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realized in historical form. But that is not enough. A mere example, even the highest, will not avail of itself. The principle and secret of that life must be unsealed, otherwise it will remain at best a distant ideal and fade into a remote memory.1 For Paul, therefore, there arises the question, is there any force which will not only preserve the ideal which has been given in Christ from fading away, but make it a real and living power in men's lives? He believes that there is, and the aim of his whole teaching is to show what that power is and how it acts. Christ for the apostle is no mere historical embodiment of perfection. He does not simply present for the imitation of mankind an example of unblemished virtue. He is the creator of a new humanity. He is a new man, the second Adam, "the first fruits of a spirit that had grafted itself afresh on the old tree of human life." 2 That spirit which dwells in its fulness in Christ repeats itself in the lives and experiences of His followers.

Though Paul was not likely to have access to any written records of Christ's life and ministry on earth, he had come into contact with some of the apostles, especially with Mark and Luke (both of whom became biographers of Jesus), and he could not be ignorant that Christ always represented Himself as acting in the power and under the direct influence of the Spirit of God. Nor could he fail to be cognisant of the fact that with the promised outpouring of the Spirit after the departure of Christ, not only the Master's life, but His work and resurrection, had a new significance for His followers. After Pentecost everything was changed. A new power seemed to be liberated, a new force made available, which

1 Strong, Christian Ethics, p. 55.

2 Matheson, Landmarks of New Testament Morality, p. 140.

worked in and through the great facts of Christ's life, and made them living factors in the experience of all who accepted them by faith.

Hence it is that when Paul speaks of the new ethical state of believers, he represents it generally as a renewal, a rebirth of the Holy Spirit. This renewal, whether it takes place suddenly or gradually, is an act of divine creative activity. "All things are of God," he declares, "who hath reconciled us to Himself." "Ye are justified by the Spirit of God," he writes to the Corinthians.1 The renewal is in fact represented as a new birth, a new creation, inasmuch as it comes about by the act of God's Spirit alone. Man in the very essence of his being is recreated after the divine image. "Not by the works of righteousness which we have done," he writes to Titus, "but according to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost."

But while the apostle represents generally the renewal as resulting from the influence, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, he connects its working in particular with two facts in the life of Christ, which for him are the most important in history,-the Sacrifice and the Resurrection. These two facts are closely connected in Paul's mind, and their significance for the ethical life of man lies in the very nature of Christ Himself. Who is this man whose life and death have such supreme value? He is for Paul none other than "Lord," in some way identified with Jehovah, the God of the old covenant.2 But though Christ is thus identified with God, He is not merged in the being of God. He has a separate and distinct personality, in virtue of which there are assigned to Him unique mediatorial functions. To Him is given the work of reconciliation, and by His life of obedience 11 Cor. vi. 11. 2 Strong, ibid.

and death upon the Cross He has not only fulfilled the law, but removed the barrier of sin and opened up the way of access to God. This historical being is therefore more than the realized ideal of man. He has all the value of God; He has even all the power which God Himself has the power of renewing men and making them like Himself the sons of God. Here we are in the region of dogmatics rather than ethics, and it does not concern us to present a theory of the atonement. All we have here to do with is the fact that between man and the new life lies sin, the real source of man's failure and the stumbling-block which must be removed before reconciliation with the Father can be effected. The deed which, according to the teaching of the apostle, alone meets the case is the sacrifice of Christ. In the light of his Hebrew training and of his own experience, Paul sees that nothing else than a perfect propitiation for sin can restore the broken harmony between God and man and make the new life possible. This, Christ, in virtue of His unique union with the Father and of His special relation to man, is qualified and enabled to achieve. Many passages in the epistles show the significance for Paul of Christ's death. It is sufficient to quote two. Writing to the Ephesians he says, "But now in Jesus Christ, ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ." And to the Corinthians he writes, "All things are of God, who hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ."2 It is the task of theology to bring together these and other passages of Scripture and exhibit their systematic connection, as well as their relative values for a doctrine of soteriology. Whatever be our theory of atonement, the ethical result of the death of Christ is, according to Paul, the reconciliation of God 1 Eph. ii. 13. 22 Cor. v. 18.

and man. In virtue of what Christ has achieved, a fundamentally new relationship exists. God and man are now organically in full moral accord and deep vital union.

But not less important than the sacrifice of Christ as a factor in creating the new life of the Christian is, in Paul's view, the Resurrection. Both are indeed for him complementary truths. The resurrection is the crown and seal of the Sacrifice. It is the one fact which sheds light upon the nature of Christ and the significance of His work. He who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh was declared to be the Son of God by the Resurrection. It was the certainty that He had risen that gave to His death its sacrificial value. This was the ground of the apostle's conviction that the old order had passed away and that a new order had been established. "If Christ be not risen, ye are yet in your sins."

"1

It is, however, in no external or mechanical way that Paul conceives the work of Christ. It is not an influence exerted outside of and upon man. It is a power working within the soul. The key to the new life is to be found in the mystical union of the Christian with the risen Redeemer. The act of Christ in its twofold form of death and resurrection, has its counterpart and expression in the experience of redeemed man. The great central truth for Paul, on which indeed his whole ethical teaching rests, is that man is born again into a new life by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. This is no metaphorical truth or symbolic representation merely for the apostle. It is a literal fact, a great spiritual truth. The Christian is supposed by Paul to have experienced, literally, the death and resurrection of Christ, and to have become a new man. The apostle learned this truth

1 1 Strong, Christian Ethics, p. 61.

from his own experience. In that hour on the road to Damascus, when he was apprehended of Christ, convicted of sin, and brought as by a flash to see the truth as it is in Jesus, he himself died and he rose again. He became. a new creature, old things passed away, all things became new. What was true of him was likewise true of all believers. That is the story of every redemption. Within the secret sanctuary of each human soul the history of Christ is ever re-enacted.1 This thought finds typical expression in 2 Cor. v. 14 ff.: "If one died for all, then were all dead; and that He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them and rose again." In the sixth chapter of Romans a similar line of thought is followed. The "old man" is crucified with Jesus, that the body of sin might be done away, and that we should no longer be in bondage to sin. But if we die with

Christ we shall also live with Him.

In all the passages

which refer to this subject, the idea in Paul's mind which he seeks to emphasize is that the changed life, in virtue of which Christ comes to dwell in the heart, is based upon an ethical dying and rising again with Christ.2 Or as he sometimes puts it, Christ becomes the element in which the new life moves and has its being, and from which it henceforth derives its strength and purpose. "I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me."4

3

We have already remarked that Paul frequently represents renewal as the work of the Holy Spirit, or the Spirit of God. It will not be necessary here to discuss the difficult question of the precise relation of Christ to the Spirit. In some passages, as in 2 Cor. iii. 17, Christ

"Every soul in which conversion has taken place is a symbol of the history of the world." Amiel.

2 Eph. iii. 16, 17.

3 Eph. v. 8.

* Gal. ii. 20.

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