The Destiny of the Soul
William Rounseville Alger

CHAPTER IV.

PAUL'S DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE.

THE principal difficulty in arriving at the system of thought and faith in the mind of Paul arises from the fragmentary character of his extant writings. They are not complete treatises drawn out in independent statements,butspecial letters full of latent implications. They were written to meet particular emergencies, to give advice, to convey or ask information and sympathy, to argue or decide concerning various matters to a considerable extent of a personal or local and temporal nature. Obviously their author never suspected they would be the permanent and immensely influential documents they have since become. They were not composed as orderly developments or full presentations of a creed, but rather as supplements to more adequate oral instruction previously imparted. He says to the Thessalonians, "Brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word or by our epistle." Several of his letters also perhaps many have been lost. He exhorts the Colossians to "read likewise the epistle from Laodicea." In his present First Epistle to the Corinthians he intimates that he had previously corresponded with them, in the words, "I wrote to you in a letter." There are good reasons, too, for supposing that he transmitted other epistles of which we have now no account. Owing, therefore, to the facts that his principal instructions were given by word of mouth, and that his surviving writings set forth no systematic array of doctrines, we have no choice left, if we desire to know what his opinions concerning the future life were, when deduced and arranged, but to exercise our learning and our faculties upon the imperfect discussions and the significant hints and clews in his extant epistles. Bringing these together, in the light of contemporary Pharisaic and Christian conceptions and opinions, we may construct a system from them which will represent his theory; somewhat as the naturalist from a few fragmentary bones describes the entire skeleton to which they belonged. As we proceed to follow this process, we must particularly remember the leading notions in the doctrinal belief of the Jews at that period, and the fact that Paul himself was "brought up at the feet of Gamaliel," "after the most straitest order of the sect, a Pharisee." When on trial at Jerusalem, he cried, "Men and brethren, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee: of the hope of the resurrection of the dead I am called in question." We can hardly suppose that he would entirely throw off the influence and form of the Pharisaic dogmas and grasp Christianity in its pure spirituality. It is most reasonable to expect what we shall find actually the fact that he would mix the doctrinal and emotional results of his Pharisaic training with the teachings of Christ, thus forming a composite system considerably modified from any then existing. Indeed, a great many obscure texts in Paul may be made perspicuous by citations from the old Talmudists. Considering the value and the importance of this means of illustrating the New Testament, it is neglected by modern commentators in a very remarkable manner.

In common with his countrymen and the Gentiles, Paul undoubtedly believed in a world of light and bliss situated over the sky, where the Deity, surrounded by his angels, reigns in immortal splendor. According to the Greeks, Zeus and the other gods, with a few select heroes, there lived an imperishable life. According to the Hebrews, there was "the house of Jehovah," "the habitation of eternity," "the world of holy angels." The Old Testament contains many sublime allusions to this place. Jacob in his dream saw a ladder set up that reached unto heaven, and the angels were ascending and descending upon it. Fixing his eyes upon the summit, the patriarch exclaimed, not referring, as is commonly supposed, to the ground on which he lay, but to the opening in the sky through which the angels were passing and repassing, "Surely this is the house of God and this the gate of heaven." Jehovah is described as "riding over the heaven of heavens;" as "treading upon the arch of the sky." The firmament is spoken of as the solid floor of his abode, where "he layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters," the "waters above," which the Book of Genesis says were "divided from the waters beneath." Though this divine world on high was in the early ages almost universally regarded as a local reality, it was not conceived by Jews or Gentiles to be the destined abode of human souls. It was thought to be exclusively occupied by Jehovah and his angels, or by the gods and their messengers. Only here and there were scattered a few dim traditions, or poetic myths, of a prophet, a hero, a god descended man, who, as a special favor, had been taken up to the supernal mansions. The common destination of the disembodied spirits of men was the dark,stupendous realms of the under world. As Augustine observes, "Christ died after many; he rose before any: by dying he suffered what many had suffered before; by rising he did what no one had ever done before."1 These ideas of the celestial and the infernal localities and of the fate of man were of course entertained by Paul when he became a Christian. A few texts by way of evidence of this fact will here suffice. "That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and those on earth, and those under the earth." "He that descended first into the lower parts of the earth is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens." The untenableness of that explanation which makes the descent into the lower parts of the earth refer to Christ's descent to earth from his pre existent state in heaven must be evident, as it seems to us, to every mind. Irenaus, discussing this very text from Ephesians, exposes the absurdity and stigmatizes the heresy of those who say that the infernal world is this earth, ("qui dicunt inferos quidem esse hunc mundum.")2 "I knew a man caught up to the third heaven, . . . caught up into paradise." The threefold heaven of the Jews, here alluded to, was, first, the region of the air, supposed to be inhabited by evil spirits. Paul repeatedly expresses this idea, as when he speaks of "the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that worketh in the children of disobedience," and when he says, "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness, against wicked spirits in heavenly places." The second heaven comprised the region of the planetary bodies. The third lay beyond the firmament, and was the actual residence of God and the angelic hosts.

1 Enarratio in Psalmum XC.

2 Adv. Hares. lib. v. cap. 31.

These quotations, sustained as they are by the well known previous opinions of the Jews, as well as by numerous unequivocal texts in the writings of the other apostles and by many additional ones in those of Paul, are conclusive evidence that he believed in the received heaven above the blue ether and stellar dome, and in the received Hadean abyss beneath the earth. In the absence of all evidence to the contrary, every presumption justifies the supposition that he also believed as we know all his orthodox contemporaries did that that under world was the abode of all men after death, and that that over world was solely the dwelling place of God and the angels. Nay, we are not left to conjecture; for he expressly declares of God that he "dwelleth in the light which no man can approach unto." This conclusion will be abundantly established in the course of the following exposition.

With these preliminaries, we are prepared to see what was Paul's doctrine of death and of salvation. There are two prevalent theories on this subject, both of which we deem partly scriptural, neither of them wholly so. On the one extreme, the consistent disciple of Augustine the historic Calvinist attributes to the apostle the belief that the sin of Adam was the sole cause of literal death, that but for Adam's fall men would have lived on the earth forever or else have been translated bodily to heaven without any previous process of death. That such really was not the view held by Paul we are convinced. Indeed, there is one prominent feature in his faith which by itself proves that the disengagement of the soul from the material frame did not seem to him an abnormal event caused by the contingency of sin. We refer to his doctrine of two bodies, the "outward man" and the "inward man," the "earthly house" and the "heavenly house," the "natural body" and the "spiritual body." Neander says this is "an express assertion" of Paul's belief that man was not literally made mortal by sin, but was naturally destined to emerge from the flesh into a higher form of life.3 Paul thought that, in the original plan of God, man was intended to drop his gross, corruptible body and put on an incorruptible one, like the "glorious body" of the risen Christ. He distinctly declares, "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God." Therefore, we cannot interpret the word "death" to mean merely the separation of the soul from its present tabernacle, when he says, "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men." On the other extreme, the fully developed Pelagian the common Unitarian holds that the word "death" is always used in the arguments of Paul in a spiritual or figurative sense, merely meaning moral alienation from God in guilt, misery, and despair. Undoubtedly it is used thus in many instances, as when it is written, "I was alive without the law once; but, when the commandment came, sin rose to life, and I died." But in still more numerous cases it means something more than the consciousness of sin and the resulting wretchedness in the breast, and implies something external, mechanical, visible, as it were. For example, "Since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead." Any one who reads the context of this sentence may see that the terms "death" and "resurrection" antithetically balance each other, and refer not to an inward experience, but to an outward event, not to a moral change, but to the physical descent and resurrection. It is certain that here the words are not employed in a moral sense.

3 Planting and Training, Ryland's trans. p. 240.

The phraseology Paul uses in stating the connection of the sin of Adam with death, the connection of the resurrection of Christ with immortal life, is too peculiar, emphatic, and extensive not to be loaded witha more general and vivid significance than the simple unhappiness of a sense of guilt, the simple peace and joy of a reconciled conscience. The advocates, then, of both theories the Calvinist asserting that Paul supposed sin to be the only reason why we do not live eternally in the world with our present organization, and the Rationalist asserting that the apostle never employs the word "death" except with a purely interior signification are alike beset by insuperable difficulties, perplexed by passages which defy their fair analysis and force them either to use a violent interpretation or to confess their ignorance.

We must therefore seek out some third view, which, rejecting the errors, shall combine the truths and supply the defects of the two former. We have now to present such a view, a theory of the Pauline doctrine of the last things which obviously explains and fills out all the related language of the epistles. We suppose he unfolded it fully in his preaching, while in his supplementary and personal letters he only alludes to such disconnected parts of it as then rose upon his thoughts. A systematic development of it as a whole, with copious allusions and labored defences, was not needed then, as it might seem to us to have been. For the fundamental notions on which it rested were the common belief of the nation and age. Geology and astronomy had not disturbed the credit of a definitely located Hades and heaven, nor had free metaphysics sharpened the common mind to skeptical queries. The view itself, as we conceive it occupied the mind of Paul, is this. Death was a part of the creative plan for us from the first, simply loosing the spirit from its corruptible body, clothing it with an ethereal vehicle, and immediately translating it to heaven. Sin marred this plan, alienated us from the Divine favor, introduced all misery, physical and moral, and doomed the soul, upon the fall of its earthly house, to descend into the slumberous gloom of the under world. Thus death was changed from a pleasant organic fulfilment and deliverance, spiritual investiture and heavenly ascent, to a painful punishment condemning the naked ghost to a residence below the grave. As Ewald says, through Adam's sin "death acquired its significance as pain and punishment."4 Herein is the explanation of the word "death" as used by Paul in reference to the consequence of Adam's offence. Christ came to reveal the free grace and gift of God in redeeming us from our doom and restoring our heavenly destiny. This he exemplified, in accordance with the Father's will, by dying, descending into the dreary world of the dead, vanquishing the forces there, rising thence, and ascending to the right hand of the throne of heaven as our forerunner. On the very verge of the theory just stated as Paul's, Neander hovers in his exposition of the apostle's views, but fails to grasp its theological scope and consequences. Krabbe declares that "death did not arise from the native perishableness of the body, but from sin."5 This statement Neander controverts, maintaining that "sin introduced no essential change in the physical organization of man, but merely in the manner in which his earthly existence terminates. Had it not been for sin, death would have been only the form of a higher development of life."6 Exactly so.

4 Sendschreiben des Apostels Paulus, s. 210.

5 Die Lehre von oer Sunde und vom Tode, cap. xi, s. 192.

6 Neander's Planting and Training, book vi. ch. 1.

With innocence, the soul at deathwould have ascended pleasantly, in a new body, to heaven; but sin compelled it to descend painfully, without any body, to Hades. We will cite a few of the principal texts from which this general outline has been inferred and constructed.

The substance of the fifth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans may be thus stated. As by the offence of one, sin entered into the world, and the judgment of the law came upon all men in a sentence of condemnation unto death, so by the righteousness of one, the free gift of God came upon all men in a sentence of justification unto life; that as sin, by Adam's offence, hath reigned unto death, so grace, by Christ's righteousness, might reign unto eternal life. Now, we maintain that the words "death" and "life" cannot in the present instance be entirely explained, in a spiritual sense, as signifying disturbance and woe in the breast, or peace and bliss there, because the whole connected discourse is not upon the internal contingent experience of individuals, but upon the common necessity of the race, an objective sentence passed upon humanity, followed by a public gift of reversal and annulment. So, too, we deny that the words can be justly taken, in their strictly literal sense, as meaning cessation or continuance of physical existence on the earth, because, in the first place, that would be inconsistent with the doctrine of a spiritual body within the fleshly one and of a glorious inheritance reserved in heaven, a doctrine by which Paul plainly shows that he recognised a natural organic provision, irrespective of sin, for a change in the form and locality of human existence. Secondly, we submit that death and life here cannot mean departure from the body or continuance in it, because that is a matter with which Christ's mission did in no way interfere, but left exactly as it was before; whereas, in the thing really meant by Paul, Christ is represented as standing, at least partially, in the same relation between life and men that Adam stands in between death and men. The reply to the question, What is that relation? will at once define the genuine signification of the terms "death" and "life" in the instance under review. And thus it is to be answered. The death brought on mankind by Adam was not only internal wretchedness, but also the condemnation of the disembodied soul to the under world; the life they were assured of by Christ was not only internal blessedness, but also the deliverance of the soul from its subterranean prison and its reception into heaven in a "body celestial," according to its original destiny had sin not befallen. This interpretation is explicitly put forth by Theodoret in his comments on this same passage, (Rom. v. 15-18.) He says, "There must be a correspondence between the disease and the remedy. Adam's sin subjected him to the power of death and the tyranny of the devil. In the same manner that Adam was compelled to descend into the under world, we all are associates in his fate. Thus, when Christ rose, the whole humankind partook in his vivification."7

7 Impatib., dialogue iii. pp. 132, 133, ed. Sirmondi.

Origen also and who, after the apostles themselves, knew their thoughts and their use of language better than he? emphatically declares in exposition of the expression of Paul, "the wages of sin is death" that "the under world in which souls are detained is called death."8

"As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." These words cannot be explained, "As in Adam the necessity of physical death came on all, so in Christ that necessity shall be removed," because Christ's mission did not touch physical death, which was still reigning as ever, before Paul's eyes. Neither can the passage signify, "As through Adam wretchedness is the portion of every heart of man, so through Christ blessedness shall be given to every heart," because, while the language itself does not hint that thought, the context demonstrates that the real reference is not to an inward experience, but to an outward event, not to the personal regeneration of the soul, but to a general resurrection of the dead. The time referred to is the second coming of Christ; and the force of the text must be this: As by our bodily likeness to the first man and genetic connection with him through sin we all die like him, that is, leave the body and go into the under world, and remain there, so by our spiritual likeness to the second man and redeeming connection with him through the free grace of God we shall all rise thence like him, revived and restored. Adam was the head of a condemned race, doomed to Hades by the visible occurrence of death in lineal descent from him; Christ is the head of a pardoned race, destined for heaven in consonance with the plain token of his resurrection and ascension. Again, the apostle writes, "In the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump, the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we (who are then living) shall be changed; for this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal immortality. Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, 'Death is swallowed up in victory?" O Death, where is thy sting? O Hades, where is thy victory?'" The writer evidently exults in the thought that, at the second coming of Christ, death shall lose its retributive character and the under world be baffled of its expected prisoners, because the living shall instantly experience the change of bodies fitting them to ascend to heaven with the returning and triumphant Lord. Paul also announces that "Jesus Christ hath abolished death and hath brought life and immortality to light." The word "death" here cannot mean physical dissolution, because Christ did not abolish that. It cannot denote personal sin and unhappiness, because that would not correspond with and sustain the obvious meaning of the contrasted member of the sentence. Its adequate and consistent sense is this. God intended that man should pass from a preliminary existence on earth to an eternal life in heaven; but sin thwarted this glorious design and altered our fate to a banishment into the cheerless under world. But now, by the teachings and resurrection of Christ, we are assured that God of his infinite goodness has determined freely to forgive us and restore our original destination. Our descent and abode below are abolished and our heavenly immortality made clear. "We earnestly desire to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven, if so be that, being clothed, we shall not be found naked. Not that we desire to be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality may be swallowed up of life."

8 Comm. in Epist. ad Rom. lib. vi. cap. 6, sect. 6. Also see Jerome, Comm. in Ecc. iii. 21. Professor Mau, in his able treatise "Von dem Tode dem Solde der Sunden, and der Aufhebung desselben durch die Auferstehung Christi," cogently argues, against Krabbe, that death as the punishment of sin is not bodily dissolution, but wretchedness and condemnation to the under world, (amandatio Orcum.) In Pelt's Theologische Mitarbeiten, 1838, heft ii. ss. 107-108.

In these remarkable words the apostle expresses several particulars of what we have already presented as his general doctrine. He states his conviction that, when his "earthly house of this tabernacle" dissolves, there is a "divinely constructed, heavenly, and eternal house" prepared for him. He expresses his desire at the coming of the Lord not to be dead, but still living, and then to be divested of his earthly body and invested with the heavenly body, that thus, being fitted for translation to the incorruptible kingdom of God, he might not be found a naked shadow or ghost in the under world. Ruckert says, in his commentary, and the best critics agree with him, "Paul herein desires to become immortal without passing the gates of death." Language similar to the foregoing in its peculiar phrases is found in the Jewish Cabbala. The Zohar describes the ascent of the soul to heaven clothed with splendor, and afterwards illustrates its meaning in these terms: "As there is given to the soul a garment with which she is clothed in order to establish her in this world, so there is given her a garment of heavenly splendor in order to establish her in that world."9 So in the "Ascension of Isaiah the Prophet" an apocryphal book written by some Jewish Christian as early, without doubt, as the close of the second century the following passages occur. Speaking of what was revealed to him in heaven, the prophet says, "There I saw all the saints, from Adam, without the clothing of the flesh: I viewed them in their heavenly clothing like the angels who stood there in great splendor." Again he says, "All the saints from heaven in their heavenly clothing shall descend with the Lord and dwell in this world, while the saints who have not died shall be clothed like those who come from heaven. Then the general resurrection will take place and they will ascend together to heaven."10 Schoettgen, commenting on this text, (2 Cor. v. 2, ) likewise quotes a large number of examples of like phraseology from Rabbinical writers. The statements thus far made and proofs offered will be amply illustrated and confirmed as we go on to consider the chief component parts of the Pauline scheme of the last things. For, having presented the general outline, it will be useful, in treating so complex and difficult a theme, to analyze it by details.

We are met upon the threshold of our inquiry by the essential question, What, according to Paul, was the mission of Christ? What did he accomplish? A clear reply to this question comprises three distinct propositions. First, the apostle plainly represents the resurrection, and not the crucifixion, as the efficacious feature in Christ's work of redemption. When we recollect the almost universal prevalence of the opposite notion among existing sects, it is astonishing how clear it is that Paul generally dwells upon the dying of Christ solely as the necessary preliminary to his rising. "If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith also is vain: ye are yet in your sins." These words are irreconcilable with that doctrine which connects our "justification" with the atoning death, and not with the typical resurrection, of Christ.

9 Laurence, Ascensio Isaia Vatis, appendix, p. 168.

10 Laurence, Ascensio Isaia atis, cap. 9, v. 7, 9; cap. 4.

"That Christ died for our sins, and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day." To place a vicarious stress upon the first clause of this text is as arbitrary as it would be to place it upon the second; but naturally emphasize the third clause,and all is clear. The inferences and exhortations drawn from the mission of Christ are not usually connected in any essential manner with his painful death, but directly with his glorious resurrection out from among the dead unto the heavenly blessedness. "If we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection." Sinking into the water, when "buried by baptism into the death of Christ," was, to those initiated into the Christian religion, a symbol of the descent of Christ among the dead; rising out of the water was a symbol of the ascent of Christ into heaven. "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God." When Paul cries, exultingly, "Thanks be to God, who through Christ giveth us the victory over the sting of death and the strength of sin," Jerome says, "We cannot and dare not interpret this victory otherwise than by the resurrection of the Lord."11 Commenting on the text "To this end Christ both died and lived again, that he might reign both over the dead and the living," Theodoret says that Christ, going through all these events, "promised a resurrection to us all." Paul makes no appeal to us to believe in the death of Christ, to believe in the atoning sacrifice of Christ, but he unequivocally affirms, "If thou shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." Paul conceived that Christ died in order to rise again and convince men that the Father would freely deliver them from the bondage of death in the under world. All this took place on account of sin, was only made requisite by sin, one of whose consequences was the subterranean confinement of the soul, which otherwise, upon deserting its clayey tent, would immediately have been clothed with a spiritual body and have ascended to heaven. That is to say, Christ "was delivered because of our offences and was raised again because of our justification." In Romans viii. 10 the preposition occurs twice in exactly the same construction as in the text just quoted. In the latter case the authors of the common version have rendered it "because of." They should have done so in the other instance, in accordance with the natural force and established usage of the word in this connection. The meaning is, Our offences had been committed, therefore Christ was delivered into Hades; our pardon had been decreed, therefore Christ was raised into heaven. Such as we have now stated is the real material which has been distorted and exaggerated into the prevalent doctrine of the vicarious atonement, with all its dread concomitants.12 The believers of that doctrine suppose themselves obliged to accept it by the language of the epistles. But the view above maintained as that of Paul solves every difficulty and gives an intelligent and consistent meaning to all the phrases usually thought to legitimate the Calvinistic scheme of redemption.

11 Comm. in Osee, lib. iii. cap. 13.

12 Die Lehre von Christi Hollenfahrt nach der Heil. Schrift, der altesten Kirche, den Christlichen Symbolen, und nach ihrer unendlichen Wichtigkeit und vielumfassenden Bedeutung dargestellt, von Joh. Ludwig Konig. The author presents in this work an irresistible array of citations and authorities. In an appendix he gives a list of a hundred authors on the theme of Christ's descent into hell.

While we deny the correctness of the Calvinistic interpretation of those passages in which occur such expressions as "Christ gave himself for us," "died for our sins," we also affirm the inadequacyof the explanations of them proposed by Unitarians, and assert that their genuine force is this. Christ died and rose that we might be freed through faith from the great entailed consequence of sin, the bondage of the under world; beholding, through his ascension, our heavenly destination restored. "God made him, who knew no sin, to be sin on our account, that we might become the righteousness of God in him," might through faith in him be assured of salvation. In other words, Christ, who was not exposed to the evils brought on men by sin, did not think his divine estate a thing eagerly to be retained, but descended to the estate of man, underwent the penalties of sin as if he were himself a sinner, and then rose to the right hand of God, by this token to assure men of God's gracious determination to forgive them and reinstate them in their forfeited primal privileges. "If we be reconciled by his death, much more shall we be saved by his life." That is, if Christ's coming from heaven as an ambassador from God to die convinces us of God's pardoning good will towards us, much more does his rising again into heaven, where he now lives, deliver us from the fear of the under world condemnation and assure us of the heavenly salvation. Except in the light and with the aid of the theory we have been urging, a large number of texts like the foregoing cannot, as we think, be interpreted without constructive violence, and even with that violence cannot convey their full point and power.

Secondly, in Paul's doctrine of the redeeming work of Christ we recognise something distinct from any subjective effect in animating and purifying the hearts and lives of men. "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law." "In Christ we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins." Nothing but the most desperate exegesis can make these and many similar texts signify simply the purging of individual breasts from their offences and guilt. Seeking the genuine meaning of Paul, we are forced to agree with the overwhelming majority of the critics and believers of all Christendom, from the very times of the apostles till now, and declare that these passages refer to an outward deliverance of men by Christ, the removal by him of a common doom resting on the race in consequence of sin. What Paul supposed that doom was, and how he thought it was removed, let us try to see. It is necessary to premise that in Paul's writings the phrase "the righteousness of God" is often used by metonymy to mean God's mode of accounting sinners righteous, and is equivalent to "the Christian method of salvation." "By the deeds of the law no flesh shall be justified; but the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, freely justifying them through the redemption that is in Christ." How evidently in this verse "the righteousness of God" denotes God's method of justifying the guilty by a free pardon proclaimed through Christ! The apostle employs the word "faith" in a kindred technical manner, sometimes meaning by it "promise," sometimes the whole evangelic apparatus used to establish faith or prove the realization of the promise. "What if some did not believe? Shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect?" Evidently by "faith" is intended "promise" or "purpose." "Is the law against the promises of God? God forbid! But before faith came we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed." Here "faith" plainly means the object of faith, the manifested fulfilment of the promises: it means the gospel. Again, "Whereof he hath offered faith to all, in that he hath raised him from the dead." "Hath offered faith" here signifies, unquestionably, as the common version well expresses it, "hath given assurance," or hath exemplified the proof. "Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster." In this instance "faith" certainly means Christianity, in contradistinction to Judaism, and "justification by faith" is equivalent to "salvation by the grace of God, shown through the mission of Christ." It is not so much internal and individual in its reference as it is public and general. We believe that no man, sacredly resolved to admit the truth, can study with a purposed reference to this point all the passages in Paul's epistles where the word "faith" occurs, without being convinced that for the most part it is used in an objective sense, in contradistinction to the law, as synonymous with the gospel, the new dispensation of grace. Therefore "justification by faith" does not usually mean salvation through personal belief, either in the merits of the Redeemer or in any thing else, but it means salvation by the plan revealed in the gospel, the free remission of sins by the forbearance of God. In those instances where "faith" is used in a subjective sense for personal belief, it is never described as the effectual cause of salvation, but as the condition of personal assurance of salvation. Grace has outwardly come to all; but only the believers inwardly know it. This Pauline use of terms in technical senses lies broadly on the face of the Epistles to the Romans and the Galatians. New Testament lexicons and commentaries, by the best scholars of every denomination, acknowledge it and illustrate it. Mark now these texts. "And by him all that believe are justified from all things from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses." "To declare his righteousness, that he might be just and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus." "What things were gain to me [under Judaism] I counted loss in comparison with Christ, that I may be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but the righteousness which is of God through faith in Christ." "By the deeds of the law no man can be justified," "but ye are saved through faith." We submit that these passages, and many others in the epistles, find a perfect explanation in the following outline of faith, commenced in the mind of Paul while he was a Pharisee, completed when he was a Christian. The righteousness of the law, the method of salvation by keeping the law, is impossible. The sin of the first man broke that whole plan and doomed all souls helplessly to the under world. If a man now should keep every tittle of the law without reservation, it would not release him from the bondage below and secure for him an ascent to heaven. But what the law could not do is done for us in Christ. Sin having destroyed the righteousness of the law, that is, the fatal penalty of Hades having rendered salvation by the law impossible, the righteousness of God, that is, a new method of salvation, has been brought to light. God has sent his Son to die, descend into the under world, rise again, and return to heaven, to proclaim to men the glorious tidings of justification by faith, that is, a dispensation of grace freely annulling the great consequence of sin and inviting them to heaven in the Redeemer's footsteps. Paul unequivocally declares that Christ broke up the bondage of the under world by his irresistible entrance and exit, in the following text: "When he had descended first into the lower parts of the earth, he ascended up on high, leading a multitude of captives." What can be plainer than that? The same thought is also contained in another passage, a passage which was the source of those tremendous pictures so frequent in the cathedrals of the Middle Age, Christus spoliat Infernum: "God hath forgiven you all trespasses, blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, and took it away, nailing it to Christ's cross; and, having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a show of them, openly triumphing over them in Christ." The entire theory which underlies the exposition we have just set forth is stated in so many words in the passage we next cite. For the word "righteousness" in order to make the meaning more perspicuous we simply substitute "method of salvation," which is unquestionably its signification here. "They [the Jews] being ignorant of God's method of salvation, and going about to establish their own method, have not submitted themselves unto God's. For Christ is the end of the law for a way of salvation to every one that believeth. For Moses describeth the method of salvation which is of the law, that the man who doeth these things shall be blessed in them. But the method of salvation which is of faith ["faith" here means the gospel, Christianity] speaketh on this wise: Say not in thy heart, 'Who shall ascend into heaven?' that is, to bring Christ down; or, 'Who shall descend into the under world?' that is, to bring up Christ again from among the dead." This has been done already, once for all. "And if thou shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." The apostle avows that his "heart's desire and his prayer unto God for Israel is, that they may be saved;" and he asserts that they cannot be saved by the law of Moses, but only by the gospel of Christ; that is, "faith;" that is, "the dispensation of grace."

Paul's conception of the foremost feature in Christ's mission is precisely this. He came to deliver men from the stern law of Judaism, which could not wipe away their transgressions nor save them from Hades, and to establish them in the free grace of Christianity, which justifies them from all past sin and seals them for heaven. What could be a more explicit declaration of this than the following? "When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son to redeem them that were under the law." Herein is the explanation of that perilous combat which Paul waged so many years, and in which he proved victorious, the great battle between the Gentile Christians and the Judaizing Christians; a subject of altogether singular importance, without a minute acquaintance with which a large part of the New Testament cannot be understood. "Christ gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God." Now, the Hebrew terms corresponding with the English terms "present world" and "future world" were used by the Jews to denote the Mosaic and the Messianic dispensations. We believe with Schoettgen and other good authorities that such is the sense of the phrase "present world" in the instance before us. Not only is that interpretation sustained by the usus loquendi, it is also the only defensible meaning; for the effect of the establishment of the gospel was not to deliver men from the present world, though it did deliver them from the hopeless bondage of Judaism, wherein salvation was by Christians considered impossible. And that is precisely the argument of the Epistle to the Galatians, in which the text occurs. In a succeeding chapter, while speaking expressly of the external forms of the Jewish law, Paul says, "By the cross of Christ the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world;" and he instantly adds, by way of explanation, "for in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision." Undeniably, "world" here means "Judaism;" as Rosenmuller phrases it, Judaica vanitas. In another epistle, while expostulating with his readers on the folly of subjecting themselves to observances "in meat and drink, and new moons and sabbaths," after "the handwriting of ordinances that was against them had been blotted out, taken away, nailed to the cross," Paul remonstrates with them in these words: "Wherefore, if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances?" We should suppose that no intelligent person could question that this means, "Now that by the gospel of Christ ye are emancipated from the technical requisitions of Judaism, why are ye subject to its ordinances, as if ye were still living under its rule?" as many of the best commentators agree in saying, "tanquam viventes adhuc in Judaismo." From these collective passages, and from others like them, we draw the conclusion, in Paul's own words, that, "When we were children, we were in bondage under the rudiments of the world," "the weak and beggarly elements" of Judaism; but, now that "the fulness of the time has come, and God has sent forth his Son to redeem us," we are called "to receive the adoption of sons" and "become heirs of God," inheritors of a heavenly destiny.

We think that the intelligent and candid reader, who is familiar with Paul's epistles, will recognise the following features in his belief and teaching. First, all mankind alike were under sin and condemnation. "Jews and Gentiles all are under sin." "All the world is subject to the sentence of God." And we maintain that that condemning sentence consisted, partly at least, in the banishment of their disembodied souls to Hades. Secondly, "a promise was given to Abraham," before the introduction of the Mosaic dispensation, "that in his seed [that is, in Christ] all the nations of the earth should be blessed." When Paul speaks, as he does in numerous instances, of "the hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised before the world began," "the promise given before the foundation of the world," "the promise made of God unto the fathers, that God would raise the dead," the date referred to is not when the decree was formed in the eternal counsels of God, previous to the origin of the earth, but when the covenant was made with Abraham, before the establishment of the Jewish dispensation. The thing promised plainly was, according to Paul's idea, a redemption from Hades and an ascension to heaven; for this is fully implied in his "expectation of the resurrection of the dead" from the intermediate state, and their being "clothed in celestial bodies." This promise made unto Abraham by God, to be fulfilled by Christ, "the law, which was four hundred and thirty years afterwards, could not disannul." That is, as any one may see by the context, the law could not secure the inheritance of the thing promised, but was only a temporary arrangement on account of transgressions, "until the seed should come to whom the promise was made." In other words, there was "no mode of salvation by the law;" "the law could not give life;" for if it could it would have "superseded the promise," made it without effect, whereas the inviolable promise of God was, that in the one seed of Abraham that is, in Christ alone should salvation be preached to all that believed. "For if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made useless, and the promise is made useless." In the mean time, until Christ be come, all are shut up under sin. Thirdly, the special "advantage of the Jews was, that unto them this promise of God was committed," as the chosen covenant people.

The Gentiles, groaning under the universal sentence of sin, were ignorant of the sure promise of a common salvation yet to be brought. While the Jews indulged in glowing and exclusive expectations of the Messiah who was gloriously to redeem them, the Gentiles were "aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world." Fourthly, in the fulness of time long after "the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen, had preached the gospel beforehand unto Abraham, saying, In thy seed shall all nations be blessed" "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, that the blessing promised to Abraham might come upon the Gentiles." It was the precise mission of Christ to realize and exemplify and publish to the whole world the fulfilment of that promise. The promise itself was, that men should be released from the under world through the imputation of righteousness by grace that is, through free forgiveness and rise to heaven as accredited sons and heirs of God. This aim and purpose of Christ's coming were effected in his resurrection. But how did the Gentiles enter into belief and participation of the glad tidings? Thus, according to Paul: The death, descent, resurrection, and ascent of Jesus, and his residence in heaven in a spiritual form, divested him of his nationality.13 He was "then to be known no more after the flesh." He was no longer an earthly Jew, addressing Jews, but a heavenly spirit and son of God, a glorified likeness of the spirits of all who were adopted as sons of God, appealing to them all as joint heirs with himself of heaven. He has risen into universality, and is accessible to the soul of every one that believeth. "In him there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free." The experience resulting in a heart raised into fellowship with him in heaven is the inward seal assuring us that our faith is not vain. "Ye Gentiles, who formerly were afar off, are now made nigh by the blood of Christ; for he hath broken down the middle wall of partition between Jews and Gentiles, having abolished in his flesh the enmity, namely, the law of commandments in ordinances, in order to make in himself of twain one new man. For through him we both have access by one spirit unto the Father. Now, therefore, ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of God." Circumcision was of the flesh; and the vain hope of salvation by it was confined to the Jews. Grace was of the spirit; and the revealed assurance of salvation by it was given to the Gentiles too, when Christ died to the nationalizing flesh, rose in the universalizing spirit, and from heaven impartially exhibited himself, through the preaching of the gospel, to the appropriating faith of all.

The foregoing positions might be further substantiated by applying the general theory they contain to the explication of scores of individual texts which it fits and unfolds, and which, we think, cannot upon any other view be interpreted without forced constructions unwarranted by a thorough acquaintance with the mind of Paul and with the mind of his age. But we must be content with one or two such applications as specimens. The word "mystery" often occurs in the letters of Paul. Its current meaning in his time was "something concealed," something into which one must be initiated in order to understand it.

13 Martineau, Liverpool Controversy: Inconsistency of the Scheme of Vicarious Redemption.

The Eleusinian Mysteries, for instance, were not necessarily any thing intrinsically dark and hard to be comprehended, but things hidden from public gaze and only to be known by initiation into them. Paul uses the term in a similar way to denote the peculiar scheme of grace, which "had been kept secret from the beginning of the world," "hidden from ages and generations, but now made manifest." No one denies that Paul means by "this mystery" the very heart and essence of the gospel, precisely that which distinguishes it from the law and makes it a universal method of salvation, a wondrous system of grace. So much is irresistibly evident from the way and the connection in which he uses the term. He writes thus in explanation of the great mystery as it was dramatically revealed through Christ: "Who was manifested in the flesh, [i. e. seen in the body during his life on earth,] justified in the spirit, [i. e. freed after death from the necessity of imprisonment in Hades,] seen of angels, [i. e. in their fellowship after his resurrection,] preached unto the Gentiles, [i. e. after the gift of tongues on Pentecost day,] believed on in the world, [i. e. his gospel widely accepted through the labors of his disciples,] received up into glory, [i. e. taken into heaven to the presence of God.]" "The revelation of the mystery" means, then, the visible enactment and exhibition, through the resurrection of Christ, of God's free forgiveness of men, redeeming them from the Hadean gloom to the heavenly glory. The word "glory" in the New Testament confessedly often signifies the illumination of heaven, the defined abode of God and his angels. Robinson collects, in his Lexicon, numerous examples wherein he says it means "that state which is the portion of those who dwell with God in heaven." Now, Paul repeatedly speaks of the calling of believers to glory as one of the chief blessings and new prerogatives of the gospel. "Being justified by faith, we rejoice in hope of the glory of God." "Walk worthy of God, who hath called you unto his glory." "We speak wisdom to the initiates, the hidden wisdom of God in a mystery, which before the world [the Jewish dispensation] God ordained for our glory." "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God: behold, I show you a mystery: we shall all be changed in a moment, and put on immortality." In the first chapter of the letter to the Colossians, Paul speaks of "the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, whereof ye have heard in the gospel;" also of "the inheritance of the saints in light:" then he says, "God would now make known among the Gentiles the mystery, which is, Christ among you, the hope of glory." In the light of what has gone before, how significant and how clear is this declaration! "All have sinned, and failed to attain unto the glory of God; but now, through the faith of Jesus Christ, [through the dispensation brought to light by Christ,] the righteousness of God [God's method of salvation] is unto all that believe." That is, by the law all were shut up in Hades, but by grace they are now ransomed and to be received to heaven. The same thought or scheme is contained in that remarkable passage in the Epistle to the Galatians where Paul says the free Isaac and the bond woman Hagar were an allegory, teaching that there were two covenants, one by Abraham, the other by Moses. The Mosaic covenant of the law "answers to the Jerusalem which is on earth, and is in bondage with her children," and belongs only to the Jews. The Abrahamic covenant of promise answers to "the Jerusalem which is above, and is free, and is the mother of us all." In the former, we were "begotten unto bondage." In the latter, "Christ hath made us free."

We will notice but one more text in passing: it is, of all the proof texts of the doctrine of a substitutional expiation, the one which has ever been regarded as the very Achilles. And yet it can be made to support that doctrine only by the aid of arbitrary assumptions and mistranslations, while by its very terms it perfectly coincides with nay, expressly declares the theory which we have been advocating as the genuine interpretation of Paul. The usual commentators, in their treatment of this passage, have exhibited a long continued series of perversions and sophisms, affording a strong example of unconscious prejudice. The correct Greek reading of the text is justly rendered thus: "Whom God set forth, a mercy seat through the faith in his blood, to exhibit his righteousness through the remission of former sins by the forbearance of God." For rendering [non-ASCII characters] "mercy seat," the usus loquendi and the internal harmony of meaning are in our favor, and also the weight of many orthodox authorities, such as Theodoret, Origen, Theophylact, OEcumenius, Erasmus, Luther, and from Pelagius to Bushnell. Still, we are willing to admit the rendering of it by "sin offering." That makes no important difference in the result. Christ was a sin offering, in the conception of Paul, in this sense: that when he was not himself subject to death, which was the penalty of sin, he yet died in order to show God's purpose of removing that penalty of sin through his resurrection. For rendering [non-ASCII characters] "through," no defence is needed: the only wonder is, how it ever could have been here translated "for." Now, let two or three facts be noticed.

First, the New Testament phrase "the faith of Christ," "the faith of Jesus," is very unfairly and unwarrantably made to mean an internal affection towards Christ, a belief of men in him. Its genuine meaning is the same as "the gospel of Christ," or the religion of Christ, the system of grace which he brought.14 Who can doubt that such is the meaning of the word in these instances? "Contend for the faith once delivered to the saints;" "Greet them that love us in the faith;" "Have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ with respect of persons." So, in the text now under our notice, "the faith which is in his blood" means the dispensation of pardon and justification, the system of faith, which was confirmed and exemplified to us in his death and resurrection. Secondly, "the righteousness of God," which is here said to be "pointed out" by Christ's death, denotes simply, in Professor Stuart's words, "God's pardoning mercy," or "acquittal," or "gratuitous justification," "in which sense," he says truly, "it is almost always used in Paul's epistles."15 It signifies neither more nor less than God's method of salvation by freely forgiving sins and treating the sinner as if he were righteous, the method of salvation now carried into effect and revealed in the gospel brought by Christ, and dramatically enacted in his passion and ascension. Furthermore, we ask attention to the fact that the ordinary interpreter, hard pressed by his unscriptural creed, interpolates a disjunctive conjunction in the opposing teeth of Paul's plain statement.

14 Robinson has gathered a great number of instances in his Lexicon, under the word "Faith," wherein it can only mean, as he says, "the system of Christian doctrines, the gospel."

15 Stuart's Romans i. 17, iii. 25, 26, etc.

Paul says, as the common version has it, God is "just, and [i. e. even] the justifier." The creed bound commentators read it,"just and yet the justifier." We will now present the true meaning of the whole passage, in our view of it, according to Paul's own use of language. To establish a conviction of the correctness of the exposition, we only ask the ingenuous reader carefully to study the clauses of the Greek text and recollect the foregoing data. "God has set Christ forth, to be to us a sure sign that we have been forgiven and redeemed through the faith that was proved by his triumphant return from death, the dispensation of grace inaugurated by him. Herein God has exhibited his method of saving sinners, which is by the free remission of their sins through his kindness. Thus God is proved to be disposed to save, and to be saving, by the system of grace shown through Jesus, him that believeth." In consequence of sin, men were under sentence of condemnation to the under world. In the fulness of time God fulfilled his ancient promise to Abraham. He freely justified men, that is, forgave them, redeemed them from their doom, and would soon open the sky for their abode with him. This scheme of redemption was carried out by Christ. That is to say, God proclaimed it to men, and asked their belief in it, by "setting forth Christ" to die, descend among the dead, rise thence, and ascend into heaven, as an exemplifying certification of the truth of the glad tidings.

Thirdly, Paul teaches that one aim of Christ's mission was to purify, animate, and exalt the moral characters of men, and rectify their conduct, to produce a subjective sanctification in them, and so prepare them for judgment and fit them for heaven. The establishment of this proposition will conclude the present part of our subject. He writes, "Our Saviour, Jesus Christ, gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works." "Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity." In various ways he often represents the fact that believers have been saved by grace through Christ as the very reason, the intensified motive, why they should scrupulously keep every tittle of the moral law and abstain even from the appearance of evil, walking worthy of their high vocation. "The grace of God that bringeth salvation to all men hath appeared, teaching us that, denying all ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world." Bad men, "that obey not the gospel of Christ," such characters as "thieves, extortioners, drunkards, adulterers, shall not inherit the kingdom of God." He proclaims, in unmistakable terms, "God will render to every man according to his deeds, wrath and tribulation to the evil doer, honor and peace to the well doer, whether Jew or Gentile." The conclusion to be drawn from these and other like declarations is unavoidable. It is that "every one, Jew and Gentile, shall stand before the judgment seat of Christ and receive according to the deeds done in the body; for there is no respect of persons." And one part of Christ's mission was to exert a hallowing moral influence on men, to make them righteous, that they might pass the bar with acquittal. But the reader who recollects the class of texts adduced a little while since will remember that an opposite conclusion was as unequivocally drawn from them. Then Paul said, "By faith ye are justified, without the deeds of the law." Now he says, "For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ." Is there a contradiction, then, in Paul? Only in appearance. Let us distinguish and explain. In the two quotations above, the apostle is referring to two different things.

First, he would say, By the faith of Christ, the free grace of God declared in the gospel of Christ, ye are justified, gratuitously delivered from that necessity of imprisonment in Hades which is the penalty of sin doomed upon the whole race from Adam, and from which no amount of personal virtue could avail to save men. Secondly, when he exclaims, "Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God?" his thought is of a spiritual qualification of character, indispensable for positive admission among the blest in heaven. That is to say, the impartial penalty of primeval sin consigned all men to Hades. They could not by their own efforts escape thence and win heaven. That fated inability God has removed, and through Christ revealed its removal; but, that one should actually obtain the offered and possible prize of heaven, personal purity, faith, obedience, holiness, are necessary. In Paul's conception of the scheme of Christian salvation, then, there were two distinct parts: one, what God had done for all; the other, what each man was to do for himself. And the two great classes of seemingly hostile texts filling his epistles, which have puzzled so many readers, become clear and harmonious when we perceive and remember that by "righteousness" and its kindred terms he sometimes means the external and fulfilled method of redeeming men from the transmitted necessity of bondage in the under world, and sometimes means the internal and contingent qualifications for actually realizing that redemption. In the former instance he refers to the objective mode of salvation and the revelation of it in Christ. In the latter, he refers to the subjective fitness for that salvation and the certitude of it in the believer. So, too, the words "death" and "life," in Paul's writings, are generally charged, by a constructio proegnans, with a double sense, one spiritual, individual, contingent, the other mechanical, common, absolute. Death, in its full Pauline force, includes inward guilt, condemnation, and misery, and outward descent into the under world. Life, in its full Pauline force, includes inward rectitude, peace, and joy, and outward ascent into the upper world. Holiness is necessary, "for without it no one can see the Lord;" yet by itself it can secure only inward life: it is ineffectual to win heaven. Grace by itself merely exempts from the fatality of the condemnation to Hades: it offers eternal life in heaven only upon condition of "patient continuance in well doing" by "faith, obedience to the truth, and sanctification of the spirit." But God's free grace and man's diligent fidelity, combined, give the full fruition of blessedness in the heart and of glory and immortality in the sky.

Such, as we have set forth in the foregoing three divisions, was Paul's view of the mission of Christ and of the method of salvation. It has been for centuries perverted and mutilated. The toil now is by unprejudiced inspection to bring it forward in its genuine completeness, as it stood in Paul's own mind and in the minds of his contemporaries. The essential view, epitomized in a single sentence, is this. The independent grace of God has interfered, first, to save man from Hades, and secondly, to enable him, by the co operation of his own virtue, to get to heaven. Here are two separate means conjoined to effect the end, salvation. Now, compare, in the light of this statement, the three great theological theories of Christendom. The UNITARIAN, overlooking the objective justification, or offered redemption from the death realm to the sky home, which whether it be a truth or an error is surely in the epistles, makes the subjective sanctification all in all. The CALVINIST, in his theory, comparatively scorns the subjective sanctification, which Paul insists on as a necessity for entering the kingdom of God, and, having perverted the objective justification from its real historic meaning, exaggerates it into the all in all. The ROMAN CATHOLIC holds that Christ simply removed the load of original sin and its entailed doom, and left each person to stand or fall by his own merits, in the helping communion of the Church. He also maintains that a part of Christ's office was to exert an influence for the moral improvement and consecration of human character. His error, as an interpreter of Paul's thought, is, that he, like the Calvinist, attributes to Christ's death a vicarious efficacy by suffering the pangs of mankind's guilt to buy their ransom from the inexorable justice of God; whereas the apostle really represents Christ's redeeming mission as consisting simply in a dramatic exemplification of the Father's spontaneous love and purpose to pardon past offences, unbolt the gates of Hades, and receive the worthy to heaven. Moreover, while Paul describes the heavenly salvation as an undeserved gift from the grace of God, the Catholic often seems to make it a prize to be earned, under the Christian dispensation, by good works which may fairly challenge that reward. However, we have little doubt that this apparent opposition is rather in the practical mode of exhortation than in any interior difference of dogma; for Paul himself makes personal salvation hinge on personal conditions, the province of grace being seen in the new extension to man of the opportunity and invitation to secure his own acceptance. And so the Roman Catholic exposition of Paul's doctrine is much more nearly correct than any other interpretation now prevalent. We should expect, a priori, that it would be, since that Church, containing two thirds of Christendom, is the most intimately connected, by its scholars, members, and traditions, with the apostolic age.

A prominent feature in the belief of Paul, and one deserving distinct notice as necessarily involving a considerable part of the theory which we have attributed to him, is the supposition that Christ was the first person, clothed with humanity and experiencing death, admitted into heaven. Of all the hosts who had lived and died, every soul had gone down into the dusky under world. There they all were held in durance, waiting for the Great Deliverer. In the splendors of the realm over the sky, God and his angels dwelt alone. That we do not err in ascribing this belief to Paul we might summon the whole body of the Fathers to testify in almost unbroken phalanx, from Polycarp to St. Bernard. The Roman, Greek, and English Churches still maintain the same dogma. But the apostle's own plain words will be sufficient for our purpose. "That Christ should suffer, and that he should be the first that should rise from among the dead." "Now is Christ risen from among the dead and become the first fruits of them that slept." "He is the beginning, the first born from among the dead, that among all he might have the pre eminence." "God raised Christ from among the dead, and set him at his own right hand16 in the heavenly places, far above every principality, and power, and might, and dominion."

16 Griesbach argues at length, and shows unanswerably, that this passage cannot bear a moral interpretation, but necessarily has a physical and local sense. Griesbachii Opuscula Academica, ed. Gabler, vol. ii. pp. 145-149.

The last words refer to different orders of spirits, supposed by the Jews to people the aerial region below the heaven of God. "God hath" (already in our anticipating faith) "raised us up together with Christ and made us sit in heavenly places with him." These testimonies are enough to show that Paul believed Jesus to have been raised up to the abode of God, the first man ever exalted thither, and that this was done as a pledge and illustration of the same exaltation awaiting those who believe. "If we be dead with Christ, we believe we shall also live with him." And the apostle teaches that we are not only connected with Christ's resurrection by the outward order and sequence of events, but also by an inward gift of the spirit. He says that to every obedient believer is given an experimental "knowledge of the power of the resurrection of Christ," which is the seal of God within him, the pledge of his own celestial destination. "After that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy spirit of promise which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession." The office of this gift of the spirit is to awaken in the believing Christian a vivid realization of the things in store for him, and a perfect conviction that he shall yet possess them in the unclouded presence of God, beyond the canopy of azure and the stars. "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But he hath revealed them unto us; for we have received his spirit, that we might know them." "The spirit beareth witness with our spirit that we are children and heirs of God, even joint heirs with Christ, that we may be glorified [i. e. advanced into heaven] with him."

We will leave this topic with a brief paraphrase of the celebrated passage in the eighth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans. "Not only do the generality of mankind groan in pain in this decaying state, under the bondage of perishable elements, travailing for emancipation from the flesh into the liberty of the heavenly glory appointed for the sons and heirs of God, but even we, who have the first fruits of the spirit, [i. e. the assurance springing from the resurrection of Christ,] we too wait, painfully longing for the adoption, that is, our redemption from the body." By longing for the adoption, or filiation, is meant impatient desire to be received into heaven as children to the enjoyment of the privileges of their Father's house. "God predetermined that those called should be conformed to the image of his Son, [i. e. should pass through the same course with Christ and reach the heavenly goal,] that he might be the first born among many brethren." To the securing of this end, "whom he called, them he also justified, [i. e. ransomed from Hades;17] and whom he justified, them he also glorified," (i. e. advanced to the glory of heaven.) It is evident that Paul looked for the speedy second coming of the Lord in the clouds of heaven, with angels and power and glory. He expected that at that time all enemies would be overthrown and punished, the dead would be raised, the living would be changed, and all that were Christ's would be translated to heaven.18

17 That "justify" often means, in Paul's usage, to absolve from Hades, we have concluded from a direct study of his doctrines and language. We find that Bretschneider gives it the same definition in his Lexicon of the New Testament. See [non ASCII characters]

18 "Every one shall rise in his own division" of the great army of the dead, "Christ, the first fruits; afterwards, they that are Christ's, at his coming."

"The Lord Jesus shall be revealed fromheaven, with his mighty angels, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God and obey not the gospel of Christ." "We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, at the last trump." "We who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord shall not anticipate those that are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God;19 and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord. Brethren, you need not that I should specify the time to you; for yourselves are perfectly aware that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night." "The time is short." "I pray God your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." "At his appearing he shall judge the living and the dead." "The Lord is at hand." The author of these sentences undeniably looked for the great advent soon. Than Paul, indeed, no one more earnestly believed (or did more to strengthen in others that belief) in that speedy return of Christ, the anticipation of which thrilled all early Christendom with hope and dread, and kept the disciples day and night on the stretch and start of expectation to hear the awful blast of the judgment trump and to see the glorious vision of the Son of God descending amidst a convoy of angels. What sublime emotions must have rushed through the apostle's soul when he thought that he, as a survivor of death's reign on earth, might behold the resurrection without himself entering the grave! Upon a time when he should be perchance at home, or at Damascus, or, it might be, at Jerusalem, the sun would become as blood, the moon as sackcloth of hair, the last trump would swell the sky, and,

"Lo! the nations of the dead, Which do outnumber all earth's races, rise, And high in sumless myriads overhead Sweep past him in a cloud, as 'twere the skirts Of the Eternal passing by."

The resurrection which Paul thought would attend the second coming of Christ was the rising of the summoned spirits of the deceased from their rest in the under world. Most certainly it was not the restoration of their decomposed bodies from their graves, although that incredible surmise has been generally entertained. He says, while answering the question, How are the dead raised up, and with what body do they come? "That which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body which shall be, but naked grain: God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him." The comparison is, that so the naked soul is sown in the under world, and God, when he raiseth it, giveth it a fitting body. He does not hesitate to call the man "a fool" who expects the restoration of the same body that was buried. His whole argument is explicitly against that idea.

19 Rabbi Akiba says, in the Talmud, "God shall take and blow a trumpet a thousand godlike yards in length, whose echo shall sound from end to end of the world. At the first blast the earth shall tremble. At the second, the dust shall part. At the third, the bones shall come together. At the fourth, the members shall grow warm. At the fifth, they shall be crowned with the head. At the sixth, the soul shall re enter the body. And at the seventh, they shall stand erect." Corrodi, Geschichte des Chiliasmus, band i. s. 355.

"There are bodies celestial, as well as bodies terrestrial: the first man wasof the earth, earthy; the second man was the Lord from heaven; and as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly; for flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God." In view of these declarations, it is astonishing that any one can suppose that Paul believed in the resurrection of these present bodies and in their transference into heaven. "In this tabernacle we groan, being burdened," and, "Who shall deliver me from this body of death?" he cries. If ever there was a man whose goading experience, keen intellectual energies, and moral sensibilities, made him weary of this slow, gross body, and passionately to long for a more corresponding, swift, and pure investiture, it was Paul. And in his theory of "the glorious body of Christ, according to which our vile body shall be changed," he relieved his impatience and fed his desire. What his conception of that body was, definitely, we cannot tell; but doubtless it was the idea of a vehicle adapted to his mounting and ardent soul, and in many particulars very unlike this present groaning load of clay. The epistles of Paul contain no clear implication of the notion of a millennium, a thousand years' reign of Christ with his saints on the earth after his second advent. On the contrary, in many places, particularly in the fourth chapter of the First Epistle to the Thessalonians, (supposing that letter to be his,) he says that the Lord and they that are his will directly pass into heaven after the consummation of his descent from heaven and their resurrection from the dead. But the declaration "He must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet," taken with its context, is thought, by Bertholdt, Billroth, De Wette, and others, to imply that Christ would establish a millennial kingdom on earth, and reign in it engaged in vanquishing all hostile forces. Against this exegesis we have to say, first, that, so far as that goes, the vast preponderance of critical authorities is opposed to it. Secondly, if this conquest were to be secured on earth, there is nothing to show that it need occupy much time: one hour might answer for it as well as a thousand years. There is nothing here to show that Paul means just what the Rabbins taught. Thirdly, even if Paul supposed a considerable period must elapse before "all enemies" would be subdued, during which period Christ must reign, it does not follow that he believed that reign would be on earth: it might be in heaven. The "enemies" referred to are, in part at least, the wicked spirits occupying the regions of the upper air; for he specifies these "principalities, authorities, and powers."20 And the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews represents God as saying to Jesus, "Sit thou on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool." Fourthly, it seems certain that, if in the apostle's thought a thousand years were interpolated between Christ's second coming and the delivering of his mediatorial sceptre to God, he would have said so, at least somewhere in his writings. He would naturally have dwelt upon it a little, as the Chiliasts did so much.

20 The apocryphal "Ascension of Isaiah," already spoken of, gives a detailed description of the upper air as occupied by Satan and his angels, among whom fighting and evil deeds rage; but Christ in his ascent conquers and spoils them all, and shows himself a victor ever brightening as he rises successively through the whole seven heavens to the feet of God. Ascensio Vatis Isaia, cap. vi x.

Instead of that, he repeatedly contradicts it. Upon the whole, then, with Ruckert, we cannotsee any reason for not supposing that, according to Paul, "the end" was immediately to succeed "the coming," as [non-ASCII characters] would properly indicate.

The doctrine of a long earthly reign of Christ is not deduced from this passage, by candid interpretation, because it must be there, but foisted into it, by Rabbinical information, because it may be there.

Paul distinctly teaches that the believers who died before the second coming of the Savior would remain in the under world until that event, when they and the transformed living should ascend "together with the Lord." All the relevant expressions in his epistles, save two, are obviously in harmony with this conception of a temporary subterranean sojourn, waiting for the appearance of Jesus from heaven to usher in the resurrection. But in the fifth chapter of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians he writes, "Abiding in the body we are absent from the Lord." It is usually inferred, from these words and those which follow them, that the apostle expected whenever he died to be instantly with Christ. Certainly they do mean pretty nearly that; but they mean it in connection with the second advent and the accompanying circumstances and events; for Paul believed that many of the disciples possibly himself would live until Christ's coming. All through these two chapters (the fourth and fifth) it is obvious, from the marked use of the terms "we" and "you," and from other considerations, that "we" here refers solely to the writer, the individual Paul. It is the plural of accommodation used by common custom and consent. In the form of a slight paraphrase we may unfold the genuine meaning of the passage in hand. "In this body I am afflicted: not that I would merely be released from it, for then I should be a naked spirit. But I earnestly desire, unclothing myself of this earthly body, at the same time to clothe myself with my heavenly body, that I may lose all my mortal part and its woes in the full experience of heaven's eternal life. God has determined that this result shall come to me sooner or later, and has given me a pledge of it in the witnessing spirit. But it cannot happen so long as I tarry in the flesh, the Lord delaying his appearance. Having the infallible earnest of the spirit, I do not dread the change, but desire to hasten it. Confident of acceptance in that day at the judgment seat of Christ, before which we must all then stand, I long for the crisis when, divested of this body and invested with the immortal form wrought for me by God, I shall be with the Lord. Still, knowing the terror which shall environ the Lord at his coming to judgment, I plead with men to be prepared." Whoever carefully examines the whole connected passage, from iv. 6 to v. 16, will see, we think, that the above paraphrase truly exposes its meaning.

The other text alluded to as an apparent exception to the doctrine of a residence in the lower land of ghosts intervening between death and the ascension, occurs in the Epistle to the Philippians: "I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better; but that I should abide in the flesh is more needful for you." There are three possible ways of regarding this passage. First, we may suppose that Paul, seeing the advent of the Lord postponed longer and longer, changed his idea of the intermediate state of deceased Christians, and thought they would spend that period of waiting in heaven, not in Hades. Neander advocates this view. But there is little to sustain it, and it is loaded with fatal difficulties. A change of faith so important and so bright in its view as this must have seemed under the circumstances would have been clearly and fully stated. Attention would have been earnestly invited to so great a favor and comfort; exultation and gratitude would have been expressed over so unheard of a boon. Moreover, what had occurred to effect the alleged new belief? The unexpected delay of Christ's coming might make the apostle wish that his departed friends were tarrying above the sky instead of beneath the sepulchre; but it could furnish no ground to warrant a sudden faith in that wish as a fulfilled fact. Besides, the truth is that Paul never ceased, even to the last, to expect the speedy arrival of the Lord and to regard the interval as a comparative trifle. In this very epistle he says, "The Lord is at hand: be careful for nothing." Secondly, we may imagine that he expected himself, as a divinely chosen and specially favored servant, to go to Christ in heaven as soon as he died, if that should happen before the Lord's appearance, while the great multitude of believers would abide in the under world until the general resurrection. The death he was in peril of and is referring to was that of martyrdom for the gospel at the hands of Nero. And many of the Fathers maintained that in the case of every worthy Christian martyr there was an exception to the general doom, and that he was permitted to enter heaven at once. Still, to argue such a thought in the text before us requires an hypothesis far fetched and unsupported by a single clear declaration of the apostle himself. Thirdly, we may assume and it seems to us by far the least encumbered and the most plausible theory that attempts to meet the case that Paul believed there would be vouchsafed to the faithful Christian during his transient abode in the under world a more intimate and blessed spiritual fellowship with his Master than he could experience while in the flesh. "For I am persuaded that neither death [separation from the body] nor depth [the under world] shall be able to separate us from God's love, which he has manifested through Christ." He may refer, therefore, by his hopes of being straightway with Christ on leaving the body, to a spiritual communion with him in the disembodied state below, and not to his physical presence in the supernal realm, the latter not being attainable previous to the resurrection. Indeed, a little farther on in this same epistle, he plainly shows that he did not anticipate being received to heaven until after the second coming of Christ. He says, "We look for the Savior from heaven, who shall change our vile body and fashion it like unto his own glorious body." This change is the preliminary preparation to ascent to heaven, which change he repeatedly represents as indispensable.

What Paul believed would be the course and fate of things on earth after the final consummation of Christ's mission is a matter of inference from his brief and partial hints. The most probable and consistent view which can be constructed from those hints is this. He thought all mankind would become reconciled and obedient to God, and that death, losing its punitive character, would become what it was originally intended to be, the mere change of the earthly for a heavenly body preparatory to a direct ascension. "Then shall the Son himself be subject unto Him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all." Then placid virtues and innocent joys should fill the world, and human life be what it was in Eden ere guilt forbade angelic visitants and converse with heaven.21

21 Neander thinks Paul's idea was that "the perfected kingdom of God would then blend itself harmoniously throughout his unbounded dominions." We believe his apprehension is correct. This globe would become a part of the general paradise, an ante room or a l ower story to the Temple of the Universe.

"So when" without aprevious descent into Hades, as the context proves "this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying which is written, 'Death shall be swallowed up in victory. O Death, thou last enemy, where is thy sting? O Hades, thou gloomy prison, where is thy victory?'" The exposition just offered is confirmed by its striking adaptedness to the whole Pauline scheme. It is also the interpretation given by the earliest Fathers, and by the Church in general until now. This idea of men being changed and rising into heaven without at all entering the disembodied state below was evidently in the mind of Milton when he wrote the following lines:

"And from these corporeal nutriments, perhaps. Your bodies may at last turn all to spirit, And, wing'd, ascend ethereal, may, at choice, Here, or in heavenly paradise, dwell."

It now remains to see what Paul thought was to be the final portion of the hardened and persevering sinner. One class of passages in his writings, if taken by themselves, would lead us to believe that on that point he had no fixed convictions in regard to particulars, but, thinking these beyond the present reach of reason, contented himself with the general assurance that all such persons would meet their just deserts, and there left the subject in obscurity. "God will render to every man to the Jew first, and also to the Greek according to his deeds." "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." "So then every one of us shall give an account of himself to God." "At the judgment seat of Christ every one shall receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or whether it be bad." From these and a few kindred texts we might infer that the author, aware that he "knew but in part," simply held the belief without attempting to pry into special methods, details, and results that at the time of the judgment all should have exact justice. He may, however, have unfolded in his preaching minutia of faith not explained in his letters.

A second class of passages in the epistles of Paul would naturally cause the common reader to conclude that he imagined that the unregenerate those unfit for the presence of God were to be annihilated when Christ, after his second coming, should return to heaven with his saints. "Those who know not God and obey not the gospel of Christ shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence and glory of the Lord when he shall come." "The end of the enemies of the cross of Christ is destruction." "The vessels of wrath fitted for destruction." "As many as have sinned without law shall perish without law." But it is to be observed that the word here rendered "destruction" need not signify annihilation. It often, even in Paul's epistles, plainly means severe punishment, dreadful misery, moral ruin, and retribution. For example, "foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition," "piercing them through with many sorrows." It may or may not have that sense in the instances above cited. Their meaning is intrinsically uncertain: we must bring other passages and distinct considerations to aid our interpretation.

From a third selection of texts in Paul's epistles it is not strange that some persons have deduced the doctrine of unconditional, universal salvation. "As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." But the genuine explanation of this sentence, we are constrained to believe, is as follows: "As, following after the example of Adam, all souls descend below, so, following after Christ, all shall be raised up," that is, at the judgment, after which event some may be taken to heaven, others banished again into Hades. "We trust in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of them that believe." This means that all men have been saved now from the unconditional sentence to Hades brought on them by the first sin, but not all know the glad tidings: those who receive them into believing hearts are already exulting over their deliverance and their hopes of heaven. All are objectively saved from the unavoidable and universal necessity of Hadean imprisonment; the obedient believers are also subjectively saved from the contingent and personal risk of incurring that doom. "God hath shut them all up together in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all." "All" here means both Jews and Gentiles; and the reference is to the universal annulment of the universal fatality, and the impartial offer of heaven to every one who sanctifies the truth in his heart. In some cases the word "all" is used with rhetorical looseness, not with logical rigidness, and denotes merely all Christians. Ruckert shows this well in his commentary on the fifteenth chapter of First Corinthians. In other instances the universality, which is indeed plainly there, applies to the removal from the race of the inherited doom; while a conditionality is unquestionably implied as to the actual salvation of each person. We say Paul does constantly represent personal salvation as depending on conditions, as beset by perils and to be earnestly striven for. "Lest that by any means I myself should be a castaway." "Deliver such an one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus." "Wherefore we labor, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of the lord." "To them that are saved we are a savor of life unto life; to them that perish, a savor of death unto death." "Charge them that are rich that they be humble and do good, laying up in store a good foundation, that they may lay hold on eternal life." It is clear, from these and many similar passages of Paul, that he did not believe in the unconditional salvation, the positive mechanical salvation, of all individuals, but held personal salvation to be a contingent problem, to be worked out, through the permitting grace of God, by Christian faith, works, and character. How plainly this is contained, too, in his doctrine of "a resurrection of the just and the unjust," and of a day of judgment, from whose august tribunal Christ is to pronounce sentence according to each man's deeds! At the same time, the undeniable fact deserves particular remembrance that he says, and apparently knows, nothing whatever of a hell, in the present acceptation of that term, a prison house of fiery tortures. He assigns the realm of Satan and the evil spirits to the air, the vexed region between earth and heaven, according to the demonology of his age and country. 22

Finally, there is a fourth class of passages, from which we might infer that the apostle's faith merely excluded the reprobate from participating in the ascent with Christ, just as some of the Pharisees excluded the Gentiles from their resurrection, and there left the subject in darkness.

22 A detailed and most curious account of this region, which he calls Tartarus, is given by Angustine. De Gen. ad. lit. lib. iii. cap. 14, 15, ed. Benedictina.

"They that are Christ's," "the dead in Christ, shall rise." "No sensualist, extortioner, idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God." "There is laid up a crown of righteousness, which the Lord shall give in that day to all them that love his appearing." In all these, and in many other cases, there is a marked omission of any reference to the ultimate positive disposal of the wicked. Still, against the supposition of his holding the doctrine that all except good Christians would be left below eternally, we have his repeated explicit avowals. "I have hope towards God that there shall be a resurrection both of the just and the unjust." "We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ." These last statements, however, prove only that Paul thought the bad as well as the good would be raised up and judged: they are not inconsistent with the belief that the condemned would afterwards either be annihilated, or remanded everlastingly to the under world. This very belief, we think, is contained in that remarkable passage where Paul writes to the Philippians that he strives "if by any means he may attain unto the resurrection." Now, the common resurrection of the dead for judgment needed not to be striven for: it would occur to all unconditionally. But there is another resurrection, or another part remaining to complete the resurrection, namely, after the judgment, a rising of the accepted to heaven. All shall rise from Hades upon the earth to judgment. This Paul calls simply the resurrection, [Non ASCII Characters] After the judgment, the accepted shall rise to heaven. This Paul calls, with distinctive emphasis, [Non ASCII Characters] the pre eminent or complete resurrection, the prefix being used as an intensive. This is what the apostle considers uncertain and labors to secure, "stretching forward and pressing towards the goal for the prize of that call upwards," [Non ASCII Characters] (that invitation to heaven,) "which God has extended through Christ." Those who are condemned at the judgment can have no part in this completion of the resurrection, cannot enter the heavenly kingdom, but must be "punished with everlasting destruction from the presence and glory of the Lord," that is, as we suppose is signified, be thrust into the under world for evermore. As unessential to our object, we have omitted an exposition of the Pauline doctrine of the natural rank and proper or delegated offices of Christ in the universe; also an examination of the validity of the doubts and arguments brought against the genuineness of the lesser epistles ascribed to Paul. In close, we will sum up in brief array the leading conceptions in his view of the last things. First, there is a world of immortal light and bliss over the sky, the exclusive abode of God and the angels from of old; and there is a dreary world of darkness and repose under the earth, the abode of all departed human spirits. Secondly, death was originally meant to lead souls into heaven, clothed in new and divine bodies, immediately on the fall of the present tabernacle; but sin broke that plan and doomed souls to pass disembodied into Hades. Thirdly, the Mosaic dispensation of law could not deliver men from that sentence; but God had promised Abraham that through one of his posterity they should be delivered. To fulfil that promise Christ came. He illustrated God's unpurchased love and forgiveness and determination to restore the original plan, as if men had never sinned. Christ effected this aim, in conjunction with his teachings, by dying, descending into Hades, as if the doom of a sinful man were upon him also, subduing the powers of that prison house, rising again, and ascending into heaven, the first one ever admitted there from among the dead, thus exemplifying the fulfilled "expectation of the creature that was groaning and travailing in pain" to be born into the freedom of the heavenly glory of the sons of God. Fourthly, "justification by faith," therefore, means the redemption from Hades by acceptance of the dispensation of free grace which is proclaimed in the gospel. Fifthly, every sanctified believer receives a pledge or earnest of the spirit sealing him as God's and assuring him of acceptance with Christ and of advance to heaven. Sixthly, Christ is speedily to come a second time, come in glory and power irresistible, to consummate his mission, raise the dead, judge the world, establish a new order of things, and return into heaven with his chosen ones. Seventhly, the stubbornly wicked portion of mankind will be returned eternally into the under world. Eighthly, after the judgment the subterranean realm of death will be shut up, no more souls going into it, but all men at their dissolution being instantly invested with spiritual bodies and ascending to the glories of the Lord. Finally, Jesus having put down all enemies and restored the primeval paradise will yield up his mediatorial throne, and God the Father be all in all.

The preparatory rudiments of this system of the last things existed in the belief of the age, and it was itself composed by the union of a theoretic interpretation of the life of Christ and of the connected phenomena succeeding his death, with the elements of Pharasaic Judaism, all mingled in the crucible of the soul of Paul and fused by the fires of his experience. It illustrates a great number of puzzling passages in the New Testament, without the necessity of recourse to the unnatural, incredible, unwarranted dogmas associated with them by the unique, isolated peculiarities of Calvinism. The interpretation given above, moreover, has this strong confirmation of its accuracy, namely, that it is arrived at from the stand point of the thought and life of the Apostle Paul in the first century, not from the stand point of the theology and experience of the educated Christian of the nineteenth century.

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