbering evil into the conscious state, and so makes it sin relatively to us, and simultaneously shows us the good without adding to the force for producing it. With the latter--Righteousness--are enjoined _Life_, the positive opposite of Death, and, like it, a function of the moral as well as the natural constitution, the immortal energy inherent in sinless being; and _Spirit_, the absolute essence of God, present as the vivifying source of whatever transcends nature,--a faint susceptibility, felt only to be overmastered, in the sons of Adam,--a conquering power, coalescing with the personality itself, in Christ and his disciples,--and a spontaneous flow of higher life seizing on converted men as organs of its charismata; and _Faith_,--the opposite of Law,--the passing out of ourselves to embrace unseen relations, to make conscious appropriation of the Spirit, and thus enter into union with Christ and God. Even this most subjective of all the great principles of the Apostle's theology, is more than a mere private and personal act. As common to all the disciples,--the simultaneous gaze that connects them as a whole with Christ,--its single threads pass out and become a converging web. As something other than the act (of obedience) which men were under bond to render, it is a new institute of God, and, relatively to them, reads itself off as _Grace_. As opposed to Law, in which there is a delivery of the Divine will _into_ men, it involves a _drawing_ by Divine love of an affection _out of_ men. And under all these aspects it acquires something of that indeterminate character, subjective and objective at once, which the associated elements possess in a much higher degree. The same mode of thought is traceable in another form. The Apostle exhibits the providential scheme of the human race by distributing them into two successive _gentes_,--the earthy or natural, the heavenly or spiritual; and lays down all the predicates of each direct from the personal history of their respective heads, Adam and Christ. Whatever is true of the founder is considered as known of the followers; the phenomena of his being spread themselves inclusively to theirs. He is regarded, not simply as a representative individual, while they are the represented individuals; but as a _type_ of being within which they are contained, and which in its history and vicissitudes carries them hither and thither. Condemnation and redemption take place by _Kinds_, and fall on particular persons in virtue of their partaking of these kinds. Settle the attributes of the species, as found in its archetype, and you know what to say of individuals. It is not difficult to understand this way of thinking so long as the Apostle applies it, as a naturalist might, to the _Adamic gens_; and argues, that, being made of earthy materials (χοικοι), and having the focus of personality in σαρξ, with no adequate counterpoise of πνευμα, it is the seat of sin and death. But it is less easy to follow the Apostle's meaning when he similarly identifies Christians with Christ, and transfers, or rather extends, to them all the great characteristics of his existence. They are crucified to the world. They are "all _dead_" with him; they are "buried with him" in baptism; they are "risen with him"; their "life is hid with him in God." And while this is true of _living_ disciples, he is no less "the first-fruits of them that sleep"; his resurrection is but the first pulsation of an act that next proceeds to theirs, and then completes the transformation of the living. All this is meant for more than rhetorical analogy. With Christ, and in Christ, took place a re-constitution of humanity. Of the new man, he was the ideal and archetype; inverting the proportions of σαρξ and πνευμα, and having his essence and personality in the latter, so as to render sin an unrealized possibility and death a transitory accident. The spirit in him which evinced its life-giving power in raising him from the dead, is no more limited to his individuality, than flesh and blood were the attributes of Adam only. It spreads to the whole family of souls, springing up into his kindred; it flows into them as they look up to him in faith, and are reborn to him; it repeats in them the fruits it produced in him,--the sacrifice of self,--the dying away of passion and pride,--the heavenly love that darts upon the wing whither the bleeding feet of conscience fail to climb,--together with many "a gift less excellent," of healing and of tongues. The consciousness of this new heart, set free with Divine affections, is immediate evidence of their union with Christ, of the Real Presence of his Spirit within them, of their substantive incorporation into his essence, and therefore of a restored harmony and even oneness with God. To what extent the Apostle conceived that this transformation of nature, by partnership in the properties of the heavenly Christ, might be carried in the living disciple, it is not possible to say. It amounted to "a new creation"; and among the "old things" that had already "passed away," he probably included more than the moral habits and feelings of the unconverted state; and conceived that the same spirit by which these died out was purifying also the bodily organism of the believer, and leavening it with antiseptic preparation for its final investiture with immortality. That last "change," like the resurrection itself, is not regarded as an external miracle, suddenly forced on an uncongenial material by mere Almightiness; but as the last and crowning stage of an internal development, whose principle had long been active,--the emergence from all entanglement with "flesh and blood" of that spiritual element which in Jesus "could not be holden of death," and which, dwelling in his disciples, already deadened and damped the vitality of the σαρξ, and would at last quicken the σωμα with imperishable life. Thus it is that "Christ" is not to St. Paul an historical individual, but a generic nature,--the archetype of a spiritual species, sharing his attributes and repeating his experience.

Cleared as a stage for these contending principles, the universe witnesses their co-existence and antagonism from the beginning to the end of time.

The great drama has two main acts, and the cross of Christ divides them.

The first is a descending period, accumulating the force of evil to a pitch of frightful triumph. The second is an ascending period, at whose goal the last enemy is gone.

In the opening scene of the first, extending from Adam to Moses, both Flesh and Spirit were there; not yet, however, in conflict; but the latter sleeping as a mere susceptibility, and the former having its own way in the instinctive life of man. The state was not one which, had the comparison been made, would have accorded with the Divine will. It was therefore really, though unconsciously, a reign of Sin, as was proved by the presence of Sin's inseparable sign,--the generations _died_.

The next scene was marked by the introduction of _Law_. The effects were, to bring into full consciousness the sin before unmarked, and so make it exceedingly sinful; to set man at variance with himself by giving him discernment, and quickening his longing and his fear, without any new spring of force; and actually to multiply transgressions by enumerating and suggesting them.

Hence, at the close of the period, an utter rotting away of human society, and a confirmed moral incapacity of the widest sweep. The spontaneous law of nature and the written law of Moses being equally set at naught by Gentile and by Jew, any promises God might have given fell through, from human breach of the conditions. This was the moment seized for instituting a new creation; the promised Messiah of the Jews being the vehicle of its accomplishment, and the link of connection between the old and the new.

All the Messianic conditions were _fulfilled_,--the right tribe, the right family, the right personal marks and characteristics. But they were also _transcended_. Along with the human infirmities and liabilities was present, in this archetype of a new race, the Spirit in such full measure as to constitute his proper self, or at least win that centre by complete victory over nature and temptation and surrender of all he had and was to a Divine Love. As he had baffled and held off Sin, Death had so far no business with him. Yet what was to be done? for there were conflicting claims upon him. Sinless in himself, he was of a sin-doomed type, the _likeness_ of sinful flesh (ὁμοιωμα σαρκος ἁμαρτιας), and therefore liable to the incidents of such a race. This was at least his property by nature. At the same time, he was internally and essentially of the opposite type; the image of God (εικων του Θεου), and so, foreign to the mortal fate, at once imperishable and life-giving. In the person of this double nature, the contest between the antagonists must come to an issue; and while _both_ gain their due, it is the last triumph of evil, the first opening of eternal good. Sin, recognizing in his suffering and mortal frame its own physical counterpart and shadow, strikes him with death, exerting for that end its own "strength" and instrument, "the Law." But in thus carrying its course upon the guiltless, it overreached and spent itself; and the Law, lending itself to such an act, fell into self-contradiction, and disappeared in suicide. He died, therefore, in virtue of what was really foreign to him, as _representative_ of a Sin which was not his, but which yet involved him, as human, in sorrow and mortality. But no sooner had this happened, than his "Righteousness" vindicated its power. He came out of death, which _could not keep_ one so holy; and now, escaped from nationality, and placed aloft as the ideal of the new humanity, his vivifying spirit penetrates the heart of men below, and, taking them on the side of faith and love instead of will, kindles a divine fire that burns up the dead elements of the "old man," and wraps the "heavenly places" and the earthly in a common blaze. By spiritual affiliation with him, his disciples enter the essence of all holy and immortal natures. And so it comes to pass, that, through the incidence of sorrow and death in the wrong place, an objective power of "righteousness" is set free, that reconciles mankind with God, and restores them to sanctity and life. The past and the future of humanity were concentrated, just at the turning point between them, in one person; the natural element, bearing the burden of the past, perished and fell away; the spiritual and divine principle, containing the germ of the future, asserted its inextinguishable life; and from heaven evinced its self-multiplying power, making him only "the first-born of many brethren."

Thus was the second act initiated, which also presented two successive scenes. During the first, the Christ was still in heaven; and his Spirit on earth, having the community of disciples for its organ or "body," stood in presence still of the opposing powers. In the world, it encroached upon the province of evil continually, and reclaimed a citadel here and there. In the Church, if it infused as yet no _perfect_ grace, it left its "earnest" everywhere;--ecstatic gifts and mystic insights; hearts set free from pride and scorn, and brought to the meekness and gentleness of Christ; the self-seeking will surrendered; the anxious conscience led to trust; the tangles of thought smoothed out by a wisdom not its own; and outward distinctions reduced to naught by faith, and hope, and charity. Nevertheless, Satan disturbed the κοσμος still; and even the children of the Spirit were but prisoners yet, and felt the tent of nature but a poor abode. They had yet to wait for their full adoption; when the tabernacle in which they groaned being dissolved, they should be invested with an unwasting frame.

This was reserved for the final scene, the coming and the reign of Christ. At this culminating crisis, the antagonism which in Adam was as yet unfelt from the ascendency of nature, was to die out and cease on the absolute triumph of the Spirit. Physically, death was to disappear; the departed being finally reinstated in life, and the living "clothed upon" with their new garment ere yet they were stripped of the old. Morally, the remnant of inner strife and temptation, that even the faith of saints might leave unappeased, would pass away, aspiration be harmonized with achieving power, and in conscious presence of the objects of deepest affection and reverence the sighs of separation would cease. As soon as resistance was over, and there was nothing to subdue, the separate function of God's redeeming and sanctifying Spirit would find no work; "the kingdom would be resigned to the Father"; "the Son would be subject"; and "the Trinity would cease."

Whether the Apostle's vision of trust was really of universal success, and included even those who should still be found astray at last, is a question difficult of direct determination; but not very doubtful when tried by the general scope of his doctrine. Mr. Jowett's judgment, given in the following passage, truly seizes, we think, the feeling of St. Paul. The author is commenting on the parallel drawn between Adam and Christ, especially on the words, "As by one man's transgression sin entered into the world, and death by sin," and has shown that they do _not_ teach any imputation of Adam's sin.

"It is hardly necessary to ask the further question, what meaning we can attach to the imputation of sin and guilt which are not our own, and of which we are unconscious. God can never see us other than we really are, or judge us without reference to all our circumstances and antecedents. If we can hardly suppose that he would allow a fiction of mercy to be interposed between ourselves and him, still less can we imagine that he would interpose a fiction of vengeance. If he requires holiness before he will save, much more, may we say in the Apostle's form of speech, will he require sin before he dooms us to perdition. Nor can anything be in spirit more contrary to the living consciousness of sin of which the Apostle everywhere speaks, than the conception of sin as dead, unconscious evil, originating in the act of an individual man, in the world before the flood.

"On the whole, then, we are led to infer that in the Augustinian interpretation of this passage, even if it agree with the letter of the text, too little regard has been paid to the extent to which St. Paul uses figurative language, and to the manner of his age in interpretations of the Old Testament. The difficulty of supposing him to be allegorizing the narrative of Genesis is slight, in comparison with the difficulty of supposing him to countenance a doctrine at variance with our first notions of the moral nature of God.

"But when the figure is dropped, and allowance is made for the manner of the age, the question once more returns upon us,--'What is the Apostle's meaning?' He is arguing, we see, κατ ανθρωπον, and taking his stand on the received opinions of his time. Do we imagine that his object is no other than to set the seal of his authority on these traditional beliefs? The whole analogy, not merely of the writings of St. Paul, but of the entire New Testament, would lead us to suppose that his object was not to reassert them, but to teach, through them, a new and nobler lesson. The Jewish Rabbis would have spoken of the first and second Adam; but which of them would have made the application of the figure to all mankind? A figure of speech it remains still, an allegory after the manner of that age and country, but yet with no uncertain or ambiguous interpretation. It means that 'God hath made of one blood all the nations of the earth'; that 'he hath concluded all under sin, that he may have mercy upon all'; that life answers to death, the times before to the times after the revelation of Jesus Christ. It means that we are one in a common sinful nature, which, even if it be not derived from the sin of Adam, exists as really as if it were. It means that we shall be made one in Christ by the grace of God, in a measure here, more fully and perfectly in another world. More than this it also means, and more than language can express, but not the weak and beggarly elements of Rabbinical tradition. We may not encumber St. Paul with the things which he 'destroyed.' What it means further is not to be attained by theological distinctions, but by putting off the old man and putting on the new man."--Vol. II. p. 166.

On surveying the picture of time and the history of humanity that lay beneath St. Paul's eye, the question naturally arises, What is its significance and value for us? Manifestly not those of an absolute guide through the labyrinthine depths of the Divine counsels. "We can scarcely imagine what would have been the feeling of St. Paul, could he have foreseen that later ages would look not to the faith of Abraham in the Law, but to the Epistle to the Romans, as the highest authority on the doctrine of justification by faith; or, that they would have regarded the allegory of Hagar and Sarah, in the Galatians, as a difficulty to be resolved by the inspiration of the Apostle."[67] We cannot say of him less than Mr. Jowett says of a greater than Paul, that in many places "his teaching is on a level with the modes of thought of his age." (I. 97.) The ultimate point towards which all the lines of his expectations converged, and all the history of the past appeared to gaze, we know to have had no existence where he placed it; and as the whole scheme was laid out to lead up to this, it might seem to disappear as the fabric of a dream. Yet it is not so; and the very fear implies that we look in the wrong place for the permanent amid the evanescent in the Gospel. Religion--revealed or unrevealed--is no production of the systematizing intellect,--inspired or uninspired. The workings of constructive thought follow, not lead it. Their function is not creative, but simply adaptive;--to find a settlement and orderly method of being and growing for some new principle of divine life, or for some old principle in an altered scene; to ward off from it uncongenial elements, remove dead matter that chokes it, and surround it with conditions whence it may weave its organism around it and send deep roots into the mellowed soil of humanity. Divine truth is the coming of God to man, pathless and traceless: theologic thought is the retrogressive search of man after God, not by "_His_ ways which are past finding out," and invisible as night, but necessarily by such tracks as the age has opened and another age may close or change.