THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
PRESENTED BY
PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND
MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID
PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY.
PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY
BEING AN ESSAY TOWARDS A MORE CORRECT
APPREHENSION OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE,
MAINLY SOTERIOLOGICAL.
BY
JAMES STUART, M.A.
TrveujmaTtKu orvyKQtvovTes. 1 COR. ii. 13
WILLIAMS & NORGATE,
14 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON ; ANI>
20 SOUTH FREDERICK STREET, EDINBURGH.
I 8 8 8.
EDINBURGH :
PRINTED BY LOR1MER AND GILLIES,
31 ST. ANDREW SQUARE.
TO THE MEMORY
OP
MY FATHER,
:|
THIS ATTEMPT TO ELUCIDATE THAT RELIGION FOR WHICH HE LIVED,,
AND SUPPORTED BY WHICH HE DIED,
IS DUTIFULLY INSCRIBED.
ADVERTISEMENT.
I DO not propose to detain the reader with any preliminary
remarks on the nature of the work here submitted to his
perusal. If the title does not convey to his mind a general
notion of what he may expect to find in it, I could hardly
hope to do so within the limits of a short preface. Besides,
I am unwilling to increase still further the bulk of a volume
which, notwithstanding every effort to compress it, has swollen
to much larger dimensions than I could have wished. I shall
only say that by looking through the table of contents a view
will be obtained of the scope of the investigation, while the
introductory chapter will afford some indication of its character,
as well as of the reasons which have compelled me to under-
take it, and thereafter, I trust, the subject will open itself up
not unnaturally. One suggestion I may be allowed to offer :
if the reader feels that I have gone more minutely into the
analysis of the typological system of the Epistle to the
Hebrews than is either agreeable to his taste or necessary to
satisfy his judgment, let him pass over the seventh chapter,
which may be left out without seriously detracting from the
force of the main argument, though it will be well to glance
at the contents, and to bestow more special attention on the
section dealing with the writer's ideas on inspiration, with
which the chapter concludes. My discussion has been specially
adapted for those who can still continue to cite that epistle as
if it were an infallible authority in matters of Old Testament
interpretation.
For full details of evidence in support of the statements
made on page 68 and elsewhere, I ought, perhaps, to have
added a reference to Schiirer's History of the Jeiuish People
in the Time of Jesus Christ (darks' Foreign Theological
Library), and to Weber's System der Altsynagogalen Palds-
tinischen Theologie.
vi
#775-
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
IMPUTATION WHAT IT IS AND WHAT IT INVOLVES.
PAGE
Three Applications of the Doctrine Past Attempts to Eliminate it A
Typical Example The First Application and the Typical Case
Points of Agreement and Difference drawn out The Second Applica-
tion stated Difficulties which it involves Compared with the Typical
Case Further Difficulties involved Points of Agreement and Differ-
ence drawn out The Third Application Difficulties, Incongruities,
and Absurdities Comparison with the Typical Case The Facts of
Experience exclude the Doctrine in any form Points of Difference
drawn out Summary and Conclusion, . . . . 1-41
CHAPTER II.
DIRECT SCRIPTURE EVIDENCE IN FAVOUR OF IMPUTATION.
Doctrine nowhere expressly asserted in the New Testament Not in case of
Adam's Sin, Rom. v. 12, seq. Nor in case of our Sins, Luke xxii. 37
Nor in case of Christ's Righteousness, Rom. iv. 3, seq. Questions raised
by Old Testament Quotations in Rom. iv. General Answer given here
once for all Cannot assume a priori that New Testament Interpre-
tation as such is authoritative Reasons for this How far Historical
Exegesis and Christian Exegesis differ Weiss's Biblical Theoloyy
quoted Meaning of the Extract unfolded The Old Testament as law
The Old Testament as Messianic Prophecy or Gospel Neither of
these Modes of regarding the Old Testament Historical but Systematic,
and adopted for a purely Oratorical purpose The method of Apostolic
Exegesis the Contemporary Popular one Fundamental Ideas of the
New Testament Writers read into Old Testament and then read out
of it again Why this is done Bearing of these Facts on Interpretation
of Quotations from Old Testament in New Meaning of these must be
ascertained not from Exact Words but from Context and other Parallel
M313928
viii CONTENTS.
PAGE
Passages without Quotations Drawbacks attending Attempt to prove
New Testament Doctrines by means of Old Testament Illustrated by
Two Examples Application of the above Principles to Rom. iv. The
Historical Sense of the first Quotation The Text a Cardinal one in
the Jewish Schools Meaning of the second Quotation What is
Righteousness "of Faith" What is Righteousness "apart from
Works" Exact Meaning of the latter Expression Proved from (1)
Rom. ix. 30-32 ; (2) Rom. ii. 25-29 and Phil. iii. 3 ; (3) Rom. ii. 13-16
and iii. 20 ; (4) James ii. 21-26 and Gal. ii. 15, 16 Luther and the
Apostle James The Expression " Justifieth the Ungodly " Solution
of the Paradox General Result as to the whole Chapter Inference to
be Drawn from it Attempts to Evade this Inference, . . 42-104
CHAPTER III.
INDIRECT SCRIPTURE EVIDENCE IN FAVOUR OF IMPUTATION.
Ordinary Meanings of the words Righteous and Sinful Meaning of the word
Justify Does not Imply the Existence of Imputed Righteousness
Language of the New Testament contains nothing answering to Im-
puted Righteousness and Imputed Sin Exact Definition of these
Notions Notions as so Defined read between the lines of the New
Testament Justification spoken of as Completed in the First Moment
of Faith But the same True of Sanctification Both Processes likewise
spoken of as Completed only at Death and Judgment respectively
And as in Course of Accomplishment during the Believer's whole
Earthly Life How these Different Modes of Speech are to be Under-
stood Imputed Righteousness not Postulated but Excluded by them
And besides would leave numberless Difficulties Unsolved Justi-
fication and Sanctification Defined and Distinguished, . . 105-127
CHAPTER IV.
RUIN AND RESTORATION A PARALLEL AND A CONTRAST.
Two Principal Passages to be here Discussed The Revised Version of the
first quoted And corrected The Meanings of "in Adam " and " in
Christ "Definitions proved from the following Context The Union of
the Two Races Our Passage excludes an Historical Fall Yet without
being intended by the Apostle to do so General Question of the Credi-
bility of the Fall A Fall not Presupposed by Paul's Doctrine of Sin
Excluded by 1 Cor. xv. 45, seq., and not really supported by Rom. v. 12,
*<?<?. Physical Science opposed to the Literal Historical view of Gen. L-
iii. And likewise Historical Criticism On the whole, a Literal Fall
incredible, but the question may simply be left open Rejection of the
Doctrine involves no important consequences The Second Passage The
Parallel begun and broken off Resumed and repeated Reasons for
revising the Translation of the Revisers The Intermediate Section trans-
CONTENTS. ix
1'A.GK.
lated And paraphrased Points of Contrast drawn out View taken
of v. 15 justified And of vv. 16 and 17 Result as to v. 18 What is
and is not taught in vv. 12-14 The Argument of these verses explicitly
drawn out Confirmed by Reasons Difficulties involved in it Conclu-
sion more unreasonable than the Negation of the Major Premise And
not really deducible from that Premise Death of Men between Adam
and Moses accounted for by natural knowledge of Moral Duty apart
from Adam's Transgression The Apostle's Argument leaves the Death
of Infants unaccounted for It does not include the case of men who
receive the Mosaic Law In no case can the Parallel hold with strict
exactness because the Grace of Christ is not imputed either mediately or
immediately The Parallel of vv. 20, 21 excludes that of vv. 12-14
Conclusion to which all this points The Paragraph a piece of Artificial
Rhetoric intended to show how the Apostle's Scheme of Salvation may
be harmonised with the popular Rabbinical Idea that Adam is a Type
of the Future Messiah Consequences flowing from this Precise
Parellelism not to be expected Imputation of Christ's Righteousness
cannot be inferred from that of Adam's Sin Universalism can find no
real support "Original Sin" not taught in the Paragraph View of
Human Sinfulness presented in v. 21, scq. Reasons why " Original Sin"
cannot be inferred from it General result as bearing on the Fall
Summary, . . . . . . . 128-208-
CHAPTER V.
THE DOCTRINAL SYSTEM OF THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.
Transition from the Passages now discussed to the Epistle to the Hebrews
Section containing the Author's Doctrine of Sin quoted General
Conceptions underlying it Points in which the Historical Sense of the
Passage from Psalm viii. is modified In what sense Man is here under-
stood to be " made lower than the Angels " How this affects the Doc-
trine of Sin An Historical Fall apparently excluded though probably
unconsciously The Doctrine of the Incarnation opened Salvation
" by the Grace of God "Transition to the next section of the Para-
graph Quoted with Paraphrastic Additions Cur Deus Homo? The
Nature and Extent of Christ's Sufferings Not viewed Speculatively
but Historically, and interpreted on well-understood General Principles
In what sense Christ was " Perfected through Sufferings " The Posi-
tive Side of the Process of Perfecting Result collected The Death of
Christ had no other direct effect than to Perfect His own Person No
Definite Proportion between the amount of Christ's Sufferings and that
of the Sin He assumed The Relation of the Spirit of Christ to
the Sin in His Flesh- -The Earthly Experience of Believers Parallel in
every respect to that of Christ Proof of this and of what Christ does
for Believers in saving them The Sufferings of Believers the same in
Nature and in Effect as those of Christ Here also no Definite Propor-
tion between the amount of Suffering and the amount of Sin Summary
and Conclusion, . ... 204-24S
x CONTENTS.
CHAPTER VI.
FACT AND FIGURE IN THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.
Statement of the Popular View of the Plan of Salvation taught in this
Epistle Of which "the Atonement" is the principal part Difficulties
involved in this Doctrine Some Leading Features of the Jewish
Kxpiatory Sacrifice Utter Failure of the Attempt to Co-ordinate the
Work of Christ with it Besides Entire Absence of Proof in the
Epistle to Support the Alleged Method of Christ's " Atonement "-
What the Author of Hebrews actually does is to Throw the World-
Historical Spiritual Process of truly Sanctifying the whole Body of
Kelievers into the form of the Momentary Physical Action of Symboli-
cally Sanctifying a Definite Generation of Israelites The Plan of the
Epistle as a piece of Highly Artificial Rhetorical Pleading accounts for
this being done The Writer himself expressly allows (what theologians
vainly deny) that he is speaking not Literally, but in the language of
" Symbol " or " Parable " Reasons for undertaking a Detailed
Examination of the Author's Typological System The Priesthood of
Christ Why and in What Sense it is called Figurative Different
Historical Characters to whom Christ is compared The leading one
the Aaronic High Priest Discussion on Melchizedek introduced to
establish the Fact and the Order of Jesus' Priesthood as a step towards
comparing His Functions with those of the Aaronic High Priest The
Quotations on which it is Based prove more than is required viz., that
Christ did not become a Priest till He had sat down at God's Right
Hand, where He could do nothing resembling the actions of the
Aaronic High Priest Hence two Incompatible Views of the Priest-
hood of Christ This already a Proof that the Writer's whole System
is purely Artificial The Character of Jesus read through Ps. ex. into
the Genesis Narrative relating to Melchizedek, who is regarded as an
Eternal, Self -existent, Supernatural Being The Difficulty thus created
recognised by the Writer himself, though his Readers did not require a
Solution, and none is therefore attempted Effect of the Argument is
to supply Warrant for calling Jesus a Priest, and regarding Him as
Superior to the Levitical Priests Yet, as neither Melchizedek's proper
Character nor his Functions are attributed to Jesus, the word Priest,
when applied to Jesus, can tell us nothing either as to His Character
or as to His Functions Hence when Jesus is regarded merely as a
.Melchizedek Priest His Work is represented quite Literally Whereas
when His Functions come to be Compared with those of the Aaronic
High Priest they are projected back, and Identified with the Experi-
ences of His Earthly Life before He became a Priest ! This Glaring
Inconsistency due in part to the Fact that the Argument is now based
on a different set of Old Testament Quotations The Meaning put
upon the First of these wholly Unhistorical and Extravagant even to
Absurdity Bearing which this must have on the validity of the Typo-
logical System obviously and avowedly deduced from it The Meaning
put upon the Second Quotation likewise so far Unhistorical that the
CONTENTS.
PAGE
Typology based upon it must be without the smallest real Foundation
Moreover, the First Quotation, as here interpreted, although, like the
Quotations relating to Melchizedek, it leads the Author to attempt to
Co-ordinate the Functions of Christ with those of the Levitical Priests,
would, if strictly adhered to, suffice to prove that real Resemblance is
Impossible in the Nature of Things Inference from all this that the
Author's whole Typological System is a Creation, pure and simple, of
his own Imagination, ....... 244-292
CHAPTER VII.
FACT AND FIGURE IN THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS Continued.
The Section x. 1-18 Where the Attempt is made to Co-ordinate Christ
and His Work with the Jewish Priests and Sacrifices generally The
Points which the Author brings into Parallelism are not the best that
were offered by the facts Besides, the Tabernacle, the Altar, the
Victim, the Blood, &c., are here identified, not with Heavenly, but
with Earthly things, in direct contradiction to the alleged Teaching of
the Author's Fundamental Quotation This due in part to the use
made of another Quotation The Interpretation put upon which is wholly
Unhistorical Yet the Identification of Christ's Priestly Functions
with what He did and suffered on Earth arises inevitably out of the
attempt to Co-ordinate them with the Functions of the Levitical
Priests, since the things done by Him in Heaven must differ toto ccelo
from Priestly Functions properly so-called The Act of Christ's
Physical Death represented as Sanctifying not from Guilt merely, but
from Sin itself the whole Body of Believers, from the Foundation
of the World to its Consummation Yet, after all, the Crucifixion of
Jesus Christ totally different from a Jewish Expiatory Sacrifice And
the real Sanctification of the whole Body of Believers carried out in
a manner as Diverse as possible from the Symbolical Sanctification of a
Definite Generation of Israelites The Section ix. 1-10 Where the
attempt is made to account for the two Divisions of the Tabernacle,
and for the specific Officers and Actions connected with each The
Passage Supplemented by x. 18-23 The Scheme utterly Inconsistent
with the Author's Fundamental Quotation In itself purely arbitrary
And entirely at Variance with the Scheme just examined Instead
of Establishing Similarity between the Functions of Christ and those of
the Aaronic High Priest it rather implies that the two are quite Dis-
similar Extent of the Dissimilarity shown The Section ix. 11-15
Where several Independent Ritual Ceremonies are brought together to
form a Picture of the Work of Christ How far the present Typo-
logical System differs from the previous Acknowledged Points of
Difference between the High Priest's Action on the Day of Atonement
and the Work of Jesus Christ To what extent the Author modifies
the Atonement Ceremony so as to bring it into closer Parallelism with
the Work of Christ Literal and Figurative Representations mixed up
Combination of Ceremony of Purification from Defilement by Dead
xii CONTENTS.
PAG F.
Body with Atonement Ceremony The Sinaitic Covenant with its
Inaugural Ceremony and the Work of Christ Parallelism with this
would exclude Parallelism with anything else No real Resemblance
between the Sinaitic Covenant and the Work of Christ Hence the
Author passes over to the idea of a Testament Committing the
Logical Fallacy of "Ambiguous Middle Term" The Work of Christ
likewise differs entirely from a Testament Author's way of looking at
Scripture Holds Theory of Verbal Dictation by the Holy Ghost, and
uses Artificial Method of Exegesis This the Current Jewish Theory
and Method Proof from Philo, &c. Wherein the Views of Modern
" Orthodox " Theologians differ from those of the Jewish Doctors and
of the Apostles on the subject of Scripture Inspiration and Interpreta-
tion The Exegetical results of the Apostles and those of their Jewish
Contemporaries The effect of rejecting the Doctrine of Plenary
Inspiration, ........ 293-354
CHAPTER VIII.
OLD TESTAMENT RELIGION ACCORDING TO TILE AUTHOR OF HEBREWS.
The View of Old Testament Religion presented in Chaps, iii. and iv.
Deduced from Two Old Testament Passages for the purpose of Ground-
ing upon it a Practical Exhortation The second Quotation Interpreted
quite Unhistorically The Law here Identified with the Gospel, which
was Preached only to Israel at the Exodus, by whom it was Rejected
Proof of this The Present Representation of Old Testament Religion
utterly at variance with other Representations contained in the Epistle
It Implies that no one throughout the whole Old Testament Period
could possibly have been Saved This Implication of the Writer's
Argument which arises out of his Fanciful Exegesis can by no means
be Evaded The whole is merely Popular Rhetoric The View of Old
Testament Religion presented in Chap. xi. Deduced from Old Testa-
ment Quotation in the close of Chap. x. The Form of Old Testament
Religion here regarded as Pervaded throughout with the Spirit of
Christianity So that all the innumerable seed of Abraham are now
thought of as being Saved And the Writer's Practical Exhortation is
purely persuasive instead of being as before purely dissuasive Thus
the Present Representation of Old Testament Religion is diametrically
opposed to the Last The View of Old Testament Religion presented
in Chaps, viii., ix., and x. This also Implies, though on a different
ground, that no one in Old Testament Times could possibly have been
Saved Explanation of How and Proof that it is so The Thing arises
Naturally out of the Artificial Exegesis of the Old Testament Quotations
from which the whole Representation is Deduced And has a Strict
Parallel in the Writings of Paul The Relation of these Three Views
of Old Testament Religion to the Historical Reality The View con-
tained in Chaps, iii. and iv. Notoriously and Completely Unhistorical
The View contained in the Main Body of the Epistle likewise Un-
CONTENTS. xiii
PAGE
historical though not commonly Recognised to be so The Official
Theory of Old Testament Religion Regards the Type as being Recog-
nised to be such and as receiving Validity from the Antitype This
Directly Opposed alike to the View of our Author and to Historical
Fact No one in Old Testament Times did or could have Recognised
in the Ritual System a Type of the Gospel Scheme of Salvation The
Author of Hebrews regards Old Testament Religion in no other Light
than as a Foil to set off his own His View of it not Historical but
(1) Systematic ; (2) Deductive ; (3) Directly Manufactured for an
Oratorical Purpose Explanation of what that Purpose is The Judaism
of the Apostolic Age and Christianity The Moral and the Ceremonial
Parts of the Jewish Law The Attitude toward these of Modern Criti-
cism, of Jesus, and of the Apostles respectively How the Apostles were
Debarred from Attacking the Ceremonial Law Directly while Feeling
Bound to Set it Aside Artificial Character of the Methods by which
both Paul and the Author of Hebrews seek to get rid of it The
Expedient Adopted by the Latter is to Represent the whole Law as
Typical, whence it must give way to the Antitype, which alone Possesses
Saving Validity Illustration of the Writer's Artificiality Proof that
it was the Ceremonial Part and not the Whole Jewish Law that had
to be set aside How far the View of Old Testament Religion con-
tained in Chap. xi. is Historical The Historical Sense of the Funda-
mental Quotation not seriously Departed from A Summary Statement
of the True Nature of Old Testament Religion General Harmony of
the Teaching of Jesus with this Statement Points in which the
Author of Hebrews in the present chapter Departs from it He Regards
Faith in Old Testament Times as Faith in Christ He Attributes Dis-
tinct Knowledge of the Future Life to Old Testament Saints He
Attributes True Faith and Life to the Members of the Chosen Seed
universally Conclusion, ...... 355-415
CHAPTER IX.
THE LAW AND THE PROMISE, " THE ATONEMENT," ETC.
The Apostle Paul on the Religion of Old Testament Times His Aim is to
set aside the Ceremonial Law in favour of the Gospel The Practice of
the former he regards as Heathenish Herein agreeing substantially
with Jesus Himself Yet he could not Eliminate it directly but only
by indirect and therefore purely Artificial Means Principal Expedient
is the driving of a forced Antithesis between "the Law," which is
identified with the Dead Judaism of the Apostolic Age, and " the Pro-
mise," which is identified with the Living Christianity of the Apostolic
Age The Apostle's Exegesis Unhistorical and his Argument based
upon it wholly Fallacious The Latter implies that Abraham alone of
the entire Pre-Christian World had an opportunity of closing with the
Offer of Salvation Proof of this absolutely Irrefragable The Law is
held to have Value only for the Apostle's own Readers All this shows
that the Apostle's Representation of Old Testament Religion is a mere
CONTENTS.
PAOK
Dialectic Device for effecting the Oratorical Object specified above It
lias arisen through projecting his own Experience before Conversion,
which was Typical of the Judaism of his day, back through the whole
Old Testament period The True Historical View is quite Different
The Allegory of the Bondwoman and the Freewoman a Rabbinical Con-
ceit So also that of the Shining of Moses' Face The Analogy of
Rom. vii. 1, seq., equally Worthless The Apostle Paul and the Typo-
logical Method of Exegesis The Main Passage, Rom. iii. 24-26 The
Literal Meaning of Expiation Meaning put upon it by Theologians
Difficulties involved in applying it as so understood to Christ's Work
Attempts to get over the Difficulties These Result in a Complete Sur-
render of the whole Case The Obedience and Sufferings of Christ
while on Earth the same in Nature and in Effect as those of every
Believer Series of Quotations in Proof of this Summary of points
established by these, . . . . . . .416-450
CHAPTER X.
" THE ATONEMENT," ETC. Continued.
The sense in which we may still continue to use the word Expiation Series
of Passages adduced in Evidence What these involve That the Suffer-
ings of Christ, like all the Sufferings that exist in the World, are
regarded by the Apostles as Penal Proof of this That the Sufferings
of Christ cannot without Absurdity be regarded as Vicarious Utter
Futility of the Attempts to prove the Opposite The Sufferings of
Believers as really Punishment as those of Christ And the Sufferings
of Christ as really Chastisement as those of Believers General result
Sin and Suffering never determinately proportioned to one another
The Sin assumed by Christ viewed Qualitatively only Borrowed Old
Testament Language in 1 Pet. ii. 24, and Rom. iv. 25 The Sufferings
of Christ viewed Historically only The Passage, Rom. iii. 23-26
What it teaches as to the Purpose and Effect of Christ's and Believers'
Sufferings The Present Suffering of Christ and Believers Insignificant
in Comparison with their Future Glory Meaning put upon the Passage
by Theologians Insuperable Difficulties which it Involves Proof of
the Meaning we put upon it Three Stages in the History of Believers
" Aforetime " when Sin is Committed and Forbearance shown " The
Present Time" of Suffering while doing Well The Future Day of Judg
ment when God will be Himself Righteous while Justifying the Godly
and Condemning the Ungodly Summary, .... 451-487
CHAPTER XL
CHRIST AND THE BELIEVER.
Transition from Rom. v. 21 to Rom. vi. The Opening Paragraph of Rom. vi.
Quoted The Prepositions " with " and " in " as Applied to the Relation
of Believers to Christ The Quotation Paraphrased The Continuity not
CONTENTS. xv
I'AUK
Broken at the Opening of Horn, vi., as if Chaps, i.-v. Treated of Justifi-
cation, and Chaps, vi.-viii. of Sanctification Hence the Meanings of
" Die to Sin," and " Live to Righteousness," to be settled by the Con-
text Statement and Proof of what these are The Metaphor implied
in " Slavery " Death with Christ the means of Abolishing Slavery
to Sin in the Flesh, and Resurrection with Christ the means of creating
Slavery to Righteousness in the Spirit Proof from Chap. vii. 1-6
Leading Points in the Analogy Difficulty as to the Law The Moral
Law does not foster slavery to sin, though the ceremonial did so
indirectly in Paul's day The Gospel and not the Law the means of
awakening the Knowledge of Sin, and, perhaps, of furthering its devel-
opment in human nature Doubtfulness of the latter point Analysis
of the Reasoning in Rom. vi. 1-11 The Revisers' Translation The
Apostle's Point of View Ideal and not Actual Christ's Earthly
Experience parallel in every respect to that of the Believer Rom. i. 4
Implies that Christ's Flesh was Sinful And is Confirmed by 2 Cor.
v. 21 Rom. viii. 3, 4 General Meaning of the Passage The Clause
" In the Likeness of Flesh of Sin " The word " Likeness " does not
imply the Unreality of Christ's Flesh in any Respect, and least of all
in Respect that it was Sinless Phil. ii. 5-11 shows this It rather
Points to the Fact that His Divine Nature was Hidden beneath the
veil of His Human The Clauses " And Concerning Sin, Condemned
the Sin in the Flesh " Their Meaning Established and Vindicated
Confirmed by Eph. ii. 14-18 And Col. ii. 14, 15 As well as by 1 Pet.
ii. 24, taken in Connection with iii. 18 Conclusion, . . 488-554
CHAPTER XII.
THE FLESH AND THE SPIRIT IN THE PERSON OF THE BELIEVER.
The Sin in the Flesh the Source of Christ's Temptations The Meaning of
" Tempted in all Points like as we are ivitliout sinning " Human Tempt-
ation a Conflict between Flesh and Spirit, and therefore implies Sinful
Flesh Confirmation from James i. 13-18 "In all points like as we
are " excludes Evasion based on Temptation in Unfallen or Sinless Man
The Historical Temptation of Christ Christ's Spirit more Powerful
than other Believers' but His Flesh absolutely identical with theirs
The Passage, Rom. vii. 14-25 Definition of Regeneration and
of Relation of Believer to Law and Grace The Person spoken
of is in Process of Regeneration Proof from (1) Parallel Passages
(2) the Train of Thought in Chaps, vi.-viii. Transition from vii.
to viii. is from the Actual to the Ideal The Inner Conflict Inter-
mittent The word " Mind " Applicable to the Inward Man of the
Believer And used in the latter half of Rom. vii., because when Con-
flict Arises the Reflective Faculty Operates Mainly on the Side of the
Spirit Fundamental Distinctions of Psychology The Mind Corre-
sponds to the Intellect And its Operations are Moralty Colourless
What is taught in Eph. iv. 17-24 Man has a Natural Spirit (or Soul)
in Contrast to his Body The Latter Essentially Sinful, and can be
CONTENTS.
PAGE
Purified only by being Mortified Difficulties Involved in the Sup-
posed Resurrection of the Body The Spirit of Man may be Purified
through Expulsion of the Principle of Sin And is the Source of his
Moral Knowledge, though only when Pure The Bible View of Con-
science Stated and Proved Its Harmony with Psychological Reflec-
tion Nature of Human Will Self -Determination The Ethical
Categories Flesh and Spirit neither Purely Moral nor Purely Physical
but Physi co - Moral Precise Definitions of both The Definitions
Established Confirmed by the Evident Rationale of the "Old Man"
and the "New Man," as well as of the " Inward Man " and the " Out-
ward Man " The Relation between the Physical and the Ethical
Meanings of Flesh and Spirit Particularly in the Case of Christ
Application of these results to Roin. vii. 14-25 And to the Earthly
Experience of Christ and Believers as stated in vi. 1-11 Phleiderer's
Objection in the Case of Christ Conclusion, . . . 555-620
PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY.
CHAPTER I.
IMPUTATION WHAT IT IS AND WHAT IT INVOLVES.
AS this Work, on its negative aspect, will have the effect
of eliminating the theory or doctrine of imputation in
its various applications from Christian theology, it will be
convenient to begin with a brief statement of what that
doctrine is, and what it involves.
The theory of imputation forms an essential part of the
system of Christian doctrine embodied in the standards of the
leading Reformed Churches. Applied in the first instance to
the primal sin, of which all men are supposed to become
partakers through Adam, it has been extended to the sin of
which Christ is supposed to have become a partaker through
the human race, otherwise through the elect, and then to the
righteousness of which all believers are supposed to become
partakers through Christ. It has moulded and determined
not only the doctrine of justification, but the whole scheme of
salvation, including the constitution or person of the Saviour,
and the nature, method, and limits of His work. Moreover,
it has reacted on the doctrine of sin, giving rise to a peculiar,
and, as we shall see, somewhat fanciful view of the relation of
the first man to all his descendants. In its completest or
most thorough-going and consistent form, the theory embraces
the three applications just mentioned the imputation of
Adam's first sin to each of his descendants, the imputation of
human sin to Christ, and the imputation of Christ's righteous-
B
2 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
ness to each believer. Consistency requires that these three
applications should be either accepted or rejected together,
though this has not always been done in the history of the
Church. It also requires that the first should be held in the
same sense as the two others, though neither has this always
been done. Some who accept the first and second, reject the
third ; some who accept the second and third, reject the first,
or hold it only in a modified sense ; some who accept the
second, reject the first and third ; many accept, or at least
profess to accept, all three ; comparatively few believing
theologians distinctly reject all three.
Whatever may be thought of the merits of the theory as an
attempted expression of New Testament teaching, no one can
deny that it has been worked out and defended with much
earnestness and ingenuity. Its advocates have spared no pains
to render it at once complete and coherent, and they have
done whatever learning, ability, and industry could do to
soften its harsher features, and obviate such objections as
might fairly or unfairly be brought against it. It must also
be confessed that its assailants have not always perhaps have
not often been either very candid or very reasonable. They
have attacked it with great vehemence. To some the very
idea of imputation is so repugnant that they have poured upon
it unmeasured contempt, representing it as traversing in the
most direct manner the plainest dictates of reason, outraging
the most elementary moral instincts, subverting the authority
of conscience, and threatening to overturn the deepest founda-
tions upon which all morality and all religion is based. But
these have not always waited to inquire whether the idea were
taught in Scripture, or what consequences would follow if it
were; still less can they be said to have frankly and seriously
dealt with the arguments of their opponents, or with the issues
raised by the rejection of imputation in every form. Others
there are and these the most numerous who impugn the
doctrine at a single point only, and demolish that to their own
satisfaction, but without indicating how they can still continue to
hold the remaining points, which, as they rest on substantially
the same grounds, must stand or fall with the one discarded.
While a third class have displayed great expertness in exposing
I.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 3
the weakness of their opponents' arguments, pointing to the
absence or insufficiency of the Scripture evidence, and urging
objections which it might be difficult or even impossible to
answer ; but they have in general shown little disposition to
deal with the statements of Scripture as a whole, to construct
on their basis a complete and consistent system of thought, and
to show how other doctrines, which they of all men deem most
sacred, essential, and inviolable, can be maintained apart from
the obnoxious theory. Yet true it is, that no reasonable man
can be expected to give up a comprehensive and well-defined
system of doctrine merely because difficulties more or fewer are
seen to attach to certain parts of it, unless he receive in
exchange another system, equally comprehensive and well-
defined, and to which fewer difficulties are attached. This is
what the assailants of the doctrine of imputation have forgotten,
and this is why their assaults, vehement and well-sustained as
many of them are, have been without any general or per-
manent results. They have merely nibbled at it, and the
theological public, which, in English-speaking countries at
least, is seldom misled by mere quackery, has turned a deaf
ear to what it could hardly fail to regard as their impertinent
solicitations.
In approaching the subject of imputation, our first endeavour
must be to ascertain what is implied in the notion as x we find
it in common speech and common life, and then to define how
far this common notion is modified, if it be modified, when it
is applied to explain the facts and statements of Christian
theology. Happily, there is in the New Testament itself a
single example that will serve to place its nature in the
clearest possible light. The Apostle Paul, writing of Onesimus,
the runaway slave of Philemon, expresses himself thus : " But
if he hath wronged thee at all, or owe thee aught, impute
this to me ; I, Paul, write it with mine own hand, I will
repay it " (Philemon, 18, 19). Here there are three parties
Onesimus, who has done the wrong; Philemon, who has
suffered the wrong ; and Paul, who undertakes the work of
reparation instead of Onesimus. A law of righteousness has
been violated by Onesimus, in consequence of which he owes a
debt to Philemon. Paul undertakes to discharge the debt
4 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
The offer is accepted. The obligation lying on Onesimus at
once ceases to exist, and he is treated by Philemon exactly as
if the wrong had never been committed. Philemon has a
claim at law against Onesimus; Paul pledges himself to
satisfy the claim, the result being that Onesimus is at once
discharged from the claim, which no longer lies against him
to be satisfied. Nothing is said or thought about condemna-
tion or justification, either on one side or the other. The
only really essential thing in the transaction is the transference
of the debitum from Onesimus to Paul. The character of the
parties remains precisely what it was before. Onesimus, even
in the judgment of Philemon, does not cease to be the wrong-
doer, nor does Paul cease to be regarded as an upright man ;
only, the legal consequence of the wrong done by Onesimus is
borne by Paul instead of being borne by Onesimus himself.
By imputing the wrong-doing of Onesimus to Paul is just
meant transferring the penalty of the wrong done from
Onesimus to Paul, which, when so transferred, is visited on
the latter instead of being visited on the former. This is the
whole matter ; and to introduce other ideas, or to multiply
explanations, would only have the effect of mystifying and
perplexing the case. It would be to " darken counsel by
words without knowledge."
So much for the notion of imputation in the usage of
common speech and in the affairs of common life. What,
now, of the dogma which passes under that name in the sphere
of Christian theology ? Take, in the first instance, the simplest
case, that of Adam's first sin, and, to avoid needless repetition,
take it in its most pronounced, which is also, in a theoretical
point of view, its most consistent form. The allegation is that
the first sin of Adam, by which he incurred the penalty of
death, is imputed to every one of his descendants as soon as
they enter the world or come into existence, that the penalty
due to that sin is inflicted upon each, and that this is done,
not at the suggestion nor with the concurrence of the parties
suffering, but solely in virtue of the peculiar relation that is
supposed to subsist between the first man and his posterity,
and which is described by saying that he is their covenant-
head or covenant-representative. The differences between this
I.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 5
case and the previous, whether important or not, are too
obvious to escape notice. For one thing, there is no real
transference of the penalty from one person to another.
Death is no doubt inflicted upon each of Adam's descendants,
as it was inflicted upon Adam himself, and this is supposed to'
be due to the imputation of Adam's first sin ; but even so, the
penalty incurred by Adam is not tfrcms-ferred either to each
of his descendants separately, or to all of them together ; it is
simply c<m-ferred * upon each of them separately, being at the
same time borne by Adam himself. Thus it is not a case
of one person taking the place of another, and discharging his
responsibilities, or paying his debt. Not even a case of an
indefinite number of persons assuming and sharing among
them the responsibilities of one. On the contrary, it is some-
thing quite distinct from, both of these. There is no proper
substitution, no strict exchange of places and actions, in the
matter at all. Posterity no more bears the penalty which
Adam escaped than Adam, had he remained unfallen, would
have enjoyed the reward which posterity relinquished. Pos-
terity shares with Adam in the consequences of his disobedi-
ence, just as posterity, if the theory be sound, would have
shared with Adam in the consequences of his obedience.
Whether in the latter event the obedience of Adam would
have been imputed to each of his descendants, so as to become
the ground of their obtaining life, is certainly open to grave
doubt, though it is not more doubtful than whether the dis-
obedience of Adam is imputed to each of his descendants, so
as to become the ground of their suffering death. Again, as
already noted, posterity have no choice in the matter of accept-
ing the consequences of Adam's sin ; whereas Paul voluntarily
undertook to meet and discharge the obligations of Onesimus.
This may or may not be an important difference in a moral
point of view, but that it is a. real difference all must admit.
Once more, the assumption of Onesimus's obligations did not
in the least affect the moral character of Paul for the worse,
* In common parlance, the word confer is used only of advantages, and not of
disadvantages ; but the reader will indulge me so far throughout the present
chapter as to allow me to use it in the strictly etymological eense as a correlate to
transfer.
6 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
any more than the release from his obligations affected the
moral character of Onesimus for the better. But, in the case
of Adam's descendants, a complete change of moral character
attends the supposed act of imputation. It is not merely
death, the wages of sin, the penalty incurred by Adam, that is
conferred upon each of Adam's descendants along with himself,
but the sin itself, the vitiated moral character, the depravity
of nature, which the original act of sinning produced, and
which every succeeding act continued to aggravate, this is
conferred upon each of Adam's descendants along with himself.
And this is conferred, not by the external act of imputation,
for it is not even pretended to be imputed at all, but by
the internal process of natural transmission, so that from all that
appears it would take place exactly as it does whether Adam's
sin were imputed or no. Now, since this inherent depravity,
transmitted from parent to child, is of the nature of sin, it
must be sufficient of itself and apart from the imputed sin of
Adam to draw upon all mankind the penalty of death ; and,
therefore, the imputation of Adam's first sin, whether a fact or
merely a figment, cannot be an essential condition, much less
the sole cause of the death of all mankind. No doubt it is
common to speak of original sin as itself a penal infliction on
account of the imputed sin of Adam. But how can that be ?
If men are shapen in sin and brought forth in iniquity, if they
come into existence in a depraved condition, if there never
was a time when they were not polluted by sin, if the very
elements of which they are formed are fallen, sinful elements,
if, in short, as soon as they are anything they are something
fallen, sinful, depraved, how can original sin be a punishment
inflicted on account of the imputed sin of Adam ? The first
sin of Adam, if imputed at all, must be imputed to something
already existing ; if imputed to men, it can be imputed only
after they have come into existence, and not before. But
men in the very process of coming into existence have the
taint of sin communicated to them ; in a manner, they are
sinful even before they exist, since the elements of which they
are composed are fallen, sinful elements the fountain from
which they spring is a polluted fountain; whence it would
seem to follow that original sin cannot possibly be a penal
I.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 7
infliction on account of the imputed sin of Adam. Depravity
is communicated, not in the act of imputation, nor in con-
sequence of that act, but in a separate, and not only a separate,
but an antecedent process; so that men, almost before they
have come into existence, or at anyrate, by a necessity of
nature, and in the process of coming into existence, are sub-
jected to the penalty of death quite independently of the
imputation of Adam's sin ; they would be treated exactly as
they are treated whether Adam's sin were imputed to them
or no.
Perhaps it will be said that at least Adam's own depravity
was a penal infliction on account of his first sin. But even
this much is not evident, arid cannot be proved. Neither in
Adam's case, if we may judge from analogy, nor in ours, is
depravity a fixed quantity, such as it would be if inflicted on
account of the original transgression. Depravity admits of
degrees. All men are not born equally depraved ; nor do
they continue throughout life equally depraved ; nor is there
the smallest reason to suppose that Adam's depravity was a
fixed quantity any more than the depravity of his descendants.
The act of sinning depraves the nature ; repetition of the act
depraves the nature yet more. It lies in the very nature of
a sinful action to work depravity. God Himself, so far as we
know, could not prevent it, even if He would. And there is
every reason to believe that depravation in Adam was entirely
analogous to depravation in all other men.
I repeat, then, that the imputation of Adam's first sin,
whether a fact or merely a figment, cannot be an essential
condition of the death of all mankind. Perhaps we might
even go a step further and assert that as all men necessarily
suffer death, either on account of original sin alone, or on
account of original sin augmented by actual transgressions,
the penalty of Adam's first sin cannot be really conferred
upon them at all. All men suffer death, but they suffer
death on account of something else than the first sin of Adam
imputed ; they suffer death on account of their own original
and actual sin, and this surely must be held to imply that
they do not suffer death on account of the first sin of Adam
imputed, in other words, that the first sin of Adam is not
8 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
imputed to them at all. Anyhow, there are at least these
differences between the present alleged case of imputation and
the actual case originally proposed. (1.) The penalty is not
really transferred from one person to another. (2.) It is not
even conferred on one person with another. (3.) It is con-
ferred on an indefinite number of persons with another.
(4.) It is conferred upon each of these persons, not at their
request, but without their concurrence, and presumably in
opposition to their wishes. (5.) There accompanies, or
rather precedes, the supposed conferring of the penalty the
actual and certain conferring of a state of character adequate
of itself to incur the penalty ; a fact which, at the very least,
raises a strong presumption that the primal sin is not really
imputed, nor its penalty really conferred at all.
Passing to the second alleged case of imputation the
imputation of human sin to Christ it must be confessed that
here it is much more difficult to state the exact form of the
current doctrine. The point is one which is probably more
widely accepted than either of the other two, yet I know not
how it is, but modern theological writers appear to pass it
over, not only without proof, but without even the decency of
explicit statement. It is assumed that human sin must
somehow have been imputed to Christ, but when, or how, on
what principle, or even what amount of sin, is hardly ever
discussed. Possibly the utter absence of Scripture evidence to
support the notion that sin was in any way imputed to
Christ may account in some measure for the lack of even the
pretence of reasoning on the point in the writings of theo-
logians. The so-called federal system of theology, which has
now fallen into general and just discredit, appears to be the
only system that really faces the present problem. The
covenant idea, as we have seen, lies at the basis of the
imputation of Adam's first sin. The act of imputation, with
the conferring of the penalty, is supposed to take place as
soon as each man comes into the world ; and this agreeably
to the terms of an imaginary covenant between God and
Adam, whereby the latter became bound on behalf of all his
posterity to render perfect obedience, on pain of death.
In like manner, according to the federal system, a covenant
I.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 9
was made between God and Christ, whereby the latter became
bound on behalf of all the elect to discharge the penalty due
to their sin. In pursuance of the terms of this imaginary
covenant, the sins of all the elect were imputed to their
Covenant Head the moment He assumed human flesh, the
penalty of those sins being then conferred, and visited on Him
in due course. Let us see what such a theory involves.
The first sin of Adam was and is a definite past act from
the standpoint of all his descendants, and there is no special
difficulty in the way of supposing it imputed to them no
difficulty, I mean, which is not involved in the very idea of
imputation. The penalty due to that sin is also sufficiently
definite. It is death in the fullest and widest sense. " The
wages of sin is death." In the words of the Westminster
Catechism, " Every sin deserveth God's wrath and curse, both
in this life and that which is to come." However harsh
these words may sound in modern ears, there is no good
reason to think that they overstate the teaching of Scripture.
Sin, from its very nature, and irrespective of its amount, must
necessitate eternal separation from God, which means eternal
misery. Such being the case, it is very difficult to under-
stand what can be meant by saying that the penalties due to
the sins of all the elect were conferred upon Christ at the time
when He assumed human flesh, and borne by Him during the
course of His earthly life. If the penalty of even a single
sin be the eternal misery of the sinner, it is impossible to see
what meaning there is in the statement that the penalty or
penalties due to innumerable sins of innumerable persons
were borne by a single individual within a brief period of
time. If the penalty of even a single sin be infinite, what
good is there in talking about the aggregate penalties of
innumerable sins? The penalty of even an infinite number
of sins can in no respect differ from the penalty of one, if the
penalty of that one be infinite. The present theory would be
more feasible and intelligible if the first sin of Adam, after
being imputed to each individual of the elect, were again
imputed back to Christ, so that its penalty might fall upon
Him instead of falling upon them, no account whatever being
taken of the inherited and actual sin belonging to the elect.
io PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
But even then there would be a serious difficulty, How can
an infinite amount of suffering be borne by a single individual
within a limited and even a brief period of time? If the
earthly life of Christ had been prolonged a year longer, would
not His sufferings have been greater ? If He had suffered
more during the first thirty years of His life, as He might
very well have done, would not His sufferings have been
greater ? Even at the final close, what evidence is there that
the sufferings of Christ were or could be so inconceivably
great as is here presupposed?
Possibly it will be said that the sufferings of Christ were
not infinite in amount ; they were not, therefore, the full
penalty of even a single sin, much less (if the language be
permissible) of the aggregate sins of all the elect ; only, such
as they were, they were accepted by God in lieu of the full
penalty ; they served the same purpose in reference to the
Divine justice as the full penalty would have done. But if
the Divine justice can be satisfied with something less than
the full penalty, who shall define to us how much less ? There
is little use any longer in talking of the sins of all the elect
being imputed to Christ, meaning that the penalty due to those
sins is conferred upon Christ to be borne by Him, if Christ
did not bear the full penalty of even a single sin, but merely
endured sufferings whose amount no one can define. To
speak, under these circumstances, of imputing certain sins,
and bearing the penalty due to those sins, can serve no other
purpose than to mislead. If the amount of Christ's sufferings
cannot be determined a priori, it must be determined histo-
rically by the unsophisticated perusal of the Gospel narratives ;
that is to say, the sufferings of Christ must just be of that kind
and degree which the Gospel narratives record. Now, it need
not be said that this is quite compatible with the idea that the
sufferings of Christ were not greater than those of Peter, or
Paul, or any other Christian martyr. And if the sufferings
of Christ were not determinately greater than those of His
followers, why should they be supposed to be different in kind,
or intended to serve a different purpose ? Whilst if they were
of the same kind, and intended to serve the same purpose, how
is it possible to pretend that the sins of all the elect were
I.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 11
imputed to Christ, and not rather that they are imputed to the
elect themselves ? I speak at present merely of the require-
ments of theory, not of the evidence of Scripture, which will
be dealt with at a later stage.
But, again, it may be urged that the sufferings of Christ,
though not infinite in amount, were nevertheless infinite in
value, in consequence of the Divine dignity of His person.
This is the favourite modern idea ; the other, which represents
the sufferings of Christ as infinite in amount, is now generally
abandoned. As regards difficulty or the avoidance of difficulty,
there is really very little to choose between the two. If the
former idea required that the sufferings of Christ should be
indefinitely greater than they appear to have been, the present
idea admits of their being indefinitely less than they appear to
have been. In seeking to escape Scylla, it falls into Charybdis.
In striving to obviate the difficulty arising from the brief dura-
tion and apparently small amount of Christ's sufferings, the
infinite value theory passes to the opposite extreme, and wears
the aspect of completely overshooting the mark. For, if the
Divine dignity of Christ was capable of imparting infinite value
to any finite degree of suffering, however great, it must have
been capable of imparting infinite value to every finite degree
of suffering, however small. That being so, it is not evident
why Christ should have suffered so much as He is acknowledged
on all hands to have done. Why should Christ have encoun-
tered the sufferings of a life-time, including the agonies of
Gethsemane and the Cross of shame, if a single moment of suf-
fering would have sufficed to meet all the requirements of the
case ? There is a still graver objection behind. The expe-
rience of Christ while on earth had confessedly two sides, which
may be distinguished in thought, though they were inseparable
in fact, and which are usually spoken of as His obedience and
sufferings, or His active and passive obedience. Not only are
these two equally related to the person of Christ, but they
interpenetrate one another in such a manner as to render it
utterly impossible that infinite value should be communicated
to the one, without being at the same time communicated to
the other. If the Divine dignity of Christ imparted infinite
value to His sufferings, it must at the same time have imparted
12 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
infinite value to His obedience. There is, indeed, no evidence,
either in reason or Scripture, to support the idea that the
obedience of Christ was of infinite intrinsic merit, that it rose
infinitely above the requirement of the law ; such an idea is
perfectly absurd but there is just as little evidence, either in
reason or Scripture, to support the idea that the sufferings of
Christ were of infinite intrinsic merit, that they yielded to the
law infinitely greater satisfaction than the sufferings of ordinary
human beings, that the death of Christ was death in an infi-
nitely deeper sense than the death of ordinary men is death.
The latter idea is a pure fabrication, conjured into existence to
meet the requirements of theory, and destitute of the smallest
authority. We are therefore entitled to judge it upon its own
intrinsic that is, its theoretical merits. And we can see
already that, as a theory, it raises even greater difficulties than
those which it seeks to obviate. For, according to it, the obe-
dience of Christ must be infinitely meritorious ; and, by another
part of the same theory, this infinitely meritorious obedience
must be imputed to each individual believer, along with the
corresponding infinitely meritorious sufferings ; so that each
believer must be possessed of infinite merit in the sight of
God, and must be entitled to an infinite reward. This would
imply, not only that the merit of all believers is equal, being
the greatest possible, but that the glory received by each is
equally and infinitely great ; both which points are absolutely
opposed to Scripture. As a matter of plain and indisputable
fact, the obedience or righteousness of Christ, being simply
righteousness, which means correspondence to law, not infinite
transcendence of law, cannot possibly have been of infinite
value. That Christ perfectly obeyed the law is admitted;
and if we deny that He did anything more, that is because
more than perfect obedience is an impossibility ay, an utter
absurdity. It follows that the sufferings of Christ must, like
His obedience, have been of precisely the same value in the
eye of the law as those of any other man that is to say, they
cannot have been, as the theory requires that they should have
been, of infinite value.
However, we shall pass over these difficulties as if they had
no existence. We shall assume that the sins of all the elect
I.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 13
were imputed to Christ in terms of a covenant between Christ
and God, and that the penalty due to all those sins was fully
discharged by Christ, inasmuch as His sufferings, though not
infinite in amount, were rendered of infinite value by the
Divine dignity of His person. Assuming these things, there
is no question that this case differs widely from the case of
Paul and Onesimus. For, again, strange as the assertion may
sound, there is here no real transference of the penalty. The
sins of the elect did not cease to be imputed to them when
they are alleged to have been imputed to Christ, nor did the
penalty cease to lie upon them in consequence of having been
laid upon Him. The imputation to Christ of the sins of the
elect, whether a fact or merely a figment, produced no effect
whatever on the state or standing of those from whom the
imputation is said to have been made ; their sins and penalties
remain precisely as they were before at least, until another
quite distinct imputation takes place. In fact, a great part of
the sins supposed to have been imputed to Christ were not
even committed at the time when the imputation took place ;
it is therefore quite impossible that their penalties should have
been transferred to Christ, since the penalties in question had
not then been incurred by the parties from whom the transfer-
ence should have been made. This is a point in which the
case of Christ arid the elect differs entirely from the case of
Adam and his posterity. The first sin of Adam was a past
act, whose penalty could be conferred on each of his descend-
ants while it lay or had lain on himself ; whereas the sins of
the elect were in great part future acts, whose penalties had
not yet been incurred at the time when they are supposed to
have lain upon Christ. It is even implied that the first sin
of Adam was imputed back from the post-Christian elect to
Christ before it had been imputed forward to the post-Christian
posterity of Adam themselves, the penalty of that sin being
laid upon Christ before it had yet been laid upon those some
of those on whose behalf Christ is alleged to have borne it.
Such things may be quite possible in the Divine procedure,
which cannot be supposed to take much account of the element
of time ; but, to say the least, they would require to be very
stringently proved. God may be quite able to foresee every
14 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
sinful act that every one of the elect will commit ; and these
prospective sinful acts may have been all imputed to Christ,
their appropriate penalties being borne by Him ; but to an
unsophisticated mind all this is apt to appear just a little fan-
tastic, and to stand very much in need of extraordinary rather
than ordinary evidence to support it.
And this is not all. If the sins of the post-Christian elect
had not yet come into existence when imputation to Christ
was made, the sins of the pre-Christian elect had already
passed out of existence that is, they had been remitted.
That the process of remission cannot possibly be identical with
the process of imputation to Christ does not require to be
said. The remission of sins is a process that goes on more or
less during the whole lifetime of each believer, and has nothing
whatever to do with the imputation that is supposed to
have taken place at the moment when Christ assumed human
flesh. The sins of post-Christian believers could not possibly
be remitted then ; the sins of pre-Christian believers must
have been already remitted ; and there is every reason to
believe that they were remitted in exactly the same way, and
on exactly the same conditions, as our sins are remitted now.
Whether the sufferings of believers during their life on earth
are to be regarded as part of the penalty or wages of their
sins, and whether that part of the penalty which is not inflicted
is remitted in the most absolute sense, both these points will
fall to be discussed in the sequel. What I wish to point out
now is, that the penalty of believers' sins cannot have been
really transferred to Christ as the penalty of Onesimus's
wrong-doing was transferred to Paul. At the most, a penalty
can only have been conferred upon Christ equivalent to that
which the whole body of the elect should have borne.
Again, it is not here, as in the case of Onesimus, a case of
transferring the penalty incurred by a single individual to
another single individual, nor yet, as in the case of Adam, a
case of conferring the penalty incurred by a single individual
on each of an indefinite number of individuals, but, conversely,
it is a case of conferring the penalties incurred by an indefinite
number of individuals on a single individual, to be borne by
him alone. Further, just as in the case of Paul, though not
I.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 15
as in the case of Adam's descendants, the penalty is here con-
ferred with the concurrence of the party suffering. Once more,
precisely as in the case of Adam's decsendants, but not as
in the case of Paul, there accompanies, or rather precedes,
the supposed conferring of the penalty, the actual and cer-
tain conferring of a state of character which, from all that
appears, would have entailed the endurance of the penalty
whether the sins of men had been imputed or no. As this
last point may appear somewhat more doubtful than the others,
it will require to be considered with some care.
It is commonly taken for granted by theological writers
that, though Christ was born of a woman, the human nature or
flesh which He received was as completely different from that
of the woman from whom he received it, as if, being formed
directly and independently by the hand of God, it had not
been derived from the woman at all ; they assume, in fact, that
the flesh of Christ was identical in nature, not (as it is said to
have been) with that of Mary (Gal. iv. 4; cf. John iii. 6),
of the seed of David (Rom. i. 3), of the seed of Abraham
(Heb. ii. 14-16), of all the descendants of Adam (1 Cor. xv.
22), including, according to one view, Adam himself as origin-
ally created (v. 45), but with that of Adam before his fall.
And this surely is a very violent assumption to make. We
may find somewhat strong reason to doubt by-and-by whether
there ever was a Fall that is, whether the human constitution
ever was different from what it is now. But, granting that it
was, there is still difficulty enough in accepting the notion
that the flesh of Christ was unfallen, or, if that be preferred,
sinless. For, though we are not very fully acquainted with
the nature of Adam's physical constitution while yet unfallen,
yet, if the statements of Scripture, are to be taken in their
plain and obvious sense, one or two things must be held to be
certain. It was not subject to decay, disease, and death. It
was, therefore, something altogether different from our flesh
now, and from everything of which we have any experi-
ence or idea. If not in the glorified state, it must at least
have had much more affinity with that state than with any
other, seeing it was fitted to live for ever. If the story of the
Fall be accepted as veritable and literal history, nothing can be
16 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
more certain than that death entered the world through sin,
and that before sin there was not and could not be death. It
is also certain that in Adam which means in Adam's nature
as at present constituted, descended from Adam, born of woman
all die (1 Cor. xv. 22). And, further, it is certain that
Christ was in Adam, that He was descended from David, from
Abraham, from Adam, through a long series of ancestors, that
He was born of woman, and that, in consequence of being so
born, He died. It is even said that He became a sharer of
flesh and blood of " the same " flesh and blood which His
brethren share that flesh and blood which cannot inherit the
Kingdom of God because corruption cannot inherit incorrup-
tion in order that [He might pass] through death (Heb. ii.
14). How, then, can it possibly be pretended that the flesh
of Christ was identical in nature with Adam's flesh before he
fell, whose special characteristic it was not to be subject
to corruption, decay, and death, and not identical in nature
with human flesh as it now exists, whose special characteristic
it is to be subject to corruption, decay, and death ?
Possibly it may be thought that, because Christ was born
of God, born of the Spirit, born from above, at the same time
that He was born of the Virgin, therefore His flesh must have
been at once spiritualised and glorified ; for it may be thought
that God either could not or would not dwell in flesh that
was not absolutely free from the taint of sin. But that such
an assumption is wholly unwarranted is proved by the case
of every believer. The flesh of believers is not at once
spiritualised and glorified when they are born of God, born of
the Spirit, born from above. The indwelling of the Spirit
does indeed afford a pledge that the " body of humiliation "
will be ultimately transformed into a " body of glory," and the
inworking of the Spirit is the agency by which the trans-
formation is effected. But, neither in the case of Christ, nor
in that of believers, is the transformation accomplished at
once, or without passing through death. The fact that Christ
was born of the Spirit affords no proof that His flesh was
identical in nature with the Spirit to which it was united,
and not identical in nature with the flesh of the Virgin from
whom it was derived at least if there be truth in what He
L] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. \7
Himself said, " That which is bora of the flesh is flesh, and
that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit " (John iii. 6). The
fact that He passed through death affords what I must regard
as an absolute demonstration to the contrary. Had the flesh
of Christ been other than ordinary human flesh, it could not
possibly have crumbled and decayed and died such at least
is the conclusion to which all the indications of Scripture
point as, conversely, being ordinary human flesh, it could
not but crumble and decay and die. Christ had a body of
humiliation that needed to be transformed by passing through
death before it could become a body of glory, just as every
believer has a body of humiliation that needs to be trans-
formed by passing through death before it can become a body
of glory (Phil. iii. 21). What is this process of transforma-
tion from the state of humiliation to the state of glorification ?
It is just the process of sanctification, the process of purging
from sin with all its effects, the process of renewal after the
Divine image, the process of spiritualisation, of which the
crowning stage is glorification, and which is accomplished
throughout by " the Lord, the Spirit" that is, by Christ as
dwelling and working in the body of each believer through
His Spirit, in like manner as He dwelt and wrought in His
own body through His Spirit (2 Cor. iii. 17, 18). How then
is it possible to doubt that, when Christ humbled Himself,
taking the form of a slave, being made in the likeness of men,
He did so by assuming the nature of man as he at present
exists, in the state of slavery and humiliation ? Every kind
of evidence, as will be shown at length hereafter, concurs in
rendering the same answer to this question. We have, for
example, the evidence of sense, the testimony of the eye
witnesses. There is nowhere the remotest indication in the
Gospel history that the flesh of Christ differed in any respect
from that of ordinary men ; rather, the opposite is everywhere
implied. What theologians say as to the natural weakness of
Christ's humanity being " sinless infirmity " is a mere subter-
fuge, and a very poor one ; a " sinless infirmity " if by that
is meant an infirmity that does not owe its origin and
existence to sin would have appeared to the writers of
Scripture very much in the light of a contradiction in terms.
c
18 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
The distinction between infirmities that are connected with sin
and infirmities that are not connected with sin, is a distinction
coined for the express purpose of proving that the infirmities
of Christ were not connected with sin ; but, of course, it does
nothing more than beg the question at issue. I shall under-
take to prove that black is white, if I am allowed to coin a
distinction between albine blackness and nigrine blackness,
for the express purpose of carrying my point. According to
the New Testament writers, infirmity is the very note of
fallen human nature as such. Infirmity is the immediate effect
of sin, and is possible only in connection with sin. The note
of absolute holiness and spirituality is not weakness (acrOeveia)
but power (Swa/uus). And this explains the Apostle's language
when he says that Jesus " was crucified in consequence of
weakness, but liveth in consequence of the power of God"
(2 Cor. xiii. 4) words which are in turn explained by the
statement that, " if Christ is in you, the body is dead because
of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness" (Rom.
viii. 10).
The allegations of theologians on this matter, besides being
unwarranted by Scripture, are so thoroughly capricious and
inconsistent, when viewed merely in themselves, as to be
without the smallest title to respect, and to stand self-
condemned. It is affirmed that the first sin of Adam is
imputed to all his posterity, and that by way of penalty all
men derive from Adam a corrupted nature ; yet, though
Christ was confessedly descended from Adam, it is denied that
the first sin of Adam was imputed to Him ; and no reason
whatever is assigned, nor can any be conceived, for the denial.
More than that : while it is denied that the first sin of Adam
was directly imputed to Christ in virtue of His descent from
Adam, it is still affirmed that, not only that sin, but all the
inherited and actual sins of all the elect are imputed to
Christ ; and yet the penalty of receiving a corrupted nature,
together with death as its inseparable concomitant one might
say, its proper and peculiar development does not follow the
imputation of these innumerable sins ! How can any one be
expected to believe allegations so utterly unprincipled ?
That the flesh of Christ was just the ordinary flesh of
I.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 19
fallen humanity, and not sinless, unfallen, or glorified flesh, is
everywhere implied, and often expressly stated in the New
Testament. The evidence will be brought out in detail in
the course of this work. At present, I must content myself
with pointing out that whoever asserts that the flesh of
Christ was other than ordinary human flesh, as it now exists
under the conditions produced by the Fall assuming that
there was a fall whoever denies that it was identical in
nature with the flesh of the Virgin from whom it was derived,
or with that of the race among whom He appeared, and to
whom He is said to have been in all points assimilated
whoever asserts the one thing, or denies the other, is under
obligation to prove his position ; the onus probandi lies upon
him, not upon me. Every antecedent consideration is in
favour of the opposite opinion, the truth of which might almost
be regarded as self-evident, and which at any rate ought to be
here accepted until clear disproof is forthcoming.
But even without insisting, in the meantime, that the flesh
of Christ was fallen, or, if you please, sinful flesh, enough will
still remain by the concessions of theologians themselves to
afford a basis for my present argument. For it is generally
admitted, indeed, it cannot be denied, by " orthodox " theo-
logians, that Christ was "compassed with infirmity" as they,
though not the New Testament writers, would say, " sinless
infirmity." In other words, Christ was naturally subject to
disease, decay, and death. Now, if Christ would have suffered
and died whether human sin had been imputed to Him or no,
if suffering and death were necessary to and inseparable from
the nature which He assumed at the incarnation, with what
show of reason can it be alleged that the imputation of human
sin was an essential condition of the death of Christ ? Tf the
flesh which Christ became was so constituted that weakness,
suffering, and death were inevitable after He had become it,
then the death of Christ cannot have been due exclusively to
the sins of the elect imputed. Indeed, it is not easy to see
how it can have been due to that cause at all. For if, as is
admitted, Christ assumed human flesh for the express purpose
of passing through death, how strange were it that His death
should be a necessity of nature produced by the incarnation,
20 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
and yet should be a penal infliction on account of sins imputed
to Him after the incarnation ! Such it must have been ; for
it is not alleged that the flesh of Christ was changed in con-
sequence of the imputation of human sin, least of all that it
was corrupted or subjected to sin, and through sin to death,
as a punishment for sins imputed to Him before He became
incarnate. The above view is, however, so extravagant that
no one, I suppose, will be found deliberately to defend it. The
idea is, that the death of Christ was due to one cause, and one
only ; and therefore, I apprehend, that one cause must be
allowed to be the fact of the incarnation itself, the nature of
the flesh which He assumed. And, since we are assured that
death is impossible apart from sin, and that all other men die
because they inherit from Adam a sinful nature, does not this
amount to a demonstration that Christ also died because He
inherited from Adam a sinful nature in other words, that
the flesh of Christ was sinful flesh ? If it be said that Christ
would not have suffered so much during His life, and at His
death, unless the sins of the elect had been imputed to Him,
it may be replied that theologians know as little as I do how
much Christ actually suffered, and that, even if they did, they
would still be unable to tell how much He would have suffered
in case the sins of the elect had not been imputed to Him ;
not to mention that, if Christ's sufferings were rendered of
infinite value by the Divine dignity of His person, their
amount is of less consequence. Those who attribute infinite,
or at least inconceivable agonies to Christ, do so on their own
responsibility. I know of no reason for supposing that the
sufferings of Christ were greater than those of at least some
of His followers; and therefore I know of no reason for
supposing that the sins of all the elect were imputed to Him
any more than to each of them.
Thus we may sum up the differences between the second
alleged case of imputation and the typical case originally
proposed. (1.) There is no real transference of the penalty
from one person to another. (2.) Nor is the penalty conferred
on one person with another. (3.) It is conferred on one
person with an indefinite number of others, who each bear it
in their measure. (4.) There accompanies, or rather precedes,
I.J PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 21
m
the supposed conferring of the penalty, the actual and certain
conferring of a state of character which makes the endurance
of the penalty a natural necessity, a fact which renders it
approximately may I not say absolutely ? certain that the
penalty was not really conferred at all.
We proceed to consider the third and last case of imputa-
tion, in which the righteousness of Christ is said to be imputed
to each individual believer. By the righteousness of Christ is
meant His whole earthly experience, everything that He felt,
did, and suffered from the first moment of the incarnation to
the moment when He expired on the Cross; otherwise
expressed, the righteousness of Christ is His obedience and
sufferings, or His active and passive obedience. This, it must
be allowed, is a somewhat curious meaning to put upon the
word righteousness. In ordinary speech, that word describes
a state of character i.e., of heart and life, of inward disposi-
tion and outward action corresponding to the Divine law.
It is an abstract term connoting the attributes common to all
characters answering to the requirements of the Divine law,
including especially the Divine character itself. In saying
" I am righteous," I affirm that my character is in the state
of conformity with the standard of moral rectitude, which is
the Divine law. In saying " God is righteous," I affirm the
same thing concerning God that His character answers,
corresponds, or conforms to the requirements of His law. The
word righteous in these two cases does not bear two different
meanings, but one and the same. Righteousness is an
abstract term, and it lies in the very nature of an abstract
term to connote what is common to all the concrete persons
or things of which it can be predicated ; universal sameness is
the very essence of abstractness. Now, it need not be said
that suffering or death forms no part of the notion of righteous-
ness as predicated of the Divine character. The Divine nature
is even incapable of suffering and dying, just as, and just
because, it is incapable of sinning. There is no precept of
the law demanding the endurance of suffering and death, nor,
consequently, is the endurance of suffering and death essential
to perfect fulfilment of the law that is, to righteousness. On
the contrary, the presence of suffering and death is a certain
22 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
proof of the presence of sin ; it is therefore a proof that the
law has not been perfectly fulfilled, but rather infringed and
violated. Such being the case, it appears the strangest thing
in the world to affirm that the endurance of suffering and
death forms part of the notion of righteousness, or, which is
the same thing, of perfect fulfilment of the law. The law
threatens the penalty of death to the disobedient or un-
righteous ; it promises the reward of life to the obedient or
righteous ; and, therefore, to say that the endurance of the
penalty of death for a certain limited time forms part of the
notion of righteousness is neither more nor less absurd than to
say that the enjoyment of the reward of life for a certain
limited time forms part of the notion of unrighteousness;
though certainly, if we are to distinguish between degrees of
absurdity, both these things are much more absurd than to
say either that the endurance of the penalty of death for a
limited period forms part of the notion of unrighteousness, or
that the enjoyment of the reward of life for a limited period
forms part of the notion of righteousness.
We have said that by the righteousness of Christ is meant
His whole earthly experience, everything that He felt, did,
and suffered while on earth ; alternatively, we have spoken of
His active and passive obedience as that which is imagined to
be imputed to believers ; and these modes of expression are
borrowed from theologians. But, in reality, unless I am much
mistaken, neither of the two forms of statement or definition
can be defended as accurate, even from the standpoint of those
who use them. To look at the last first. The " passive obedi-
ence " of Christ is another name for the pain, the suffering,
the death which He endured at the hands of the law. But
pain, suffering, or death is not obedience ; in normal circum-
stances it does not even accompany obedience. Pain, like
pleasure, is a reflex attending some mode of activity, and in
normal circumstances the mode of activity which pain attends
is not obedience, but disobedience. The law nowhere lays
upon men a command to suffer and die ; on the contrary, it
says, " Do this and thou shalt live." Suffering and death are
so far from being necessarily bound up with obedience to
the law, that they are actually inseparably bound up with
I.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 23
disobedience to it ; they constitute the penalty which the law
threatens against sin, and are possible only in connection with
sin. The lost in the pit of woe suffer and die : do they on
that account obey the law? On the contrary, their attitude
is one of persistent, inveterate, incorrigible disobedience. The
redeemed in heaven rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of
glory : do they on that account fail to obey the law ? On the
contrary, they obey it and shall obey it, constantly, perfectly,
eternally. The suffering of Christ was not a form of His
obedience, nor yet a reflex attending His obedience, but rather
it was a reflex attending the sin or disobedience which had
become His. The expression " passive obedience " as applied
to the sufferings of Christ is, therefore, wholly inappropriate.
Indeed, "passive obedience" would be far more suitable, or
rather far less unsuitable, to describe the enjoyment which
attended the obedience of Christ while on earth, than to describe
the suffering which attended His sin or disobedience. Again,
to look at the other expression used. The righteousness of
Christ is spoken of as identical with His whole earthly experi-
ence, His combined activity and passivity, all that He did on
the one hand and felt on the other, during the time that He
sojourned upon earth. But, while this is asserted in general,
those who do so seem not to be aware how much the assertion
involves. For, while much is everywhere said as to the pain,
the sorrow, the suffering, the death which Christ experienced
during His earthly existence, nothing whatever is said as to
the joy, the comfort, the peace, the blessedness, the life in
fellowship with God which He experienced during the same
period. Yet, surely no one will pretend, on reflection, that the
earthly life of Christ was one of unmitigated pain and misery
from beginning to end. We have already found some reason
to think that the sufferings of Christ did not appreciably exceed
those of at least some of His followers, and there is, I imagine,
equally good reason to think that His enjoyments did not
appreciably fall below those of at least some of His followers ;
nay, one may put it even more strongly, and say that there is
at least as good reason to think that the enjoyments of Christ
rose above those of His followers as there is to think that His
sufferings did so. Why, then, are not these enjoyments said
24 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
to be imputed to believers along with the sufferings ? What
right has any one to cut and carve among the reflex feelings of
Christ, and say that while this forms part of His righteousness,
that does not form part of His righteousness at all ? Above
all, what right has any one to say that the reflex feelings
proper to disobedience, or unrighteousness, form part of the
righteousness of Christ, while the reflex feelings proper to
obedience, or righteousness, do not form part of the righteous-
ness of Christ ?
But further. The obedience which lay behind the joy, and
peace, and life of Christ while on earth is said to be imputed
to believers ; the joy, and peace, and life themselves are not
said to be imputed. On the other hand, the pain, the suffer-
ing, the death of Christ while on earth are said to be imputed
to believers ; the sin which lay behind the pain, and suffering,
and death is not said to be imputed. And hence arises a
curious, not to say monstrous, incongruity. The sufferings of
Christ are supposed to have constituted the aggregate penalty
of all the sins of all the elect, having been proportioned, if not
in amount, at least in value to this all but infinite multitude
of sins. Yet, though it is implicitly denied that the sins of
each believer are at all proportioned to the sufferings of Christ,
and though it is not alleged that all the sins of all the elect
are imputed from Christ to each believer, notwithstanding
this, it is explicitly affirmed that the whole of the infinitely
meritorious sufferings of Christ, constituting as they do the
penalty of all the sins of all the elect, are imputed to each
individual believer ! Again, the infinite dignity of Christ's
person was that which imparted infinite value to His suffer-
ings, and this same infinite dignity must at the same time
have imparted infinite value to His obedience, and to the
blessedness which He enjoyed as the fruit of His obedience.
Now, this infinitely meritorious obedience of Christ might be
supposed to suffice as a substitute for the finite obedience of
all the elect, while it should entitle whoever possessed it to
the reward of infinite blessedness. Yet, though it is not and
cannot be pretended that the believer enjoys perfect blessed-
ness up to his measure while on earth, much less an infinite
measure of blessedness ; and though it is not alleged that the
I.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 25
infinitely meritorious blessedness of Christ is imputed to each
believer : all the same it is affirmed that the whole of the infi-
nitely meritorious obedience of Christ is imputed to each
individual believer ! How very capricious and inconsistent
is it, after imputing one half of the experiences of Christ to
the believer, not to impute also the other half, when no reason
whatever can be assigned for declining to do so, and when
such absurd incongruities are the result ! If it be said that
the believer while on earth, possessing as he does a degree of
sin of his own, does not require the infinite imputed sin of
Christ, it may be replied that the believer while on earth, pos-
sessing as he does a degree of suffering of his own, does not
require the infinite imputed suffering of Christ. And again,
if it be said that the believer while on earth, possessing as he
does a degree of blessedness of his own, does not require the
infinite imputed blessedness of Christ, it may be replied that
the believer -while on earth, possessing as he does a degree of
obedience of his own, does not require the infinite imputed
obedience of Christ. Surely, if men are to apply imputation
from Christ to the believer at all, they ought to go through
with it. If there be no difficulty in the way of imputing the
miseries of hell from the one to the other, there ought to be
very little in the way of imputing the joys of heaven ; and
then the believer, even if he should fail to reach heaven in
fact, may well comfort himself to all eternity with the reflec-
tion that he is enjoying it by imputation.
Something might perhaps be said in favour of separating
the obedience of Christ from the enjoyments, the sufferings,
and the sins, calling the obedience by the name of righteous-
ness, and then imputing it to each believer. But even so,
there would be a grave difficulty. Christ did not cease to
obey the law when His earthly course was completed. He
certainly ceased to have any connection with sin ; and so,
ceasing to disobey the law, He ceased to be under its curse or
penalty. But He was so far from ceasing to obey it, that on
the contrary He now, for the first time since the incarnation,
obeyed it perfectly in His whole being. The difference between
the first and the second manifestation of Christ is not that the
first time He was manifested to obey the law, the second time
26 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
He shall be manifested not to obey it ; rather, the difference is
that the first time He was manifested in connection with sin
that is, while in some sort disobeying the law the second
time He shall be manifested " apart from sin " that is, while
obeying the law perfectly in His whole being. In these cir-
cumstances, it appears singular that the period during which
Christ lay under the penalty of the law on account of sin should
be selected as the period during which He wrought out a per-
fect righteousness, or a perfect fulfilment of the law. Any
period during the whole history of Christ, whether before or
after the incarnation, would seem to be better suited for such
a purpose. Besides, the whole notion of working out " a
righteousness " during a limited period of time savours very
much of absurdity. Righteousness is an attribute or quality
of moral character ; it is an abstraction, having no concrete
existence just as much so as whiteness, evenness, rotundity,
sinfulness, docility, obtuseness, &c. We never speak of work-
ing out a whiteness, or a docility, or a sinfulness ; no more
ought we to speak of working out a righteousness. The only
intelligible sense in which a man can be said to work out either
a sinfulness or a righteousness is when he works himself out of
a sinful state into a righteous state, or vice versa. In this
sense, if you please, Jesus worked out for Himself a righteous-
ness. In this sense, also, each believer, assisted by the Spirit
of God, works out for himself a righteousness. But this is not
the sense in which the expression is used by theologians.
They mean by it something corresponding to the enduring of
the penalty of the law an idea which it cannot possibly
be, or at least never is, used to convey. It may be all very
well to speak of enduring the penalty of the law within
a limited period of time, as long as that penalty is sup-
posed to be limited ; but the counterpart of enduring the
penalty of the law on account of sin is not the working
out of a righteousness, but the enjoying of the reward of
the law on account of righteousness; and this reward, if it
is to be enjoyed within a limited period of time, must
likewise be limited Thus, that Christ, by obeying the
law during the period of His earthly life, worked out a
righteousness, which is imputed to each individual believer
I.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 27
so as to become his righteousness, is an idea that appears on
examination to involve a grave absurdity.
However, as these difficulties, if we were to pursue them,
might be found to be almost endless, we shall pass them over,
and proceed, as on a former occasion, to define more exactly
the present phase of the theory of imputation. Taking our
cue from the ablest exponents of the theory, we shall assume
that, agreeably to the terms of the covenant of redemption
between God and Christ, the righteousness of Christ is imputed
to each believer the moment he first believes, meaning by the
righteousness of Christ the aggregate of His obedience and
sufferings from the first moment of the incarnation to the
moment when He expired on the Cross. We shall assume that
this righteousness of Christ is a perfect righteousness ; that, once
it has come into the possession of the believer, it continues in
his possession ever after ; that he is put by it absolutely at quits
with the law, both as regards past entanglements and present
standing ; and that he is henceforth regarded and treated by
God as if he were perfectly righteous. How will this case, so
understood, quadrate with the case of Paul and Onesimus ?
The debitum is here no longer a penalty but a reward : or
rather, it ought to be a reward, if the thing imputed were pro-
perly and only righteousness ; but, as the thing imputed is a
combination of obedience or righteousness and sufferings, so
the debitum is a combination of a reward and the cancelling
of a penalty. The reward which the law promises to obedi-
ence is life, just as the penalty which it threatens to sin is
death ; and hence, a debitum which comprehends at once the
reward and the cancelling of the penalty, must comprehend at
once the communication of life and the removal of death.
Now the question is Is this debitum really transferred from
Christ to each believer in the first moment of faith? Is it
even conferred on each believer with Christ in the first moment
of faith ? No one can possibly pretend, in the face of indis-
putable and acknowledged facts, that either the one half or the
other of the debitum is either transferred from Christ to each
believer, or conferred on each believer with Christ, in the first
moment of faith. Let us look at the two parts of the debitum
separately, and at the last first.
28 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
We saw under a previous head that the sufferings and death
of Christ were the penalty inflicted on account of the imputed
sins of all the elect, and that this penalty could not have been
transferred from the elect to Christ as the penalty of Onesi-
mus was transferred to Paul, since in that case the elect would
never have lain under the penalty, nor have been subject to
suffering and death at all. Indeed, if the penalty of the elect
had been really transferred to Christ as the penalty of Onesi-
mus was to Paul, no counter act of imputation would have been
required in the former case any more than in the latter none
at anyrate in connection with this part of the debitum. The
effect of real transference of the penalty would have been that
the elect, as soon as they entered the world, would have found
themselves in the heavenly state, or at least in a state identi-
cal with that of Adam before he fell, when death had not yet
entered the world through sin. Real transference of the
penalty would have been equivalent to strict substitution, and
strict substitution would imply that the penalty of the elect's
sins fell entirely on Christ, and not at all on the elect them-
selves, just as the penalty of Onesimus's wrong-doing fell
entirely on Paul, and not at all on Onesimus himself. Now,
in the very fact that the penalty was not really transferred
from the elect to Christ, it is implied that the immunity from
the penalty which Christ obtained after His resurrection cannot
be really transferred from Christ to each believer in the first
moment of faith. For, if Christ's immunity from death
including under that term the sum total of the consequences
of His imputed sin were really transferred to any one
believer, it could not remain to be really transferred to any
other ; and, besides, if the entire merit of the sufferings and
death which nullified the imputed sin of Christ were really
transferred from Christ at all, He would again find Himself in
the position which He occupied before that merit had become
His, in other words, He would again be subject to His imputed
sin with all its consequences. If the sufferings and death of
Christ were needed by Christ Himself for the purpose of
nullifying His imputed sin, their effect cannot be really
transferred to each believer for the purpose of nullifying
his personal sin. The immunity from death, as the penalty
I.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 29
of the imputed sins of all the elect, which Christ has
enjoyed since the resurrection, is the fruit of His previous
endurance of death ; and this fruit cannot be taken away
without reducing Him to the position which He occupied
before it had become His. Hence, it is quite impossible
that immunity from death, the penalty of sin, should be
transferred from Christ to each believer in the first moment
of faith.
But, further, if immunity from death cannot be transferred
from Christ to each believer in the first moment of faith,
neither, on the other hand, is it conferred on each believer
with Christ in the first moment of faith. For, to suppose this,
would be to suppose that each believer in the first moment of
faith is translated to heaven, where he is treated exactly as
Christ was treated after He rose from the dead ; or, if not this,
it would be to suppose that each believer in the first moment
of faith passes into a state identical with that of Adam before
his fall, when death had not yet entered the world through sin.
If immunity from suffering and death were conferred on each
believer in the first moment of faith, then from that moment
each believer would be free from suffering and death. But
as a matter of acknowledged fact, the believer during his
life on earth is not free from suffering and death. On the
contrary, he is beset continually by suffering and death. He
enters the kingdom of heaven " through much tribulation."
He suffers with Christ that he may ultimately be glorified and
reign with Christ. And, therefore, the above supposition is
directly opposed to experience as well as to Scripture.
Indeed, so far are believers in the present world from being
treated as Christ was treated after He rose from the dead, that,
on the contrary, they are treated exactly as Christ was treated
during His life on earth, when the penalty of sin was lying
upon Him. And it is really hard to see how it could possibly
be otherwise. Absolute immunity from suffering and death !
How utterly impossible is such a thing, except as conditioned
by absolute immunity from sin ! The continued reign of sin
carries with it the continued reign of death, naturally and
inevitably ; the one can be destroyed or brought to nought
only with the destruction of the other. The believer is com-
30 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
pletely delivered from the penalty of sin only when he is com-
pletely delivered from sin itself, which he is at the moment of
death, neither sooner nor later, the moment at which Christ
also was delivered.
Again, to look at the other part of the debitum. The
reward due to perfect obedience or perfect righteousness is
perfect life ; in other words, it is heaven in all its fulness, the
state into which Jesus entered after His resurrection, and into
which believers shall enter with Christ after their resurrection.
Can this be really transferred from Christ to each believer in
the first moment of faith ? Theologians appear at times to
think that it can, particularly when they assert that the obedi-
ence of Christ " was not due for Himself," that, not being
under obligation to obey the law by nature, He voluntarily
came under obligation to obey it instead of His people, and
that, consequently, the reward of His obedience is free to be
transferred from Him to them. How this obligation to obey
the law came to be laid upon Christ is not quite evident.
Nor is it quite easy to understand what is meant by saying
that Christ's obedience was not due for Himself, or that He
was not originally under obligation to obey the law. It is
certain that God perfectly obeys the law, that He is perfectly
righteous, that He is perfectly holy, that He is the model or
standard after which men are exhorted to be perfect (Matt. v.
48), to be righteous (Eph. iv. 24), to be holy (1 Pet. i. 15,
16). It is certain, also, that He enjoys the blessedness conse-
quent on perfect obedience to the law. It is certain that
Christ was God. It is certain that before the incarnation He
obeyed the law perfectly, and enjoyed perfect blessedness.
It is certain that since the resurrection He has obeyed the law
perfectly in His whole being, and has enjoyed perfect blessed-
ness. It is certain that the blessedness which believers enjoy
in heaven is the reward of perfect obedience, and is identical
in nature with the blessedness which Christ Himself enjoys.
Now, if Christ, before the incarnation and since the resur-
rection, has obeyed the law perfectly, and has enjoyed perfect
life, the blessing or promise which the law attaches to perfect
obedience, the only thing that can possibly be meant by saying
that during the periods specified He was not under obligation
L] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 31
to obey the law, must be that, in case He had disobeyed it, the
penalty of the law would not have been inflicted. But this is
precisely what the facts of His earthly experience completely
disprove. The experience of Christ while on earth proves to a
demonstration that God Himself, if He is found sinful, no
matter how, cannot escape the consequences. Besides, it is
quite impossible in the nature of things that sin should be
committed without being followed, in some degree at least, by
the natural consequence, which is death. The penalty is to
some extent involved in the very nature of sin, insomuch that
the one cannot be conceived apart altogether from the other.
Nor, indeed, can it well be imagined that any one will deliber-
ately affirm the contrary. Yet it is strangely asserted that
Christ was not under obligation to obey the law for Himself.
The idea, I suppose, is that when Christ is said to have been
" born of a woman, born under the law " (Gal. iv. 4), this
means that by the fact of the incarnation He became obliged
to obey the law, not having been obliged to obey it before.
But it is plain from the context that what is meant is, that
Christ, in being born of a woman, was born under the penalty
of the law on account of disobedience, in like manner as all
other men, in being born of woman, are born under the penalty
of the law on account of disobedience. To be under the law
in the Apostolic sense is not to be under obligation to obey
the law, all moral beings are that, but to be under the
penalty or curse of the law on account of disobedience ; to be
redeemed from under the law is not to be redeemed from under
obligation to obe'y the law, to moral beings that is impossible,
but to be redeemed from under the penalty or curse of the
law on account of disobedience. The regenerated, renewed,
adopted believer is as much under obligation to obey the law
as any one else ; he is free from the law only in the sense, and
to the extent, that, being free from sin, he is free from the
curse or penalty which the law threatens against sin. And so
Christ, by dying to sin, redeemed Himself from under the law,
and became, after the resurrection though still under obliga-
tion to obey the law free from its penalty or curse. I take
it, therefore, to be absolutely certain that God and Christ, and
every other moral being throughout the universe, is under
32 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
obligation to obey the law in the only sense in which the
expression has any meaning viz., in the sense that the
penalty would be inflicted in case of disobedience. Such being
the case, it is manifestly impossible that the reward of Christ's
obedience should be transferred to believers in the first
moment of faith.
But, indeed, it is difficult to understand how the reward of
Christ's obedience could be really transferred, even on suppo-
sition that He was not under obligation to obey the law ; and,
therefore, it is hard to see why theologians should have ever
thought of insisting that the obedience of Christ was not due
for Himself. For, if the reward of Christ's obedience were
really transferred to any one believer in the first moment of
faith, it would not remain to be really transferred to any other,
and so one believer and one only would be saved ! Real
transference of the debitum would imply strict substitution, and
strict substitution would imply that one believer and one only
occupies the place of Christ ; for it is not here pretended that
the obedience of Christ was of infinite intrinsic value, and
that its reward is divided piecemeal among the whole body of
the elect : the caprice of theologians is too great for that !
Once more, not only is the reward of Christ's obedience not
transferred to each believer in the first moment of faith, but,
sure enough, it is not even conferred 011 each believer in the
first moment of faith. For, as already said, to suppose this
would be to suppose that each believer in the first moment of
faith is translated to heaven, where he is treated exactly as
Christ was treated after He rose from the dead ; whereas, in
point of fact, the believer during his earthly life is treated
exactly as Christ was treated during His earthly life. He is
subjected to trial, persecution, suffering, death, for the kingdom
of heaven's sake, exactly as Christ was. He is crucified witli
Christ, that is, as we shall show by-and-by, in a manner
identical with that in which Christ was crucified. He takes
up his cross daily and follows his Master. He is the after-
runner of whom Jesus is the forerunner, the follower of whom
Jesus is the leader, the servant of whom Jesus is the lord, the
younger brother of whom Jesus is the elder brother. Plainly,
if it be true that Jesus while on earth was " tried in all points
I.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 33
like as we are," it must likewise be true that we while on earth
are tried in all points like as Jesus was. And if believers while
on earth run the same race of trial, suffering, and death which
Jesus ran while on earth, how can it possibly be alleged that
they are already crowned with glory and honour as Jesus is
"crowned with glory and honour" in heaven? What theo-
logians say on this matter is either absolutely unintelligible or
else it is absolutely contradictory and absolutely opposed to
experience. The " crown of righteousness" (2 Tim. iv. 8)
the reward of perfect righteousness is life in perfect fellow-
ship with God. The believer, as long as he is on earth, is
confessedly to some extent under the power of sin and death,
that is, he has not yet attained to life in perfect fellowship
with God the " crown of righteousness." Yet the believer,
it is said, is treated by God as if he were perfectly righteous !
That the believer should be treated as if he were perfectly
righteous while sin is still reigning within him is a manifest
impossibility in the nature of things. The penalty in some
degree of it is involved in the very existence of sin ; death and
sin are naturally and necessarily inseparable. God Him-
self, even if He wished, could not treat a sinful man as if he
were perfectly righteous. And that, in actual experience,
believers when still imperfect on earth are not treated as they
will be when made perfect in heaven is as certain as anything
can be ; although it is equally certain that, if the allegations
of theologians had any meaning, they ought to be so treated.
If it be said that the believer while on earth possesses a double
constitution, in virtue of which he can enjoy the life and
favour and fellowship of God, and yet be subject to suffering
and death, this may be quite true ; but it was just as true of
Christ while on earth as it is of any of His followers. And
besides, it does not prove that either Christ or the believer is
treated as if he were perfectly righteous. It merely proves
that, in so far as they possess the image of God, they enjoy the
life of God ; in other words, that, in so far as they have been
made righteous, they enjoy the reward of righteousness. This
is in no way incompatible with the correlative position, that, in
so far as they are still under sin, they are under the penalty of
sin, which is death. Indeed, what distinguishes the case of
D
34 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
believers during their life on earth from the case of unbelievers
is not the fact that they are treated better than they deserve,
which they would be if treated as perfectly righteous while still
imperfectly righteous, but that, as a rule, and as compared
with the ungodly, they are treated much worse than they
deserve. Believers, just because they are believers, are pun-
ished for their iniquities ; they are judged and chastened by
the Lord in the present life that they may not be condemned
with the wicked in the life to come. In this life the ungodly
receive their good things, and likewise the godly evil things ;
in the life beyond these will be comforted, while those will be
tormented. " Now is the time when the judgment has begun
at the house of God ; and if it has begun first at us, what
shall be the end of them that obey not the gospel of God ? "
(1 Pet. iv. 17.) This does -not imply that all believers are
punished equally, nor yet that each is punished in proportion
to his sins ; much less does it imply that all or any believers are
punished up to the full measure of their deserts; but it does
imply that, whereas the judgment and punishment of the
ungodly is, for the most part, reserved for the future world,
the judgment and punishment of the godly, in so far as they
are judged and punished at all, takes place in the present
world. And if that be so, if the sufferings of believers in the
present life are judicial retributions on account of sin, just as
really so as the sufferings of unbelievers in the life to come,
then it is palpably absurd to affirm that the believer during
his earthly life is regarded and treated by God as if he were
perfectly righteous, or that the reward of Christ's obedience is
conferred on each believer in the first moment of faith, to con-
tinue in his possession ever after. At this point, therefore,
the theory of imputation completely breaks down.
It remains to add that there accompanies, or rather
precedes, the supposed conferring of the reward, the actual
and certain creating of a state of character sufficient of itself
to merit the reward, and which does as a matter of fact merit
and receive the reward, in so far as it is merited or received
either in this world or the next. No one, I suppose, will
pretend that regeneration or renewal after the image of God
is a reward conferred on the believer on account of the
I.J PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 35
imputed righteousness of Christ ; though, indeed, there is just
as much ground for alleging that the inherent righteousness
imparted in regeneration is the reward of imputed righteous-
ness conferred previously, as there is for alleging that the
inherent sinfulness imparted in generation is the penalty of
imputed sin conferred previously. However, it is generally
acknowledged and taught, that faith is a function of the
renewed or regenerated soul, and that the imputation of
Christ's righteousness follows instead of preceding faith ; from
which it may be concluded that the imputation of Christ's
righteousness is the consequence, and not the antecedent
condition, of regeneration. Whether the righteousness of
Christ is thought of as imputed solely to the " new man,
which after God is created in righteousness and holiness of
truth" (Eph. iv. 24), is not quite clear. The effect of
imputing righteousness to the " old man, which waxeth
corrupt after the lusts of deceit" (Eph. iv. 22) would
naturally be to shield him from justice, and so to guarantee
his perpetual existence; whereas, according to Scripture, he is
being crucified, mortified, or put to death, day by day, exactly
as Christ was when exposed to justice. Anyhow, it may be
taken for granted that the development, not less the origina-
tion, of the new man is entirely independent of the imputed
righteousness of Christ, that it would take place exactly as it
does whether the righteousness of Christ were imputed or no.
The breath and blood of the new man is not the imputed
righteousness of Christ, but faith, and the exercise of faith is
the cause of the imputation of Christ's righteousness, not the
consequence of it. Now, it is quite certain that the new man
or new creature is distinguished by perfect righteousness or
perfect holiness therein differing radically from the old man;
that, having God Himself for an exemplar, he is created in
righteousness and holiness of truth (Eph. iv. 24); that he is
renewed after the image of Him that created him (Col. iii.
1 0) ; that he is conformed to the image of Christ as now
perfected and glorified (Rom. viii. 29) ; that, being born of
God, he inherits the nature of God that he is righteous and
doeth righteousness even as God is righteous and doeth
righteousness (1 John iii. 7-10); and that the believer, by
36 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
putting off the old man and putting on the new, is enabled to
fulfil the law (Rom. viii. 4), and so to enjoy its reward, which
is life, whilst escaping its penalty, which is death (Rom. viii.
13). It is certain, also, that the process of regeneration, or
renewal, or repentance, is attended at every stage of the
believer's earthly history by the remission of sins, including
the forgiveness of past transgressions, that is, of their penalties,
and the weakening or destruction of the principle of sin itself
(1 John i. 9). And, further, it is certain that when death
comes, the flesh or old man is utterly destroyed, and with it
the principle of sin ; the believer's past transgressions are all
forgiven ; the old things are passed completely away ; the new
alone are left, and the new are all of God ; so that when the
believer appears for judgment, he appears perfected, sanctified,
glorified. Yet once more, it is certain that when the believer
has thus finished his course and kept the faith, when he has
thus attained to righteousness and been made perfect, when he
has reached the goal and won the prize, he shall receive, as his
reward, the crown of life or of glory the crown due to right-
eousness which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give
him at that day (2 Tim. iv. 7, 8 ; Phil. iii. 8-14). For, in the
day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ,
He shall justify and reward with life eternal, not the hearers,
but the doers of the law, not the possessor of imputed, but
the possessor of inherent righteousness ; rendering to every
man according to his works, He shall render to them that by
patience in well-doing seek for glory and honour and incor-
ruption, eternal life ; and each one shall thus receive the things
done in the body according to what he hath done, whether it
be good or bad (Rom. ii. 6, 7, 13, 16 ; 2 Cor. v. 10 ; Matt.
xxv. 34 seq^). From all which it plainly appears that, at no
stage in the believer's history, is there any room or any need
for the imputed righteousness of Christ. The believer cannot
possibly possess such righteousness during his earthly life ; for
then he is treated exactly as if he did not possess it. He can-
not possibly possess such righteousness at the day of final
judgment ; for then, too, he is treated exactly as if he did not
possess it. But if the believer possess the imputed righteous-
ness of Christ neither during his earthly life nor yet at the
I.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 37
final judgment, then he cannot really possess it at all ; that is,
the righteousness of Christ cannot really be imputed to him
at all.
To sum up the results bearing on the third and last appli-
cation of the theory of imputation : (1.) There is no real
transference of the debitum from one person to another. (2.)
The debitum is not even conferred on one person with another.
(3.) Nay, it is not conferred at all not even on an indefinite
number of persons with another; so that the analogy to the
case of Paul and Onesimus has here reached the vanishing
point. (4.) There accompanies, or rather precedes, the sup-
posed conferring of the debitum, the actual and certain confer-
ring of a state of character which, while it serves in the end
all the purposes of the debitum, serves at the same time to
explain how the debitum is excluded.
We have thus endeavoured briefly to review the three well-
known applications of the doctrine of imputation. We have
found that they all differ at once from each other, and from an
original case proposed as a type, that each has some peculia-
rities of its own, which it does riot share with any of the others.
We have found that the theory as a whole involves a series of
the most startling difficulties, incongruities, and even absurdi-
ties, particularly under its second and third applications. We
have found that in no case is the theory demanded to account
for any fact of experience, that all the phenomena of sin and
salvation would happen exactly as they do whether the theory
were true or false, that they can all be explained upon known
and acknowledged principles apart altogether from imputation,
that while, in the first and second cases, the acknowledged facts
of experience are not so directly opposed to the theory as to
exclude it absolutely, yet that they raise an exceedingly strong-
presumption against it, and that, in the third case, the theory
is so directly contradicted by the whole course of Christian
experience in this world and the next as to be absolutely and
utterly excluded. We shall find presently that this last appli-
cation, which the facts of experience absolutely disprove, is the
only application in support of which even the semblance of
Scripture evidence can be produced ; the others which are not
absolutely disproved by experience, are destitute of all Scrip-
38 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
ture authority, the word impute never being used with refer-
ence either to the first sin of Adam as bearing on his posterity,
or to the sins of the elect as bearing on Christ. It is evident,
too, that the second and third applications are so entirely
dependent on one another, that the disproof or rejection of the
one must necessarily involve the disproof or rejection of the
other; and the same is true, though not perhaps to the same
extent, of the first application also. Indeed, the two first
applications may be said to possess importance only as leading
up to the third, being postulated, in the absence of evidence,
mainly for the purpose of helping it out, the second being
deemed essential to the existence of the third, and the other
to the proof of its existence ; so that the complete failure of
the theory in the last, most important, most central, and most
plausible of all its applications is tantamount to the complete
failure of the theory as a whole.
But, apart altogether from Scripture evidence, and even from
the evidence of fact and experience, the theory, when reduced
to an explicit form, is seen to be so exceedingly complex,
clumsy, round-about, and incongruous so entirely wanting in
naturalness, simplicity, and feasibility that the mere state-
ment of it is almost the best refutation that could be offered,
and will probably have surprised the innocent reader. He has
possibly been taught and accustomed to regard the case of
Christ and each believer as one of simple substitution, like
that of Paul and Onesimus ; or, at the most (if the expression
may be allowed), of double substitution, Christ receiving his
sin, while he at the same time receives Christ's righteousness,
according to the well-known saying of Luther, " I am Thy sin ;
Thou art my righteousness." Not improbably, too, the idea
that Christ in His death offered Himself as a sacrifice for the
purpose of expiating the sins of the whole body of the elect, in
like manner as the Jewish high priest on the day of atonement
offered the appointed goat as a sacrifice with the view of
expiating the sins of the whole people of Israel ; I say, possibly
this idea has mixed itself up in the reader's mind with the
bare idea of imputation as exemplified in the case of Paul and
Onesimus, producing a singularly intricate combination of ideas.
And when there is added to this the further notion that Christ
I.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 39
is not only the spiritual Head from whom the whole body of
believers is descended, but the federal Head by whom they are
represented, in like manner as Adam is supposed to have been
not only the natural head from whom the whole human race
is descended, but the federal head by whom they were repre-
sented, the commingling and confusion of different ideas become
still more perplexing to unravel, ancf still more hopeless to
adjust. Some of the most glaring incongruities in the impu-
tation theory are, no doubt, to be traced to this mixing up of
heterogeneous and mutually conflicting ideas. For example,
as long as we view Christ as a sacrificial victim on whom the
sins of all His people were laid, it is quite a feasible thing
that His Divine nature should be credited with imparting
infinite value to His sufferings, in order that these may cor-
respond in some sort with the amount of sin to be expiated.
But when from this idea we pass to another, in which the
obedience and sufferings of Christ are made to do duty as a
righteousness, which is imputed to each individual believer in
virtue of his connection with Christ, his federal Head and Re-
presentative, the incongruity is already apparent. By the
sacrificial idea, attention is fixed exclusively on the last agony
and death of the victim, the life-long obedience, and even the
life-long sufferings, being left entirely out of account. In the
other idea, the obedience is the more prominent element of the
two ; and the sufferings, instead of being concentrated at death,
are spread over the whole life. In the former case, where the
sufferings and death of Christ are thought of as expiating the
accumulated sins of the whole body of the elect, which they
do, or ought to do, directly without the intervention of any
counter-imputation, the infinite-value hypothesis seems at least
an admissible one. In the latter case, where the aggregate
of Christ's obedience and sufferings is thought of as imputed
to each individual believer for the purpose of constituting him
righteous, the infinite-value hypothesis appears entirely inad-
missible. Again, it is very difficult to combine the notion of
federal headship with the common impression regarding impu-
tation, that it involves substitution, in the strict sense of the
word. For nothing is more certain than that Adam was not
the substitute of his posterity in the strict sense. The penalty
40 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
of Adam's first sin was not borne by his posterity, instead of
being borne by himself; for that would imply, not only that
Adam escaped death, but also that the penalty which Adam
escaped was divided piecemeal among the whole body of his
descendants ; whereas, by the admission of theologians them-
selves, Adam suffered death, and the penalty which Adam
suffered is borne by each of his descendants, instead of being
borne by all.
But enough has now been said as to what the doctrine of
imputation is, and what it involves. The reader will be good
enough to bear in mind that we have been dealing with the
thing itself which passes under that name, and not with the
word by which it is commonly expressed. It is not unusual
for theologians, when challenged to produce Scripture evidence
in support of their views, to evade the challenge by avowing
that they do not stand on the word impute, but merely on the
thing expressed by it ; if the latter is contained in Scripture,
it matters less about the former. Vague, general allegations
of this sort are indeed difficult to answer directly, but they
will satisfy no one who bases his opinions on proof, and not on
the absence of disproof. If the discussion contained in this
introductory chapter shall assist the reader in perceiving the
hollo wness of such evasions ; if it shall contribute in any degree
to clarify his ideas, and dissipate confused or false impressions ;
if it shall help him to form a just as well as an accurate con-
ception of what must be allowed to constitute not the least
considerable part of a doctrine of salvation generally held, and
still more generally professed ; if it shall enable him to feel the
force of difficulties, neither few nor small, that lie in the way
of accepting these or similar views, whether in whole or in
part ; if it shall dispel from his mental vision the glamour
of plausibility and false reasonableness, which familiarity,
custom, convention, official sanction and authority never
fail to impart to any opinion, however absurd ; if it shall thus
prepare and lead him to enter with open mind and without
bias on the examination of evidence ; then the purpose for
which it has been written will have been fully accomplished.
In next chapter, I shall proceed to canvass the direct
evidence which the theory of imputation is supposed to
I.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 41
have in the language of the New Testament; and I am not
without hope of being able to convince the impartial reader
that neither the word nor the thing has the smallest Scripture
foundation.
[Chap.
CHAPTER II.
DIRECT SCRIPTURE EVIDENCE IN FAVOUR OF IMPUTATION.
MEN who have studied the New Testament with any
measure of attention will not require to be told that
it affords no direct, explicit, or express evidence in support of
the doctrine we are now considering. Whatever evidence of
an indirect and inferential kind the theory of imputation may
be thought to possess, no one can pretend that it is ever
expressly asserted in any part of the New Testament writings.
There will not be produced a single passage in which it is
said, either that Adam's first sin is imputed to his descendants,
or that the sins of the elect are imputed to Christ, or that the
righteousness of Christ is imputed to believers. Neither one
noi; other of these things is ever affirmed in so many words.
Most readers, no doubt, will have contrived to see the doctrine
everywhere, and to see it most clearly in passages where the
word impute does not occur, nor anything equivalent to it.
Still, it cannot be deemed wholly superfluous, or out of place,
to recall attention to the indisputable fact which has just been
stated.
That the idea of imputing sin from one person to another
is foreign to the New Testament might be taken as sufficiently
proved by the fact that no New Testament writer makes even
an approach to the expression of such an idea. The word
reckon (Xo^/^oyucu), or impute (eXXoye'co), is never used in
connection either with the transferring of sin from one person
to another, or with the conferring of sin on one person with
another. Of texts or passages speaking of the imputation of
Adam's first sin to each of his descendants, there are absolutely
none; though the word impute occurs in the heart of the
42
II.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 43
very passage nay, of the very sentence where the idea
would naturally have found expression (Rom. v. 1 3) ! In
that sentence, however, the idea is so far from being actually
expressed, that a principle is enunciated touching the imputa-
tion to men of their own sin, which can only be regarded as
excluding the imputation of Adam's or any other sin a fortiori.
But of this more hereafter.
The principle referred to would seem, among other things,
to exclude even or rather, especially the imputation of
human sin to Christ ; and at any rate, this idea, like the
other, is absolutely without Scripture authority. An exception
to the universal sweep of the last assertion can hardly be
thought necessary in favour of the isolated Old Testament
expression quoted and applied by Christ to Himself on the
night of His betrayal : " And He was reckoned with lawless
ones" (Luke xxii. 37). Such a statement might be made of
any Christian suffering as Christ suffered, for righteousness'
sake (Matt. v. 10, 11; 1 Pet. iii. 14-18; iv. 14-16, &c.).
Such a statement*might have been made, for example, of the
Apostle Paul (2 Tim. ii. 9), and of the early Christians
generally, who were habitually accused of the darkest crimes
and the vilest abominations, and who suffered the penalties
meet to the perpetrators of such lawless deeds. On the very
face of them, the words have nothing whatever to do with the
reckoning of human sin by God to Christ. It is not God who
reckons at all, but the ungodly persecutors, who regarded and
treated Christ as a malefactor after He had been betrayed by
Judas. This is the meaning of the words, as the context
plainly shows ; and nothing but utter despair of finding real
evidence could have induced any one to seek in them a proof,
or even a presumption, in favour of the doctrine that the sins
of all the elect were imputed to Christ the moment He assumed
human flesh. If it be said that the Old Testament context of
the quotation appears to countenance the notion that the sins
of a collective body of individuals were imputed to a single
individual, by whom their penalties were borne, this may or
may not be true the point need not be argued here but
whether true or not, it proves nothing as to the meaning put
upon the words, when wrenched from their original connection
44 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
and placed in an entire!} 7 different connection. According to
the context in Luke, the words did not receive their fulfilment
in Christ till after His betrayal, whereas, on the theory of
imputation, they would have been fulfilled from the first
moment of the incarnation. And besides, there is no idea in
Luke of reckoning the sins of other parties to Christ ; it is
Christ Himself that is regarded as sinful, and treated as such
by wicked men. If, on the other hand, it be alleged that the
application of a single expression from the Old Testament
passage to Christ implies that the whole section is equally
applicable to Him, and that, though the expression quoted,
taken by itself, does not distinctly convey the idea that the
sins of men are imputed to Christ, other expressions in the
same section, taken in connection with this one, do distinctly
convey such .an idea ; if this be alleged, it may be enough to
say that this is another and a much wider question, which will
be adequately dealt with in due course.
The case, as regards the imputation of Christ's righteousness
to each believer, is not different from the other two. A single
Old Testament quotation, expressing something quite different
from what is required, is all that can be adduced to support
the idea. The quotation a favourite one, cited by two
different writers, and in three different books (Rom. iv. 3 ;
Gal. iii. 6; James ii. 23) is in the following terms:
"Abraham believed God, and it [ = his faith (Rom. iv. 5, 9)]
was reckoned unto him for righteousness." No human in-
genuity can extract from these words the doctrine that the
righteousness meaning, let it be remembered, the obedience
and sufferings of Christ was imputed to Abraham the moment
he first believed the word of God. The doctrine of imputation
requires that the thing imputed should be the righteousness^
or rather, the obedience and sufferings, of Christ ; but the
thing imputed to Abraham was faith. The doctrine of im-
putation requires that the thing imputed should be something
from without, something which the individual himself does not
possess that the imputation should be from one person to
another ; but here Abraham possessed the faith, and there was
no second party at all. The doctrine of imputation requires
that the time of imputation should be the moment when a
II.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 45
man first exercises faith in God ; but, if we may trust "the
author of Hebrews, and the indications of history, Abraham
had been a believer ever since he left Ur of the Chaldees.
So entirely inconsistent is the plain sense of the words with
the doctrine they are supposed to teach ! Yet surely it is
most evident that the form of the language in Rom. iv. (we
need not speak of Galatians and James) is completely dominated
and determined by the language of the quotation which lies at
the basis of the reasoning, that the constant recurrence of the
word reckon throughout the chapter is due simply to the
occurrence of that word in the fundamental text ; that the
Apostle, having laid hold of a catchword, proceeds, in a
manner usual with him, to ring the changes upon it ; that the
word is echoed and re-c 4 choed from beginning to end of the
chapter, not because it is the word best suited to convey the
writer's thought, but because it is furnished to him from an
external source ; that but for the fact that the word reckon
was found in the Old Testament passage, no such word would
ever have been used, either by Paul or by any other writer, in
connection with the doctrine that righteousness or justification
is attained by faith.
Still, there are several questions that naturally suggest
themselves to the mind of the reader. Why did the Apostle
adduce the quotation at all ? What is the precise meaning
which he extracts from it, or, if that be the more correct
expression, which he imports into it? How does that
meaning stand related, on the one hand, to the original
historical sense of the words as used by the Old Testament
writer, and, on the other hand, to the Apostle's doctrine of
salvation, justification, or righteousness by faith, as expressed
in language properly his own ? Is the Apostle's doctrine of
justification accurately expressed by the Old Testament words
which he quotes, and if not, why does he make use of these
words to express it ? Were the Apostle's ideas concerning the
method of human salvation derived from the study of this and
other Old Testament passages, and are they dependent for
their validity on the accuracy of his Old Testament exegesis?
When the New Testament writers convey their ideas in terms
of Old Testament quotations, are we entitled in seeking to
46 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
ascertain the ideas to start from these quotations, to press
their strict grammatical meaning just as we should the
meaning of words framed by the writers themselves for the
express purpose of conveying their ideas ; or, still more
unjustifiably, to modify the strict grammatical meaning, not
upon any distinct principle, but in order to render it more
definite, or more intelligible ; and then, having put what we
regard as a proper, feasible, or worthy sense on the quoted
words, to employ the sense thus determined as a touchstone
to rule the interpretation of passages where the writers
convey their ideas in literal terms of their own framing ?
These and other related questions admit, I believe, of a very
distinct answer, which shall, for convenience' sake, be briefly
presented in this place.
One thing, then, may be taken for granted at the outset.
We cannot assume it as a first principle tliab the historical
sense of the Old Testament and the sense put upon it by the
New Testament writers always and necessarily coincide ; in
other words, that the New Testament writers interpret the
Old Testament with infallible authority. The fact that in the
New Testament a certain meaning is put upon the words of
an Old Testament writer does not of itself prove that the Old
Testament writer used the words to convey that meaning;
and, vice versa, the fact that an Old Testament writer used
words to convey a certain meaning does not of itself prove
that a New Testament writer, reading or quoting the words,
would put upon them the same meaning. For, to assume any
such thing, would involve consequences infinitely more serious
than to deny it. It would imply that the Old Testament is
not an intelligible book, written to be understood by ordinary
men, and amenable to the ordinary laws of historical inter-
pretation, but a book full of sacred enigmas, requiring to be
interpreted by inspired authority. Unless we agree to abjure
all pretence of consistency, one or other of two alternatives
must be adopted. We must either maintain that the Old
Testament in all its parts, quoted and unquoted alike, was
written to be understood by its original readers, and that, hav-
ing been so written, its meaning may be definitely ascertained
II.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 47
by applying the ordinary laws of historical interpretation ; or we
must maintain that the Old Testament in all its parts,
unquoted and quoted alike, was unintelligible or enigmatical
to its original readers, that it was written to be understood,
not by them, but by Christian readers, under the guidance of
inspired apostles and prophets, and that, having been so
written, its meaning cannot be definitely ascertained by
applying the ordinary laws of historical interpretation.
To say that historical interpretation is to be accepted as valid
and sufficient in all cases, save where authoritative inter-
pretation is available in which case the former must yield to
the latter is manifestly out of the question. Caprice so
intolerable would utterly destroy confidence in every method
of interpretation, and render anything like certainty as to the
meaning of the Old Testament an impossibility. If historical
interpretation is to be accepted as valid for the Old Testament
at all, it must be accepted as valid universally, in spite of
conflicting authoritative interpretation ; as, conversely, if
authoritative interpretation is to be allowed to over-ride and
invalidate historical interpretation at all, historical interpreta-
tion, as applied to the Old Testament Scriptures, must be
allowed to be universally invalid. Were the Old Testament
passages quoted and interpreted in the New all of one class,
were they all taken from one book, or bearing on one
particular subject, there might, in that case, be some plausible
ground for maintaining that historical interpretation and
authoritative interpretation should be permitted to stand
together. The two, it might be urged, have distinct pro-
vinces, within which, but within which alone, their validity is
unquestionable ;. the former loses its validity only when it
seeks to intrude into the sphere of the latter. But since the
passages quoted and interpreted in the New Testament are
taken from all, or nearly all, of the Old Testament books,
since they belong not to one but to every species of com-
position history, prophecy, philosophy, poetry and bear
upon every sort of subject, no such notion can for a moment
be entertained. The quoted and unquoted parts of the Old
Testament are entirely homogeneous, and historical inter-
pretation, if recognised as valid for the one, must be recog-
48 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
iiised as valid for the other as well. But, if historical
interpretation be recognised as universally valid for the Old
Testament, then New Testament interpretation cannot be
recognised as authoritative. In cases where the two coincide,
both will possess equal validity, and therefore equal authority.
In cases where the two conflict, New Testament interpretation
will not be more, but less valid than historical, and, therefore,
less authoritative; that is, New Testament interpretation, as
such, will be shown to possess no independent authority what-
ever.
It will not do to adopt a middle course. We cannot, with-
out the grossest inconsistency, bow to the authority of New
Testament exegesis in one chapter or verse, while setting it
aside as worthless in the next. This, though a common
enough practice, is a wholly unjustifiable one. When the
New Testament writers interpret the Old Testament bloody
sacrifices as types or pr en" gu rations of the death of Christ, or
when they interpret Isa. liii. and Ps. ex. as spoken directly of
Christ, their authority is all but universally accepted as final.
But when the writer to the Hebrews interprets Exod. xxv. 40
to mean that all the parts of the earthly material tabernacle
were copied from the corresponding parts of a heavenly imma-
terial tabernacle, which Moses saw in the moUnt (viii. 5) \
when he interprets Ps. xl. as spoken directly of Jesus Christ,
arid as pointing to the abolition of legal offerings in favour of
the offering of Christ's body (x. 5, seq.} ; when he interprets
Ps. xcv. as spoken directly to men under the Christian dis-
pensation (iii. 7, seq.) ; Isa. viii. 18 as spoken directly by
Christ, or put into the mouth of Christ (ii. 1 3) ; and Ps. viii. 5
as contrasting the present-world humiliation with the future-
world glorification of man a contrast exemplified in principle
in the history of Christ (ii. 6-9) ; when he interprets the
passage in Gen. relating to Melchizedek, in the light of Ps. ex.,
so as plainly and necessarily to imply that Melchizedek was
and is an eternally- existent, underived, supernatural being, the
prototype of Jesus Christ (vii. 1, seq.) ; when Paul interprets
the story of the two sons of Abraham by the bondmaid and
the free woman, as intended to prefigure Judaism enslaved by
the law and Christianity free from the law (Gal. iv. 22-31) ;.
II.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 49
when he interprets the transitory shining of Moses' face, which
he concealed by means of a veil, as intended to prefigure the
transitoriness of the law's glory, which the Jews failed to per-
ceive (2 Cor. iii. 13-16) ; when he interprets the precept in
Deut. xxv. 4, with respect to muzzling the threshing ox, as
intended solely to prescribe the duty of Christians to maintain
the preachers of the Gospel (1 Cor. ix. 9, 10) ; when he inter-
prets the word " seed/' in Gen. xvii. 7, as meant to refer to a
single individual viz., Christ (Gal. iii. 16); when he inter-
prets Ps. xix. 4 as referring to the universal preaching of sal-
vation (Rom. x. 18) ; Ps. Ixviii. 18 as referring to the bestowal
of gifts by Christ after His ascension (Eph. iv. 8-10) ; Ps. Ixix. 9
as words put into the mouth of Christ (Rom. xv. 3) ; Isa. xxviii.
11, 12, as referring to the gift of speaking with tongues (1 Cor.
xiv. 21) ; Isa. xlix. 8 as referring to the Christian dispensa-
tion (2 Cor. vi. 2); when Peter interprets Ps. xvi. 10 as a
prediction by David of the resurrection of Christ (Acts ii. 25,
seq.) ; and Ps. Ixix. 25 as a prediction by David of the fate of
Judas (Acts i. 16-20); in these, and many other instances
that might be cited, there are, to say the least, the gravest
doubts as to the historicity of the interpretations. Yet to
accept the exegesis of the New Testament writers as inspired,
authoritative, infallible, in one passage or book, while rejecting
it as frivolous, fanciful, and absurd in another, is not to pro-
ceed upon principles, but upon the negation of principles. The
views of the New Testament writers as to the meaning intended
to be conveyed by the writers of the Old must be accepted in
their entirety, or not at all. If the testimony of the New
Testament writers be evidence that the Old Testament bloody
sacrifices were intended to prefigure the death of Christ, and
that Isa. liii. was spoken directly of Christ, it must likewise
be evidence that the earthly tabernacle was copied from a
heavenly archetype, and that Ps. xl. and Ps. Ixix. were spoken
directly of Christ ; and, conversely, if the testimony of the
New Testament writers be no evidence that the earthly taber-
nacle was copied from a heavenly archetype, and that Ps. xl.
and Ps. Ixix. were spoken directly of Christ, it can be no evi-
dence that the Old Testament bloody sacrifices were intended
to prefigure the death of Christ, and that Isa. liii. was spoken
E
50 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
directly of Christ. To say that the New Testament inter-
pretations are to be accepted as authoritative in all cases, save
where they flagrantly and palpably violate the historical sense,
is a principle rather to be tacitly adopted and acted upon than
to be explicitly avowed and deliberately defended in cold blood.
And to say that the New Testament interpretations are authori-
tative when confirmed by historical interpretation, but not
authoritative when contradicted by historical interpretation, is
equivalent to saying that they are not authoritative at all,
and that the only available method of interpretation is the
historical one.
Assuming, therefore, as beyond dispute, that the Old Testa-
ment was written to be understood by its original readers that
it is amenable to the ordinary laws of historical interpretation
that its meaning can be as decisively settled on the gram-
matico-historical method as that of the New Testament, or of
any other ancient writing ; assuming this, and discarding the
alternative notion that the Old Testament exegesis of the New
Testament writers is authoritative, and therefore infallible, the
question still remains, Whether and how far the results of his-
torical exegesis agree or disagree with those of apostolic or
Christian exegesis ? The answer may be given in the words
of an eminent writer of acknowledged candour and impar-
tiality, whom I quote with the greater pleasure, and whose
testimony will be the more acceptable, as he is unquestionably
one of the ablest orthodox Biblical scholars now alive. The
following extract, though referring directly only to the writings
of Paul, is, in all its essential features, at least as applicable to
every one of the New Testament writings :
" (.) The* promise which was given to the fathers, and belongs
inalienably to the nation which is descended from them, accompanies,
as prophecy, the nation of Israel through its whole history, and is
therefore also an essential part of its Holy Scriptures. Kay, the whole
of Scripture (o voftog xal o/ tfgopjjra/ Rom. iii. 21), which appears from
one side as a revelation of the Divine will (6 vo>og), can also be
thought of from the other side as prophetic. If, however, it is only
for the Jews that the law (o v6,u,o$) has its significance (iii. 19) and
even for them this significance is only transitory it is for the future
generations, which should see its fulfilment, that Scripture considered
II.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 51
as prophecy first has its real significance (cf. I Pet. i. 12). This
necessary consequence of the conception of prophecy as directly
Messianic, Paul has drawn as well as Peter. The import of God's
message of salvation, which the apostle proclaims, God has promised
afore by His prophets in the Holy Scriptures (Rom. i. 2). But as
even here the prophetic activity is looked at exclusively from that
side according to which its organs have put down their prophecies in
the writings which were appointed for the future, so it follows from
xvi. 26 that the specific significance of these writings is such that it
could only be meant for that future. There viz., it is said that in
the Christian present the mystery of salvation is made known through
the Scriptures of the prophets, inasmuch as, by means of the proof,
that that which is now proclaimed was already foretold by the
prophets the basis was laid for the knowledge that it is really the
Divine decree, which was formed long ago, which the apostles preach.
Thus, the participation of the Gentiles in Abraham's salvation, which
was indicated in Gen. xii. 3, was preached beforehand as glad tidings
by the Scripture ; it (i.e., God, who speaks in it) foresaw the future
justification of the Gentiles by faith (Gal. iii. 8). Nay, that which
was thus witnessed by the law and the prophets was by no means yet
manifested by this witness to their own age, which could not yet
regard it and understand it in the light of its fulfilment (Rom. iii. 21,
cf. Eph. iii. 5). It was first manifested in the day of salvation by
means of the Gospel (i. 17). Accordingly, the significance of that
which was written beforehand does not belong to the time in which
it was written ; it was written for our instruction (Rom. xv. 4) and
admonition (1 Cor. x. 11).
"(6.) The extent to which Paul found the import of the Messianic
message of salvation directly preached beforehand in Scripture, appears
from his incidental allusions to Old Testament prophecy. Christ has
died and risen again according to the Scriptures (1 Cor. xv. 3, 4) ; the
reproaches that fell upon Him are foretold in Ps. Ixix. 9 (Rom. xv. 3);
the dominion which was given Him in Ps. viii. 6 (1 Cor. xv. 27).
Where he has found the promise of the Spirit (Gal. iii. 14 cf. Eph. i.
13), the apostle does not say. The doctrine of the righteousness of
faith is witnessed by the law and the prophets (Rom. iii. 21 cf. Gal.
iii. 11 ; Rom. i. 17 after Hab. ii. 4; Rom. iv. 6-8 after Ps. xxxii. 1,
2) ; in particular, witness is borne to faith as the condition of salvation
in Isa. xxviii. 16 (Rom. x. 11), and as the source of the preaching of
the Gospel in Ps. cxvi. 10 (2 Cor. iv. 13). The universality of the
preaching of salvation Paul finds in Ps. xix. 4 (Rom. x. 18) ; the
destruction of human wisdom by the foolishness of preaching in Isa.
52 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
xxix. 14 (1 Cor. i. 19) ; the calling of the Gentiles in Hos. ii. 23 : i.
10 (Rom. ix. 25, 26); Dent, xxxii. 21 ; Isa. Ixv. 1 (Rom. x. 19, 20) ;
Ps. xviii. 49; Deut. xxxii. 43; Ps. cxvii. 1 ; Isa. xi. 10 (Rom. xv.
9-12); Isa. Hi. 15 (Rom. xv. 21); and in a certain sense even in the
promise to the patriarchs (Gal. iii. 8; Rom. iv. 18). The unbelief of
the Jews he sees foretold in Isa. liii. 1 ; Ixv. 2 (Rom. x. 16-21) ; the
offence which they take at Christ in Isa. viii. 14 ; xxviii. 16 (Rom. ix.
33); their obduracy in Isa. xxix. 10; vi. 9, 10; Deut. xxix. 4; Ps.
Ixix. 22, 23 (Rom. xi. 8-10) ; their partial rejection in Isa. x. 22, 23 ;
i. 9 (Rom. ix. 27-29) ; their final salvation in Isa. lix. 20 ; Jer. xxxi.
33, 34 (Rom. xi. 26, 27). That the Christian Church is the temple of
God he finds in Lev. xxvi. 11, 12 ; Isa. Hi. 11 ; Jer. xxxi. 9 ; 2 Sam.
vii. 14 (2 Cor. vi. 16-18) ; the bestowal of the gifts of grace he finds
in Ps. Ixviii. 18 (Eph. iv. 8-10) ; and even the special gift of speaking
with tongues in Isa. xxviii. 11, 12 (1 Cor. xiv. 21). The continual
persecution of Christians is foretold in Ps. xliv. 22 (Rom. viii. 36) ;
the final overthrow of death in Isa. xxv. 8 ; Hos. xiii. 14 (1 Cor. xv.
54, 55).
" (c.) Scripture is prophetical not only in its expressions, but also in
its typical history. In consequence of the Divine guiding of history,
the events of the Messianic time were represented as to their nature
and significance in earlier historical events. Thus, according to Rom.
v. 14, Adam is a type of the future (second) Adam, inasmuch as in
him it is shown how an influence extends from one to the whole race.
So the Israelites of the Mosaic time, with their experiences of salva-
tion, as well as with the judgments of God that befell them, are T-J-TTOI
yftojv (1 Cor. x. 6) ; what happened to them happened to them
typically (rw/xag), i.e., so that we might learn what we have to
experience and shall experience if we conduct ourselves similarly
(v. 11.) Naturally, he always keeps in view the committing of this
history to writing ; it was by this means that it could first receive this
significance for the future. "What Scripture relates regarding the
justification of Abraham is not only written in order to describe his
justification (di' avrov), but also to instruct us as to the manner of our
own (Rom. iv. 23, 24 cf. iii. 21). Moreover, the boundary line
between this way of looking at the history as a type, and the simple
borrowing of illustrative examples out of it, is a fluctuating one.
When the comfort, which God gave to Elias (Rom. xi. 2-4) is made
to apply to the present (v. 5), when the procedure of God when He
elected Isaac or Jacob (ix. 6-13), or when He hardened Pharaoh's
heart (v. 17), illustrates His present bearing, these are, primarily, only
historical examples, which, however, could have been equally well
II.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 53
regarded as types.* That Paul looked at the institutions of the Old
Testament also from this point of view cannot be directly proved.
When, however, Christ is represented as a /Xacrjjg/ov (Rom. iii. 25),
and a Paschal Lamb (1 Cor. v. 7 cf. Eph. v. 2), when the sacrificial
system in general (Rom. xii. 1 ; xv. 16), and the rite of the feast of
the passover in particular (1 Cor. v. 7, 8), are given an application to
Christian circumstances (cf. Col. ii. 11 ; Phil. ii. 17; iii. 3; iv. 18),
when the Church is called the true temple of God (1 Cor. iii. 16 ; 2
Cor. vi. 16), when an appointment of the law relating to the priests is
used as an illustration of an ordinance of God in the Christian Church
(1 Cor. ix. 13), and the Jewish sacrificial meal appears as an analogon
of the Christian Supper (1 Cor. x. 18), there lies at the basis of all
these allusions the presupposition that these institutions, which were
appointed by God, have a typical character as well as the events which
were under His guidance, from which, however, it does not by any
means follow that this part of the law does not also have its signifi-
cance as law.
" (d.) In consequence of his Rabbinical training, Paul was also
acquainted with the allegorising way of interpreting the Old Testa-
ment, and made use of it. According to it, the narratives of the Old
Testament have, without prejudice to their historical character, also
another meaning than that which the words express, inasmuch as the
Spirit, who suggested these words, meant to prophesy something future
with them, and it is the business of the interpreter to discover this
meaning by a deeper comprehension of Scripture (Gal. iv. 24). Thus
the two sons of Abraham by the maid and the free -woman are an alle-
gory of Judaism enslaved by the law, and of Christianity free from the
law (iv. 22-31). Here, therefore, a fact of the past is a prophetic type
of a fact of the Messianic present ; it is not so, however, per se, but in
consequence of the fathoming of its deeper meaning. In a similar
manner, Paul explains the story of the shining countenance of Moses,
and of the veil with which he concealed it (Exod. xxxiv.), allegorically,
so as to make it refer to the transitory glory of the law, and to the
circumstance that this its transitory character was hidden from the
unbelieving Jews (2 Cor. iii. 13-16 cf. v. 7). So the hidden allegori-
cal meaning (rb pvffnjgiov) of Gen. ii. 24 refers to Christ and His
Church (Eph. v. 32). In a similar manner Paul can now also explain
legal precepts allegorically, as when e.g., he makes the precept in
Deut. xxv. 4 refer to the right of the preachers of the Gospel to be
* Jesus already regards the fate of Jonah as a type of His fate (Matt. xii. 40),
and the Flood as a type of the last judgment (xxiv. 37-39 ; cf. 1 Pet. iii. 20, 21).
54 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
maintained by the Church (1 Cor. ix. 10). In this case, however, he
justifies his explanation by expressly excluding the literal meaning
as being absolutely inadmissible (v. 9 : /^ TUV (3ouv fj,'t\zi rf 0w) ; his
religious appreciation of the Old Testament cannot bear that one of its
appointments could have in view the well-being of animals and not
that of man."
"(a.) Paul quotes Scripture very frequently. It is in our four
epistles (Romans, I. and II. Corinthians, and Galatians), however,
that by f ar'the most^of his quotations are found ; and of these epistles
it was those to the Romans and the Galatians whose aim most of all
directly demanded them. In the epistles to the purely Gentile-
Christian Churches of Thessalonica, Philippi, and Colosse, there are
no quotations at all. The apostle usually introduces them with a
ygygaorra/, which is found about thirty times, or with the similar
formula, 75 ygapj} \zyii (Gal. iv. 30 ; Rom. iv. 3 ; ix. 17 ; x. 11 ; xi. 2 ;
cf. 2 Cor. iv. 13, xara TO yryga/Aj&svov ; 1 Cor. xv. 54, o "koyog o yiygap-
ftsvog; cf. Rom. ix. 9; iv. 18, xara rb s/gypevov). It is only in 1 Cor.
ix. 9, xiv. 21, cf. Rom. vii. 7, and in Rom. xi. 2, that indications are
found as to the place of Scripture in which the quotation in question
stands (cf. Mark xii. 26 ; Acts i. 20 ; vii. 42). It is seldom that Paul
introduces the writers as speaking (Rom. iv. 6 ; xi. 9 : David in the
Psalms whose title bears his name ; x. 5, 1 9 : Moses in passages out of
Leviticus and [Deuteronomy ; ix. 27, 29; x. 16, 20; xv. 12 : Isaiah).*
It is very seldom that God appears in him as the one who speaks
(2 Cor. vi. 2, 16, 17 ; Rom. ix. 15, 25), and that, too, only when the
point in question is as to an express utterance of God (cf. Acts iv. 25 ;
xiii. 47). By far the most of his quotations are from Isaiah and the
Psalms ; next in order comes the Pentateuch, specially Genesis and
Deuteronomy. Individual quotations are found also from the other
prophets, and one from Job (1 Cor. iii. 19; cf. Rom. xi. 34, 35);
here and there a few sayings out of the Book of Proverbs are used
* Similarly the earliest\tradition makes Christ trace back passages of the law
to Moses (Mark vii. 10 ; cf. xii. 19), and a prophecy to Isaiah (Mark vii. 6), and
in Mark xii. 36 seq. the whole argument of Christ rests upon the circumstance that,
according to the title, it is David that speaks in Psalm ex. 1. Similarly, in his
discourse in Acts ii. 25-28, 34, 35, Peter starts expressly from the Davidic author-
ship of the passages quoted ; in Acts iv. 25 a Psalm is even treated of as Davidic
whose title does not assign it to him. In Acts ii. 16, vii. 48, xiii. 40, passages
from the prophets are merely described as such, without naming the prophet ; on
the other hand, in Mark i. 2, Luke iv. 17, Acts viii. 28, 30, xxviii. 25, Isaiah is
named ; through him, according to the last of these passages, the Holy Ghost
II.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 55
without being expressly quoted (2 Cor. ix. 7 ; Kom. xii. 17, 20). The
case is exactly the same in the Epistle of Peter and in the discourses
of the Acts.
" (b.) As it is substantially in the form of the text of the LXX.
that the earliest tradition of the discourses of Jesus and the apostles
puts into their mouths the quotations from the Old Testament that
are made by them, so it is mainly that text which Paul also uses, even
in cases where the Greek text varies essentially from the Hebrew
(Gal. iii. 13; Eom. ii. 24; iii. 4 ; iv. 3 ; ix. 27-29; xi. 9, 10, 26, 27;
xv. 10, 12, 21; 1 Cor. i. 19; vi. 16; Eph. v. 31; vi. 2); yet here
and there there appears in him an independent knowledge and use of
the original (cf. 1 Cor. iii. 19; xiv. 21 ; xv. 54 seq. ; Kom. ix. 17 ;
xii. 19 ; Eph. iv. 8), as we might naturally expect from his Rabbinical
training. In his quotations, Paul uses great freedom. As the par-
ticular writings from which the several quotations are taken are seldom
reflected on, so totally different passages of Scripture are often freely
combined with one another (1 Cor. xv. 54, 55; 2 Cor. vi. 16-18;
Kom. iii. 10-18; ix. 25, 26; xi. 26, 27), or completely mixed up
together (Rom. ix. 33 ; xi. 8). But elsewhere also the quotation is
often a very free one (1 Cor. ii. 9 ; Eph. v. 14) ; and there are found
not only great abbreviations (1 Cor. i. 31), or insignificant changes of
expression (2 Cor. vi. 16 ; Rom. xiv. 11), but also changes (Gal. iv.
30, rye etevd'&oas; 1 Cor. iii. 20, ruv ffo<puv ; Eph. iv. 8, eduxs) and
additions (1 Cor. xv. 45, irgurog . . . 'Ada/u; Rom. x. 11, was), which
are of great importance for the apostle's application of the passages.*
" (c.) Closely connected with the manner in which the passages of
Scripture are considered only as such, and not as individual utterances
of definite writers, and are therefore taken out of their connection and
freely combined, is the circumstance that their explanation attaches
itself simply to the words. Herein Paul follows the exegetical
method of his time. Accordingly, what is said in the original of a
definite time can be generalised (Rom. iii. 10-18), or what is said there
of definite persons or circumstances of the past can be made to refer to
persons and circumstances of the present (Rom. viii. 36; x. 19-21;
xi. 9, 10, 26). What was meant of Gentiles can be applied to Jews
(Rom. ii. 24), and vice versd (Rom. ix. 25 seq.)', Paul can even, as
occasion requires, take rb ffwegpa, now as collective, and now as personal
* We find the same thing already in the discourses of Christ, where different
passages are mixed up together (Mark xi. 17 ; cf. also 1 Pet. ii. 7, 9), in Matt. xi.
10 and Mark xiv. 27, where the Old Testament passages are changed freely to
suit their Messianic interpretation, and in the discourses of the Acts (cf. the sig-
nificant changes in Acts ii. 17 ; iii. 23 ; i. 20).
56 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap
(Gal. iii. 16 ; Rom. iv. 13) ; in 2 Cor. viii. 15 he can give Exod. xvi.
18 an application which suits its language, without considering that,
according to their original allusion, these words refer to the gathering
of manna, and therefore do not at all admit of the application which
he gives them. He does not inquire as to the original meaning of
Old Testament expressions ; he takes them in the sense which he is
accustomed to give to similar expressions, even in the case of such
terms as w/<rr/, %u/o, eyayygX/^gotfa/ (Rom. i. 17; ix. 33; x. 13, 15),
or he gives them a metaphorical interpretation (Rom. iv. 17, 18).
Accordingly it is often the most accidental verbal resemblances with
which his application is connected (1 Cor. xiv. 21 ; Eph. iv. 8). At
the basis of this practice, however, lies the presupposition that, on one
side, the whole of Scripture prophesies of the Messiah and the events
of the Messianic time, so that everything which simply admits of being
applied to these circumstances is interpreted in this sense, and that,
too, as a direct prophecy. Thus, in Ps. Ixix. 9, the Messiah Himself
is conceived of as speaking (Rom. xv. 3), and Joel ii. 32 is applied by
him, as well as by Peter (Acts ii. 21), to the Messiah (Rom. x. 13).
Even passages which, like these, are undoubtedly Messianic in the
wider sense, appear as having a reference to the person of Jesus, which
is originally foreign to them (Rom. ix. 33 ; cf. 1 Pet. ii. 6).*
" (d.) From these actual quotations of Scripture we must distinguish
those cases in which the apostle avails himself of well-known sacred
words of Scripture for the purpose of clothing his own thoughts, as
e.g., in 1 Cor. v. 13 ; x. 22, 26 ; Rom. xi. 34, 35 ; xii. 20 ; Eph. i.
22 ; iv. 26. This way of using Scripture is also found already in the
discourses of Jesus (Matt. x. 35 ; Mark iv. 12), and in the Epistle of
Peter it is the most common. In such cases, acquaintance with the
Scriptural words in question is for the most part taken for granted,
and the allusion appears intentional; yet it is a peculiarity of the
Epistle of Peter, that even where the line of thought demands that
they should be recognised and taken to be words of Scripture (as in
i. 24), there is no express quotation formula. There is no example
of this to be found in Paul. He even inserts his xa^g ygy^acrra/
where the words are only used as a clothing of his own thought
(1 Cor. i. 31). In such a case, naturally, it is by no means surprising
if the words of Scripture appear without any reference to their
* In the same way, the earliest tradition already makes Jesus give the Old
Testament a Messianic interpretation (Matt. xi. 10 ; Mark xii. 10, 11, 36 ; xiv.
27), and develop a deeper meaning out of its words (Mark xii. 26) ; according to
the Acts of the Apostles, Peter makes David speak, not only with reference to the
person of Jesus (ii. 25-28), but also regarding the traitor (i. 20 ; cf. v. 16).
II.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 57
original meaning as determined by the context (Rom. x. 18), and if
they are altered, with great freedom as each occasion requires (x. 6-8 ;
cf. 1 Cor. xv. 55). Since this, however, is done also in the case of
actual quotations, and even the presence or absence of a quotation
formula is not absolutely decisive, it is often impossible to decide with
full certainty which of these uses of Scripture we have before us." *
The above extract may be relied on as an accurate and
unbiassed representation of the state of things revealed by a
candid examination of the Old Testament quotations and
references found in the New. One or two remarks must be
added by way of expounding the bearing of what it contains.
It appears that the Apostle Paul, and, we may add, the New
Testament writers generally, look at the Old Testament from
two different points of view, and attribute to it two different
characters. On one aspect, or in one character, it is all law ;
on another aspect, or in another character, it is all Messianic
prophecy, which is the same thing as to say that it is all
gospel. Now, the antithesis between law and gospel, as will
be fully explained by-and-by, is an antithesis between dead
letter and living spirit. In its character as law, the Old
Testament is regarded as having been a means of condemna-
tion, but not a means of salvation. According to the apostolic
writers, the Gospel, and the Gospel alone, is a means of
salvation, because it alone contains the promise of the Spirit,
who can regenerate the human heart. The Old Testament, as
law, stands in a purely negative relation to the work of salva-
tion ; it is a mere foil to the Gospel, intended to prepare the
way for it, and destined to be set aside in favour of it. The
only positive, or quasi-positive function that is ascribed to the
Old Testament, as law, is the function of shutting men up to
embrace the Gospel, and this function it discharges, and can,
from the nature of the case, discharge only to those who
receive the Gospel. Thus the Old Testament, as law, though
it exercised a negative or condemnatory function toward all
who ever received it, has positive or saving value only for
those who receive the Gospel.
* Weiss's Biblical Theology of the New Testament, E. T., vol. i. pp. 375-385
(slightly abridged).
58 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
For our purpose, however, it is the other aspect of the Old
Testament that is by far the most important, because it is
that aspect that appears almost solely in the quotations. In
its character as Messianic prophecy, or as gospel, the Old
Testament has for its subject-matter that which the apostles
were called, qualified, and commissioned to teach viz., the
Gospel of Jesus Christ, or the way of human salvation through
Jesus Christ. The New Testament writers find in the Old
Testament just the import of the Gospel message of salvation
as they themselves proclaimed it. The Old Testament in its
whole extent in its history, its institutions, its psalms, its
prophecies speaks directly of Christ and His work as Saviour
of the world, and in its character as prophecy, it speaks of
nothing else. It is not as if what was originally spoken of
some one else might be accommodated and applied to Christ
as if the meaning of Old Testament prophecy were not fully
exhausted in the primary reference which was present to the
mind of the human author, and as if a further reference to
Christ were admitted by the scope of the words used, and
intended by the Spirit that inspired them. On the contrary,
the Old Testament writers spoke directly of the Messiah and
His times, and they knew that the Spirit of God within them
was depicting the future Messianic salvation, and that only
(1 Pet. i. 12). Moses and David and Isaiah not only wrote
of Christ, but they wrote of Him consciously and directly. In
different cases the New Testament writers either imply, or
endeavour to prove, that they could have written of no one
else (Acts ii. 29, 31; viii. 34, 35; Mark xii. 36; Heb. iv.
8 ; x. 5 seq. ; 1 Cor. ix. 9, 10). Psalms, like the second, the
sixteenth, the twenty-second, the fortieth, the sixty-ninth, the
one hundred and tenth, Isaiah liii., and other similar passages,
are not thought of as having had a primary reference to some
one else than Christ ; such a reference would, in many of them
(e.g. , Ps. xl. ; ex. ; Isa. liii.) be wholly inadmissible ; the refer-
ence to Christ excludes any other reference, and renders it
quite preposterous. In point of fact, the antiquated notion
that Old Testament prophecy, as prophecy, contains two
different senses, one of which corresponds to the consciousness
of the human author, and the other to the consciousness of the
II.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 59
Divine Spirit that inspired him, accords neither with historical
truth, nor with New Testament opinion, but is the fruit of a
vain attempt to rationalise New Testament exegesis, and
bring it into closer approximation, or into less manifest, direct,
and irreconcilable antagonism, to historical exegesis. The
two senses which the apostles recognise in the Old Testament
are not two prophetic senses, but a prophetic sense and a legal
sense ; and with neither of these has the human author almost
anything to do ; he is, to all practical intents, the voice or
pen-man of the Holy Ghost, who speaks in him, through him,
or by his mouth (Acts ii. 16 ; iv. 25 ; xxviii. 25 ; Gal. iii. 8;
Heb. iii. 7) ; so that what the human author records is not
his own thoughts, but the thoughts of the Spirit of Christ,
concerning which the prophets had to seek and search diligently
before they could perceive even their general drift or reference
(1 Pet. i. 11). And the thoughts of the Holy Ghost to which
the prophets gave utterance were all of the person, the life-
history, and the work of Christ, or of the Divine plan of
salvation in the particular form which it assumed after the
Advent of Christ. It would be incorrect to say that, accord-
ing to the apostolic writers, the New Testament is germinant,
incipient, or rudimentary in the Old ; at least it would be
insufficient and inadequate ; for, according to them, the New
Testament is not only present in the Old, but it is present in
its mature, specialised, or completed form. It is not enough
to say that they hold the continuity of the Old and New
Testaments. It is not enough to say that they regard the
New Testament as the legitimate outcome or development of
the Old ; nay, it is altogether incorrect to say so, seeing they
do not recognise the idea of development at all. What they
hold is not the continuity merely, but the unity of the Old
and New Testaments. To their way of thinking, the Old
Testament, on one aspect of it, is absolutely identical with
the New, and it is precisely this aspect that appears in the
quotations. The quotations are, in fact, part of the Old
Testament and part of the New at the same time ; being so,
and being taken not from one but from every class of the Old
Testament writings, they constitute a standing proof of the
identity held to subsist between the two. The apostles
60 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
would seem almost to reduce themselves to the position of
interpreters of the Old Testament ; in their opinion the
Gospel, the whole Gospel, and nothing but the Gospel is
already to be found there.
Still, though the Gospel is everywhere in the Old Testa-
ment, it is not everyone who can see it there. The Messianic
or prophetic sense of the Old Testament is evident, because
specially revealed, to the apostles and prophets of the New
Testament times, but it is evident to no one else. In the
view of the New Testament writers, the Old Testament, so
far, is not an intelligible book, written to be understood by
ordinary men, and amenable to the ordinary laws of historical
interpretation, but a book containing a profound mystery
the Gospel of Jesus Christ " which in other ages was not
made known unto the sons of men, as it hath now been
revealed unto His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit "
(Eph. iii. 5, 9 ; Rom. xvi. 25, 26; 1 Pet. i. 12). The Old
Testament, that is to say, was not written to be understood
by its original readers, but solely by Christian readers, under
the guidance of inspired apostles and prophets. The cere-
monies of the ritual law were typical of facts and circum-
stances connected with the Gospel, but they were not
perceived to be typical by those who practised them ; and
they were not intended to be so ; for in that case the Old
Testament worshippers would not have continued to practise
them, any more than the New Testament worshippers con-
tinued to do, after their shadowy inanity was perceived
(Heb. x. 1 seq.). The typical and allegorical meaning of the
history was never dreamt of by those who enacted the literal
one. Neither the Prophecies (ordinarily so-called), nor the
Psalms, nor any other of the holy writings, were understood
to have a Christian or Gospel sense by those who first
received them ; they were simply law nothing more. The
Old Testament, in its character as Gospel, or as Messianic
prophecy, was not, could not be, and was never intended to
be, comprehended by those to whom it was first addressed,
but only by us, on whom the ends of the ages are come, and
to whom the Gospel has been preached with the Holy Ghost
sent down from heaven. And, of course, as the Messianic
II.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 61
sense of the Old Testament was concealed from the men of
Old Testament times, the Old Testament could not become a
means of salvation till New Testament times, when the
mystery which had been kept in silence through times eternal
was manifested and made known through the Scriptures of
the prophets to all nations (Rom. xvi. 25, 26). It is " now "
(scil. under the Christian dispensation) that " a righteousness
of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the law and
the prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in
Jesus Christ unto all them that believe" (Rom. iii. 21, 22).
Thus, in its character as Messianic prophecy, not less than in
its character as law, the Old Testament has positive or saving
value only for those who receive the Gospel.
Now, it is needless to say how entirely unhistorical such a
view of the Old Testament is. It is doubtful in the extreme
whether a single Old Testament text can be regarded as
Messianic in the sense in which the New Testament writers
regard the whole Old Testament as Messianic. It is certain
at any rate as certain as any fact of interpretation can be
that the immense majority of the texts and passages construed
by the New Testament writers in a directly Christian or
Messianic sense were never intended by the original writers
to convey any such meaning. In very many instances, such a
meaning can be extracted from them only by applying the
utmost violence to the text, to the grammar, to the lexico-
graphy, to the whole context and connection of thought to
any or all of these combined sometimes even to the extent
of completely stultifying them. It is, in fact, perfectly
apparent and undeniable, as the author quoted above implies,
that the New Testament writers pay not the smallest attention
to the historical sense and connection of the Old Testament
passages of which they make use, and very little even to the
historical words, which they alter, omit, or supplement, when-
ever it suits their purpose to do so. Nor is this in the least
to be wondered at, when we consider the general nature of the
apostolic representations touching the Old Testament. The
views just described betray themselves at once as being
systematic, and not historical. The fact that, according to the
apostles, the Old Testament has two entirely independent
62 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
characters, that it is all law or dead letter for the men of Old
Testament times, and all gospel or living Spirit for the men
of New Testament times, and that whether as law or as
gospel it has positive meaning, interest, and value only for
the apostles' own readers, indicates plainly that it is being
systematised, and used for hortatory or practical purposes.
It is quite impossible and incredible that any book, or series
of books, should possess the two independent characters which
the apostles attribute to the Old Testament. How the
apostles came to regard the Old Testament in two such
different lights will be more conveniently and more fully
explained in another connection. At present it may be
sufficient to say, that the Old Testament, as law, or as dead
letter, is equivalent to the religion of revelation, or the method
of human salvation, as all but universally conceived in the
apostles' own day ; the Old Testament, as gospel, or as living
Spirit, is equivalent to the religion of revelation, or the
method of human salvation, as the apostles themselves had
experienced it to be in truth. The great aim of the apostles
was to substitute the latter of these conceptions of religion, or
of the plan of salvation, for the former; and, in attempting
to do this, they are led to represent the Old Testament
under the two aspects above set forth, and to argue that
under the one aspect it must be abandoned as worthless for
saving purposes, never having been given for these but for
other and merely transitory purposes, and that under the
other aspect it must be received and acted upon as a means
of salvation. These, however, are purely artificial modes of
conceiving and representing the Old Testament ; they are
oratorical, not scientific, being adopted to obtain a formal
basis for practical exhortations, whose real basis lay in the
writers, own mind and experience ; neither of them has
almost anything in common with a truly historical view of the
Old Testament writings. As to the first : if the Old Testa-
ment were supposed to have existed during the pre-Christian
period merely as law or as dead letter, this would involve the
extravagant assumption that no one during the whole of that
period was or could possibly be saved. But this assumption
is admittedly contrary to the fact. And, therefore, the Old
II.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY, 63
Testament cannot have existed during the pre-Christian period
merely as law or as dead letter. Indeed, the apostles them-
selves do not maintain their general a priori conception of
Old Testament religion with anything like consistency, but
expressly posit the existence of Old Testament saints strictly
so-called, in different places and connections. In what form
the Old Testament did really exist during the pre-Christian
period, and how much truth there is in the apostolic views,
will come up for discussion afterwards. What we are more
concerned about now is the other aspect of the Old Testament,
in which it is represented as containing in a mystery the
Gospel of Jesus Christ.
And this too is wholly unhistorical. How could it be other-
wise? If the Old Testament writers embodied plain ideas in
language intelligible to their contemporaries, and if the New
Testament writers assume that they embodied gospel mysteries
in language intelligible only to the apostles and prophets of
New Testament times, it is quite impossible that the findings
of historical exegesis should coincide with those of Christian
exegesis. As a matter of historical fact, patent to every reader,
the Old Testament was written for the men of Old Testament
times, and was adapted to meet their needs and circumstances,
and to guide them in the way of life ; whereas, according to
the representation of the apostles, the Old Testament, on one
entire aspect of it the only aspect that needs to be taken into
account was written solely for the men of New Testament
times, and is adapted equally with the New Testament itself to
teach them the way of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.
How can it be but that methods of interpretation based
upon suppositions so directly opposite should yield in the
main opposite results? The possibility, the very existence of
historical interpretation, depends on the fact that a speaker or
writer uses language intelligible to the audience or public
whom he addresses. Books that had been committed to writ-
ing centuries before they had any interest or any bearing on
practical life, before they were even intended to be understood,
before the most gifted intelligences could possibly divine their
significance, as some of the Old Testament prophecies, and
the New Testament Book of Revelation are still supposed by
64 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
many to have been could not be interpreted on the historical
method ; their meaning, if not revealed by direct Divine
intervention, could only be guessed at by subsequent genera-
tions, and the guesses would probably be as numerous as they
would certainly be very diverse. What wonder, therefore,
that the Old Testament writings, which are manifestly instinct
with historical interest and meaning of the most positive kind,
should be very different from that which in the New Testa-
ment they are represented to be ?
It is sometimes said that, if we accept the principles on
which the New Testament writers quote and interpret the Old
Testament, we shall find very few difficulties in their way of
dealing with it. But, properly speaking, the New Testament
writers have no principles of interpretation that can be called
their own, any more than they have principles of criticism
that can be called their own. So far as they follow a method
at all, it is the method current in their day, and common to
all their contemporaries. They accept in the main the
method and results of the current exegesis, just as they accept
the method and results of the current criticism ; the only
difference is that both in the department of criticism and in
that of exegesis the current ideas are to some extent affected
and modified by being combined with the fundamental
religious ideas which the Apostles had learned from Christ
and realised in their own experience. Accordingly, when we
come to examine the details of their exegesis, we find it so
purely discretionary, and so radically different from ours,
from that on which as applied to New Testament and Old
alike our very life and salvation depend, that there is no
saying what recondite meaning they might or might not
extract from the plainest and simplest historical statements
(cf. e.g. Kom. x. 6-8). The only principle that can be
traced among exegetical phenomena so very diverse, and so
peculiarly arbitrary and unprincipled, as those which are met
with in the New Testament, is that the law and the prophets
must somehow bear witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the
Old Testament must somehow be susceptible of a directly
Messianic or Christian interpretation. But this is a purely
negative principle. It defines the limits within which the
II.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 65
true interpretation is to be sought or expected, without telling
us in any individual case what the true interpretation is.
We know henceforth what the New Testament interpretation
of an Old Testament passage cannot be we have practically
nothing to guide us in ascertaining what that interpretation
actually will be. On the contrary, a study of the instances
of Old Testament interpretation contained in the New Testa-
ment will convince any one that to have forecast even a tenth
part of them would have been an undertaking always hazard-
ous, and for the most part utterly hopeless. Still, the fact that
the New Testament meaning is always directly Messianic,
while the Old Testament meaning is never, or almost never,
directly Messianic, will enable us to formulate a distinct
principle on which to interpret the Old Testament language
occurring in the New Testament. The principle to which
I refer will, at least, have the advantage of accurately repre-
senting the facts, of allowing the utmost freedom and scope to
the future historical interpretation of the Old Testament, and
of relieving us from all anxiety as to the bearing of apostolic
exegesis on the integrity and validity of the plan of salvation.
The reader will excuse my stating it somewhat bluntly,
because a blunt statement will express it more clearly and
more forcibly than a softened one. The Old Testament
exegesis of the New Testament writers is not exegesis at all,
in the proper sense of the word ; at least in so far as it is
exegesis, it is the exegesis current in their day and common to
all their contemporaries, not either a sound exegesis, or an
exegesis properly their own. What is peculiar to the New
Testament writers, as the inspired organs of revelation, is not
their exegesis, but their fundamental ideas as to the method
of human salvation, and these ideas, instead of being
extracted from the Old Testament by the application of exegesis
proper, are simply read into Old Testament quotations and
then read out of them again. The Gospel scheme of salva-
tion, embodied in the several New Testament writings, is in no
degree dependent, either for its existence or for its validity, on
the Old Testament language by which it is set forth and illus-
trated, on the reasonings based on Old Testament Scripture
by which its authors seek to commend it, on the quasi Old
F
66 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
Testament proof adduced to sustain and fortify it. The
fundamental ideas of the apostolic writers were derived from
an entirely different and quite independent source. The
views of the New Testament writers respecting the plan of
human salvation are not determined by their views respecting
the meaning of the Old Testament ; but, conversely, their
views respecting the meaning of the Old Testament are deter-
mined by their views respecting the plan of human salvation.
The ruling soteriological ideas contained in the New Testament
lie quite behind the Old Testament forms and phrases in
which they are not unfrequently presented. This is proved
by the whole method of dealing with the Old Testament
pursued by the New Testament writers. For when a man is
found habitually straining the natural meaning of language,
bending and accommodating it to serve a purpose, or bring out
a certain desired result, omitting or supplying, shaping and
squaring, as happens to suit the drift of his argument, we
know that the man is not extracting ideas from the language,
but reading into it ideas derived from other sources ; we
know, in short, that the man has a theory to maintain, and
that he is casting about for evidence to support it. When we
see a figure thrust into a mould that does not fit it, we know
that the form of the figure was not determined by the mould,
but in some entirely independent way. Now this is exactly
what we find in the case of the New Testament writers.
They have a theory or plan of salvation derived from other
than Old Testament sources. They have a Gospel of the
grace of God, received not through men, not even through
inspired men, such as Old Testament prophets, but through
revelation of Jesus Christ. And the sole principle that
regulates all their appeals to the Old Testament is that of
obtaining at whatever cost, support for their own favourite
ideas. Instead of drawing their ideas from the Old Testament
by the legitimate weapon of historical exegesis, they bring
their ideas to the Old Testament, and read them into it, by
the help of forced, arbitrary, and unnatural exegesis. For
them the Old Testament has almost no meaning and value,
except in so far as Christian ideas can be elicited from it, and,
in the great majority of cases, this can be done only by first
II.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 67
reading them into it. The consequence is that they are
perpetually running their ideas into Old Testament moulds
that do not fit them, and clothing their thoughts in Old
Testament forms and phrases that were never meant to express
them. The author of Hebrews, as we shall show, projects the
whole Gospel into the framework of the ritual law, represent-
ing the former as a second improved edition of the latter, as a
dispensation the same in form but of a higher order, nature,
or character ; and other New Testament writers follow the
same practice on a more limited scale, and with the same end
in view.
I say with the same end in view. But what is the end in
view ? Why should the New Testament writers invoke the
Old Testament at all in support of the truths they teach ? If
their doctrine of salvation was neither drawn from Old
Testament sources nor dependent for its validity on Old
Testament evidences and confirmations, if the Gospel they
preached was sent them direct from God, and was seen intui-
tively to be absolutely and infallibly true, why should they
endeavour to buttress and defend it by the help of Old
Testament authority ? Why, in particular, should they weaken
a cause so strong, by even seeming to rest it on arguments so
exceedingly doubtful, by backing it up with an exegesis of so
clumsy and questionable a character? The answer to this
question is easily given, and it explains still further the
peculiar characteristics of apostolic exegesis. The apostles
had not merely to reveal the Gospel scheme of salvation to
their own and all subsequent ages, but they had to present it
in such a form, and support it by such arguments, as should
commend it to their more immediate hearers and readers.
Notwithstanding its essentially universal character, the Gospel,
as it appears in the New Testament, is couched in a particular
form, suited to the special circumstances of a particular age
and nation. Before the Gospel could reach the hearts of
those to whom it was first addressed, prejudices had to be
overcome, prepossessions had to be counted on and dealt with.
The apostles, in fact, had just to take the men of their time
as they found them, adapting their teaching accordingly. Not
only so, but there is evidence that the apostles were them-
68 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
selves, to a very great extent, men of their own time, sharing
many of the common opinions, and even the common prejudices;
so that, in arguing ex concessis, they were arguing upon
grounds that would appear to themselves just and tenable.
Now, one of the things universally conceded in apostolic times
was the inspiration and authority of the Old Testament ;
another was the legitimacy of certain modes of interpreting
and applying the Old Testament. The later Jews, as is well
known, cherished a superstitious reverence and attached an
overwhelming importance to the letter of the Old Testament,
which they regarded as the " Word of God," in the fullest and
most absolute sense that can possibly be put upon such an
expression. The doctors taught, and the people believed, that
the sacred writings were not only inspired, but inspired to the
utmost possible or conceivable extent. In the composition of
Scripture, the human author was nowhere, and the inspiring
Spirit everywhere ; not the thoughts alone, but the very words
of Scripture were the words of God, which He communicated
by the mouth of the human author, who merely discharged
the duty of spokesman and amanuensis; so that what the
Scripture contains is the Word of God in as complete and full
a sense as if it had been dictated by the lips of God to the
human author, and recorded with something approaching to
perfect accuracy. In short, verbal inspiration in the hardest,
baldest, most mechanical, most rigid and unqualified of forms,
ruled it absolutely in the Jewish schools of the apostolic age.^
And with this theory of inspiration was naturally, one might
almost say necessarily, associated the typico-allegorical method
of exegesis. Verbal inspiration and allegorising exegesis
always have gone, and always will go, hand in hand with one
another. When " all Scripture " is thought of as immediately
" inspired by God," it is necessarily thought of as containing
a meaning such as God would communicate, and in virtue of
which it is " profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction,
for instruction in righteousness" (2 Tim. iii. 16); and, of
course, when the literal meaning shows itself to be inadmis-
sible by being trivial, natural, profitless, or otherwise unworthy
* See further on this matter, p. 345 sff.
II.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 69
of God, allegorising or typologising exegesis is demanded, and
called into requisition, to elicit the deeper meaning of the
inspiring Spirit.
Such being the prevalent view of the inspiration and
authority of the Old Testament writings, what could be more
natural than that the apostles should make use of these
writings to enforce and commend their own ideas ? And if
the Old Testament were to be used for such a purpose at all,
evidently it must be used according to the accepted methods ;
for to have followed any other assuming the possibility of
such a thing would have defeated the object aimed at,
which was to accommodate the Gospel to established prejudices.
This explains how the exegesis of the New Testament writers
is just the exegesis current in their day, and common to all
their contemporaries. The apostles, in all probability, had
no idea of any other, but even if they had, they could not
have availed themselves of it for the purpose of persuading
readers by whom it was not even understood, much less
received as valid, and employed as such. To us, no doubt,
the exegetical arguments of the New Testament writers appear
in most cases to weaken the cause they are meant to establish ;
but then they were not intended nor adapted for us, but for
the writers' own contemporaries, to whom they would doubtless
appear solid and satisfactory. If the Gospel had been written
in our own time, and addressed to us specifically, it would in
that case have been presented in a form, and supported by
arguments, suited to convince our understandings, and win our
acceptance ; but then the form and the arguments might have
been found just as unsatisfactory by men a thousand or two
thousand years hence as the present form and arguments are
found by us now. The New Testament writers, if they were
to reason with their contemporaries at all, were bound to
begin somewhere ; reasoning, to be reasoning, must start from
premises, granted either as self-evident, or as already estab-
lished. When the New Testament writers appeal to the Old
Testament, they do so to illustrate, confirm, defend, or enforce
their own ideas, and all their reasonings based upon Old
Testament quotations and references proceed on the assump-
tion that the current exegetical method was a sound and
70 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
reliable one. Any other assumption would have required to
be established by separate processes of reasoning, such as the
apostles were by no means qualified to undertake, and such
as, at anyrate, would have proved utterly unintelligible to the
men whom they were designed to convince ; but this assump-
tion, being postulated and granted by friends and opponents
alike, could be made use of at once, and to good purpose.
The standpoint of the New Testament writers, with respect
to exegetical, may be compared with the standpoint of the
Bible writers generally with respect to physical science. It
has long since been demonstrated that the Bible can teach us
nothing as to the laws that regulate the phenomena of nature.
The notions of the Bible writers on the subject are just the
notions prevalent in their day, and accepted by them as by
every one else ; notions which they avail themselves of with
the utmost freedom to illustrate and enforce ideas peculiarly
their own. Even the account of creation is just the popular
account, controlled by certain governing religious ideas. So
in regard to questions of Old Testament criticism. The New
Testament can teach us nothing as to the literary history of
the Old beyond what is contained in the notions and traditions
current at the time when it was written. All the statements
and reasonings of all the New Testament writers take for
granted the accuracy of these popular notions. The Penta-
teuch was written by Moses, and the Psalms by David, and
Isaiah by Isaiah, because popular opinion had it so. If these
popular notions were infallibly correct before they were taken
up and embodied in the New Testament writings, they are
infallibly correct still ; if they were incorrect before they were
taken up and embodied in the New Testament writings, they
are incorrect still. So in regard to questions of Old Testa-
ment exegesis. The New Testament writers have no inde-
pendent light to throw on the historical meaning of the Old
Testament. Their exegetical notions and methods are just the
exegetical notions and methods of their contemporaries. The
Bible writers were not commissioned to teach men either
physical science, or criticism, or exegesis, but to " preach the
Gospel," or communicate the way of salvation. They correct
none of the popular critical and exegetical errors that were
II.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 71
abroad. Their attitude toward errors of that description stands
in the most marked contrast to their attitude toward funda-
mental religious or doctrinal errors. Against the latter they
wage an incessant and mortal warfare ; the former are scarcely
if at all mentioned ; though it is quite incredible that no such
errors should have existed the opposite is in fact clearly
demonstrable. The New Testament writers did not initiate or
carry out any reform in the Old Testament of their time.
They did not adopt what was good in the popular exegesis,
eliminating what was bad. There is not a trace of elimination
or correction at all. They did not amend the exegesis of their
contemporaries, any more than they amended the textual criti-
cism ; and yet there is just as much evidence to show that
the exegesis was faulty as there is to show that the textual
criticism was so, for the two are inseparably bound up with
one another (cf. e.g., Heb. x. 5, seq.). No one, reading the
New Testament, can fail to be struck with the complete con-
trast that exists between the feeble and almost puerile character
of the exegesis and the profound and powerfully worked out
fundamental ideas ; nor fail to infer that the proofs and reason-
ings based upon Old Testament Scripture are mere external
drapery, accommodated to the current temporary phase of
popular opinion, and that the underlying spiritual truths are
alone permanent, essential, and real. The great doctrines of sin
and salvation had been reached by the apostles on quite a differ-
ent line from the exegetical one they had been discovered by
intuition, arid verified by experience, as the apostles them-
selves declare, and as the whole texture of the New Testament
shows. The Old Testament proofs are a mere afterthought.
The doctrines were not generated by the Old Testament proofs,
but, conversely, the Old Testament proofs were generated by
the doctrines, a fact which serves to explain their peculiar
character. The authority which the apostles received, and
which the Master himself possessed, was not an authority to
interpret the meaning of the Old Testament. They did not
come to restore the Old Testament language to its native
purity, and to open its hidden treasures of thought, which
men had hitherto failed to reach. The New Testament is not
a second edition of the Old, thoroughly revised and corrected,
72 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
with an abundance of explanatory notes attached. On the con-
trary, the authority which the apostles received was an autho-
rity to speak the things which they had seen and heard and
known and felt ; to preach the Gospel to every creature ; to be
witnesses of Christ and His saving power to the world; to
warn every man and teach every man that they might present
every man perfect in Christ Jesus. The revelation of grace
and truth contained in the New Testament is, I venture to
say, entirely independent of anything contained in the Old,
and would remain in every one of its features though the latter
were swept out of existence.
Starting, then, from these two positions, which will receive
their more complete verification in the sequel, viz., (1) that it
cannot be assumed as a first principle that the sense put upon
the Old Testament by the New Testament writers will always
and necessarily coincide with the proper historical sense, or,
in other words, that the New Testament writers interpret the
Old Testament with infallible authority ; and (2) that in point
of fact the sense put upon the Old Testament by the New
Testament writers does not as a rule coincide with the proper
historical sense, but ideas foreign to the Old Testament are
read into it in accordance with the loose popular exegesis of
the time : starting from these positions, we have now to
observe their bearing on the interpretation of Old Testament
language occurring in the New Testament, and also, more
generally, on the attempts that are commonly made to estab-
lish New Testament or Christian doctrines by the help of Old
Testament or Jewish evidences. And it is obvious that when
ideas are read into words which the words were never meant
to convey, we cannot hope to reach the ideas by rigidly inter-
preting the meaning of the words. The ideas must be ascer-
tained through the medium of words framed for the express
purpose of conveying them, and the meaning thus ascertained
may be compared, though it should not be confounded, with
the meaning of the words into which it has been imported.
When, therefore, we meet in the New Testament with words,
or phrases, or whole passages, borrowed from the Old Testa-
ment, when we meet with arguments based upon Old Testa-
ment quotations and references, and coloured by what we know
II.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 73
from other sources to have been the forms of thought and
opinion current at the time, the task of interpretation is not
altogether a simple one. We cannot insist on the exact mean-
ing of the words quoted from the Old Testament ; still less
can we insist on the whole scope of the Old Testament passage
from which the quotation is made ; for the New Testament
meaning may be quite different, or at least considerably
different, from either or both of these. We can neither
reason from the historical meaning of the Old Testament to
the meaning of the New Testament, as expressed in terms of
the Old ; nor, conversely, can we reason from the meaning of
the New Testament, as expressed in terms of Old Testament
quotations, to the historical meaning of the passages quoted, or
to that of other similar passages. We may be never so well
assured that an Old Testament writer used a combination of
words to convey a certain meaning : we cannot infer that a
New Testament writer, quoting the words, will put upon them
the same meaning. And, again, we may be never so well
assured that a New Testament writer, quoting a combination
of Old Testament words, puts upon them a certain meaning :
we cannot infer that the Old Testament writer used the words
to convey that meaning. In interpreting Old Testament
quotations, we must proceed on the assumption that the
meaning of the Old Testament is one thing, and the meaning
of the New Testament another, and that in all probability the
Old Testament writer's words do not express the New Testa-
ment writer's thought with anything like exactness. The
meaning put on an Old Testament passage by a New Testa-
ment writer must be elicited, not by a rigid historical, or even
grammatical, interpretation of the exact words, but rather by
considering the whole context and connexion of thought the
entire drift of the writer's argument and especially, if that be
possible, by comparing the meaning of other passages where
the writer expresses his ideas in literal terms framed by him-
self. It is implied in this, that in seeking to determine the
New Testament conception of religion, or of the plan of salva-
tion as a whole, we cannot start from the Old Testament
phraseology in which it is sometimes couched ; we cannot take
us our fundamental passages passages borrowed from the Old
74 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
Testament, pressing the strictest and most literal meaning, of
Old Testament words and phrases, and ignoring entirely, or
ruling out of court, those more numerous and far more impor-
tant passages where the same ideas are embodied in language
framed for the express purpose of conveying them. On the
contrary, we must adopt a principle and pursue a method pre-
cisely the reverse of this. We must start from the language
of the New Testament itself, taking as our fundamental pas-
sages passages in which New Testament ideas are embodied in
strictly New Testament words ; and then, having ascertained
the ideas, we may employ them, in conjunction with the
several contexts, to determine the meaning put upon Old
Testament quotations and allusions. And if we do this, the
task of interpreting the Old Testament in the New, and of
correctly apprehending and denning the plan of salvation, will
not, I believe, involve any insuperable difficulty.
This brings us to the most general aspect of the relation _
between the Old and New Testaments. However deeply-
rooted may be the practice of quoting the Old Testament in
support of doctrines taught or supposed to be taught in the
New, it is a practice attended with serious drawbacks, and
one which, if the principles just laid down possess any measure
of soundness, cannot well be defended. An example or two
will show clearly the nature of the difficulties incident to it.
Nothing is more common than to meet in writers on " the
Atonement " with a string of quotations from Isaiah liii.,
introduced under cover of the remark that the chapter is so
frequently and so fully quoted as applicable to Christ in the
New Testament as to be to all intents and purposes New
Testament Scripture. But even if every sentence in the
chapter were quoted, and applied to Christ by every one of
the New Testament writers, there would still exist an immea-
surable difference between it and New Testament Scripture.
New Testament language, strictly so-called, is language framed
for the express purpose of conveying New Testament thought,
that is, among other things, for describing the nature of the
work of Christ ; but if we may trust the historical indications,
including the express and repeated declarations of the writer
himself. (Isa. xli. 8; xliv. 1, 21; xlix. 3, 5, cf. Hi. 13, seq.), the
II.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 75
language of Isaiah liii. was framed for another and a very
different purpose. The fact that Isaiah liii. is applied to
Christ in the New Testament no more proves that the
language of that chapter was intended by the original writer
to describe the work of Christ than the same fact in regard to
Psalm xl. 6-8 proves that the bungling and nonsensical trans-
lation of these verses by the LXX. was intended to convey the
meaning put upon it by the author of Hebrews (x. 5, seq.).
And if the language of Isaiah liii. was not intended by the
original writer to describe the work of Christ, what guarantee
have we that it is in the least fitted to do so ? The New
Testament ideas may be as utterly foreign to the Old Testa-
ment language in this case as in cases like Ps. viii. ; Ps. xcv. ;
Ex. xxv. 40; Gen. xxii. 18; Ps. Ixviii. 18; Ps. xvi. 10, &c. It
would only be in keeping with the whole character and
principles of New Testament quotation if the work of Christ,
as conceived by the apostles, were clothed in Old Testament
forms of speech quite unsuited to the accurate representation
of such a thing. Indeed, if the work of Christ be, as theo-
logians represent it to be, absolutely unique, and if the
language of Isaiah liii. was originally framed to describe, not
the work of Christ, but something else, then it follows of
course that the language of Isaiah liii. cannot supply an
accurate description of the work of Christ. And if the
original sense of the words be different from the ideas
imported into them, it is idle to think of establishing the
nature of the ideas by strictly interpreting the meaning of the
words, that is, it is idle and purposeless to quote the chapter
at all. We cannot even define the extent of the difference
between the New Testament ideas and the natural sense
of the Old Testament words, without, in the first instance,
defining the former by means of evidence independent of the
latter ; and in these circumstances it is preposterous to use
Isaiah liii. for the purpose of proving the nature of "the Atone-
ment."
Again, to take another example. It is well-nigh universally
assumed by the class of writers just referred to, that the Old
Testament bloody sacrifices must have been instituted by God
to prefigure the work of Christ, because such is the view of
76 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
the New Testament writers, that the Old Testament priests
must have been appointed and intended to prefigure Christ
himself, because such is the view of the author of Hebrews,
and, consequently, that both the one and the other, both the
priests and the sacrifices, must afford a literally accurate repre-
sentation of Christ and His work. Accordingly, nine- tenths
and more of the evidence adduced in support of the current
doctrine of " the Atonement " is drawn, not from the New
Testament, not from the proper statements of the apostolic
writers, least of all from the statements of Jesus himself,
respecting the meaning of His earthly experiences and their
bearing on the salvation of men, but either from the Old
Testament directly and this to a very large extent or from
the Old Testament as quoted, interpreted, and applied in the
New. But the opinion of the New Testament writers no more
proves that the Old Testament bloody sacrifices were intended
to foreshadow the saving work of Christ than it proves that all
the parts of the earthly material tabernacle were copied from
a heavenly immaterial archetype, which Moses saw on the
mount. The opinion of the author of Hebrews no more
proves that the Old Testament priests were appointed as types
of Christ than it proves that Melchizedek was an eternal, self-
existent, supernatural being, the prototype of the only begotten
Son of God. The view of the writer to the Hebrews as to the
priestly character of Christ is avowedly based on Psalm ex.
(v. 6; vii. 17, 21), and the Psalm, when interpreted as the
author interprets it, involves the absurdly extravagant con-
ception of Melchizedek, whose supernatural origin and destiny,
like those of Christ himself, lie at the foundation, and con-
stitute the very essence of his priesthood. Beyond doubt,
also, the same author rests his whole case for the typical
nature of "the law," or the ritual system generally, on a
series of Old Testament passages, which he interprets in his
own peculiar Kabbinical style partly on what is implied in
the priestly character of Christ already supposed to be proved
from Scripture (v. 5, 6, seq,\ partly on Ex. xxv. 40 (viii. 5, seq.}
and Ps. xl. 6-8 (x. 5-7, seq) -the latter of these passages being
flagrantly mistranslated after the LXX., and both being palpably
misinterpreted and partly on Jer. xxxi. 31, seq. (viii. 8-12,
II.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 77
seq.) a passage in which the prophet more suo anticipates
that the future Messianic form of the kingdom of God will be
much the same as the past and present Sinaitic form. In
short (as will be proved in detail hereafter) the whole typo-
logical fabric of the epistle is suspended on the popular,
artificial, unhistorical interpretation of a few isolated Old
Testament texts, into which a meaning is read entirely foreign
to the words used in the connection in which they originally
stood. It is but stating the bare literal truth to say, that the
author's typology has no foundation whatever save in his own
imagination, and that the Old Testament passages on which it
is professedly based, so far from having been meant to convey
the meaning imposed upon them, simply cannot be so under-
stood without committing the interpreter to positions of which
it would be difficult to decide whether they are more extrava-
gant in themselves or mutually contradictory in their issues.
There is, therefore, no more evidence to prove that the Jewish
priests and sacrifices were intended by God to foreshadow
Christ and the work of human salvation than there is to prove
that the heathen priests and sacrifices were intended by God
to do the same. The opinion of the New Testament writers
is no evidence that the Old Testament sacrificial system was
instituted by God at all, far less is it evidence that it was
instituted for such a purpose as is commonly supposed and
taken for granted. The opinion of the New Testament writers,
if it prove anything, proves a great deal too much, and there-
fore proves nothing. Whether the Jewish sacrificial system was
in fact instituted by God, or whether, like the heathen systems,
it grew up naturally, is a point for historical interpretation to
settle ; adhuc sub judice Us est. What can be safely enough
affirmed is that the settlement of the question on one side or
the other will not in the least affect either the nature or the
validity of the saving work of Christ. It will, I believe, be
conclusively shown that the New Testament writers, by the
help of the current exegetical method, project the spiritual
realities of the Gospel back into the physical moulds of the
ritual law, and, of course, neither the character of Christ,
nor the nature of His work, can be in the least affected by
being first read into the Old Testament and then read out of
78 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
it again ; nor, consequently, would the plan of salvation be in
the least altered or invalidated whatever the historical origin
and meaning of the ritual system were proved to be. Only,
since there is no more real evidence to prove that the Jewish
sacrifices were instituted and intended to prophesy the work of
Christ than there is to prove that the heathen sacrifices were
instituted and intended to prophecy the work of Christ, since
there exists a decided a priori presumption in favour of
identity of origin as well as identity of meaning in cases so
closely analogous, since there is not the slightest indication in
any part of the Old Testament that the ritual system had
a pregnant prophetic significance, or that it was meant
to foreshadow something better and higher than itself, since
no one in Old Testament times did or could conceivably
have divined such an inscrutable reference, and since the
exegetical reasonings of the author of Hebrews, on which the
typical interpretation is based, are flagrantly and palpably
unhistorical, since they are such as to render it quite obvious
that he is reading Christian ideas into the Old Testament
instead of extracting them out of it : in the face of these
things it is worse than useless to think of establishing the
nature of the Christian scheme of salvation by an appeal
to the nature of Jewish sacrifice.
Now, what is true of these two examples is true in an equal
degree of the entire Old Testament. From the circumstance
that the New Testament writers regard the whole Old Testa-
ment as directly Messianic, ignoring anything like development
in the attainment of religious truth, they are constantly under
the necessity of importing the contents of New Testament
revelation into the record of Old Testament revelation. But
the principles of scientific exegesis absolutely forbid us to deal
with the Old Testament in such a fashion. In seeking to
establish Christian doctrine, we must apply the same principles
of exegesis to the Old Testament which we apply to the New,
that is, we must follow the strict historical method, and
renounce entirely the method of the New Testament writers.
Even passages of the Old Testament already quoted and inter-
preted in the New will require to be interpreted afresh, before
they can be of any service towards the elucidation and estab-
II.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 79
lishment of Christian ideas. Such being the case, it appears a
question whether we ought to mix up the Old Testament and
the New at all, or make any attempt by means of the one to
establish the doctrines contained in the other. In dealing
with the Old Testament, we cannot follow the method (if
method it can be called) of the New Testament writers, for
that would involve the entire renunciation of the historical
method, and therewith the overthrow of all certainty in inter-
pretation, and of the possibility of Christian doctrine ; whilst
if we follow the historical method, the utmost confusion is
likely to arise. We should then have the New Testament
writers quoting texts in support of their doctrine, and we our-
selves quoting possibly the same texts but putting upon them
a different sense. Besides, the mere fact that the New Testa-
ment writers have as a rule to read their ideas into the Old
Testament before extracting them out of it ought to convince
us that the relation between Old Testament doctrine and New
Testament doctrine is not such as to warrant direct proof of
the one by means of the other. I do not mean to suggest
that there is not essential agreement between the religious
systems of the Old and New Testaments ; on the contrary,
I hope to contribute something towards setting that agreement
on a much broader and safer basis than that on which it at
present rests ; but the historical study of the Bible has long
since demonstrated that the relation between its two main
divisions is much more accurately described by the word con-
tinuity than by the word unity. The old theologians, taking
their cue from the New Testament writers, read the whole
Gospel into the opening chapters of Genesis, and of course into
all the succeeding chapters of that and the other Old Testa-
ment books ; but the advance of historical exegesis has taught
us, their successors, a very different lesson. And it stands to
reason that if the New Testament writers themselves could
find in the Old Testament support for their peculiar doctrines
only by departing from the , historical sense, we who keep to
the historical sense shall find no support at all. Anyhow, it
is certain that if historical interpretation and that alone be
applied to the Old Testament, the direct support which it will
be found to lend to the characteristic doctrines of the Gospel
8o PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
will be reduced within very narrow limits. In that case I am
not aware that our knowlege of the Christian plan of salvation
would be in the least extended or confirmed by anything con-
tained in the Jewish Scriptures. I believe, in fact, that the
New Testament furnishes ample materials for settling the
exact nature of the doctrines it was written to teach, and that
the Old Testament reveals nothing that is not much more fully
and clearly revealed in the New Testament itself. More-
over, anything like mixing up of the two Testaments is to be
strongly deprecated in the interests of a correct understanding
of both. For it would be difficult to name any single circum-
stance that has tended more powerfully to retard the progress
of the higher exegesis, and even the higher criticism, of the
Bible than just the assumption, countenanced by New Testa-
ment authority, of an artificial unity or uniformity pervading
it from beginning to end. On the one hand, the criticism and
exegesis of the Old Testament have been held chained to the
critical and exegetical notions prevalent in the days of the
apostles ; and, on the other hand, the fundamental doctrines
of the New Testament have been confounded with the for-
mulae and rites and symbols of the Old into which they are
sometimes read. The only correct assumption is, that the Old
Testament or the law is one thing and the New Testament or
the Gospel another, that each must be interpreted historically
" like any other book," and that the results obtained may be
compared, but ought not to be confounded, with one another,
as if the subject-matter of the former were obviously and
necessarily identical with that of the latter. The reader is
not therefore to look in the present work for any references to
the Old Testament in proof of the principles which it contains.
Such references will, on the contrary, be studiously avoided
for the reasons which have been stated. Nevertheless, if the
result of our investigations should be to show that there exists
complete continuity between the teaching of Jesus and His
apostles, when stripped of foreign accretions, and all merely
illustrative, oratorical, or other ephemeral elements, and that
part of the teaching of Moses and the prophets which has the
strongest claim to be regarded as genuine, we may be able to
accomplish something, less or more, towards the opening up
II.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY, 81
of a way for the final solution of complicated and difficult
questions of Old Testament criticism now impending.
To return to the Old Testament words quoted above :
" Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned unto him for
righteousness." Let us see how far the general remarks which
have now been made will aid us in the interpretation of them.
That these words, when viewed from the strict historical stand-
point, not only do not convey, but are positively and irrecon-
cilably at variance with, the opinion that the obedience and
sufferings of Christ were imputed to Abraham for righteous-
ness in the first moment of faith, has been already sufficiently
shown. Apart from apostolic precedent and authority, no
one would have ever dreamt of finding such a meaning in the
passage of Genesis from which the words are taken, nor is it
conceivable that the author of Genesis could have intended to
convey such a meaning. The natural sense of the writer's
words is that, when Abraham believed the promise of God,
the moral attitude of Abraham's mind was an 'attitude con-
formable to the mind and will of God, the standard of moral
rectitude, and that the act of faith on the part of Abraham
was regarded by God as being what it was, a righteous act
Abraham being treated accordingly. It is not meant that a
single supreme act of faith was accepted by God in lieu of the
perfect obedience of a lifetime, and that Abraham, in all time
coming, no matter how he might act, was regarded by God as
being perfectly righteous, and treated as such that were a
very strange meaning to put upon words so simple ; far less is
it meant that the righteousness, or rather the obedience arid
sufferings, of another party viz., Christ were imputed to
Abraham from without, so as to become the substitute for his
perfect personal righteousness of that there is not the smallest
trace, and the idea might well be considered as not merely extra-
vagant but utterly absurd. All that is meant is that, at the
time specified, Abraham, having played a righteous part, or
done what he ought to have done, was regarded with moral
approval or complacency by God.
It does not follow, however, that the simple and natural
meaning of the quotation is the meaning put upon it by the
G
82 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
Apostle Paul. On the contrary, there is some reason to think
that a special pregnant sense was attached to the words in
the popular theology of the day, that the text had become a
cardinal text in the Jewish schools at the time when the New
Testament was written, that peculiar inferences had been
founded, and theories built, upon it, and that the Apostles
Paul and James, in each quoting and applying the words to
support their respective views, were simply turning to account
the method and results of the current exegesis. This, and
nothing else, will account at once for the frequency with which
the words are quoted, for the pregnant significance always
attached to them, and for the fact that the two apostles
appear to found on them not only different but almost opposite
inferences. And if such were the case, the meaning put upon
the words by either apostle is much more likely to be a
meaning imported into them than a meaning extracted from
them, since it is highly improbable that the peculiar doctrine
of either Paul or James, on the subject of justification, was
present to the mind of the author of Genesis. Indeed, the
mere fact that both writers find support each for his own
argument in the same quotation, while the arguments of the
two are different, if not opposite, is a sufficient proof that the
fundamental ideas of both are entirely independent of the
words quoted, and that each is simply forcing Old Testament
evidence to commend and give weight to his own views and
exhortations. But if the ideas of Paul lie quite behind, and
are not in the least dependent on, the quotation by which he
supports them, then there is no saying from the exact terms
of the quotation what his ideas may or may not be. We
cannot even be certain that he does not read into the Old
Testament words the theological doctrine of imputation, in its
special application to the righteousness of Christ, though that
doctrine is directly opposed to their plain and obvious meaning.
That the Apostle James does not deduce that doctrine from
the words which he quotes is universally admitted. Whether
James did or did not hold the doctrine of imputation is
another matter ; as also whether James' view of justification
be or be not reconcilable with the view of Paul. Without
venturing any opinion on either of these questions at present,
II.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 83
it may be affirmed with the utmost confidence that the infer-
ence which James bases on the quotation is not the idea that
the obedience and sufferings of Christ were imputed to
Abraham in the first moment of faith. James' application
of the quotation may be forced and arbitrary enough, but at
least he does not apply it so. The meaning he reads into it
may be as directly opposed to the natural sense of the words
as would be the doctrine of imputation itself, but no one dare
pretend that it is actually the doctrine of imputation. And
yet even this will by no means prove that the Apostle Paul
does not read into the words the doctrine of imputation; only,
the fact that he does so will require to be distinctly proved,
either from the connection of thought in the present passage,
or from other parallel passages.
Little light is cast on the apostle's meaning by the mere
repetition throughout the chapter of the expression quoted
from Gen. xv. 6. Nor is the matter mended, but rather
additional confusion is introduced, by the presence of a second
quotation from Ps. xxxii. : " Blessed are they whose iniquities
are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man
unto whom the Lord will not reckon sin." Theologians infer
from these words that the remission or the covering of sins,
which is identified with the cancelling of their penalties,
is one of the effects of the imputation of Christ's righteous-
ness, the other effect being the acceptance of the believer as
righteous in the sight of God, which is equivalent to the con-
ferring of the reward ; that is to say, the sins of the believer
are remitted, and he is accepted as righteous by God, on the
ground that the righteousness [= obedience + sufferings] of
Christ has been imputed to him. All this, however, can be
extracted from the apostle's language only by a process of
manifest distortion, exaggeration, and perversion. In no part
of the chapter does the apostle say one word about Christ's
righteousness; still less, if possible, does he make mention of
Christ's obedience and sufferings. What he speaks of is
simply righteousness, and by all the laws of language the
word must denote a quality of moral character belonging to
the individual of whom it is predicated. Again, the inference
that the remission of sins is conditioned by the previous
84 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
imputation of righteousness is not only gratuitous, and without
warrant in the text, but the opposite inference, that the imputa-
tion of righteousness is conditioned by the previous remission
of sins, is evidently the correct one. The man " to whom God
reckoneth righteousness " is not a man whose iniquities shall
on that ground be forgiven, but a man " whose iniquities have
been forgiven whose sins have been covered." The language
of the Psalm, being borrowed language, must of course be
interpreted with some caution, but there is no reason to think
that in the present instance it expresses the opposite of what
the apostle intends. The quotation is obviously introduced
as a companion to the other, because the word reckon happens
to occur in it, and the concluding clause, " to whom the
Lord will not reckon sin," is construed as the exact equivalent
of the clause above (v. 6), " to whom God reckoneth righteous-
ness." Both clauses describe the one positively, the other
negatively the permanent relation of God to the believer
after his sins have been remitted, which means, or at least
implies, that they have been entirely removed or done away,
and that the believer is now righteous. The non -reckoning
of sin to the believer must not be regarded as identical with
the remission or covering of sin, but as the tenses plainly
indicate with the reckoning of righteousness, which latter is
neither a single act, nor yet, properly speaking, a series of acts,
but a continuous permanent state or attitude of the mind of
God toward the believer. It is a grave mistake to suppose
that the point of the quotation lies in the first half, which
speaks of the remission or covering of sin ; rather, the idea of
remission is here a purely accessary idea not specially before
the writer, who is dealing with the more general question as
to the attainment of positive righteousness ; the real point of
the quotation lies in the second half, where the word reckon
occurs, and the remission of sins after being brought in for
completeness' sake, is at once permitted to fall into the back-
ground. The meaning is : when the believer's sins have been
remitted, covered, done away, God regards him thenceforth as
righteous he does not regard him any more as sinful; in other
words, God thenceforth reckons righteousness to him he does
not any more reckon sin to him. The imputation of righteous-
II.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 85
ness, therefore, is so far from being the ground of the remis-
sion of sins that, on the contrary, the remission of sins is the
ground of the imputation of righteousness. And, since the
remission of sins (limiting the expression, if you please, to the
remission of penalties) is indisputably a life-long process or
series of acts in all ordinary cases, it follows that the attain-
ment of righteousness, whatever its method and conditions,
must, as to its form, be a life-long process.
Apart from the remission of sins, which is merely accessary
to the present passage though the grounds and manner of it
are fully discussed elsewhere two conditions, a positive and
a negative, are specified as preceding the attainment of the
righteousness which God reckons. On the one hand, the
righteousness is "righteousness of faith" (vv. 11, 13) faith
in "God who quickeneth the dead" (v. 17), who "raised
Jesus our Lord from the dead" (v. 24) faith the same in
kind as that which Abraham possessed. The apostle cannot
mean by this expression that the righteousness of which he
speaks is absolutely identical with the state of mind which we
call faith ; for, in that case, it would be absurd to discuss the
question whether righteousness be or be not attainable by the
works of the law as distinguished from faith. The " righteous-
ness of faith " can only mean the righteousness produced by
faith, the righteousness which faith is the means of calling
into existence, the state of moral character which co-exists
with faith ; in the apostle's own language, the righteousness
which is "through faith in Jesus Christ, unto all them that
believe" (iii. 22). Further, the apostle's idea cannot be the
bare historical one that when Abraham believed the promise
of God, his state of mind in doing so was regarded by God as
a right state of mind. The connection makes it quite clear
that the righteousness spoken of by the apostle is a universal
thing, comparable to that produced by the law when perfectly
obeyed, a thing which entitles to the reward of perfect obedi-
ence, if not as a matter of debt, at least as a matter of grace ;
a thing, therefore, which presupposes the complete remission
or covering of sin (v. 7). In the quotation from Psalm xxxii.
there is no mention of faith directly, but the presence of faith
is implied in the fact that sin has been remitted. The
86 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
remission, and consequent non-reckoning, of sin, as well as
the reckoning of righteousness, are conceived of as having a
universal sweep co-extensive with the whole breadth of the
law, or with the whole character of the individual. What is
remitted and not reckoned is the sum-total of the individual's
sins ; what is reckoned is the sum-total of the law's demands,
even as it is said elsewhere, " Christ is the end of the law
for righteousness to every one that believeth " (x. 4).
On the other hand, the righteousness which God reckons is
righteousness " apart from works " (vv. 5, 6), apart from
circumcision (v. 10), apart from the law (vv. 13, 14 ; iii. 21)
righteousness which may be possessed by parties who have
never been circumcised, nor so much as received the law for
the purpose of obeying it (vv. 10, 16). In what sense is the
righteousness of which the apostle speaks apart from the law ?
Is it apart from the law in the sense that it does not consist
in a state of character corresponding to the import or essence
of the law ? or is it apart from the law merely in the sense
that it does not consist in a state of character called into
existence by the letter of the law, apart from faith and the
Divine Spirit which faith appropriates ? In saying that
Abraham's righteousness was not from, or through, or by
the works of the law, but from, or through, or by faith, does
the apostle mean that the righteousness of Abraham differed
from ordinary righteousness in its nature, or in the fact that
it was not the well-known quality of moral character which
passes under that name? or does he rather mean that the
righteousness of Abraham differed from ordinary righteousness
in its origin, or in the fact that it was created or called into
existence by the power of the Spirit of God received through
faith, instead of being created or called into existence by the
power of the letter of the laiv, operating through his flesh or
natural humanity ? There can, I think, be no doubt what-
ever that the latter of these answers is the correct one. The
point of the apostle's antithesis is clear : not /row, or through,
or by the works of the law meaning especially the external
or ceremonial ordinances, which were supposed to be so all-
important, and which were really so perfectly indifferent but
from, or through, or by faith ; the Spirit, by whose agency
II.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 87
the "new creature" (Gal. vi. 15) is formed, being received
through the latter, not through the former (Gal. iii. 2). This
antithesis between what is, or can be, done by human nature
in union with the Divine, and what is, or can be, done by
human nature in separation from the Divine, measures the
whole distance between true religion and false, between dead
naturalistic Judaism (i.e., Judaism as it existed in the apostolic
age) and living spiritual Christianity; and it is the only
antithesis before the apostle's mind. The apostle has no
thought of distinguishing between righteousness which is a
quality of the moral character of the individual to whom it
belongs, and righteousness which is something else ; it is not
the nature of the thing called righteousness that he is
concerned to discuss, but the means or method of attaining
to righteousness, the nature of which is presumed to be known.
The word righteousness always has the same meaning, and
describes that state of the moral character in virtue of which
it corresponds to, or meets the requirements of, the law
meaning, of course, the essential element of the law what we
are accustomed to name the moral, and to distinguish from
the ceremonial law, the element that was seen by the apostle,
though not by his opponents, to be purely unessential, acci-
dental, or indifferent to be, in fact, no proper part of the
law at all. It is of the very idea and essence of righteousness
to be an attribute of a moral character perfectly fulfilling the
law, and hence the possession of righteousness by the believer
presupposes the complete remission, which implies the entire
removal or destruction, of sin (v. 7). Even the righteousness
of God or of Christ consists in a state of character answering
to the requirements of the law, and is, in that sense, not apart
from, but identical with, the works or righteousness of the
law. And that the righteousness of faith, spoken of by the
apostle, is not different as to its nature from the righteous-
ness of the law, is plain from innumerable passages.
Take, for example, the following : " What shall we say
then ? That the Gentiles, which followed not after righteous-
ness, attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which
is by faith ; but Israel, which followed after the law of right-
eousness [by natural effort], did not arrive at the law. Where-
88 PRINCIPLES OP CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
fore ? Because they sought it not by faith, but, as it were,
by works" (Rom. ix. 30-32). Here, evidently, the object
which the Gentiles attained, and which Israel sought to attain,
but could not, is one and the same righteousness, the sum of
the law's demands : the only difference lies in the means or
method of attaining it, which is, on the one hand, spiritual
faith ; on the other, natural works. To Israel, the letter of
the law had been given, and this had been followed after,
obedience having been attempted apart from faith in God,
with the result that righteousness, or true spiritual obedience,
had not been attained. The Gentiles, to whom the letter of
the law had not been given, who could not therefore follow
after righteousness by attempting to obey the law apart from
faith in God, believed the Gospel of Christ, and so attained to
righteousness, or true spiritual obedience, apart from the
works of the law. The Gentiles, that is to say, attained by
Divine grace and strength, and without ceremonial observances,
to that which the Jews unsuccessfully sought to attain by
natural effort, and with ceremonial observances. The obedi-
ence or righteousness of the former was the fruit of the Spirit,
received from God by faith, and was a real fulfilment only,
of the kernel or moral part of the law ; the obedience or
righteousness of the latter was the fruit of the flesh, received
from nature apart from faith, and was a real fulfilment only, of
the husk or ceremonial part of the law (Gal. iii. 2, 3 ; Phil. iii.
3-14). In the one case, therefore, righteousness was attained, by
faith, apart from the works (soil, the ceremonial works) of the
law ; in the other case, righteousness was not attained, by the
works (scil. the ceremonial works) of the law, apart from faith.
Again : " For circumcision indeed profiteth if thou be a doer
of the law; but if thou be a transgressor of the law thy circum-
cision is become uncircumcision. If, therefore, the uncircumcision
keep the ordnances of the law, shall not his uncircumcision be
reckoned for circumcision ? And shall not the uncircumcision
which is by nature, if it fulfil the law, judge [condemn]
thee, who with the letter and circumcision art a transgressor of
the law ? For he is not a Jew which is one outwardly ;
neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh; but
he is a Jew which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of
II.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 89
the heart, in the spirit ; whose praise is not of men but of
God " (Rom. ii. 25-29). " We are the circumcision, who serve
God [ = fulfil the law] by the Spirit of God, and glory in Christ
Jesus, having no confidence in the flesh " (Phil. iii. 3). These
verses bring out clearly the fact that " neither is circumcision
anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature," created by
the Divine Spirit, received through " faith which worketh by
love," the true, and only true, " fulfilling of the law " (Gal. vi.
15; v. 6, 14); in other words, that observance of the cere-
monial law is a matter of perfect indifference, and that the
sole requisite to acceptance with God is regeneration cir-
cumcision of the heart or spirit as the source of obedience to
the moral law. The points of antithesis are : man in the flesh
or the state of nature circumcised in accordance with the
injunctions of the ceremonial law failing to keep the ordi-
nances of the moral law condemned before God : man in
the spirit or the state of grace, regeneration, or renewal
uncircumcised in spite of the injunctions of the ceremonial
law keeping the ordinances of the moral law justified
before God. The righteousness attained in the one case is the
man's own, being produced by the power and working of his
flesh or natural humanity the corresponding reward being con-
ferred as a matter of debt, and not as a matter of grace. The
righteousness attained in the other case is not the man's own,
but God's or Christ's, being produced by the power and work-
ing of the Spirit of God or of Christ the corresponding reward
being conferred as a matter of grace, and not as a matter of
debt. Agreeably to this, it is said elsewhere : " Not by works
done in righteousness, which we did ourselves, but according
to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regenera-
tion and renewing of the Holy Ghost, which He poured out
upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Saviour, that being
justified by His grace we might be made heirs according to
the hope of eternal life" (Titus iii. 5-7). That the points of
antithesis in Rom. iv. are the same as in these passages is
evident, not only in general from the closeness of the paral-
lelism, but in particular from the fact that the apostle finds a
decisive proof that Abraham's righteousness was attained by
grace and faith as distinguished from the works of the law in the
90 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
circumstance that it was attained before, and not after, he was
circumcised ; if observance of the ceremonial law were what
Paul's opponents imagined and alleged it to be an essential
condition of salvation, or of acceptance with God, Abraham
could not have been reckoned and pronounced righteous by
God while still in uncircumcision. What could .be more
manifest, therefore, than that the position which the apostle
is engaged in combating is not that righteousness consists in
a new moral character, or in obedience to the moral law, but
rather that obedience to the ceremonial law is essential to true
righteousness, or to salvation ? On the latter point the apostle
maintained the negative ; his opponents the affirmative.
Once more : " Not the hearers of the law are righteous
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 according to my gospel" (Rom. ii. 13-16). " By the
works of the law shall no flesh be justified before Him ; for
through the law cometh the knowledge of sin" (iii. 20).
These two passages, when taken together, express as distinctly
as human language could express, in what precise sense the
righteousness on which the completed justification of the
believer will turn is and is not the work of the law. It is
not the work of the law in the sense that it is peculiar to the
hearers of the law, being called into existence by the power
of the letter of the law ; on the contrary, the letter of the law,
operating as the letter must operate through the flesh, or
natural humanity, " could not " call it into existence (viii. 3) ;
the letter of the law sufficed merely to call into existence the
knowledge of sin (iii. 20), or to work wrath (iv. 15) ; so that
by the works of the law in this sense "no flesh can be justi-
fied." It is the work of the law in the sense that it consists
in being and doing what the law demands as opposed to being
and doing what the law forbids (ii. 13), in fulfilling the ordi-
nance or essence of the law, by being in the Spirit and walking
after the Spirit, instead of being in the flesh and walking after
the flesh (viii. 4), in living the new life proper to the new
creature, so that the law as a condemning power is excluded,
and justification is the necessary, though gracious, result (Gal.
v. 16, 23, 13, 14).
II.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 91
Above all: "Was not Abraham, our father, justified by
works, in that he offered up Isaac, his son, upon the altar ?
Thou seest that faith wrought with his works, and by works
was faith made perfect ; and the Scripture was fulfilled which
saith, ' Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned unto him
for righteousness, and he was called the friend of God.' Ye
see that by works a man is justified, and not only by faith.
. . . For, as the body, apart from the spirit, is dead, even
so faith, apart from works, is dead" (James ii. 21-26). "We,
being Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles, yet,
knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law,
save through faith in Jesus Christ, even we believed on Christ
Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ, and not
by the works of the law ; because by the works of the law
shall no flesh be justified" (Gal. ii. 15, 16). These quota-
tions, again, read as if framed for the express purpose of
defining the righteousness which justifies in its relation to
the works of the law. The works of the law, by which
no flesh can be justified, are the works of " Jews by nature,"
to whom, as opposed to the Gentiles, the letter of the law
was given the works done by men in their fleshly natural
state, antecedent to and independent of faith (eav w $ia
Tr/crreo)?) works which, while mainly and characteristically
ceremonial, are exclusively dead, external, and unspiritual.
The works by which a man is justified by which Abraham,
in particular, was justified are works subsequent to and
springing from faith works of which faith is the source,
the soul, the animating principle, and by which it is com-
pleted or made perfect works done in the renewed spiritual
state which faith, appropriating the Divine Spirit, is the
means of calling into existence fruits of the Spirit or new
creature, conformed to the image of Him that created him,
where there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcision and
uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond-man, free-man, but
Christ is all and in all (Col. iii. 9-11 ; Gal. iii. 28, 29).
These works satisfy what the Apostle Paul speaks of as the
" ordinance" (Rom. viii. 4), "ordinances" (ii. 26), or essential
moral parts of the law, which are summed up " in one word,
even in this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself"
92 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
(Gal. v. 14) in contradistinction to the merely accidental or
unessential ceremonial parts, such as the oft-mentioned rite
of circumcision (Gal. ii. 3, 4 ; v. 3), eating with Gentiles
(ii. 12, seq.), observing days and months, and seasons and
years (iv. 10), &c. It was against unqualified submission
to these latter, as necessary to salvation, that Paul waged
a warfare so deadly, because, when a man was found taking
his stand upon rites and ceremonies, which were matters
of absolute indifference, as if they were quite essential and
indispensable, it was a sure token to the apostle's mind
that he was falling back into a religion of pure naturalism,
in which faith, and fellowship with God, and true moral
righteousness, had no place. "Behold, I, Paul, say unto
you, that if ye receive circumcision, Christ will profit you
nothing. Yea, I testify again to every man that receiveth
circumcision, that he is a debtor to do the whole law [in
his own natural fleshly state (vi. 12)]. Ye are brought
to nought from Christ, ye who would be justified by the
law; ye are fallen away from grace. For we, through the
Spirit [received] by faith, wait for the hope of [perfected]
righteousness" (Gal. v. 2-5). Nothing could be more evi-
dent than that the antithesis here is between naturalism
and spiritualism, or between what can be attained by man
"in the flesh," which means apart from Christ, and what
can be attained by man "in the Spirit," which means in
union with Christ ; there is no trace of an antithesis of
any other kind, such as between a righteousness that is
subjective or inherent, and a righteousness that is objective
or imputed ; such an antithesis would have been utterly
meaningless and out of place, since it would not have
touched the question at issue between the apostle and his
opponents, which bore, not on the subjectivity or objectivity
of true righteousness, but on the transitoriness or per-
manence of the ceremonial law (Acts xv.) It was because
the ceremonial law belonged to the sphere of naturalism,
or to " the elements of the world " (iv. 3), and tended to
keep those who practised it in that sphere arid away from
Christ, that the apostle felt bound to join issue against it.
When ceremonial observances, of which the type was circum-
II.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 93
cision, were clearly perceived to be matters of indifference,
the apostle had no objection to practising them ; for then
it was distinctly understood both wherein salvation consisted,
and how alone it could be attained that neither was circum-
cision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature (vi.
15), faith working through love (v. 6), or the keeping of
the commandments of God (1 Cor. vii. 19) that is, the
precepts of the 'moral law. Only when it was put forward
as the main part of true righteousness, or as a thing abso-
lutely necessary to salvation, did the ceremonial law come
to be stigmatised as a " yoke of bondage," from which Christ
had set His people free (Gal. v. 1), because only then did it
become really inimical to the existence and prosperity of
true religion. And, of course, nothing but the practice of
the ceremonial law is ever so stigmatised. Such language
is never applied, and could not possibly be applied, to what
is essential and enduring in the law, when viewed by itself
or in separation from what is unessential and evanescent
which, however, it would be if men were, as Luther imagined
they were, justified by faith alone.
In one point, indeed, Luther is to be commended as having
seen much deeper than the bulk of his followers, proximate as
well as recent. He saw that his doctrine was as directly con-
tradicted by the language of the epistle of James as human
language could contradict it, a truth which three centuries
and a half has hardly sufficed to teach them. Justification is
not by faith alone, if by that is meant that faith is the sole
subjective condition on the ground of which a man is pro-
nounced righteous ; but it is, if you please (and this was what
Paul's opponents denied, virtually if not openly and explicitly),
not through the law alone, but through faith meaning thereby
that not merely or chiefly the law, but faith appropriating the
grace or Spirit of Christ, is the means of calling into existence
the state of character on the ground of which a man is pro-
nounced righteous. That the moral part of the law also had
a function in the production of righteousness is expressly and
repeatedly asserted by the Apostle James, and is only apparently
denied by Paul, when he contemplates the whole law as dead
letter, and the moral part as merged or lost in the ceremonial.
94 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
This mode of contemplating and representing the law, which
is so common with Paul, and so familiar to his readers, is,
however, purely artificial, as will be proved distinctly here-
after, and as appears from the fact that the apostle himself
never abides by it, but winds up almost every epistle with a
series of moral precepts and injunctions, or with a general
exhortation to obey the moral law as a whole (e.g., Rom. xiii.
8-10 ; Gal. v. 13-15). It was only the ceremonial law that
was essentially dead or naturalistic, the moral was so merely
through association, that is, through being overshadowed and,
as it were, obliterated by the ceremonial ; and hence it was
only the ceremonial law from which the apostle's readers
really required to shake themselves free, for it alone tended
to prevent them from seeking and receiving the Spirit of
Christ. When Paul says "apart from the law," he means
apart from the dead or naturalistic law-observance which pre-
vailed in his own day, and this is equivalent to " in union
with the Spirit of Christ " as the principle of living spiritual
law-observance " the keeping of the commandments of God "
(1 Cor. vii. 19). The apostle's opponents were emphatically
law-observers, bent on imposing, alike on themselves and on
others, not merely or chiefly the essential moral part, but the
unessential ceremonial part as well, and on working out salva-
tion in their own proper strength by means of the law alone,
apart from the Spirit of God or of Christ. With them, there-
fore, Paul had merely to prove that justification was not
through the law alone, and consequently not through the
ceremonial part of the law at all, which could be obeyed
perfectly by men in their natural state, and of which faith
took no cognisance. James, on the other hand, had to deal
with men who held, not merely in theory (as Luther did),
but also in practice (as Luther happily did not do), that
justification is by faith alone, and that a man's standing
before God was not in the least dependent on the state of
his personal character. James, therefore, without by any
means repudiating the truth on which Paul insisted so strongly,
that justification is not through the law alone apart from faith
in Jesus Christ, had to bring into prominence the correlative
and complementary truth, that justification is (in spite of
II.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 95
Luther) not through faith alone apart from works of the law.
The different stand-point of the two writers is clear from the
way in which they severally contemplate the law. Paul
regards the law as a dead letter, completely divorced from
faith and the Divine Spirit which faith appropriates, and he
has in view chiefly and characteristically the ceremonial law.
James regards the law as living and operative as a means of
salvation united to faith and the Divine Spirit which faith
appropriates and he has in view exclusively the moral law.
The view of Paul, in so far as it merges the moral law in the
ceremonial, is purely artificial. The view of James is real,
being quite identical with that contained in the Sermon on
the Mount, to which the epistle of James has so many affinities.
The latter apostle dwells on the place and function of the law
as a means of attaining to righteousness : " He that looketh
into the perfect law, the law of liberty [ = the moral law
stripped of the ceremonial "yoke of bondage" (Acts xv. 10;
Gal. v. 1, &c.)], and so continueth, being not a hearer that
forgetteth, but a doer that worketh, this man shall be blessed
in his doing [= shall be justified (cf. Matt. v. 3, seq.)] . . .
If ye fulfil the royal law according to the Scripture, Thou shalt
love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well [=are righteous],
but if ye have respect of persons, ye commit sin, being con-
victed by the law as transgressors [ = being condemned]. For
whosoever shall keep the whole law and yet stumble in one
point, he is become guilty of all. For he that saith, Do not
commit adultery, saith also, Do not kill. Now if thou dost
not commit adultery, but killest, thou art become a trans-
gressor of the law. So speak ye, and so do, as men that are
to be judged [= justified or condemned] by the law of liberty"
(i. 25; ii. 8-12). In the face of such statements as these,
who shall dare to assert that the believer's standing before
God, whether in this life or at the final judgment, is inde-
pendent of, and not rather wholly dependent on, his personal
character? or to maintain that the righteousness on which
justification is based is not as real a fulfilment by the party
justified of the moral law as the sin on which condemnation is
based is a real transgression by the party condemned of the
same moral law ? James' position is exactly that of Jesus
96 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
Himself in the Sermon on the Mount. He denies that mere
faith, even if a man had it, could save him apart from works
(ii. 14); faith in itself is dead (v. 17, 26), barren (v. 20),
profitless (v. 16). He does not merely maintain, as Luther
maintained, that living or saving faith will infallibly produce
works. To him that would have appeared an identical proposi-
tion, for he holds that living or saving faith is loving or working
faith, and that faith, if it be not loving or working, is neither
living nor saving, but dead and damning (v. 19). He holds,
moreover, that faith is supplemented or perfected by works (v.
22), and that men are justified expressly on the ground that they
possess works in addition to faith (v. 24) both which points
Luther emphatically denied. The only thing that has any
appearance of lending support to the view of Luther is the
exact terms of the quotation from Genesis, which Paul and
James alike make use of to confirm their own ideas ; but even
Luther would have been obliged to admit that the exact terms
of the quotation did not express his doctrine, without being
essentially modified by having read into them, if not the works
of the believer, at least the works or righteousness of Christ ;
and, of course, as soon as we desert the exact grammatical
sense of the quoted words, we must decide upon other than
fanciful grounds what sense is read into them a thing which
Luther unfortunately did not do.
There is still one text of which some notice must be taken
before we sum up our remarks on the present chapter of
Romans. " Now, to him that worketh the reward is not
reckoned as of grace, but as of debt ; but to him that worketh
not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his
faith is reckoned for righteousness " (vv. 4, 5). The words,
" that justifieth the ungodly," are often quoted by Protestant
theologians with an air of affected triumph, as if they amounted
to an absolute demonstration in favour of the doctrine of
imputed righteousness, as if they were utterly inexplicable on
any other doctrine, and as if the whole gigantic mass of
imputation theology could be supported on this single expres-
sion. But it is surely evident that if these words prove
anything in favour of imputation, they prove a great deal too
much. Strictly interpreted, the words would imply that
II.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 97
" there is no difference " between the believer and the un-
believer in respect to godliness or ungodliness, that both alike
may be described by the epithet ungodly, and that the usual
designation of the believer in the New Testament saint
(dyios) or righteous person (Siicaios) is identical in meaning,
or is quite interchangeable, with the usual designation of the
unbeliever ungodly person (cio-e/%9) or sinner (aiuLaprcoXos).
Turn, for example, to the following chapter, where we find
the ordinary usage of the words. " For while we were yet
weak [ = unbelievers], in due season Christ died on behalf of
the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die ;
for peradventure on behalf of the good some would even dare
to die. But God commendeth His love toward us, in that
while we were yet sinners [ = unbelievers] Christ died on our
behalf. Much more, then, being now justified [ = believers =
righteous persons] in His blood, shall we be saved from the
wrath through Him. For if, while we were enemies [ = un-
believers = ungodly persons], we were reconciled to God through
the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled [ = believers
= righteous persons = friends], shall we be saved in His life "
(vv. 6-10). These verses and quotations of a similar kind
might be multiplied almost indefinitely teach, in the most
explicit manner, that the justified believer, so far from being
an ungodly person, a sinner, an enemy to God, is separated by
an unmeasured gulf (?roXXco /xaXAoy) from the unbeliever, who
is an ungodly person, a sinner, an enemy to God. I challenge
any man to produce a single example from the whole New
Testament of a believer being spoken of as an ungodly person,
or anything like it. There is none. The thing goes without
saying. How absurd would it be to speak of Abraham, for
example, as an ungodly man ! And yet it is just Abraham
of whom the apostle is speaking in the previous chapter. We
feel instinctively that the apostle cannot, in this single
instance, be departing from his own and other writers' in-
variable usage, so as to speak of the believer in Christ as an
ungodly person. The expression, "God justifieth the ungodly,"
is plainly in the nature of a paradox, which must be resolvable
like other paradoxes ; and theologians feel this as much as
I or any one else. They know that God could not pronounce
H
98 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
the believer righteous, unless he were in some sense righteous ;
they know, also, that righteous is the opposite of ungodly.
It is not pretended that the act of justifying confers righteous-
ness on the believer, or, in other words, that to justify means
to make or constitute righteous. On the contrary, it is
strenuously maintained that to justify is merely to recognise
or acknowledge the righteousness which faith has already
apprehended. If, therefore, the epithet ungodly is applicable
to the believer at the moment of justification, the epithet
righteous must be applicable to him at the same moment :
that is, the believer must be an ungodly-righteous person.
How can this be ?
Theologians resolve the paradox by saying that the believer
is "in himself" ungodly, not being ungodly in the absolute
sense like the mere unbeliever, but, on the contrary, being in
a sense righteous. The words "in himself" are not, of course,
to be found in the text of Scripture. They are imported from
without for the purpose of explaining away the simplest and
most obvious meaning of the expression, " God justifieth the
ungodly," which, on the face of it, is felt to be utterly
paradoxical and untenable. It does not, however, appear why
these particular words should be supplied by way of explana-
tion, rather than something else. Why, for example, should
we not be allowed to suggest that, as Christ died on behalf of
the ungodly, so God justifies the ungodly, but not while they
are ungodly only after they have become righteous ? God
is sometimes said to save sinners from the wrath to come, but
how preposterous would it be to infer from this that He saves
them while they are sinners, and not after they have become
saints ! No writer can be perpetually throwing in caveats to
guard himself against inferences which, on the face of them,
are utterly absurd; their own absurdity is a sufficient proof
that they are unwarranted. The apostle has been speaking of
what Abraham attained "according to the flesh" (v. 1), that
is, in his natural state, apart from faith in God. He is
discussing the possibility of a man especially a Jew, a
natural descendant of Abraham, a circumcised person working
himself into a justifiable state by mere obedience to the letter
of the law apart from faith in Jesus Christ What he says
II.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 99
about the law and works always has this meaning and implica-
tion. Witness e.g., " The law is not of faith, but the man
that doeth them [by natural effort] shall live in them " (Gal.
iii. 12); and again, " If they which are of the law be heirs,
faith is made void [being dispensed ivith entirely], and the
promise is made of none effect" (Rom. iv. 14). The apostle
denies that what his opponents were attempting, and leading
others to attempt, was possible, and asserts that God justifies
the ungodly without the intervention of such " doing the best
he can " in his fleshly or natural state. But it is distinctly
stated that faith is needful before a man can be justified, and,
though not distinctly stated in this particular passage, where
the language is moulded on an Old Testament quotation, it is
implied that faith justifies, not in and of itself, but because it
is the means of appropriating the Divine Spirit, and calling
into existence the justifiable state of character, which the law
apart from the Divine Spirit could not call into existence
(Rom. viii. 3, 4).
I would not, however, be understood to quarrel with supply-
ing the words "in himself" for the purpose of resolving the
apostle's paradoxical expression, provided we use these words
in their proper apostolic sense. The phrase " in himself " is
no doubt meant to suggest as its correlative the phrase " in
Christ," the complete thought being that the believer can be
at once righteous and ungodly by being ungodly in himself
righteous in Christ. Now, the phrase " in Christ," as will be
proved by-and-by, corresponds exactly to the phrase " in
Adam ; " and as " in Adam " means in Adam's nature, in a
nature, or character, or constitution derived from Adam, and
identical with his, so " in Christ " means in Christ's nature,
in a nature, or character, or constitution derived from Christ,
and identical with His. " If any man be in Christ, he is a
new creature created in righteousness and holiness of truth
after the image of Him that created him " (2 Cor. v. 1 7 ;
Eph. iv. 24; Col. iii. 10). And, further, as the believer is
righteous only in Christ, not in himself, so he can be justified
only in Christ, not in himself, seeing he is pronounced righteous
expressly on the ground that He is righteous. "There is now
no condemnation," but only " to them that are in Christ
ioo PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
Jesus" (Rom. viii. 1). Believers -''seek to be justified," but
only "in Christ" (Gal. ii. 17), in whom alone they can
become righteous (2 Cor. v. 21). It follows, that so far as
the believer is in himself that is, in his own nature, or
character, or constitution so far he is not justified, but lies
under sentence of condemnation ; the old " creature " in every
believer, so far from being justified in Christ, is actually in
process of being destroyed by suffering death, the wages or
penalty of sin. Thus, on the showing of theologians them-
selves, the justification of the ungodly, in the strict and proper
sense of the words, is a morbid dream of the imagination. If
the Apostle Paul were to rise from his grave, how would not
his hair stand upon end to find that his meaning had been so
absurdly misapprehended !
Such, then, so far as can be gathered from the whole con-
text and connexion of thought, is the larger meaning which
the apostle reads into the Old Testament words which he
quotes and reasons upon in Rom. iv. It cannot be denied
that there is a good deal of awkwardness in the form of
expression and reasoning throughout the chapter ; but this
is unavoidable, when the apostle is reading general or uni-
versal ideas into words tbat were meant to express special or
particular ideas. The faith of Abraham spoken of in the
words quoted was an isolated exercise of belief, accorded to a
particular promise of God at the time when it was given ; the
faith of which Paul speaks is a life-long exercise or attitude of
mind toward the person of Jesus Christ, a life-long belief in
" the witness which God hath witnessed concerning His Son "
(1 John v. 10). The righteousness of Abraham spoken of in
the words quoted was the correlative of his faith, being an
isolated individual righteous act or phase of character, which
conditioned or gave birth to the act of faith ; the righteous-
ness of which Paul speaks is likewise correlative to the faith
of which he speaks, consisting in a universally righteous char-
acter, called into existence in a life-long process, and sustained
at every step by the living breath of faith. Again, the father-
hood promised to Abraham was a natural fatherhood of many
nations of earth-born men ; the fatherhood which Paul attri-
butes to him, in accordance with his other ideas, is a spiritual
II.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 101
fatherhood of many nations of heaven-born men. The inherit-
ance promised to the natural seed of Abraham was the earthly
Canaan; the inheritance promised to the so-called spiritual
seed of Abraham is heaven. The belief of Abraham was a
belief in God's power to quicken what was as good as dead ;
the belief of which Paul speaks is a belief that God has already
quickened and raised up Jesus Christ from the dead. The
apostle adds, " Now it was not written for his sake alone that
it was imputed to him, but for our sakes also " (vv. 28, 24),-
with what measure of truth let the reader himself judge.
Still, though the apostle undoubtedly reads universal spiritual
ideas into the particular Old Testament statement, there is no
trace anywhere of the notion that the obedience and sufferings
of Christ are thought of either as having been imputed to
Abraham, or as being imputed to each believer after the
example of Abraham, in the first moment of faith. There is
not a particle of evidence that such a notion ever entered
within the horizon of Paul's, much less of James', imagina-
tion. On the contrary, there is every evidence that it did not,
since it would be destitute of all relevancy, having no points
of contact with the forms of thought and opinion current in
the apostolic age, which Paul must be supposed to be here
refuting. There is not a safer or more reliable rule, in
seeking to determine a controversial writer's meaning, than to
consider the precise doctrine or opinion against which his
argument is directed, and this test, when applied in the
present instance, absolutely forbids the idea that Paul says
one word about true righteousness being objective or imputed
instead of being subjective or inherent ; it rather points to
the fact that he is discussing the true method of attaining to
righteousness, which he asserts to be the method of spiritual
descent and spiritual obedience through faith in Jesus Christ,
instead of the method of natural descent and natural obedience
through Abraham and the law, especially the ceremonial law.
The latter method was adopted and defended by the bulk of
the "Jews by nature," the natural seed of Abraham, who
prided themselves on what they were "according to the flesh"
(Matt. iii. 9 ; Phil. iii. 3, seq.) ; the former was espoused by
Paul, the apostle of the Gentiles, who exerted all his logic and
102 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
all his energies in demolishing and discrediting the other,
in doing which he was merely following in the wake of John
the Baptist and Jesus Himself.
If the foregoing discussion has failed to convince the reader
as to what the precise meaning is which the Apostle Paul
puts upon the words, " Abraham believed God, and it was
reckoned unto him for righteousness/' the only way in which
I can hope to give him satisfaction is by concentrating upon
the chapter now examined the light reflected from a more
general and extended consideration of the apostle's doctrinal
system. Meanwhile, there is one general reflection, that
cannot but suggest itself, after much that has now been
said. We have seen that the direct evidence in favour
of the doctrine of imputation is practically confined to Rom.
iv,, that the word reckon or impute occurs nowhere else
in the alleged sense and connection, except as a repetition
of the language of this chapter. We have seen that the
form of the language in Rom. iv. is completely dominated
and determined by that of the Old Testament quotation
occurring at the opening of the chapter, and lying at the
basis of the reasoning. And we have seen that the quota-
tion, when strictly interpreted, not only does not agree,
but is positively and irreconcilably at variance, with the
theory which it is adduced and required to sustain. But,
if these things must be admitted, who does not see that
the direct Scripture evidence in favour of imputation vanishes
into thin air? The doctrine of imputation may be based
upon anything or nothing else ; it cannot be based on the
exact phraseology of Rom. iv. ; for the language of that
chapter is moulded on the quotation, and the grammatical
sense of the quotation is inconsistent with the doctrine of
imputation. But, if the exact phraseology of Rom. iv. must
be discounted in any attempt to establish the doctrine of
imputation, then we are reduced to this position. The use
of the word impute is practically confined to a single chapter.
In this chapter it occurs only in Old Testament quotations.
Even these quotations do not express what is required ;
a meaning has to be read into them, drawn from . other
sources, otherwise they would contradict the very doctrine
II.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 103
they are supposed to teach. That is to say, the meaning
of the only passage where the word impute occurs must be
determined through the medium of other passages where
no such word is to be found. This implies that the whole
fabric of imputation -theology is one gigantic mass of infer-
ence or assumption, that it is all positively all read
between the lines.
Possibly it will be said that the doctrine may still be
taught in the New Testament, though the precise term is
never used. The Bible is not a hand-book of systematic
theology. It affects nothing like scholastic precision in its
definitions. It observes neither studied uniformity nor scien-
tific exactness in the expression of spiritual truth. If the
idea of imputation is contained in the New Testament, what
does it signify that the doctrine is never expressed in so
many words ? Allegations such as these are frequently
made, and, doubtless, have their place in the minds of many ;
yet, on the face of it, the main assertion is utterly incredible.
Surely it is inconceivable that a doctrine involving conse-
quences so fundamental and far-reaching a doctrine that
touches and transforms more or less materially well-nigh
every aspect of the system of revealed truth should never
have found articulate expression in any part of the New
Testament ! Names are things. The connection between
thought and language is so intimate, that every modification
of the latter, no matter how slight it may be, is almost certain
to be represented by a corresponding modification of the
former. As has been well said, probably no two words in
any language are absolutely synonymous ; and the same is
true of combinations of words. How, then, can it possibly
be pretended that a complete system of soteriology lies
imbedded in the New Testament, while the word which
forms the hinge of that system is nowhere to be found ?
The statement that the New Testament is not a hand-book
of systematic theology is but very partially correct ; the first
eight chapters of the Epistle to the Romans have, at least,
the air of a systematic treatise. The statement that the
New Testament writers do not observe a studied uniformity
in their phraseology is perfectly true, and nothing to the
104 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
purpose. No one denies that the Gospel scheme of salva-
tion is presented under a variety of aspects, and a correspond-
ing variety of forms of expression : the point is, whether
the word, which, on supposition that the theory of imputa-
tion were correct, would be the most important soteriological
term in the New Testament, is never once to be found there ?
On the other hand, it has yet to be proved that the New
Testament writers do not express spiritual truth with sub-
stantial precision. If the New Testament is to be dealt
with " like any other book," we must assume that the
fundamental ideas of the several apostolic writers are per-
fectly precise, that they are susceptible of strict definition,
that we may determine with absolute certainty what they
are and what they are not, and whether the various authors
do or do not agree with themselves and with one another.
A writer's exact words are for us the decisive expression
of his thought, and no one has a right to charge him with
vagueness, vacillation, or want of precision, without making
good the charge. Besides, the doctrine of imputation is
itself a thoroughly definite and precise doctrine, which, if
taught in the New Testament at all, can only be taught
in thoroughly definite and precise terms. Generality, vague-
ness, or vacillation of thought and expression in the New
Testament might be an excuse for declining to hold any
definite doctrinal system ; it can be no reason, but rather
the reverse of a reason, for holding a system so peculiarly
definite and so fully developed as that whose key-note is
imputation.
It may be added, that men who deny to the New Testa-
ment writers a definite system of thought, have, in general,
a perfectly definite system of their own, for which they
endeavour, as far as possible, to obtain New Testament sup-
port ; whilst those who take refuge in mere generalities, or
unintelligible crudities, on the ground that it is impossible
to systematise Christian doctrine, merely express in another
form that THEY to whom presumably all power in heaven
and on earth has been given have never been able to
give us any substantial assistance in that direction.
III.]
CHAPTER III.
INDIRECT SCRIPTURE EVIDENCE IX FAVOUR OF
IMPUTATION.
IN view of the conclusion which has just been reached,
something must now be said as to the grounds on which
the word impute is superadded to words, and read into texts
and passages, where it does not at all appear, either in the
Greek original or in the English version.
Every one who has looked into any of our orthodox theo-
logical systems, particularly where the subject of justification
happens to be under discussion, must have met very frequently
with the two combinations imputed-righteousness and imputed-
sin; and though the corresponding adjectival forms are not so
commonly met with, it would be easy to show that imputedly-
righteous and imputed ly- sinful are just as necessary in the
interests of theory as imputed-righteousness and imputed-
sin. Now, it is needless to say that none of these qualified
or composite forms have any place in the letter of the New
Testament. There we find simply righteousness (iunnocrvvrj),
and sin (ajuLapria), righteous (SiKcuos), and sinful or sinner
(a/uLapTcoXos). And the ordinary signification of these anti-
thetical terms is beyond all dispute. They each describe a
state of moral character bearing a certain specific relation to
the law, or will, or character of God the one the relation of
correspondence, the other the relation of opposition or non-
correspondence. Sin is equivalent to lawlessness (1 John iii.
4), or to unrighteousness (v. 17); and the opposite of this is
righteousness, which is convertible with law. The law is a
law of righteousness (Rom. ix. 31), and righteousness is the
righteousness of the law (viii. 4) the end or requirement of
the law (x. 4). The righteousness of God and the law of God
106 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
are almost identical, and might be interchanged : the one is
His character, the other is the expression of it. Such, un-
questionably, is the ordinary meaning of the words sinful and
righteous. They define relations between law and personal
character. They describe states of moral character that cor-
respond and do not correspond with the import or requirement
of the law. But, say theologians, in the New Testament
these words are employed in two different senses ; and a man
may be spoken of as righteous in the ordinary sense, or as
imputedly righteous, he may be spoken of as sinful in the
ordinary sense, or as imputedly sinful. How do we know
that in the New Testament the words righteous and sinful are
employed in two different senses? What is the precise
meaning of imputedly righteous and imputedly sinful? the
precise nature of imputed righteousness and imputed sin ?
By what mark shall we distinguish these latter senses when
we meet them in the New Testament?
It appears to be held by many that the existence of such a
thing as imputed righteousness is directly involved in what
theologians are pleased to call the forensic meaning of the
word justify (&/ccuoft>). In fact, the advocates of imputation
usually take it for granted that they have sufficiently estab-
lished their whole case, when they have proved that in the
New Testament the word justify bears a judicial or forensic
sense. I have no intention of troubling the reader with any
lengthened or elaborate discussion of the meaning of the
Greek word for justify (1) because the subject has been so
often, so fully, and, on the whole, so satisfactorily discussed
already; and (2) because I have the happiness to concur
entirely with my opponents on the main point at issue.
Suffice it to say that the word SiKaiooo is susceptible of, and is
actually used, in two distinct fundamental senses : etymologi-
cally it means to make one righteous who is not righteous ;
more frequently it means to adjudge, or acknowledge, or
declare one righteous who is righteous. No doubt, where
the judge is deficient either in knowledge or integrity, persons
may be pronounced righteous who are not actually righteous.
Examples of this are not infrequent in the Old Testament.
But even in these cases the ostensible and professed, if not the
III.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 107
real ground on which the sentence of justification is pro-
nounced is the possession of actual righteousness; so that,
after all, the word ducaiou invariably means to adjudge or
declare one righteous on the ground that he is righteous.
That this latter, which is what is usually denominated the
forensic sense, is invariable in the New Testament, and all
but invariable in the Greek version of the Old, has been
demonstrated over and over again, and there is no room for a
shadow of doubt in the matter. Thus far we are entirely at
one with the theologians. Their premises are admitted at
once, and without qualification. But what of the conclusion
which they proceed to draw ?
Curious it is to observe what wonders a single school term
will sometimes work ! It is really impossible to discover any
connection whatever between the fact that justification is
forensic, and the fact that it is by imputation. The word
SiKatoo) is used in the forensic sense in the Old Testament as
well as in the New; but surely no one will pretend that
every or, indeed, any instance of justification recorded in
the Old Testament is based on imputed righteousness. All
the decisions in our courts of law are forensic; but who ever
heard of a criminal being justified by imputation? The whole
body of the redeemed will be pronounced righteous in the day
of judgment, and that will be a forensic act ; but does it follow
that it will have anything to do with imputation ? For all
that I can see, imputation may be the wildest fancy imagin-
able, and justification will remain as forensic as it was before.
The forensic meaning of the word SiKaioo), so far from implying
the existence of imputation, would rather seem to exclude its
existence ; for if justification mean to declare one righteous
who is righteous, and if the word righteous be taken as it
ought to be taken in its ordinary sense, then there is no room
left for imputation.
Still, we are told that, in Scripture usage, the words righteous
and sinful bear two different senses. No one, it is true, has
made any systematic attempt to discriminate the two senses
throughout the New Testament. Such a thing, if attempted,
would very soon be found to be impracticable. And yet, if
we are to believe theologians, the two meanings are not only
io8 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
quite distinct, they are in a manner opposed to each other.
The presence of the one is compatible with the presence of the
other's opposite. A man may be at once imputedly righteous
and ordinarily sinful, he may be at once imputedly sinful and
ordinarily righteous. The context may be supposed to decide
between the two; and we do sometimes meet in commentators
with the remark that the word righteous in such a place is
not used in its dogmatic sense ; but this sort of thing is rare,
and in the case of the word sin, to which the distinction must
equally apply, it is almost entirely wanting. With the latter
word, when it is absolutely necessary to draw a distinction in
order to escape the usual meaning, a different expedient is
mostly preferred. Either the word sin is transformed, in
defiance of its plain meaning, as shown by the connection, into
sin-offering (2 Cor. v. 21), or penalty of sin (1 Pet. ii. 24,
&c.) ; or else the charge of ambiguity and double sense is
thrown upon some neighbouring word, such as make, which is
held to mean reckon to (2 Cor. v. 21), or constitute, which is
likewise held to mean reckon to (Rom. v. 19). We shall
be under the painful necessity of having to expose the
hollowness of these and other equally worthless evasions at
a later stage. In the meantime we must simply dismiss
them and ask once more what is the precise nature of
imputed righteousness and imputed sin, and how may we
discriminate in the New Testament between the words
expressing these notions, and the words expressing righteous-
ness and sin in the ordinary sense ? Does the word justify
in the New Testament always mean pronounce imputedly
righteous, or only sometimes ? How shall we know when
the word sin means sin imputedly that is, be reckoned to
sin and when it means simply sin ? And the word condemn
who shall tell us when it bears the sense pronounce im-
putedly sinful, and when the sense pronounce sinful simply?
It is evident that the language of the New Testament can
afford us no assistance in answering these questions. There
we find simply Sucaioto, KCtTaKplva), d/ JCGUO?, a/xajOrwXo?, OIKCIIO-
<rvvt], afjLaprla, a^apravw, &c., without any distinguishing
mark to apprise us that these words are being used in a sense
very much the reverse of the ordinary one. For example,
III.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 109
when we come to the word rumapTov in Romans v. 12, how
can we be sure that it means not sinned, but were reckoned
to have sinned, or had sin reckoned to them? When we
meet the words ajmapTta and SiKaioa-vvrj in 2 Cor. v. 21, how shall
we divine that the quality of being reckoned sinful and the
quality of being reckoned righteous are intended ? When we
read in 1 Cor. vi. 11, "But ye were washed, but ye were
sanctified, but ye were justified, in the name of the Lord
Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God," what warrant have we
to infer that the last-named process of justification precedes the
first-named process of washing, regeneration, or sanctification
through the power of the Divine Spirit (cf. Titus iii. 5), and
that the word eStKaiaOrjTe means were pronounced imputedly
righteous, and not were pronounced righteous ? Or, again,
when we read in Rom. viii. 3 that God " condemned the sin
in the flesh " of Christ, how can we tell that the word KaraKplvw
means pronounce imputedly sinful and punish accordingly,
and not rather pronounce sinful and punish accordingly ?
Above all, when we find the words SiKaiog and a/mapTceiXd? in
Rom. v. 19, on what principle shall we conclude that they bear
the senses reckoned-righteous and reckoned-sinful, while the
same words ^//cato? and ajULaprcoXos in vv. 7 and 8 of the same
chapter bear different, almost opposite, significations ?
I confess I shrink from the attempt to define in precise
terms the " orthodox " notions of imputed sin and imputed
righteousness, and that not merely because the notions them-
selves are inconceivable, absurd, contradictory, but because
there exists in different theological writers, and even ocasionally
in the same writer, a degree of vacillation and confusion that
will render it a difficult task to state the orthodox position in
any one form without appearing to do it injustice by excluding
some other form in support of which eminent names might
easily be quoted. The difficulties attending the theory of
imputation are so serious as to have forced its advocates out of
one mode of stating it into another, and then out of that other
back to the old statement again, the position taken up in
defending one point, or in repelling one form of attack, being
frequently abandoned, though unconsciously, in order to make
good the defence of another, A common way of putting it is
i io PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
that the word righteous describes "the state of the believing
man called forth by the Divine acquittal," so that the posses-
sion of imputed righteousness by the believer would appear to
be an effect of the Divine sentence of justification, and to come
after it. On this view, the word righteous (^//cato?) is equivalent
to justified (SediKcutofJievos), and though the same form of expres-
sion is seldom applied to the word sinful (a/xa^rwAo?) , that
word must in like manner be equivalent to condemned
(KaraKeKpi/uLfjLei'Os). On the other hand, the old Protestant
statement is that the act of justification follows instead of
preceding the possession of imputed righteousness, that a man
is justified on the ground that righteousness has been imputed
to him ; as in like manner that the act of condemnation
follows instead of preceding the possession of imputed sin, that
a man is condemned on the ground that sin has been imputed
to him. On this view, a man is righteous before he is justified,
he is justified on the ground that he is already righteous ; as
in like manner a man is sinful before he is condemned, he is
condemned on the ground that he is already sinful.
Whichever of these views be preferred as the more correct,
it is evident that they are quite distinct from each other, and
that, according as we adopt one or the other, we shall require
to attach different meanings to the words justify and con-
demn. In ordinary usage, as we have seen, the word justify
means either to make one righteous who is not righteous, or
to acknowledge one to be righteous who is righteous. This,
theologians themselves allow ; and they strenuously contend
that in the New Testament the latter is the only admissible
sense; and yet they appear at times to slide unconsciously
into the other meaning. For the two meanings are just as
applicable with imputed righteousness as with righteousness in
the ordinary sense. To declare a man imputedly righteous
who is imputedly righteous, is one thing ; to make a man
imputedly righteous who is not imputedly righteous, is another
and a distinct thing. In the one case, the word justify will
bear its ordinary New Testament signification, being preceded
by a separate process of imputing righteousness from one
person to another; in the other case, the word justify will
somehow include within itself the process of imputing righteous-
III.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. in
ness from one person to another, expressing that process, as
well as the process of justification understood in the sense last
mentioned. So with the word condemn it must include, in
addition to its ordinary meaning, the process of imputing sin
from one person to another. The latter of the two meanings
must be regarded as a curious conglomeration of distinct ideas,
particularly when it is remembered that the thing said to be
imputed for righteousness is the life-long obedience and suffer-
ings of Christ, while the thing said to be imputed for sin is
the aggregate of the sins of all the elect. If the words justify
and condemn, when applied to believers and Christ respectively,
bear a meaning so much richer than their ordinary one, there
ought surely to be some very notable sign to indicate the fact.
It is necessary, at all events, to decide which of the above two
meanings is the more " orthodox."
Usually, when the question is asked, what constitutes a man
imputedly righteous ? the answer is, the fact that he is free
from the penalty of the law, or, in other words, that he has
been acquitted. When we ask upon what ground he was
acquitted, the reply is, because he was imputedly righteous.
In like manner, when the question is put, what constitutes a
man imputedly sinful ? the answer is, the fact that he lies
under penalty of the law, or, in other words, that he has
been condemned. When we ask upon what ground he was
condemned, the reply is, because he was imputedly sinful.
We must endeavour to evade this circle by putting on the
words justify and condemn one, and only one, "orthodox"
meaning. And there is little doubt what that meaning must
be. The words must be taken in their ordinary New Testa-
ment significations. It is manifestly quite extravagant to
pretend that the word SiKaiow includes in its meaning the
notion of imputing righteousness, or rather obedience and
sufferings, from one person to another, and that the word
Karate p'lvo) includes in its meaning the notion of imputing sin
an almost infinite amount of sin from an indefinite num-
ber of persons to one. The old Protestant view must, therefore,
be accepted without modification, and imputation must be
regarded as a process antecedent to, and distinct from, justifi-
cation and condemnation. To justify must mean to pronounce
112 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
a man imputedly righteous who is imputedly righteous ; to
condemn must mean to pronounce a man imputedly sinful
who is imputedly sinful.
We spoke, in a previous chapter, of the thing transferred
in a case of imputation as the debitum in one instance
the reward, in the other the penalty and we did so in
accordance with the manner of speech adopted by theological
writers. But it is now evident that this is not enough for
the theological doctrine of imputation. The thing transferred
must be something more than merely the reward and the
penalty, because it is spoken of in the New Testament as
righteousness (SiKaiocrvvrj^) and sin (a/maprta), and the persons
to whom imputation has been made are spoken of as righteous
(SiKdios) and sinful (d/xajoroAo?) respectively. What is this
something which the act of imputation confers, and on the
ground of which justification or condemnation is pronounced ?
From all that I can gather, theologians conceive the righteous-
ness of Christ very much as a garment, which is wrapped
around the believing sinner the moment he exercises faith.
Arrayed in this garment, he appears in court, where the
judge, seeing only the outward garb of the culprit, pronounces
sentence of acquittal. When this has been done, the demands
of the law are held to have been satisfied. No second trial
is conceived of as possible. The prisoner is set at liberty.
Having passed successfully through the above not very search-
ing ordeal, he is henceforth regarded, and spoken of, and
treated as righteous, not so much because he is still arrayed
in the garment which stood him in so good stead in presence
of the judge, as because he is now out of court, he has been
acquitted, and the law can no more bring a claim against
him. Such is a plain, unvarnished statement of the prevailing
idea of imputed righteousness. It vacillates between the idea
of the obedience and sufferings of Christ, conceived of as a robe
adhering to the sinner, and the bare idea of acquittal, based
upon this legal device. There is, I hope, no great breach of
charity in saying that the whole affair appears a trifle ridi-
culous. It is not clear how the obedience and sufferings
of Christ could cling to a sinner at all, much less is it clear
how they could cling to an indefinite number of sinners at the
III.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 113
same time. The whole frame- work of a court, a formal trial,
and an acquittal, releasing men from the claims of the law, is
a baseless figment of the imagination. It appears to originate
partly through pressing the earthly analogy too far, and partly
through misapprehending its true nature. No doubt, the
man who has passed through the ordeal of an earthly trial
successfully acquires a certain stamp, which we may call
judicial righteousness, though it is certainly not the decision
of the judge that confers the righteousness. The judge does
nothing more than interpret and express the evidence. He
merely recognises or homologates what the evidence has proved
the man to possess. Moreover, the man is liable to be again
put on trial, should further evidence be forthcoming. The
judge's decision has really conferred nothing. It was the
evidence that constituted the prisoner righteous, and further
evidence will again constitute him sinful, when the decision
will have to be reversed. It is the evidence in an earthly
court that really confers on an accused person his relation
to the law, whether of acquittal or condemnation. Now,
in the case of "Him with whom we have to do," instead
of evidence, we may substitute real character ; that will con-
stitute a man's relation to the law ; for it will be known
infallibly, and no formal trial will be needed. Courts, and
witnesses, and evidence, are marks of earthly imperfection ;
even the judges upon earth are liable to err through ignorance,
or partiality, or dishonesty ; but, in the Divine light of the
better world, character is not only the basis upon which
sentence is pronounced it literally pronounces sentence on
itself. If there be such a thing as a formal assize, at which
justification and condemnation shall be meted out, that will
take place in the day of judgment, when, as we know, men
shall be rewarded and punished, not on the basis of imputed
righteousness and imputed sin, but "according to their works,"
according to what they are and have done (Matt. xxv. 31-46 ;
Rom. ii. 2-16).
What has now been said completely dissipates the notion
that righteousness even imputed righteousness consists in
mere acquittal, and also the further notion that God, in the
act of justifying, confers on the believer a new relation to the
I
ii4 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
law, by communicating to him a new objective character (sit
venia) through which such a new relation to the law is consti-
tuted. The latter notion sets the meaning of the word justify
at utter defiance, theologians themselves being judges. And
when these two notions have been set aside as untenable, it is
at once seen that the whole fabric of imputed righteousness and
imputed sin is left hanging in the air. The language of the
New Testament contains nothing, absolutely nothing, corre-
sponding to either of the two ideas. We read, no doubt, that
men are justified by faith (Rom. v. 1) ; but then it is because
they attain to righteousness (SiKaioa-wtj) by faith, not to
imputed righteousness (i. 17). We are .told that by the
obedience of the one the many shall be made righteous (v.
19); but it is righteous (<$LKOLIOI) they shall be made, not im-
putedly righteous : that death passed unto all men for that all
sinned (v. 12) sinned (nuaprov), however, not were reckoned
to have sinned. It is said, also, that God, having made Christ
to be sin for us, by sending Him in the likeness of flesh of
sin, condemned the sin in the flesh that had been assumed
(2 Cor. v. 21 ; Rom. viii. 3) ; yet it was sin (a/mapria) that
Christ was made, and it was the sin (rt]v a/jLapTiav) that God
condemned in His flesh, in neither case was it imputed sin.
The process of imputation, if any such exist, must precede
justification, and be distinct from it; but in the New Testa-
ment nothing is spoken of as preceding justification, if we
except faith and works springing from faith. Imputation
must be an act performed by a person external to the believer,
and must possess a character all its own ; but no such act is
ever alluded to in any part of the New Testament writings.
In the language of the New Testament, and of theologians as
well, it is faith that appropriates justifying righteousness, and
puts it in possession of the believer ; but faith, being a subjec-
tive change within the believer himself, cannot perform the act
of imputation. It is a fair inference, too, that since faith is a
subjective change, any effects which it produces on the char-
acter of the believer must be subjective also. The idea that
God, taking into account the faith of the believer, reckons the
righteousness, or rather the obedience and sufferings, of Christ
to him, and then, on the ground that he is imputed ly righteous,
Ill,] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 115
justifies him this idea is read into the New Testment, not
extracted out of it. In the case of the imputation of sin,
where there is no such thing as faith, the boldest advocate of
received opinions must surely admit that there is not a vestige
of evidence to support the doctrine ; it is literally and entirely
read between the lines.
There is, however, one further consideration which is sup-
posed to make strongly in favour of justification by imputed
righteousness, and of which it is needful to take some notice :
the fact that in the New Testament justification is often
spoken of as a thing already completed and past from the
moment a man first believes. " Therefore, having been justi-
fied (SiKctLooOevTes) by faith, we have peace with God through
our Lord Jesus Christ " (Rom. v. 1). " Much more, then,
having noiu been justified (SiKaiwOevTe? vvv) in His blood,
shall we be saved from the wrath through Him" (v. 9). "He
that did die has been justified (deSiKatcorai) from sin " (vi. 7).
"Such were some of you, but ... ye were justified (eSiKcud)-
OtjTe), in the name of the Lord Jesus, and in the Spirit of our
God" (1 Cor. vi. 11). From these and similar, though less
absolutely unequivocal passages, it is inferred that justification
must be an act done once for all in the first moment of faith,
and not in any sort a life-long process : but it is certain that
believers are renewed, sanctified, and made perfectly righteous
only in a life-long process : and hence it appears to follow
inevitably that justification must be based on something else
than the righteousness of which the believer comes into com-
plete possession only at death : from which it is regarded as
a modest step to the conclusion that justification is based on
the obedience and sufferings of Christ imputed to the believer,
and received by faith alone. It must be observed, however,
that if this argument prove anything, it will prove a deal too
much. If the mere fact that justification is sometimes spoken
of as if it were completed in the first moment of faith prove
that justification is an act and not a life-long process, then the
fact that sanctification is sometimes spoken of as if it were
completed in the first moment of faith must prove that sancti-
fication is an act and not a life-long process. Sanctification is
represented and spoken of in the New Testament as com-
ii6 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
pleted from the first moment of faith quite as often as justifi-
cation is so, as appears from the following, which are among
the most unambiguous testimonies : " Paul, unto the Church
of God which is at Corinth, even them that have been sanc-
tified (riyiafr^evois) in Christ Jesus, called so as to be saints
(a-y/o*?)" (1 Cor. i. 2). "And such were some of you, but ye
were washed, but ye were sanctified (vyidvOiiTe) ... in the
name of the Lord Jesus, and in the Spirit of our God " (vi.
11). "And hath counted the blood of the covenant where-
with He was sanctified {fyi&P&j) an unholy thing, and hath
done despite unto the Spirit of grace" (Heb. x. 29). It is
evident from such statements as the above that sanctification
can readily enough just as readily as justification be spoken
of as a thing completed and past in the experience of every
believer. And the same is true of the various other forms of
speech by which substantially the same process is designated,
such as repentance + remission of sins ; death to sin + resurrec-
tion to righteousness ; putting off the old man or self + putting
on the new man or Christ; crucifying, mortifying, or bringing to
nought the flesh + receiving, or being quickened by the Spirit ;
washing, purification, redemption, renewal, regeneration, calling,
adoption, creation after the image of Christ or of God, trans-
lation out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of
God's dear Sou, &c. It is true, in particular, of the most
general and comprehensive of all the names for the process of
which the technical theological designation is sanctification
viz., salvation. That process, as the modes of describing it
sufficiently indicate, has two sides, a negative and a positive,
which may be thought of and spoken of as distinct from each
other. When the entire process is comprehended under a
single name, the name, as will be readily perceived, is some-
times properly and peculiarly applicable to only one of the
sides. Of this last class is washing or baptism. The rite of
baptism symbolises " the putting off of the body of the flesh "
through death with Christ to sin, that is, the process by which
the principle of sin, with all its effects, is remitted, destroyed,
or done away ; but as this negative process is accompanied at
every step by the positive process of regeneration, baptism is
often used to designate both alike, and we read of :< the wash-
III.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 117
iug of regeneration " (Tit. iii. 5), of men being " born of
water " (John iii. 5), &c.
To quote all the passages where the above processes, or
rather the one process under the above names, is spoken of as
completed in the first moment of faith, would be a serious
undertaking. I shall refer to a very few. " In whom also ye
were circumcised (TrepieTjuu'iOnre) with a circumcision not
made with hands, in the putting off of the body of the flesh,
in the circumcision of Christ ; having been buried (arvvra-
with Him in baptism, wherein also ye were raised
Orjre} with Him through faith in the working of God,
who raised Him from the dead. And you, being dead through
your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, you, I
say, did He quicken ((nw^soir^ltjangp) together with Him,
having forgiven (xapia-dimevos) us all our trespasses " (Col. ii.
11-13). The concluding clause shows that the forgiveness of
all the believer's trespasses is thought of as taking place in the
first moment of faith, and there is no doubt that by the for-
giveness of trespasses is meant the cancelling of penalties, or
the remission of what theologians call guilt ; but then the
preceding clauses show with equal clearness that the entire
putting off of the body of the flesh, and consequently the
entire removal or destruction of the principle of sin, is thought
of as taking place in the same moment. From the apostle's
point of view, the believer's past sins, so far as they existed at
all in the moment of forgiveness, existed only in the form of
guilt, whilst future sin on the part of the regenerated, renewed,
absolutely Christ-like believer, is of course impossible. The
view of the Reformed creeds that "justification is an act of
God's free grace, wherein He pardoneth all our sins," but that
sanctification whereby the principle of sin is done away is a
life-long process, is in itself a plain contradiction, and is besides
in the most obvious and direct antagonism to every sentence
of the New Testament, which teaches, as every child capable
of repeating the Lord's Prayer knows, that forgiveness of sins
is required by every believer daily onward to the point of
death (1 John i. 9). Again : "But when the kindness of God
our Saviour, and His love toward man appeared, not by works
done in righteousness, which we did ourselves, but according
u8 ^ PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
to His mercy He saved (rtro) us through the washing of
regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost, which He
poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Saviour,
in order that having [on the ground of regeneration, &c.] been
justified we might become heirs according to the hope of
eternal life" (Tit. iii. 4-7). " Knowing this that our old man was
crucified (trvvKrravpw&if) with [His old man], in order that the
body of sin might be done away, that so we should no longer
be in bondage to sin ; for he that did die (diroOavwv) has
been justified from sin " (Rom. vi. 6, 7). " Lie not one to
another, since ye did put off (aireKdixrdfievoi) the old man with
his doings, and did put on (evSwrafiev6i) the new man, which
is renewed unto knowledge after the image of Him that
created Him" (Col. iii. 9, 10). "Knowing that ye were
redeemed (eXvrpcoO^Te) not with corruptible things, with silver
or gold, from your vain manner of life handed down from your
fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb
without blemish and without spot"(l Pet. i. 18, 19). "Suffer
hardship with the Gospel, according to the power of God, that
saved (cruxravro?) us, and called (/caXeVa^ro?) us with a holy
calling, not according to our works, but according to His own
purpose and grace" (2 Tim. i. 8, 9). "And such were some
of you, but ye were washed (a.TreXova-aa-Oe'), but ye were sanc-
tified, but ye were justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus,
and in the Spirit of our God" (1 Cor. vi. 11). "For whom
He did foreknow He also did predestinate to be conformed to
the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among
many brethren ; and whom He did predestinate them He also
called (aeoXecre), and whom He called them He also justified,
and whom He justified them He also glorified (eSo^acrev) '"
(Rom. viii. 29, 30). "Giving thanks to the Father; who
made us meet (iKavwnxvri) to be partakers of the inherit-
ance of the saints in light ; who delivered (eppva-aro) us out
of the power of darkness, and translated (/uerejrifcfw) us
into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we
have our redemption, the remission of our sins " (Col. i.
12-14).
Let these passages suffice as examples of a mode of speech
which pervades the whole New Testament. Many of them show
III.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 119
unmistakably, not only that the redemptive process may be
spoken of as if it were completed in the first moment of faith,
but also that justification follows and is based upon sanctification
(1 Cor.vi. 11), death to sin (Rom.vi.7), regeneration or renewal
(Tit.iii. 4-7), redemption or remission of sins (Col.i. 12-1 4), call-
ing (Rom. viii. 30 ; cf. 2 Tim. i. 8, 9 ; Tit. iii. 4-7; 1 Cor. i. 2)
or whatever other name we may choose to apply to the moral
transformation which theologians speak of as sanctification.
I know of but one passage in the New Testament that has the
faintest appearance of making justification precede sanctifica-
tion, and that passage has only the appearance of doing so.
" But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who was made unto us
wisdom from God, and righteousness, and holiness, and re-
demption" (1 Cor. i. 30). That the four words wisdom (cro^x'a),
righteousness (Succuoovwj), holiness (a-ymcr/xo?), and redemption
(cnroXvTpwri?) do not describe successive stages in the process
of individual salvation, will be admitted by every one. The
first three do not describe processes at all, but phases or states
of character, belonging to the man who is "in Christ Jesus."
The second and third are as nearly as possible identical in
meaning, as Rom. vi. 19 clearly proves, where "iniquity unto
iniquity " is strictly parallel to " righteousness unto sanctity "
or " holiness : " this, in fact, is the invariable sense of the
word dyiacrfjLo? in the New Testament. The last alone
describes a process, and that process, as the texts already
quoted have distinctly shown, is identical with the remission
of sins (Eph. i. 7, 8 ; Col. i. 12-14), which in truth precedes
in the opinion of theologians forms part of justification ; in
truth is identical with in the opinion of theologians precedes
sanctification ; in neither case is it even alleged that it suc-
ceeds or follows the attainment of righteousness or holiness.
There is thus nothing whatever in the nature of succession, either
of states or processes, in the verse quoted above ; and there
would, if possible, be still less, were we to assume with theo-
logians that the word redemption means the payment by
Christ to the devil, or the Divine justice, of a price adequate
to ransom the whole body of the elect from eternal perdition.
Fortunately or unfortunately this last idea has very little
foundation in fact how much we shall see later on. The
120 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
word redemption invariably describes the process of deliver-
ance from sin itself, being represented as identical with
the process of sanctification or purification (Tit. ii. 14), of
putting off the body of the flesh (Rom. viii. 23 ; Eph. i. 14 ;
iv. 30 ; 1 Pet. i. 18; cf. iv. 1, 2), of remission of sins (Eph. i. 7 ;
Col. i. 14) a process which is figuratively ascribed to the
application of the blood of Christ, and which is literally
accomplished through death to sin with ( after the example
of) Christ.
But, it will be said, if sanctification is frequently spoken of
as a thing completed and past, it is also sometimes spoken of
as a thing whose completion is still in the future. This is
perfectly true. But it is true of justification not less than of
sanctification. And it is true of salvation as a whole not less
than of each of its parts or aspects. " And I say unto you
that every idle word that men shall speak they shall give an
account thereof in the day of judgment ; for by thy words
thou shalt be justified (SiKaiwOfay, soil, in the day of judgment),
and by thy words thou shalt be condemned " (Matt. xii. 36,
37). " For not the hearers of the law are righteous before
God, but the doers of the law shall be justified (diKaicoOiia-ovrai)
... in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by
Jesus Christ according to my Gospel" (Rom. ii. 13, 16).
" Yea, verily, and I count all things to be loss, for the-
excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for
whom I suffered the loss of all things, and do count them
but dung that I may gain Christ, and be found in Him, not
having mine own righteousness which is of the law, but that
which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is of
God by faith ; that I may know Him, and the power of His
resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, becoming
conformed unto His death [as the antecedent condition of
resurrection, righteousness, and justification (Rom. vi. 6-8 ;
Eph. iv. 22-24, &c.)] ; if by any means I may attain unto
the resurrection of the dead. Not that I have already
obtained [the prize due to righteousness (2 Tim. iv. 8)], or
have already been perfected ; but / folloiv after [righteousness
(Rom. ix. 30, 31 ; 1 Tim. vi. 11 ; 2 Tim. ii. 22)], if so be
that I may apprehend that for which also I was apprehended
III.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 121
by Christ Jesus" (Phil. iii. 8-12).* "But if, while we are
seeking to be justified (^rovi/rey fiiKaicoOfjvai), we ourselves
also have been found sinners, is Christ a minister of sin 1
God forbid. For if I build up again those things which I
destroyed [sell, the flesh with its necessary antagonism to the
law of God], I prove myself a transgressor [and therefore, so
far, not " justified in Christ," but condemned out of or apart
from Christ] (Gal. ii. 17, 18). " So speak ye, and so do, as
men that shall be judged by the law of liberty . . . [since]
ye see that by works a man is justified, and not only by faith "
(James ii. 12, 24). If it be said that these are but a few
passages where justification is stated expressly or by name to
be a process reaching completion only at the day of judgment,
the reply is obvious : it will not be possible to produce over
half as many where sanctification is stated by name to be a
process reaching completion only at death. I know of only
the following three : " Sanctify them in Thy truth ; Thy word
is truth. As Thou didst send Me into the world, even so sent
I them into the world ; and for their sakes I sanctify Myself,
that they also may be sanctified in the truth" (John xvii. 17-
19). " And now I commend you to God, and to the word of
His grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you the
inheritance among all them that have been sanctified " (Acts
xx. 32). "And the God of peace Himself sanctify you wholly;
and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved entire,
without blame, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ "
(1 Thess. v. 23). On the other hand, if it be said that sancti-
fication, under another name is quite frequently spoken of as
a life-long process, this is to be admitted ; but then, justifica-
tion, under another name, is also quite frequently spoken of as
a life-long process. Wherever we read of men attaining to
righteousness by degrees, by continued faith, and prayer, and
effort, there it is implied that justification is a life-long
process (e.g. Heb. xi., &c.)
The truth is that there is no evidence at all to support the
* The clause ^ fjdr) 5e5t/ccu'uvu, inserted by DEFG before f) ^77 TereXei'w/xcu in
v. 12 musk be considered spurious, though the meaning which it conveys is
implied in the whole connection, as a comparison with Rom. vi. 7 distinctly
proves.
122 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
popular distinction between justification and sanctification as
act and work respectively. Both are equally act and equally
work. Both may be viewed as completed in the first moment
of faith, being in a sense complete. Both are really and
properly life-long processes, completed at death and judgment
respectively. Salvation as a whole, and every component part
of it, is spoken of in the New Testament as a thing of the
past already accomplished, as a thing of the present in process
of accomplishment, and as a thing of the future still to
accomplish. There must therefore be a sense in which not
only justification, but every soteriological process, can be all of
these things at the same time. What that sense is ought not
to be difficult to discover.
No reader of the New Testament can fail to observe that
the apostles, and Paul in particular, draw a sharp distinction
between the renewed part of the believer which they call the
spirit the new or inward man and the unrenewed part
which they call the flesh the old or outward man ; to note
that they think and speak of these two morally contrasted
entities as if they were quite separate from one another ; that
they apply epithets and predicates to each by itself ; and that
they identify the believer's personality now with the one and
now with the other. Men may cavil at the objective validity
of the distinction if they please ; but that the apostles draw
such a distinction, and frame their language in accordance
with it, is beyond all doubt. The sinful, selfish, earthly
elements of the believer's constitution are all thought of as
ranged upon one side, which is called the flesh the old, or
outward man ; the holy, Christ-like, heavenly elements are all
thought of as ranged on the other side, which is called the spirit
the new, or inward man. It is not in the least necessary
for our present purpose to decide where the boundary line,
physical or metaphysical, between these contrasted elements
lies, or whether there be any strict line of demarcation between
them. The distinction may be merely a form of thought, and
not a form of things at all ; its effect upon apostolic language
will be precisely the same in the former case as it would be in
the latter. In point of fact the distinction has moulded New
Testament language to such an extent that it is scarcely
III.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 123
possible to understand a single chapter of the epistles, unless
it is kept steadily in view. When the personality of the
believer is identified with the spirit, or new creature, as it not
unfrequently is, then he is spoken of as already saved, redeemed,
sanctified, justified, adopted, glorified. When the personality
of the believer is identified with the flesh, or old creature, as
it also not unfrequently is, then he is spoken of as yet to be
saved, redeemed, sanctified, justified, adopted, glorified. When
the personality of the believer is identified with neither the
flesh nor the spirit, but with both combined, as it very well
can be, and often is, then he is spoken of as in course of being
saved, redeemed, sanctified, justified, adopted, glorified. As
regards the new man, the soteriological processes are already
complete; as regards the old man, they are still entirely in
the future ; as regards the two combined, they are partly
complete, partly incomplete that is, they are going on towards
completion. When, for example, the apostle says that God,
"according to His mercy saved us through the washing of
regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost " (Tit. iii. 5),
it is plain that the persons referred to by " us " are thought of
as already completely renewed, otherwise they could not be
spoken of as completely " saved ; " they are persons fully
answering to the description, " If any man be in Christ, he is
a new creature ; the old things are passed away ; behold they
are become new" (2 Cor. v. 17). When, on the other hand,
the same apostle exhorts the Philippians, " Work out your
own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God that
worketh in you to will and to work for his good pleasure "
(ii. 12, 13), or when he tells the Corinthians, "We are a sweet
savour of Christ unto God in them that are being saved and
in them that are perishing" (2 Cor. ii. 15), it is equally plain
that the persons referred to by " your " and " them that are
being saved " are persons partly renewed and partly unrenewed,
since it is " through the renewing of the Holy Ghost " that
men are first justified and then saved (Tit. iii. 4-6). Again,
when he says, " For by hope were we saved ; but hope that is
seen is not hope ; for who hopeth for "that which he seeth ?
But if we hope for that which we see not, then do we with
patience wait for it" (Rom. viii. 24, 25); or when the author
124 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
of Hebrews announces that Christ " shall appear a second
time apart from sin to them that wait for him unto salvation "
(ix. 28) : the subject of the hoped-for salvation is in both cases
the as yet unredeemed body (Rom. viii. 23), with which the
believer's personality is for the time identified, and which
Christ shall renew and glorify at His coming (Phil. iii. 21).
So much for salvation in general. Exactly similar phenomena
appear in connection with justification, adoption,sanctification,
redemption, and, in short, all soteriological processes whatever.
When Paul writes, " He that did die has been justified from
sin " (Rom. vi. 7), it is clear that the " he " can apply only to
the new man in the believer, for the old man is still alive
alive to sin, and of course alive also to the law, to be condemned
and cursed by it ; he could not therefore be spoken of as
either dead or justified. Examples of the other two cases
where justification is concerned will be found in the passages
Phil. iii. 8-12 and Rom. ii. 13-16, already cited.
The reader will thus see that there is no reason whatever
for postulating such a thing as imputed righteousness. Apart
from its inherent absurdity, which has been so abundantly
evinced above, the doctrine of imputation would not clear up
a tenth part of the apparent difficulties involved in the
soteriological tenses of the New Testament, while it would
create real difficulties in abundance, infinitely greater than
any which it seeks to remove. The way in which theologians
are in the habit of getting over such difficulties as imputation
fails to explain, is curious and characteristic. According to
the Apostle Paul, " We ourselves also which have the first
fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves, groan within ourselves,
waiting for our adoption, to wit, the redemption of our
body " (Rom. viii. 23). According to the Westminster
divines, " Adoption is an act of God's free grace, whereby we
are received into the number, and have a right to all the
privileges, of the sons of God," in the first moment of faith ;
while redemption is the payment by Christ of a ransom price
to the Divine justice, in consideration of death eternal not
being inflicted on the whole body of the elect. How can
believers wait for their adoption if it was completed, and all
its privileges conferred, the moment they first believed? and
III.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 125
for their redemption, if it was finished the moment that Christ
died ? And how comes it that here and elsewhere adoption
and redemption are spoken of as if they were the same
identical moral-physical transformation of character, which
was accomplished, first on the person of Christ Himself, and
now also on the persons of all believers, after the example of
Christ, through the ineffable working of the Spirit of God
(Rom. viii. 11; Phil. iii. 21)? How do commentators and
theologians meet these difficulties ? Simply by postulating
new senses for the words adoption (vloOeo-la) and redemption
(a7ro\vT pcoa-i^ in the present passage ! The word redemption
occurs in but two texts of the Epistle to the Romans (iii. 24;
viii. 23) : were we to assume that it bears the same meaning
in the former of these passages which it undeniably bears in
the latter, this would completely upset the whole doctrine of
imputed righteousness : ergo, we must assume that it bears
an entirely different meaning ! This is arbitrary and un-
warrantable enough. Yet it is nothing more than a fair
sample of the manner in which the doctrine of imputation is
read into the New Testament, and of the methods by which
alone it can be defended. And, in truth, such violent
expedients, deeply as they are to be lamented, and strongly
as they must be condemned, are not in the least to be
wondered at in the circumstances. There is really no end to
the tricks of legerdemain which even the ablest and most
candid men may play themselves, if once they begin to tamper
with the meanings of terms, and to postulate new and unheard-
of senses for words whenever the ordinary sense fails to
quadrate with a preconceived theory. All that is needed to
bring anything out of anything, in the most literal sense, is,
when certain words are placed before us, to coin a new
meaning for them, expressly adapted to the doctrine we wish
to establish. This is what theologians have done. They find
imputation everywhere, when in reality it is nowhere, simply
because they have contrived to write the word imputed before
every word where they wish to find it. In this way, quite a
number of the plainest, simplest, most common, most un-
ambiguous terms in the New Testament have been completely
perverted from their natural sense in order to meet the
126 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
requirements of theory. As soon as we fall back on the
ordinary principles of lexicography, foreign accretions have to
be removed, and fancy meanings dismissed, and, when this has
been done, the evidence in support of imputation is found to
have evaporated entirely.
Is it necessary to add one further remark to obviate mis-
representation ? While we maintain that justification is a
life-long process, commencing in the first moment of faith, and
reaching completion at the day of judgment, it surely does
not follow that we confound justification with sanctification.
Justification is an external, formal, judicial process, whereas
sanctification is an internal, material, moral process. Justifi-
cation is simply the formal recognition on the part of God
that sanctification has taken place. So purely immaterial a
matter is justification that the writer to the Hebrews has pro-
pounded an entire system of soteriology without using the
word, and with nothing beyond the barest allusions to the
thing, in the shape of occasional references, on the one hand,
to the witness borne by God to the righteousness of Old
Testament saints, and on the other hand, to the prospect of
a final judgment. How inexplicable must this appear, were
justification, on the ground of imputed righteousness, the
essential preliminary and basis of sanctification ! How easy
is it to account for, if sanctification be the only material part
of salvation, and justification merely the formal acknowledg-
ment that sanctification has been accomplished ! What is
justification ? The answer of the Westminster Catechism is
in the following terms : " Justification is an act of God's
free grace, wherein He pardoneth all our sins, and accepteth
us as righteous in His sight, only for the righteousness of
Christ imputed to us, and received by faith alone." This has
been lauded beyond measure as a model of exact, comprehen-
sive, and careful definition. In my humble opinion, there is
only one clause in it that has anything whatever to do with
the New Testament doctrine of justification that, namely,
which speaks of God accepting us as righteous in His sight ;
and even this is not perfectly exact, for acceptance is rather
an effect of justification than justification itself. I should
therefore prefer if the definition ran : " In justification, God
III.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 127
acknowledges us to be righteous in His sight, which we are
by faith in Christ." The last clause is added by way of
explanation, and may be taken as a brief definition of sancti-
fication. More fully, we might say that, " In repentance,
regeneration, redemption, or sanctification, we are created
anew after the image of God, and so made perfectly righteous,
through the power of the Spirit of God, received by faith in
Jesus Christ." Will any one dare to allege that the two
processes covered by these definitions are not distinct from
each other ? Intimately allied and mutually dependent they
certainly are what parts of the work of salvation are not
intimately allied and mutually dependent ? but to represent
them as being either confused or identified with one another
is a vulgar misrepresentation.
[Chap.
CHAPTER IV.
RUIN AND RESTORATION A PARALLEL AND A CONTRAST.
IN last chapter but one reference was made to the necessity
of collecting the doctrinal system of the Apostle Paul
from passages where he expresses himself in language of his
own, and of interpreting his Old Testament or quasi-Old
Testament language in the light of the system thus ascertained.
This is the task which we must now endeavour more fully to
accomplish. And in doing so, it will be convenient to start
from the very comprehensive summary contained in Rom. v.
12-21, which may be justly said to form the kernel of that
whole epistle, since it gathers up and resumes all that is
previously said from chap. i. 16 onwards, while it presents in
succinct outline all that is subsequently said down to the
close of chap. viii. However, before entering on the considera-
tion of this much perplexed, and, to speak frankly, really
perplexing passage, we may bestow a brief glance on the
parallel passage, 1 Cor. xv. 20-22, which will afford us sub-
stantial assistance in elucidating the other.
In the Revised Version, the second of the two passages is
translated as follows : " But now hath Christ been raised
from the dead, the first fruits of them that are asleep. For
since by man [came] death, by man [came] also the resurrec-
tion of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ
shall all be made alive."
In view of the parallel texts in Romans (v. 12, 18), the .
correct translation in v. 21 would no doubt be, "by a man,"
instead of "by man." It is not humanity in the abstract
that is in question here any more than in Rom. v. 12-21,
but single individuals, constituting the heads of races, whose
128
Chap. IV.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. ' 129
character and fate determines the character and fate of all
their descendants, and who are therefore in each case the first-
fruits (awapxr}, v. 20) of an entire harvest. It was not
humanity in the abstract that introduced resurrection of the
dead, for, once fallen and dead, humanity of itself would have
continued so; it was a single Divine-hum&u individual through
His righteousness (Rom. viii. 10). Were humanity in the
abstract the cause of death, it could not possibly be the cause
of resurrection also, since the two are incompatible. The
Revisers' rendering, so far from conveying the apostle's meaning,
puts into his mouth a statement which is almost as incredible
as a flat contradiction. The conclusion does not follow from
the premises, but rather an opposite conclusion. It is not
reasoning, but the negation of reasoning. Expressed in the
form of a syllogism, the argument would run thus :
Whatever causes death causes resurrection.
Humanity causes death.
Therefore, humanity causes resurrection.
But here the premises, so far from being self-evident, are
quite the reverse. On the contrary, the apostle's argument
is :
Resurrection is propagated as death is propagated.
Death is propagated through one individual to a whole
race.
Therefore, resurrection is propagated through one indi-
vidual to a whole race.
And the proper translation of the whole verse would be
" For since by a man [cometh] death, by a man also [shall
come] resurrection of the dead." To which we may add the
following verse : "For as in the [man] Adam all die, so also
in the [man] Christ all shall be made alive." The reasoning
in the latter of these two verses demands that the verbs
supplied in the former should be a present and a future.
The placing of "also" in v. 21 between "[came]" and "the
resurrection of the dead " (as in both the A.V. and the R.V.)
is quite false and misleading, being entirely unwarranted
by the Greek just as much so as would be the placing of
" also " in v. 22 at the very end of the verse. Neither in v.
22 can the Revisers be complimented on their success. They
K
130 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
inform the English reader that in the Greek the word Christ
is preceded by a particle of definition, while they omit to inform
him that the word Adam is preceded by the same particle,
though the two particles are evidently meant to balance each
other, and to point back to the indefinite " man " in the
previous verse. The mention of the one without the other is
not calculated to enlighten but to mislead.
So much for the translation. But what is meant by dying
in Adam, and being made alive in Christ ? In the first
place, to die in Adam cannot possibly mean to have Adam's
death reckoned to us, so that in Adam's death we are thought
of and spoken of as having died : to be made alive in Christ
cannot possibly mean to have Christ's resurrection reckoned to
us, so that in Christ's resurrection we are thought of and
spoken of as having risen. The tenses of the verbs, the
meanings of the words, and the plain scope of the reasoning,
equally and utterly exclude the idea that imputed death and
imputed resurrection are referred to. In the second place, to
die in Adam cannot mean that Adam and we are one in such a
sense that his death is not only reckoned ours, but actually is
ours in other words, it cannot mean that Adam and we are
one person, and our death one ; to be made alive in Christ
cannot mean that Christ and we are one in such a sense that
his resurrection is not only reckoned ours, but actually is ours
: in other words, it cannot mean that Christ and we are one
person, and our resurrection one. In addition to other
absurdities, this would imply that not only the death but the
resurrection of all believers is already past, a notion which is
refuted by the whole drift of the chapter, as well as by the
tenses in the verse before us. In the third place, to die in
Adam cannot mean that we are treated as if we had died
Adam's death ; to be made alive in Christ cannot mean that
we are treated as if we had risen Christ's resurrection. The
last idea is so extravagant that an apology is due for men-
tioning it. To say that it is alien alike to the grammar, to
the lexigraphy, and to the connection of thought in the
passage, is to convey but a faint conception of so utter a per-
version of the apostle's language. "Were it not that such
fantastic tricks are freely indulged in dealing with other
IV.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 131
passages, there would be little need to notice them here. In
opposition to all these artificial and unwarranted interpreta-
tions, every consideration, lexical, grammatical, and contextual,
demands that death and resurrection in Adam and in Christ
respectively should be experiences which men themselves
undergo in their own proper persons, and not experiences
undergone for them in the person of a substitute. To die in
Adam can, in accordance with the context and with experi-
mental fact, have only one meaning to die in a nature, or
character, or constitution, derived from Adam, and identical
with his, and to die through or in consequence of possessing
that nature, or character, or constitution. In like manner, to
be made alive in Christ must mean to be made alive in a
nature, or character, or constitution, derived from Christ, and
identical with His, and to be made alive through or in con-
sequence of possessing that nature, or character, or constitution.
The underlying principle is that nature or character determines
fate or destiny. We see this principle exemplified in the case
of all who are naturally or organically connected with Adam.
We shall see it exemplified in the case of all who are naturally
or organically connected with Christ. When the apostle says
that " through a man cometh death," and adds in explanation
that "in Adam all die," his meaning is that all men suffer
death in virtue of the common nature which they derive from
Adam. When he says that " through a man shall come
resurrection of the dead," and adds in explanation that " in
Christ all shall be made alive," his meaning is that all
believers shall experience resurrection to life in virtue of the
common nature which they derive from Christ. Adam in his
nature and experience is a sample or first-fruits of all his
descendants. Christ in his nature and experience is a sample
or first-fruits of all His followers.
That the apostle's meaning is what has now been stated
that Adam and Christ affect the destiny of all men and all
believers respectively through the medium in each case of a
common nature, possessed of special characteristics, entailing
death in the one case, resurrection from the dead in the other
is plain from the statements that follow towards the end of
the chapter. " The first man Adam," says the apostle, dealing
132 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY, [Chap.
somewhat freely with the narrative in Genesis, " became a
living soul ; the last Adam a life-giving spirit. Howbeit,
that is not first which is spiritual, but that which is soulish ;
then that which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth,
earthy ; the second Man is of heaven [heavenly]. As is the
earthy, such are they also that are earthy ; and as is the
heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we
have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the
image of the heavenly. Now this I say, brethren, that flesh
and blood [the soulish or earthy] cannot inherit the kingdom
of God [the sphere of the spiritual or heavenly] ; neither doth
corruption [the characteristic of the soulish or earthy] inherit
incorruption [the characteristic of the spiritual or heavenly] "
(vv. 45-50). Again, note the opposing characteristics in the
following : " It is sown in corruption ; it is raised in incor-
ruption : it is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is
sown in weakness ; it is raised in power : it is sown a soulish
body; it is raised a spiritual body. . . . This corruptible must
put -on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immor-
tality. But when this mortal shall have put on immortality,
then shall come to pass the saying that is written, death is
swallowed up in victory. Death, where is thy victory ? O
Death, where is thy sting ? The sting of death is sin, and
the power of sin is the law; but thanks be to God that giveth
us the victory [righteousness (Rom. vii. 24)] through [the
grace of] our Lord Jesus Christ " (vv. 42-44 ; v53-57). With
this may be compared : "But ye are not in the flesh, but in the
spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you. Now, if
any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His. And
if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin ; but the
spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of
Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwelleth in you, He
that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead shall make alive
your mortal bodies also through His Spirit that dwelleth in
you" (Rom. viii. 9-11 ; cf. also 2 Cor. iv. 16 v. 3).
Nothing can be more evident than that Adam and Christ
are here represented as possessing opposite natures natures
having opposite characteristics, and entailing opposite destinies
which they transmit to all who derive or descend from
IV.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 133
them. The nature of Adam is from the earth, and therefore
earthy, soulish, fleshly, sinful, characterised by corruption,
dishonour, weakness, mortality; the nature of Christ is from
heaven, and therefore heavenly, spiritual, life-giving, righteous,
characterised by incorruption, glory, power, immortality. In
like manner, the natures of all who derive or descend from
Adam are earthy, soulish, fleshly, sinful, characterised by cor-
ruption, dishonour, weakness, mortality ; while the natures of
all who derive or descend from Christ are heavenly, spiritual,
life-giving, righteous, characterised by incorruption, glory, power,
immortality. Hence to Adam and all who derive or descend
from him, all who bear his image, all who are such as he was,
death is a natural necessity ; to Christ and all who derive or
descend from Him, all who bear His image, all who are such
as He was, resurrection to life is a natural necessity. There is
thus an absolute correspondence between nature or character
and fate or destiny. Flesh and blood does not inherit the
kingdom of God, because in the nature of things it cannot,
because the corruptible and the incorruptible are opposite and
incompatible. It does not appear that Almighty God Him-
self could, even if He would, treat a man arbitrarily, or in a
manner wholly out of harmony with his nature. Wherever
there is flesh and blood, with its inherent sin, corruption,
dishonour, weakness, there must be death ; and, conversely,
wherever there is death, there must be flesh and blood, with its
inherent sin, corruption, dishonour, weakness. In like manner,
wherever there is spirit i.e., spirit united to, and determined
in its character by, the Divine with its inherent righteousness,
incorruption, glory, power, there must be life ; and, conversely,
wherever there is life, there must be spirit, with its inhe-
rent righteousness, incorruption, glory, power. The first of
the two natures is out of harmony with the law, that is, it is
sinful ; the second is in harmony with the law, that is, it is
righteous ; and so, as a matter of course, the penalty of death
attends the one, the reward of life the other. Subjection to
sin, subjection to the law, and subjection to death, are as
inseparably bound together as the qualities of matter, possibly
more so ; and so are freedom from sin, freedom from the law,
and freedom from death.
134 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
As the apostle contemplates death and resurrection quite
independently of one another, his chief concern being with the
latter alone, he is naturally led to represent the two races of
which he speaks in complete separation from one another. The
head of the first race is from the earth, and only earthy, the
descendants being exactly like their head ; the Head of the
second race is from heaven, and only heavenly, the descendants
being again exactly like their Head. In point of fact, how-
ever, the two races never exist in complete separation from
one another so long as the heavenly race exists in the sphere
of the earthy. All the members of the second race begin
their course while members of the first as well. What con-
stitutes a man a member of either race is that he be descended
from the common head, possess the common nature, and exist
in the common sphere ; and all the members of the second
race (the Head not excluded) are descended from the head of
the first, possess the nature common to the first, and exist in
the sphere proper and peculiar to the first. It follows, of
course, that every member of the second race must have been
twice born, must unite two natures oppositely characterised in
the totality of his constitution, must undergo experiences
proper to each of these natures, and for this purpose must
exist in two widely different spheres at the same time. The
Second Adam was from heaven, heavenly ; but He was also and
at the same time from the earth, earthy. He brought from
heaven a nature heavenly, spiritual, life-giving, righteous,
characterised by incorruption, glory, power, immortality ; but
He also received from earth, through the first Adam, a nature
earthy, soulish, fleshly, sinful, characterised by corruption,
dishonour, weakness, mortality ; and as a matter of course He
passed through the life-long processes of death and resur-
rection to life ; existing the while in the earthy sphere so far
as He was earthy and dying ; in the heavenly sphere so far as
He was heavenly and risen again. In like manner, every
believer, having received from earth, through the first Adam, a
nature earthy, soulish, fleshly, sinful, characterised by corrup-
tion, dishonour, weakness, mortality, receives from heaven,
through the Second Adam, a nature heavenly, spiritual, life-
giving, righteous, characterised by incorruption, glory, power,
IV.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 135
immortality; and, as a matter of course, he passes through the
life-long processes of death and resurrection to life ; existing
the while in the earthy sphere, so far as he is earthy and
dying ; in the heavenly sphere so far as he is heavenly and
risen again. As nature or character determines experience or
destiny, so vice versa experience or destiny implies a corre-
sponding nature or character. Christ and believers undeniably
pass through experiences proper to both of the two contrasted
natures ; undeniably, therefore, Christ and believers must unite
in their own persons both of the two contrasted natures (c/.
Rom. vi. 1-11).
One point more remains to be noticed. It will be observed
that in the present passage the apostle bases his view of the
corrupt, perishing, mortal nature of the first man (together
with his descendants) on the fact that he was of the earth,
earthy, that he was made a living soul as distinguished from
a life-giving spirit. According to the verses quoted above,
Adam was subject to death by nature, and not in consequence
of anything which he did, just as infants are subject to death
by nature, and not in consequence of anything which they do.
There is no notion of a fall through which sin and death
entered the world. On the contrary, the words quoted from
Gen. ii. 7, " And man became a living soul," were spoken of
Adam before he fell ; yet these words are adduced by the
apostle to confirm his view of the corrupt, perishing, mortal
nature of man as he now exists, of the first man and all his
descendants. The sense put upon the passage of Genesis,
like the reading adopted to help it out, is no doubt somewhat
peculiar, as it is certainly unhistorical. Instead of living soul
the apostle's line of argument would rather lead us to expect
dying or mortal soul. Living is the attribute proper to the
word spirit in the other member of the parallel (cf. " the spirit
is life," Rom. viii. 11), not to the word soul as here interpreted
by the apostle. The truth is that the apostle puts upon the
word soul an altogether special sense, which it was never
intended by the author of Genesis to convey, and which
renders the accompanying epithet living wholly inappropriate,
or at least out of place. The passage is quoted, not for the
sake of the word living, but for the sake of the word soul, and
136 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
because, with the words which the apostle adds ( . . . first
. . . Adam), it suggests as an antithesis Christ with His living
or life-giving Spirit, the antithesis between soul and spirit as
between man in the state of nature and man in the state of
grace being already in the apostle's mind (ii. 14).- Soul and
spirit are evidently related to each other as the more familiar
flesh and spirit (com p. ii. 14 with iii. 1 ; Jude 19), and since
the epithet living cannot be got rid of in connection with the
former, the contrast is maintained as far as possible by employ-
ing the stronger epithet life-giving in connection with the
latter. As usual, the apostle's exegesis attaches itself merely
to the words of the Old Testament writer, disregarding entirely
their historical sense and connexion. Nor can it be regarded
as at all strange or unprecedented that this merely verbal
exegesis should lead up to a contradiction, not merely with the
historical sense of the narrative in Genesis, but with the more
familiar view of the apostle himself on the primitive condition
of man. Contradictory results arising out of quotations
adduced and interpreted for the purpose of driving a special
point are common enough in the New Testament. We shall
meet with plenty of them by-and-by. And there is no question
but we have one here. The narrative in Genesis, which the
Apostle Paul elsewhere accepts in its simplest and most natural
sense (Rom. v. 12), represents the primitive condition of man
as one of righteousness and incorruption or immortality. Sin
and death entered the world together, after Adam had dis-
obeyed the specific command of God not to eat the forbidden
fruit. This implies that Adam, before he fell, existed in a
state of perfect righteousness and perfect life, exempt from sin
and mortality in any degree or in any form. The idea that
Adam, previous to the fall, existed in some sort of intermediate
state, neither mortal nor immortal, or rather, perhaps, both
mortal and immortal, that the seeds of dissolution were part
and parcel of his original constitution, and yet that he was
destined to pass into a strictly immortal state without disso-
lution, that he was mortal in the sense that his physical con-
stitution was a decaying, dying constitution, immortal in the
sense that his physical constitution was destined to be trans-
formed into an undecaying, undying constitution before it
IV.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 137
should reach the point of utter decay and death this idea
is a pure fabrication of theologians, foreign alike to the Old
and to the New Testament. Scripture recognises no inter-
mediate state between mortality and immortality such as is
here presupposed. To be mortal in the Scripture sense is not
merely to be destined to die at some future time, but to be
actually in process of dying at the present time. If the
physical constitution of Adam was originally mortal, then
Adam must have been in process of dying before he fell, and
in that case it could not possibly be said that death entered
the world through sin at least it could not be so said unless
Adam was originally sinful as well as mortal in which case
the narrative of the fall would have to be understood in a
figurative sense. That Adam, had he remained unfallen, would
have developed out of a mortal into an immortal state, either
by degrees, or by an instantaneous transformation such as
'shall take place on the fallen survivors at the second coming,
is an ecclesiastical invention, unsupported, or rather directly
contradicted, by the plain teaching of Scripture. It is the
fruit of an attempt to reconcile what are supposed to be the
natural probabilities of the case and the findings of science
with statements of Scripture which, if taken literally, are
flatly opposed to them. Unless we agree to disregard Scrip-
ture entirely, we must adopt one or other of two alternatives :
either (l) that the original constitution of Adam was identical
with that of all his descendants, being in subjection to sin,
corruption, and death, and that the narrative of the fall
embodies this idea in a figuratively historical form ; or (2)
that the original constitution of Adam was entirely different
from that of all his descendants, that it was righteous, incor-
ruptible, and immortal, that Adam by his disobedience came
for the first time into subjection to sin, corruption, and death,
and that the narrative of the fall embodies this idea in a
literally historical form.
It might perhaps be supposed that Paul accepts the former
of these alternatives in its entirety, that he not only attributes
to Adam an original constitution sinful, corrupt, mortal,
identical in all respects with that of his descendants, but that
in addition to this he understands the narative of the fall in a
138 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
figurative sense. Such, however, can hardly be the case.
For, first, there is no good reason to doubt that in Rom. v.
12, seq., Paul understands the narrative of the fall in a literal
sense; and, second, even in 1 Cor. xv. 45, seq., Paul reasons
on the exact words of a quotation from Gen. ii. 7 in a manner
which shows how entirely foreign to his way of looking at
Scripture would be the figurative interpretation of the narrative
of the fall. We are therefore bound to suppose that the
apostle by no means intended to exclude the literal interpreta-
tion of Gen. iii. ; only he is led, in following out and applying
what we know to have been the current interpretation of Gen.
ii. 7, to put upon that passage an interpretation which does
actually exclude the literal interpretation of Gen. iii. Were
this phenomenon an isolated one, we might perhaps hesitate
to trust our own faculties, and suppose that we were somehow
misunderstanding the apostle ; but, as I have said, there are
other instances of an exactly similar character, so that there
need be no hesitation in the matter.
Still, though the line of thinking and reasoning in 1 Cor.
xv. 42, seq., may have been helped out by the words of Gen.
ii. 7, it would be too much to conclude that the view there
presented of the primitive condition of man is due to mere
misunderstanding of that passage, and has no independent
foundation in the apostle's mind. The fact that the interpreta-
tion put upon Gen. ii. 7 is unhistorical leads to an opposite
inference viz., that the apostle is reading ideas into the
passage of Genesis which rest upon independent grounds ideas
that owe their existence, as well as their validity, to other than
Old Testament sources of evidence. In Rom. v. 12, seq., the
teaching of the apostle, so far as it touches the primitive con-
dition of man, is evidently based ' on the Old Testament
narrative, which is construed, naturally enough, as literal
history ; but it is not so clear that the same can be said of his
teaching in the passage before us. At any rate there is room
for one or two reflections as to the compatibility or incom-
patibility of belief in the literal historical view of the Old
Testament narratives relating to the creation and fall of man
with belief in the fundamental Christian doctrines of sin and
salvation.
IV.J PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 139
No one, I presume, will deny that the teaching of Paul
in regard to the presence and working of sin in human nature,
as well as in regard to the presence and working of the Spirit
of Christ in believers, was largely determined by his own
experience. The presence and working of sin on the one
hand, and the presence and working of the Spirit of Christ
on the other, were the two most certain, most elementary,
most fundamental facts in the inner consciousness of Paul
subsequent to his conversion. The man who could write in
the terms which follow, whatever he might think on the origin
of sin in human nature, must have known of its existence by
direct experience. " For I delight in the law of God after the
inward man ; but I SEE a different law in my members,
warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into
captivity to the law of sin, which is in my members. O wretched
man that I am ! who shall deliver me from the body of this
death ? I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. So
then I myself with the mind serve the law of God, but with
the flesh the law of sin" (Kom. vii. 22-25). And when we
consider that he who so wrote of himself " was alive apart from
the law once " (v. 9), that " as touching the righteousness
which is in the law [he was] found blameless" (Phil. iii. 6),
how can we entertain a doubt that the universality of sin in
human nature would appear to him as a self-evident truth ?
If the principle of sin was found to exist in all its power in
him, notwithstanding his outward blamelessness, how could
there be any one in whom it did not exist ? This conclusion
cannot be evaded by alleging that Paul's opinion of the
universal sinfulness of human nature was based ultimately,
not on his own experience, but on the Scripture account of
the fall ; for (1) it will be shown below that though Paul, in
Rom. v. 12, seq. y accepts the traditional idea that sin and
death entered the world for the first time through the fall of
Adam, he by no means goes so far as to teach dogmatically,
or even to adopt incidentally, the Church doctrine of original
sin ; and (2) the Scripture account of the fall must have been
known to the apostle before his conversion, when he had no
idea of the universal and incurable sinfulness of " the flesh,"
but on the contrary was still attempting to attain to righteous-
140 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
ness in his natural state. It was bis own experience, then,
of the presence and working of sin within him after his con-
version that taught Paul how completely dominated by sin
human nature is. And this is a proof that his doctrine of sin
possesses all the validity of a fact given in experience, and is
in no way dependent on the Old Testament doctrine of the
fall. The same conclusion is still further confirmed by the
discussion contained in the opening chapters of the Epistle to
the Romans, where the apostle propounds his proper dogmatic
view on the subject of human sin, as a preliminary to setting
forth his Gospel or doctrine of salvation. For there, incon-
testably, the argument rests throughout on experience, and is
quite independent of any theory as to the origin of sin, either
in the created world in general, or in the human subject in
particular. The apostle takes human nature simply as he finds
it, and appeals direct, to history and consciousness in proof of
its universal sinfulness. His whole position would remain
precisely what it is though the doctrine of an historical fall
were exploded and given up. It is true that in the end the
apostle invokes Scripture in support of his views (iii. 10-18) ;
but the way in which this is done serves only to point to the
same general result ; for it is not the doctrine of the fall to
which appeal is made that is brought in only in chap. v. 12,
seq., for a directly practical purpose but detached state-
ments of " the law," which are taken to describe the universal
empirical condition of human nature, while the stage at which
these are introduced, and the mode in which they are inter-
preted, render it quite manifest that the whole is directed to
establishing a foregone conclusion. Particular instances of
specially aggravated sin among Gentiles and Jews particular
Scripture quotations spoken originally in reference to special
classes of persons would never prove what the apostle requires.
They merely illustrate a principle that is known to be true on
independent, that is, on immediately experimental grounds.
That principle is that human nature or human flesh, as it now
exists whatever it may have been originally is tainted and
vitiated by sin, that all men as they are born into the world
possess a " body of sin," a soulish, fleshly, corrupt nature, which
is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be (Rom.
IV.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 141
viii. 7), which lusteth against the new spiritual nature received
by believers from Christ (Gal. v. 17), and which can be got
rid of only by being " brought to nought " in death (Rom. vi.
6). The existence of this sinful, fleshly nature in all men is a
fact of experience, whatever theories may be formed about it.
The apostle knows that it is so, and knows further that it
serves to explain the correlative fact of universal death. It is
evident, too, that this fact of the present universal sinfulness
of human nature is the main fact about each of us, as the
apostles would have been the first to admit : any question as
to how human nature came to be thus pervaded by sin is of
very subordinate consequence, and possesses a speculative
rather than a practical interest; so at least the apostles would
have said. The question of the universal sinfulness of human
nature occupies a very prominent place in the New Testament;
the question of how human nature came to be thus universally
sinful occupies a very subordinate place hardly any place at
all in fact ; it is brought in merely for the sake of illustrating
some other point, and its unimportance may be measured by the
fact that in the writings of Paul there are actually two con-
flicting theories about it, whilst in the other great doctrinal
writing of the New Testament the Epistle to the Hebrews
there is no reference to it at all. Still, the question as to
the origin of man, and the nature of his primitive constitution,
is forced upon us by the prevailing direction of modern
scientific inquiry, and we must needs be prepared to assume
a definite position in regard to it.
Now, one or two things are tolerably clear. In the first
place, it is clear that Paul in 1 Cor. xv. 45, seq., traces the
corruption, degradation, and death of the first man and all
his descendants to the fact that they are " of the earth,
earthy," and it is approximately certain that this view was
suggested by his own experience of sin and death as insepar-
ably connected with the flesh or physical part of his constitu-
tion. When he refers to Gen. ii. 7, he does so merely to read
into it his favourite distinction between flesh and spirit, as
between the natural, sinful, unrenewed, and the spiritual,
righteous, renewed, and the validity of this distinction rests
on his own experience of sin and redemption, not on anything
T 42 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap
contained in the Old Testament. He appears to regard "flesh
and blood " as corrupt simply because it is flesh and blood,
because it is " of the earth, earthy," and not " of heaven,
heavenly," or Divinely-spiritual. The same idea is perhaps
countenanced by the author of Hebrews who in general
draws so sharp a distinction between the earthly and the
heavenly when, following the author of Psalm viii., he repre-
sents man as made by God what he is now (ii. 7, seq.), and
" flesh and blood " as naturally subject to the devil and death
(v. 14).
Again, it is clear, or will be made so presently, that when
Paul traces the death of the first man and all his descendants
to the original act of disobedience, he is merely using the
current traditional view of the way in which men are ruined
to illustrate and commend his own view of the way in which
men are restored. That he refers to the fall of Adam at all
is due simply to the fact that it supplies him with a foil to set
in a clear and inviting aspect the scheme of salvation he is
engaged in propounding. He is not delivering dogma on the
subject of human sin. All that he has to say on that subject
in itself has been already said in chaps, i.-iii. He is merely
using materials derived from the Old Testament, or from
current opinion regarding the Old Testament, for purposes of
practical exhortation and illustration, and no one who knows
anything about how the New Testament writers in general,
and Paul in particular, quote and apply the Old Testament to
enforce their own ideas, will for a moment imagine that his
mere repetition of the narrative in Genesis relating to the fall
confers upon it any additional authority, or fixes its proper
interpretation. As well might one pretend that the meaning
which he reads into the seventh verse of the previous chapter
was originally contained in that verse, and that the author of
these two chapters of Genesis offers two contradictory accounts
of the origin of sin and death in human nature. The Old
Testament account of the creation and fall of man must there-
fore stand or fall on its own merits.
Further, it is clear that the literal view of the Old Testament
account of creation generally can no longer be maintained.
Science demonstrated to us some time since that the earth has
IV.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 143
existed very much as it now exists, peopled by vegetable and
animal life, for a period that must be computed by myriads of
years. And if the account of creation generally cannot be under-
stood literally, it seems very precarious, not to say inconsistent,
to stand on the literal character of the account of man's creation.
The creation of man is simply a part of creation generally, and
if the account of the whole must be taken in a figurative sense,
with what show of reason can it be maintained that the
account of the part is to be taken in a literal sense ? And,
again, if the account of the creation of man must be under-
stood figuratively, it is surely very hazardous to assume that
the account of the fall of man is literal history. One would
think that the two must be either both literal or else both
figurative. Besides, there are special difficulties involved in
the idea of a literal fall, whereby sin and death were for the
first time introduced into the world, difficulties so serious as
to have led many theologians otherwise perfectly orthodox (too
orthodox !) to deny altogether the natural immortality of man
as originally created. The plain unsophisticated sense of
Scripture is to the effect that by the original act of disobedi-
ence sin entered into the world, and along with it decay and
death. That is to say, through the fall the human consti-
tution was changed from an undecaying, undying constitution,
into a decaying, dying constitution. But this would imply
that the original constitution of man was so enormously different
from the present as to be altogether inconceivable, not to say
impossible, in a world such as, if we may trust the clearest
findings of science, ours must have been for myriads of years.
The mere fact that primitive man was destined to feed on
the vegetable products of the earth appears, from a scientific
point of view, to offer a flat contradiction to the idea that he
possessed an undecaying, undying constitution, for the process
of assimilation implies decay, and decay is the same identical
process with death. Moreover, it is clearly indicated in
different parts of Scripture that external nature, including pre-
sumably the lower animals, partakes in the present degra-
dation of man, and is destined to partake in his ultimate
glorification. The Apostle Paul in particular whose views
on the subject are evidently in the nature of a corollary to
144 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
the view which experience had led him to adopt in regard to
" the flesh " tells us that " the earnest expectation of the
creation waiteth for the revealing of the sons of God ; for the
creation was subjected to vanity, not willingly, but by reason
of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also
shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the
liberty of the glory of the children of God. For we know
that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain
together until now. And not only so, but ourselves also,
which have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves
groan within ourselves, waiting for our adoption, to wit, the
redemption of our body" (Rom. viii. 19-23). These verses
plainly teach that the whole created world, and man in so far
as he belongs to it, is corrupt and enslaved, liable to pain,
misery, and death, and requiring to be redeemed and glorified.
They almost seem to imply, in accordance with 1 Cor. xv. 42,
seq., that the world was originally so constituted by God
(v. 20), and that instead of man having corrupted and de-
graded the world, the world corrupted and degraded man.
Whether this last point be so or not it is certain that
physical science is altogether opposed to the notion that the
fall of man, some six thousand years ago, produced any change
whatever on the conditions of life as then existing in the
world. It is, I apprehend, quite indisputable that pain,
misery, and death, existed in the world that the whole crea-
tion was groaning and travailing in pain together myriads of
years before the time of the supposed creation and fall of man.
And if the lower animals, to whom, along with man, the vege-
table world is said to have been given for food, have possessed
the same organisation, and existed under the same conditions,
for ages, how is it possible to believe that the nature of man,
and the conditions of his existence, underwent a complete
degradation some six thousand years ago a degradation, too,
in which the whole creation, animate and inanimate, is said to
have shared ? A human being, existing in a world such as
the present, absolutely sinless, perfectly blessed, and immortal,
looks very like an impossibility. Weakness, suffering, and
decay appear to be necessary elements in the present consti-
tution of things. The energy of the universe is undergoing
IV.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 145
constant dissipation, and the forms of life on the earth's surface
sustained by the products of that energy cannot but share in
the general dissipation. No wonder that theologians have
come to regard the natural immortality of man as absurd, and
his natural mortality as self-evident. But if man was natu-
rally mortal, he must have been naturally sinful too at least
if there be truth in the apostle's statement that " the sting of
death is sin." If man was always the same weak, frail, suffer-
ing, perishing creature that he is now which is what is
implied in saying he was mortal how is it possible to pre-
tend that death with all miseries is the immediate effect of
sin, unless sin existed from the beginning ? And wherein
could the curse consist, if the fall produced no effect whatever
either on the constitution of man or on that of the world around
him ? How comes it that the whole creation is now in " the
bondage of corruption" and longing to share in "the liberty of
the glory of the children of God," if that bondage was not pro-
duced by the fall? If it was produced by 'the fall, how can it be
maintained that man was naturally mortal ? If the supposition
of a degradation in man's physical constitution be absurd, how
can the degradation of the whole creation be otherwise than
absurd ? Conversely, if the whole creation was in the bondage
of corruption and longing to be redeemed from the very begin-
ning, on what principle can it be maintained that man's flesh
or physical constitution was not in the bondage of corruption
and longing to be redeemed from the very beginning ?
On the other hand must be taken into account the results
of historical criticism, which are scarcely less important than
those of physical science. It appears to be quite clearly made
out that we have at the opening of Genesis not one account of
creation but two, and two accounts which originated quite
independently of one another, and are, in various details, such, for
example, as the order of creation, " mutually antagonistic and
utterly irreconcilable." Of these two narratives, the second,
which contains the account of the fall, is probably the older,
but neither can be assigned to an earlier date than the ninth
century B.C. Moreover, when we proceed down the course of
the narratives, we come at once on a series of characters, said
to be descendants of the first man, to which enormous, and, as
L
146 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
is now generally acknowledged, perfectly fabulous, ages are
attributed. These characters cannot possibly be historical.
They are regarded, apparently with the best of reason, as
purely ideal figures, framed to bridge over the gaps of tradition
prior to the dawn of strict history. A parallel series occurs
later on, some of the names in which may be identified with
those of places that existed at or before the time when the
narratives took shape, whilst others of them appear to be
abstractions pure and simple. The abstract or ideal nature
of all these figures is inferred, not only from the incredible
length of the ages ascribed to them, but from the evidently
systematic character of the two series, whether as viewed
each by itself or in their mutual relation to one another, as
well as from the round numbers that go to compose their ages.
But if the immediate descendants of the first rnan are purely
ideal, and in no sense historical, how is it possible reasonably
to hold that the first man himself is an historical character?
If the critics be right, as I apprehend they must be allowed to
be, in regarding Methuselah and his compeers as mere abstrac-
tions, called into being to account for a state of things that
existed at the time the narratives were written, they must also
be right when they maintain that the narratives relating to
the creation and fall are ideal representations, framed to
account for the world and the human race as they are found
in experience. This at least may be said : that if we assume
the correctness of the critical view, everything in the early
narratives of Genesis is adequately and fully explained ; if we
assume anything else, the difficulties, both scientific and
historico-critical, are so enormous as to stagger all rational
credibility.
On the whole, if the scientific and the critical difficulties be
taken together, and allowed their due weight, it must appear
to every unprejudiced mind that the evidence in support of an
historical fall has reached painfully near the vanishing point.
Theologians may still continue to tell us that when science
and criticism have each said their last word, their results will
be found in perfect harmony^alike with one another and with
the strict historical view of the Genesis accounts of the creation
and fall; but the rational conclusion at which to arrive, looking
IV] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 147
to the present state of the evidence, and to the history of past
discussion upon it, is that, in the circumstances specified,
the Genesis accounts of the creation and fall, considered as
literal history, will be found to have no relation whatever to
the perfected results of science and criticism. It is simply a
statement of fact to say that the theologians, in their conflict with
the geologists, have been beaten along the whole line. Their
ingenious but forced and fanciful attempts to reconcile science
and Genesis are now treated with universal contempt, and
sensible people have already learned to turn a deaf ear to the
new modifications of them that are constantly being proposed.
The more we know about science, and the more we know
about Genesis, the more hopelessly discrepant are the findings
of the one from the plain statements of the other, and yet we
are asked to believe that when our knowledge of science and
Genesis has reached perfection the two will be found in perfect
harmony !
At the same time, while I do not seek to disguise from the
reader my own opinion as to where the balance of the evidence
lies, I must point out that nothing in this work is built on the
rejection of an historical fall. No doubt the denial of an historical
origin to the human race involves the denial of the divine origin
of sacrifice. But even that is not expressly assumed or built
upon in the following pages. All the arguments here used
will retain their full force, though the narratives with which
the book of Genesis opens are throughout accepted as literal
history. Nor is it in the least necessary to attach overmuch
importance to the decisions of scientific men on the origin of
our race, or to commit one's-self with undue haste to their
present views ; although, on the other hand, it is but fair to
them to say that we know just so much as they can tell us on
the subject, and no more. The Bible can tell us nothing as
to either the time or the manner of the origin of the world in
general, or of the human race in particular. The latter runs
back into impenetrable obscurity, or at least into an obscurity
which scientific men alone can be expected to penetrate.
Their prevailing verdict at present is that man has developed
by slow degrees out of lower forms of animal life. And this of
course must be held to exclude any such thing as an historical
148 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
fall. Man, on supposition that this view of his origin is
correct, must be fallen in the sense that he is sinful, but not
fallen in the sense that he was once sinless. I cannot concur
with those who think that anything material hangs upon the
decision of this question. It would not, so far as appears, in
the least affect the views which experience and Scripture
suggest, whether of the nature of God and the method of His
government, or of the nature of man and the method of salva-
tion through Christ. In my humble opinion, it would rather
smooth away a number of serious difficulties that at present
clog and disfigure our theological system. It would harmonise
much better with the New Testament representations regarding
the world and man, his natural state, and the method of
deliverance from it. And it would show the divine govern-
ment, if not in a more amiable, or less inscrutable and
mysterious, at least in a much more just, impartial, and con-
sistent light I mean, of course, from a human point of view.
It would, at any rate, have the merit of placing the first man
on a footing of perfect equality with all his descendants, and
treating him exactly as they are treated which would surely
be a step in the direction of even-handed justice. And yet I
am aware that many will shrink with horror from the very
suggestion, as if it was to fasten the most hideous of charges
on the character of Almighty God. We must, however,
attend to facts. On the showing of the most bigoted tradi-
tionalist, evil existed in the universe previous to the fall of
man, and that previously existing evil was a main factor in
producing human sinfulness. The woman was tempted by the
serpent, and the man by the woman. In this sense, and to
this extent, sinful men are of their father the devil, and the
works of their father they do. Thus, the origin of evil in
primitive man, not less than in all his descendants, is thrown
back on a source external to himself, and the problem of how
evil came to exist in the world does not appear to be in the
least aggravated by the supposition that the constitution of
man never was different from what it is now.
I know, indeed, that the first man is credited with having
possessed a certain magical freedom of will, the abuse of which
is supposed to afford an adequate explanation of all the evil
IV.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 149
that ever has existed, or shall yet exist, in the world. Men
who can find any satisfaction in such figments are welcome to
it. For my own part, I cannot see that any freedom of will,
conceivable or inconceivable, would in the least relieve any
moral difficulty connected with the existence of evil, except
just that it would set in a slightly more satisfactory light the
suffering and death of the first man himself. But there is no
reason to think that the mental faculties of the first man were
in any respect different from those of his descendants ; on the
contrary, there is every reason to think that his conscious acts
were prompted and determined by the ideas present to his
mind, precisely as our own are. There is no evidence that
man would have fallen but for the temptation of the serpent,
and, therefore, in the absence of proof to the contrary, the
serpent must be regarded as the cause of human sin. Why
the serpent was permitted so to ruin the human race is a ques-
tion neither more nor less difficult to solve than would be the
question why the human race was permitted to develop out
of the elements of a world already tainted by sin, or the still
prior question why sin was permitted to enter the world at
all.
Again, it appears to be absolutely certain, on scientific
grounds, that evil, suffering, arid death existed in the world
long before the creation of man. The existence of this evil
must in any case be accounted for, and to suppose that it was
the cause of human sinfulness would not multiply or com-
plicate, but rather lessen and simplify the problems requiring
to be solved If it was consistent with the character and
government of God to permit evil to enter and pervade the
world, how could His character and government be com-
promised by permitting it to extend to the human consti-
tution ?
Once more, there are multitudes of facts occurring daily
under the Divine government that appear every whit as hard
to account for as would be the development of man from the
sinful elements of the world around him. For example, there
is the case of infants suffering and dying before any conscious
sin has been committed. It is doubted whether any such
infants will surfer and die eternally. Very well. But, at any
ISO PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
rate, it cannot be denied that they suffer and die temporally.
The temporal suffering and death of infants is a fact that can-
not be gainsaid. The eternal suffering and death of, at least,
some of them is a possibility ; for the arguments in support of
the universal salvation of infants resemble the arguments in
support of the universal salvation of adults in that they are of
an extremely questionable character. Anyhow, it does not
appear that there is any difference in principle between tem-
poral death and eternal death in relation to the Divine
government. To say that while it is perfectly just to inflict
any amount of suffering on infants in time, it would be mon-
strously unjust to extend that suffering into eternity, is not
reasoning, but wanton assertion, destitute alike of authority
and probability. To say that the temporal suffering of infants
is not penal, but merely natural, will not mend matters, for
then their eternal suffering, if they have such, and the tem-
poral as well as the eternal suffering of adults must be not
penal, but merely natural, in which case it will neither be a
whit less difficult to account for, nor a whit more easy to bear.
On the other hand, if it be alleged that the first sin of the
first man is imputed to every infant as soon as it comes into
existence, and that this renders it just and reasonable that
infants should suffer and die temporally, or, if need be,
eternally, it may be replied, in the first place, that this is
not a fact, as I shall prove presently, and, secondly, that even
if it were, the man must have a strange moral consciousness
who could see therein any alleviation of the difficulty. Thus,
then, if it be consistent with the method of Divine govern-
ment that infants should suffer and die in consequence of
having received from nature a sinful perishing constitution,
how can it be inconsistent with the method of Divine govern-
ment that primitive man should have suffered and died in
consequence of having received from nature a sinful perish-
ing constitution ? Other facts of a similar character might
easily be mentioned, but I forbear.
On the whole, it appears to me that the denial or disproof
of an historical fall, and the affirmation that man always has
been what he is now, would not in the least affect what ought
to be our present ideas, on the one hand, of the nature of God
IV.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 151
and the method of His government, and, on the other hand,
of the nature of man and the method of salvation through
Christ. The sinfulness of human nature would remain the
same fact of experience that it is now ; redemption from sin
through faith in Jesus Christ would likewise remain the same
fact of experience that it is now ; and as for the difficulties
involved in the existence of evil, these, too, would remain
precisely what they are, neither increased nor diminished ;
and it would still be open to us to unite with the greatest of
the apostles in saying, " Nay, but, man ! who art thou that
repliest against God ? Shall the thing formed say to Him that
formed it, why didst Thou make me thus ? Or, hath not the
potter power over the clay, from the same lump to make one
vessel unto honour and another unto dishonour ? " The pro-
blem presented by the existence of evil is an awful fact that
refuses to be either masked or minimised by metaphysical
cobwebs, and the sooner we come to realise its insolubility so
much the better. Men who affect horror at the idea that the
suggestions of modern science may, after all, prove to be
correct need to be reminded of the words of the poet
" 0, but, man, proud man !
Dressed in a little brief authority,
Most ignorant of what he 's most assured
His glassy essence ; like an angry ape,
. Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven,
As make the angels weep."
But, as has been said, the question as to the origin and
early history of man is one that scientific men must be allowed
to decide for us. It is to be hoped that their decision will be
forthcoming clear, unanimous, and thoroughly established, in
due course. Theologians may chafe under it as they please.
Of one thing we may rest assured, they will be compelled to
retire in the end, with all their wretched evasions and expla-
nations and reconciliations, covered with confusion as deep and
abiding as that which has attended their futile attempts to set
aside the findings of science on the general question of crea-
tion. For our part, we may say, in the words of Dr. Charles
152 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
Hodge, though in a slightly different sense from that which he
intended, " The believer may calmly await the result."
Passing now to the second of the two passages referred to
above, let us see how far it will either confirm or set aside the
fundamental ideas elicited from the first. The paragraph in
which it is contained is regarded by many and not without
considerable show of reason as the most difficult in the
whole Bible. It will, therefore, require to be examined with
some care.
The aim of the apostle throughout the paragraph is to
institute a comparison which turns out to be a parallel and
contrast between the means and method of human ruin,
supposed to be already known, and the means and method of
human restoration, which it is the leading object of the whole
epistle to unfold. He opens the parallel in v. 12; but accessory
thoughts, in the shape of proof of what has been said, crowd
in, and occupy the whole of vv. 1 3 and 1 4, excepting the last
clause ; so that the parallel begun in v. 12 cannot well be
completed in a regular manner. Hence the apodosis to v. 12
is not explicitly stated, but is implicitly contained in the con-
cluding clause of v. 14, " Who is a type of the coining One."
The regular form of statement, omitting the accessory matter,
would be as follows : "Therefore, as by one man, sin invaded
the world, and through sin death, and so death pervaded all
men, for that all did sin, so also by one Man righteousness
has invaded (cf. eyiyeprai, 1 Cor. xv. 20) the world, and
through righteousness life, and so life shall pervade all men,
for that all shall do righteousness." On the first blush, this
appears to agree entirely with the statement of 1 Cor. xv. 22
as above explained: "As in and through the man Adam's
(sinful) nature all die, so also in and through the Man Christ's
(righteous) nature all shall be made alive." A closer examina-
tion will reveal the fact that there is difference as well as
agreement between the two statements.
The parallel, we say, ends abruptly and irregularly in the
concluding clause of v. 14. A resumption is, of course, to be
anticipated. But this cannot take place immediately. For
the points of contrast rush into the apostle's mind, and press
IV.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 153
for immediate utterance, and these points occupy vv. 15, 16,
.and 17. Not till v. 18 is reached is the thread broken off
at v. 14 again taken up. There, however, the parallel of vv.
12-14 is resumed, and repeated regularly and fully, and in
two different forms of language, the one being explicative of
the other. The intermediate verses will be dealt with by-and-
by. Meanwhile, let us look at the main parallel as it is pre-
sented anew in vv. 18 and 19.
The following would be a correct rendering of these verses :
" So, then, as through the wrong deed of one [man the judg-
ment pervaded] all men unto condemnation, so also through
the righteous doing of One [Man the acquittal shall pervade]
all men unto justification of life. For as through the dis-
obedience of the one man [Adam] the many were made
sinners, so also through the obedience of the One [Man Christ]
the many shall be made righteous." The Revisers' rendering
is different, but I must take leave to dissent from it for various
reasons, of which the following are the most important.
It is plain that the two verses now quoted correspond
exactly, or almost exactly, to 1 Cor. xv. 21, 22, the only
difference being the tenses of the verbs, which are either
inserted or should be supplied in the opening members of
each. In Corinthians the present tense is used in the latter
verse, and should be supplied in the former ; here the aorist
is used in the latter verse, and should be supplied in the
former. In the closing members the future tense is used in
the latter verse, and should be supplied in the former, both
here and in Corinthians.
Further, these two verses correspond exactly to the parallel
started, but abruptly and irregularly closed, in vv. 12-14. They
are, in fact, a resumption and repetition of what the apostle
there said, or, at least, intended to say when the opening
clauses were formed. The apostle begins again from the very
beginning, and expresses himself very much as if nothing had yet
been said in the way of instituting a parallel. "So, then " (a pa
ovv) in v. 18, answers to " therefore " (&a TOVTO) in v. 1 2, though
it would be too much to restrict the reference of " so then " to
the matter preceding v. 12 ; it rather points back generally
to all that has gone before, just as " therefore " itself does.
154
PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY.
[Chap,
Let it be clearly noted how entirely these three forms of
the one parallel correspond to each other. In 1 Cor. xv. 21
\ve find "by a man;" in Rom. v. 12 we find still more
explicitly "by one man;" in Rom. v. 18 we find " by [the
wrong deed of] one : " that is to say, in every case the parallel
lies between agents or individuals, not between acts, and in
every case those individuals when first introduced are referred
to indefinitely. But mark the continuation. In 1 Cor. xv.
22. we find "in the Adam" and "in the Christ," the article
evidently referring back to the indefinite "man" of the previous
verse. In Rom. v. 19 we find "by [the disobedience of] the
one man," and " by [the obedience of] the One," the particles
of definition again referring to the undefined individuals of
the previous verse. Similarly, in Rom. v. 15 and 17, "the
one'' and "the one Man Jesus Christ " owe their defmiteness to
the previous occurrence of the indefinite "man" in v. 12.
(The two occurrences of the anarthrous " one " in v. 16 will be
noticed presently).
Observe, on the other hand, that were the Revisers' render-
ing adopted, and the word "one" in v. 18 made to agree with
trespass, &c., not only would the parallelism be thrown into
complete confusion, but the reasoning in v. 19 would be nulli-
fied entirely, it would no longer be reasoning at all. For the
point of v. 18 would be that the condemnation and justification
of men are accomplished by single acts ; while the point of
v. 19 is that men are made sinful and righteous by the dis-
obedience and the obedience of single individuals. The posses-
sion of sinfulness and of righteousness are the grounds respec-
tively of condemnation and justification, but the fact that the
sinfulness and righteousness of men can be traced to single indi-
viduals has no necessary connection with the entirely distinct
fact that the condemnation and justification of men are due to
single acts. On the other hand, if we follow the rendering
adopted above, which is that of the Authorised Version, the
reasoning is clear and convincing. If the sinfulness and
righteousness of men, the grounds respectively of their con-
demnation and justification, can be traced to the disobedience
and the obedience of two definite single individuals, then it
follows that the condemnation and justification of men may
IV.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 155
be said to be due respectively to the wrong doing and the
righteous doing of two indefinite single individuals.
But this is not all. The statement that the justification of
men is due to a single righteous act, in like manner as their
condemnation can be traced to a single sinful act, would offer
the most explicit contradiction to the main thought contained
in the previous section of the paragraph (vv. 15-17), as a very
slight consideration will show.
What I take to be the correct reading, rendering, and
general import of this very difficult section shall be stated
with all possible brevity. "But not as [was] the trespass, so
also [is] the grace-gift. For if by the trespass of the one the
many died, much more [is it that] the grace of God and the
gift in the grace of the one Man Jesus Christ hath abounded
unto the many. And not as [it was] through one [person]
that sinned, [so also is] the gift. For the judgment [was]
from one [person] unto condemnation, but the acquittal [shall
be] from many trespasses unto justification of life. For if by
the trespass of the one death reigned through the one, much
more [is it that] they who receive the abundance of grace and
of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life through the one
Jesus Christ."
The condensation of thought in these verses is probably
unequalled, at least in the New Testatment. So baffling is it
to unravel, that one is at first tempted to suspect that the
apostle, " inebriated by the exuberance of his own verbosity,"
has thrown out a variety of words and phrases without know-
ing very distinctly what he would be at, and especially that he
has mangled and distorted the parallelism in well-nigh every
verse for the purpose of mystifying and perplexing his reader,
and for no other end or purpose whatever. Yet it is true, I
believe, that the language has been selected and weighed with
extreme care, and that a deeper examination will convince the
boldest sceptic (Jowett himself not excepted) that scarcely a
word could be altered or left out save at the expense of modi-
fying quite essentially the writer's meaning. Let us try
whether we can present the thought, expanded to normal
dimensions, and in as regular and intelligible a form as
possible.
156 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
" But not as was the wrong deed, so also is the grace-pro-
duced righteous doing. For since it was by the single wrong
deed of the one that the many died, it is a much greater thing
that by the abundant righteous doing, produced by the grace of
the One, the many shall live. And not as condemna-
tion was through [a single sinful act of] a single sinful agent,
so also justification shall be through a single righteous act [of
a single righteous agent]. For the adverse judgment, resulting
in condemnation, sprang from the existence of one [wrong deed
of one] wrong doer, but the favourable judgment, resulting in
justification, shall spring from the non-existence of many
wrong deeds [of many wrong doers = from the existence of
much grace-produced righteous doing of many righteous
doers]. For since it was by the single wrong deed of the
one that death reigned through the one, it is a much greater
thing that by the abundant righteous doing of the many,
produced by the grace of the One, life shall reign through the
One."
It will be seen that there are two points of contrast between
the method of ruin and the method of restoration specified in
these three verses, one of which is stated in the first half of v.
15, and supported by an explicative reason in the second half;
the. other of which is stated in the first half of v. 16, and
supported by an explicative reason in the second half; which
latter, not being sufficiently explicit, is in turn supported by
an explicative reason in v. 17. The first and principal point
of contrast is, that whereas the ruin of mankind is effected by
a unit, that is, by the smallest possible amount of sin, the
restoration of mankind is effected by abundance, that is, by a
great amount not exactly of righteousness, because that is
not a thing that can be transferred from one person to another
without the intervention of a medium, but of grace, as the
medium through which righteousness is imparted to the
believer on Christ The second and subordinate point of con-
trast is, that whereas the ruin of mankind is effected by one
sinful act on the part of a single individual, the restora-
tion of mankind is effected through the bringing to nought of
many sinful acts or much sin, or (which is the same thing) by
many righteous acts or much righteousness created, it is true,
IV.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 157
through the grace of a single individual, but still much
righteousness on the part of many individuals.
Though I entertain little doubt that the above is a correct
account of the apostle's meaning, one or two words may
be thought necessary in explanation and confimation of it.
And, first, as to v. 15. It is clear from the connection
that "the grace-gift" (TO yapta-ima') is identical with "the
gift " (fi Scopea) contained potentially " in the grace of the
one Man Jesus Christ" (v. 15), and this again is the
same thing as "the gift of righteousness" (T?? Soopea? T??
Juraioo'wip), which is the equivalent resulting from the pos-
session of " the grace" (r^? yapiros) of God or of Christ (v. 17).
The " grace-gift " is, therefore, righteousness, considered as the
fruit or product of the grace of God received through Christ,
and received, as we know it is received, by faith. The " grace
of God," again, whereby men are created in righteousness,
renewed, restored or saved, raised from death in trespasses
and sins unto justification and life in fellowship with God, is
practically identical with the Spirit of God, as witness the
following among many passages : " But God, being rich in
mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when
we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive [by His
Spirit (Rom. viii. 9-11 ; John vi. 63, &c.)] with Christ (by
grace have ye beun saved), and raised us up with Him, and
made us to sit with Him in the heavenly places in Christ
Jesus ; that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding
riches of His grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus ;
for by grace have ye been saved through faith, and this [sal-
vation through faith] is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God ;
it is not of works that no man should glory, for we are His
workmanship [not our own], created [in righteousness (iv. 24)]
in Christ Jesus for good works, which God afore prepared that
we should walk in them" (Eph. ii. 4-10). "But when the
kindness of God our Saviour and His love toward man [ = " the
grace of God that bringeth salvation to all men" (Tit. ii. 11)]
appeared, not by works done in righteousness, which we did
ourselves, but according to his mercy He saved us, through
the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost,
which He poured out upon us richly [cf. " exceeding riches of
158 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
His grace " (Eph. ii. 7)] through Jesus Christ our Saviour, in
order that, having been justified by His grace, we might be
made heirs according to the hope of eternal life " (Tit. iii.
4-7). Passages like these, which might be multiplied to
almost any extent, leave no room for doubt that the process
of salvation or restoration from sin and death to righteousness
and life is effected by the power of the Holy Ghost, who is
the agent or instrument of regeneration, renewal, or resur-
rection, who, therefore, embodies in Himself the saving grace
conferred on believers by God through Jesus Christ. And
this is the reason why, in the verses before us, the apostle
was compelled to forsake the strict parallel form, and put the
grace of God or of Christ, instead of the righteousness of Christ
(which theologians would fain put), as the antithesis to the
sin of Adam. Believers are saved through the one Man Jesus
Christ, as they are lost through the one man Adam, but not
because the proper righteousness of Christ becomes through
faith their immediate possession rather because their new
creation or restoration to the image of God is accomplished,
not by their own works or powers, but by the power and
working of the Holy Ghost, whom God graciously bestows
through Christ. The "gift of righteousness" is indeed imparted
to the believer by God, but it is imparted, not actually or in
itself (that is impossible and absurd), but potentially or "in
the grace [=the Spirit (Rom. viii. 9, 10)] of the one Man
Jesus Christ."
Coming to v. 16, an interesting and instructive, if not
absolutely important, variety of reading meets us, and must
be considered. Instead of " through one that sinned " (&*
eye? d/mapTrjcravTos} the so-called Western authorities read
" through one sin " (Si ej/o? d/mapr^juLaro^. If this latter
reading were accepted, we should have to translate the verse,
" And not as [it was] through one sin [so also shall it be as
to] the gift ; for the judgment was from one [trespass] unto
condemnation, but the acquittal [shall be] from many tres-
passes unto justification of life" the meaning of which might
be expressed by the paraphrase, " And not as condemnation
was through a single sinful act, so also justification shall be
through a single righteous act ; for the adverse judgment,
IV.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 159
resulting ID condemnation, sprang from the existence of one
wrong deed, but the favourable judgment, resulting in Justin-
cation, shall spring from the non-existence of many wrong
deeds [= from the existence of many righteous deeds]." Now,
there is no denying that this looks exceedingly plausible, at
any rate, at first sight. It is as simple and easily intelligible
as the better attested reading is harsh, difficult, and obscure.
But this very fact lays it open to the grave suspicion of being
just the correction of a copyist, who could not understand the
original reading. And the suspicion is completely confirmed
when we subject the two readings to minute and careful
scrutiny. For while the more weakly attested reading will
not bear examination even for a moment, the other is felt to
be entirely suitable as soon as we understand it. Many objec-
tions might be urged against the reading au.apT*ifjLa. In the
first place, it is not at all evident why the apostle should have
used that particular word with reference to the sin of Adam,
when everywhere else throughout the section (vv. 15-17)
even we must suppose in the subjoined confirmative sentence
Adam's sin is referred to by TrapaTTTWfJLa. A more serious objec-
tion, however, is the absence of the word " trespass " in the
first member of the confirmative sentence. When the apostle
writes, " For the judgment [was] from one unto condemnation,
but the acquittal [shall be] from many trespasses unto justifi-
cation," it is extremely precarious to supply the word trespass
after one, and that for two reasons : (1) because elsewhere in the
paragraph (vv. 12-21) when one or the one stands alone (as it
does no less than seven times, without counting the other occur-
rence in the verse under consideration) it is the word man or
person that must be supplied along with it ; and (2) because
no reason whatever can be assigned for the omission of the
word " trespass," which is elsewhere always expressed, and
which, if omitted here, would not only have rendered the style
intolerably abrupt, but, in view of the prevailing usage, would
have led inevitably to misunderstanding. On the other hand,
if the word " one" (c?o?) in the first half of the verse be taken
as agreeing with man understood (as it must be with the
reading a/xayor^a-ai/ro?), the same word "one" (cvo?) in the
second half of the verse must likewise be taken as agreeing
160 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
with 'man understood, and the entire correspondence of the
two makes the reference of the latter to the former perfectly
clear ; the whole being clenched and confirmed by the pre-
vailing personal usage of one, not only in the present para-
graph, but in human speech generally.
But the most serious objection of all to the reading a/mdp-
Tt]iu.a is, that it would turn a verse which, with the other
reading, is more pregnant with subtle thought than, perhaps,
any other verse in the New Testament into a vapid, feeble,
purposeless repetition of the previous verse. For with the
reading ajuapTrj/ma, v. 16 would contain the very same point
of contrast which was already stated and explained in v. 15,
and that point would be stated and explained over again,
with all the pomp of an introductory " and," in a balanced
categorical proposition, supported by a balanced explicative
reason, after the model of the previous verse, as if something
new and equally important were being set forth ! Not only
so, but it would be utterly impossible after two such state-
ments and explications to see any real point, bearing, or pur-
pose in v. 17 at all. That verse would have to be regarded
as another verbose and meaningless repetition of the latter
half of v. 15, for which there was not the smallest need. It
would contribute in no degree to clear up the meaning either
of v. 15 or of v. 16, and, in particular, it would leave entirely
unexplained what stands very much in need of explanation
the apostle's reason for putting forward the grace of God
or of Christ, instead of the righteousness of Christ, as the
direct antithesis to the sin of Adam. Surely such empty and
unmeaning tautology is out of the question in the very heart
of a paragraph than which nothing more grand in its concep-
tion, or more teeming with significance, is contained in the
Bible or in human literature, presenting, as it does, in
sublimely condensed outline, a complete philosophy of the
entire religious history of the whole human race ! So different,
on the other hand, is the result obtained by adopting the
reading d/mapTrjaravTO?, that every word in vv. 16 and 17 is
instinct with fresh meaning, and the latter verse is quite
essential in order to a full understanding of the former. The
use of the indefinite " one " in v, 16, instead of " the one " as
IV.J PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 161
in the verse preceding, and in the verse following, is, of course,
due to the necessity of balancing " many trespasses/' which,
being introduced here for the first time, could not be referred
to definitely. Thus, on full consideration, the findings of
external evidence are completely borne out by those of in-
ternal, and the true reading is placed beyond dispute.
That the subjects requiring to be supplied in the first half
of v. 16 must be gathered from the argumentative sentence in
the second half ("condemnation" "justification") is self-
evident, and that " the gift " (TO dcoprjima) must be referred to
the righteousness of believers, considered as the actual embodi-
ment of the grace of God, received by faith through Christ, is
clear from v. 17, where the life consequent on justification is
said to belong to "those who receive [scii. by faith] the abund-
ance of the grace [of God] and of the gift of righteousness
[produced thereby] through the one Man Jesus Christ." The
antithesis to " not as it was through one that did sin " can be
nothing else than " so also it is through One that did righte-
ousness," and this implies that though, in accordance with vv.
12-14, and again with vv. 18, 19, men are restored through
one Man, as truly as they are ruined through one man, yet, in
accordance with v. 21, they are not restored in exactly the
same way, but rather in a way similar to that in which men
are ruined by themselves. The sin of Adam, namely, ruins
men by acting upon them from without (the principle on
which it is supposed to act will be defined immediately), never
becoming part of their personal character; the righteousness
produced by the grace of Christ, through which men are saved,
is righteousness that has been appropriated and made part of
their personal character, just as truly so as the sin of which
the law convicts them (vv. 20, 21).
Again, when we compare the language in the latter half of
v. 16 with that of v. 15, on the one hand, and of v. 18, on
the other, the parallelism is found to yield the following pro-
portion : As KpifjLa (v. 16) is to -jrapaTrrw/jLa (v. 15), so is
^apiorfjLa (v. 16) to )(ap l(r l ULa (v. 15). In like manner, as
KaraKpi/ma (v. 16) is to Trapd-FTco/ma (v. 18), so is Sucai&fJM
(v. 16) to SiKctica/uLa (v. 18). This must be held to settle
decisively the fact that the words ^dpicr/ma and Sucaiwfjux are
M
i62 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
used in two distinct senses, and also what these senses are.
In v. 15 the word papier jma corresponds to TrapaTTTco/uLa, and
designates the ground of justification as TrapaTrrw/ma does the
ground of condemnation. In v. 16 the word ^dpio-^a corre-
sponds to Kpi/ma, and designates the sentence (sententid) or
judgment resulting in justification as Kpijma does the sentence
or judgment resulting in condemnation ; so that when
Kpijma is translated judgment, meaning thereby adverse or
condemnatory judgment, )(ap L(r l ULa must be translated acquittal,
meaning thereby favourable (gracious) or justificatory judg-
ment. In like manner, in v. 18 the word Succuaafta corre-
sponds to TrapaTTTWfjLa, and designates the ground of justification
as TrapaTTTw/ma does the ground of condemnation. In v. 16
the word SucaiwfJLa corresponds to KardKpLjma, and designates
the act of justification as /cara/c pijma does the act of condem-
nation. It thus appears that we might almost frame another
proportion, and say : as -^dpicrjuLa (v. 16) is to
(v. 15), so is SiKdlco/uLa (v. 16) to SucaiwfJia (v. 18).
(v. 15) is quite identical in meaning with SucatwfAa (v. 18),
the former designating the ground of justification by reference
to its source in the Divine grace, the latter designating the
ground of justification by reference to itself as the actual
embodiment in righteousness of what was potential in grace,
(v. 16) is almost, if not altogether, identical with
(v. 16), both words designating the act or process
of justification, the former by reference to its source and from
the subjective point of view, the latter by reference to its
nature and from the objective point of view.
Further, the use of the identical term (jrapaTTT^iJiOToov) in
the apodosis with that which is latent in the protasis (Traponr-
Tco/Jia), instead of the corresponding obverse term, renders it
self-evident that some such word as annihilation or non-exist-
ence should be supplied, since it is quite impossible that
justification should spring from many trespasses in the same
respect that condemnation springs from a single trespass, or
in any other than an opposite respect. What commentators
say about the multitude of men's sins excitipg the compassion
of God to justify them in the same manner that the one trans-
gression of Adam excited the righteousness of God to condemn
IV.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 163
them, is so palpably nonsensical, and so utterly opposed to
the whole tenor of Scripture, that one is almost ashamed to
mention it. What evidence is there that the compassion of
God is excited by sin at all ? What evidence is there that
God's compassion would not be excited by a single transgres-
sion just as readily as by a thousand ? What evidence is
there that it was not the first sin of Adam that moved God
to redeem the world, and not " many trespasses " that followed
after it ? There is no evidence whatever on any of these
points. The last is notoriously contrary to common opinion,
which holds that the plan of redemption was not only pro-
jected, but put in operation, as soon as the first sin had been
committed. The apostle's language in the closing member of
v. 16 is fully explained by the well-known facts of Christian
experience, which are briefly glanced at in the corresponding
member of v. 17. The abundance of God's grace resides in
Jesus Christ, and is embodied in His righteousness : through
Him it is propagated to all believers, and embodied in their
righteousness, when they have become new creatures in Christ
Jesus. Simultaneous with the process of creating or bringing
into existence the new creature characterised by righteousness
a process that took effect on the person of Christ, through
the working of the Divine Spirit, as it takes effect on the
person of each believer, through the working of the Divine
Spirit is the process of destroying or putting out of existence
the old creature characterised by sin. Justification is the
acknowledgment or recognition of the righteousness possessed
by the new creature, and this acknowledgment succeeds, pre-
supposes, and rests upon the annihilation of the sin belong-
ing to the old creature. It follows that justification may be
said to spring either from the creation or existence of the much
righteousness or many righteous acts belonging to Christ, and
in Him to the whole new creation, or from the annihilation or
non-existence of the much sin or many trespasses belonging
to the whole old creation. The two phrases describe the one
positively, the other negatively the result of the double-sided
process which theologians speak of as sanctification, that result
being indicated just as frequently, and also just as clearly, by
one or other of these phrases as by both combined.
1 64 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
The popular notion respecting -^dpio-jULa, particularly in the
clause before us, is that it denotes forgiveness, by which is
meant the cancelling of the guilt as distinguished from the
destruction of the principle of sin, a notion which plays a
quite marvellous part in the current systems of theology.
According to the " evangelical " conception, the whole of
salvation appears to be summed up in this idea of forgiveness.
We meet it everywhere even in Rom. vi.-viii., according to
some in the epistle to the Hebrews, there is nothing else,
according to others. If we are to believe theologians, guilt
and not sin is the thing from which Jesus came to save His
people. "Are- you saved?" the ultra-evangelical will ask
you ; meaning, have your past sins been pardoned ? The
man is saved the moment his guilt is cancelled : the removal
of sin itself is a matter of the utmost insignificance ; at least,
it is quite secondary, and hardly worth mentioning when
salvation is under discussion. The central doctrine of Chris-
tianity is not regeneration by the power of the Spirit of God
but " the atonement " a ghastly piece of scenic display
drawn from the Jewish-heathen ritual which is supposed to
lie behind forgiveness. All this, however, is the baseless
fabric of a wrong-headed scholasticism. The introduction of
the bare idea of forgiveness in the present passage would
throw everything into complete confusion; it would destroy
the parallelism, invalidate the argument, violate the grammar
and lexicography ; in fact, it would land us in absolute non-
sense. How could the cancelling of guilt be said to spring
from many trespasses in contrast to the sentence of condem-
nation which (as the apostle will have it) springs from one
trespass ? The thing is absurd. Besides, it is not guilt that
forms the antithesis to righteousness, either here or anywhere
else, but sin as an attribute of moral character. The antithesis
of guilt is not righteousness but merit, a thing of which there
is not a trace in the whole epistle. XapKr/ma, therefore, in
v. 16, does not and cannot mean forgiveness, but points to
the formal sentence of acquittal whereby acknowledgment is
made of the righteousness possessed by the parties on whom
judgment is passed. The language of v. 17, whose avowed
object is to explain that of v. 16, puts this beyond possibility
IV.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 165
of doubt. For in that verse " those who receive the abund-
ance of grace, and of the gift of righteousness," as the con-
dition of enjoying life eternal, are identical with those on
whom the -^apiorima resulting in justification is passed. Now,
it is quite absurd to pretend that by " the abundance of grace
and of the gift of righteousness " is meant forgiveness or the
cancelling of guilt. Everything in the world would have to
mean forgiveness at such a rate. Forgiveness is not the sole
nor even the principal condition of enjoying life eternal.
Forgiveness is not the alone passport to entering heaven. On
the contrary, it is a mere accessory to repentance or renewal,
on which it is entirely dependent. The condition of entering
heaven, and enjoying life eternal, is deliverance not from guilt
merely or mainly, but from sin itself, and the possession of
righteousness consequent on that deliverance ; and " those who
receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteous-
ness " are those whom the grace of God, operating in and
through the Spirit of God, has made new creatures in Christ
Jesus, created in righteousness and holiness of truth, quickened
or made alive from death in trespasses and sins to eternal life
with Christ in God. Those who have thus been quickened or
raised from the dead are indeed "forgiven all their trespasses"
(Col. ii. 13), but forgiveness is a purely accessory process or
series of acts which follow as a matter of course on the process
of repentence, renewal, regeneration, or resurrection the put-
ting off of the old man and the putting on of the new. And
this accounts for the subordinate place which it occupies in
the Epistle to the Romans. Salvation, the subject of this
epistle, consists not in forgiveness but in righteousness, which
presupposes the removal not of guilt merely but of sin itself.
As for "the atonement" there is no such thing at least, in
the vulgar acceptation of the word. " The atonement " is an
Old Testament, not a New Testament ceremony, being simply
a physical picture or parable, borrowed from the Jewish-heathen
ritual system, and applied to illustrate and commend the
Gospel scheme of salvation of which it is imagined, though
quite erroneously, to have been instituted by God for a typical
representation. Forgiveness is conferred absolutely by God
without the intervention of any fictions such as the imputation
i66 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
of atoning merit. It depends directly on repentance, and on
that alone, and that has nothing whatever to do with an
atonement as commonly conceived, but consists in a transfor-
mation of the mind or spirit from a state of sin to a state of
righteousness, through the power and working of the Spirit of
God. But of this more hereafter.
Such, then, is the argument of these three verses. Its
bearing on the rendering of v. 18 is too obvious to require
pointing out. Both the points of contrast which the apostle
signalises are based on nothing, if they are not based on the
fact that justification and life are not through a single act of
righteousness, as condemnation and death are through a single
act of sin. Justification and life are so far from being through
a single righteous act of a single individual, that they are
through the many righteous acts of many individuals, albeit
all these righteous acts spring from the much grace of a single
individual. It is beyond question, therefore, 'that the meaning
of v. 18 is correctly expressed by, "So then, as through the
wrong deed of one [man the judgment pervaded] all men
unto condemnation, so also through the righteous doing of One
[man the acquittal shall pervade] all men unto justification of
life." The subjects requiring to be supplied are, of course,
those found in v. 16, and the predicates those found in v. 12.
" Justification of life " means justification whose outcome or
reward is life, and the life referred to is life in fellowship with
God spiritual and eternal life (v. 21).
The apostle, it has been said, endeavours to prove that the
original trespass of Adam is the means of occasioning the con-
demnation and death of all mankind in much the same manner
as the grace or righteousness of Christ is the means of occa-
sioning the justification and life of all believers. This is done
in vv. 13 and 14. But it is not done in the way that we
should anticipate. These verses furnish the rationale of the
" so " (oi/rco?) in v. 12. They explain how all men, while they
died on the ground that they sinned, died also in consequence
of Adam having sinned the primal sin. What we expect,
however, is proof that Adam's transgression., was the ultimate
source, the originating cause, of men's own sin, and, through
that sin, of their condemnation and death. In other words,
IV.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 167
we expect the apostle to assert and prove the theological
doctrine of original sin. If Adam, by sinning the primal sin,
corrupted his own nature, which he transmitted, so corrupted,
to all his descendants ; if all men sin in consequence of
possessing this corrupted nature derived from Adam ; if there
is no reason to think that all men would sin and die but for
the fact that they inherit a nature prone to sin, and already
subject to death : then it appears to follow that the primal sin
of Adam is the cause the ultimate if not the immediate cause
of the condemnation and death of all men. The doctrine
of original sin, as commonly taught by theologians, appears to
afford by far the best available basis for the parallel which it
is the writer's aim to establish. Strange to say, however, the
apostle ignores entirely what would have been so cogent and
conclusive an argument, and uses another so weak and incon-
clusive as to lead one inevitably to infer that he knew nothing
of the doctrine of original sin commonly so called. He does
not assert either the natural necessary sinfulness, or the
natural necessary mortality of the descendants of Adam in the
present passage ; nor does he trace the actual overt sins of
men to the fact that they are born in Adam's nature ; he
simply asserts what he endeavoured to prove in chapters i.-iii.
that, as a matter of empirical fact, "all have sinned" (irdvTe?
il/jiparov, v. 12, cf. iii. 23). Had the apostle intended to
teach the doctrine of original sin, he would have expressed
himself thus : " Therefore, as by one man sin invaded the
world, and through sin death, and so sin pervaded all men,
and through sin death" Such a statement would have
corresponded admirably, on the apostle's own showing, with
the case as regards Christ and believers : " So also by one
man (grace-produced) righteousness has invaded the world,
and through righteousness life, and so (grace-produced)
righteousness shall pervade all men, and through righteousness
life." The parallel, so stated, would bring into prominence
the self- propagating character of the Divine grace, the " not-
of-works " principle upon which the apostle insists so much.
The rationale of the " so " (oimo?) in both cases would lie in
the fact that sin and righteousness or grace tend, when once
introduced into the world, to propagate themselves naturally,
1 68 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
or, at least, necessarily and irresistibly. As a matter of fact,
however, the apostle expresses himself thus : " Therefore, as
by one man sin invaded the world, and through sin death, and
so death pervaded all men, for that all did sin" In this
statement, it is not the sin of all men that is connected with
the sin of Adam through the medium of a corrupted nature
propagated from the one to the other, but it is the death of
all men that is connected with the sin of Adam through the
medium of the personal overt acts of sin which each man as
a matter of empirical fact has committed ; and the rationale
of the " so " (OI/TO)?), which forms the connecting link, is given
in a way that is not only feeble, forced, partial, and incon-
clusive, but that has nothing at all corresponding to it on the
other side of the parallel
The argument is of so peculiarly subtle and unreasonable-
looking a character, that it is no marvel if interpreters have
been perplexed by it. After stating in the close of v. 12 that
all men, from Adam downwards, committed sin, the apostle
proceeds : " For until the law there was sin in the world
[= men committed sin], but sin [though committed] is not
imputed while there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned
from Adam until Moses, even over those [of that period] that
did not sin after the likeness of the transgression of Adam
[and therefore could not have had their sin imputed to them
except on an extrinsic ground, which is not stated, but left
to be inferred]." The apostle's argument is this : Before
death can take place sin must not only have been committed,
but must have been imputed. Sin cannot be imputed on its
own account, unless it is committed in opposition to law, or
express command. There were men between Adam and Moses
who sinned neither in opposition to the law (which had not
yet been given), nor in opposition to an express command
(such commands were given only in special cases), but who,
nevertheless, died, and whose sins must, therefore, have been
imputed on account of Adam's first sin. From this the
apostle proceeds to draw the sweeping conclusion that the
first sin of Adam is the cause of the death of all men, in much
the same sense that the grace or righteousness of Christ is
the cause of the life of all believers.
IV.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 169
That the above is a correct account of the apostle's argu-
ment will not be difficult to show. In v. 12 it is said
expressly that " death pervaded all men on the ground that
all sinned " (e^' w TTCLVTCS tf/mapTov). This proves that the
personal sins of men were the immediate ground or occasion
of their condemnation and death. It will not do to assume
that by " all sinned " is meant " all were reckoned to have
sinned " Adam's transgression. For not only would such an
interpretation violate every principle of lexicography, and that
to a perfectly ludicrous extent ; not only would it go directly
in the teeth of the principle enunciated in the same breath
that " sin is not imputed while there is no law " ; not only
would it contradict what is said in v. 14, that some men
between Adam and Moses did not sin a sin like Adam's,
and, therefore, presumably, did not sin Adam's identical sin ;
not only would it falsify the statement that " through one
man " and not, therefore, through all men " sin invaded
the world ; " but it would land us in downright nonsense as
soon as we enter the following verse. For if we assume that
by "sinned," in the close of v. 12, is meant "sinned Adam's
first sin by imputation," or " had Adam's first sin reckoned '"'
to them, and if we carry this meaning into v. 13 which the
confirmative particle (yap) compels us to do, otherwise the
argument will be completely dislocated then we obtain the fol-
lowing proposition : " Adam's first sin imputed was rendered
unimputable in the period between Adam and Moses by the fact
that the law had not been given ; but in virtue and as proof
of a causal bond between Adam's first sin and the death of all
his posterity, such of his pre-Mosaic posterity as did not sin
a sin like his own, were, nevertheless, visited with the
penalty of death." Surely the mere statement of such a pro-
position is enough to show its utter absurdity. On the other
hand, if we assume that the meaning of the word " sin " is
suddenly and completely changed when we pass from v. 1 2 to v.
13, we shall be attributing a kind and amount of word-juggling
to the apostle that would render it utterly impossible in any
given case to understand what he means from what he says.
Not to insist on the extreme dislocation thus introduced into
the argument, what is the writer and reasoner made to say ?
i;o PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
In v. 12 the apostle is made to assert that all men sinned
Adam's first transgression ; in v. 14, he asserts that some men
between Adam and Moses did not sin a transgression like
Adam's, in other words, did not sin Adam's transgression.
In v. 13, the apostle asserts that sin is not imputed while
there is no law ; in v. 12, he is made to assert that Adam's
transgression is imputed to all men, not only without law, but
without being even committed by them at all. In v. 13, the
apostle expresses the idea of imputation by the word impute
(eXXoyeo)), which word must have been present to his mind
when he wrote v. 12 ; in v. 12, he is made to express the
idea of imputation by nothing at all, or else by a part of the
word sin (a/mapTavw), and this, though the word impute is
already present to his mind, to be used when he requires it.
In v. 13, the word sin (ajuLaprta) expresses the idea of sin ;
in v. 12, the word sin (a/maprdvco) is alleged to express an
entirely different idea the imputation of sin. In the open-
ing of v. 12 the apostle says, that through one man sin entered
into the world ; in the close of v. 12, he is credited with
saying, that when Adam sinned all sinned, which would imply
that through all men sin entered into the world. Is it not
inconceivable, that any writer, who was not determined to be
unintelligible, should make the three successive statements,
" Sin entered into the world," " All sinned," " Sin was in the
world," while by sin in the second he meant an entirely
different thing from sin in the two others, and a thing which
he himself expresses by a different word in the following, or,
rather, in the same sentence. " Sin was in the world" is mani-
festly a return upon " Sin entered into the world" and the
world is primarily the world of men. The order of ideas,
therefore, must be, " Sin came among men," " All [men]
sinned," " Sin was among men ; " and since the last is indis-
putably personal, how can the others be anything else ? How
could it possibly be said, that " through one man sin entered
into the world [of men]," if "all [the world of men] sinned "
the primal sin ? at least, how could it require to be added
that " sin was in the world [of men] " meaning, thereby, the
personal sin of individuals ? If the primal sin was com-
mitted by all men, then sin must not only have entered the
IV.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 171
world, but completely pervaded it, as soon as the primal sin
was committed; that is to say, sin meaning the primal sin-
must have been " in the world [of all men] " the moment that
Adam fell. But how extravagant is it to suppose that within
the compass of a single verse we have mention of two distinct
ways in which sin entered, pervaded, and was in the world !
It is a fact that death, having entered the world through
Adam, has pervaded it, not instantaneously, or in the mass,
but gradually, passing from individual to individual. And
death is represented as entering and pervading the world
through sin. Is it not, therefore, a fair inference that sin,
having entered the world through Adam, pervaded it, not
instantaneously, or in the mass, but gradually, passing from
individual to individual ? Besides all which, it has to be
borne in mind that, if the death of all men be ascribed to the
immediate imputation of Adam's first sin apart from and
independent of any sin of their own, the argument of chapters
i.-iii. will be completely stultified, being rendered wholly super-
fluous. If all men are liable to condemnation and death on
the ground that they sinned Adam's transgression, in the sense
that that transgression is imputed to them, or in any other
sense, there is surely little need to go about proving that they
are all liable to condemnation and death, on the ground that
they have committed personal sin.^
I take it, therefore, to be quite clear that when the apostle
affirms that " death pervaded all men, for that all sinned,"
the word " sinned " refers to the personal sin of all men, and
this proves, positively, that the death of all men is due
* Stress is sometimes laid on the fact that the aorist tense (rj^aprov) is used,
as if this implied that the sin referred to was a single definite past act ; but the
aorist ijnaprov is employed, and necessarily had to be employed, as a correlate to
to the aorist di7J\dev immediately preceding, and the former no more implies that
the sin referred to is the imputed sin of Adam, than the latter implies that the
death referred to is the imputed death of Adam. Men who urge this argument do
not observe that the apostle could not have used any other tense than that which he
has used, without modifying the whole structure, not only of the present sentence,
but of the entire paragraph, the aorist tense being used throughout in the opening
members of the antithetical sentences. It is only what might be expected, there-
fore, if a glance backward at the identical expression in iii. 23 should satisfy any
impartial person, not only that the present argument is wholly fallacious, but, in
addition, that the interpretation above given is correct.
1 72 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
directly and immediately to their own personal sin, negatively,
that the death of all men cannot be due directly and immedi-
ately to the imputed transgression of Adam. It follows that
the argument of vv. 13 and 14 must be directed to furnishing
the rationale of the " so " (ovrcos) to proving that the death
of all men, though it is due directly and immediately to their
own personal sin, may still be ascribed to the transgression of
Adam, since it would not have taken place but for that trans-
gression. This is done by adducing an instance which proves
that the transgression of Adam must have conferred imput-
aUeness on sin that otherwise would not have been imputed.
The word " sin " in v. 13 takes up "sinned" in the end of
v. 12, and the argument is quite consecutive. In all cases
death must be due to the imputation of sin. Some men
between Adam and Moses died whose sin was not in itself
imputable. Therefore the sin of some men between Adam
and Moses must have been rendered imputable by the trans-
gression of Adam. From this the apostle infers, not only that
the transgression of Adam caused the death of some men be-
tween Adam and Moses, and that it causes the death of others
similarly circumstanced, which is all -that the argument will
fairly bear, but that it is the cause of the death of all men.
The conclusion is not expressly drawn out, but it is made use
of throughout the paragraph.
The reader will perceive that the argument is somewhat
finely spun. Paul does not say that the transgression of Adam
is imputed to his posterity, for that would have appeared to
contradict the principle that " sin is not imputed while there
is no law ; " yet the idea is exactly that of mediate imputa-
tion. Adam's descendants do not suffer the consequence of
his sin directly, but they suffer it through the medium of
their own personal sin ; that is to say, Adam's sin is imputed to
his descendants through the medium of their own personal sin.
Upon the most lenient consideration the argument cannot
be regarded as particularly convincing. One great difficulty
attending it is that the conclusion which the apostle wishes
his readers to draw appears to involve something much more
repugnant to reason and the moral sense than would be the
negation of the principle or premise from which that con-
IV.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 173
elusion is deduced. And this would be still more manifestly
the case were the view of theologians correct that the apostle
teaches the immediate instead of the mediate imputation to
all men of Adam's transgression. The principle which lies at
the basis of the apostle's argument is that " sin is not imputed
while there is no law," and this is avowedly not a scriptural
principle, but a principle of reason or common sense, a prin-
ciple that commends itself as true to the common conscious-
ness of mankind. Now, granting for the moment that it may
appear unreasonable to punish sin where the law has not been
expressly revealed, it is surely much more unreasonable to
punish it where it has not even been committed. If Adam
and his descendants be different persons, as they indisputably
are, then Adam's sin was his alone, and not theirs at all.
The posterity of Adam could have no consciousness of any-
thing, least of all could they have consciousness of the law, or
of a command similar to the law, at the time when the first
transgression was committed. Whether, therefore, we regard
Adam's sin as imputed to his descendants immediately or only
mediately, in either case the imputation appears utterly and
almost equally unreasonable at least if the apostle's own
principle be taken as the standard of reason.
But, it will be said, does not the apostle's conclusion follow
inevitably from his premises ? Grant that sin is not imputed
while there is no law, and grant that some men between
Adam and Moses sinned neither against the law nor against
an express command, does it not follow that the death of some
men between Adam and Moses was somehow caused by the
first transgression of Adam ? No ; not in the very least. The
only conclusion which these premises will warrant is a negative
one, as every tyro in logic could tell. We may simply infer
that the death of some men between Adam and Moses was not
caused by their own sin imputed in the ordinary way a
conclusion as different from that of the apostle as the world is
wide. It would be possible to suggest many reasons why God
should have inflicted universal death on the pre-Mosaic world
without having recourse to anything so far-fetched and repug-
nant to fundamental moral principle as the imputation mediate
or immediate of the first transgression of Adam. One reason
174 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
lies very near at hand. It is commonly held and the apostle
to some extent shares the conviction that man has a certain
natural knowledge of moral duty quite independent of the law
given by Moses. It would be too much, indeed, to say that
Paul, or any other Scripture writer, distinguishes two laws, the
natural and the revealed, the law written on the heart, that is,
" conscience," and the law delivered through Moses and de-
veloped by later writers. This distinction is a modern, not a
Scriptural one. When the Apostle Paul uses the word law
literally to describe a rule of moral conduct, he invariably
refers to the revealed will of God contained in the Old Testa-
ment Scriptures, especially the Pentateuch, written or supposed
to be written by Moses. He knows of no other rule of conduct
which may be properly called a law, as comes out plainly in
the verses we are now considering, and elsewhere. When the
word law is applied to anything else, such as to faith (Horn,
iii. 27), to the principle of sin (vii. 23), and of spiritual life
(viii. 2), to the nature or heart of morally upright Gentiles
(ii. 14, 15), the apostle is merely playing with it ; he is u^ing
it, not because it is the word properly suited to express his
thought, but because it happens to be already in his mouth,
and because his ideas prefer to run on in the mould with
which they started, instead of shaping themselves into more
exact but different language. To have the law written on the
heart does not mean to be furnished with a rule of moral con-
duct in the shape of a perfect intuitive knowledge of right and
wrong : the apostle expressly says that the Gentiles have no
such rule (ii. 12-14). On the contrary, it means to have the
heart brought into that state of moral purity and uprightness in
which it corresponds to the import of the revealed will of God,
a state which God promises shall be the ultimate state of all
His people in the final glory (Heb. viii. 10), and to which
some, but only some, Gentiles attain " by nature," that is, of
their own accord (Kom. ii. 14). Naturally enough, when this
has been done I mean when the law has been written on the
heart a state of moral consciousness is created that con-
demns wrong, on the one hand, and approves of right, on the
other (ii. 15); just as the renewed heart of the believer
approves and delights in the law of God, while condemning
IV.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 175
and warring against sin (vii. 22, 23). It is in the nature of
a good disposition to shrink from evil on the one hand, and
lean or be drawn to good on the other. But there is no evi-
dence that Paul thought of all Gentiles without exception as
possessing a "conscience" in the Butlerian sense, an ade-
quate or tolerably adequate guide to moral conduct, which is
spoken of as the law natural and internal, and contradistin-
guished from the law of Moses as the law revealed and
external. The very opposite is everywhere manifest, for Paul
himself " had not known sin except through the law," he
" had not known lust except the law had said, Thou shalt not
covet" (vii. 7).
Still, the apostle does attribute to the Gentiles a cer-
tain, if a small, amount of knowledge of moral duty, and
an amount quite sufficient to incur the penalty of death,
as the following passages plainly indicate : " For the wrath
of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and
unrighteousness of men, who restrain the truth through
unrighteousness ; because that which may be known of God
is manifest in them, for God manifested it unto them. For
the invisible things of Him since the creation of the world
are clearly seen, being understood through the things
that are made, even His everlasting power and Divinity; that
they may be without excuse, because that, knowing God,
they glorified Him not as God, neither gave thanks, but be-
came vain in their reasonings, and their senseless heart was
darkened," &c. . . . And we know that the judgment of God
is according to truth against them that practise such things.
And reckonest thou this, O man, that judgest them who
practise such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt
escape the judgment of God ? or despisest thou the riches
of His goodness and forbearance and longsuffering, not know-
ing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance ? but
after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up for
thyself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the right-
eous judgment of God, who will render to every man according
to his works. . . . For there is no respect of persons with
God. For as many as have sinned without law shall also
perish without law, and as many as have sinned under the
1 76 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
law shall be judged by the law ; for not the hearers of the
law are righteous 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, according to my Gospel" (i. 18-21 ;
ii. 2-6, 11-13, 16). There is not a trace in these verses of
the idea that the sins of men who are "without the law"
(avojuiwi) are imputable only through Adam's transgression ;
still less, of course, of the idea that they are not imputable at
all, but only Adam's transgression. The latter idea, in the face
of quotations like the above, is evidently out of the question.
The whole tenor of the apostle's language, and even his express
statements, not only do not presuppose, but appear absolutely
to exclude mediate as well as immediate imputation. The
knowledge of God which the Gentiles possessed rendered them
inexcusable, and therefore the wrath of God was revealed
against them. Why, then, should not the apostle have attri-
buted the death of men between Adam and Moses to their
natural knowledge of moral duty, instead of tracing it to
Adam's transgression ? Surely this would have harmonised
much better with the indications of Old Testament history ;
for how extravagant is it to suppose that the Sodomites, or
any one else in the period to which the apostle refers, had
their sins imputed to them only through the medium of
Adam's transgression ! Does not the apostle's own language,
as quoted above, equally with the history itself, directly refute
such an idea ?
Another difficulty attending the apostle's argument is that
it is only partial, it does not cover all the cases that call for
solution. If the effect of Adam's transgression is merely to
impart imputableness to actual sin which otherwise would
have been unimputable, then Adam's transgression can have
no effect whatever on infants, who have never committed actual
sin; death cannot possibly pervade all such infants "for that
all sinned.'' Yet, as a matter of fact, death does pervade all
such infants, and the apostle's theory leaves their death
entirely unaccounted for. The difficulty cannot be got rid of
by alleging that infants, though not actual sinners, are yet
original sinners, and that the sin of Adam is imputed to them
through the medium of their own original sin. For there is
IV.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 17?
no evidence that the apostle either held or intended to teach
the doctrine of original sin, meaning by that the doctrine that
Adam's first transgression corrupted human nature as such,
and that this corrupted nature is inherited by each and all of
Adam's descendants. If Paul held such a doctrine, why does
he not make use of it for the purpose of tracing the death of
all men to Adam, in like manner as the eternal life of all men
can be traced to Christ ? Instead of appealing to the death of
adults, between Adam and Moses, that did not consciously sin,
like Adam, why does he not appeal to the death of infants, that
did not consciously sin at all, in proof of the fact that the sin, and
therefore also the death, of all men is caused by Adam's first trans-
gression ? The apostle's own argument only applies to some men
between Adam and Moses, and to others similarly circumstanced;
but this argument would really have applied to all men : why
then does he not use this argument instead of his own, which
is otherwise so far-fetched, unreasonable, and inconclusive ?
On the other hand, if it be alleged that the apostle teaches
the immediate and not the mediate imputation of Adam's
transgression, and that this covers the case of infants and
heathens as well as of men between Adam and Moses, we are
landed in a more serious difficulty still. For now the apostle's
argument will imply that the sins of men who are " without
law " (avdfjuas) the sins of heathens generally, and of men
between Adam and Moses that did not transgress express
commands are unimputable and unimputed, that all such
men die simply and solely on account of Adam's transgression,
and not at all on account of their own sins, however aggravated
those sins may be. And this is absolutely opposed not only
to Scripture, history, and experience, but also and especially
to the quotations adduced above. If these quotations mean
anything, they mean that the sins of all men, Jew and Gentile
alike, are imputed, whether committed under law or not.
Possibly it will be urged that the death of infants may be
accounted for on the principle of the Divine sovereignty,
which determines so many other things about them (ix. 10-
13). But then the principle of the Divine sovereignty is a
very broad principle that will account for almost anything. If
the Divine sovereignty account for the death of infants, much
N
1 78 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
more will it account for the death of actual sinners between Adam
and Moses, in which case the foundation of the apostle's argu-
ment is taken away. The sovereignty of God is like the moral
knowledge of the heathen it will account for all the facts with-
out the help of the transgression of Adam, and there is no longer
any need of that transgression or of anything else to account
for them ; that is, there is no longer any room for the apostle's
argument.
A further difficulty attending the apostle's argument has
been already alluded to. The scope of the parallel requires
that the transgression of Adam should be, if not the sole or
the immediate cause, at least an essential condition, of the
death of every man, in like manner as the grace or righteous-
ness of Christ is an essential condition of the life of every
believer. In v. 15 the statement is, " If by the trespass of the
one the many died, much more is it that the grace of God
and the gift in the grace of the one man Jesus Christ hath
abounded unto the many." Again in v. 18 we read, "So
then, as through the trespass of one the judgment pervaded
all men unto condemnation, so also through the righteousness
of One the acquittal shall pervade all men unto justification of
life." These statements clearly imply that the trespass of
Adam is the cause of the death of all men in as real and valid
a sense as the grace or righteousness of Christ is the cause of
the life of all believers. But the argument of vv. 13 and 14,
so far from implying the like, would rather seem to imply the
opposite. For in these verses it is taken for granted that all
who receive the Mosaic law and sin against it are liable to
condemnation and death on that account ; their sins are of
themselves imputable ; and it is scarcely conceivable that the
trespass of Adarn should be mediately imputed under these
circumstances, since that would imply that imputableness had
to be conferred from without on sins which were of themselves
imputable. But if the trespass of Adam be not mediately
imputed, it can have nothing whatever to do with the death
of men who receive the Mosaic law. And this means that the
apostle's argument to be valid must be limited in its applica-
tion to men who do not receive the Mosaic law. Even were
the sin of Adam not mediately but immediately imputed, the
IV.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 179
case would hardly be different. For on the showing of the
apostle himself the death of men who receive the Mosaic law
would take place precisely as it does whether Adam's sin were
imputed or no (vv. 20, 21), and therefore the sin of Adam
could not be the cause of the death of all men in the sense
that the grace or righteousness of Christ is the cause of the
life of all believers. At the best, the sin of Adam could only
be a purely unessential condition, not worth mentioning, as it
is certainly never mentioned, when the death of sinners is
spoken of ; whereas the grace or righteousness of Christ is
the alone cause or condition of life eternal to all them that
obey Him, and is constantly represented in that light. It
is fair to add that the apostle himself appears to recognise the
failure, or at least the limitation, of the parallel as based on
the argument of vv. 13, 14, and hence, as we shall see, he
gives it a different turn, placing it on a much broader and
safer basis, in vv. 20, 21.
Lastly, there is the difficulty arising from the fact that the
mediate imputation of Adam's transgression can have nothing
corresponding to it on the other side of the parallel. The
apostle himself teaches that the imputableness or rewardable-
ness of righteousness is entirely unaffected by the presence or
absence of the law (ii. 13-16, 26-29). Heathens who have
never so much as heard of the law will, if they are found
righteous, be regarded and treated as such by God. So para-
mount and universal in its application is the principle of
the worthiness of moral goodness wherever found, that the
apostle would appear to set it above even faith itself in the
specifically Christian sense. Faith in Christ is the ordinary
means whereby moral goodness is created and the law fulfilled ;
but if men fulfil the law by nature apart from faith in Christ,
the result will be exactly the same they will be justified and
rewarded in the day of judgment (id.). It cannot, therefore,
be the case that the grace or righteousness of Christ is needed
to render imputable the righteous acts of men, whether these
are done by nature or by faith in Christ. Some such idea is
no doubt entertained by theologians, when they allege that the
good works of believers, though imperfect and unworthy in
themselves, are accepted and rewarded on account of the work
i So PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
of Christ. This is, as nearly as possible, the mediate imputa-
tion of the righteous acts of Christ, which, in the absence of
any such thing as immediate imputation, would correspond
tolerably well with the mediate imputation of the sinful act of
Adam. Unhappily, however, this idea, unlike the other, is
destitute of even the semblance of Scripture evidence, and can
only be set down as a fiction of the imagination pure and
simple. Not the imputation of Christ's righteousness, but the
condemnation and consequent destruction of the sin in Christ's
flesh, was needed " in order that the righteousness of the law
might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh but after
the Spirit " (viii. 4). Least of all is it necessary that the
righteous acts of believers should be performed in obedience
to the letter of the law in order that they may be imputable :
rather, the apostle's contention everywhere is that the be-
liever's obedience exists mainly because it is rendered apart
from the letter of the law. The principle of Christian obedi-
ence is not the law but the grace of God that worketh in us
to will and to do for His good pleasure (Phil. ii. 13). The
obedience which is of the law is mere bond service, extorted
by a dead letter, outward, partial, ineffectual ; the obedience
of faith is the spontaneous outcome of the Divine Spirit
operating mightily in the soul. It is therefore quite impos-
sible that a distinction should exist among righteous acts, such
as the apostle alleges to exist among sinful acts, between those
done in connection with and those done apart from the law ;
consequently, it is quite impossible that any such thing as
mediate imputation should exist in the case of Christ's right-
eousness corresponding to the mediate imputation which is
alleged to exist in the case of Adam's sin. It follows that
the apostle's parallel, so far as it rests on the mediate imputa-
tion of Adam's sin, cannot hold with strict exactness. When,
for example, it is said, " As through the disobedience of the
one the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience
of the One the many shall be made righteous," this must be
taken in a somewhat modified sense, for the method of con-
stituting the many sinners through the one sin of Adam
cannot be the same as the method of constituting the many
righteous through the much grace or righteousness of Christ.
IV.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 181
The many are constituted righteous by " receiving the abund-
ance of grace and of the gift of righteousness," by permitting
grace to " reign through righteousness unto eternal life through
Jesus Christ our Lord" in other words, by dying to sin and
rising again to righteousness in the power of the Divine grace
or Spirit. The many must, in accordance with what precedes,
be constituted sinners by having Adam's sin imputed to them
through the medium of their own personal sins ; in no other
way could the condemnation and death of all be truly attri-
buted to the sin of the one, since there is no attempt at con-
necting the sins of men genetically with the first transgression
of Adam.
Possibly, it may be thought that the parallelism would be
restored by postulating the immediate imputation, alike of
Christ's righteousness and of Adam's sin, and that a presump-
tion is thus raised in favour of immediate and against mediate
imputation. But, in addition to reasons already adduced,
observe (1.) that "the gift" of righteousness is distinctly
stated to be received " in the grace of the One Man Jesus
Christ," and if the gift be received by imputation the grace
must be so also. It is certain, however, that believers
receive the grace of God, even as the Apostle Paul himself
received it (Rom. i. 5 ; 1 Cor. xv. 1 ; 2 Cor. xii. 9 ; Gal. i.
15; ii. 9 ; Eph. iii. 7, 8, &c.), not by imputation, but as a
renewing, redeeming, transforming power, a power working
within, and producing death to sin, on the one hand, resur-
rection to righteousness, on the other therein effecting com-
plete salvation as the condition of life eternal (1 Cor. i. 4-9 ;
Eph. ii. 4-10; Tit. ii. 11-14; iii. 4-7; John i. 16, &c.).
(2.) There is no doubt whatever that in the present paragraph
the possession of grace, and of the righteousness which grace
confers, is represented as covering the whole of human salva-
tion or restoration, as being the sole condition of inheriting
and enjoying life eternal just as truly so as the possession
of sin is the sole cause of human ruin, or the sole condition of
incurring the penalty of death (v. 21). Now, since it is cer-
tain that before a man can see the kingdom of God, and enjoy
life eternal, he must have been regenerated and renewed, the
inference is inevitable, that the righteousness which grace
i82 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
confers must be the outcome of regeneration, renewal, or
sanctification. Mere imputation of Christ's righteousness could
not be put forward as the condition of "reigning in life," when
that experience is possible only to the man who has been
raised from death in trespasses and sins to fellowship of life
with Christ in God. (3.) The point of the contrast in vv.
16, 17, and of the parallel in vv. 20, 21 each of these sepa-
rately and both combined prove decisively that the case as
regards Adam's transgression, whether it be one of mediate or
immediate imputation, is not strictly parallel to the case as
regards Christ's righteousness.
As already observed, the parallel-contrast presented in vv.
12-19, if it is to be valid, must be limited so as to lie between
the method of ruin in the case of men who do not receive the
Mosaic laiv, and the method of restoration in the case of men
who receive the grace of God. In vv. 20, 21, on the other
hand, the parallel (the contrast vanishes almost entirely) is
shifted so as to lie between the method of ruin in the case of
men who receive the Mosaic law, and the method of restora-
tion in the case of men who receive the grace of God. The
apostle's words are : " And the law invaded [the world] beside
[sin], in order that the trespass might abound ; but where sin
abounded grace did superabound ; in order that as sin reigned
in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness unto
eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord." The meaning of
these verses is illustrated by vv. 13, 14, as well as by various
other passages in the apostle's writings. The transgression
was multiplied, or made to abound, by the introduction of the
law, because " through the law cometh the knowledge of sin "
(iii. 20), because " the law worketh wrath, but where no law
is there is no transgression" (iv. 15), because "sin is not
imputed while there is no law" (v. 13), because the law "was
added in favour of transgressions" (Gal. iii. 19.) the law being
" the power of sin " (1 Cor. xv. 56) in the sense that it con-
fers upon sin the power to work wrath, or to inflict the penalty
of death. " Apart from the law sin is dead" (Rom. vii. 8)
dead subjectively, in that the sinner is unconscious of its true
character perhaps also in that it does not so fully develop
itself and exercise its power and dead objectively, in that it
IV.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 183
has no power to " slay " the sinner (vv. 7-11). Previous to the
introduction of the law, the sins of men were as if they had no
existence. One sin, and one only, possessed the character of a
real living transgression, having power to inflict death, viz.,
" the trespass [of Adam]." Whatever condemning power other
sins had was due to this one. After the introduction of the
law, every sin was a real transgression, powerful, living, death-
bringing. So that " the trespass " was multiplied, or made to
abound, exceedingly. Henceforth sin " reigned " as a living
power, through the law, over against the reigning power of
grace or righteousness, the former manifesting itself in death,
the latter in life.
Thus there arises an entirely new parallel, differing from
the other in several essential particulars. To make the
parallel more exact, v. 21 might be read, "As sin reigned
through the law in death, so also righteousness shall reign
through grace in life, unto eternity, through Jesus Christ our
Lord." The antithesis between " the law " and " grace,"
which appears in this verse, is the most fundamental in the
Apostle Paul's writings. By " the law " is meant the letter
of the law, considered as completely divorced from the Spirit
of God, and as a means of condemnation, but not a means of
salvation, being, in this view of it, a synonym for the dead
naturalistic Judaism of the Apostolic age. By " grace " is
meant the Spirit of God or of Christ, considered as completely
divorced from the letter of the law, and as a means of salva-
tion, but not a means of condemnation, being, in this view of
it, a synonym for the living spiritual Christianity of the
Apostolic age. This circumstance alone, which is absolutely-
above dispute, is enough to settle the nature of the righteous-
ness of which the apostle speaks, since it utterly explodes the
notion that what he has in view is the Reformation antithesis
between justification and sanctification, as between the instan-
taneous forgiveness of past sins, together with the imputation
of Christ's righteousness, and the lifelong process of renewal
by the Spirit of God. The latter antithesis belongs exclusively
to the era of the Reformation, in which, despite its gross in-
accuracy, it performed real and lasting service, by breaking
through the dead, mechanical, naturalistic, ritualistic religion
1 84 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
of the Church of Rome ; not at all to the era of Christ and
His apostles, to which it is altogether foreign, having no
bearing whatever on the controversies that then occupied
men's minds and divided their opinions. Further, it is not
here asserted that the death of all men is " through one man,"
in like manner as the life of all believers is " through Jesus
Christ our Lord." Nor does the writer insist on the contrast
between the amount of sin on the one side as compared with
the amount of righteousness on the other ; for it is no longer
" the [single] trespass " as opposed to " the abundance of grace
and of the gift of righteousness," but abundance of sin on the
one side, abundance or superabundance of grace and righteous-
ness on the other. According to the present form of the
parallel, every man's death is caused simply by his own sin,
and that sin is not small, but great in amount. Death per-
vades the world not through one man but through all men,
and not through one sin but through all sin. There is a reign
of sin as such in death, just as there is a reign of righteousness
as such in life. And so, what the apostle's parallel loses on
one side, it gains on another. If it can no longer be said that
the sinfulness and death of all men come through a single
individual in like manner as the righteousness and life of all
men come through a single individual, it can at least be said
that the death of every man comes through his being possessed
and ruled over by sin in like manner as the life of every man
comes through his being possessed and ruled over by righte-
ousness. There is not a word here about imputation either
on one hand or the other. And there is no room for such a
thing. The sin of which the apostle speaks is the personal
sin of each individual, committed in direct violation of the
law, and such sin " reigns in death " apart from the trans-
gression of Adam, or anything else. The righteousness of
which he speaks is likewise the personal righteousness of each
individual, created by the power of grace (i.e., of the Spirit of
Christ), and such righteousness constitutes the passport to "reign-
ing in life " without the help of so-called imputed righteousness.
To introduce the idea of imputation, whether mediate or im-
mediate, is not only not required by the parallelism, but it
would utterly destroy the parallelism as well as the meaning.
iv.] PRINCIPLP:S OF CHRISTIANITY. 185
Now all this inevitably suggests the reflection that the
principle enunciated in vv. 13, 14, and the argument founded
upon it, have simply been manufactured for the purpose of
driving a foregone conclusion. The mere fact that the con-
clusion does not follow from the premises that, on the
contrary, it involves something much more repugnant to
reason than the negation of the major premise would be is
enough to prove that the real foundation of the apostle's
parallel lies somewhere else than in the argument which he
makes use of to support it. Nor is it difficult to discover
what the real foundation is, and how the whole paragraph has
arisen. The key is found in the concluding clause of v. 14,
where the apostle, speaking of Adam, uses the words, " Who
is a type (TVTTOS) of the Coming One." These words plainly
indicate that Adam and the future Messianic Deliverer are
thought of as corresponding to each other as type and anti-
type. The same idea likewise underlies 1 Cor. xv. 45, seq.
This is a Rabbinical idea, which the apostle found ready to
hand, and of which he makes use to illustrate his scheme of
salvation and commend it to readers imbued with the current
Jewish theology. That Adam in introducing sin and death
was the type of whom Messiah would be the antitype in put-
ting sin and death away, that as there had been a first Adam,
so there would be a last Adam, was the express teaching of
the Jewish schools in the time of Paul. And it should not
in the least surprise us that, when the apostle adopts this idea
in order to turn it to account for the ends of popular per-
suasion, he should at the same time adopt some of the argu-
ments by which it was supported, or manufacture others of a
like nature by which it might be supported. We have already
seen that in 1 Cor. xv. 45 he uses an expanded, unhistorical
text of Gen. ii. 7, reads into the word " soul " a pregnant,
unhistorical meaning, and then infers that the last Adam,
whose existence and anti typical character he takes for granted,
will be of a nature fitting Him to be the antitype of the first.
The argument of that passage, though it has the effect of
overthrowing the common doctrine of the fall, is adopted
simply because it supports the parallel between Adam as type
and Christ as antitype. So, in the passage before us, the typical
1 86 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
idea is the final cause of the whole paragraph, and everything
is constructed so as to converge upon it. The form in which
the parallel is presented conveys the impression that the
method of restoration through Christ is being deduced from
the method of ruin through Adam, and that the latter is to
be taken as the standard by which to measure and ascertain
the former ; but in reality the very reverse is the case. The
apostle knows the method of salvation or restoration from his
experience as a believer in Christ ; be knows from his Rab-
binical training that Christ and his work of restoration are
regarded as typified in Adam and his work of ruin ; and he
endeavours to bring these two things together by showing, on
Scriptural and reasonable grounds, how Adam and his work of
ruin may be co-ordinated with Christ and His work of restora-
tion. Casting about for the means of connecting the death
of all men directly with Adam in like manner as the life of all
believers is derived directly from Christ, he falls upon this
principle, that "sin is not imputed while there is no law,"
and proceeds to construct an argument upon it. Men between
Adam and Moses died : men between Adam and Moses had
not received the law of Moses : therefore the death of men
between Adam and Moses may be ascribed to the original
transgression of Adam. No matter that the fundamental
principle is itself open to doubt, especially in view of the
death of infants ; no matter that the conclusion does not follow
from the premises ; no matter that the imputation, whether
mediate or immediate, of Adam's transgression is an idea not
only difficult of conception and destitute of analogy in the case
of Christ, but far more unreasonable than would be the nega-
tion of the fundamental principle, amounting, as it does, to
something more than the negation of that principle ; no matter
that the mediate imputation of Adam's transgression does not
touch the case of men who receive the Mosaic law, nor the
case of infants who never actually sinned ; no matter that the
death of men between Adam and Moses is sufficiently accounted
for by the natural knowledge of God and of moral duty which
they possessed ; no matter that, if it were otherwise, the
sovereignty of God or the ultimate nature of things, which
must in any case account for the origin of evil, would account
IV.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 187
for such consequences of evil as the suffering and death of
heathens, infants, &c.; no matter that to ascribe the death of
men between Adam and Moses to mere or even to mediate
imputation of Adam's transgression would be to set at nought
the testimony of Scripture, of history, of analogy, and likewise
of common sense ; no matter that after all, after imputation,
mediate or immediate, has been adopted and admitted, with
all its subtlety and strange consequences, the method of ruin
through Adam has only the most shadowy possible resemblance
to the method of restoration through Christ, faith and the
work of the Holy Spirit, which are so essential on the one
side, being entirely unrepresented on the other ; no matter
that the law itself may not have been delivered at the time
to which tradition assigns it, but developed gradually in the
course of centuries, and always from elements of moral know-
ledge previously existing, in which case the foundation of the
whole argument, and therewith of the whole parallel, will be
very rudely shaken, if not entirely broken up ; no matter, I
say, what the apostle has got to do, and* what he does do, is
not to establish the truth of the common opinion that Adam
was, properly speaking, a type of Messiah, but, granting that
opinion, to confirm it by the usual popular methods of argu-
ment, and then to illustrate and commend his scheme of
salvation by means of it. The entire paragraph takes its rise
from, and rests upon, two presuppositions : the one the fact of
salvation, restoration, or the attainment of righteousness and
life through Christ a fact derived from independent, that is,
from experimental sources; the other the idea of a typical
relationship between Adam and Christ an idea likewise de-
rived from independent, that is, from Rabbinical sources.
Given these two presuppositions, the problem which the
apostle has to solve is to demonstrate the typical relationship,
by showing wherein the case as regards Adam and his descend-
ants corresponds to the case as regards Christ and believers.
The apostle's direct aim is not to communicate the method of
human salvation through Christ that having been already
done in the previous portion of the epistle but rather to
illustrate and commend it to his readers by showing how it
tallies with its presumed type, the method of human ruin
i88 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
through Adam. Just as the aim of the Epistle to the Hebrews
is not to explain in a direct, simple, didactic manner the
nature of the Gospel scheme of salvation, but to show how
that scheme, being what it is known and acknowledged to be,
corresponds to its presumed type, the law scheme of salvation,
so the aim of the present paragraph is not to propound
after a plain unrhetorical fashion the method of restoration
through Christ, but to show how that method, being what it
is known and acknowledged to be, corresponds to its presumed
type, the method of ruin through Adam. When this is borne
in mind, the artificial character of the argument, and its in-
consistency with the apostle's teaching elsewhere, are at once
explained. The writer to the Hebrews is determined at all
hazards to make out a resemblance between two things that
have little or no intrinsic resemblance, that neither are fitted
nor were ever intended to represent each other as type and
antitype, the Old Testament dispensation of law or ceremony
and the New Testament dispensation of Gospel grace ; and
hence, as we shall* see, he falls into a multitude of contra-
dictions and inconsistencies at once with himself and with
historical fact. And in the same way the Apostle Paul is
determined at all hazards to make out a resemblance between
the method of ruin through Adam and the method of restora-
tion through Christ things which, after all, have not very
much intrinsic resemblance, and which were certainly never
intended to represent each other as type and antitype ; and
hence the strained, artificial, inconsistent, inconclusive char-
acter of the reasoning he employs.
I have argued in favour of mediate imputation, because that
idea, subtle and hair-splitting though it may appear, is de-
manded by strict grammatical and lexicographical principle,
not because it is less unreasonable in itself than immediate
imputation, or less opposed to the available evidence. It
would be no very serious objection to the immediate imputa-
tion of Adam's transgression that it is repugnant to the
dictates of reason, to the teachings of experience and analogy,
to the indications of Old Testament history, to other state-
ments in the apostle's writings : in spite of all that, it might
still be taught in the present passage, with a view to making
IV.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 189
out the parallel between Adam as type, and Christ as' anti-
type. The real objection to it is, that it will not explain the
apostle's language without forsaking the grammar and lexicon,
and drawing on the fancies of the Church doctors. Still, even
if we suppose that the thing taught is the immediate imputa-
tion of Adam's transgression a possibility which I have oftener
than once contemplated above, because absolute assurance as
to the meaning of a passage so artificial in its conception, and
so abruptly expressed, is hardly attainable this will by no
means warrant the inference that the immediate imputation of
Christ's righteousness is likewise taught, as the reader will
easily perceive.
Nothing could possibly be more fallacious than the common
impression, that when we have settled the precise nature of the
process on one side of the parallel, we may infer with absolute
certainty as to the precise nature of the process on the other
side. This is the same fallacy which we meet in connection
with the Epistle to the Hebrews, when men suppose that by
proving what is the precise nature of a Jewish sacrifice, they
have proved what is the precise nature of the saving work of
Christ. In* both cases the writers are throwing the features
of a supposed antitype back into what was never intended for
a type, and such an undertaking can from its very nature be
but very partially successful. The Apostle Paul, no doubt,
strives hard to find something on the side of Adam corre-
sponding to what is known to exist on the side of Christ, just
as the author of Hebrews strives hard to find something in
the work of Christ corresponding to the several parts of the
Jewish sacrifice ; but no man, not even an inspired man, can
accomplish impossibilities. If the' two things were totally,
or partially, different before the attempt to co-ordinate them
began, they will be totally, or partially, different after it is
finished ; only, the difference will be veiled under a sameness
of phraseology sanctioned by dubious exegetical and other
arguments. When, for example, it is said in v. 18 that
" as through the disobedience of the one the many were made
sinners, so also through the obedience of the One the many
shall be made righteous," the phraseology on both sides is
exactly the same, but the facts must in the nature of the case
190 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
be different. No one dare pretend that the two things happen
in exactly the same way : unless we have greatly misunder-
stood the argument of the previous verses, they happen, accord-
ing to the apostle himself, in very different ways. If it be
said that by taking the first member of the parallel in a
different sense from the second, we are playing fast and loose
with the apostle's language, the answer is that the apostle
himself compels us to do so. If the imputation, mediate or
immediate, of Adam's transgression be taught in v. 19, the
same cannot possibly be taught in v. 21 ; yet in v. 21, not
less than in v. 19, the method of restoration is represented as
parallel to the method of ruin. It is not, therefore, a question
of whether the apostle's language is ever to be taken loosely,
but in which of two cases it is to be taken loosely, or whether
it is to be taken loosely in both.
These observations may serve to evince how thoroughly
delusive are some of the modes of reasoning employed in the
interpretation of this and similar passages. When theologians
have it pointed out to them that the imputation of Adam's
transgression, as they understand it, cannot, without great
violence, be read into vv. 12-14, or, indeed, into any part
of the paragraph, the answer not unfrequently is that the
righteousness of Christ is imputed to believers, and that,
consequently, violence or no violence, the sin of Adam must
likewise be imputed. But even if it were a fact, which it is
not, that the righteousness of Christ is imputed to believers, it
would by no means follow that the sin of Adam must likewise
be imputed. The apostle's aim is to make out a parallel, so
far as that is possible, between Adam as type and Christ as
antitype. He professes to have so far succeeded as to show
that whereas the life of all believers is causally connected with
the obedience or righteousness of Christ, the death of all men
is causally connected with the disobedience or sin of Adam.
But even his language cannot fairly be held to imply that
the disobedience of Adam brings about the death of all men
in exactly the same way that the obedience of Christ brings
about the life of all believers. On the contrary, both the
nature of the case, and the peculiar character of the argument
by which the apostle connects the sin of Adam with the death
IV.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 191
of all men not to speak of the qualifications expressly intro-
duced in the middle of the paragraph (vv. 16, 17) indicate
quite clearly that the details of the modus must be different
in the two cases. Something in the nature of imputation is
the means whereby the sin of Adam affects all men so as to
bring about their death, but there is not a word nor a hint in
vv. 12-19 that anything in the nature of imputation is the
means whereby the righteousness of Christ affects all believers
so as to bring about their life; whilst v. 21 is utterly opposed
to any such idea.
Again, it is very commonly maintained that v. 18 expressly
teaches the doctrine of universal salvation, or at least of a
universal " atonement," including by implication the universal
salvation of infants. I have certainly no particular desire to
defend the doctrine of a limited atonement, nor even of an
atonement at all, in the popular sense of the word; but with-
out committing one's self to any such thing one may be allowed
to point out that neither universal salvation nor universal
atonement can find any substantial support from the balanced
expressions of the present paragraph. In v. 18 we read that
" through the trespass of one the judgment pervaded all men
unto condemnation " ; but it has been already shown that this
is merely a rough, general, approximate statement, made for
the purpose of rounding the antithesis, that the apostle's argu-
ment in the preceding verses by no means warrants so sweep-
ing a conclusion, that it is implied in the reasoning of vv. 13,
14, and expressly asserted in vv. 20, 21, that the condemna-
tion and death of men who receive the Mosaic law do not
proceed from the transgression of Adam, but from their own
personal transgressions, in the same way that the justification
and life of believers proceed not from the imputation of
Christ's obedience but from their own personal obedience, as
prompted and called into exercise by Divine grace. And if
the first member of v. 18 be merely a rough, general, approxi-
mate statement, adapted to bring out the parallelism, the
second member very well may be, and in fact evidently is, a
statement framed on the same model, and of precisely the
same character. " So also through the righteous doing of One
the acquittal shall pervade all men unto justification of life,"
192 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
has nothing whatever to do with an " atonement ;" to which
there is nothing in the least corresponding on the other side
of the parallel. It certainly has to do with salvation, but the
statement, being general, and having no pretence to exhaus-
tive completeness, ignores entirely the existence of faith as the
means of appropriating the Divine grace and righteousness, the
essential condition of justification and life, obviously because
there is no such thing as faith connected with the incurring of
condemnation and death through Adam's sin in the other
member of the parallel. It thus completely disguises the fact
that the way in which the righteous doing of Christ causes the
life of men is entirely different from the way in which (as is
alleged) the sin of Adam causes the death of men, that in the
one case the effect is produced invariably, being practically
independent of the will of the person affected, whereas in the
other case the effect is produced conditionally, and therefore
variably, being wholly dependent on the will of the person
affected. From this it naturally and necessarily follows that
the apostle says "all men" when the nature of the case
demands that he should mean "all believers" The apostle'
could have said " all believers " only if he had explained that
grace and righteousness were appropriated by faith, and that
while some believed the word spoken others believed not to
have done which would have grievously marred and obscured
the parallelism. Such being the case, it is manifestly pre-
posterous to stand on the universal expression " all men " as a
proof of a universal " atonement " or universal salvation.
Once more, it is often alleged that the doctrine of original
sin is distinctly taught in this place, particularly at v. 12, and
again at v. 19. But the most remarkable thing about the
whole paragraph is that the doctrine of original sin is distinctly
not taught in it. It is quite true that if v. 19 stood alone,
and had no manner of connection either with what precedes or
with what follows, nothing would be so natural as to construe
the first member as teaching the. doctrine of original sin. In
that case, indeed, the sinfulness of men would not be directly
derived from Adam in consequence of his disobedience in like
manner as the righteousness of believers is directly derived
from Christ (through His indwelling Spirit) in consequence of
IV.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 193
His obedience. Still, it would be ultimately derived from
Adam through the medium of an indefinite series of ances-
tors, and parallelism closer than this could not reasonably be
either expected or required. V. 19, however, does not stand
alone, but is intimately connected both with what precedes
and with what follows, and therefore whatever be the meaning
of the second member, or whatever the effect on the parallel-
ism, which, as we have abundantly proved, cannot in any
case be perfectly exact, we are bound to put on the first mem-
ber a construction warranted by the context, and not one to
which the context gives not the smallest countenance. When
it is said in v. 12 that " sin invaded (eicrrjXOev) the world," the
word " sin " (y ajmapria) refers simply to the actual trespass of
Adam, as v. 20 shows, where " invaded beside " (Trap
eia-rjXOev) indicates that a return is being made upon v. 12,
and where " the trespass " (TO TrapaTrrw/uLci), which indisputably
refers to the sinful act of Adam (cf. " the trespass," vv. 15, 17,
18 ; " Adam's transgression," v. 14 ; " the disobedience," v. 19 ;
one that " sinned," v. 16), is alternated with " sin " (17 a/mapTta)
in the same sentence. When it is said in the same v. 12 that
" all sinned," the word " sinned " (rjfjLaprov) again refers simply
to conscious acts, which are actually though not always con-
sciously sinful, such acts as are spoken of in chapters i.-iii.,
as appears clearly from vv. 13, 14 (cf. "many trespasses,"
v. 16). And so throughout the whole of vv. 12 20 the word
sin has only one meaning, and that the simplest possible, viz.,
sinful act, trespass, transgression (unconscious it may be) of the
law. Such subtleties as "sin in the abstract," "sin as a
habit," " sin as a principle," " sin as a power," " sin as to its idea
and essence " serve no other purpose than to confuse and per-
plex the mind. The apostle gives us no information as to
whether sin became habitual in Adam, much less does he
indicate that an habitual proneness to sin was transmitted by
Adam to all his descendants. Even if he had raised and
discussed such points, he would never have said or thought
what has been so often said and thought for him, that a single
sin totally depraved the nature of Adam, and that depravity
was an arbitrary judicial infliction on account of the first
transgression. He knew too well that while sin enslaves the
o
194 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
man who commits it, it does so naturally, and only gradually ;
that God inflicts depravity on men, not directly, but only by
"giving them up" (Rom. i. 24, 26, 28) to the power of evil,
so that they are thereby " fitted to destruction " (ix. 22). The
further idea that Adam's transgression is imputed to each of
his descendants before they come into existence, and that the
guilt attaching to it causes them to come into existence under
the arbitrary penal infliction of " total depravity," is a fantastic
piece of absurdity, opposed not only to Scripture but to the
most elementary laws of logic and common sense. Had the
apostle meant to teach such a doctrine his appeal to the death
of adults between Adam and Moses would be altogether mean-
ingless and inept. What has the death of adults, who had
personally sinned, indeed, though not against law, to do with
the fact that all men receive at their birth a depraved consti-
tution in consequence of the imputation to them before birth
of Adam's transgression ? Why should not the apostle have
rather appealed to the case of infants who die before commit-
ting actual sin, a case that lay so near at hand, that required
no unwarranted assumptions or artificial reasonings to support
it, and that bore so much more directly than the case actually
adduced on the point supposed to be at issue ? The truth is
that the apostle says not one word about depravity in Adam's
descendants any more than in Adam himself. Nor does he say
how all men come to commit actual sin. He does not connect
the sin of all men with that of Adam by saying that because
Adam sinned therefore all men sin. What he says is that
because Adam sinned therefore (OVTO>?) all men died, and this
because as a matter of empirical fact (no matter how it came
about) all personally sinned. This does not imply that the actual
personal sins of men sprang from original sin derived from
Adam. Far less does it imply that such original sin owed its
existence to the imputation of Adam's transgression. It
merely implies that the death of men is due to two causes
immediately to their own personal sin, mediately to the sin of
Adam acting in and through that personal sin. When the
apostle would " lay to the charge both of Jews and Gentiles
that they are all under sin " (iii. 9), when he would prove that
"all sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (v. 23), he is
IV.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 195
so far from invoking the doctrine of original sin by natural
descent from Adam, that by appealing to everything else to
history (i. 18-32), to experience (ii, passim), to Scripture (iii.
10-19), the last being dealt with very freely for the purpose
of bringing out the desired conclusion he appears tacitly to
deny that such a course was open. How natural would have
been an appeal to hereditary corruption in proof of universal
human sinfulness and guilt ! And, in proportion to the natu-
ralness, how inexplicable that no such appeal is made !
There is, it must be admitted, a strong temptation .to
connect the actual sins of men with the transgression of
Adam by means of some such doctrine as original sin, in con-
sequence of the view of human sinfulness that begins to be
stated in v. 21, and is developed throughout the three suc-
ceeding chapters. After the law has been fully revealed, sin
assumes the character of a living, reigning power or principle,
striving for mastery or dominion over the whole person, just
as, on the other hand, righteousness, the fruit of grace, is a
living, reigning power or principle, striving for mastery or
dominion over the whole person (id.). In chapters vi.-viii.
we find that this power or principle is represented as occupy-
ing " the flesh," otherwise " the body " of sin, the " old " or
" outward man," while the principle or power of righteousness
occupies "the spirit," otherwise " the mind," the "new "or
" inward man " ; that these two principles, in their separate
spheres, are directly opposed to each other ; that " the flesh
lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, for
these are contrary the one to the other" (Gal. v. 17) ; and
that the object or tendency of sin, as well as of righteousness,
is to reduce the entire person into slavery or subjection to
itself. We find, also, that as the spirit is so essentially right-
eous that it cannot sin, that it " delights in the law of God,"
so on the other hand the flesh is so essentially sinful that it
cannot but sin " it is not subject to the law of God, neither
indeed can it be." We find, in particular, that the flesh, the
body, the outward man, is so indissolubly bound up with the
principle of sin that the one can be destroyed or " brought to
nought " only with the destruction of the other. Death is the
means of destroying the body. It is also the means, and the
196 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
only means, of destroying or bringing to nought the principle
of sin. Naturally, too, when the flesh is thought of as essen-
tially characterised by sin, and the spirit as essentially
characterised by righteousness, the two are represented as
transmissible, each with its essential characteristic, in accord-
ance with the statement of Jesus to Nicodemus, " That which
is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the
Spirit is spirit " (John iii. 6). And, of course, as the flesh is
naturally and necessarily subject to sin, so it is naturally and
necessarily subject to death; and, in like manner, as the
spirit is naturally and necessarily possessed of righteousness,
so it is naturally and necessarily possessed of life ; and there-
fore we read that "to be carnally minded is death to be
spiritually minded is life and peace" (Rom. viii. 6), Now,
when we find presented in Rom. v. 21 seq., this view of sin as
reigning in and inseparably associated with the flesh, the
body, the outward man, and when we find at v. 12 the state-
ment that " by one man sin invaded the world, and through
sin death," what could be more natural than to combine the
two, and to infer that with the first transgression the principle
of sin entered and occupied the flesh, bringing in its train the
principle of decay and death? Nevertheless, the inference
must be regarded as exceedingly precarious, and that for a
variety of reasons.
(1.) The whole drift of the apostle's language, especially
throughout the section vii. 7-25, points to the conclusion that
the distinction of flesh and spirit in their essential natures as
the seat of sin and the seat of righteousness respectively, and
in their mutual antagonism and conflict, is not a deduction
from the doctrine of the fall, but the product of reflection on
the writer's own experience subsequent to his conversion or
ccdling.'* The principle of sin reigning in the flesh, and
warring against the principle of righteousness reigning in the
spirit, is an empirical fact which the apostle " saw," after the
Spirit had been received, and its relation to the flesh as an
opposing hostile power had been determined. The genesis
* Detailed reasons for this view of the passage will be found in chapter xii.,
where the meanings of tbe two terms "flesh" and "spirit" are likewise fully
discussed.
IV.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 197
of the present essential sinfulness of the flesh is no more
investigated in these chapters than is the genesis of the
present essential righteousness of the Spirit. All that appears
is that the flesh, as it now exists, is so essentially sinful that
sin and "the body" must be, and "be annihilated" (vi. 6)
together ; they are as inseparable as the Spirit is inseparable
from righteousness ; the flesh can no more be made righteous
than the Divine nature can be made sinful.
(2.) The structure of the section v. 12-20 is such as to
betray quite clearly that the apostle's ultimate aim is a
practical one viz., to commend the scheme of salvation just
propounded by showing how it harmonises with the current
popular notion that the future Messianic Deliverer would
correspond to Adam as antitype corresponds to type. His
immediate aim is to establish a correspondence between the
two Adam and Christ ; and, in seeking to accomplish this,
he avails himself of all such popular assumptions and argu-
ments as happen to bear out his present point, no matter
whether they do or do not conflict with the requirements of
that system of thought which is properly his own. That he
should do this cannot surprise us when a popular opinion lies
at the foundation of the whole paragraph. The reasoning is
special pleading, fitted to convince those and those only who
accept the fundamental assumption, and the other assumptions
that go along with it. If the popular idea that Adam was a
type of whom Messiah would be the antitype was an unwar-
ranted idea, the assumptions and arguments that go to
support are only too likely to partake of the same baseless
or fanciful character. We are no more bound to accept the
principles and reasonings of the present passage as valid than
we are to accept the Old Testament criticism and exegesis of
1 Cor. xv. 45 as historical. In both cases, and notably in
the first, the writer is simply making use of popular argu-
ments, for the purpose of establishing a popular opinion, with
a view to the ends of popular persuasion. Even the statement
with which the paragraph opens, that sin and death entered
the world through a specific transgression of Adam, cannot be
relied on as a dogmatic opinion of the apostle's own. His
dogmatic opinion, so far as he has a dogmatic opinion on the
198 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
subject of human sin, is to be sought in chapters i.-iii. ; and
the statement of v. 12 merely reflects the popular impression
as to how the narrative in Genesis should be interpreted.
The statement may be the expression of an objective fact, but
whether a fact or not the apostle would have made use of it
all the same, on the ground that it was a popular opinion
suited to bear out his main contention.
(3.) Had the Apostle Paul held the doctrine that the
genesis of the present essential sinfulness of human flesh is to
be found in the fall of Adam, it is quite inexplicable, and even
incredible, that he should not have distinctly enunciated such
a doctrine, nor traced the parallelism between it and the
doctrine of righteousness, or sanctification, or spiritualisation
through Christ. If the fleshly part of human nature became
what it is now, essentially and characteristically sinful, through
Adam, and if the spiritual part of human nature became
what it is now, essentially and characteristically righteous
through Christ, nothing, surely, could have been more to the
apostle's purpose than to have stated and emphasised the fact.
The aim of the whole paragraph is to establish a parallel
between the method of ruin through Adam and the method of
restoration through Christ, and this would have furnished the
amplest and most satisfactory possible basis for such a parallel.
Yet the apostle, so far from appealing to what was so obvious,
and would have been so apposite and decisive a line of
argumentation, rather appears as if he meant expressly to
exclude the possibility of such an appeal, by resting his case
on another, a very out-of-the-way, and an altogether disputable
basis. In vv. 12-19, the condemnation of men is made to
turn partly on their own personal conscious sins, and partly on
the original transgression of Adam ; but there is no attempt
at connecting the personal sins of men with the transgression
of Adam, no assertion that since the fall human nature is
necessarily and essentially sinful, not even the statement that
sin exists as a reigning, tyrannising power in human nature,
striving to reduce the whole person into subjection to itself.
It is not till we come to vv. 20, 21, and to the introduction
of the law, that sin shows itself as a reigning power in the
flesh, opposed by the reigning power of righteousness in the
IV.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 199
spirit, and as we know that the Apostle Paul apprehended the
true nature of sin in its relation to the law only after his
conversion, we are led to conclude that the distinction of flesh
and spirit in their essential antagonism to one another is the
direct product of reflection on his own Christian experience,
and that the sinfulness of the flesh presented itself simply as
an empirical fact, not as in any way a deduction from the
doctrine of the fall.
(4.) In 1 Cor. xv. 45 seq. (cf. 2 Cor. iv. 16 v. 3), where
the apostle does touch on the genesis of the present essential
sinfulness of the flesh, he does not trace it to the sin of Adam .
The characteristic attributes of the flesh are no more traced to
the fact that it is fallen than the characteristic attributes of
the spirit are traced to the fact that it is unfallen. On the
contrary, the flesh is sinful, perishing, mortal, because it is of
the earth, earthy, because it belongs to the world of the seen
and temporal, just as the spirit is righteous, incorruptible, and
immortal, because it is of heaven, heavenly, because it belongs
to the world of the unseen and eternal. The exegetical
arguments by which this position is supported may be con-
sidered faulty and unconvincing, but so are some of the
principles and reasonings underlying Rom. v. 12-19, and it is
not to be denied that the intrinsic probabilities are altogether
in favour of the view presented in the former of these passages,
and against the view suggested, it may be, though certainly
not articulately expressed, in the latter.
(5.) For, finally, the doctrine that the flesh or physical
constitution of Adam, having been originally absolutely sinless
and immortal, was so completely changed in consequence of
the first transgression as to be henceforth essentially and
characteristically sinful and mortal, is (as Phleiderer justly
says) an " astounding doctrine." The Apostle Paul undoubt-
edly teaches that sin can be destroyed only with the destruction
of the flesh (cf. e.g., 1 Cor. v. 5), and the natural may we
not say the necessary ? inference from this is that sin was
created with the creation of the flesh. How could human
flesh, if it was once sinless, have become, through the fall,
essentially corrupt so corrupt that the Almighty Spirit of
God Himself cannot purify it that it must be mortified,
200 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
destroyed, or brought to nought, if the person to whom it
belongs is to be freed from sin ? The idea is barely conceiv-
able. If it do not involve a plain impossibility, it has, at least,
nothing in its favour, and everything against it. And it is
rendered all the more exceptionable, not to say inadmissible,
by the fact that according to the Bible writers, including
especially Paul (Rom. viii. 20 seq.), the whole physical world
shares in the present constitutional degradation of man. If
man be sinful and mortal because he is of the earth, earthy,
it is easy to understand how external nature should be repre-
sented as degraded along with him, but the case is altered
entirely if man became sinful and mortal in consequence of a
definite, historical, sinful act. In view of the settled con-
clusions of modern science, the idea of a degradation in the
physical constitution of man, accompanied by a corresponding
degradation in the constitution of the world around him, is,
I am afraid, wholly incredible and untenable. No one, at
anyrate, ought to feel warranted in attributing such an idea
to the Apostle Paul, except under pressure of the most
stringent evidence, and, as it happens, there is no direct
evidence whatever ; rather, the evidence lies in an opposite
direction.
The reader will thus see that the doctrine of original sin,
as commonly held, has little, if any, New Testament evidence
to support it. He will see, also, how slender and vacillating
is the New Testament testimony in favour of the current
doctrine of the fall : slender, because the origin of human sin
in an historical fall is distinctly taught only in a single New
Testament passage (unless we include a few incidental refer-
ences elsewhere to the narrative in Genesis), while the struc-
ture of that passage is such as to account for the point being
assumed, on the ground that it was a popular opinion, without
implying that it is the only or the proper apostolic solution of
the question at issue ; and vacillating, because in another
passage the origin of human sinfulness and subjection to death
is attributed to nature, alike in the case of the first man and of
all who bear his image, there being no allusion to, but, rather, a
manifest exclusion of, an historical fall. On general considera-
tions, Scriptural as well as scientific, the latter solution of the
IV.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 201
problem must be regarded as by far the most probable. Nor,
after what has been said, does it appear that any very serious
objection can be urged against it. It merely requires that the
narrative in Genesis relating to the fall, like that relating to the
creation, should be understood, not literally, that is, as embody-
ing an historical event, but figuratively, that is, as embodying
an abstract idea. A difficulty can hardly be raised on the score
of the Divine justice, for the way in which theologians endeavour
to vindicate the Divine justice receives no countenance
whatever from the Apostle Paul. They maintain sometimes
expressly, sometimes only by implication that for infants to
be born in a sinful state, and liable to the penalties incident
to that state, would be unjust or unworthy of God, unless the
first sin of Adam were imputed to them. But the apostle
asserts no such thing. In Rom. v. 12-21 not a word is said
about infants, either directly or indirectly, nor, if the exposi-
tion above given be correct, is there any affirmation of the
doctrine of original sin. What the apostle says is, that it
would be unjust for men to suffer on account of their own
sins, unless the Mosaic law had first been communicated to
them, and this is a case having nothing whatever to do either
with infants or with original sin, and one which, by the
admission of theologians themselves, could easily be reconciled
with the Divine justice without the aid of Adam's trans-
gression. As to original sin if it be a fact, it must be
consistent with the Divine justice. But neither in Paul's
writings, nor elsewhere, is there any attempt to demonstrate
its consistency. Certainly, there is no idea of ascribing it to
the imputation of the first transgression. In the passage where
there is mention of something like the imputation of the first
transgression, there is no mention of original sin. In the
passage where there is mention of original sin, there is no
mention of the imputation of the first transgression, but,
rather, a manifest exclusion of it. We have, therefore, no
warrant whatever for connecting original sin with the imputed
transgression of Adam, and the thing itself is neither more nor
less difficult to reconcile with the Divine justice in the case of
the first man than in the case of all his descendants.
It may added, that the Divine justice has to fear nothing
202 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
so much as the zeal of its more ardent vindicators. They are
perpetually setting down things as inconsistent with the char-
acter of God, which every one sees to be facts, and hence they
provoke the inference, that either God has no existence, or
else, that having an existence, He has no character. Wise men
will always be much more concerned to avail themselves of
the Divine mercy, so far as it is placed within their reach, than
to busy themselves about such purely speculative questions as
the origin of evil, and its relation to the character and govern-
ment of God. The Divine justice may be safely left to vindi-
cate itself, as it will, no doubt, ultimately do to the satisfaction
of all reasonable beings.
To sum up. The paragraph Rom. v. 12-21 contains an
attempt to establish a connection between the one man Adam
and the death of all his posterity, corresponding to the con-
nection that is known to subsist between the One Man Christ
and the life of all believers. The comparison is practically
the same as in 1 Cor. xv. 21, 22, 45, seq., but it is worked
out in a different way. By a very artificial, and not very con-
clusive, line of argument, the writer endeavours to prove that
Adam's original act of disobedience has a direct bearing on
the death of all men, similar to that which Christ's fulness
of obedience confessedly has on the life of all men. Differ-
ence is acknowledged between the two cases, in so far as
Adam's disobedience was a single isolated act, while Christ's
obedience is abundant, consisting of many acts. On the
whole, agreement is maintained, though by no means to the
extent of comparing original sin to sanctification. On the con-
trary, the doctrine of original sin is conspicuous only by its
absence, and the antithesis between the reigning power of
much indwelling sin and the reigning power of much indwel-
ling righteousness appears only in v. 21, as a consequence of
the introduction of the law, after the comparison, which forms
the main subject of the paragraph, has been concluded.
Throughout the previous verses, it is neither original sin, nor
merely actual sin, to which the ruin of mankind is ascribed,
but actual sin, combined with the first transgression of Adam.
But the principles and reasonings by which this idea is sup-
ported are of such a nature as to demonstrate plainly that it
IV.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 203
is without any solid foundation in fact, that it rests on the
forms of thought and opinion current in the apostle's own day,
and of which he avails himself for hortatory or practical pur-
poses, that it owes its existence to an attempt on the apostle's
part to accommodate that scheme of salvation, whose power and
reality he had himself experienced, to ideas and impressions
already present to the minds of his readers. It is evident, in fact,
that the position maintained in these verses has been determined
neither by reason, nor by Scripture, nor by the requirements of
the apostle's system of thought, as touching human sinfulness,
and the method of deliverance from it, but by the Rabbinical
conceit with which his readers' minds were pre-occupied,
that Christ to be Christ must be the antitype of Adam. It
follows that the present cannot be accepted as the regulative
passage on the method of human ruin, since it contains a
merely artificial representation of that method, squared and
adjusted to the method of restoration; that we are not to look
for a truly exact correspondence between the method of ruin
and the method of restoration, as if the one had been expressly
intended to constitute a type of the other; and especially that
we cannot hope to determine the exact method of restoration
from the exact method of ruin (supposing the latter to be
definitely ascertainable), nor, vice versa, the exact method of
ruin from the exact method of restoration. Still, the natural
inference is, that the form which the parallel assumes in v. 21,
though presented as merely secondary, is really the primary
and more exact form, We have only to project the Jaw, in
some form or other, back to the beginning of the race, in order
to include all men under the latter form of the parallel even
more completely than they are included under the former.
And since the method of ruin suggested in 1 Cor. xv. 45, the
natural method, as we might call it, is, notwithstanding the
popular unhistorical exegesis on which it is based, the more
feasible in itself, and the more accordant to the indications of
science, as well as the more likely complement to the apostle's
general teaching on the subject of human sinfulness, it may be
reasonably accepted so far, that is, as one may care to
accept or adopt any definite opinion on a point so purely
speculative and unimportant till we obtain clearer light.
[Chap
CHAPTER Y.
THE DOCTRINAL SYSTEM OF THE EPISTLE TO THE
HEBREWS.
THE investigation of last chapter, if it has not given us any
very clear or complete insight into the method of salva-
tion through Christ, has, at least, prepared the way for an
accurate apprehension and presentation of that method, by
putting us in possession of the leading aspects and features of
human ruin. We began with the remark, that the plan of
salvation must be gathered from passages where it is ex-
pressed in properly apostolic language, rather than from
passages where the expression of it is entangled with the
forms of thought, and opinion, and exegesis current in Old
Testament and early Christian times. Two passages were
selected to begin with, that appeared to offer what was re-
quired ; but it is now evident that both repose to a greater or
less extent on the Old Testament ; both are tinged with the
phases of opinion current at the time when they were written
with the peculiar Rabbinical exegesis that is so apt to betray
the interpreter ; and both are, therefore, indifferently suited
to bring out, with scientific exactness, the method of salvation
which we are seeking to elicit. Nothing, indeed, is more
remarkable than the extent to which the form of the New
Testament has been affected by the contemporary notions and
impressions respecting the Old. The originality and inde-
pendence of mind which the apostles claimed and exercised
within their allotted province (the Gospel of the grace of God)
is not itself more manifest than is the fact that they are con-
stantly hanging their ideas on the pegs of current opinion, and
driving them home by seizing and turning to account the
204
V.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 205
hammer of popular prepossession. Of this we shall find many
examples as we proceed.
Some advantage might he obtained by proceeding at once
to examine the sixth and following chapters of Romans, where
we should find the redemptive or saving process presented in
separation from the process of ruin, and traced through its
remaining stages till grace merges itself in glory. But on the
whole it will be more convenient to give the precedence to
passages where the preliminary stages are more fully canvassed,
since we shall thus be enabled to gain an orderly conception
of the whole process, by starting from the fountain-head and
following the stream throughout its entire course. In Rom.
vi.-viii. it is the experience of the saved, the redeemed, the
followers, .the younger sons, that is mainly treated of, while the
corresponding experience of the Saviour, the Redeemer, the
Leader, the First-born, is merely touched on indirectly and, as
it were, incidentally. Indeed, the same may be said with a
measure of truth of Paul's writings in general. The Apostle
Paul writes very fully of the fact of human ruin. He also
writes very fully of what is known as the application of re-
demption, that is, of the redemptive process in the experience
of believers. But his treatment of what is known as the
impetration of redemption, that is, of the redemptive process
in the experience of Christ, is much less full and complete.
In the passages that have just passed under review, for ex-
ample, the problem of human ruin is dealt with in its whole
extent, in Adam personally as well as in all his descendants ;
whereas the problem of human restoration is dealt with only
in part, viz., in so far as it concerns the persons of believers ;
Christ is contemplated as already in the position of head of
the new race, and little or nothing is said as to how he
attained to that position. .We find, indeed, on coming from
Rom. v, to vi. that Christ has passed through a process of
crucifixion or death to sin as well as a process of resurrection
to righteousness ; but this information is conveyed to us only
indirectly in course of explaining that believers pass through
experiences similar to those of Christ, the nature, origin, and
meaning of Christ's experiences not being distinctly stated.
The most notable passage in the whole of Paul's writings
206 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
bearing on the so-called impetration of redemption is Rom. iii.
25, 26. But, instead of starting from that somewhat curt and
isolated passage, it will be well to take up, in the first instance,
the Epistle to the Hebrews, where the language is very simi-
lar, and where the earlier stages in the process of redemption
are treated with especial fulness of detail. All the more
appropriate will it be to deal with the Epistle to the Hebrews
at the present stage, because, as we shall find, the position
assumed in it with regard to sin appears to be quite identical
with that which we have now met and discussed in 1 Cor. xv.,
and because the idea of a typical relationship between law
and Gospel, which pervades the Epistle to the Hebrews, con-
stitutes a point of contact with the typical relationship between
Adam and Christ, which underlies both 1 Cor. xv. 22 seq.
and Rom v. 12 seq. The two epistles, Romans and Hebrews,
are the twin pillars upon which the fabric of Christian doctrine
rests. Salvation and not sin is the proper and leading subject
of both. The one gives us the fullest account of the experience
of Christ, the Saviour; the other the fullest account of the ex-
periences of Christians, the saved. Each epistle contains a
soteriological system complete in itself, but the manner of pre-
sentation, and the prominence given to the different parts, is
different in the two cases, so that by combining both we obtain
the completest available view. As the higher exegesis of the
last-named epistle is in a more backward condition than that of
perhaps any other part of the New Testament, it will require
to be handled at some length.
The author's view of the plan of salvation is presented with
tolerable completeness, and divested, to a considerable extent,
of figurative phraseology borrowed from the Old Testament
ritual system in the paragraph ii. 5-18, which we may take
as a basis from which to start. The passage is slightly
complicated by the circumstance that the train of thought
reposes on an Old Testament quotation, which the author,
indulging in a practice common to him with the other New
Testament writers, manipulates so as to suit his argument,
and the meaning of which, as he interprets it, is not quite
easy to discover, or, at least, to settle absolutely beyond dis-
pute. The following attempt to convey the full sense of the
V.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 207
earlier portion of the paragraph is not put forward without
having first been somewhat -carefully considered.
" For not [as God put the present old earthly creation under
law-giving angels in fact, so also in destiny] under [law-giving]
angels he put the future [new heavenly] creation of which we
are speaking. But [on the contrary, he put the whole of the
future new heavenly creation under grace-receiving men in
destiny, even as] one somewhere testified, saying, ' What is
man that Thou art [graciously] mindful of him ? or the son of
man that Thou [graciously] visitest him ? [After] having made
him for a little under [law-giving] angels, thou [graciously]
crownedst [= shalt have crowned] him [for ever] with glory
and honour, having put all things under his feet.' For in
having put all things under him [in destiny], he hath left
nothing [under law-giving angels and] not put under him [in
destiny]. But now we do not yet see all things put under
him [in fact]. But the [man] Jesus, [after] having been made
for a little under [law-giving] angels, we do [now] see
[graciously (Phil. ii. 9)] crowned [for ever] with glory and
honour on account of the suffering of death, He having tasted
death by [the help of] the grace of God, in order that He
might benefit every [man by giving the help of the grace of
God to them that are suffering death as the condition of being
graciously crowned for ever with glory and honour (v. 18 ; iv.
15, 16; Rom. viii. 17)]."
These verses contain implicit if not explicit the author's
doctrine of sin, and also, in part, his doctrine of salvation.
In order to reach the proper point of view for interpreting
them, it is necessary to recall one or two of the most general
conceptions that are present as underlying presuppositions in
every part of the epistle, and whose influence here may be
distinctly traced.
The most fundamental antithesis which the epistle contains
is undoubtedly that between the Law and the Gospel, the Old
Covenant and the New, the Word spoken from Sinai through
Moses, and the Word spoken from Zion through Jesus. The
writer's aim is a practical one viz., to commend the Gospel
scheme of salvation by showing that it is at once like and
unlike the law scheme of salvation : like, in respect that it
208 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
fulfils the conditions of a type of which the law was the anti-
type (such is the writer's use of these terms) : unlike, in
respect that the Gospel and everything connected with it
is of a higher order or nature than the law and everything
connected with it. The epistle as a whole is a hortatory or
persuasive discourse a "word of exhortation" (xiii. 22)
not a cold didactic composition. It is a piece of rhetorical
pleading, adapted to readers holding peculiar opinions, as we
should say, prejudices, and placed in special circumstances :
Hebrews, namely, who had been taught to regard the law,
particularly the ceremonial part of it, as a thing of immediate
Divine institution and of supreme excellence, in following after
which life and salvation were to be found, and who, in con-
sequence, could not be brought to accept and hold fast the
Gospel, unless they were assured that it was something better,
higher, more divine, more excellent than the law, and some-
thing which God Himself intended should supersede and take
the place of the law. It will appear by and by that the
author, in endeavouring to back up by Scripture authority a
variety of practical exhortations, vacillates somewhat in the
view which he takes of the law, attributing to it a character
suited to bear out the argument immediately in hand ; but
his leading mode of regarding it does differ materially from
that of the Apostle Paul. When he speaks of the law, he has
in contemplation chiefly and characteristically the ceremonial
law. He thinks of the law in the form in which it existed and
was practised in his own day, and in which it stood directly
opposed to the Gospel. And this means that to him the law
is a dead letter, divorced from the living Spirit of God, and
having no proper or saving validity. In contrast to the
Gospel, which contains the grace or Spirit of God (iv. 16 ;
vi. 4; x. 29), and has power to regenerate and renew the
heart (vi. 1,6; x. 22), to redeem, purify, or sanctify from sin
(ix. 15 ; x. 14, &c.), the law is a dispensation of shadows
(x. 1, &c.), of carnal, weak, dead, profitless, evanescent ordin-
ances (ix. 9, 10 ; vii. 18; viii. 13, &c.), that can from their
very nature effect nothing toward the removal of sin (x. 1, 4,
11), toward the saving, perfecting, or bringing nigh to (i.e.,
into fellowship with) God of the sinner (vii. 19, 25). Plainly,
V.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 209
therefore, the law is just another name for the dead, fleshly,
external, naturalistic Judaism of the apostolic age, while the
Gospel is another name for the living, spiritual, internal, God-
given Christianity of the apostolic age.
Intimately bound up with this main antithesis between the
law and grace or the Gospel are several other antitheses of
scarcely subordinate importance. In particular, there are the
grand contrasts between the spheres local or quasi- local
and temporal of the law and grace respectively, to which
may be added, as closely allied and in part identified, the
contrast between the flesh and the spirit in the human con-
stitution. The local sphere of the law is " the earth " (viii. 4 ;
xii. 25, 26) "this creation" (ix. 11). The local or quasi-
local sphere of grace is heaven (iv. 14; ix. 23, 24, &c.). The
one is the region of things that can be seen (xi. 2, 3), and
touched (xii. 18), and shaken (v. 28) things that are made ;
the other, the region of things unseen (xi. 2, 3), and that
cannot be touched (xii. 18, &c.), nor shaken (xii. 27) things
that have not been made with hands (ix. 11). The things
in the one region are material, physical, fleshly (vii. 16 ; ix.
10, 13, &c.), weak (vii. 28), sinful (v. 3), shadowy (x. 1),
imperfect (ix. 11), inferior (ix. 23), vanishing (viii. 13), dying
or dead (vii. 8 ; ix. 14) being at the best only visible
symbols or antitypes (ix. 23, 24), or parabolic representations
(ix. 9) of the things in the other region which are immaterial,
moral, spiritual (vi. 4; ix. 14 ; x. 29 ; xii. 23), powerful (vii.
16), sinless or holy (ix. 28; x. 18, &c.), real (x. 1), perfect
(ix. 11), superior (x. 34), abiding (id.), living (ix. 14; x. 20,
38 ; xii. 9). Again, the temporal spheres of the law and
grace are contrasted, the former belonging to this world,
including "of old time" (i. 1) and "these days" (v. 2),
" the time now present " (ix. 9), the latter to the world or the
age to corne (ii. 5 ; vi. 5). This age extends from the found-
ation of the world to the consummation of the ages at the
final judgment when Christ shall come again (ix. 26, 28). The
age to come extends from the Second Coming of Christ onward
throughout eternity. It is no doubt true that the death of
Christ is often spoken of as marking the boundary line
between the two worlds : this world, the age in which the
P
2io PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY, [Chap.
law prevails, is identified with the pre-Christian age ; the world
to come, the age in which grace prevails, with the post-Christ-
ian age. But that is evidently due to the fact that the death of
Christ is thought of as taking place " on the last of these days "
(i. 2), or "at the consummation of the ages" (ix. 26). The Second
Coming and the regeneration of the world are conceived of as
following almost immediately after Christ's death in the flesh.
The intervening period is so inconsiderable as to be left out
of account. Just as judgment is the next great step in the
history of the individual after death, so the general judgment
and the end of all things is the next great step in the history
of the world after the death of Christ (ix. 27, 28). The
interval between the first and second coming of Christ is a
blank as regards world-historical development, just as the
interval between death and judgment is a blank as regards
individual development. The " time of reformation" (ix. 10),
when mankind shall be delivered from bondage under the
elements of the present material world, and introduced to the
liberty of the glory of the children of God in the spiritual
heavenly world, is practically identified with the time of
Christ. In point of fact, however, the meaning of the writer
is that the old covenant period extends from the foundation of
the world to its consummation, while the new covenant period
is identical with the eternal heavenly world period. As long as
flesh and blood, weakness, sin, imperfection, unholiness, continue
to exist, so long the law must continue to reign ; and only when
spirit, power, righteousness, perfection, holiness, have become
all-pervasive, will the reign of grace have become absolute. In
other words, only when earth has been transformed into heaven,
will the Old Covenant have completely given place to the New.
These antitheses between this world and the world to come,
between time and eternity, between earth and heaven, between
the flesh and the spirit, the mortal and the immortal, in the
human constitution, belong exclusively to the later Judaism.
In old Israel, time and eternity, earth and heaven, the mortal
and the immortal, had not yet been differentiated. The rela-
tion between God and His people was thought of as confined
to the present world, and as bounded by the life in the flesh.
Not till the religious spirit had been utterly baffled in the
V.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 211
attempt to reconcile with its idea of God the observed order
of nature and providence, did it begin to seek the issues of
God's moral government in a world above and beyond the
present, and in a life after death. By the time at which
our author wrote, however, these distinctions had become
quite familiar, and in using them he is merely working upon
received ideas.
Coming to the verses already quoted, it is easy to see that
these general ideas, which were present to the mind of the
writer of the epistle, but not to that of the writer of the
psalm, has led the former to put upon the words which he
borrowed from the latter a meaning very different from their
original one. How far the historical sense of the psalm is
altered or departed from is a point requiring to be specially
considered. There is no doubt that the New Testament writer
modifies the Old Testament writer's meaning in at least these
two particulars: (1) The phrase "a little" as used by the
writer of the psalm is meant to express degree the degree in
which man was made lower than the angels or Elohim ;
whereas the present writer takes it to refer to time the time
during which man is made lower than the angels : (2) As the
passage stands in the psalm it is purely historical, describing
the exalted estate of man in the present world ; as quoted and
interpreted by our author it is historical in so far as the words
" Thou madest him for a little lower than the angels " are taken
to describe the lowly estate of man in the present world pro-
phetic in so far as the words, " Thou crownedst him with glory
and honour, &c.," are taken to describe the exalted estate of
man in the world to come. In these main changes there is
involved the further change, that whereas in the psalm the
" mindful visitations " of God refer to the natural blessings
bestowed upon man as a denizen of earth, to all that goes to
make up his exalted estate in the present world ; in the
epistle the "mindful visitations" of God are taken to refer
to the gracious or spiritual blessings reserved for "the just
man made perfect," to that which constitutes his crown of
life in the world to come. Scarcely less certain is it that
the writer of the epistle construes the expression " made lower
than the angels " in a sense harmonising with his general
212 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
system of thought, and not in the sense which the words were
originally used to convey. When the author of the psalm
says, "Thou hast made him to lack [but] a little of the
Elohim," he means to describe the position of extraordinary
exaltation occupied by man as lord of the present earthly
creation ; but it is scarcely conceivable that the author of the
epistle should put upon the words precisely the same construc-
tion, since he takes them to describe not the exalted but the
enslaved or degraded position which man occupies in the
present world (v. 15), in contrast to the exalted position
which he is destined to occupy in the world to come. Grant-
ing that it might be a humiliation for Christ to be made but
a little inferior to the angels (not to speak of God), yet even
in His case the expression " made lower than the angels,"
when so interpreted, sounds strangely euphemistic as a descrip-
tion of the position which he assumed by the incarnation,
when in point of fact he " took the form of a slave, and was
made in the likeness of [enslaved, degraded] men, and [in con-
sequence of] being found in fashion as a man humbled himself,
becoming obedient even unto death, yea the death of the
cross " (Phil. ii. 7, 8 ; cf. Heb. ii. 1 5). And in the case of
men generally, it would be passing strange, if words which
were originally used to describe the race as occupying a posi-
tion of almost God-like exaltation, were taken under the same
construction, to describe it as occupying a position of almost
devil-like degradation. It is true that both the writer of the
epistle and the writer of the psalm are speaking of the same
race of men ; but then to the writer of the epistle there are
two worlds, and two worlds to a certain extent interpenetrating
each other to the writer of the psalm there is only one : by
the former all that is good and noble and God-like in man is
viewed as belonging to the future heavenly world, and only
what is base and degraded to the present earthly ; the latter
regards man and everything that he is or has as belonging to
the present earthly world, and to that only : and this makes a
world of difference. It is natural, therefore, to expect some
other construction for the expression " made lower than the
angels " than that which it bears in the psalm.
Now, it is tolerably clear that the author of Hebrews,
V.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 213
inspired and guided by current opinion, regards the angels,
not only as the givers of the law (ii. 2 ; Gal. iii. 1 9 ; Acts
vii. 53), but as the heads of the present earthly creation on
which the law is imposed, the revelation of the law having
been carried out by them in the exercise of their general
function as superintendents of the present world and its
inhabitants. The angels were the instruments of God's
revelation under the Old Testament dispensation while the
Son is the instrument of his revelation under the New;
and as the world to come (including renewed mankind) is
destined to be subjected to Christ (1 Cor. xv. 27, 28), the
revealer of the Gospel, so the present world (including unre-
newed mankind) is thought of as subjected to angels, the
revealers of the law. So much seems to be plainly implied in
the reference of the sentence with which the paragraph opens,
which points back to the antithesis immediately preceding
between the angels who spoke the law and the Lord who
spoke the Gospel, while the words of v. 8, "He left nothing
unsubjected to him," suggest the same idea. And we know
that Christ, in the incarnation, was " born of a woman, born
under the law, that He might redeem them which were under
the law " (Gal. iv. 4, 5) ; he was born into the state of
" slavery under the elements of the world " (v. 3) slavery
under the flesh, and therefore also under the ordinances
proper to the flesh (Heb. ix. 10), the state which all men
occupy by nature ; he became part of the " present evil world"
from which He seeks to deliver men (Gal. i. 4), and in so
becoming, He became subject to the angels as the heads of this
world, and the givers of the law which holds it in slavery and
subjection through sin. In this sense, therefore, Christ might
readily be said to be ''made for a little lower than the angels."
And the same might be said with equal propriety of men in
general. It is of course to be admitted that such an interpre-
tation is alien to the historical sense of the words of the psalm,
whether in the Hebrew original or in the Greek translation,
but, in view of the whole connection, that is a recommendation
rather than otherwise, and it cannot be denied that the New
Testament writer's quotation gains greatly in point and defi-
niteness when so understood.
214 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
One difficulty may occur to the reader. Both the writer of
the psalm and the writer of the epistle, when they describe
man as made lower than the angels, speak of the human race
as a whole, and as at present constituted ; and their state-
ment bears that man was placed in his present position by
God. Now, whatever may be the case with, the writer of the
psalm, it is certain that the writer of the epistle regards the
present condition of man as one of slavery and degradation
under the elements of the world, under sin, the law, death and
the devil. There is the same contrast between the present
and the future state of men in general as between the earthly
and the heavenly state of Jesus Christ. Christ, while on
earth, was in a state of humiliation, and is now exalted in
heaven to a state of glorification ; and so every believer, from
undergoing a corresponding degradation in the present life,
is destined to be raised to a similar height of glorification in
the life beyond. In the case of Christ, to be " made lower
than the angels " implied degradation, not merely beneath
Godhead or beneath angelhood, but degradation such as to
place him on a level with man as he now is, in slavery to sin,
the law, and death ; although it is incorrect to say of him,
only as a man appears,
But stoops a servant low,"
since the passage, of which these words are a pretended para-
phrase, represents man as essentially enslaved, so that to be a
man and to be a slave or " servant " are one and the same
thing. In the case of men in general, therefore, to be " made
lower than the angels," must imply being placed in the state
of profound degradation which man at present occupies. Now,
with respect to Christ there is no manner of doubt that it was
God that " sent forth His Son, born of a woman " born, that
is, into the present position of man "born under [the curse
of] the law, that He might redeem them which were under
[the curse of] the law" (Gal. iv. 4, 5); indeed, it is said
expressly that God " made Him to be sin on our behalf, that
we might become the righteousness of God in Him " (2 Cor. v.
21) ; and therefore, so far as Christ is concerned, there is no
difficulty whatever in the statement that God " made Him for
V.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 215
a little lower than the angels," understood in the sense that
God placed him in the present sinful, enslaved, degraded
position of man. But with respect to men in general the case
is somewhat different, the common opinion being that man was
reduced to his present state of corruption and degradation, not
by God who created Him " very good," but in consequence
of the fall, which was his own act. Yet of him also the writer
says expressly, " Thou [God] madest him for a little lower than
the angels," and beyond all question these words must bear the
same meaning when applied to men in general as when applied
to Christ, otherwise the author's reasoning will be completely
subverted.
However, it must be observed that this difficulty, if it be a
difficulty, is involved in the words, " Thou madest him lower
than the angels," whatever construction we may put upon
them ; for it is quite manifest that these words are applied to
man as at present constituted, so that their general meaning
can only be, " Thou madest him what he now is," which is
equivalent to "Thou madest him sinful, enslaved, degraded."
The language of the psalm echoes that of the opening chapter
of Genesis a narrative which is not only prior to, but quite
independent of, the narrative of the fall, with which indeed it
is very precarious to assume that it was originally intended to
have any connection. And, as a matter of fact, there is no
evidence that the author of Hebrews has any notion of a fall
which affected the state or standing of man. He distinguishes
two worlds, the earthly and the heavenly, exactly as Paul does
in 1 Cor. xv., who likewise refers to Ps. viii. in proof of the
headship of Christ over the world to come (v. 27). By nature
man belongs to the world of things seen and temporal, things
that have been made, and that shall be shaken or dissolved
(xii. 27) ; by grace he shall be raised to the world of things
unseen and eternal, things that have not been made with
hands, and that cannot be shaken or dissolved. Men are
subject to death and the devil, not because they have fallen
from an original state of innocence, but because they are
"sharers in flesh and blood" (ii. 14), which, being essentially
characterised by sin (v. 3), involves life-long " bondage through
fear of death" (ii. 15). Men from their very nature as they
216 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
come into the world are "dying" (vii. 8), because " flesh and
blood," more briefly "flesh" (v. 7), in common with "this
creation" (ix. 11) generally, is weak, corrupt, impure, imper-
fect, and therefore mortal and perishing. The present world
as a whole, and every component part of it, is doomed to
destruction, because sin had entered it even from its very
foundation (ix. 26), and now everywhere pervades it. But
there is no trace of the " astounding doctrine " that the weak-
ness and perishableness of the human constitution, and of the
whole created world of which the human constitution is a part,
is due to an historical fall on the part of man. On the con-
trary, the author's idea plainly is that the created world because
it is created must necessarily perish, giving place to the world
to come (i. 10-12; xii. 27). And if the whole created world is
naturally weak and perishable, how impossible is it to suppose
that the human constitution, which is a part of that world,
was originally sinless and destined to eternal existence, or
that it ever was different from what it is now. Surely evidence
ought to be required before we are called upon to believe any
such thing. But where is the requisite evidence to be found ?
Certainly not in the present epistle. For that human nature,
as such, is weak, sinful, mortal, is everywhere taken for
granted: the high priest simply because he is "taken from
men " is compassed with weakness, and by reason of it [weak-
ness] he is bound as for the people so also for himself to offer
for sins" (v. 1-3)*: the children, simply because they "have
shared in flesh and blood," are " all their lifetime subject to
bondage " under sin, death, and the devil : and Jesus, simply
because he became a fellow-partaker with them in " the same "
[flesh and blood], fell in like manner under the power of sin,
death, and the devil (ii. 14, 15). The author knows of but
one contrast to " men that die," and that is "angels" (ii. 16),
who are spirits (i. 14), not primitive man, who partook of
" flesh and blood" identical with that which " cannot inherit
the kingdom of God" (1 Cor. xv. 50), the "kingdom which
cannot be shaken " (Heb. xii. 28).
Possibly it will be urged that this is more or less of an
argument ex silentio, or at least that, in so far as it has a
positive foundation, that foundation is of a somewhat pre-
V.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 217
carious character. Though the author alleges that God made
man lower than the angels, meaning thereby that man was
made by God what he at present is, these words, it may be
thought, occur only in an Old Testament quotation, whose
original meaning was different, which is merely accommodated
to illustrate and enforce a special point, and which cannot
therefore be regarded as a secure basis to rest a theory on.
But the fact that the author conveys his ideas through the
medium of an Old Testament quotation, which was not origi-
nally designed to convey them, proves nothing as to the nature
of the ideas, what they are, and whether they do or do not
possess objective validity, still less does it prove that they
either presuppose the existence of an historical fall, or leave
open the question of its existence. The whole standpoint of
the epistle appears to be quite identical with that of 1 Cor.
xv. There is a striking parallelism in the use of the expres-
sions " flesh and blood," " weakness," " power " [of the world
to come], " glory," &c., as well as in the grand distinction
between earth and heaven as the spheres respectively of flesh
and spirit, corruption and incorruption, sin and holiness, life
and death, the temporal and the eternal. And while both
writers alike endeavour to confirm their views by reference to
Old Testament authority, neither takes any account either of
the history or the fact of the fall. Both writers, it is true,
are concerned mainly with the method of salvation, and only
incidentally with the method of ruin ; but though this might
account for the question of the fall not being expressly alluded
to, it cannot affect the circumstance that principles are enun-
ciated regarding the world and man that exclude the existence
of any such thing. The truth probably is that it never
occurred to the author of the Hebrews to ask the question,
How did man come to be placed in his present position ? The
New Testament writers are so infinitely concerned about prac-
tical questions, and so infinitely unconcerned about questions
purely speculative, that they never directly investigate or
discuss the origin of human sinfulness. The fact of human
sinfulness was given them in experience : their sole, supreme,
over-powering concern is to explain and enforce the method
of deliverance. They never touch on the method of ruin,
218 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
except in the way of illustrating the method of restoration,
and they appear to hold themselves free to adopt any of the
popular theories on the former question that will square with,
or serve as an antithesis to, their own theory on the latter.
From all that appears, therefore, we shall only be imitating
their example by suspending our judgment, and leaving the
matter an open, undetermined question.
Such, then, is the condition of man as nature fashions him
and as grace finds him. He is the hopeless slave of sin and
death, bound over to serve and suffer at the instigation of
the powers of evil, and utterly unable to extricate himself.
And such, also, in all essential respects, is the position into
which Christ descended. With a view to effecting the salva-
tion of " every man " an expression, by the way, which is to
be taken absolutely without limitation the eternal Son
of God, being the same in substance and equal in power and
glory with the Father (i. 3), assumed the flesh and blood
common to every man an act which on His part involved
supreme self-abasement, since it implied, not merely the
emptying of Himself to an unknown extent of the attributes
of divinity (Phil. ii. 7), but also and more especially slavery or
subjection to sin and death (Heb. ii. 14). There is not the
smallest pretence for alleging that the flesh of Christ differed
in any respect from that of the men whom He came to save.
Rather is it plain that the writer's whole argument through-
out the paragraph turns on the absolute identity of the two.
Its nerve would be completely cut if that identity were in the
least impaired. And this is equally true whether we assume
the existence of an historical fall or not. It was the flesh and
blood commoTi to all His brethren, the nature of man as at
present constituted, that Christ took upon Him. In particular,
the human nature of Christ was such as to render Him liable
to death, the penalty which sin, or the devil considered as the
impersonation of sin, had power to inflict on Him and all other
men alike, and this it could have done only if it was pervaded
by the principle of sin as the nature of all other men is. The
power of the devil to inflict death, and the power of sin, or of
the law through sin, to inflict death, are evidently one and
the same. The bringing to nought of the devil, and the bring-
V.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 219
ing to nought of the body of sin, or of the principle of sin
inherent in the body, are likewise one and the same. It
follows that the very purpose for which Christ became incar-
nate, which was that He might bring to nought the devil, or
the principle of sin inherent in human flesh as such, or at
least as at present constituted, required that the flesh which
He assumed should be ordinary human flesh, pervaded, as it
is, by the principle of sin. When, therefore, Jesus is said to
have been made lower than the angels in order that He might
suffer death, this means that He was made in all respects like
as we are, and more especially that He was made sinful and
subject to death as we are : just as, when He was crowned
with glory and honour on account of the suffering of death,
wherein the devil, or the principle of sin in the flesh, was
brought to nought, He was made in all respects what we shall
be, if we suffer and die with Him, and thereby bring to nought
in ourselves the principle of sin in the flesh. But this point
is so directly involved in the writer's train of thought, as has
been already in part shown, and will be further shown pre-
sently, that it may almost be deemed a waste of time to argue it.
"As grace finds him," we said. For, according to the unani-
mous testimony of the New Testament writers, " By grace
have ye been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves,
it is the gift of God ; not of works, that no man should glory,
for we are His [God the Holy Spirit's] workmanship, created
in Christ Jesus for good works" (Eph. iii. 8-10). The whole
process of salvation from beginning to end is the work of
Divine grace. So it is represented to be by the author of
Hebrews not less certainly than by other writers (ii. 9 ; iv. 16 ;
vi. 4; x. 29 ; xii. 15, 28; xiii. 9). And there is no doubt
that in this epistle, as elsewhere, the grace of God is to all
practical intents quite identical with the Spirit of God, who is
therefore spoken of as the " Spirit of grace" (x. 29). The
grace of God toward sinful men manifests itself in the com-
munication of His Spirit, and the work of redeeming the world,
in so far as it is positive or constructive, is accomplished
solely by the operation of the Divine Spirit, the negative
or destructive side of the process being brought about through
suffering and death, as the effect of sin, or of the law through
220 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
sin. This is true, and equally true of the process of redemp-
tion as accomplished on the person of Christ, and of the same
process as accomplished on the persons of His followers ;
witness the concluding words of the above quotation, " that
by the grace of God he should taste death on behalf of every
man." The sum of the changes that took place on the person
of Christ from the moment of the incarnation to the moment
of His completed glorification were accomplished in so far as
they were positive or constructive, by the operation of the
Divine Spirit within Him (Luke ii. 40 ; Acts x. 38 ; Rom.
viii. 10, 11 ; Eph. i. 19-21, &c.) in so far as they were
negative or destructive, by the operation of suffering and
death without Him (Heb. ii. 10; v. 8, 9 ; Col. ii. 11, 12,
&c.). Again, the sum of the changes that take place on the
person of each believer, from the moment when regeneration
begins to the moment when glorification is completed, are
accomplished in so far as they are positive or constructive,
by the operation of the Divine Spirit within Him (John iii. 5 ;
Rom. viii. 9, &c.) in so far as they are negative or destruc-
tive, by the operation of suffering and death without Him
(Phil. iii. 10, 11; Gal. ii. 19-21, &c.) ; the changes, both
positive and negative, taking place with i.e., after the example
of Christ (Rom. vi. 4-11). When Jesus tasted death for
every man, by the grace of God, He offered Himself through
the eternal Spirit to God (Heb. ix. 14). And when every
believer is tried by suffering and death in all respects like as
Christ was, he overcomes by the help of the grace of God
precisely as Christ did (iv. 15, 16). To taste of the heavenly
gift is to become partaker of the Holy Ghost, and by Him to
be renewed unto repentance, and this is practically equivalent
to being saved (vi. 4-6). In short, salvation or redemption is
another name for sanctification, and sanctification is the work of
the Holy Spirit of God, who is therefore the operative embodi-
ment of the grace of God, and the means of salvation (ii. 11).
The concluding clause of the above quotation, " in order that
by the grace of God He might taste death on behalf of every
man," introduces the subject of the verses that follow. Its
connection with what precedes is somewhat difficult to seize,
owing to the fact that the main thought is contained in the
V.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 221
prepositional phrase. The tasting of death on behalf of every
man was not properly the end of "the suffering of death," as
the immediate condition of being " crowned with glory and
honour," though it was the end of the incarnation (v. 14)
but rather, the benefiting (virep) of every man (soil, by saving,
sanctifying, or leading them to glory vv. 10, 11) was the
end of the suffering of death as the immediate condition of
being crowned with glory and power. The meaning of the
clause might be obtained either by connecting it with >jAaTT&>-
/J.6VOV, or by rendering " might have tasted death," while con-
necting it with what immediately precedes ; but I have para-
phrased it, so as to bring out the real point more clearly.
Jesus suffered and was made perfect, being crowned with
glory and honour, in order that He might " become the author
of eternal salvation to all them that obey Him " (v. 8, 9).
Why the sufferings and death of Christ were necessary in
order to His personal perfection or glorification and how they
game about what was their efficient and what their final cause
why such experiences on the part of Christ were demanded
as the condition of His benefiting every man and how, having
so suffered and died and been made perfect, He saves all that
obey or believe on Him all these points will be made plain
in the sequel.
" For [to show why Jesus had to suffer death as the con-
dition of His benefiting every man] it became Him for whom
are all things and by whom are all things [=the author,
governor, and end of the universe], when many sons were led
[from under law-giving Angels] to glory [and honour], to per-
fect the Leader of their salvation through sufferings. For [to
show how the Leader of Salvation came to require perfecting
through sufferings, in like manner as the led require perfect-
ing through sufferings] both He that sanctifieth [= the Leader]
and they who are sanctified [= the led] are all of one [nature
= flesh and blood (v. 1 4)] for which cause He is not ashamed
to call them brethren, saying, ' I will declare Thy name unto
my brethren, in the midst of the congregation will I sing Thy
praise;' and, again [fellow-believers], I [like them] will put
my trust in Him ; and, again [children], ' Behold I and
the children which God gave to me.' Therefore [collect-
222 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
ing and bringing out the result of what has been said in vv.
11-13, as bearing on the point emphasised in v. 10], since
the children [=the led, the sanctified] have shared in flesh
and blood [and have thereby become subject to bondage under
death and the devil], He [=the Leader, the Sanctifier] Him-
self also in like manner partook of the same [flesh and blood,
and thereby became subject to bondage under death and the
devil], in order that through [the suffering of] death He might
[directly] bring to nought him that had the power of death,
that is, the devil [by bringing to nought the principle of sin
inherent in his old man, or body of sin (Rom. vi. 6), or flesh
of sin (id. viii. 3) so making Himself, or being " made, per-
fect through sufferings "], and [indirectly] deliver all those who
through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bond-
age [by enabling them through the suffering of death to bring
to nought him that hath the power of death, that is, the devil,
by bringing to nought the principle of sin inherent in their
old man, or body of sin (Rom. vi. 6), or flesh of sin (id. viii.
3, 4) so making themselves, or being made, perfect through
sufferings (Phil. iii. 10-12)]. For [to offer Scripture proof
that the children, the sanctified, the led, have shared in flesh
and blood], as we know [from Old Testament sources], He
taketh not hold [to deliver and lead to glory] of angels
[= spirits], but He taketh hold [with that intent] of the seed
of Abraham [= flesh and blood]. Wherefore [concluding from
the premise thus established, the necessity of the course speci-
fied, v. 14, in order to gain the end specified, v. 15] it
behoved Him [as Head of renewed mankind] in all things
[=in incarnation, suffering, and death] to be made like unto
His brethren [the members of renewed mankind], in order
that [to express New Covenant realities in terms of their
(presumed) Old Covenant types] He might [directly] become
a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining
to God, so as [indirectly] to expiate the sins of the people
[which He is now qualified to do], for [to return to plain
speech] in that He Himself hath suffered [death by the
help of the grace of God (v. 9 ; v. 7)] under trial [ = hath
been perfected through sufferings (v. 10), or hath brought to
nought the devil (v. 1-1), or (figuratively speaking) hath be-
V.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 223
come a merciful and faithful High Priest (v. 17)], He is
able to help [with needed grace (iv. 1 6)] them that are [suffer-
ing death] under trial [=to lead many sons to glory (v. 10),
or to deliver all those who are subject to bondage (v. 15), or
(figuratively speaking) to expiate the sins of the people
(v. 17)]." '
In these verses, the leading steps in the process of salvation,
as it is conceived by our author, can be distinctly made out.
The process, viewed in its entirety, consists in translation " out
of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God's dear
Son " in other words, from the earthly, fleshly, sinful, de-
graded, to the heavenly, spiritual, holy, glorified state. Two
parties come into separate consideration as undergoing this
process Christ, the so-called leader, or first-born Son of
God ; and believers, the led, or sanctified, or many younger
sons of God. The author does not raise the question as to
whether salvation might not have taken place without a
leader, or, in other words, whether the incarnation of Christ
was necessary in order to the salvation of the world, and
wherein the necessity, if such existed, might be supposed to
lie. That question, so full of fascination for minds of a
speculative and scholastic turn, has, ever since Anselm,
occupied the attention of theological thinkers, who have, in
general, attached to it a degree of importance out of all pro-
portion to the place which it occupies in the New Testament,
allowing it to rule their whole conception of the plan of
salvation. It does not appear, however, that the New Testa-
ment writers ever directly contemplated or reflected on such a
question. The writer of our epistle, for example, is content
to start from the fact of experience that Christ had become
incarnate (ii. 9), and that through Him the Spirit was
bestowed, without going back to inquire whether the incarna-
tion was an absolute necessity, and if so, why, or whether
the Spirit might not have been given in some other way.
Prophecy, it is true, is alleged to have foretold that the
sanctifier would be of one nature with the sanctified (vv. 12,
1 3), and this can be made the basis of proof that the incarna-
tion was necessary (v. 14) ; but artificial proof of this descrip-
tion is so far from implying that the author regarded the
224 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
incarnation as necessary on speculative moral or metaphysical
grounds, that, on the contrary, it rather serves to demonstrate
that he never went behind the accomplished fact to seek for
any such grounds. It cannot be said that there is any
substantial antecedent presumption against the idea that
many sons should have been led to glory by the direct opera-
tion of the Third Person in the Trinity, without the inter-
vention of the Second, as leader, through incarnation, suffering,
and death. From all that one could say a priori, God might
have given His Spirit to regenerate every believer quite
apart from the fact that the Son of God had assumed flesh
and blood, and passed through a cycle of experiences similar
in all respects to those which each believer must pass
through. The only sure ground for concluding that the
incarnation was necessary is the fact that it has taken place,
and the question, Cur Deus homo ? may be susceptible of a
much deeper answer than the apostles had any idea of. It
could not possibly be worse answered than it is by Anselm,
whose views on the subject are glaringly opposed to the whole
round of Scripture teaching, in which nothing is more pro-
minent than the readiness of God to forgive repentant sinners,
without limit and without condition. Probably no better or
more definite solution will ever be found than that suggested
by Jesus Himself in the parable of the vineyard and the
wicked husbandmen, where the son is sent in the same line,
and on the same mission, with the other servants, and is
treated very much in the same way (Matt. xxi. 33-46 ; Luke
xx. 9-18). The progress of God's kingdom required that the
cause which the prophets had initiated should be taken up
and carried forward by one mightier, more divine, more full
of the Spirit than they ; and this was enough ; no other or
more special reason for the incarnation need be sought, or
can fairly be demanded ; none would contribute in any degree
to render the matter more intelligible. Every great develop-
ment in the history of true religion has come through the
instrumentality of individuals, in the character of prophets or
spiritual teachers, specially endowed and qualified for the work
to which they were called, and the greatest of all the
developments came through the Son of God Himself, through
V.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 225
whom, indeed, all previous, as well as subsequent, developments
might, in a sense, be said to have come, since all were of God,
of whom He was the incarnation and revelation (cf. i. 1, 2,
&c.). If we regard Christ as marking the highest point in
the development of true religion, as being the greatest of the
prophets, as uniting in His perfected state the fulness of
Godhead to the reality of manhood, as constituting the ideal
to which the human race, in union with God, is destined to
attain, we shall probably not be far from a true conception of
the place which He occupied, and the function which He
discharged, in the religious history of the world.
On the other hand, our author does distinctly assert the
necessity of the sufferings of Christ as incarnate in order to
His personal perfection and glorification, and so to His becom-
ing the leader of salvation. And yet, even here caution is
needed, if we are not to misunderstand his real position. He
has nothing whatever to say as to the necessity of such or
such an amount of suffering on the part of Christ. The
question is not as to what Christ suffered, but as to why He
suffered, or how His sufferings are to be viewed and inter-
preted. In approaching this question, the author takes his
stand on the principle that God is the moral governor of the
universe that whatever happens in the world happens under
His direction and supervision, or, at least, by His permission,
and for His glory and that human suffering, in particular, is
to be regarded as coming direct from the hand of God, and as
sent for wise and holy purposes. This is the meaning of the
qualifying words, " For whom are all things, and through
whom are all things." There is nothing new in such a
conception of the relation of God to the world. It had been
worked out and proclaimed by the prophets many centuries
previously. All that the writer to the Hebrews does is to
apply to the sufferings of Christ (and of believers) the same
identical moral principles which the prophets had long before
applied to the sufferings of their contemporaries. It became
God, he says, when many sons were led to glory, to perfect
the leader of their salvation through sufferings ; in other words,
it would have been inconsistent with the character and govern-
ment of God to perfect or glorify Christ as incarnate in any
Q
226 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
other way than through the medium of suffering and death.
This by no means implies that there was anything special
either in the nature or in the amount of Christ's sufferings,
for, in using these terms, the author is saying no more than
he might, and does, say of every believer, whom it likewise
becomes God to make perfect through sufferings (xii. 3-11),
and whose sufferings are of precisely the same nature as
Christ's (ii. 18). The author nowhere speculates as to the
necessity of this or that amount of suffering, either in the case
of Christ or in that of believers. He simply interprets the
meaning of sufferings known from history and experience to
exist. And this he does on principles which were just as
familiar to his readers and contemporaries as they could be to
himself, and which every one would be willing to accept.
Indeed, there is not a word in the whole Bible implying that
a given amount of suffering is necessary before the anger of
God can be appeased on account of human sin. All the
threatenings uttered by the prophets were uttered under the
condition, express or implied, that if the people repented, the
anger of God would be turned away ; and the principles of
the New Testament writers on the subject of human suffering
are just the principles of the Old Testament prophets. As a
matter of acknowledged fact, Jesus suffered and died : " we
see Jesus, ... on account of the suffering of death, crowned
with glory and honour " : the sufferings and death of Christ
are things which have happened, if not under our own eyes,
at least under the eyes of our contemporaries, and under the
providential government of God : that it became God to
inflict them is therefore a self-evident truth, since, in any
other case, they could not have been inflicted. The author's
position is simply the a posteriori one, which contemplates
the sufferings of Christ as already accomplished, and connects
them with the Divine government under which they had
taken place. Not a word is said as to the degree of suffering
which Christ underwent. He experienced "the suffering of
death," and so " tasted death " on behalf of every man. He
was perfected " through sufferings." He passed " through
death," and thereby brought to nought him that had the
power of death. He " suffered being tried," in like manner as
V.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 227
His people suffer being tried. Elsewhere it is said, with
reference to His sufferings, that He " hath been tried in all
respects like as we are" (iv. 15) that " in the days of His
flesh, having offered up prayers and supplications, with strong
crying and tears, unto Him that was able to save Him from
death [to which, for a season, he was in subjection], and
having been heard for His godly fear, He, though a Son,
yet learned obedience from the things which He suffered "
(v. 7, 8). And again, the readers of the epistle are exhorted
to run with patient endurance the race set before them,
" looking [for an example] to Jesus [as history presents Him
to view], the leader and perfect er of faith, who, for the joy
that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising the
shame " (xii. 1, 2). All this makes it perfectly clear that
the writer professes no special acquaintance with the sufferings
of Christ, beyond what is accessible to all his contemporaries ;
that his knowledge of Christ's earthly experience is entirely
derived from history, and not in the least from a priori
speculation ; that he regards the sufferings and death of Christ
as entirely of a piece with the sufferings and death of all His
followers; and that, if questioned, he could no more have
told their extent than he could the extent of Peter's, or
John's, or Paul's, than he could the extent of Christ's joys,
or than we ourselves could tell, from reading the Gospel
history, the extent of either His sufferings or His joys. The
author knows merely that Christ, after He became incarnate,
and before He again attained to the glorified state in heaven,
spent some thirty- three years upon earth, during which He
underwent all the ordinary experiences of humanity, including,
in particular, the sufferings and trials of humanity, culminating
in that death which it is appointed unto all men once to die
(ix. 27) ; while, from the circumstance that His death was
the bloody and accursed death of the cross, and that He
foresaw the close of His career from the outset, His sufferings
at special seasons of which the most remarkable occurred in
the Garden of Gethsemane and on the cross appear to have
been peculiarly severe. He knows, further, that such a course
of suffering on the part of Christ was required to maintain
the consistency of the Divine character and government ; as
228 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
also that it was undergone at the prompting, and in the
strength, of the Divine grace or Spirit (ii. 9 ; ix. 14), obtained
in answer to prayer (v. 7). He knows, finally, that the
sufferings of Christ, while they served to manifest and vindicate
the Divine justice, had, at the -same time, the effect of per-
fecting His own person, just as the sufferings of each believer,
while serving to manifest and vindicate the Divine justice
(1 Pet. iv. 17; 2 Thess. i. 5, seq.), have, at the same time,
the effect of perfecting his own person (Phil. iii. 10). The
last is a point of some importance, which must be considered
by itself.
Theologians have exercised their ingenuity in attempts to
discover some indescribably refined and lofty sense for the
word " perfect " (TeAeiow/), as applied to Christ, being led
astray by the erroneous notion, that as Christ was never
imperfect in the ordinary sense, He could not possibly be
made perfect except in an entirely different sense. In plain
terms, they have spared no effort to explain away the obvious
meaning of the word, which they have usually so far succeeded
in doing, as to entangle and mystify both themselves and
their readers by the profuse employment of abstract phraseo-
logy having no definite meaning. That the word "perfect,"
when applied to Christ, must be taken in exactly the same
sense as when applied to every believer (e.g., Phil. iii. 12) will
be very easily shown. The argumentative connection between
v. 10 and v. 9, and, indeed, the very words used, is sufficient
evidence that by "sufferings" in v. 10 the same thing is
meant as by the "suffering of death," or the "tasting of death "
in v. 9. Now, in v. 14 the immediate purpose of Christ's death
is stated to be " that He might bring to nought (/carets/a-*?)
him that had the power of death, that is, the devil"-
a statement which must describe the effect as well as the
purpose of Christ's death, and must be practically identical
with the statement of v. 10, that the effect of Christ's suffer-
ings was to perfect His own person ; that is to say, the suffer-
ings or death of Christ must somehow have had the effect of
perfecting His own person in and through bringing to nought
the devil. How this combined result was brought about is
evident from the nature of the case, and from such passages as
V.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 229
the following : " Knowing this that our old man was crucified
with [His old man], in order that the body of sin might be
brought to nought (KarapytjOfy, that so we should no longer
be enslaved to sin . . . knowing that Christ [our Exemplar],
being raised from the dead, dieth no more [enslaved to sin] ;
death no more hath mastery over Him [through sin] ; for in
that He died, He died [enslaved] to sin for once, but in that
He liveth, He liveth [enslaved] to God [for ever] " (Eom. vi. 6,
9, 10). "What the law could not do in that it was weak
through the flesh, God, having sent His own Son in the like-
ness of flesh of sin, and concerning sin, condemned [to death,
and brought to nought in death], the sin in the flesh" (viii. 3).
" That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection,
and the fellowship of His sufferings, becoming conformed unto
His death, if, by any means, I may attain unto the resur-
rection from the dead [as He has attained unto the resurrection
from the dead]. Not that I have already obtained [the glory
and honour which forms the prize of perfection (2 Tim. iv.
8 ; Heb. xii. 2)], or am already perfected [as He is already
perfected] " (Phil. iii. 10-12). " In whom ye were also cir-
cumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, in the
putting off of the body of the flesh, in the .circumcision of
Christ ; having been buried with Him in baptism, wherein ye
were also raised with Him, through faith in the working of
God, who raised Him from the dead . . . [Christ who], having
[in the putting off of the body of the flesh] put off from Him-
self the principalities and the powers [of evil], made a show of
them openly, triumphing over them [and so bringing them to
nought] " (Col. ii. 11, 12, 15). These quotations prove
beyond all doubt that Christ was perfected exactly as each
believer is perfected by having His flesh, or old man, or body
of sin brought to nought through death, while they show that
the devil or the impersonation of the principle of sin, was
brought to nought through the same means and in the same
process. Believers attain to perfection by holding fast amid
trial and suffering their boldness and the glorying of their
hope firm unto the end (iii. 6), by holding fast the beginning
of their assurance firm unto the end (v. 14), by being not
sluggish, but imitators, of them who, through faith and endur-
230 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
ance, inherit the promises showing the same diligence unto
the fulness of the hope unto the end (vi. 1], 12) the end
(re'Ao?) in all these cases referring to the state of perfection
(reAe/cocn?) or glorification. In other words, believers attain
to perfection by carrying the life of faith or the course of
believing obedience through to the end ; by becoming obedient
even unto death, yea, if need be, the death of the cross ; even
as Paul could say, " I have fought the good fight, I have per-
fected (rereXeKa) the course, I have kept the faith; hence-
forth there is laid up for me the crown of [glory and honour due
to] righteousness, which the Lord, the Righteous Judge, shall
give me at that day " (2 Tim. iv. 6-8). Almost identical with
this is the language of Heb. xii. 1, 2, where it is taught in so
many words, that the perfect or glorified state is attained by
the believer, as it was attained by Jesus, through a life-long
course of faith and obedience, in spite of trial, suffering, and
death. " Therefore, let us also, seeing we are compassed
about with so great a cloud of witnesses, lay aside every
weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let
us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking
[for our example] to Jesus the Leader and Perfecter (reXet-
arrnv) of the [race of] faith, who, for the joy that was set before
Him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and hath [in
consequence] sat down at the right hand of the throne of God
[crowned with glory and honour]." Elsew r here, too, Jesus is
spoken of as " a Forerunner," with reference to believers who
have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before them,
and who are engaged in holding fast their hope unto the end
(vi. 18-20). Surely, then, the proof is complete that the
process of perfecting in the person of Christ is the same
identical life-long process of putting off the old man and
putting on the new, with which we are so familiar in the
person of the believer, a process which is accomplished on its
negative side, through suffering or dying, and on its positive
side, through the operation of the Divine Spirit, appropriated
and received by faith.
As to the positive side of the process of perfecting, little is
said in the Epistle to the Hebrews. The author does not
mention the fact that Christ, when He became incarnate,
V.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 231
" emptied Himself" (Phil. ii. 7). Nor does he say that when
He again attained to the glorified state, He did so through
being " filled unto all the fulness of God" (Col. i. 18, 19;
Eph. iii. 19; iv. 12-16). But these thiDgs, though not ex-
pressly mentioned, are clearly implied in what the author says
as to the way in which Jesus rose to perfection through a life-
long course of believing obedience (v. 8 ; xii. 2.). It is
through becoming partakers more and more of the Holy Ghost
as the agent of renewal (vi. 4) that believers attain to their
perfection or full growth (v. 14, cf. Eph. iv. 13), and such
also must have been the means through which Jesus attained
to " His perfection " (vi. 1), the path to which is everywhere
represented as strictly parallel to that of believers (com p. the
passages cited in last paragraph). Accordingly, both the his-
torical indications and the language of the present epistle
suggest, or rather imply, that Jesus, by the continued exercise
of faith, became pervaded and filled and transformed more
and more by the Spirit of God very much as believers do.
And the nature of the case demands that, before there could
be a reXeiWf9 or TrXr'ipaxris on the part of Christ parallel to
that of each believer, there should have been, as antecedent
condition, a counterpart KCVOXTIS. How far the KCVOXTIS extended
is stated neither by the present writer, nor by Paul, nor by
any other New Testament writer ; nor is the matter itself of
much intrinsic importance in a practical point of view. In
all probability there were points connected with the person of
Christ as to which the apostles were quite as much in the
dark as we ourselves are, and this is perhaps one of these.
All that the author of Hebrews tells us is that, though Christ
was tried in all respects like as we are, it was without His
sinning (iv. 15), which must be held to imply that the Holy
Ghost was present in altogether special fulness and power
from the very beginning, so as to enable Him to overcome
temptation. Christ was not, of course, " apart from sin " in
the absolute sense during His life on earth, as if His flesh
itself had not been sinful ; but rather, God " made Him
to be sin" by sending Him " in the likeness of flesh of sin ";
and only when He is manifested a second time will he be
manifested " apart from sin " to them that wait for Him unto
232 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
salvation (ix. 28). But He was " apart from sin " in the
sense denned by the context that His divine nature, the
" spirit of holiness," which He received from God, never yielded
to the solicitations of His human nature, the " flesh of sin,"
which He received from the seed of David, and in the sense
that the Spirit was present from the very first in such power
as to keep the flesh in perfect subjection. The case of the
believer differs in the lesser extent to which his faculties are
filled and occupied with the Divine Spirit, and in the greater
extent to which the flesh is permitted to fill and occupy
them.
I hope it is now evident in what respect it was consonant
to the character and government of God that Jesus should be
made perfect through sufferings. The rule of the Divine
justice, as revealed in the moral government of the world, is
that "the wages of sin is death": Jesus was found wearing
the nature of sinful humanity, having become a partaker of
flesh and blood identical with that of which all other men
partake : therefore it was meet that He, like other men,
should suffer and die. In the midst of His sufferings He
" delivered Himself over to Him that judgeth righteously,"
that is, to God, in order that He might do to Him whatever
the manifestation of His righteous judgment should require;
which was that He should first suffer and die, because of the
sin He had taken upon Him, and then be crowned with glory
and honour, because He had finished His course and kept the
faith, and so attained to perfect righteousness (1 Pet. ii. 23,
24; Heb. xii. 1, 2). Just so the manifestation of the right-
eous judgment of God requires that it shall be in the case of
each believer (1 Pet. iv. 13, 17; 2 Tim. iv. 7, 8).
It should also be observed that the only direct effect of the
death of Christ was to perfect His own person, and satisfy the
requirements of the Divine justice, in respect of His own person.
The death of Jesus Christ produced no immediate effect on the
person of any believer, nor did it in the least change, either for
better or worse, the relation of any man to the Divine justice.
This is evident, not only from the passage we are now examin-
ing, but from the whole tenor of Scripture, as well as from the
facts of experience. For, not to mention that one half of the
V.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 233
human race had already entered the unchangeable state before
the death of Christ took place, while the other half had not
yet come into existence, a fact which proves that in the
nature of things the death of Christ could have no immediate
or direct effect save on Himself and His contemporaries, it
is certain that no man is in the least changed, either in his
own character or in his relation to the law and justice of God,
till the time when he exercises faith in Christ. It is certain
that before a single evil disposition can have been uprooted,
or a single good disposition implanted, or a single transgression
forgiven, and before the slightest modification can have been
made in a man's relation to God, or (which is the same thing)
in God's relation to him, the Holy Spirit must have been
received, and must have begun to operate on the soul. Even
in the case of the believer, complete and absolute deliverance
from sin must precede complete and absolute reconciliation to
God, or complete and absolute deliverance from the law or
punitive justice of God ; and much more is this true of the
mere unbeliever. So long as Christ continued in connection
with sin, so long the wrath or the avenging justice of God
continued to lie upon Him and to inflict upon Him the pen-
alty of death ; and, in like manner, so long as each believer
continues in connection with sin, so long does the same state
of things continue to exist in his case that existed in the same
circumstances in the case of Christ. It follows that the death
of Christ could have produced no direct immediate effect on
the race of mankind as a whole, or on the body of the elect as
a whole. Nor could it have produced any direct immediate
effect on the mind, or bearing, or disposition, or relation of
God towards the race of mankind as a whole, or the body of
the elect as a whole. In other words, the sole direct imme-
diate effect of the death of Christ was to perfect His own
person, and satisfy the requirements of the Divine justice in
respect of His own person.
It must not of course be supposed that there is any definite
proportion between the amount of Christ's sufferings and the
amount of sin which he assumed. The New Testament writers
have no idea that Christ assumed any definite amount of sin,
any more than that He assumed a definite amount of flesh ;
234 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
and they have just as little idea that He underwent a definite
or measured amount of suffering. The amount of Christ's
sufferings is simply the historical amount, of which the New
Testament writers profess to have no more knowledge than
ordinary readers or recipients of the historical traditions. All
that the writer of our epistle professes to explain is the cause
of Christ's sufferings in the constitution of His person, taken
in connection with the principles of the Divine government ;
and their effect on His person and personal relation to God :
the explanation of both which points was almost self-evident
on the face of the historical facts. And in like manner the
amount of " flesh of sin " which Christ assumed is simply the
historical amount, which those who think the matter of suffi-
cient consequence must seek from history or tradition. Christ
became a sharer of flesh and blood, and flesh and blood as it
now exists, and as He assumed it, is pervaded by the prin-
ciple of sin, which was to Christ a source of temptation, and
which drew upon Him the penalty of death ; but the question
as to how much sin pervades flesh and blood as such, how
much sin every infant receives at its birth, and how much sin
Christ received at the incarnation, is never thought of, much
less discussed, by any of the writers of Scripture. Indeed, as
it has no real practical bearing upon anything, only a fool
would ever think of raising it.
If, again, it be asked how we are to conceive of the sin
existing in Christ's flesh in its relation to the fulness of the
Spirit dwelling in Him, we can only reply by pointing to the
parallel case of the believer. The believer in his best and
most spiritual states, when he is " full of faith and of the
Holy Ghost," furnishes the closest analogy that can be
obtained to what we must regard as the permanent state of
Jesus Christ. Nor is the difference between the two cases so
immeasurable that the one should be considered appreciably
more conceivable or inconceivable than the other. When the
believer is filled with the Spirit, his faculties are wholly
dominated and determined by the Spirit's influence, the
principle of sin inseparable from the flesh being in a state
of complete quiescence, very much as if it had no existence
When the fulness of the Spirit has been withdrawn, the prin-
V.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 235
ciple of sin will again manifest its existence, and resume more
or less of its sway. In the case of Christ, who received not
the Spirit by measure (John iii. 34), and who, in consequence,
did always the things that were well-pleasing to God (viii. 29),
sin was never permitted to reign in His mortal body (v. 46) ;
in other respects He was exactly like the believer. There is
no more difficulty in the idea that the Divine Spirit should
have been united to sinful flesh in the person of Christ than
in the fact that the same Divine Spirit should be united to
the same sinful flesh in the persons of all believers. There is
even less difficulty in the former case than in the latter, where
sin is sometimes, nay, oftentimes, permitted to reign and grieve
the Holy Spirit of God. True, when all has been said that
can be said, there still remains a degree of mystery in the
person of Christ, but there is no evidence that the apostles
probed that mystery to the bottom, any more than we our-
selves, following the guiding lights which they have left us,
can profess to do.
This brings us to the last great step in the process of salva-
tion, as it is set forth in the paragraph before us, the step which
theologians are accustomed to name the application, and to
distinguish from the impetration, of redemption, and which is
variously spoken of throughout these verses as benefiting every
man (v. 9), leading many sons unto glory (v. 10), sanctifying
(v. 11) or delivering all those who through fear of death are
all their lifetime subject to bondage (v. 15), helping them that
are being tried (v. 18). Objection might be taken to the
terms application and impretation as not being by any means
the most felicitous that might have been chosen to designate
the two principal stages into which the work of salvation in
general is here and elsewhere divided. It would be better
and more appropriate to speak of salvation or redemption in
principle, and salvation or redemption in detail, using the
former to designate the moral-physical process of redemption as
accomplished on the person of Christ, and the latter to desig-
nate the same identical process as accomplished on the persons
of His followers. I say the same identical process. For there
can be no question that as Christ, in respect of His humilia-
tion, was " made in all things like unto His brethren " (v. 17),
236 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
so believers, in respect of their exaltation and glorification, are
" conformed to the image of the Son, that He might be the
first-born among many brethren " (Rom. viii. 29), they are
" crowned with glory and honour " in a manner identical with
that in which Christ was ''crowned with glory and honour."
And that the course or succession of experiences through which
believers are translated from the state of humiliation to the
state of glorification is the same with that which we have just
been describing as having been undergone by Christ, is mani-
fest on the face of the believer's experience, as well as from
numberless passages of Scripture, as has been already abun-
dantly shown. The believer is led to glory, is adopted, is
sanctified, is redeemed or delivered from bondage under sin,
death, and the devil, in a life-long process of dying to sin and
rising again to righteousness, through the power of the Divine
grace or Spirit, received by faith in Jesus Christ. To quote
particular texts in support of the central doctrine of the New
Testament may almost be deemed superfluous. Besides, it
would be difficult in the present connection to exhibit the
full strength of the evidence, since the doctrine, though pro-
minent enough in the Epistle to the Hebrews, as elsewhere,
is couched for the most part in figurative Old Testament
phraseology, fitted and intended to serve the ends of popular
persuasion, but not those of lucid and easily intelligible ex-
position. The principal literal passages have been already
quoted or referred to, though we may here again glance at
one or two.
We have already seen that the sole immediate effect of the
earthly experiences of Christ was to perfect His own person, and
so to enable Him to enter heaven in our nature and on our
behalf: whatever, therefore, He does in His capacity as
" author of eternal salvation to all them that obey Him "
(v. 9) must be done while in heaven, and as the indirect
consequence of what He did while on earth. Now, the nature
of the work which Christ does for believers, in His state of
exaltation, if it were not perfectly well-known by itself, would
at any rate be prescribed by the nature of believers' needs in
their state of humiliation, and by the power of Christ in His
present position to satisfy those needs. What are the be-
V.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 237
liever's needs during his life on earth ? and how does the
epistle represent Christ as satisfying them ? The answer is
already fully given in the closing verse of the paragraph : " In
that He himself hath suffered, having been tried [while on
earth], He is able [in heaven] to help them that are being
tried [while on earth]." There is no doubt that the general
function of helping the tried is meant to cover the whole of
the heavenly work of Christ, just as its figurative counterpart,
the function of expiating the sins of the people, is meant to
cover the whole of the earthly work of the High Priest. The
work of expiating the sins of the people is identical with the
work of sanctifying the people (xiii. 1 2), and while the Jewish
high priest sanctified the people of Israel by sprinkling the
blood of a slaughtered goat on the Mercy-seat within the veil,
Christ sanctifies believers by supplying the grace of His Holy
Spirit to enable them to die to sin and rise again to righteous-
ness after the example set by Himself. The two things, there-
fore, correspond exactly to one another, and that they are
meant to do so is clear from the relation of v. 18 to v. 17, as
indicated by the confirmative particle (7/>) with which the
latter verse opens. More detailed accounts of the process of
individual salvation, and of the means by which it is carried
through, are to be found in such passages as the following :
" Whose house are we, if we hold fast our boldness [of faith]
and the glorying of our hope firm unto the end " (iii. 6).
" Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil
heart of unbelief in falling away from the living God . . .
for we are become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the be-
ginning of our confidence firm unto the end" (vv. 12, 14).
" Let us hold fast our confession [of faith] ; for we have not
an High Priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our
infirmities, but one that hath been in all points tried like as
we are without sinning ; let us therefore draw near with bold-
ness of faith unto the throne of grace, that we may receive
mercy, and may find grace to help us in time of need " (iv.
14-16). "And we desire that each one of you may show the
same diligence [as at the beginning] unto the fulness of the
hope unto the end ; that ye be not sluggish, but imitators of
them who through faith and patience inherit the promises.
238 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
. . . We have a strong encouragement who have fled for
refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us ; which we have
as an anchor of soul, a hope both sure and steadfast, and
entering into that which is within the veil ; whither as a fore-
runner Jesus entered on our behalf" (vi. 11, 12, 18-20).
" Cast not away, therefore, your boldness of faith, which hath
great recompence of reward ; for ye have need of patience,
that, having done the will of God, ye may receive the promise.
For yet a very little while, and He that cometh shall come,
and shall not tarry. But my righteous one shall live by faith,
and if he shrink back, my soul hath no pleasure in him. But
we are not of them that shrink back into perdition, but of
them that have faith unto the saving of the soul" (x. 35-39).
" And these all, having had witness borne to them [scil. that
they were righteous] through their faith, received not the
promise, God having provided some better thing concerning
us, that they without us should not be made perfect. There-
fore, let us also, seeing we are compassed about with so great
a cloud of witnessess, lay aside every weight, and the sin
which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience
the race that is set before us, looking [for an example] unto
Jesus, the Leader and Perfecter of the [race of] faith, who
for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despis-
ing the shame, and hath sat down at the right hand of the
throne of God" (xi. 39 xii. 2). There can be no mistake,
after statements so numerous and so unequivocal as these, that
the whole Christian course, from " the beginning " onward to
"the end," is a course of believing obedience, cherished and
exercised in the midst of trial, in which the believer is
sustained by constant supplies of the grace or Spirit of Christ,
who, in so meeting the needs of his followers, approves Him-
self " the author of eternal salvation to all them that obey
Him." The last passage, in particular, shows very clearly
how true religion always has consisted and always must con-
sist in precisely the same thing, viz., righteousness, obedience
to the moral law, through faith in God how this was what
the Old Testament saints sought after, what Jesus sought
after, and what every follower of Jesus must seek after how
trial, suffering, and death, must be undergone by all alike
V.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 239
before the state of perfection and glorification can be reached
how Jesus Himself was so far from being an exception to this
rule, that, on the contrary, He was the most eminent and out-
standing example of it and how faith, appropriating the
Divine Spirit, as it enabled Jesus, so it enabled every prede-
cessor, and shall enable every follower of Jesus, to overcome
trial, and pass triumphantly through death, and so to obtain
"the crown of glory that fadeth not away."
Not much is said in the Epistle to the Hebrews as to the
cause of the believer's sufferings in the constitution of his
person taken in connection with the principles of the Divine
government, nor is there much reference to their effect on his
person and personal relation to God, though it is, of course,
implied that both their cause and their effect is precisely the
same as in the case of Christ, who was made in all things
and therefore in this like unto His brethren. The sufferings
of the believer, like all the suffering that exists in the world,
are the effect of sin and the wages of it, having been incurred
through his becoming a partaker of flesh and blood, subject as
it is to sin, and through sin to the devil, to whom the power
of death is declared to belong. The sufferings of the believer
manifest the Divine justice and vindicate the Divine character,
by showing God as the righteous judge and the impartial
governor of the world, who renders to every man according to
his works, and therefore to believers, who partake of the same
flesh and blood with Christ, sufferings so absolutely identical
in nature with those of Christ that they are not only said to
be after the same pattern, to serve the same end, and to
supplement by forming part of the same whole, but are even
spoken of once and again as " the sufferings of Christ " as
will be fully proved in another connection. The sufferings of
the believer have likewise the effect of perfecting his own
person in and through bringing to nought the devil or the
principle of sin inherent in the flesh, this being the method of
deliverance from slavery to sin and death ; witness the state-
ment of Paul, " Our old man was crucified with [His old man],
in order that the body of sin might be brought to nought,
that so we should no more be enslaved to sin [and through
sin to death] " (Rom. vi. 6). Thus, the sufferings of the
240 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
believer, like those of Christ, are the (negative) instrument
and condition of his glorification.
It is not meant that in the believer's case, any more than
in Christ's, there is a definite proportion between the amount
of suffering and the amount of sin to which it is due. The
amount of each believer's sufferings is simply the historical
amount, which differs greatly in individual cases, and is in no
sort proportioned to the amount of sin committed. The mass
of human sin is forgiven in the most absolute sense of the
word. What, therefore, the writers of Scripture have got to
do is not to speculate as to the abstract necessity of this or
that amount of suftering, but to interpret the meaning of
sufferings known from history and experience to exist. And
they teach that the believer's sufferings are in themselves the
wages of sin ; that, in reference to God, they serve to manifest
and vindicate His justice; and that, in reference to the
sufferer himself, they are the means of perfecting his person,
and working for him more and more exceedingly an eternal
weight of glory ; all these points, or at least the first two,
being self-evident deductions from historical fact interpreted
in the light of well understood general principles. Indeed,
the Apostle Paul, when speaking of the believer's sufferings as
manifesting the righteous judgment of God in the present, and
preparing the way for glory in the future, appeals to the
moral consciousness or common-sense of his readers in support
of the interpretation which he puts upon them. They are,
he says, " a means of manifesting the righteous judgment of
God, if it be [as I think you will be ready to grant that
it is] a righteous thing for God" &c. (2 Thess. i. 4-7).
So far as appears, therefore, the believer's experience, while
on his way to glory, is in every respect the counterpart
or copy of Christ's. But this particular part of the work
of salvation will come up for more exhaustive treatment
at a later stage.
Meanwhile, let us sum up the results of the foregoing
discussion on the plan of salvation as it is viewed and pre-
sented by the writer to the Hebrews. The author teaches
(1.) that the natural state of man is a state of humiliation in
flesh and blood, involving slavery or subjection to sin, the law,
V.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 241
death, and the devil ; (2.) that, with the view of delivering
man from his natural state, and leading him to the state of
glory destined for him, Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God,
assumed flesh and blood, thereby descending from a state of
exaltation equal to that of God, to a state of humiliation equal
to that of man, involving similar subjection to sin, the law,
death, and the devil ; (3.) that Jesus Christ, the incarnate
Son of God, by passing through a lifelong course of believing
obedience, sustained by the grace or Spirit of God in the
midst of trial, suffering, and death, rose to personal perfection
and glorification, having satisfied the claims of the Divine
justice on the one hand, and brought to nought His own flesh
and blood on the other, thereby redeeming Himself from His
assumed subjection to sin, the law, death, and the devil,
and so becoming in due time the author of eternal redemption
to all them that obey Him; (4.) that all who exercise faith
in God, by passing through a lifelong course similar in all
respects to that of Christ a course of believing obedience, in
which they are sustained by the grace or Spirit of God in the
midst of trial, suffering, and death are raised to personal
perfection and glorification, having satisfied the claims of the
Divine justice on the one hand, and brought to nought their
own flesh and blood on the other, being thereby eternally
redeemed from their natural subjection to sin, the law, death,
and the devil. Such being a general outline of the plan of
salvation as it is conceived by the present writer, what could
be more natural than that he should speak of Christ, who led
(vyaye) the way from the state of sin and humiliation to
the state of righteousness and blessedness, and so obtained
salvation in principle (/>x^) f r a ^ mankind, as the Leader
(apxyyos) of salvation ? The term is literally descriptive of
the peculiar function of Jesus, the Saviour, as His office or
function is apprehended and represented by our author. It
does indeed seem to imply that Jesus was the first who ever
trod the path of salvation, and that, until He opened the way,
no one ever attained to righteousness and life in fellowship
with God, or even had an opportunity of doing so ; and this,
again, involves the startling conclusion that there was no true
religion in the world till after the incarnation and death of
R
242 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
Christ. There is no doubt that not only the author of
Hebrews, but the New Testament writers generally, tend so
to think and speak of the history of religion in the world,
connecting all true faith and life directly with the person of
Christ as the " one mediator between God and men, Himself
man," and relegating the whole of the pre-Christian religion of
the world to the region of dead formalism. And not un-
naturally; for their faith and life were directly connected with
the person of Christ as the revelation of God to men, and, in
that sense, the mediator between God and men ; and the
religion of their contemporaries , in so far as it was not
identical with their own, was in reality dead formalism. Few,
however, will be disposed to accept such ideas as valid, or to
regard them in any other light than as an indication of the
limitation of view under which the apostles laboured. Jesus
Himself would certainly not have claimed to be the first who
ever trod the path of life. He rather took special pains to
emphasise the fact that He was only continuing the work that
Moses and the prophets had begun ; though it is true that
He invited men to believe on Him, and follow Him, because
that was the surest way of keeping the commandments of
God, the necessary and unchangeable condition of entering
into life. Possibly the tendency which the apostles manifest
to magnify the place which Jesus occupied in the religious
history of the world, so as to make it correspond with the
place which He occupied in their experience, has affected
their representations regarding His work to a greater extent
than we are at first disposed to suspect or imagine. Anyhow,
we must regard Jesus as the first of redeemed mankind not in
a temporal but in an ideal sense, and it is in this sense that
the designation, "Leader of salvation," is properly applicable
to Him. " Leader of salvation " answers very closely to
"firstborn among many brethren" (Rom. viii. 29), as the
context clearly shows, and both designations are to be under-
stood literally. Very different, as we shall see, is it with the
other prominent designation applied to Jesus in the present
paragraph, and throughout the Epistle, High Priest (dp%iepevi)
of the New Covenant, which is not a literal designation chosen
for the purpose of conveying an accurate idea of the functions
V.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 243
of the Saviour, but a figurative designation, transferred from
the Jewish high priest, of whose material functions it is
properly descriptive to Jesus Christ, of whose spiritual
functions it conveys no more idea than a multitude of other
terms that might easily be found such as Shepherd, Sower,
Bridegroom, &c.
[Chap.
CHAPTER VI.
FACT AND FIGURE IN THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.
THE popular representation of the plan of salvation, con
tained in the Epistle to the Hebrews is very different
from that which we have just drawn out. It may be briefly
described by saying that it is based on taking the writer's
figurative language literally, and his literal language figura-
tively. More exactly, it is the fruit of an attempt, necessarily
unsuccessful, so to combine the writer's literal with his figura-
tive representations as to construct out of the two a single
harmonious representation. Starting from the position that
Christ is a literal "High Priest," whose principal function
consists in " expiating the sins of the people," its advocates
maintain that the greatest part (consistency requires that it
should be the whole) of the work of redeeming or saving the
world, or, as some would prefer to say, the elect, is of the
nature of an " atonement," which Christ made in His official
capacity, by offering Himself as a literal sacrifice in the act of
His own death. Some such view as this is thought to be
established beyond possibility of doubt or cavil by a host of
statements scattered throughout the epistle, of which the
following may be taken as specimens. We read, that the Son,
" having made purification of sins, sat down on the right hand
of the Majesty on high " (i. 3) ; that "it behoved Him in all
things to be made like unto His brethren, that He might
become a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertain-
ing to God, with a view to expiating the sins of the people "
(ii. 1 7) ; that " every high priest, being taken from among
men, is appointed for men in things pertaining to God, that
he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins ; who can bear
244
VI.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 245
gently with the ignorant and erring, for that he himself also
is compassed with infirmity, and by reason thereof is bound,
as for the people, so also for himself, to offer for sins ; and no
man taketh this honour unto himself, but when he is called of
God, even as was Aaron : so Christ also glorified not Himself to
be made an High Priest," &c. (v. 1-5) ; that "a High Priest
became us ... who needeth not daily, like those high priests,
to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins, and then for the
people's ; for this He did once for all, when He offered up
Himself" (vii. 26, 27); that "we have such an High Priest,
who sat down on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty
in the heavens ; a Minister of the sanctuary, and of the true
tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, not man ; for every high-
priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices, wherefore
it is necessary that this High Priest also have somewhat to
offer " (viii. 1-3) ; that " Christ, having come an High Priest
of the good things to come, through the greater and more
perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of
this creation, nor yet through the blood of goats and calves,
but through His own blood entered in once for all into the
holy place, having obtained eternal redemption : for if the
blood of goats and bulls, and the ashes of an heifer, sprinkling
them that have been defiled, sanctify unto the purity of the
nesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who, through
the eternal Spirit, offered Himself without blemish unto God,
purify your conscience from dead works to serve the living
God" (ix. 11-13) ; that " Christ entered not into a holy place
made with hands, like in pattern to the true, but into heaven
itself, now to appear before the face of God for us ; nor yet
that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest entereth
into the holy place, year by year, with blood not his own, else
must He often have suffered since the foundation of the world :
but now, once at the end of the ages, hath He been mani-
fested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself; and, inas-
much, as it is appointed unto men once to die, and after this
cometh judgment, so Christ, also, was once offered to bear
away the sins of many " (vv. 24-28) ; that " we have been
sanctified by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for
all ; and every high priest, indeed, standeth day by day
246 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, the
which can never take away sins, but He, when He had offered
one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of
God ... for by one offering He hath perfected for ever
them that are sanctified " (x. 10-14) ; and finally that " Jesus,
also, in order that He might sanctify the people with His own
blood, suffered without the gate " (xiii. 1 2).
The meaning of such statements appears to be unmistak-
able. The " sins " of which Christ made purification (i. 3), for
which He offered (v. 3 ; vii. 27 ; x. 12), which He took away
(x. 4, 11), the " sins of the people," which He expiated (ii. 17),
the " sins of many," which He was offered to bear away (ix.
28), the " sins " which He nullified or did away (v. 26) must
be the aggregate sins of all whom Christ saves. How can
these be said to be purified or expiated, borne away or
done away, by the offering of Christ ? The answer of theo-
logians is somewhat as follows : In every sacrifice the victim
is the strict substitute of the party or parties on whose behalf
it is offered. The sins of the offerer become the sins of the
victim, and the death of the victim becomes the death of the
offerer. When the Jewish high priest offered the people's
goat, the sins of the whole people are thought to have been
transferred to the goat, and their penalty to have fallen upon
him, instead of falling upon them, the consequence being that
while the goat died the people escaped death on account of
their sins ; and, in like manner, when Jesus offered Himself,
the sins of the whole body of believers are thought to have
been transferred to Him, and their penalty to have fallen upon
Him, instead of falling upon them, the consequence being that
while Jesus died believers escape death on account of their
sins. Since, however, it is quite impossible that sin, strictly
so-called, should be transferred from one party to another, it is
only the guilt, or legal consequence, or penalty of sin that is
thought to be laid on the victim sacrificed, and it is this that
Christ is conceived to have expiated, and, in so doing, put
for ever away in the act of His death. In this way a serious
difficulty seems to be got rid of. For as the sins of a great
part of the human race had not even been committed at the
time when Christ died, it were absurd to suppose that these
VI.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 247
had been purified and put away, in the strict sense, centuries
before they had come into existence. The amount of guilt
transferred to Christ, being that of the whole body of believers
from the foundation of the world to its consummation, is so
great that the penalty requiring to be exacted is practically
infinite : at any rate, the Divine dignity of the victim con-
fers on the sacrifice of Christ infinite expiatory value ; so that
the merits of a sacrifice intended only for the elect can be
offered to all men without exception ! And since the proper
penalty of sin is death, in the sense not of utter extinction,
nor yet of mere separation between soul and body, but of
suffering indefinitely prolonged, that which was properly ex-
piatory in the death of Christ was the suffering connected
with it which, accordingly, is the thing supposed to be trans-
ferred to believers.
Such, in rude outline, is the famous doctrine of " the atone-
ment," with which we are so familiar, which occupies so large
a place in the current systems of theology, which has been so
persistently dinned into our ears from infancy, and is so con-
stantly represented as the central, most fundamental, and
most important doctrine of revealed religion, as the prop and
pillar of the whole evangelical system, without which salvation
would be absolutely impossible, the sure and at the same time
the sole foundation of the faith and hope of all Christians.
To its more enthusiastic advocates the doctrine must appear
satisfactory in more senses than one, as it is in their opinion
" utterly indisputable ; " and the ordinary believing reader,
who has never taken the trouble to reflect on the subject, will
perhaps be surprised at the mention of but a few of the many
enormous difficulties which it involves.
There is not a little difference of opinion even among com-
petent authorities as to the precise nature and meaning of a
Jewish expiatory sacrifice, but one or two things about it are
clear enough. For example, it is quite certain that the effect,
whatever it might be, which the offerer sought to produce was
produced at once in the act of offering, and not in a subse-
quent act, or at a later time. On the great day of atonement,
as soon as the goat was offered by the high priest, the whole
people were sanctified, so far, at least, as the offering of such
248 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
a sacrifice could sanctify them. " And there shall be no one
in the tent of meeting when he goeth in to make atonement
in the holy place, until he come out and have, made atone-
ment for himself and for his household and for all the
assembly of Israel" (Lev. xvi. 17). It is evident from these
words that whatever was done in the way of atoning or sancti-
fying the people during the current year was done after the
high priest entered and before he again came out from the
holy place. It is also evident that the effect was produced
directly, and on the whole people at once. If the death of
the goat, with the sprinkling of the blood so provided, was
the (symbolic) means of removing the people's guilt, which
had been (symbolically) transferred to the goat before it was
slain, then the act of offering the goat and the act of removing
the people's guilt were one and the same ; in the instant that
the goat was offered the guilt of the whole people was removed,
and they were atoned, purified, or sanctified from guilt. If,
on the other hand (as is most probable), the death of the goat,
with the sprinkling of the blood, was the (symbolic) means of
removing the people's sin, and consecrating their life to God,
then the act of slaying and offering the goat, and the act of
removing the people's sin and consecrating their life to God
were one and the same ; in the instant that the first took
place the second likewise took place, and the whole people
were atoned, purified, or sanctified from sin. There is no
trace of a counter imputation of the entire atoning merit of
the goat to each individual of the people, nor of bringing its
merit to bear upon any but such as were then living and
present in the vicinity of the tabernacle. Each generation of
Israelites had its own atonement, or series of atonements, at
which they were present as worshippers and offerers, and of
whose benefits they were partakers. No one generation was
either required or permitted to make an atonement on behalf
of any other. The atonement of one year was not even avail-
able for the following year, though the worshippers on both
occasions might be exactly the same. Nor were different in-
dividuals ever atoned for separately by means of the same
sacrifice. Indeed, the nature of the ceremony evidently pre-
cludes any such thing. If either the guilt or the sin of the
VI.J PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 249
whole people was (symbolically) transferred to the goat in
order to be expiated upon him, how preposterous would it
have been to require that the entire atoning merit of the goat
should be in turn transferred to each individual of the people,
instead of allowing it to take effect directly on the whole
people together ! Further, not only is there no such thing as
obedience on the part of the victim sacrificed, but there is
hardly a trace even of suffering ; for as the victim was doubt-
less slain instantaneously, and in the most humane manner
possible, the suffering attending its death would thus be re-
duced to a minimum. In fact, there is reason to believe that
the death was by no means the principal part of the rite of
sacrifice, but rather the offering of the blood or life, to
which the death was a mere though an essential prelimmar}^
The absence of any such thing as obedience was a necessary
consequence of the fact that the victim was always a brute
creature, incapable from its very nature of intelligent obedience,
while the priest and the victim were always totally distinct
from each other. Again, while the animal really and truly
suffered death, the people in whose stead it is supposed to
have been offered really and truly escaped death. Once more,
it does not appear that the sanctification which was accom-
plished (symbolically) by a Jewish sacrifice was ever thought
of as incomplete, and requiring to be supplemented by some-
thing else, as forming the basis, and so preparing the way,
for another sanctification of an entirely different kind,
which was needful before the people could enter into fellow-
ship with God, and which was brought about by totally
different means. On the contrary, the holiness which was
(symbolically) communicated in the act of atonement was
holiness identical in nature with that of God Himself, holi-
ness fitted to establish fellowship between God and His people,
being the only holiness known to Old Testament times, the
only holiness which would have been of the slightest value,
the only holiness which the people either required or could
possibly obtain.
Such, then, are some of the leading features of what was
confessedly a proper atoning sacrifice. But what of the so-
called atoning sacrifice of Christ ? Does it correspond, in the
250 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
above outstanding particulars, with the sacrifice offered by the
Jewish high priest on behalf of the Jewish people ? Is it not
rather totally different, and necessarily so from the very nature
of the case ? In the first place, the victim is here identical with
the high priest. There is no such thing as sprinkling the blood,
nor indeed is there any altar to sprinkle it upon. The atoning
element lies not in the blood, but in the sufferings, and these
are admittedly life long, and are supposed to be somehow pro-
portioned to the amount of sin transferred to the victim. In
the second place, the people, instead of being present as parties
directly interested, and to be directly affected by the act of
offering, are scattered throughout all nations, and along the
whole line of the world's history ; one half had already entered
the unchangeable state before the death of Christ took place,
while the other half had not yet come into existence ; the
consequence being that the sins of the one half had already
been done away, while the sins of the other half had not yet
been committed. It is, therefore, quite impossible that Christ
should have made an atonement for the whole body of the
elect by the act of His own death, similar to that which the
Jewish high priest is acknowledged to have made for the whole
people of Israel by the act of offering the goat. Theologians
dare not pretend that He did or could do so. And since the
death of Christ could produce no direct effect on the body of
the elect as a whole, obviously it can have produced no
direct effect on any part of that body, so that whatever
effect it produces must be produced in an indirect or round-
about manner, that is, in a manner entirely different from
that in which the effect of the Jewish sacrifice was pro-
duced. Accordingly, it is alleged that the aim or object
of Christ's death at least, its immediate object was not
the removal of sin, but merely of guilt; that the guilt of
the elect, and that alone, was transferred to Christ a
thing which is supposed to be perfectly possible in spite of
the fact that a large part of said guilt had not yet been
incurred ; and that the death of Christ was merely a step in
the direction of atoning, purifying, or sanctifying the body of
the elect from guilt. Still, there is a sanctification from sin,
which, though it was not the primary object contemplated in
VI.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 251
the death of Christ, was yet a secondary object, and flows from
it as an indirect consequence. This implies that each member
of the elect must undergo in succession two distinct sanctifica-
tions, first a preparatory sanctification from the guilt of sin,
and then a supplementary sanctification from the sin itself.
The first of these is regarded as the essential condition and
basis of the second, and, from all that one can gather, is con-
ceived to take place in a single act, simultaneous with the
initial act of faith on the part of each member of the elect,
though how it can be supposed to do so in view of the fact
that believers continue to incur guilt, more or less, and to
have it removed, during their whole earthly life, is certainly
not apparent. The direct means by which this preliminary
purification or sanctification is effected is the imputation or
transference to each believer of the lifelong sufferings of the
victim-high-priest, along with the said victim-high-priest's
lifelong obedience, that is, of the entire atoning merit of the
victim, along with something which is perhaps not to be
regarded as atoning merit, though it must be supposed to
possess equal merit of another kind : this, notwithstanding the
fact that the atoning merit of the victim is deemed adequate
to expiate the guilt, not merely of the whole body of the elect,
but even of the whole human race ! The second subsidiary
purification follows the first, and springs out of it. It is
a lifelong moral or spiritual process, carried out, on the one
hand, through the continued operation of the Holy Ghost
received by faith that is to say, by the same means and in
the same manner with that in which the victim-high-priest's
obedience was carried out and, on the other hand, by means
of sufferings and death on the part of the individual to all
appearance quite identical with those which he is supposed to
have escaped on the ground of the victim-high-priest's suffer-
ings and death !
Now, not to dwell on the curious, clumsy, incongruous
character of such a method of atonement in contrast to the
simple and natural Jewish method, where is the evidence by
which it is supported in the language of the epistle ? What
ground is there to think that whenever the writer to the
Hebrews speaks of the purifying or putting away of sin by
252 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY, [Chap.
Christ, he refers not to sin itself but merely to the guilt of
sin ? How do we know that the guilt of all the elect was
imputed or transferred to Christ ? Where does the writer say
a single word about such a thing? Will it be alleged that
the imputation of guilt from the offerer to the victim is involved
in the very idea of a sacrifice ? But at any rate, in the case
of a Jewish sacrifice, the parties whose guilt is supposed to
have been transferred to the goat were present then and there
confessing their guilt, and seeking to have it removed, where-
as, in the case of Christ, a great part of the guilt had not even
been incurred, and therefore could not be confessed. Waiving
this, however, what evidence is there to support the idea of a
subsequent counter-imputation of the whole atoning merit
of Christ to each individual believer in the first moment of
faith ? Why should such a counter-imputation be needed, if
the guilt of all the elect was transferred to Christ in the
way that the guilt of the whole people of Israel is supposed
to have been transferred to the goat ? Moreover, how comes
it that believers are still found guilty, and requiring forgive-
ness, not only after the sum-total of their guilt has been trans-
ferred to Christ and expiated upon Him, but even after the
sum-total of Christ's atoning merit, sufficient though it be to
expiate the guilt of the whole world, has been transferred to
them individually ? Above all, where shall we find the slightest
indication that the writer to the Hebrews held the necessity
of two successive sanctifications or purifications, the one from
guilt, the other from sin, before the believer could enter heaven
or enjoy the fellowship of God ?
It will not be necessary to enter at length into each of
these questions for the purpose of showing that the views
of theologians on the points raised are wholly destitute of
authority. A single text will suffice to prove that the author
of the Epistle to the Hebrews is in no degree responsible for
the absurdly incongruous theory of atonement above described.
In chapter x. 14 it is said that " by one offering He [Jesus]
hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified." Jesus Him-
self was " perfected for evermore " (vii. 28), when, having
passed through death (v. 9), He was "separated from sinners,
and made higher than the heavens" (vii. 26); in other words,
VI.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 253
when He attained to the glorified state in heaven (ii. 10). And
so the " spirits of righteous men have been perfected " (xii. 23),
when, they have run the same race of faith which Jesus ran
to the end (xi. 40 ; xii. 1, 2 ; vi. 11, 12), and have reached
the same heavenly glorified state (ii. 8-10), which, in their
case as well as His, is the outcome and crown of sarictification
(v. 11). It is clear, therefore, that when Christ is said by
His one offering to have perfected for ever them that are
sanctified, His sacrificial work is conceived to have covered
the entire process of salvation from its inception to its com-
pletion, and that too as regards the whole body of the saved ;
He is thought of, and represented as having sanctified, not
from guilt merely, but from sin itself, all who ever have
been or shall be sanctified, and so to have placed them by
the act of His death in the heavenly, glorified, or perfected
state. In other words, the work of Christ in sanctifying
the whole body of the elect, as it is expressed in the same
phraseology, so it is represented under precisely the same
form, as the work of the Jewish high priest in sanctifying the
whole body of the people of Israel. But since it is utterly
impossible in the nature of things that the sanctification of
the elect should have been effected through the act of offering
a sacrificial victim, as the sanctification of the people of Israel
was effected through the act of offering the goat ; since experi-
ence completely refutes the idea that the sanctification of the
elect did, or does, as a matter of fact, so take place : this
manner of speech can only be regarded as a highly artificial
mould or figurative form, into which the writer throws his
ideas, for the purpose of commending them to his Jewish
readers ; and this is what we mean by saying that Christ is a
figurative, not a literal high priest, and His work a figurative,
not a literal, expiatory sacrifice. It follows that in order to
gain a literally accurate view of the fundamental ideas under-
lying the epistle, we must break through the Jewish shell, in
which they are here incased ; but this must be done, not as
theologians have done it, by proceeding, with wanton arbitrari-
ness, to shape, and mangle, and mutilate the writer's beautiful
and harmonious figurative conception drawn from the Old
Testament, so as to give it the air of a literal conception, but
254 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
rather, as we ourselves have essayed to do it, by collecting the
main outlines of the plan of salvation from the literal passages
scattered throughout the epistle, and then using the facts
thus ascertained as a means of testing and setting aside the
figurative forms, by which they were rendered acceptable to
Jewish readers of the first century. The theological doctrine
of " the atonement " is the outcome of an abortive attempt to
modify a purely figurative representation of the plan of sal-
vation, so as to manufacture out of it something in the nature
of a literal representation. In spite, therefore, of the immense
importance commonly attached to it, this "fundamental doctrine
of revealed religion " can only be looked upon as a por-
tentous monstrosity, the offspring of an illict union between
literal fact and oratorical fancy. We say this deliberately, and
in the full consciousness that we are characterising a doctrine
which is held, with slight modifications, by the Church
universal Greek, Latin, and Protestant. The one indisput-
able fact, which is not more clearly confirmed by universal
Christian experience than it is distinctly taught in every part
of Scripture, that believers are never completely freed from
guilt until they have been completely freed from sin, is of
itself enough to prove how baseless is the idea that there is a
sanctification from guilt separate from, and preparatory to,
sanctification from sin.
Possibly, it may occur to the reader, as a difficulty, that if
the whole of the Old Testament phraseology contained in the
Epistle to the Hebrews is to be taken in a figurative sense,
nine-tenths of the writer's doctrinal teaching will, in that case,
be presented in figure, and only the merest snatches in plain
language. This, I say, may appear a difficulty; for there is
no doubt that, if we take up any ordinary didactic composition,
we shall find that the amount of figurative language is very
small in proportion to the amount of literal. However, it has
been already observed, and may be again repeated, that the
Epistle to the Hebrews is not a plain didactic discourse, but
a highly-wrought persuasive discourse, adapted to the special
circumstances of the time in which, and the parties to which,
it was written a fact that is amply sufficient to account for
its peculiar character. The aim of the writer is not to com-
VI.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 255
municate the elements of the plan of salvation to readers
wholly in ignorance of them. He expressly declines to speak
upon first principles, on the ground that his readers ought, at
any rate, to be fully acquainted with them (vi. 1, aeq.). The
plan of salvation, through faith in the crucified Jesus, whose
Spirit was given to renew or redeem all who obeyed Him, was
of itself so easy to understand, and had been so fully pro-
claimed, at an earlier stage, to the Hebrew Christians, that it
could now be taken for granted as something about which
there could not possibly be any dispute. What, therefore, the
writer had specially to concern himself about was not to
explain the Gospel scheme of salvation, but to persuade
Jewish readers to hold it fast, who were by nature strongly
prejudiced against it, and in favour of the law scheme of sal-
vation. This, which was a much more difficult task, the
author endeavours to accomplish by clothing the Gospel in
the garb of the ritual law, by arraying it, so to speak, in ritual
swaddling bands, and palming it off as the true child of a ritual
parent. Whether by these means the author succeeded in the
object he had in view, viz., in giving to the Gospel a more
winsome outward aspect in the eyes of his original readers,
may be open to doubt ; but there is no doubt whatever that
he has succeeded in an object which he assuredly had not in
view, viz., in convincing the mass of his modern readers that
the Gospel, in its inner essence, is something entirely different
from what he, and every one else in apostolic times, under-
stood it to be.
That any one who had ever apprehended the Gospel scheme
of salvation in its native simplicity should dream of taking
the writer's Old Testament language in a literal sense must be
considered impossible. The Hebrews could not have done so.
Even modern theologians, who have never apprehended the
Gospel scheme of salvation in its native simplicity, are far
enough from pretending that the writer is speaking literally
throughout. They select only the merest fragments of a vast
and complicated figurative system, modify and piece them to-
gether after a fashion of their own, and then allege that the
system which they have called into existence is a literal
system ; and it is strange that they are able to delude them-
256 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
selves even so far as this. When the author speaks of that
process of deliverance from sin of which Christ is the author to
all them that obey Him which is elsewhere spoken of as a
salvation (ii. 10; v. 10), a glorification or leading unto glory
(ii. 10), a sanctification (v. 11), an adoption or leading as
sons unto glory (v. 10), a purification (ix. 14), a perfecting
(x. 14), a renewal unto repentance (vi. 6) as an "expiating
the sins of the people " after the manner of " a high priest,"
the language is manifestly to be understood in a purely figura-
tive or secondary sense. It is quite impossible in the nature
of things that the words should bear anything like a literal
signification. The Old Covenant, in the very highest view of
it, or at any rate in the view which our author adopts, dealt
in outward, earthly, physical symbols : the New Covenant deals
in inward, heavenly, spiritual realities : and it is a palpable
impossibility that a piece of physical symbolism should convey
a literally accurate idea, or indeed anything beyond the
remotest suggestion, of a moral or spiritual process. The
expressions "seed of Abraham," "the people," "high priest,"
"expiate" (ii. 16, 17), are all borrowed expressions. They
have not been framed by the present writer for the purpose
of conveying his ideas in a literal and simple manner. The
primary and proper application of all of these terms is to the
persons, functions, and processes of the Old Covenant, and they
are here completely diverted from their original reference, and
applied to persons, functions, and processes of which they can
from the nature of the case convey only the faintest conception.
Who, for example, could divine a priori that the expression
" seed of Abraham " was a name for " every man " (v. 9), for
" all those who through the fear of death are all their lifetime
subject to bondage" (v. 15) who, as being sharers of flesh
and blood, in contrast to angels or pure spirits, are in bondage
under sin, death, the law, the devil or, at the least, a name
for " all them that obey " or believe on Jesus Christ (v. 9) ?
And, again, who could tell from the word itself that "the
people" referred neither to the Jewish people, nor to the
Greek people, nor to any people in particular, but to all men,
or at least to all believers? So, when the word high priest is
used, who would have thought that the leading function of
VI.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 257
the individual so named was not to offer slain animals on
altars of gold or brass or stone, nor to sprinkle blood upon
people or places or utensils, but to endure lifelong suffering
and death in his own person through the power of Divine
grace (ii. 9), of an eternal Spirit (ix. 14), and then by com-
municating that grace (iv. 16) or Spirit of grace (vi. 4 ; x. 29)
to all them that obey Him (v. 9, 10), to enable them to
endure the like lifelong suffering and death (ii. 18)? In
fact, the writer expressly says that the use of such language to
describe moral, spiritual, or heavenly things is figurative
(djm'ruTTo?, ix. 24), that the proper application of the terms
he employs is not to the very things (avryv ryv eiKova TWV
TrpayimdTtov, x. 1) of which he speaks, but to earthly copies
or symbols (vTroSelyjULara, ix. 23), or shadows (ovaa, x. 1) of
them ; in short, that when he clothes his ideas in such words,
he is uttering a parable (7rapa/3o\tj, ix. 9). Christ is a " high
priest " in the same sense that He is a " sower," a " shep-
herd," a " householder." All men are " the seed of Abraham,"
or " the people [of Israel]/ 5 in the same sense that they are
" ground/' or " sheep," or " day-labourers." The Spirit of
Christ, given to believers as the moral outcome of His incar-
nation and death, is " blood," in the same sense that the Word
of Christ proclaimed to the world is " seed." The Spirit's
work, in renewing the hearts of men, is a "sprinkling" on
them of blood in the same sense that it is a " sowing " into
them of seed. The work of Christ in saving the world is
" offering a sacrifice to expiate the sins of the people " in the
capacity of a high priest in the same sense that it is " marry-
ing a wife " in the capacity of bridegroom, or " building a
house" in the capacity of an architect. In each and all of
these cases there is a certain analogy or resemblance between
something that is outward, earthly, physical, and something
that is inward, heavenly, spiritual, in virtue of which the latter
comes to be spoken of in terms of the former. By the author's
own admission and express statement, the Old Covenant con-
tained nothing more than visible, earthly representations of the
invisible, heavenly things that constitute the blessings of the
New Covenant. And we may find reason to think that to say
this much Was saying more than enough, for it will appear by-
s
258 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
and-by that there is room to doubt whether the law had so
much as "a shadow of the good things to come" (x. 1),
whether between even the ritual portion of the law and the
spiritual realities of the Gospel there is anything more than
that merely accidental resemblance which lies at the basis of
the parables of our Lord.
Here, perhaps, we might stop, and allow the reader to draw
off for himself the figurative husk under which the writer's
ideas are presented, and by which they are disguised, were it
not that a detailed attempt to distinguish throughout the
epistle between literal fact and figurative form will reveal
many points of curious interest as well as great importance.
There is, in truth, no more instructive piece of writing in the
New Testament than the present epistle, which furnishes per-
haps the most conclusive and convincing evidence that will
be found anywhere of the utter worthlessness of apostolic
exegesis, except as illustrating the method of exegesis current
in the Jewish schools of the time, and received by the apostles,
as by every one else. We are thus taught incidentally that
the inspiration of the New Testament writers was not plenary
or universal extending, that is, to all matters whatever
which they speak about but partial or special, being limited
to securing the accurate communication of that plan of salva-
tion which they had so profoundly experienced, and which
they were commissioned to proclaim. In all other matters,
and particularly in matters of Old Testament interpretation
which is used to illustrate and enforce, but never to prove (in
the strict sense) the method of salvation the New Testament
writers are simply on a level with their contemporaries.
Happily the validity of the plan of salvation may be verified
by experience in the present time as really, if not always so
vividly and distinctly, as it was in the experience of the
apostles, so that even within this narrow circle we are not
wholly dependent on special inspiration. We may accept the
testimony of apostles and prophets, when detailing their
religious experiences, without inquiring whether or not they
were specially inspired in giving it ; and we may do the same
in the case of our own contemporaries ; whilst the testimony
in favour of the incarnation, the life history, and the resur-
VI.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 259
rection of Jesus Christ, would be weakened rather than
strengthened by the assumption that the bearers of it were
specially inspired, as there might in that case be some
suspicion of visionary illusion, transforming what were merely
impressions of the spirit into impressions of sense.
To proceed, then, with our investigation. The author of
Hebrews, in seeking to commend the Gospel scheme of salva-
tion to the continued acceptance of his readers, has been led
by the exigencies of his argument to connect it in a very
special manner with the person of the Saviour. The process
by which the world is saved is viewed and presented, not so
much in itself, as in its relation to the Saviour, as a function
which He discharges in a peculiar official capacity. The
whole economy of redemption is suspended upon the person
and personal functions of Him who is its central figure, and
whose character determines its character. In other words, the
priesthood of Christ occupies a very prominent place in almost
every part of the epistle.
That the designation "great priest" (x. 21), as applied to
Christ, is figurative might almost be taken for granted, as
being clearly involved in the correlative and complementary
figurative expression " over the house of God." The original
application of this latter expression was to the Mosaic taber-
nacle, and to the people of Israel, as the inmates or worshippers
connected with that tabernacle ; the secondary or figurative
application is to heaven, and to believers as the inmates and
worshippers connected with heaven. In the original earthly
house the head or overseer was Moses (iii. 2, seq.), who was
succeeded in that capacity by the high-priest ; in the figurative
house of God the head or overseer is Jesus (iii. 1).
In saying that the Mosaic tabernacle was the literal house
of God, while heaven is the figurative, little more is meant
than that the latter is very different from the former, as
different as the figurative meaning of a term usually is from
the literal. Some might prefer to reverse the application of
terms, holding that heaven is the literal house of God, of
which the Mosaic tabernacle was merely a figure or earthly
copy. And to this there is no very serious objection. The
two words which our author makes use of to indicate the
260 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
two things are the words type (TI'TTO?) and antitype
The type has some sort of resemblance to the antitype, just
as the figurative meaning of a term has some sort of resem-
blance to the literal ; yet the type usually differs widely from
the antitype, as the figurative meaning of a term usually
differs widely from the literal. No one would think of con-
founding the physical with the metaphysical meaning of the
word long-headed. The two meanings are totally different.
Nor would the difference be a whit diminished by calling the
metaphysical meaning the literal and the physical the figura-
tive. Just so it is with the physical and the spiritual mean-
ings of the expression " house of God." In the one case the
words signify a material building such as is usually denomi-
nated a house ; in the other a spiritual relationship : two
things which are totally different, and the difference between
which remains in its full extent whichever of them we prefer
to call figurative. On the one hand it might be urged that
the tabernacle was only a secondary copy of which heaven
was the primary original, which is no doubt the view of the
present writer (viii. 5); and, therefore, since the proper or
literal meaning of a word is usually the original one, it might
be thought more correct to call heaven the literal house of
God, and the Mosaic tabernacle the figurative. Over against
this, however, is to be set the fact that the tabernacle was
actually a house in the proper sense of the word, whereas
heaven is not a house at all in the proper sense, but a spiritual
relationship. Hence, to avoid confusion and collision with
common usage, it is best to speak of the things on earth,
copies though they be, as literal, and of the things in heaven
as figurative.
Precisely the same remarks that apply to the expression
" house of God," as a name for heaven, apply in an equal
degree to the word " priest," as a designation of Christ. Some
writers have foolishly imagined that they were scoring a
splendid point against the advocates of a figurative priesthood
on the part of Christ by alleging, after the author of our
epistle, that the priests of the Old Covenant were mere figures
or copies, and that if Christ were not a literal priest there
never could have been a literal priest at all. But not to
,
VI.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 261
call in question the typological doctrine itself what is meant
when we affirm that the priesthood of Christ was figurative
and not literal, is simply that the character and functions of
Christ, as the author of human salvation, differ widely from the
character and functions of ordinary heathen or Jewish priests
as widely as the figurative meaning of a term usually differs
from the literal. And this difference is not in the least
affected by the manner in which we may choose to express it.
In modern usage it is customary to speak of the Old Covenant
priests and offerings and places of worship as types of which
the counterpart spiritual things are antitypes ; the usage of
the writer to the Hebrews a usage which is determined by
the view which he takes of the passage quoted at viii. 5 is
just the reverse, for with him the heavenly things are types
of which the earthly are antitypes (ix. 24); but who will pre-
tend that the tabernacle, for instance, is either more or less
like heaven according as we call it the type of which heaven
is the antitype or the antitype of which heaven is the type ?
Similarly, the character and functions of Jesus Christ, the
Saviour of the world, are not either more or less like those of
Moses, Aaron, or Melchizedek, because we decline to describe
the one as literal, the other as figurative. No one, therefore,
would insist on applying the epithet " figurative " to the priest-
hood of Christ, if the distinction between it and the priesthood
of the Old Covenant could be as well or better expressed in
some other way. But though the term employed is of little
moment in itself, it is of great moment that one should be
clearly understood. And in common speech the word priest
is used to designate a person who officiates at an altar by
offering slain animals or other material gifts to conciliate the
favour or to avert the displeasure of the Deity. This is, in
common parlance, the proper literal signification of the word.
And if the work of Christ, in redeeming the human race from
under the power of sin and Satan, be something entirely differ-
ent from the offering of slain victims on an altar to conciliate
the favour or to avert the displeasure of the Deity, then we
are perfectly justified in describing Him not as a literal but as
a figurative priest.
When it is said that Jesus is a " great priest over the house
262 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
of God," it is not quite clear what priestly function is chiefly
in view, whether that belonging to the ordinary high priest
as the religious head of the people, or that belonging speci-
ally to Moses as the mediator of the covenant, and leader of
the people into the land of promised rest, or that belonging
to Melchizedek as a king-priest, glorious and exalted, superior
to the fluctuations of time and sense, or whether all these
are thought of as combined into one. The same expression,
" house of God," occurs once and again in chap, iii., and this
might suggest that the writer, though he speaks of Christ as
a " great priest," is not thinking of Him as exercising any
specific priestly function, but rather a general function corres-
ponding to that of Moses as commissioned (a7roVroXo9, iii. 1)
leader of the people to the promised inheritance. The expression
" great priest " itself is general and indefinite, for it is neither
mediator, nor Melchizedek-priest, nor high priest, nor simply
priest, though Jesus in the course of the epistle is compared to
all of these ; and it may have been purposely chosen to cover
every form of priesthood, as affording a representation more or
less close of the functions of Christ, and to include, besides, the
function of Moses as leader of the people. It is certain, at
any rate, that Jesus is compared to Moses, while heaven is
compared, or rather identified, with the rest held forth to
Israel at the exodus (iii. and iv. passim)', that He is also
compared to Moses, while the process by which believers are
fitted to enter heaven is compared to the ceremony by which
the Sinaitic covenant was inaugurated, and heaven itself to
the land of Canaan as the inheritance attached by promise to
the covenant (ix. 15, 18-20); that He is again compared to
Moses, while the process of entering heaven is compared to
the formation of a covenant similar to the Sinaitic, though
made at a mountain like Zion instead of at one like Sinai,
and while heaven itself is compared to a city like Jerusalem
instead of to a land like Canaan (xii. 18-25); that He is com-
pared to Melchizedek by being regarded and spoken of as a
priest after the order of Melchizedek (vii. passim); that He
is compared to the Aaronic high priest, while heaven is com-
pared to the most holy place of the Mosaic tabernacle (ix.
1-14, &c.); and that He is compared to the Levitical priests
VI.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 263
generally, while heaven is compared to the Mosaic tabernacle
as a whole (viii., passim; x. 1-18). Christ is spoken of as a
priest, as a high priest, as a priest after the order of Mel-
chizedek, as the Mediator of a Covenant, and as the com-
missioned Leader of a people to rest. There must, therefore,
be a sense in which He is all of these at the same time.
That when He resembles them all, He can resemble none of
them closely is self-evident. Which of them He resembles
most cannot be determined d priori.
There is no doubt that the leading priestly figure with
whom the author wishes to compare Jesus is the Aaronic high
priest (including Moses) rather than Melchizedek. This might
be taken for granted as flowing from the fundamental anti-
thesis between law and Gospel that runs through the whole
epistle. Melchizedek had no connection with the law. The
Aaronic high priest had. It appears, at any rate, from the
fact that the author speaks again and again of Jesus as a high
priest (ii. 17; iii. 1; iv. 14, 15 ; v. 1), and even expressly
compares Him to Aaron (v. 4), before he has made any refer-
ence to Melchizedek, who was not a high priest at all, but
merely a priest; while, on the other hand, as soon as the dis-
cussion devoted to Melchizedek has been concluded, he returns
(vii. 26) to his former idea of the high priesthood as dis-
tinguished from the Melchizedek priesthood of Christ, and
keeps to this idea to the close of the epistle. Indeed, it may
be observed that viii. 3 is an explicit resumption of the thread
broken off at v. 1-4, where Melchizedek is first introduced.
Why, then, does the author refer to Melchizedek at all ?
The answer to this question can be very distinctly given, and
should be carefully noted, as it will throw considerable light
on the whole texture of the epistle, besides clearing up one or
two moot-points that have greatly perplexed and divided the
commentators. When the author wishes, in the broadest way,
to compare the old or Sinaitic to the new or Christian dis-
pensation, we shall find that he bases his comparison on two
Old Testament passages, one from Exodus xxv. 40, and the
other from Jeremiah xxxi. 31, seq., which he interprets in his
own peculiar fashion, so as to bring out the desired result,
following in principle, if not also in detail, the popular theology
264 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
of the day. So when he wishes to compare Jesus to the
Aaronic high priest, he endeavours to support his comparison
by a passage from Ps. ex., combined with a passage from
Ps. ii., more particularly by the words, " The Lord sware and
will not repent, thou art a PRIEST for ever after the order of
Melchizedek " (v. 5, 6 ; vii. 21). These words are understood
in accordance, doubtless, with the current interpretation of
them (cf. Matt. xxii. 41-46; 1 Cor. xv. 25, &c.), to be spoken
directly of Jesus Christ; they are understood to constitute the
formula of his appointment by God to the office of the priest-
hood (v. 5, 6; vii. 20, 21); and they are thought of as
addressed to Him after He had taken His seat at God's right
hand subsequent to the ascension. Both Ps. ii. and Ps. ex.
are manifestly spoken of kings, the latter of a king seated at
God's right hand, and, if applied to Christ at all, they can
only be applied to Him as now exalted and made higher than
the heavens. Melchizedek, too, was a king as well as a priest,
whence it would seem to follow that a priest after the order
of Melchizedek must necessarily be an exalted priest, and one
that shall remain exalted for ever. Be that as it may, the
session of Christ at God's right band when He was made priest
can refer to nothing else than the session that commenced
subsequent to His incarnation and death. The author's oft-
repeated reference to the sitting down after the ascension (i. 3 ;
cf. vv. 5, 13; viii. 1; xii. 2), sometimes echoing the very
words of Ps. ex. (x. 12, 13), his assertion that Christ became
a Melchizedek-priest or high priest only after He was made
perfect (v. 9, 10; vi. 20; vii. 22), that the word of the
oath appointed Him a priest after He had been perfected for
evermore (vii. 28), and, above all, the personal characteristics
of a Melchizedek-priest as such, which are identified in part
with those of Melchizedek himself, and expressly contrasted
with those of the Levitical priests, throughout chap, vii.,
such characteristics as exaltation (vii. 4, seq., 26), deathless-
ness (vv. 8, 16, seq.\ eternal unchangeableness (v. 24),
absolute sinlessness (v. 26), implying freedom from weakness
(v. 28), and from intercourse with sinful men (v. 26), such as
Christ had while on earth (v. 2; xii. 3) : all these things
show plainly that Christ's appointment as a Melchizedek-priest
VI.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 265
is thought of as taking place, not either before the incarnation
or during His earthly life, but at the time of His sitting down
at God's right hand after having made purification of sins (i. 3).
In the quotation from Ps. ii., " Thou art my Son, this day
have I begotten Thee " (v. 5), the expression " this day "
points to the time, subsequent to His death, when His exalta-
tion commenced, as i. 4, 5 clearly proves. And (to borrow
our author's phraseology) what we say is yet more abundantly
evident from the circumstance that Christ, as to His human
extraction, sprang out of Judah (vii. 14), and that when He
" arose " or assumed the priesthood, He superseded both the
Levitical priesthood and the law of which that priesthood
formed a part (vii. 11-13) things which He could have done
only if His priesthood were of a heavenly and not of an earthly
order. In short, the author's own statement, in winding up
his chapter on Melchizedek, contains the pith of the whole case :
" The law appointeth men high priests having weakness " by
reason of which they die (vii. 8), and are bound to offer for
sins, their own as well as the people's (v. 2, 3; vii. 27)
" but the word of the oath which was after the law appointeth
a Son perfected for evermore" (vii. 28) and therefore subject
neither to weakness, that is, to sinfulness (v. 3), nor by con-
sequence to death.
But now, if this be so, if the priesthood of Christ, as the
psalm testifies, commenced only after He sat down at God's
right hand, the author's quotation proves something less, it is
true, but also much more than his argument requires or admits
of. And hence arises a curious but quite characteristic incon-
sistency in the mode in which the priesthood of Christ is
represented in different parts of the epistle, an inconsistency
that has led several writers to suppose that the author attri-
butes a double priesthood to Christ, one after the order of
Aaron and another after the order of Melchizedek, though
such a solution raises far more serious difficulties than those
which it is proposed to remove. The writer's object is to
establish the fact and the order of Christ's high priesthood as
a step towards comparing His functions as Mediator of the
Gospel with the functions of the Aaronic high priest as
mediator of the law ; which is done in chaps, viii., ix., and x.,
266 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
where it is shown, or attempted to be shown, that the one
exercises functions similar to the other, though in a higher,
that is, in a heavenly sphere. But the quotation from Ps. ex.
proves less than this : it proves merely that Christ was a priest,
not that He was a high priest ; unless, indeed, we understand
the epithet high in a general sense as equivalent to exalted or
"great " (x. 21), which the author does not appear to do, since
he uses the combination " great high priest" (iv. 14). This
however, is of little moment, because, from the typical
standpoint, there is no essential difference between priest and
high priest ; neither affords an exact representation of Christ,
but the functions of both resemble those of Christ so far, and
about equally far. There is no spiritual analogue correspond-
ing to the ordinary priests as distinguished from the high
priest, for believers are usually spoken of as " the people,"
rarely as priests (xiii. 10), and if they are to be regarded as
priests at all, they must be regarded as priests of the same
standing with Christ, the functions or experiences of both
being exactly alike. Both alike enter the holy place (x. 19),
He as forerunner (vi. 20) and they as after-runners (xii. 1),
He as Leader and they as led (ii. 10). Both alike are sons
(id.). Both are brethren, and brethren " made in all things
like " each other (v. 17). So that if He be a high priest when
exalted and glorified, they must be high priests also ; if He be
merely a priest, they will likewise be priests.
On the other hand, the writer's argument proves something
more, or at least something else, than what his argument
requires. Instead of furnishing a basis for establishing the
existence of similarity between the functions of Christ and the
functions of the Aaronic high priest, it rather furnishes a basis
for proving that no such similarity does or can possibly exist.
It proves not only that Christ is a priest, and one of an
exalted, heavenly, unchangeable order, but also that He did
not become a priest till He had sat down forever at God's
right hand. And as no one can exercise priestly functions till
he has become a priest, whatever functions Christ exercises as
a Melchizedek-priest must be exercised during His session at
God's right hand, subsequent to His ascension and glorifica-
tion. But when Canaan is assumed to represent heaven, the
VI.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 267
functions of Moses in initiating the covenant and leading the
people to rest are all discharged as soon as the land is entered ;
when the holy place is assumed to represent heaven, the func-
tions of Aaron on the day of atonement are all discharged as
soon as the holy place is entered, and the blood sprinkled on
the Mercy-seat, and there is no such thing as a sitting down,
much less a priestly work subsequent to sitting down ; and so
the curious result is reached, that the work of the Aaronic high
priest (including Moses) lies entirely outside the sphere, local
and temporal, to which the work of a priest after the order of
Melchizedek must be confined ! Not only so, but since the
work of Christ as a Melchizedek-priest is performed exclusively
in heaven, after He has reached the perfected glorified state,
it must from the nature of the case be of a heavenly and
glorious nature, and this means that it can have no resem-
blance whatever to the work of Moses and Aaron, which was
of an earthly and inglorious nature. All the same, however,
the author, building on another set of Old Testament quota-
tions, combines the character of a Melchizedek-priest with the
role of an Aaronic high priest, representing Christ as at once
a priest after the order of Melchizedek, and yet as exercising
functions corresponding to those of Aaron as oifering Him-
self (ix. 25), through suffering (v. 26), or dying (v. 28), and
so putting away or making purification of sins all which He
did before sitting down at God's right hand (x. 12 ; i. 3), be-
fore, therefore, He became a priest, or possessed any of the
characteristics of a Melchizedek-priest ! Nor is this incon-
sistency to be set down as at all isolated or extraordinary.
We shall meet very soon with precisely similar inconsistencies
in the details of the typology which the author proceeds to
work out. Indeed, so far are conflicting representations of
this sort from being matter of surprise, that they are just what
might have been anticipated in the circumstances. For when
we find several different Old Testament quotations wrested
from their historical sense and connection, and compelled to
support a fancied analogy between law and Gospel, meanings
being read into them which they were never intended to
convey, it is no wonder if the results and issues are sometimes
as odd as they are incompatible. Such incongruities would,
268 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
indeed, be very inexplicable, if Christ were a priest in the
proper sense of the word, if His functions, as leader of salva-
tion, bore a strict correspondence to the functions either of
Aaron or Melchizedek, and if the author's typological system
had any solid foundation in fact ; but as Christ is a priest
only in a figurative sense, as His functions differ not less
completely from those of Aaron and Melchizedek of each
separately, or of both combined, in any way they can be
combined than the Mosaic tabernacle or the land of Canaan
differs from the heavenly state, such variations in the symbolic
picture cause little or no trouble. They are interesting chiefly
as specimens of apostolic exegesis, and because of the clear
warrant which they supply for distinguishing between the
fundamental ideas of the New Testament writers, which are
of permanent value and authority, and the ephemeral oratorical
garb in which they are clothed for the purpose of rendering
them acceptable to readers prejudiced against them, and in
favour of different ideas. But we are anticipating.
We have said that the functions of Christ differ from those
of Melchizedek, as well as from those of Aaron. This way of
speaking, though it is almost unavoidable, is, perhaps, fitted
to convey a false impression. For the functions of Christ
are not directly brought into comparison with those of Mel-
chizedek. The order or standing, including the sphere, of
Christ's priesthood is not only compared, but identified with
that of Melchizedek, in accordance with the statement of Ps.
ex., " Thou art a Priest for ever after the order of Mel-
chizedek." But order or standing depends not on functions,
but on personal nature, character, and dignity. And an
extremely violent interpretation is put upon the narrative in
Genesis, relating to Melchizedek (xiv. 18-20), before a parallel
can be made out between him and Jesus in these respects.
As usual, in such cases, the writer's own independent
ideas touching the personal characteristics of Jesus determine
the meaning which he reads into the Old Testament passage,
and the personal characteristics which he attributes to the man
Melchizedek. According to the manifest historical sense of
the narrative in Genesis, Melchizedek is an ordinary mortal
man of flesh and blood, king of a place called Salem, and
VI.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 269
priest of God Most High. Nothing is said, it is true, of his
extraction, of his previous and subsequent history, or of his
ultimate destiny ; but this proves merely that they were in
nowise remarkable, in nowise different from those of ordinary
men. Our author's view of Melchizedek, on the contrary, is
conveyed in the following terms : " For this Melchizedek,
king of Salem, priest of God Most High, who met Abraham,
returning from the slaughter of the kings, and blessed him, to
whom, also, Abraham divided a tenth part of all (being first,
by interpretation, king of righteousness, and then, also, king
of Salem, which is king of peace ; without father, without
mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days
nor end of life, but made like unto the Son of God), abideth
a priest continually" (vii. 1-3). According to this statement,
viewed in the light of what follows, Melchizedek is an im-
mortal being, in contrast to "mortal men," ^ belonging to a
spiritual (opp. to (rapicivos, v. 16), " better" (v. 7, cf. v. 19),
that is, heavenly, order of existence. Salem is not the name
of a place, but the combination king-of-Salem is a free de-
veloped translation of the name Melchizedek ; the two names,
or, rather, the one name, with its accompanying explicative
rendering, is meant to indicate the character of Melchizedek
as an exalted, righteous, and (of consequence) peaceful being
(v. 2). f And not only is this priestly king of righteousness
(involving peace) immortal in the sense that he can never die,
but he is eternal in the sense that he was never born ; so that
his nature, on which the order of his priesthood is founded, is
identical with that of the eternal Son of God (v. 3) ; who is
* 'Airodvri<rKovTes dvOpwrrot (v. 8) : which words do not mean, as our English
translators, old and new, would have us believe, " men that die," in contrast to
"this man " that " liveth " (v. 8), but " dying men," in contrast to " this being "
(oSros, v. 4) that "liveth" (v. 8), and "abideth for ever" (v. 24), "abideth a
priest continually "(v. 3) implying that the being in question is not human, at
least not merely human, but divine.
f If any one thinks it improbable, impossible, or incredible that the author of
Hebrews should deal with a Scripture proper name after the manner here set
forth, let him take the trouble to look into almost any part of the writings of
Philo Judaeus, where he will meet with examples of the same thing usque ad
nauseam, and then, I will guarantee, he will find it easy enough to accept as
the veritable teaching of the writer everything that the passage before us
contains.
270 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
" holy, guileless, undefiled, separated from sinners, and made
higher than the heavens," in one word, " perfected for ever-
more," and so seated eternally at God's right hand (vv. 26-28 ;
viii. 1 ; x. 12).
Of course, such an interpretation of the Old Testament
passage appears to us utterly extravagant, more extravagant,
perhaps, than any other that will be found in the whole com-
pass of the New Testament which is saying very much ; but
no other meaning can be extracted from the words used by
the author of Hebrews, without applying to them a method of
exegesis as thoroughly arbitrary as that which he applies to
the words of the author of Genesis. And it is easy to see,
not merely that the above interpretation of the passage in
Genesis is plainly implied in the author's words, but that such
an interpretation is led up to, and even necessitated, by the
view which he takes of Ps. ex. For in that psalm Christ,
while seated at God's right hand, is addressed as "a Priest for
ever after ike, order of Melchizedek" Now a priest after the
order of Aaron is a priest descended from Levi (vii. 5), and,
therefore, possessing a nature identical with that of Aaron,
fleshly (v. 16) weak (v. 2), sinful (v. 8), and, therefore, mortal
(vii. 8). In like manner, a priest after the order of Mel-
chizedek must be a priest possessing a nature identical with
that of Melchizedek. And since Christ is declared to be a
priest " for ever," and His nature, as now exalted at God's
right hand, to be spiritual (v. 16), holy (v. 26), immortal
(v. 24), as well as eternal (i. 2 ; ix. 14), the nature of Mel-
chizedek must likewise have been spiritual, righteous (cf. king
of righteousness), immortal, eternal. Our author knows of
but one order of priests of God Most High upon earth, that
which rests in the tribe of Levi (vii. 5) ; and as Melchizedek
was not descended from Levi, he could not be a priest in
virtue of his descent from " mortal men " at all, that is, his
priesthood must have been founded on the possession of an
eternal, underived, imperishable spiritual nature identical with
that of the Son of God. The mere fact that he is called a
priest in Genesis, while no mention is made of a priestly
stock from which he could have sprung, is a sufficient
proof to our author's mind, that, so far as his priesthood
VI.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 271
was concerned, he must have been " undescended " (ayevea-
Xoytjros). In a case like that of Melchizedek, original descent
from man and priesthood are incompatible. If Melchizedek
were to be a priest, he must have been " without father,
without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning
of days, nor end of life, but made like unto the [eternal] Son
of God " (v. 3). A priest after the " likeness " (cf. ojuLotor^ra,
iv. 15 and opoiaQrivai, ii. 17, with ac^o/xom^eVo?, vii. 3) of the
Son of God is a priest constituted such " not according to the
law of a carnal commandment " that is, by natural physical
descent from Levi, such as the law demanded^" but according
to the power of an indissoluble life " that is, in virtue of
having a nature identical with that of the only begotten of
the Father (vii. 16). It is, therefore, as certain as any
exegetical fact can be that Melchizedek is thought of as being
a priest in virtue of possessing an eternal, underived, imperish-
able principle of life identical with that possessed by the
eternal Son of God ; the possession of such a life-principle is
the very foundation of his priestly character ; to deny that he
possesses it is equivalent to denying that he is a priest, which
the Old Testament narrative explicitly asserts that he is.
It would, of course, be quite useless to inquire who this
extraordinary character called Melchizedek is conceived to be,
whether he is regarded as identical with the " Angel of
Jehovah," or whether the writer thinks of him as an entirely
independent celestial being. The point is no doubt one of
those which it is " hard to explain " (<$vcrep/u.iivevTos, v. 11) an
expression, by the way, which can only be understood if taken
as an avowal on the part of the author that the passage in
Genesis on his view of it involves extreme difficulty, and that
he is himself in doubt what to make of the extraordinary being
whom his exegesis has conjured into existence."* Still, though
* If our most recent exegetes had their way, there would really be nothing
Sv&ep/jLrivevTos about the "oracles of God" relating to Melchizedek at all ! This
is a clear proof, among many others, of the utter untrustworthiness of the
attempts that are constantly made to soften down or explain away the plain
meaning of the writer. The author himself feels the difficulty involved in his
exegesis, and frankly admits its existence.
Perhaps it may be desirable to add that the reader who wishes to see the
ingenious sophistries that have been fabricated by interpreters of this passage torn
272 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
the difficulty raised by interpreting Ps. ex. as a direct prophecy
of Christ, and then combining it rigidly with the narrative in
Genesis, is distinctly recognised, there is no attempt at solving
it. The truth is that the author has no particular concern
with questions of that kind. It is enough for him to have
established the reality and the nature of Christ's priesthood
upon principles that will be accepted by his readers. He is
no more bound to solve the problem as to who Melchizedek is
for his readers than they are bound to solve it for him.
Writer and readers alike take their stand on the popular
authorised interpretation of Ps. ex., so far at least as the
application of the psalm to Christ is concerned. Neither is
bound to guarantee to the other the accuracy of that interpre-
tation. Nor can either be held responsible for all or any of
the consequences that are involved in it, or may be deduced
from it. Both can afford to leave such points to look after
themselves.
The nature of Christ, then, and the nature attributed to
Melchizedek, are as closely identified as if the one had been
descended from the other. But what of the functions belong-
ing to Melchizedek ? This was the point which we wished to
settle.
According to the Genesis narrative, two functions, or more
correctly two acts, were performed by Melchizedek. the bring-
ing forth of bread and wine, and the blessing of Abraham ; to
which might perhaps be added the reception of tithes from
Abraham. The first of these is not alluded to at all by the
author of Hebrews, doubtless because it had no manner of
connection with the functions of a priest ordinarily so-called.
The second is indeed referred to as being in some sort a
priestly function (Num. vi. 22, seq.\ but only to prove the
superior dignity of Melchizedek above Abraham, and especially
above his Levitical descendants. The last was also a priestly
prerogative, and is mentioned and made use of to establish
the pre-eminent dignity of Melchizedek : that being done, it
to shreds, will find it done admirably by the masterly hand of Bleek in his Der
Brief an die Hebracr, a work which, though it has now been before the public for
about half-a-century, is in many respects far superior to anything that has been
written on the epistle since it was published.
VI.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 273
falls like the others completely into the background. None
of the acts performed by Melchizedek are ever brought into
comparison with similar acts on the part of Jesus. The reason
of this is not difficult to perceive. Melchizedek is not a type
of Jesus in the sense that Aaron is a type of Jesus though
that is often supposed and stated particularly when a double
priesthood is attributed to Jesus. Melchizedek is related to
Jesus, not as Aaron is related to Jesus, but as Aaron is related
to each of his descendants and successors in the high priest-
hood. Melchizedek is not a figurative representation of Jesus,
belonging to the present earthly world, but, as it were, a real
representation, belonging to the better heavenly world, another
Jesus, glorious and exalted, in substance as well as in form.
Moreover, the character attributed to Melchizedek by the
present writer is not in the main the character sketched in
the Genesis narrative, but just the character of Jesus, origin-
ating in the writer's own mind, and projected back first into
Ps. ex., and then through Ps. ex. into the Genesis narrative.
And the whole discussion relating to Melchizedek, in so far as
it is directed to establishing the personal character ( = the
order) of Jesus as a priest, consists simply in eliciting from the
Genesis narrative, combined with Ps. ex., the personal char-
acter which the writer already knows Jesus to possess. No-
thing is really added to the writer's original ideas about Jesus ;
he merely reads them into the two Old Testament passages,
and then reads them out again : nevertheless, relatively to his
readers, several advantages are gained. A warrant is obtained
for applying the word priest to Jesus. The superiority of
Jesus, in character and dignity to the Levitical priests, is
demonstrated. A foundation is thus laid for instituting a
sustained comparison between the functions of Jesus and those
of the Aaronic high priest, so as to evince the superiority of
the former. And the effect of the whole is to commend the
person and work of Jesus to the continued confidence and trust
of the Hebrews.
But it is evident that, though the designation priest is
transferred from Melchizedek to Jesus, on the warrant of
Psalm ex., nothing else is transferred; the character of Jesus
remains precisely what it was before. For instead of the char-
T
274 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
acter of Melchizedek moulding the apostle's representation of
the character of Jesus, the very reverse is the case the char-
acter of Jesus moulds and determines the character attributed
to Melchizedek. And as for the functions of Melchizedek,
neither are these attributed to Jesus, but rather, as they do
not consort particularly well with the new character which
Melchizedek has received from Jesus, they are scarcely attri-
buted as priestly functions to Melchizedek himself. That which
relates to the bread and wine is, significantly enough, not even
mentioned at all ; and the others are brought in rather as
individual acts proving his dignity than as functions which he
habitually discharges. So that the designation " priest after
the order of Melchizedek," when applied to Jesus, really tells
us nothing either as to His character or as to His functions.
If His character and functions were priestly in the proper sense
before that designation was applied, they will be priestly still ;
if they were unpriestly in the proper sense before that desig-
nation was applied, they will be unpriestly still. In fact, the
word priest in the above expression has scarcely any distinctive
meaning of its own, for it neither connotes the historical
characteristics belonging to Melchizedek in the Genesis narra-
tive, nor yet the historical characteristics belonging to the
Jewish king addressed in Ps. ex. The latter is evidently
thought of by the writer of the psalm as merely uniting in his
own person the office of king to that of priest, as the man
Melchizedek is likewise conceived to have done. And it is
this union of the two offices of king and priest that constitutes
him a priest " after the order of Melchizedek," not the fact
that he is a priest "for ever." In this, therefore, and not in
the metaphysical attribute of eternity, lies the ground of the
psalmist's statement. And if the king-priest is spoken of as
destined to be a priest " for ever," this by no means implies,
as every Old Testament student is aware, the possession on
his part of an imperishable principle of life, but only that the
priesthood as well as the kingship should continue unbroken
in his line. If we say that the word priest in the expression
so often quoted from the psalm means " an eternal, self-existent,
spiritual, glorified being," we merely follow our author in
reading into it the character of Jesus as we ourselves know it
VI.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 275
from independent sources ; and if we are asked what functions
belong to a being of that description as such, we must either
say nothing, or state what functions we know Jesus discharges
in the saving of the world. The word priest, though it would
tell us a great deal about the functions of an ordinary human
being of flesh and blood, can from the nature of the case tell
us almost nothing about the functions of an eternal, spiritual,
glorified being. We know only that the functions of such a
being must be proper to His nature, that is, they must be
moral or spiritual functions, and this implies that they must be
entirely different from the functions of a priest in the only
sense of that word which for us has any meaning. .
Christ as a Melchizedek-priest, therefore, is just Christ in
His exalted, glorified state, nothing more and nothing less.
And this leads us to expect that when Christ is spoken of
merely as a Priest after the order of Melchizedek, the functions
attributed to Him as such will be just the literal functions
which He discharges as Saviour of the world in His exalted
state; whereas, when His functions are brought into com-
parison with those of the Aaronic high priest, they will be
clothed in physical, that is, in purely figurative forms, and
instead of being confined to His exalted state, where nothing
in the least resembling the functions of Aaron could possibly
be attributed to Him, they will be removed to His state of
humiliation, where He appears in flesh and blood like Aaron,
and where spiritual processes taking place in His own person
are closely associated with analogous physical acts and processes.
Now, as a matter of fact, we find that this is just the case.
At the close of the section devoted to Melchizedek (vii. 1-25),
in which Jesus is spoken of simply as a Priest, and where He
is contrasted as to His nature and mode of appointment with
the Levitical priests, the sole function ascribed to Him is that
of " saving to the uttermost them that draw nigh to God
through Him by making intercession for them " (v. 25). With
this may be compared the statement of v. 9, 10, that when
"made perfect He became to all them that obey Him the
Author of eternal salvation," where the writer adds (slightly
inaccurately) that He was "addressed by God, an High (?)
Priest after the order of Melchizedek." That the expressions
276 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
"them that draw nigh to God through Him," and "them that
obey Him," are equivalent, is self-evident ; as also that each is
just a name for believers. To " draw nigh " to God is simply
to enter into fellowship with God by faith (xi. 6) in figura-
tive language, to enter into the holy place within the veil,
whither as a forerunner Jesus entered on our behalf (vi. 20).
Further, it is manifest that to " save unto the uttermost," and
to be " the Author of eternal salvation," describe exactly the
same function " unto the uttermost " answering to " eternal,"
as the following " ever liveth " shows and that this function
is the sole and entire function of the Leader of salvation in
leading many sons unto glory (ii. 10). Not that this is all
or indeed any part of what is usually comprehended by theo-
logians under "the work of Christ;" for, according to them,
the work of Christ was finished at the moment of His own
death, so that what follows is not strictly the work of Christ
but " the work of the Spirit ; " whereas, according to the pre-
sent writer, the work of Christ as a Saviour commenced only
after He had been made perfect (v. 9), after He had passed
through the heavens (iv. 16), had entered within the veil as a
Forerunner on our behalf (vi. 20), had been separated from
sinners and made higher than the heavens (vii. 26), had sat
down at God's right hand (viii. 1). The function of Christ as
a Melchizedek-priest does not comprehend anything done by
Him during His earthly life, nor even at the moment of enter-
ing heaven. His earthly experiences of suffering and death
had merely the effect of making Him perfect (ii. 10 ; v. 9), so
that He could enter within the veil and become (on sitting
down) a Melchizedek-Priest (vi. 20), become the Author of
eternal salvation to all them that obey Him (v. 10), the Leader
of the salvation of many glorified sons (ii. 10). As it became
God to perfect Him through sufferings, so a High Priest already
perfected for evermore, holy, guileless, undefiled, separated from
sinners and made higher than the heavens such an High
Priest became us (vii. 26, 28). And the work of such a High
Priest has nothing whatever to do with offering, but consists,
as we have seen, in intercession on our behalf (v. 25), a work
that appears to go on throughout eternity, or at least until the
whole body of the elect have been completely saved. Jesus
VI.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 277
entered within the veil as a Forerunner, and became a High
Priest for ever "on our behalf" (vi. 20), that is, in order to
benefit us by making eternal intercession.
How this intercessory function operates on believers, and
how Jesus is fitted to discharge it, has been already, in part,
explained, and appears plainly from statements like those
which follow. " Having, therefore, a great High Priest that
hath passed through the heavens [ = is seated at God's right
hand (viii. 1)], Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our con-
fession [ = " hold fast our boldness and the glorying of our hope
firm unto the end" (iii. 6, 14); "show the same diligence
unto the fulness of the hope unto the end," being " imitators
of them who, through faith and patience, inherit the promises "
"things which accompany salvation " (vi. 9, 11, 12); "hold
the hope set before us, which we have as an anchor of soul, a
hope sure and steadfast, and entering into that which is within
the veil" where is "the end " (vv. 11, 18, 19) ; "hold fast
the confession of our hope that it waver not" (x. 22, 23);
" have faith unto the saving of the soul " (v. 39) ; " run with
patience the race set before us, looking unto Jesus, the Leader
and Perfecter of faith" (xii. 1, 2)] ; for we have not an High
Priest that cannot sympathise with our weaknesses, but one
that hath been tried in all respects like as we are, without
sinning [ = we have an High Priest that is " become merciful
(or sympathetic) and faithful," by having been " made in all
things like unto His brethren " (ii. 17), that hath been "com-
passed with weakness," and so is "able to bear gently with the
ignorant and erring " (v. 2), that hath " suffered under trial,"
and so is " able to help them that are suffering under trial "
(ii. 18), that hath "learned obedience from the things which
He suffered, and, having been made perfect," is " become the
Author of eternal salvation to all them that obey Him " (v.
7-10), or, as it is otherwise expressed, is "able to save unto
the uttermost them that draw nigh to God through Him "
(vii. 25)]. Let us, therefore, draw near with boldness to the
throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy (or sympathy), and
[so] find grace for needed help" [ = grace to help us to "suffer
under trial " (ii. 18), to "run with patience the race set before
us" (xii. 1, 2), to "show diligence unto the fulness of the
278 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
hope unto the end " (vi. 11), to "go without the camp to Him
bearing His reproach" (xiii. 13), &c.] (iv. 14-16). From these
statements and references it appears certain (1.) that the
experiences of Christ in the flesh up to the point of His sitting
down at God's right hand had the direct effect of sanctifying,
perfecting, and glorifying His own person, so that He became
in His sanctified, perfected, and glorified state a Melchizedek-
priest, and that they had no other direct effect ; (2.) that the
sole function of Christ as a Melchizedek-priest is to intercede
with God on behalf of believers that they may obtain suitable
supplies of grace to meet the needs of their life in the flesh ;
(3.) that the effect of grace (i.e., of the Spirit of grace) on the
persons of believers is to enable them to pass through experi-
ences identical with those of Christ, so that they, like Him,
are sanctified, perfected, and glorified, and become in their
sanctified, perfected, and glorified state heirs with Him of
eternal salvation.
Now, nothing can be more certain than that the work of
Christ is here described in terms approaching very near to
literality. The expression " sat down at God's right hand "
is, no doubt, figurative, being borrowed from the psalm
though, indeed, the same expression is of frequent occurrence
in the other apostolic writings. Probably, too, there is figure
underlying the way in which Christ is spoken of as acquiring
sympathy through His sufferings, at all events, in so far as
the possession of such experimentally acquired sympathy is
regarded as essential to His becoming the Author of eternal
salvation to all them that obey Him. It may, at least, be
presumed that Christ had begun the work of intercession from
the very foundation of the world (xi. 4), which would seem to
imply that He already possessed the qualities necessary to that
work, and consequently that the Godhead had sufficient
original sympathy to bestow grace on needy and repentant
sinners. It is certain, also, that Christ had to endure suffer-
ing because it became God to inflict it (ii. 10), that He had
to pass through death because, having assumed flesh and blood,
He must needs " bring to nought him that had the power of
death, that is, the devil," which could only be done " through
death" (v. 14), and that these, at any rate, were literal
VI.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 279
objects or purposes of Christ's sufferings. It is probable, there-
fore, that the epithets " merciful and faithful " (the last word
is borrowed from Num. xii. 7, as its recurrence at iii. 2 proves)
are to be understood in a more or less figurative sense, being
used as correlatives to "high priest in things pertaining to
God " (v. 1 7), and that the literal representation of the matter
is to be sought in the verses above (9-15).
On the other hand, the communication of grace or the Holy
Spirit to believers through faith is unquestionably a literal fact
of experience. No less unquestionable is it that the entire
change wrought upon the person of each believer, from the
moment he first believes to the moment he is perfectly
sanctified and glorified, is literally accomplished through the
indwelling power of the Holy Ghost. And that the fact of
Christ's intercession is a literal fact is shown, not only by the
examples we have of it during His earthly life (e.g., John xvii.),
but also by Paul's speaking in precisely the same terms regard-
ing it out of all connection with priesthood. Says he : " It is
Christ Jesus that hath died, yea, rather, that hath been raised
from the dead, who is on the right hand of God, who also
maketh intercession for us " (Rom. viii. 34). These words,
when viewed in the connection in which they occur, prove that
the intercessory work of Christ is regarded by Paul, equally
with the author of Hebrews, as the cause and the guarantee of
the eternal salvation of all believers.
But further, the association of literal language in describing
the work of salvation with the Melchizedek (as distinguished
from the typico-Aaronic) view of the priesthood of Christ
comes still more strikingly out in a remarkable passage at the
opening of chap, vi., which has not yet received so much
attention as it deserves. The passage is in the following
terms : " Wherefore, leaving the word of the beginning
[= the pre-Melchizedek state] of Christ, let us pass on to His
perfection [ = His Melchizedek state] ; not laying again a
foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward
God, of the teaching of baptisms, and of laying on of hands,
and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment [ all
which things belong to the pre-Melchizedek, i.e., the imperfect
state of Christ and of Christians]; and this will we do, if God
280 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
permit. For as touching those who were once enlightened
(x. 32), and tasted of the heavenly gift [= 'righteousness'
(v. 13; cf. Rom. v. 17)], and became partakers of the Holy
Ghost, and tasted the good word of God, and the powers of
the world to come, and then fell away [ = ' apostatised from
the living God ' (iii. 12)] it is impossible to renew them again
unto repentance, seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of
God afresh, and put Him to an open shame [= ' tread under
foot the Son of God, and count the blood of the covenant,
wherewith they were sanctified, an unholy thing, and do despite
unto the Spirit of grace ' (x. 29)]."
I need not argue in favour of the rendering " His perfection "
(rrjv TeXeiorijTo), as against the erroneous and misleading
rendering of the Revisers, " perfection " or " full growth."
That it is " the perfection [of Christ] " of which the apostle
proposes to speak in the sequel is quite manifest, not only
from the drift of the statement, and even from its express
terms, but from the discussion itself, which is contained in
chap vii., where not a word is said about " perfection "
as a thing in general, but only about " the perfection " of
Christ as opposed to the imperfection of the Levitical priests.
The word corresponds and points back to " perfect " (reXftaw)
in the preceding verse, where the rendering of the Revisers is
again somewhat misleading. A " perfect " man is one who
has reached the heavenly glorified state, who has experi-
enced repentance from dead works and faith towards God,
baptism and the laying on of hands, resurrection from the
dead and eternal judgment, who has tasted the heavenly gift,
has become a sharer of the Holy Ghost, has tasted the good
word of God and the powers of the world to come, one, in
short, who knows by habit (v. 14) and experience (v. 13) what
it is to be righteous. Such a man does not require to be
lectured about the present earthly state of Christ and of
Christians ; he is prepared to receive instruction about the
future heavenly state of Christ and of Christians. The former
is but milk for babes. The latter is solid food for full-grown
men.
There is a certain rhetorical iteration or amplification of
the same idea in vv. 2, 4, 5, of the above quotation that is
VI.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY, 281
apt to create a false impression. The one essential process in
these verses is that which appears again in v. 6, viz., repent-
ance or renewal the putting off of the old man and the put-
ting on of the new through the power of the Hoi} 7 Ghost
received by faith. Baptism and the laying on of hands are
symbolical acts representing this two-fold process, baptism re-
presenting the putting off of the old man, and the laying on
of hands the communication of the Holy Ghost, or the putting
on of the new. Resurrection from the dead is merely the
finishing touch of repentance from dead works, as the recur-
rence of the word "dead" clearly indicates; in fact, the whole
process as it affects both soul and body is quite frequently
spoken of simply as resurrection (Col. iii. 1, &c.). And eter-
nal judgment (c/. " eternal salvation," v. 9) is synonymous
with justification, being the formal recognition, on the part of
God, that the man who has undergone repentance, or renewal,
or resurrection through faith, possesses "righteousness" (v. 13),
the passport to life eternal. With respect to the processes
mentioned in vv. 4, 5, it is enough to say that they are all
manifestly covered, and as it were repeated, by the word re-
pentance in v. 6. There is, in fact, just one and only one
great soteriological process, by which men are translated out
of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God's dear
Son, a process which has its " beginning " when a man first
believes, which has its " perfection " or " end " when a man
is justified and glorified, and which is accomplished throughout,
as is here expressly implied, by the ineffable working of the
Holy Ghost. And this process is exactly the same for Christ
and for each believer. It is distinctively named "the beginning"
, vi. 1) of Christ, who is the Leader or " Beginner "
of salvation by faith (ii. 10 ; xii. 2), and embraces
His whole earthly experience of suffering and death up to the
point when He sat down on God's right hand (v. 7, 8 ; xii.
2). It is contrasted with the perfection or " ending " (rrjv
TeXeioTrjTci) of Christ, who is likewise the Perfecter or
"Ender" (reXetamis) of salvation by faith (ii. 10; v. 7;
xii. 2), which embraces His whole heavenly experience of
glory and honour, from the point when He sat down on God's
right hand onward to all eternity (v. 10 ; vii. 26-28). And
282 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
this heavenly, perfected, glorified state of Christ is identical
with His Melchizedek priesthood.
Now, it is needless to say that here, at any rate, the work
of salvation is described in literal terms. Such words as
repentance, renewal, resurrection, justification, illumination,
regeneration by water and by the Spirit, are common to all
the New Testament writings. The means employed in effect-
ing the process of salvation are also the same as are met
with elsewhere, whether spiritual and therefore real (the Word,
the Spirit, faith), or physical and therefore symbolical (baptism
and the laying on of hands). And the use of such language
to set forth the process of putting away sin on the one hand,
and communicating righteousness on the other, is associated
in the most intimate manner with Christ in the exercise
of His function as a priest after the order of Melchizedek
(v. 9, 10, seq.}.
If, now, we turn to the typico-Aaronic view of the priest-
hood of Christ, we shall find an entirely different set of
functions ascribed to Him, while the work of salvation is
presented under quite another aspect. This view insinuates
itself more or less distinctly at several points in the epistle
before it comes to be formally propounded and discussed in
chaps, viii., ix., and x. It appears, for example, in the use of
the word High Priest, instead of priest (the proper designation
of Melchizedek), everywhere except in the section vii. 1-25
expressly and exclusively devoted to Melchizedek. It appears
clearly in the mention of " expiating the sins of the people "
(ii. 17), a function proper to a high priest like Aaron, but not
to a glorified king-priest like Melchizedek ; and, still more
clearly, in the statement that " every high priest, being taken
from among men, is appointed for men in things pertaining to
God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins ; who
can bear gently with the ignorant and erring, for that he
himself also is compassed with weakness ; and by reason
thereof is bound, as for the people, so also for himself, to offer
for sins" (v. 1-3) a statement that is again taken up in
chap. viii. 3, where it constitutes one .of the props on which
the typico-Aaronic view of the priesthood of Christ is based.
And it appears, finally, as soon as the discussion regarding
VI.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 283
Melchizedek has been concluded, in the words " who needeth
not daily like the [Aaronic] high priests to offer up sacrifices,
first for his own sins and then for the people's, for this [offer-
ing up sacrifices first for his own sins and then for the people's]
He did once for all, when He offered up Himself" (vii. 27).
But, as just said, it is only when we come to chap. viii. that
any sustained comparison is instituted between the functions
of Jesus, on the one hand, and those of the Aaronic high priest,
on the other. Nor is it easy to see how the writer can bring
himself to institute such a comparison at all, or to say what
he does say regarding the work of Christ as a Priest. For on
the author's own showing, there is no express warrant in the
Old Testament for speaking of Jesus while on earth as a
Priest, or for regarding all or any of His earthly experiences
(e.g., His crucifixion) as priestly acts. On the contrary, the
very essence of the priesthood attributed to Jesus on the
warrant of Ps. ex. is that it belongs to the heavenly, not to the
earthly sphere, having become His only after He had " sat
down on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the
heavens" (viii. 1). So much is asserted in the opening of
this very chapter, where we read, " Now, if He were on earth,
He would not be a priest at all [much less a ' true ' or ' per-
fect ' priest], seeing there are those that offer the gifts accord-
ing to the law " (v. 4). As the case stands, He is in heaven,
seated at God's right hand, " a Minister of the [heavenly] holy
place, and of the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched, not
man " (vv. 1, 2). Such statements would seem to shut out
entirely the idea of an earthly priesthood on the part of Christ,
whose leading function should be not to make intercession, but
to offer Himself as a sacrifice for sins. Yet they put in our
hands a key which, if it cannot help us to reconcile the writer's
diverse views of the priestly functions of Christ, will at least
enable us to explain how the discrepancy arose.
As in other similar cases, the diversity in the author's mode
of representation is to be traced, in part at least, to the
use made of Old Testament quotations, which yield, when
applied, conflicting results. The quotations referring to Mel-
chizedek, and the view of Christ's priesthood, which our
author bases upon them, have been already discussed. In
284 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
this and the following chapters we meet with a different set
of quotations, giving rise to a different view of the priesthood
of Christ. In v. 5, for example, we read that the Aaronic
priests " serve that which is a copy and shadow of the heavenly
things, even as Moses is warned of God when about to make
the tabernacle, ' For see,' saith he, ' that thou make all things
according to the type (ruVo?) that was showed thee in the
mount.'" Whatever may be thought as to the historical
meaning of this passage in the Mosaic narrative, there can be
no doubt as to the meaning that is here put upon it. The
earthly tabernacle fashioned by Moses, and everything con-
nected with it, is regarded as having been copied from a
heavenly original, the same in form, but of a higher order or
nature. The earthly tabernacle with its ministry and its
offerings is a shadowy representation of which the correspond-
ing reality is in heaven. This implies that there must exist
u a [heavenly] holy place, and a true tabernacle, which the
Lord pitched, not man" (v. 2). But a tabernacle like the
Mosaic would have no meaning, would serve no end, unless
there were connected with it a " ministry " (Xeirovpyla,
v. 6). And a ministry implies a minister (\eirovpybs, v. 2)
or ministers, that is, a priest or priests. And a priest implies
an offering or offerings, " for every high priest is appointed
to offer both gifts and sacrifices, whence it follows of neces-
sity that this high priest also have somewhat to offer "
(v. 3). Thus, in the region of spiritual heavenly things,
there must be a sanctuary or holy place, and a ministry con-
nected with that sanctuary, including a priest or priests, and
an offering or offerings ; that is to say, something must be
sought of a spiritual kind corresponding to all these things.
Further, as the Mosaic tabernacle, with its ministry, formed
a part of the covenant made at Sinai (ix. 1, seq.), so the
Scripture speaks of a Second or New Covenant, of which the
heavenly tabernacle with its ministry must be supposed to
form a part. " For, finding fault with them, He saith, Behold
the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new cove-
nant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah ;
not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers,
in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them forth
VI.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 285
out of the land of Egypt ; for they continued not in my cove-
nant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord. For this is
the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after
those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their
mind, and in their heart also will I write them, and I will be
to them a God, and they shall be to me a people ; and they
shall not teach every man his fellow-citizen and every man his
brother saying, know the Lord ; for all shall know Me, from
the least to the greatest of them ; for I will be merciful to
their iniquities, and their sins will I remember no more"
(vv. 8-12). From these words of the Old Testament prophet,
oar author infers that God's intention was to inaugurate at
some future time a new dispensation co-ordinate in importance,
and the same in form, with that which was inaugurated at
Sinai, the new dispensation, like the old, taking the form of a
covenant between God and the people of Israel, and this new
covenant, which prophecy declares shall be brought in, he
identifies with the Gospel or Christian dispensation. And
since a covenant like the Sinaitic implies a mediator like
Moses, as well as a ceremony such as took place when the
Sinaitic covenant was inaugurated, there must exist in the
region of spiritual things a person with functions correspond-
ing to those of Moses, and a ceremony answering to the
inaugural ceremony ; that is to say, something must be sought
in the spiritual world answering to the work of Moses in
mediating the covenant, and this something must be attri-
buted to a spiritual person.
Let it be observed how much is involved in the interpre-
tation put upon the two Old Testament passages which are
here quoted and applied. Moses was instructed to make all
things according to* the pattern shown him in the Mount ; in
other words, the tabernacle, and all things connected with it
its vessels, its sacrifices, its ministers shadowed forth
spiritual heavenly things. Indeed, it is quite out of the
question to suppose that while the tabernacle, with some parts
of the ritual which it was formed to embody, was copied from
things in the heavens, other parts of the ritual bore no resem-
blance to heavenly things at all. The writer himself expressly
says that "the law," that is, the whole Mosaic system, everything
286 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
that Moses instituted, had " a shadow of the good things to
come " (x. 1) shadow being equivalent to pattern or copy
(viii. 5). His view, therefore, distinctly is that everything in
the earthly system must have a corresponding something
in the heavenly system, otherwise it would have no raison
d'etre.
Now, it may be said at once, and without the least exagge-
ration, that such a view, on the very face of it, is extravagant
even to absurdity. And it is easy to see that its extravagance
is the legitimate and necessary outcome of the extravagant
interpretation put upon the two Old Testament passages on
which it is based, especially of the very curious interpretation
put upon the former. The statement of the author of Exodus
is, <c And see that thou make them after their pattern, which
hath been showed thee in the Mount " (xxv. 40) where the
pronoun " them " refers to the parts of the golden candlestick,
which the writer has just been describing (vv. 31-39). The
utmost that this statement can be held to imply is that Moses
was somehow made to see a model or concrete representation
of the candlestick, of which a minute verbal description is
given in the preceding context. It is not said in the passage
quoted that a model of the whole tabernacle was shown to
Moses, though that is, no doubt, implied in other parallel
passages (xxvi. 30 ; xxvii. 8 ; Num. viii. 4) fqr it is co-
author himself that supplies " all things " instead of " them,"
which is found both in the Hebrew text and in the LXX. This,
however, is of small moment. The important point is as to
the subjectivity or objectivity of the model which Moses is
asserted and imagined to have seen. What the nature of
Moses' vision was it were bootless to inquire, since he has not
thought fit to favour us with any information concerning " the
stuff of which his dreams were made ; " nor do we know
definitely of what precise nature the author of Exodus, sup-
posing him to be different from Moses, conceived it to have
been. If we assume that the statement in Exodus contains
the account of a real fact, and is not due to the inventive
faculty of the author of the " Priestly Code," we may regard
the vision of Moses as partaking much of the same character
as that vouchsafed, at later period, to the prophet Isaiah (chap.
VI.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 287
vi), where, however, the materials that go to make up the
vision are all drawn from the things which the prophet had
actually seen in his every-day experience. Neither in the
case of Moses, nor in that of Isaiah, is there the smallest pre-
tence for thinking that the objects of the vision had anything
more than a purely subjective, existence. Even if we were to
suppose that God went so far as to create an objective model
of the tabernacle in order that Moses might see it, it would be
downright insanity to identify this model with " heaven itself."
A candlestick with its branches and cups and knops and flowers
in heaven ! Why, does not the author of Revelation tell us that
in heaven "they need no candle, neither light of the sun, for the
Lord God giveth them light, and they shall reign for ever and
ever " (xxii. 5) ? Yet the writer to the Hebrews clearly holds
that what Moses saw was the " holy place and the true taber-
nacle which the Lord pitched, not man " (viii. 2), in other
words, that the contents of his vision had a real objective
existence, being nothing else than " the heavenly things" (v. 5)
that constitute the immediate environment of the Almighty.
He assumes that the words which he quotes were spoken, not
with reference to the. candlestick merely, but with reference to
the whole tabernacle ; that instead of " them," which refers to
the several parts of the candlestick, we must read "all things,"
and refer the expression to all the parts and appendages of the
tabernacle framed by Moses ; and that the meaning of the
whole statement is that Moses was shown an objective model
of everything connected with the tabernacle about to be framed,
and that this model was absolutely identical with " heaven
itself" (ix. 24) " the heavenly things themselves" (v. 23)!
A more extravagant piece of exegesis than this will hardly be
found in the whole compass of Rabbinical literature. And yet
it is from this piece of exegesis that the author's whole typo-
logical system has manifestly been deduced ! We may, there-
fore, expect to find that the details of the writer's typology,
when we come to examine them, will partake of the same
fanciful character with the exegesis on which they rest ; nor
should it in the least surprise us if we meet at every step with
difficulties and incongruities, ranging from the baldest con-
tradictions to the grossest absurdities. And not only should
288 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
we be able to convince ourselves that the typology of the
present writer has no foundation save an imaginative one, but
that the same is true of all typological interpretation whatever,
as applied to the Old Testament writings. For if the typo-
logy of the author of Hebrews, in its whole extent, must be
rejected along with his exegesis as destitute of the smallest
historical validity, no one surely will pretend that the frag-
ments of typological and allegorical interpretation scattered
through the writings of Paul are to be accepted as historically
valid. On the contrary, it will clearly appear that the typico-
allegorical method of interpretation was simply a popularly-
accepted but historically-worthless method, of which the
apostles availed themselves for purposes of popular persuasion,
but which for us has no value or authority whatever.
With respect to the second of the two passages quoted, the
case is somewhat different, though scarcely more favourable to
the application made, and the inferences founded upon it. It
is a fact, well-known to students of the Old Testament, that
when the prophets attempt to delineate Messianic or Gospel
times (i.e., the ideal state of God's kingdom), they invariably
do so in forms drawn either from their own or from past times,
never in the exact form of future times. The prophets had
just as little idea of the exact form that the kingdom of God
would take after the first coming of Christ as we ourselves
have of the exact form that it will take after His second
coming. When a prophet like Jeremiah thought of a new era
co-ordinate in importance with the exodus from Egypt, and of
a second grand attempt on the part of God to sanctify a people
to Himself, he could not but think and speak of what he
anticipated in the future under the form and in the terms of
what had been experienced in the past. He had, in truth, no
idea of any other form, or any other terms, in which to express
it. In point of fact, however, the reality is altogether different
as to its outward form from what the prophets did or could
foresee. The people of God, under the Gospel, are not " the
house of Israel and the house of Judah," as Jeremiah imagined
they would be, nor has the substance of the promise any con-
nection with the land of Canaan. There is no such thing as
a new covenant, instituted through a mediator, and ratified by
VI.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 289
the slaying of a sacrificial victim ; but because the relation
constituted between God and the people of Israel at Sinai took
the form of a covenant, the prophet expected that the new
relation to be constituted between God and His people in the
Messianic age would take substantially the same form. It is
by no means clear, however, that Jeremiah anticipated that
there would be a ritual system connected with the new cove-
nant similar to that which is supposed to have accompanied
the old ; rather, the opposite is tolerably clear. Some, indeed,
go so far as to deny that the prophet Jeremiah held that there
were any ritual ordinances connected with the old covenant.
Whether the passage chiefly relied on in proof of this view
(vii. 21-23) will bear the full weight of the inference founded
upon it, or whether it be not susceptible of a different inter-
pretation, may be open to doubt ; but at any rate the prophet,
though he certainly speaks of the new dispensation as a cove-
nant made between God and the houses of Israel and Judah,
knows perfectly well that it will differ materially from the old
dispensation ; for he adds, " Not according to the covenant
that I made with their fathers, "&c. ... "but . . . I will put
my laws into their mind, and in their heart also will I write
them," &c. These words must be held to indicate what, in
the prophet's view, will be the essential feature of the new dis-
pensation, and to imply that, if there are any ritual ceremonies
associated with it, they must at least be matters of indifference,
and quite unworthy of mention. And when we know, besides,
from what he himself tells us elsewhere (vii. 21-23, al), that
Jeremiah did not regard matters of ritual as other than quite
unessential even in connection with the Sinaitic covenant,
surely this renders it highly probable that he did not regard
them as having any place at all in connection with the new
covenant. But in all that the author of Hebrews says as to
the old covenant being typical or antitypical of that spoken of
by the prophet Jeremiah, he has in view exclusively the ritual
system associated with it, expressly assuming that because the
old dispensation had ordinances of service and a sanctuary, the
new dispensation must likewise have ordinances of service
and a sanctuary (ix. 1, seq.). In other words, the author of
Hebrews takes it for granted that there will be strict parallelism
u
2 9 o PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
between the two covenants in matters as to which the prophet
gives not the smallest hint that there will be any parallelism,
but rather leads us to infer with approximate certainty that
there will be none. Such being the case, any attempt to find
in the Sinaic covenant, and especially in the ritual ceremonies
associated with it, an exact picture of the Gospel dispensation
is manifestly doomed beforehand to complete failure. As soon,
therefore, as we go into details, we may expect to discover
traces everywhere that the writer's typology, in so far as it
rests on the passage from Jeremiah, is without the smallest
real foundation, and has siirfply been spun from his own
fancy.
It would be too much to assert that the view which our
author takes of these two Old Testament passages is the sole
ground upon which he proceeds to institute a comparison
between the functions of Christ and those of the Aaronic high
priest. Rather, it was such a comparison that the author was
intent on instituting from the very first, even before he entered
on the discussion regarding Melchizedek ; and the result of
that discussion, though it appears on a strict interpretation to
forbid any such comparison, by relegating the priesthood of
Christ entirely to His exalted state, where nothing at all
resembling the functions of Aaron could possibly be attributed
to Him, yet on a looser interpretation it can be construed and
made use of as a stepping-stone towards such a comparison,
inasmuch as, by proving that Christ is a Priest, it may be
held to prove that He discharges functions similar to those of
Aaron, agreeably to the author's repeated assertion that " every
high priest, being taken from among men, is appointed for
men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts
and sacrifices for sins " (v. 1 ; viii. 3). According to the
author of Hebrews, it enters into the very idea of a priest that
he be an offerer of sacrifices for sins, and hence the proof that
Christ is a Priest is a proof that he must somehow discharge
functions similar to those of the Aaronic priests and high
priest. This inference cannot be invalidated by the proof that
Christ did not become a priest till He had reached the glorified
state, where such a thing as the offering of sacrifices for sins
must from the nature of the case be absolutely impossible ;
VI.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 291
nor will any such consideration deter the author from proceed-
ing with the parallel which he is bent on establishing. All
that it can do is to apprise later readers like ourselves that
the author's typological system, which he has worked out into
such curious detail, can be nothing else than the offspring of
unmitigated imaginative construction. Indeed, had the con-
sideration that real resemblance between the functions of
Christ and those of the Aaronic high priest was impossible in
the nature of things been sufficient to deter the author from
attempting to make out a fictitious resemblance, the first of
the two passages quoted and interpreted in chap. viii. might
well have had that effect ; for even that passage implies that
the priestly functions of Christ must be strictly confined to
the exalted glorified state, since the priest, the victim, the
blood, &c., must correspond in nature to " the greater and
more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is to say,
not of this creation" (ix. 11), in which the offering is made.
The heavenly tabernacle, to be a tabernacle, must have an
altar on which the blood should be offered ; and since the
altar must be heavenly or spiritual, the blood must be
heavenly or spiritual also ; which implies that the victim too
must be heavenly or spiritual, and the priest likewise, and,
in short, everything connected with the offering ; that is to
say, nothing in the whole transaction can in the nature of
things have any resemblance whatever to the offering of an
Aaronic priest.
Thus, before the author can take a single step in the way
of constructing a typology, he must depart, not only from the
view of Christ's priestly functions implied in the oracles relat-
ing to Melchizedek, but also from what is practically the same
view as implied in the passage upon which his whole typo-
logical system is avowedly based. That being so, what a maze
of inconsistencies (not to use a stronger word) may we not
be prepared to expect in the chapters we are about to examine !
The fact that Christ is a priest in any sense of the word can be
established only by reading an extravagantly fanciful meaning
into Ps. ex. combined with Gen. xiv. 17, seq., so that whatever
depends on the writer's exegesis of these two passages must
necessarily be fanciful and extravagant. The fact that Christ
292 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY, [Chap.
is a priest with functions having any resemblance to those of
Aaron can be made out only by departing entirely from the
meaning extracted from Ps. ex. combined with Gen. xiv. 17,
seq., and giving still further play to fancy. The fact that
there is a typical heavenly tabernacle like the Mosaic, in which
a priest like Aaron might minister, can be rendered plausible
only by putting a manifestly impossible meaning upon Ex. xxv.
40, so that whatever is deduced from the writer's exegesis
of that passage must needs partake of the same inadmis-
sible character. The fact that the functions of Christ, as
minister of the true ideal tabernacle, have any resemblance
to those of a priest like Aaron can be sustained only by
identifying them, in defiance of the meaning extracted from
Ex. xxv. 40, with the events and experiences of His life in
the flesh, which happened simply upon earth, and had no
manner of connection with a typical heavenly tabernacle like
the Mosaic. In other words, the author, in attempting to con-
struct a typology, is obliged at every step, not merely to forsake
the historical sense of the Old Testament, and to put upon it
a glaringly, and even absurdly, imaginative sense, but, also, as
soon as this unhistorical interpretation has been propounded,
to forsake it in its turn, and draw still further on his own
fancy. Thus we might easily infer a priori that the writer's
whole typological system was a creation pure and simple of
his own imagination, and that it would betray throughout
traces of its fanciful origin ; and this general antecedent
impression will be strongly confirmed as soon as we come to
examine it.
VII.]
CHAPTER VII.
FACT AND FIGUKE IN THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS
Continued.
IT will be convenient to begin this chapter by bestowing a
brief consideration on the section x. 1-18, in which Christ,
with his so-called offering, is compared, in a general way, to
all or to any of the Old Testament priests and offerings, and
where the variety and complication of figure is much less per-
plexing than we shall find it in chap. ix.
Be it remembered that, on what our author regards as the
testimony of the Holy Ghost, " all things " connected with the
earthly tabernacle were made according to a pattern shown to
Moses in the mount (viii. 5), that pattern being identical with
" the heavenly things " (id.), being, in fact, " the greater and
more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is to say,
not of this creation" (ix. 11). The second covenant, equally
with the first, has its ordinances of service, and its sanctuary,
one of the world to come (vv. 1, 11). Now, in the section
before us, the daily offerings of the priests in the outer taber-
nacle, equally with the annual offering of the high priest in
the inner tabernacle, are regarded as copies, though defective
ones, of the so-called offering of Christ (x. 11 ; vii. 27). The
law, including the whole ritual system, is said to have a shadow
or symbolic picture of the good things to come (x. 1), while
the priests that offer the gifts according to the law serve that
which is a copy and shadow of the heavenly things (viii. 4, 5).
The thing offered by Christ is His body (x. 10), in accordance
with the declaration of Scripture, "Sacrifice and offering Thou
wouldest not, but a body didst Thou prepare for Me ; in whole
burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin Thou hadst no pleasure ;
293
294 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written
of me) to do Thy will, God " (vv. 5-7). The altar on which
the body of Jesus was offered can be none other than the
cross, for His suffering on the cross without the gate, and His
offering Himself or being offered, are once and again identified
(ix. 25-28 ; xiii. 10-13). While the part of the priest is thought
of as performed by Jesus Himself, presumably in that nature
which He had before coming into the world (x. 5-12). So far
the author makes out a certain apparent resemblance between
the so-called copy and the supposed original. He has found
something corresponding to the victim, something correspond-
ing to the altar, and something corresponding to, at least, a
single priest. Differences there are, and these are acknow-
ledged. The priests were many, and Jesus is but one. The
priests offered up daily, continually ; the body of Jesus was
offered once for all (x. 1, 10, 11). This last feature in the
Levitical offerings might seem to be quite essential in order to
meet the wants of successive generations of men. Our author,
however, regards it in no other light than as a proof that such
offerings were powerless to take away sins (x. 4), that they could
not purify the worshippers (v. 2), could not make perfect them
that drew nigh (v. 1). In other words, it is a point of
difference inherent in the nature of a mere shadow in contrast
to the reality (v. 11). The offering of the body of Jesus
Christ avails to take away sins (vv. 4, 11), to make perfect
them that draw nigh, purifying (v. 2) or sanctifying (v. 10)
the worshippers, so that they have no more consciousness of
sins ; to perfect for ever them that are sanctified (v. 14)
which is equivalent to remitting (v. 18), or putting away
(ix. 26) their sins, while at the same time writing the law on
their hearts (x. 16), or giving them repentance from dead
works (vi. 1 ; ix. 14) : and, therefore, it does not require
repetition. So, at least, says our author. But it would surely
be much more natural to regard all believers as priests as,
indeed, our author at times appears to do (xiii. 10; x. 22,
seq.) for it is certain that each believer enters heaven after
having his sins put away and the law written on his heart,
after being sanctified, purified, made perfect through suffer-
ings, through dying to sin, in figurative language, through
VII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 295
offering himself, even as Christ did. This would provide a
multiplicity of priests and a succession of offerings correspond-
ing to the priests and the offerings of the old economy. It
would fall in with the spirit, at least, and the original draft,
of the first covenant, for God's original intention was that the
whole nation of Israel should be priests (Ex. xix. 6). And,
above all, it would obviate the extreme incongruity of repre-
senting the entire body of believers, scattered though they be
along the whole course of the world's history, as purified from
sin, sanctified, and brought into heaven, as it were, by a single
act through the death of Christ (x. 10, 14, 18). Our author,
however, contemplates for the most part only a single genera-
tion of Israelites, it being only a single generation with whom
the first covenant was made, and this leads him to represent
the people with whom the so-called New Covenant is made
under a like form, as if they too consisted of a single genera-
tion a mode of representation which is favoured by the
circumstance that he anticipates the end of all things in
his own day (ix. 28), whilst he regards the religion of pre-
Christian times as having no proper saving validity (x. 1).
And as any one of the Old Covenant offerings (e.g., the
inaugural offering) did whatever it could do for the whole
people together, and in a single moment, the so-called New
Covenant offering is likewise represented as producing its
effect on those for whom it is designed in a precisely similar
way.
But there are other and still more serious inconsistencies
involved in the view under consideration. The aim of the
writer was to establish a correspondence between the earthly
tabernacle, with its altars, its offerings, and its ministers, and
a supposed true heavenly tabernacle which the Lord pitched,
not man. He believes, on what he regards as the authority
of the Holy Ghost, that there is such a tabernacle, and that
the earthly tabernacle with its services is a copy of the
heavenly. In the earthly tabernacle there are, among other
things, a victim, an altar, and an officiating priest, and the
author must find equivalents for these. The victim, as we
have seen, is identified with the body of Christ, on the sup-
posed authority of Scripture, or of the Holy Ghost speaking in
296 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
Scripture. This implies that the altar must be the cross, and
probably also that the offering of Jesus must be regarded as
equivalent to the daily offerings of the ordinary priests in the
first tabernacle. So far the original is made out by the help
of Scripture, history, and the nature of the copy. But what
kind of original ? A heavenly original ? No such thing.
The ritual system of the Old Covenant is not here a copy of
things in the heavens at all, but a copy of things on earth.
The victim represents an earthly thing, the body of Christ.
The altar represents an earthly thing, the cross. The cross
was situated on Calvary, and the altar within the tabernacle :
since, therefore, the altar represents the cross, the tabernacle
must represent Calvary, or, at the least, something earthly.
The priest, too, must be on earth to make the offering, though
the author elsewhere expressly affirms that if Jesus were on
earth, He would not be a priest at all (viii. 4). The blood of
the slaughtered victim does not here represent something in
heaven that avails to purify heavenly things (ix. 23), but
something on earth that can avail only to purify earthly things
(v. 12). Here, therefore, Jesus is not, by any means, "a
Minister of the [heavenly] holy place, and of the true taber-
nacle which the Lord pitched, not man " (viii. 1). Nor would
the author himself have the hardihood to allege that the
Mosaic tabernacle was copied from Mount Calvary, and the
altar within it from the cross of Christ, and that Moses saw
both these things on Mount Sinai !
How has the author so strangely and so completely deserted
his former idea, founded, as it was, on the express testimony
of the Holy Ghost, that all things connected with the earthly
tabernacle were made according to the pattern shown to Moses
in the mount, and that Jesus is a Minister of the ideal heavenly
tabernacle ? Is it in deference to what he regards as a second
contradictory testimony of the Holy Ghost, that the body of
Jesus was prepared to assume the place of sacrifice and offer-
ing, and to do what sacrifice and offering could not do
sanctify us ?
If the existing Hebrew text of Ps. xl. be .correct, as there is
every reason to believe that it is, not only is the meaning
which our author puts upon the passage which he quotes
VII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 297
flagrantly unhistorical, but the reading which he has adopted
from the LXX. is a flagrant corruption of the proper text, due
to the ignorance, the prejudice, or the carelessness of the
original translator, or of a later transcriber. The passage as
it stands in the Hebrew Bible may be translated thus :
" Sacrifice and offering Thou hast no delight in ; ears hast
Thou digged for me " [cf. " Hath the Lord delight in burnt
offerings and sacrifices, as He hath in obeying (lit. hearing)
the voice of the Lord ? Behold, to obey (lit. hear) is better
than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams " (1 Sam.
xv. 22)]. Burnt offering and sin offering hast Thou not
required ; then said I, Lo I am come, with the roll of the
book written unto me [= the law which Thou requirest me
to obey], I delight to do Thy will, my God ; yea, Thy law
[= the purport of " the book written unto me "] is within my
heart " (Ps. xl. 6-8). The meaning of these words is evident
on the face of them. The writer knows and desires to give
expression to the fact that, in the estimation of God, obedience
is of greatly more value than sacrifice. God requires and
delights in obedience, whereas sacrifice is, at the best, a matter
of indifference. And accordingly the writer goes on to profess
his readiness and willingness to obey the law and do the will
of God. When he says, " Ears hast Thou digged for me," or
" Mine ears hast Thou opened," his meaning is that God has
given him the power and inclination to hear, i.e., to obey the
law, so that he is able to say, " Lo, I am come, with the roll
of the book written unto me ; I delight to do Thy will, my
God; yea, Thy law is within my heart." The whole connection
of ideas, especially when viewed in the light of the parallel
passage from 1 Samuel, renders it perfectly certain that the
reading of the Hebrew text is correct, and that the general
sense of the passage is what has been stated. The psalm is
not probably a very early one, and the writer is evidently
speaking throughout of himself and himself alone. There is
no reason whatever to think that the psalm, as a whole or
any part of it, refers directly or indirectly to " the Messiah;"
on the contrary, such a reference is plainly excluded by the
whole tenor of the language used, which is entirely homo-
geneous, being spoken throughout of the same individual, and
298 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
in particular by the statement of v. 12, "Innumerable evils
have compassed me about; mine iniquities have overtaken
me, so that I am unable to look up ; they are more than the
hairs of mine head, and my heart hath failed me " a state-
ment which amounts to a reductio ad absurdum of the
Messianic interpretation. On the other hand, when the LXX.
transmogrify the expression " Ears hast Thou digged for me "
into " A body didst Thou prepare for me," this can only be
regarded as a piece of manifest and notorious bungling. How
they succeeded in so completely missing or modifying the
sense of the Hebrew whether they had before them ours or
a different corrupted form of the text that is, whether their
error be one of translation or of textual criticism and what
particular meaning they intended to convey by the words they
employ or whether (as is most probable) they merely set
down words without realising to themselves any distinct mean-
ing these are questions that hardly concern us here. That
the LXX. translators had no idea of the meaning which the
author of Hebrews reads into the passage may be taken as
certain, since that meaning is so extremely artificial, and so
thoroughly alien to every possible or conceivable historical
meaning, that the probabilities are almost infinite against its
occurring to any mind but his own. He interprets the words
as if they had been spoken directly by Christ regarding Him-
self at the time when He became incarnate identifying the
" coming " with the entrance of Christ into the world and
he infers, from the fact that sacrifices and offerings are first
mentioned as not being acceptable to God, and then the
coming of Christ with a body prepared for Him, that " He
[= Christ, who speaks] taketh away the first [= the Mosaic
sacrifices] that he may establish the second [= the sacrifice of
His own body], according to the will of God " (v. 10). So
that the doing of the will of God, instead of consisting in
general obedience to the law of God, is made to consist in the
offering by Christ of His own body as a sacrifice, this in
spite of the psalmist's pointed declaration that God has no
delight in sacrifices of any kind ! Even if the LXX. text
were assumed to be correct, a more arbitrary interpretation
than this could scarcely be conceived. There is not the re-
VII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 299
motest hint or suggestion in the text of all or any of the ideas
which the passage is said to contain ; they have simply been
imported into it from without, and owe their existence solely
to the subjectivity of the interpreter. What wonder, there-
fore, that when the author comes to apply the results of his
exegesis of the present passage, he finds himself, or rather is
found by us, irreconcilably in conflict with the results of his
exegesis of the two passages previously quoted ?
Still, it is not to be supposed that the identification of
Christ's priestly functions with the experiences of His earthly
instead of with those of His heavenly life is due merely, or
even mainly, to the author's misinterpretation of the passage
quoted from Ps. xl. The fact that the quotation appears in
the middle of chap. x. instead of at the opening of chap. ix. is
a sufficient proof that the construction put upon it is the effect
rather than the cause of the writer's attempt to identify the
priestly functions of Christ, and that the reason of the above-
noted inconsistency lies deeper. The author has already
proved from Scripture that Jesus became a Priest on passing
from the earthly to the heavenly state, so that His priestly
functions must be exercised exclusively in the heavenly world,
while seated at God's right hand. Now, when we add to this
idea of the priesthood of Christ the other idea itself also
founded on Scripture that the earthly tabernacle in all its
parts was copied from a heavenly original, the two ideas seem
at the first blush to hang together perfectly well. To identify
Jesus with the Priest or High Priest of the original heavenly
tabernacle occurs at once, and so the writer affirms, " We have
such an High Priest as sat down on the right hand of the throne
of the Majesty, in the heavens, a minister of the [heavenly] holy
place, and of the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched, not
man." But, in asserting that Christ is a Priest, the minister
of an ideal heavenly tabernacle, the writer has laid himself
under obligation to go a step farther and give some account
of the priestly functions of Christ, and as soon as he attempts
to do this serious difficulties arise. The only function ascribed
to Jesus in His exalted state is the function of intercession on
behalf of His people, a function which, as it must have begun
to be exercised from the foundation of the world, so it will
300 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
continue to be exercised to its consummation, or even, it may
be, to all eternity (vii. 25). But such a process of intercession
extending throughout the whole course of the world's history
bears no sort of resemblance to the actions of the Aaronic
priests in the earthly tabernacle. It agrees, indeed, so far
with the notion of an ideal heavenly tabernacle, which must
be supposed to have existed from all eternity, and to which
our author has given countenance on the alleged authority of
Scripture, uttered by the Holy Ghost ; but then it does not at
all agree with the notion that Jesus became a priest on sitting
down at God's right hand, at least if the author's own defini-
tion of a priest be correct viz., that " every priest, being
taken from among men, is appointed for men in things per-
taining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for
sins" (v. 1 ; cf. viii. 3 ; x. 11) ; and yet this latter notion is
likewise put forward on the alleged authority of the Holy
Ghost speaking in Scripture. Intercession is a function that
might just as readily be exercised by any other person as by a
priest, and for which a tabernacle was not in the least neces-
sary. Moreover, if the heavenly tabernacle be that from
which the earthly was copied, it must at least contain an
altar, since nothing about the earthly tabernacle was more
prominent than its altars. And an altar would be mean-
ingless without a slaughtered victim, to offer which was the
special function of the earthly priest. Yet it is needless to
say that Jesus, in His exalted state, neither does nor can do
anything having the faintest resemblance to such an action.
In heaven there is no altar, no victim, no slaughter, no sprink-
ling of blood, no entrance into a holy place ; so that any
attempt to identify the proper priestly functions of Jesus with
the actions or experiences of His exalted state is condemned
as futile beforehand.
What then does the author do ? Not finding anything in
heaven corresponding to the earthly tabernacle and to the
priestly actions associated with it, he must of course give up
seeking such things there. Heaven is the region of spiritual
relations, and spiritual relations must from their very nature
differ toto codo from physical acts. As long, therefore, as the
so-called priestly work of Christ is strictly confined to heaven,
VII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 301
it is hopeless to think of making out any parallel between it
and the work of the Old Testament priests ; while, if the work
of Christ bear no resemblance whatever to that of the Old
Testament priests, the question is really of very little moment
or interest whether He should be called a priest at all, and
whether His work in heaven should be regarded as priestly
work or not. If, however, the sphere of Christ's priestly
work could be removed from heaven to earth, if His priestly
character could be projected back into His earthly life, in that
case it might be possible to make out something in the nature
of a parallel between certain palpable experiences of Jesus
and the distinctive actions of the Aaronic priests. So to pro-
ject the priesthood of Christ backward is indeed a very violent
proceeding, for it is to depart entirely from the Melchizedek
view of the priesthood of Christ, and so to depart from the
express declarations of Scripture. Not only is there no Scrip-
ture warrant for regarding Christ as a priest while on earth,
but the author has himself proved that Christ was made a
Priest by the word of the oath on His sitting down at God's
right hand (vii. 20, 21) ; nay, he has even expressly asserted
that if Christ were on earth He would not be a Priest at all,
seeing there are already those that offer the gifts according to
the law, and serve that which is a copy and shadow of the
heavenly things (viii. 4, 5). The last statement evidently
implies that whatever priestly actions are done must be done
either on earth in immediate connection with the earthly
Mosaic tabernacle, or in heaven in immediate connection with
the tabernacle of which the Mosaic is a copy. But the experi-
ences undergone by Christ while on earth were connected with
neither of these ; they could not, therefore, be priestly at all.
Besides, to remove the priestly work of Christ from heaven to
earth, has the effect, as we before remarked, of making the
ritual system of the Old Covenant no longer a copy of things
in heaven, but of things on earth. The blood of Christ, for
example, is not a heavenly but an earthly thing, a thing just
as thoroughly gross and carnal as the blood of bulls and goats.
Even were it applied, it would no more make perfect the
worshippers as touching the conscience than the meats and
drinks and divers washings of the ritual system (ix. 10). It
302 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
could not possibly be carried into heaven, nor sprinkled on a
heavenly mercy-seat ; though it is right to say that our author
himself hardly contemplates such a sprinkling and offering of it.
What he thinks of is its being sprinkled on the hearts or con-
sciences of the people. But even so, the command to sprinkle
it would be but an "ordinance of flesh" (ix. 10); the blood
itself could be applied only to the flesh ; and if it sanctified at
all, it would sanctify only to the purity of the flesh. It
follows, too, on the same system, that the altar must just be
the cross which, again, is a purely earthly thing; that the
whole sanctuary must be on earth and earthly ; and that the
priest who ministers in such a sanctuary, and handles such
earthly physical blood, must be an earthly man that dies. In
short, the author's attempt to make out the heavenly original of
which the earthly ritual system is a copy, by seeking it in the
earthly instead of the heavenly life of Jesus, completely sub-
verts the very thing which it is meant to establish. It begins
by flatly contradicting the alleged teaching of the author's
first Scripture quotation, that the priesthood of Christ was of
a heavenly order like that of Melchizedek, and ends by as
flatly contradicting the alleged teaching of his second quota-
tion, that the earthly tabernacle in all its parts was made after
an ideal heavenly pattern ; and, as we shall see presently,
the author makes out after all only the rudest and most
defective parallel in the world between the actions of Jesus
and those any of those of the Aaronic priests.
Still, there are but two alternatives : a parallel to the ritual
system must be sought, either in the earthly life of Jesus,
or not at all ; and our author prefers the former of these
alternatives to the latter. Accordingly, he identifies the
victim with the physical body of Jesus ; the slaughter of the
victim with the physical death of Jesus ; the blood of the
victim with the physical blood of Jesus ; while Jesus Himself,
presumably in His inner Divine nature, is identified with the
priest, and the whole body of believers with the people. In
this way, everything that Jesus either has done from the
foundation of the world, or will yet do to all eternity, on
behalf of the human race whether mediately, that is, on His
own person directly, with indirect reference to the whole
VII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 303
world, or immediately, that is, on the persons of believers
directly is massed together, and practically identified with
the act of His physical death. Even His life-long sufferings
are left entirely out of account ; His sole function is to offer
His body (x. 10), to offer Himself, or be offered through death
(ix. 27, 28) ; and his work, as so represented, is strictly
limited in its reference to "the people" (ii. 17 ; xiii. 12),
meaning believers, who are regarded as being perfectly sanc-
tified by the act of Christ's physical death (x. 14), in like
manner as the whole people of Israel were imperfectly sanctified
by the act of offering up their victim. What commentators
and dogmatists say as to the sacrifice of Christ having to do
only with guilt (as distinguished from sin) is all nonsense.
The epistle says not one word from beginning to end about
guilt. It speaks only of "sin" (ix. 26), or "sins" (x. 12),
"the sins of many" (ix. 28), "the transgressions under the
first covenant," which stand in the way of eternally inheriting
the promise (v. 1 5), " dead works," springing from an evil (iii.
12 ; x. 22), impenitent, unrenewed (vi. 1, 6), unrighteous
(viii. 10) heart, which stand in the way of serving the " living"
God (ix. 14), as the saints do in heaven. The sacrifice of
Christ perfects for ever them that are sanctified (x. 14), by
redeeming them from all transgressions (ix. 15), in and through
writing the law on their hearts (viii. 10 ; x. 16), so that they
obtain the eternal inheritance, in the enjoyment of which they
perfectly serve the living God (ix. 14, 15). It sanctifies not
to the purity of the flesh, but of the heart (x. 22) of the
worshipper, so that he is no longer conscious of sins (v. 2), or
dead works (ix. 14), but only of works well-pleasing to God
(xi. 6). It does what repentance or renewal does inwardly and
really, what baptism does outwardly and symbolically, what
faith or obedience to the truth does instrumentally purifies
the heart or spirit from sin (vi. 1, 2 ; x. 22, cf. Acts xv. 9;
1 Pet. i. 22). In this epistle, as, indeed, everywhere in the
New Testament, remission (acpeo-is) of sins is conditioned by
repentance (neravoia), and is identified with redemption (aVo-
vTpaari<$) ; that is to say, it is directly dependent on renewal
of the mind or heart, and carries along with it the removal of
sin itself, as well as the guilt or legal consequence of sin. In
304 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
fact, guilt is nothing but the relation of sin to the law, and
that relation can be removed only by the removal of the thing
related. Sin, to exist at all, must attach to or inhere in some
individuality in his flesh, in his heart, or consciousness ; and
the individual in whom sin inheres is liable to the penalty of
the law, that is, he is guilty (eVo^o?, cf. ii. 15 ; Jas. ii. 10).
If an individual be sinful in any sense, or to any extent, he
must be guilty in the same sense and to the same extent.
Now, to sanctify, purify, and make perfect such an individual
does not and cannot mean to remove the relation
while the related person (a/xajorwXo?), or thing
remains precisely as before. Such an idea is really perfectly
absurd. What a preposterous abuse of language would it be
to say that an individual was not only sanctified [ = made
holy], or purified [= made pure], but made perfect for ever
[ = freed eternally from all defect], while all the sin he ever
had was still attaching to him, still inhering in his flesh, in his
heart, or consciousness ! If sanctifi cation, purification, or per-
fecting covers merely the removal of guilt, but does not touch
the sin itself, then on what principle, and in what connection is
the sin itself removed ? When does the perfected sanctifica-
tion of each believer from guilt take place, and when his
perfected sanctification from sin, and what relation subsists
between the two ? Is the believer perfectly sanctified from
guilt in the first moment of faith ? But it can easily be
proved that believers require remission, not of sin merely, but
of guilt as well, during their whole earthly life. Has the sacri-
fice of Christ no bearing on this guilt ? Does it remove the
guilt accumulated at conversion and nothing more ? Surely if
the sacrifice of Christ bear on the guilt of men at all, it must
bear equally on the whole of each man's guilt ; and since daily
remission of sin goes hand in hand with daily repentance in the
experience of the believer, it is plain that the removal of guilt
is possible only through the removal of sin from the heart or
mind (jwerai/ota). When the writer twice quotes the words of
Jeremiah, "Their sins will I remember no more" (viii. 12;
x. 17), he means, not that God will overlook the guilt of sin
that still clings to His people, but that He will forget the guilt
of sin that has been removed or remitted in the process of
VII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY, 305
writing the law on their hearts (viii. 10 ; x. 16). And that
both these processes the writing of the law on their hearts as
well as the removal of sin that accompanies it are included
in the effect of Christ's offering is evident from the connection
of thought in x. 14-18. The offering of Christ no more
requires to be supplemented by some additional process for
purifying the heart than the offering of bulls and goats
required to be supplemented by some additional process for
purifying the flesh. Indeed, the very fact that a parallel
is drawn between the defilement of the flesh which the blood
of bulls and goats sufficed to remove, and the defilement
of the heart which the blood of Christ removes, is enough to
prove that not the guilt of sin, but sin itself is put away by
the offering of Christ. Mere guilt, being a relation simply,
could hardly be said to defile ; as little, therefore, could it be
said to be purified in like manner as the filth of the flesh is
purified. Besides, supposing that the whole of the believer's
pre-Christian guilt were removed in the initial act of faith,
yet, unless the sin itself were at the same time removed, it
would speedily multiply and produce defilement or guilt anew,
in which case it could not be said that " the worshippers,
having been once purified, have no more consciousness of sins "
(x. 2), that " by one offering He hath perfected for ever them
that are sanctified" (v. 14). The only way in which the
believer, while in a state of sinfulness, could conceivably be in
a state of perpetual guiltlessness would be through his possess-
ing imputed holiness, imputed purity, imputed perfection ;
that is to say, the notion that guilt can be separated from the
sin whose relation to law it expresses, from the sinful person
to whom it belongs, and dealt with independently, is just a
phase of the theory of imputation, implying, as it does, the
whole machinery of imputed sin, imputed righteousness, im-
puted holiness, imputed purity, imputed perfection, &c. &c.,
of which there is not one vestige of evidence anywhere in the
epistle. Such a theory, if applied with consistency, would
lead inevitably, not only to imputed incarnation on the part
of Christ, but to imputed possession of heaven on the part of
the believer. Sanctification, purification, or perfecting is the
sole condition of entrance into the holy place (x. 19), that is,
x
3o6 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
into heaven ; and if the holiness communicated be merely
imputed, the heaven entered must likewise be merely imputed.
If it be true that without holiness no man shall see the Lord
(xii. 14), it is also true that with holiness every man shall see
the Lord ; and if the holiness be imputed or vicarious, the
seeing of the Lord must be imputed or vicarious also. But it
is, perhaps, unfair to occupy the time of the reader in refuting
an idea so evidently erroneous.
The work of Christ, then, is thrown into the form as it is
couched in the phraseology of the old covenant sacrifice. Yet
it is only familiarity, and the constant habit of speaking of
Christ as a Priest, and of His work as a sacrifice, that prevents
us from seeing how exceedingly different the two things are.
After all our author's straining to make out a parallel, after
he has ransacked heaven and earth to find equivalents in the
life of Jesus for the distinctive actions of the Aaronic priests,
he is still very far from successful. For there is hardly any
resemblance between the death of Jesus through crucifixion at
the hands of Eornan soldiers and the offering of a victim in
sacrifice by the hand of a Jewish high priest. The several
details in the ceremony of sacrifice were not always the same,
but in general they were such as these : The priest and the
victim were invariably quite distinct from each other, and
the latter was always a brute creature ; only in heathen or
semi-heathen sacrifices do we meet with the offering of intelli-
gent human beings. The victim was slain either by the priest
or by the person on whose behalf the offering was made, and
the main point in the act of offering consisted in sprinkling,
or in some way pouring, the blood about the altar, an action
which was invariably performed by the priest. The altar was
a piece of furniture express!}' made for the purpose of offering,
was situated in a sanctuary or place of worship, and the whole
ceremony was strictly and consciously an act of worship.
Jesus, on the other hand, was put to death by Koman soldiers
at the instance of a Jewish mob, but the author makes as
little pretence of regarding the former as priests as he does of
regarding the latter as worshippers. On the contrary, the
priest is identified with Jesus Himself, with the result that
priest and victim are no longer distinct from each other.
VII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 307
Yet Jesus did not put Himself to death, nor sprinkle His
blood on or about an altar. His blood was not even sbed till
some time after His death, when it would have been worthless
for purposes of sacrifice. There was no altar to sprinkle blood
upon, no sanctuary wherein to worship, none but a murderous
mocking crowd to do the part of worshippers. Even on His
own part the death of Jesus was an act of worship in no other
sense than every act of His life was an act of worship. Thus
almost the only point common to the Jewish sacrifice and the
death of Christ is the point of violent death ; everything else
connected with the two things is totally different ; and even
on this single point the resemblance is more apparent than
real, for the death of Christ, unlike that of the Jewish victim,
was but the culminating step of a process that had been going
on during His whole life. In the proper literal sense, the
death of Christ was not a sacrifice at all. It was literally a
crucifixion nothing more, and nothing less. It was just
the ordinary Horn an process of putting the lowest class of
criminals to death. The crucifixion of Jesus was no more a
sacrifice than the crucifixion of each of the malefactors by his
side was a sacrifice. The process in each of the three cases
was exactly the same, and if the one was properly sacrificial,
the others must have been properly sacrificial also.
We shall be told, of course, that it is by no means pre-
tended that the death of Jesus resembled in its outward form
an ordinary act of sacrifice, nor that the part played by Jesus,
in connection with His own death, resembled that of an
ordinary priest, but only that Christ's death in its inner
essence was sacrificial, and therefore is properly spoken of as a
sacrifice, and that the part played by Christ while suffering
death in its inner essence was priestly, on which account He
is properly called a Priest. But when men use the words
sacrifice and priest, it is really necessary that they should ask
themselves what they mean. To what purpose is it that we
go on repeating such terms, unless we have some definite
and distinct notion behind them ? In common speech, and
certainly in the language of our epistle (v. 1 ; viii. 3), the
word sacrifice, when associated with the word priest as its
correlative, is used to denote the offering of a slain victim on
308 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
an altar as an act of religious worship ; and the word priest is
applied to the person who officiates in such an act. What do
these words mean when applied to the crucifixion of Christ,
and to Christ Himself in the act of His crucifixion ? They
cannot possibly bear their ordinary senses, because, as we have
seen, the only thing common to an ordinary sacrifice and the
crucifixion of Christ is the fact of a violent death. Shall we
say that the death of Christ was essentially sacrificial because
it consisted in the surrender of His life to God ? But in this
sense every death that ever took place must have been sacri-
ficial, for, if we may trust the author of Ecclesiastes, when the
dust returns to the earth as it was, the spirit returns to God
who gave it (xii. 7). Certainly every Christian martyr's death
would be a sacrifice, and every persecuted, murdered Christian
a priest. In that case, sacrifice would mean nothing less or
more than murder ; priest would mean nothing less or more
than murdered man. Shall we say that, when we apply the
word sacrifice to the death of Christ, we use it in an altogether
special sense to denote such a death as the Son of God suffered
on Calvary on behalf of sinful men ? But here the word
sacrifice really tells us nothing as to the nature of Christ's
death, and therefore had better not be used at all. The
statement that the death of Christ was a sacrifice amounts
to nothing more or less than this, that the death of Christ was
the death of Christ. Shall we say, then, that the death of
Christ was properly sacrificial because it effected or shall effect
really what the Levitical sacrifices aimed to effect but could
not ? But surely it does not follow that because two sets of
means aim at the same end, the one unsuccessfully, the other
successfully, therefore they are essentially identical, and ought
to be called by the same name. The mere fact that the one
as completely failed as the other completely succeeds is enough
to prove that the two must be very different, and ought to be
called by different names. According to Paul and the present
writer, the aim of the Gospel is identical with that of the law
to make men righteous or holy ; but it does not follow that
the Gospel is in any proper sense of the word a law; on the
contrary, since the Gospel makes men righteous or holy, which
the law utterly failed to do, it rather follows that the Gospel
VII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 309
is something entirely different from the law, that it is not a
law in the proper sense of the word. Now the Levitical
sacrifice and the death of Christ are but parts of the law
scheme of salvation and the Gospel scheme of salvation
respectively; it is only to be expected, therefore, that the
two should be wholly different, and should operate in different
ways ; and the slightest examination shows that this is really
the case.
According to our author, what the Old Testament sacrifices
failed to effect, but what, nevertheless, they must be supposed
to have aimed at effecting, was the remission (ix. 22), which
means the purification (i. 3), or annihilation (ix. 26), or re-
moval (v. 28 ; x. 4) of sin. The Old Testament gifts and
sacrifices could not, as touching the conscience, make the
worshipper perfect (ix. 9), could not purify the worshippers so
that they should have no more consciousness of sins (x, 2),
could not take away sins (vv. 4, 11), and thereby sanctify the
people (vv. 10, 14). They could only sanctify or purify the
flesh (ix. 13). The laws enjoining them were therefore but-
carnal (ix. 10), weak, profitless (vii. 18) ordinances. All the
same, however, these gifts and sacrifices were offered for sins
(v. 1, 3 ; vii. 27 ; ix. 7). In our author's judgment, the
object aimed at in the Levitical sacrifices was to bring about
the remission (ix. 22 ; x. 18), or redemption (ix. 12, 15), or
purification (vv. 22, 23), or taking away (x. 4, 11) of sins
to sanctify (ix. 13 ; x. 10, 14), or purify (ix. 14 ; x. 2), or
make perfect (ix. 9; x. 1, 14) the worshippers, as touching
the heart, or conscience, or whole nature, mind and body
(x. 16, 22). Once and once only he uses the expression
" expiate (IXdcrKecrOai) the sins of the people " to describe the
effect of sacrifice (ii. 17) ; but the immediate context and the
whole tenor of the epistle (witness the passages just referred
to) render it perfectly certain that our author understands the
expression in exactly the same sense as the other expressions
cited above. It does not point to a mere change in the mind
of God that of itself constitutes a new relation of God to
man, such as might be described by the word " propitious,"
and that is unaccompanied, or at least unconditioned, by any
corresponding change in the mind of man himself. Rather, it
310 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
points to a change in the mind or nature of man that under-
lies and conditions the mutually altered relation between man
and God which we call " reconciliation," a change that is
elsewhere spoken of as redemption, remission, removal, aboli-
tion of sins, sanctification, purification, perfecting, or glorifica-
tion. If the word " expiate " expressed a mere change in the
mind of God, forming the basis of a new relation of God to
man, this would imply that the relation of God to the whole
world, or (as some would say) to the elect, was completely
altered at the time when Christ died ; whereas there is not a
shred of evidence, either in this epistle or elsewhere in the
New Testament, that the relation of God to any man is in the
least altered or, rather, there is decisive evidence that it is
not in the least altered till the moment of faith and repent-
ance, when the nature of the man himself has already been
changed. Christ is no doubt spoken of as " the expiation
(/XacTyUo?) for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the
whole world" (1 John ii. 2; iv. 10), and as "an expiatory
sacrifice" (iXcKrrypiov, Rom. iii. 25); but then he is an ex-
piation or an expiatory sacrifice only " through faith/' and
" in [= sprinkled with] his blood " (id.), that is, through faith
which appropriates the Divine Spirit (Eph. i. 13), as the in-
strument of redemption (id. vv. 13, 14 ; iv. 30; Rom. iii. 24;
1 Pet. i. 18), including death with Christ to sin and resur-
rection with Christ to righteousness (Rom. vi. 4); or remission
of sins (Eph. i. 7; Col. i. 14); or sanctification (1 Cor. i. 30;
vi. 11; 2 Thess. ii. 13; Eph. v. 26; Heb. xiii. 12, &c.); or
purification (Acts xv. 9; 2 Cor. vii. 1 ; Eph. v. 26; Tit. ii. 14;
1 John i. 7, 9 ; Heb. ix. 14, &c.); or glorification (2 Cor. iii. 18;
Rom. viii. 21-23, &c.). Whether this be the proper historical
sense of the word " expiate," as used in the Greek version of
the Old Testament, is perhaps questionable, though very
weighty evidence can certainly be produced to prove that it
is ;* but there is no doubt whatever that this is the sense put
upon it by one and all of the New Testament writers. The
mere fact that the blood of Christ requires to be applied to
* Cf. Lev. xvi. 15-19, where the words "purify" and "sanctify" are used as
synonyms for "expiate" or "atone," and where places and things are said to be
purified, sanctified, or atoned.
VII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 311
believers so as to purify them is sufficient to prove that the
change of relation between men and God, implied in the ex-
piation of sin, is constituted by a change on the persons of
men themselves.
Such, then, is the nature of the end aimed at alike by the
Levitical sacrifices and by the so-called sacrifice of Christ. It
includes and covers the total removal of sin from the persons
of the whole people with reference to whom the sacrifice is
offered. But how infinitely different are the means or methods
employed to reach this end in the two cases ! The Levitical
sacrifice had a direct bearing on the body of people who were
present then and there when it was offered, and it had no
bearing whatever on any one else ; the so-called sacrificial
death of Christ had a direct bearing on His own person, and
on that only ; it had an indirect bearing not only on all
believers but on all men whether ultimately believers or
not in every age of the world's history. The Levitical
sacrifice produced its effect a single direct immediate effect
in the physical act of offering ; it produced its effect on the
whole people at once ; its virtue was completely spent as soon
as the blood touched the altar, or, if sprinkled on the people,
as soon as the priest had sprinkled it on those present then
and there. The so-called sacrificial death of Christ produces
no effect whatever on the whole people at once neither on
the world generally, nor yet on the elect ; its sole immediate
effect is on the person of Christ Himself, and even here it
forms but a single step in the lifelong process of His personal
sanctification, in the course which he had to traverse before
reaching perfection ; its virtue, or rather the virtue of the
entire process of which it forms a part, or, to speak still more
correctly, the virtue of the person who undergoes that entire
process, began to be spent from the very foundation of the
world, and will be completely spent only at its consummation,
when the sins of the many shall have been done away (ix. 26),
when the transgressions under the first covenant have been
redeemed (v. 15), only at the last resurrection, the end. the
second coming (1 Cor. xv. 23, seq. ; Heb. ix. 28), when all
the enemies of Christ, even death and the devil, have been
brought to nought (1 Cor. xv. 26 ; Heb. ii. 14), and when all
312 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap,
the slaves of sin and Satan have become perfected, glorified
sons (1 Cor. xv. 55-57; Heb. ii. 10, 15; x. 12-14), in a
word, when the all things have been summed up in Christ
(Eph. i. 10), or subjected to Christ (1 Cor. xv. 27), and so
subjected to man in Christ (Heb. ii. 8). In the case of the
Levitical sacrifices, a momentary outward physical act, per-
formed by an earthly perishing man, on a limited number of
people, at a particular time, in a particular place, accomplished,
and could from its very nature accomplish, only a purely
physical result ; in the case of the so-called sacrifice of Christ,
a lifelong inward spiritual process, wrought by the eternal
Spirit of God, on an indefinite number of people, in all nations,
and throughout all ages, accomplishes from its very nature a
glorious spiritual result. In short, the physical act of baptism
through a human agent is not more utterly different from the
spiritual process of renewal through the agency of the Spirit
of God, than the Levitical symbolical method of sanctifying
outwardly and in the flesh the whole people of Israel is
different from the Christian ideally valid method of sanctify-
ing in heart and conscience the whole body of believers.
There is no doubt a physical death on the part of Christ, or
rather there is a countless number of physical deaths on the
part of all believers (including Christ), forming a step or steps
in the Christian process corresponding in some degree to the
death of the victim in the Levitical action ; but there is also
a physical burial on the part of all believers (including Christ),
forming a step or steps in the process of renewal corresponding
in some degree to the immersion into the water in the act of
baptism. It would, therefore, be just as reasonable to say that
the process of renewal in the individual believer is through a
literal baptism, performed by Christ as minister, as it would
be to say that the process of sanctification in the whole body
of believers is through a literal sacrifice, offered by Christ as
priest. Indeed, it would be more reasonable in the latter case
than in the former; for (1) the analogy between the many
acts of baptism resulting in physical purification and the many
processes of renewal resulting in spiritual purification is, if
anything, closer than the analogy between the single physical
action of offering a victim whereby the whole people of
VII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 313
Israel were abortively sanctified, and the many spiritual
processes of dying to sin and rising again to righteousness,
whereby the whole body of believers (Christ included)
are really sanctified; and (2) we know for certain that the
physical action of baptism was expressly instituted to repre-
sent the spiritual process of renewal in the individual believer,
whereas it is doubtful in the extreme whether the physical
action of sacrifice was instituted to represent the spiritual
process of sanctification from all sin in the whole body of
believers. On this last point there is no evidence whatever in
the Old Testament, while the New Testament evidence is of a
kind that cannot be accepted in its entirety, and therefore
ought not to be accepted at all ; it is the fruit of the method
of Old Testament exegesis then current, which, if adopted by
any modern writer on his own account, and apart from Rab-
binical precedent, would at once be scouted as ridiculous, or
passed by as unworthy of the smallest attention. Thus,
therefore, since it is utterly preposterous to say that the method
of renewal to righteousness in the individual believer is a
literal baptism, it is utterly and equally, or rather it is still
more preposterous, to say that the method of sanctifica-
tion from sin in the whole body of believers is a literal
sacrifice. Not to repeat here the fact already alluded to that
the death of Christ had a bearing on the whole world, and
not merely on the whole body of believers a fact to which
there is nothing in the least parallel in the Levitical sacrifices,
which bore on " the people," on all of them equally, and on
them only.
Continuing our discussion of the figurative language of the
Epistle to the Hebrews, we have now to ask what corresponds
in the original heavenly tabernacle which the Lord pitched,
not man, to the two divisions, outer and inner, of the earthly
tabernacle, and to the services of priests and high priest con-
nected with each of these respectively. We have seen that
the so-called sacrifice of Christ is sometimes, and more par-
ticularly in the section x. 1-18, represented as corresponding
in a general way to any one or to all of the Levitical " sacrifices
and offerings and whole burnt- offerings and sacrifices for sin "
314 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
(x. 8), that in this case Christ Himself corresponds not to the
high priest merely, but to the ordinary priests, who minister
daily in the first tabernacle, that the victim is identified with
the body of Christ, in accordance with a specific declaration
of Scripture, which has no doubt helped to determine the
whole of the present point of view, and that the daily and
yearly repetition of the same sacrifices is viewed as a proof
that such sacrifices could not accomplish the end at which
they aimed, could not " take away sins," or " make perfect
them that drew nigh." It is not meant that Christ is repre-
sented as corresponding exclusively to the ordinary priests, or
His offering exclusively to the daily offerings in the first
tabernacle ; but rather, since Christ and His offering are here
thought of as corresponding generally to all the priests and all
the offerings of the law that the ordinary priests and the
daily offerings are at least not excluded from that which Christ
represents ; nay, that in the section referred to, they occupy
the place of prominence, overshadowing and shutting out of
view everything special to the high priest and his annual
entrance into the holy place. But now the question arises,
Why should there be a holy place at all ? And why should it
be entered by the high priest alone, and only once in the year ?
What in the region of heavenly things has given rise to a
ceremonial so well defined in the region of earthly things ?
Surely a place and actions fenced by boundaries and regula-
tions so specific cannot be without some special significance,
and cannot be without a definite equivalent in the ideal
tabernacle..
The force of this question is distinctly felt by our author,
for he attempts a solution in the section ix. 1-10. Chapter ix.
opens with the remark that "the first covenant also [as well
as the second, whose nature has just been described (viii. 8-13)]
had ordinances of service, and its sanctuary, one of this world
[in contrast to the other world sanctuary of the second cove-
nant]. Then follows a detailed account of the whole tabernacle,
giving the principal pieces of furniture in each of the two
divisions, and the author proceeds : "Now, these things having
been thus prepared, the priests go in continually into the first
tabernacle accomplishing the services ; but into the second
VII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 315
the high priest alone, once in the year, not without blood
which he offereth for himself, and for the errors of the
people ; the Holy Ghost this signifying, that the way into the
holy place hath not yet been made manifest, while the first
tabernacle is yet standing which is a parable for the present
time, according to which [parable] are offered both gifts and
sacrifices, which cannot, as touching the conscience, make the
worshipper perfect " (vv. 6-9).
According to this passage, the holy place or second tabernacle
was framed under the guidance of the Holy Ghost to furnish
a visible parabolic representation of the future heavenly
world-period with its spiritual ministers and services, while the
first tabernacle was intended to furnish a kindred para-
bolic representation (7rapa/3o\*j, v. 9) of the present earthly
world-period with its fleshly ministers and services. And the
fact that all the priests entered continually into the first
tabernacle accomplishing the services or acts of worship (ra?
\arpeias, v. 6), whilst into the second tabernacle the high
priest alone entered, and that but once in the year, with blood
to offer for the sins of the whole people, this fact was meant
by the Holy Ghost to indicate or symbolically represent " that
the way into the holy place hath not yet been manifested (7re<pa-
vepwa-Oai), while the first tabernacle is yet standing " (v. 8), in
other words, that heaven with the heavenly things has not yet
been revealed (Rom. viii. 18, 19, seq.}, or manifested (<pave-
paOii, 1 John iii. 2), while earth and the earthly things still con-
tinue. The close parallelism between the present passage
and the passage x. 18-23 enables us to supplement the figure,
and explain how the manifestation ((pavepaxris) of the way into
the holy place is conceived to take place. That which covered
and concealed the holy place was the veil, which barred the
way, so that the high priest alone could enter, and even he not
continually, but only for a moment once in the year. And the
revelation or manifestation of the holy place, or of the way into
the holy place, takes place through the rending of the veil ;
when that is done, the way is open for constant access and
worship, not to the high priest alone, but to all the priests, or
people, or worshippers (x. 19). The veil is identified with the
flesh of Christ (v. 20), the rending of which is thought of as
316 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
practically coinciding with the taking down of the first taber-
nacle (ix. 8), that is, with the consummation of the ages
(v. 26), the times of the restoration of all things (Acts iii. 21),
the time of reformation (Heb. ix. 10), of regeneration (Matt,
xix. 28), when Christ shall appear a second time apart from
sin unto salvation (Heb. ix. 28). The destruction of Christ's
earthly body of flesh, the destruction of Jerusalem with its
temple, its earthly ritual system, its fleshly ordinances (v. 10),
and the destruction of " this creation " generally (xii. 27 ;
Rom. viii. 19-22), are all thought of as practically coinciding,
and as together giving place to that new, better, heavenly
creation which is still in course of coming to the birth (a-ww-
Sivei, id., v. 22); and they are all regarded as symbolically
represented by the first tabernacle, of which the veil was the
inner wall ; so that when the first tabernacle is taken down or
destroyed, heaven or the holy place is made manifest.
Such is the author's attempt to account for the two divisions
of the Mosaic tabernacle, and for the specific officers and actions
connected with each. That he attributes it to the Holy Ghost
is a matter of course. It is quite evident that we have here
an entirely different typological system from that with which
we have just been dealing, and one, if possible, still more arbi-
trary and incongruous. On the very face of it, the scheme is
about as arbitrary as could well be conceived, for no one would
have the faintest idea a priori that the several parts of the
Old Testament ritual system were intended to convey the
meaning that is here put upon them. Nor is the present
view of the meaning of the ritual system more arbitrary and
incongruous in itself, than it is utterly inconsistent with the
author's fundamental quotation. So far is it from being the
case that the earthly tabernacle in all its parts is a copy of
things in the heavens, that from all that appears no part of the
earthly tabernacle is here regarded as in strictness of language a
copy of anything; for though the holy place (not, be it observed,
the whole tabernacle) is still conceived to represent heaven,
it does not appear to have been copied from it, but rather
the whole tabernacle, including the ceremonies associated with
each of the two divisions, was an original creation of the Holy
Ghost, intended to teach by means of symbol or parable that
VII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 317
the present world, and especially the ritual system belonging
to it, was shadowy and evanescent, and that heaven was still
unopened and inaccessible. Anyhow, it is certain that the
first tabernacle, with its ceremonies, is "a parable for the present
time," which seems to imply that it cannot possibly be a copy
of things in the heavens ; it is also certain that the author him-
self makes hardly any pretence of establishing a parallel between
the high priestly action connected with even the second taber-
nacle and the spiritual realities of the heavenly world. Let us
glance at a few particulars.
The author starts from the fact that the priests entered
constantly into the first tabernacle doing worship or service,
that is to say, they were continual worshippers (\arpev ovre$ 9
cf. xii. 28), though only of an indirect, distant, secondary
character, not being admitted into the immediate presence
of God. The high priest, on the other hand, was a direct,
immediate worshipper ; he was admitted into the very pres-
ence of God ; but then he was not a constant, not even a daily
worshipper ; he entered the presence of God only for a moment
once in the year ; and besides, he was but a single isolated
individual in what should have been a whole nation of wor-
shippers. Thus, on the one hand, the first tabernacle with its
constant, but indirect, distant, secondary services, bears a cer-
tain resemblance to the present earthly world state, with its
carnal ordinances, where men worship indeed, and worship
constantly, but only in an imperfect, outward, un spiritual
manner ; on the other hand, the second tabernacle, with its
direct and immediate, but for the mass of the people, and
even of the priests, inaccessible service resembles the future
heavenly world state, as viewed from the present, where men
shall enjoy the most intimate fellowship with God, and worship
Him face to face. In other words, the first tabernacle, with
its services, affords a picture or parable of earth while it is
still present; the second tabernacle, with its services, affords a
picture or parable of heaven while it is still future. This
implies that when the earthly world state has become past,
and the heavenly world state present, the second tabernacle
with its services will no more afford a suitable parable
of heaven and the worship connected therewith ; for when the
3i8 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
heavenly world state has become present, heaven will be thrown
open ; the veil will be torn away ; the first ta'bernacle will be
taken down ; and instead of the high priest entering alone for
a moment once in the year, the High Priest shall enter as the
forerunner of the whole people, and both He and they shall
worship continually in the immediate presence of God. So
substantially we find it in x. 19, seq., where it is said,
" Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holy
place, in the blood of Jesus, by the way which He inaugurated
for us, a new and living way, through the veil, that is to say,
His flesh, and having a great Priest over the house of God,
let us draw near with a true heart in fulness of faith, having
our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our body
washed with pure water." In this way heaven, though it
still resembles the second tabernacle as being the place of
God's immediate presence, yet, in respect of the persons and
ceremonies connected with it, it rather resembles the first
tabernacle. In brief, therefore, the first tabernacle, with its
ministers and services, furnishes relatively to the second a
symbolic picture of the present earthly state of existence
especially of the whole earthly tabernacle, with its earthly
offerings, and its imperfect fleshly worshippers ; the second
tabernacle, with its one minister and its one annual service,
furnishes relatively to the first a symbolic picture of heaven,
Avhile still unentered either by Christ or believers ; neither
the second tabernacle, nor the first, with their respective
services, is even alleged to furnish a symbolic picture of
heaven after it has become the worshipping place of Christ
and believers.
It must be admitted that we have now a singularly intricate
combination of figures ; we have figures within figures, and
types typifying types ; we have even parts of types typifying
the whole types of which they are parts, in addition to a mass
of other materials. Nor is it at all evident why the symbolic
materials should be interpreted as they are in preference to
other ways that might easily be suggested. For example, if
the mere fact that the whole of the priests did not enter con-
tinually into the second tabernacle accomplishing services be
an indication that " the way into the holy place hath not yet
VII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 319
been manifested," why should not the fact that the people did
not enter at all into the^rs^ tabernacle accomplishing services
be an indication that the way into the tabernacle as a whole
hath not yet been manifested ? And, in that case, why should
not the whole tabernacle be regarded as equally earthly and
equally antitypical of heaven, as all standing or falling together,
in accordance with the writer's original idea, to which he
reverts in v. 11? Again, if the fact that the ordinary priests
did not enter the second tabernacle daily, as they entered the
first, be an indication that heaven was not yet opened, why
should not the fact that the high priest did enter the second
tabernacle yearly, and entered too as the representative of the
whole people, be an indication that heaven was already opened ?
And, in that case, why should not the entrance of the high
priest be taken to symbolise that of Christ, entering as the
forerunner of His people, who should follow by the same
" way," without any rending of the veil, or taking down of the
first tabernacle ? This surely would fall in much better with
the parallel which the author is bent on establishing between
the functions of Christ and those of the Aaronic high priest ;
and, indeed, in spite of what is here said, the author appears
to adopt this very view of the symbolism in several parts of
the present chapter.
Possibly it may be thought that there is no real antagonism
between the idea that the first tabernacle is a parable for the
present time after the fashion of which (KO$ i']v) the earthly
ritual is practised, and the other idea that the whole taber-
nacle is an antitype of heaven, that all things in the earthly
tabernacle were made after the fashion of the type (/cara TOI/
TVTTOV) shown to Moses in the mount ; for it may be thought
that sparable (7rapaj^o\rf) and an antitype (avTiTviros) are two
different things, and that the first tabernacle may be part of
an antitype of a whole heavenly tabernacle, and at the same
time a parable showing forth the nature of the whole earthly
ritual system. But if such a notion were entertained, it would
have no other effect than to bring back upon us in its full
force the question we are now seeking to answer, What is
there of a heavenly nature corresponding to the inner and
outer divisions of the earthly tabernacle with their respective
320 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
ministers and services ? The notion, however, is manifestly
quite groundless. For when the first tabernacle is regarded
as a parable for the present time, the second tabernacle is
identified with heaven in a manner that leaves no room for a
heavenly first tabernacle. The word parable is not applied to
the second tabernacle as representing heaven, but only the
word " antitype" (ix. 24); more commonly heaven is simply
spoken of under the name of the " holy place " (v. 8) just as
it would be if the relation between the two were described by
the words copy (vTroSciyjULa), or shadow (r/cm), or antitype
(avTLTW7ro<s) ; and so completely does the second tabernacle
represent the whole of heaven without the first, that the open-
ing up of heaven, and the opening up of the second tabernacle
by the entire removal of the first, are spoken of in the same
terms (v. 8). Such a mode of representation would be impos-
sible, if the first tabernacle, including the veil, were still
regarded as antitypical of heavenly things, for the removal of
the latter would imply the removal of " things which cannot be
moved" (xii. 28). It follows that, according to the paragraph
before us, the first tabernacle, with its ministers and services,
represents was framed to represent the earthly ritual
system, or rather the whole earthly sphere of existence,
including especially the ritual system, and nothing else ; that
the second tabernacle represents heaven, the whole of heaven,
and that only ; that the first tabernacle is related to the second
as earth to heaven ; and that the author's original view, accord-
ing to which the first tabernacle, equally with the second, was
copied from things in the heavens, has been completely dis-
rupted and departed from.
But this is not all. The main reason why the author sought
to identify the tabernacle, or any part of it, with heaven was
that he might make out a parallel between the ministry
of Jesus and that of the Aaronic high priest. Now, on
the present system, the second tabernacle is indeed identi-
fied with heaven ; but the high priest's ministry is so far from
being identified with the ministry of Jesus that the two are
implicitly contrasted, and the former is interpreted as indi-
cating symbolically what the latter will not be rather than
what it will be. Even the bare tabernacle, apart from its
VII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 321
ministry, does not properly represent heaven uutil the veil has
been torn away, the latter being identified with an earthly
thing, and having nothing corresponding to it in heaven. The
high priest entered alone within the veil ; he entered as the
representative of the whole people ; and this element of repre-
sentation is commonly held to be of the very essence of priest-
hood properly so called : but before Jesus could enter, the
veil had to be removed, and then the way was open not for
Jesus only, but for the whole body of believers, who enter each
on his own account, and worship without the intervention of
a representative. And the permanent entrance and service of
all believers (Jesus included) bears no resemblance whatever
to the momentary entrance and service of the high priest alone
once in the year. In fact, our author himself, as already
stated, implicitly contrasts the two things, and regards the
high priest's entrance in no other light than as a proof that
" the way into the holy place hath not yet been manifested "
as a proof, therefore, that an entrance parallel to that of
Jesus and believers into heaven could not as yet take place.
When Jesus entered, he did not enter by the high priest's
way, nor on the high priest's mission, but "by a new . . .
way which he inaugurated FOK us through the veil " (x. 20),
and on a new mission, " to appear before the face of God [as
an Intercessor] on our behalf" (ix. 24). Thus, if the author's
attempt to account for the first tabernacle and its ministry by
making it a parabolic representation of the present world-
period, with its fleshly ritual system, be opposed to the proper
antitypical character of the first tabernacle and its ministry,
his identification of the second tabernacle and its ministry
with heaven, while still unopened, is also and almost equally
opposed to the proper antitypical character of the high priest's
ministry in the second tabernacle. And if the ministry of the
ligh priest be not properly antitypical, the high priest himself
cannot be a proper antitype of Christ, that is, Christ cannot be
a priest, nor His work a sacrifice, as the author would fain prove
them to be. And so the present interpretation of the ritual
system, if it begins by directly contradicting the author's funda-
mental quotation, so it ends by completely refuting his main con-
tention; it is, therefore, from his standpoint, absolutely suicidal.
Y
322 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
How far the functions of Christ are from being priestly, and
His death from being a sacrifice in any proper sense, when
His flesh is identified with the veil, and the holy place is
regarded as a parabolic representation of heaven unopened,
may be very easily shown. The victim in this case cannot be
the body of Christ, since that is already appropriated to repre-
sent the veil, and since it were highly absurd to represent veil
and victim as absolutely identical. The thing offered must
therefore be Christ Himself in His inner Divine nature
(ix. 14), who must at the same time do duty as priest. Thus
priest and victim must be here absolutely identical and inter-
changeable, and both must be united in the most intimate
manner to the veil, so as almost to form part of it ! Altar
there can be none, unless we regard the veil as at the same
time supplying the place of an altar. The rending of the veil
and the offering of the victim must take place in the same
moment, and must together constitute but a single act, which,
however, is not performed by the priest, who is perfectly
passive in the whole transaction. Add to this that the Priest-
victim is an invisible, impalpable eternal Spirit, incapable of
death in the ordinary sense, and then say if anything can be
conceived more utterly different from an ordinary sacrifice
than such a performance. ' There is really nothing in the
entire proceeding having the least resemblance to any one of
the elements entering into an Old Testament sacrifice. Blood
is indeed spoken of (x. 19), but this only shows that the
whole affair is a mass of incongruities, for the blood must pro-
ceed from the veil and not from the victim ! The only trait
common to an Old Testament victim and the spiritual nature
of Christ is that the latter is morally spotless (U/ULCDIULOV, ix. 14)
as the former was physically spotless ; in all other respects the
two are totally different. And that the entrance through the
rent veil subsequent to the offering has scarcely anything in
common with the annual entrance of the high priest into the
holy place has been already pointed out.
I need not insist on the general incongruity of making one
half of the earthly tabernacle, with its ministry and its offerings,
represent earth and earthly things, notably the things con-
nected with itself, while the other half, equally earthly in
VII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 323
itself, is made to represent heaven and heavenly things ; nor
upon the absurdity of identifying the flesh of Christ, a purely
earthly thing, with the veil skirting the margin of a heavenly
tabernacle. Such freaks of interpretation are of interest only
in this regard that they serve to evince the boundless caprice
of the author's fancy, and that of the age in which he lived.
But it is unnecessary, and possibly it may be considered
unfair, to dwell too minutely on the present typico- parabolic
interpretation of the two main divisions of the Mosaic taber-
nacle, for, as already hinted, our author himself has so little
confidence in it that he hastens to depart from it almost as
soon as it has been propounded. No doubt he returns to the
same, or a similar view, in chap. x. 18, seq., but the view itself
is so little in harmony with the fundamental parallel which
the author wishes to establish that it is no wonder if he
neither adheres to it consistently nor pushes it into detail.
In the long section, ix. 11-28, it falls almost entirely out of
sight, and instead, we find that the author brings together
materials culled from several independent ritual ceremonies,
so as to form a picture of the work of Christ much more nearly
approaching to a complete parallel than could be derived from
any single ritual observance. But we must quote his exact
words :
"But Christ having come an High Priest of the good things
to come, through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not
made with hands, that is to say, not of this [earthly] creation,
nor yet through the blood of goats and calves, but through His
own blood, entered in once for all into the [heavenly] holy
place, [after] having obtained eternal redemption [ = accom-
plished through death "the redemption (or remission x. 18,
or purification, i. 3) of the transgressions under the first
covenant" (ix. 15) ; "put away sin" (v. 26) ; "borne away
the sins of many" (v. 28) ; " perfected for ever the sanctified "
(x. 14)]. For [to give the rationale of eternal redemption,
understood in the sense now indicated, on ritualistic principles
showing how it was " obtained "] if the blood of goats and
bulls, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling them that have been
defiled, sanctify unto the purity of the flesh, how much more
shall the blood of Christ, who, through the eternal Spirit,
324 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
offered Himself [ = died " unto the redemption of the trans-
gressions" (v. 15)] without blemish unto God, purify your
conscience from dead works to serve the living God. And for
this cause [ = since eternal redemption of the whole body of
believers from sin was so obtained] He is the Mediator of
a new covenant, in order that, a death having taken place
unto [ = so as to " obtain "] the redemption of the trans-
gressions under the first covenant, they that have been called
[ = " the people " whose transgressions have been redeemed
and done away, who have been sanctified, purified, and made
perfect for ever, by the death that took place] might receive
the promise of the eternal inheritance " (vv. 11-15).
The first thing that strikes us in these verses is that the
author, discarding entirely the notion that the earthly first
tabernacle represents the earthly world generally, including,
especially, the flesh of Christ and the Mosaic ritual system,
returns to his former idea that the whole earthly tabernacle is
a secondary shadowy representation copied from a heavenly
original. There is such a thing as " the [afore-mentioned]
greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that
is to say, not of this creation," as well as " the [corresponding]
holy place," not made with hands, that is to say, not "an
antitype of the [afore-mentioned] true" holy place (v. 24).
Both the divisions of the tabernacle, and all the vessels of the
ministry (v. 21), are now again regarded as "the [afore-men-
tioned] copies of the [afore-mentioned] things in the heavens "
(v. 23), "the heavenly things" (viii. 5), "the good things to
come" (ix 11), "the heavenly things themselves" (v. 23).
At the same time, the author makes no reference to any
officers or actions connected with the heavenly first tabernacle :
though the building with its furniture is there, it serves no
conceivable purpose, but for the high priest to pass through on
his way to the holy place. The reason, of course, is that the
author, having nothing of a spiritual kind which he can read
Into the officers and actions connected with the first tabernacle,
has, likewise, nothing which he can read out of them. The
ordinary priests and daily offerings are not said to typify any-
thing, simply because there is nothing for them to typify ; and
this indicates that the problem raised, and attempted to be
VII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 325
solved in the previous section, is ultimately given up as
insoluble. Some, indeed, have supposed the author's notion to
be that the two heavenly tabernacles are joined into one by
the removal of the veil, and that this accounts for the absence
of any priestly action but that of the high priest in the second
tabernacle. But when the veil is spoken of as removable
(x. 20), it is identified, not with something heavenly, but with
something earthly viz., the flesh of Christ, and its removal
forms part of the removal of the whole first tabernacle, that is,
of the earthly world generally (ix. 8-10 ; xii. 27). Was there
a veil originally between, the two heavenly tabernacles, or was
there not? If there was not, why should two tabernacles be
distinguished at all, or mention be made of a " holy place " in
the ideal heavenly " tabernacle " ? How could all things in the
earthly tabernacle have been made after a heavenly pattern ?
and how could the believer's hope be said to enter " into that
which is within the veil " ? If there was, how could it possibly
be removed seeing that heavenly things are such as " cannot
be moved."
Again, the holy place with the high priest's action is not
now regarded as a picture of heaven while still unopened, but
as formerly the high priest's entrance within the veil into
tbe earthly holy place is taken to represent the entrance of
Christ within the veil into the heavenly holy place, the veil
being thought of as still standing after the entrance (vi. 20).
And instead of the infrequent and isolated entrance of the
high priest being put forward as an indication that heaven was
still unopened, his frequent entrance is put forward as an indi-
cation that the sacrifice he offered was ineffectual (ix. 25).
The high priest entered often, because his sacrifice could not
put away sins, nor sanctify the people ; Christ entered once,
and only once, because His sacrifice accomplished all that
needed to be accomplished, put away sins and sanctified the
people.
Still, though the writer endeavours to make out a general
parallel between the action of the Jewish high priest in symboli-
cally sanctifying the whole people of Israel and the action of
Jesus in truly sanctifying the whole body of believers,
he does not even allege that the parallel holds with anything
326 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
like exactness. The fact that the one entered often, while
the other entered but once, is only one among many acknow-
ledged points of difference. The high priest entered within
the veil as the representative of a whole people, and therefore
alone ; Jesus entered within the veil as the leader or fore-
runner of a whole people (vi. 19, 20), and therefore together
with them. The high priest entered only for a moment,
returning after he had performed certain specific actions ;
Jesus together with the whole body of believers enters to
abide for ever. These differences give rise to others that
change the entire form of the action attributed to Jesus, so
that it bears very little resemblance to the action of the
Jewish high priest. On the day of atonement, the high priest,
after slaying the people's goat, carried the blood within the
veil, and sprinkled it on the mercy-seat ; and in the act of so
doing he made atonement on behalf of the whole people ;
that is, in the view of our author, he made an abortive attempt
at the entire removal of sin from their whole nature. There
were, it is true, other ceremonies, such as the sending away of
the scapegoat, to which our author makes no allusion, because
he has nothing at all corresponding to them. But there was
no such thing as the sprinkling of blood or anything else on
the people; nor yet on the priest, whose atonement for per-
sonal sin was carried out separately, by sprinkling the blood of
a separate victim on the mercy-seat ; which is what is referred
to in the statement that the high priest was bound " to offer
up sacrifices first for his own sins and then for the people's "
(vii. 27 ; cf. v. 3). Moreover, in the case of a Jewish sacrifice,
the sprinkling of the blood on the mercy-seat was the very act
and point of offering, and there was no such thing as an offer-
ing of the victim independent of this, for the mere slaughter
of the victim is nowhere spoken of as the offering, any more
than is the burning of its carcass without the camp. The act
of offering always effected the atonement (Lev. xvi. 24); but
the slaughter of the victim had no effect whatever ; that which
effected the atonement was the sprinkling of the blood which
was, therefore, the act of offering (Lev. xvi. 15, 16). In the
case of Jesus, on the other hand, the so-called high priestly
action is altogether different. I do not mean merely that the
VII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 327
literal action of Jesus as Saviour of men differs in its essential
nature from the action of the Jewish high priest that it does
of course but that the figurative action which our author
attributes to Jesus differs entirely, even in its outward form,
from the high priest's action on the day of atonement. No
doubt the eternal redemption carried out by Christ, the leader of
salvation, on the whole body of believers is represented as
effected through His offering a sacrifice (ix. 26), just as the
abortive redemption, in the parallel case of the whole people of
Israel, was effected through the high priest's offering a sacrifice.
But the fact that all the people, and not the high priest alone,
have here to enter the holy place, leads our author to repre-
sent all alike as entering through blood ; and as there were
occasions when the people were purified from ceremonial
defilement by sprinkling blood upon them (vv. 13, 19), while
there was no ritual precedent for representing the people as
carrying in blood and sprinkling it on the mercy-seat, the
author modifies the atonement ceremony so far as to make the
shedding of His blood by Jesus, and the sprinkling of it on
the people, the medium of sanctifying Him and them respec-
tively, and so dispenses entirely with the sprinkling of blood on
a heavenly mercy-seat. This further permits of the point of
offering being identified with the point of death, and thereby
avoids the extreme incongruity of representing the physical
blood of Jesus as being carried into heaven, while on the other
hand, by retaining the offering of Jesus in the region of
earthly things, some sort of parallelism is preserved between
it and the earthly offering of a Jewish high priest. Thus it
comes to pass that there is no idea, and no mention of offering
the blood of Jesus at all at least there is no idea of carrying
'it within the veil and offering it on a heavenly mercy-seat.
Christ enters " through [shedding] His own blood" (v. 12);
the people of Christ enter "in [= sprinkled with fv. 14;
x. 22)] the blood of Jesus" (x. 19); but in neither case is
I the blood offered. On the contrary, the offering always coin-
cides with the death of Christ, which is the means of putting
away sin (ix. 26), or obtaining redemption (vv. 12, 15), and
which took place before the entrance into the holy place.
Christ obtained redemption in the putting off of the body of
328 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
His flesh through death (Col. i. 22), just as every believer
obtains redemption by dying after His example (Rom. vi. 6 ;
viii. 23) ; and He entered into the holy place as our fore-
runner after having so obtained it (cupa/u-evos, v. 12). It is
distinctly stated that Christ offered up, not His blood, nor
even His body, but " Himself," in and through His " eternal
Spirit," the glorious, " spotless," Divine nature, which forms
so utter a contrast to the ignoble and corruptible nature of
goats and bulls and that this offering of Himself was the
condition on which, and the means through which, His blood
became available for sprinkling the consciences of believers
(v. 14). Still, though the thing offered be the "Spirit," and
not either the body or the blood of Jesus, the offering is not
to be understood as taking place subsequent to the entrance.
The point of offering is once and again identified with the
point of death : " As it is appointed unto men once to die, . . .
so also Christ was once offered" (vv. 27, 28) : "Nor yet that
He should offer Himself often, ... for then must He often
have suffered " (vv. 25, 26, cf. Paul's "I am now being offered,"
2 Tim. iv. 0). Christ can be spoken of alternatively as offer-
ing Himself (v. 25), or as being offered (v. 28), and the latter
expression, which points to His passive (TraQelv, v. 25) or violent
death at the hands of men, is of itself sufficient to prove that
the death and the act of offering are identical.
Naturally enough, therefore, the offering of Christ is repre-
sented either as the means of effecting the purification of sins
directly (v. 28), or of providing the blood by which purifica-
tion is effected through sprinkling on the conscience (v. 14),
a mode of representation that would be impossible, if purifica-
tion were effected through sprinkling the blood on the mercy-
seat. Not that the offering of himself and the sprinkling
of the people are thought of as dissociated, as if a man
might be sprinkled with the blood of Jesus at any time,
and so enter the holy place. The offering and the sprinkling
are regarded as parts of a single ceremony, and they constitute
together the act of " obtaining eternal redemption," to wit,
" the redemption of the transgressions under the first cove-
nant." " Jesus, that He might sanctify the people through
His own blood suffered [ = offered Himself] without the gate "
VII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 329
(xiii. 12); and the suffering or shedding and sprinkling are
thought of as occurring together. The idea that the blood is
kept up, and sprinkled on the people individually, separately,
and subsequently, is out of the question when the writer is
drawing a parallel between the action of Jesus and that of
the Aaronic high priest. When it is said that Jesus entered
into the holy place " through His own blood" (ix. 12), this
must mean through shedding His blood ; when it is said that
he sanctified the people "through His own blood" (xiii. 12),
this must mean through sprinkling His blood upon them ; and
both these acts are so closely associated with the act of offering
Himself, that the effects of both can be connected immediately
either with His death (ix. 15), or with his offering (vv. 26,
28). If when it is said that Jesus entered into the holy
place " through His own blood," the meaning were that He
entered carrying His blood to sprinkle it upon the mercy-
seat, this would imply that His own redemption from sin
took place not before but subsequent to His entering, and
that the redemption of the people took place in the same
individual act with His own. And this would still be a very
imperfect parallel to the action of the Jewish high priest ; for
the high priest's own redemption from sin was accomplished
by a separate act of offering on his own behalf, so that when
he entered with the blood of the people's goat he entered
already sanctified. He did not therefore enter through the
blood of the people's goat in any sense, but simply with it.
Apart from this, however, there would be no need for sprink-
ling the blood on the people at all (v. 14; x. 22), if their
redemption were accomplished in the act of sprinkling the
blood on the mercy-seat. If men, as the writer asserts, are
completely sanctified by the sprinkling of blood upon them,
what in addition to this could the sprinkling of the blood on
the mercy-seat do for them ? And besides, how comes it
that there is nowhere the slightest reference to the sprinkling
of the blood of Christ on a heavenly mercy-seat, when there
is so frequent mention of sprinkling it on the hearts or con-
sciences of the people? The literal impossibility of the thing
is not appreciably greater in the former case than in the
latter. Yet the blood is nowhere said to be offered. The thing
33 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap-
offered is, on the contrary, always sharply distinguished from
the blood, particularly in this very passage (v. 14). The act
of offering is identified with the act of death (vv. 15, 25, 28),
while it is clearly separated from the entrance, as a thing that
takes place independently (vv. 25, 26), the entrance being
made, not to offer, but after the offering, and for an entirely
different purpose (v. 24). There is no doubt, therefore, that
when Jesus is said to enter " through His own blood," this
means through shedding His own blood, that when the people
are said to enter " in the blood of Jesus," this means
sprinkled with the blood of Jesus, that the offering is identi-
fied with the death of Jesus, having been enacted during His
" manifestation " (v. 2fi), that the shedding and sprinkling
are so closely associated with the act of offering as to form
parts of the same ceremony, the effect of the latter being
identical with the joint effect of the two former, while yet
neither the shedding nor sprinkling is properly speaking the
act of offering, and, finally, that the eternal redemption, the
perfected sa notification, alike of Jesus and of all the people, is
represented as taking place before either He or they enter into
the holy place.
Still, it is not to be denied that the author does vacillate
in his mode of representation. And no wonder. For the
ceremony of sprinkling the people, being no part of the cere-
mony of offering on the day of atonement, tends to assume
an independent position, and appear in Christ's case also as a
thing distinct from the offering, in spite of the fact that the
offering of Christ to resemble that of the Jewish high priest,
must be the sole means of sanctifying the people as a body
(x. 14). And it is easy to see that this separation of the act
of sprinkling from the act of offering, though it introduces
great vacillation, inconsistency, and incoherency into the
writer's figurative representations completely destroying, as
it does, any parallelism that is still left between the so-called
offering of Christ and the offering of the Jewish high priest on
the day of atonement is yet a step in the direction of repre-
senting the work of Christ after a literal or matter-of-fact
fashion. For, in actual experience, the sanctification of
believers is quite separate and distinct from the offering
VII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 331
which is identified with the death of Jesus. Accordingly,
we find that when the sanctification of believers is represented
as effected by the sprinkling of Christ's blood, instead of by
the offering of Himself, there is usually a mixing up more or
less of literal with figurative representations, which is very
interesting to observe.
Take, for example, the passage x. 18, seq., "Having there-
fore, brethren, boldness for the entering of the holy place in
the blood of Jesus, . . . let us draw near with a true heart, in
fulness of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil
conscience " where the distinctly figurative language is put
in italics. So, in the section now under consideration, when
the writer says, " For if the blood of goats and bulls . . .
sanctify unto the purity of the flesh, how much more shall
the blood of Christ, who, through the eternal Spirit, offered
Himself without blemish unto God, purify your conscience
from dead works to serve the living God" (vv. 13, 14) the
use of the future " shall purify," in contrast to the past
" offered," indicates that the sprinkling is viewed as taking
place separately from the offering, and hence, instead of
referring to the persons affected figuratively as " the people,"
the writer refers to them literally in the words "your [=be-
lievers'] conscience." Again, the following exhibits a mixture
of literal and figurative language : " Therefore, while (M^) it
was necessary that the copies of the things in the heavens
should be purified with these [sacrifices, it was necessary (^e)]
that the heavenly things themselves [should be purified] with
better sacrifices than these [not with these sacrifices ] for
Christ entered not into a holy place made with hands, the
antitype of the true [holy place], but into heaven itself, now
to appear before the face of God [to make intercession
(vii. 25)] 07i our behalf: nor [(oi5) was it necessary ($e)]
that He should offer Himself often," &c. (ix. 23-25 ; cf. vii.
27). Here Christ's offering of Himself constitutes a separate
item (pvSe, v. 25) from the sprinkling of "the heavenly things
themselves" (v. 23), including "the people" (v. 19), by
which purification is immediately effected. And in combina-
tion with this, instead of saying " but [Christ entered] into
the true holy place," the writer winds up literally, "but
332 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
[Christ entered] into heaven itself, now to appear before the
face of God on our behalf. "*
Once more, there is a striking mixture of literal and
figurative language in the closing verse of the present chapter,
where we read that " Christ, having been once offered to bear
away the sins of many, shall appear a second time, apart
from sin, to them that wait (aTre/c^e^o/xeVo^) for Him unto
salvation" Usually when the work of Christ is represented
under the form of a sacrifice, whereby the sins of the people
are done away, the eternal redemption of the whole body
of believers is represented as having been " perfected for ever "
in the act of Christ's death, while Christ Himself is represented
as having sat down for ever at God's right hand, from hence-
forth expecting till His enemies be made the footstool of His
feet (L 3 ; x. 12, 13). With respect to Christ in particular,
the common representation is that He " entered once for all
into the holy place" (vi. 20 ; ix. 12, 24), that He became, on
sitting down at God's right hand, " a high priest for ever "
(v. 9, 10; vi. 20; vii. 26; viii. 1), a point of view which,
as the language employed shows, has been determined by
Ps. ex. Yet in the verse just quoted Christ is represented as
appearing or being manifested a second time in much the
same way as He was manifested the first time (v. 26), and
this too for the purpose of carrying out to " perfection " the
salvation of His people. That this latter mode of representa-
tion is literal, and the other figurative, is sufficiently evident.
In fact, we have here just the ordinary New Testament
language respecting the second coming, as the following
quotations will show : " For our citizenship is in heaven, from
* Of course it need not ba observed that there is no spiritual or heavenly reality
answering to the purification through blood-sprinkling of the earthly " tabernacle,
and all the vessels of the ministry, and almost all things " connected therewith,
for the sufficient reason that there is nothing in the heavenly world having the
faintest shadow of resemblance to all or to any of these things. The hearts of
believers are purified by faith (Acts xv. 9 ; 1 Pet. i. 19, 22), and this answers to
the purifying of "all the people" (Heb. ix. 19 ; x. 22) by blood -sprinkling, but
there are no other heavenly things themselves to purify. The statements of the
commentators on this matter may be taken as a fair enough sample of the depth
of absurdity to which exegesis, especially Continental exegesis, is capable of
descending.
VII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 333
whence also we wait (aTre/c^e^o/xefla) for a Saviour, the Lord
Jesus Christ ; who shall transform the body of our humiliation,
&c. (Phil. iii. 20). " Waiting (a-Tre/c^^o/xeVoi;?) for the revela-
tion of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall also confirm you unto
the end " (1 Cor. i. 7, 8). " Waiting (aTreK^-^ofjLevoi) for our
adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body " (Rom. viii. 23).
" We through the Spirit by faith wait (aTre/f^e^o/xe^a) for the
hope of righteousness " (Gal. v. 5). " Waiting (Trpoa-SeyoiJLevoi)
for the blessed hope, and appearing of the glory of our great
God and Saviour Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us, that
He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify to Himself
a peculiar people zealous of good works" (Tit. ii. 13, 14;
cf. " obtain eternal redemption," and " purify your conscience
from dead works to serve the living God," of our passage).
From these passages it is manifest not only that Christ did
not enter once for all into the holy place, did not sit down
for ever at God's right hand, but also that He did not enter
" having obtained eternal redemption," having " purified His
people's conscience from dead works to serve the living God,"
and did not sit down " having made purification of sins," or
having " perfected for ever them that are sanctified." When
these things are said to have been done, the process by which
the whole body of believers, from the foundation of the world
to its consummation, are really sanctified through the operation
of the Spirit of God, is presented under the form, and in the
phraseology, of the action by which the whole congregation of
Israel were abortively sanctified through the sprinkling of a
goat's blood on the mercy-seat, with the result that the whole
work of salvation, from beginning to end, both as accom-
plished on the person of Christ Himself, and as accomplished
on the persons of all believers, is practically identified
with the death of Christ. t Even the forty days that elapsed
before the ascension would suffice completely to overthrow the
literal view of the writer's language, for there is no doubt
that the entrance into the holy place is represented as taking
place in immediate connection with the offering, which again
is identified with the death of Jesus. If Jesus literally entered
heaven and sat down for ever at God's right hand the moment
after His death, the Gospel story must be either pure fable or
334 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
else pure figure ; and, conversely, if the Gospel story be
literal historical fact, the language of the present writer
must be figurative which indeed it evidently is. As a
matter of literal fact, the entrance into heaven on the part of
Jesus was a lifelong spiritual process, just as it is in the case
of each believer (x. 19, seq.). So far as the person of Jesus
Himself was concerned, the final step in the process .of
redemption took place at the resurrection when His body was
spiritualised and glorified ; but so far as the persons of
believers are concerned, the final step in the process of
redemption will take place only at the second coming the
absolute " consummation of the ages" when sin with all its
consequences shall be finally done away, and the eternal in-
heritance shall be received.
It has been said that the writer modifies the day of atone-
ment ceremony so as to represent high priest and people as
alike entering the holy place in or through blood, and that
this is done by combining together two ceremonies that are
quite distinct. The union of the two different ceremonies is
seen in the words, " If the blood of goats and bulls, and the
ashes of an heifer, sprinkling them that have been defiled,
sanctify unto the purity of the flesh," &c. (v.13).* " The blood
of goats and bulls " belongs to the day of atonement ceremony ;
" the ashes of an heifer " belong to another distinct cere-
mony (Num. xix.), in which "those that had been defiled,"
were actually " sprinkled " for purification. The one ceremony
furnishes the idea that blood effects purification, the other
* It may be well to note that the writer speaks somewhat loosely when he says
that "the blood of goats, &c. . . . sanctifieth unto the purity of the fash." Such
language is strictly true only of the "divers washings" (v. 10, cf. "bodies washed
with pure water," x. 22), of which the writer has just been speaking, and which
are doubtless still running in his mind. The divers washings with water (Num.
xix., &c.) actually produced a purifying effect on the flesh, and the effect of these
is, for the time being, taken as the typical (using that word in its modern sense)
effect of a Levitical action. To our way of thinking, at any rate, the application
of blood and ashes would defile rather than purify the flesh ; but what the writer
means is that the effect of that and all similar actions (such as washing) was a
merely fleshly effect ; it touched or influenced the flefeh only, and did not reach to
the heart or conscience ; while the action was directed to purification, it affected
the flesh, nothing more, so that loosely speaking it might be said to purify the
flesh.
VII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 335
the idea that sprinkling the defiled effects purification, and
from the two ceremonies combined leaving out incompatible
details the writer obtains the general doctrine that sprinkling
the denied with blood is the means of purification. And since
defilement is the sole hindrance to entering the holy place and
serving the living God, since purification is the sole condition
of entrance and of worship, it follows that sprinkling the
defiled with blood may he represented as the condition of
entrance into the holy place. But if the people are purified,
and enter the holy place through the sprinkling of blood upon
them, there is no longer any room or need for the sprinkling
of blood on the mercy-seat ; unless, indeed, this latter should
be regarded as the means of purifying the high priest himself.
Since, however, the entrance of the high priest is regarded as
entirely parallel to that of each one of the people, he entering as
forerunner and they as afterrunners, it is much more natural
to think of him also as doing so through being sprinkled with
blood. Accordingly, the heavenly high priest is represented
as entering the holy place " through [shedding = being
sprinkled with] his own blood " (v. 12). Not only so, but the
same form of representation appears to be transferred to the
earthly high priest, when he is said to enter into the holy
place "through the blood of goats and bulls" (v. 12), or, "in
blood not his own" (v. 25), both these expressions being
manifestly identical in meaning, and the former being used in
a sense corresponding to "through his own blood" (v. 12), as
the latter is used in a sense corresponding to " in the blood of
Jesus" (19). When Jesus entered heaven, He did so already
purified " through [having shed been sprinkled with] His own
blood ;" when the high priest entered the holy place to purify
the people, he did so already purified indeed, but not either
" through [= sprinkled with] the blood of goats and bulls," or
" in [ sprinkled with] blood not his own : " still, as sprinkling
with blood was a recognised means of purification, the high
priest might be represented, though un historically, as entering
" through [= sprinkled with] the blood of goats and bulls," or
"in [ sprinkled with] blood not his own," in like manner as
Jesus entered " through [= sprinkled with] His own blood," and
as believers enter "in [= sprinkled with] the blood of Jesus."
336 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
Of course when the form of the ceremony is so modified, and
the precise method of purification so understood, the so-called
offering of Christ loses much of its importance ; at least the
point of offering in the case of Christ no longer corresponds to
the point of offering in the case of the Jewish high priest ; for
in the high priest's case the point of offering was the very
point of purification, whereas in the case of Christ, the offering
merely provides the blood by which purification is effected in
a separate act of sprinkling.
Such, then, is the manner in which the ceremony on the
day of atonement appears to be modified in order to bring it
into closer accordance with the spiritual facts. Now, it is
evident that the atonement ceremony, as thus modified, bears
a decided resemblance to the ceremony which took place at the
inauguration of the Sinaitic Covenant. It is not strange, there-
fore, that our author should pass almost insensibly from the
one to the other, " And for this cause [ = such being the
method of atonement as effected by Christ on believers]
He is the Mediator of a new covenant, in order that, a death
having taken place for the redemption of the transgressions
under the first covenant, they that have been called (iii. \,seq.}
might receive the promise of the eternal inheritance. . . .
Wherefore, not even the first covenant [much less the second]
hath been inaugurated without blood ; for when every com-
mandment had been spoken by Moses unto all the people
according to the law, he took the blood of the calves and the
goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled
both the book itself and all the people, saying, This is the
blood of the covenant which God commanded to you-ward "
(vv. 15-20). These verses must be taken in connection with
what is said elsewhere in the epistle respecting the new
covenant and the inheritance attached to it (e.g., chaps, iii., iv. ;
viii. 6-13 ; xii. 18-29). In a previous connection we
noticed that the parallel between law and Gospel is the
most fundamental in the whole epistle. The hortatory por-
tions of the epistle are based on the a fortiori argument
that if those who set at nought the law were visited with
severe penalities, those who set at nought the Gospel will be
visited with penalties severer still ; while the doctrinal portions
VII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 337
are subsidiary to the hortatory. It is this parallel between
law and Gospel that meets us in the above passages under the
aspect and nomenclature of the first and second covenants.
With respect to the Sinaitic covenant and the ceremony by
which it was inaugurated, one general remark may be made
viz., that if it afford a picture of the plan of salvation at all,
that picture must be complete in itself. If the death of
Christ corresponds to the sacrifice by which the covenant was
inaugurated, and if that death have the effect of sanctifying
once and for ever the whole body of the people, and if the
promised inheritance, the enjoyment of which constitutes the
end of the covenant, belong to the sanctified people, then the
scheme is complete, there is no room for any other ceremonies.
If the work of Christ, as Mediator of the Gospel, be represented
by the works of Moses as mediator of the law, it cannot at the
same time be represented by the work of the Aaronic high
priest on the day of atonement. If heaven correspond to the
land of Canaan, which the whole people are supposed to enter
as soon as the covenant is made, it cannot at the same time
correspond to the holy place, nor to the whole tabernacle, nor
to anything but the land of Canaan. And so, by much the
greatest part of the ritual law is left entirely out in the cold,
there being nothing whatever to answer to it under the Gospel.
Theologians often speak as if the work of Christ corresponded
at once to that of the high priest on the day of atonement,
and to that of Moses, as mediator of the covenant ; but it is
only fragments of these two functions that will hang together*
Our author indeed, besides recasting entirely the form of the
atonement ceremony, weaves in traits from other ceremonies
into that by which the covenant was inaugurated : the " water
and scarlet wool and hyssop " is taken from the ceremony
alluded to in v. 13, in which the ashes of an heifer were
sprinkled on persons defiled by a dead body; while the
blood of " goats," in addition to " oxen " or " calves," is
probably from the atonement ceremony ; as is also the
sprinkling of " the tabernacle and all the vessels of the
ministry" (v. 21). But this modifying and mixing up of
different ceremonies only shows how great freedom the author
uses with Old Testament materials, and how far any of the
z
338 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
Old Testament rites and ceremonies, and persons and places,
are from affording an exact picture of New Testament things
and persons.
The writer speaks of Jesus as Mediator of a new covenant,
and compares him to Moses the mediator of the old or Sinaitic
covenant. Let us see in what sense the Gospel can be
regarded as a covenant, of which Jesus is the Mediator, and
how far it resembles the covenant made at Sinai.
The English word covenant (like the Hebrew word nn?, and
its equivalent the Greek word SiaOfjKrj') means an agreement
or bargain between two parties, whereby each party comes
under obligation to perform certain conditions towards the
attainment of a common end. Now, the covenant made
between God and Israel at Sinai was precisely such an agree-
ment. On the one hand, the people came under obligation
to obey all the words of the law which Jehovah had spoken ;
on the other hand, Jehovah came under obligation to bestow
<m the people the land of Canaan along with His favour,
fellowship, and protection. In the view of our author, the
nd aimed at in the giving of the law was the same as the end
aimed at in the giving of the Gospel, a people was to be
brought into perfect fellowship of life with God ; and this end
was to be attained by the people fulfilling their condition of
perfect obedience, while God fulfilled His condition of confer-
ring the life. The law was enacted upon promises (viii. 6) ;
there was attached to it the promise of an eternal inheritance
(ix. 15), which those who obeyed it should receive ; and the
aim of the inaugural ceremony is conceived to have been to
sanctify or purify the people, so that they might at once enter
on the possession of the inheritance. This was the covenant
which the Lord made with the children of Israel in the day
that he took them by the hand to lead them forth out of the
land of Egypt (viii. 9).
On the other hand, according to our author's statement,
the new covenant has been made when the law has been
written on the people's hearts (viii. 10), a thing which God
Himself has promised to do ; that is to say, the covenant
state is simply the state of renewal, and the process of making
the covenant must therefore be the process of renewal. This
VII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 339
process of renewal is the same that is spoken of as " the
redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant "
(v. 15). The transgressions under the first covenant include
of course all transgressions whatever belonging to the parties
redeemed, for when the new covenant has been made by
writing the law upon the people's hearts, further transgression
will be impossible, so that eternal possession of the inheritance
will be absolutely secure. By " redemption " (a7ro\vTpw(ri<i)
is meant deliverance from sin through death to sin. The
word cannot possibly be confined to what is usually spoken of
as the impetration of redemption ; there is, in fact, no such
thing as the impetration of redemption, as that phrase is
currently employed. We may distinguish between redemp-
tion in principle and final or complete redemption, but the
distinction of impetration and application is groundless, mis-
leading, and false, as we have already sufficiently shown.
Everywhere in the New Testament, when used with reference
to the salvation of sinners, the word is employed to express
the entire process of deliverance from sin, which is accom-
plished through the death of the sinful person by faith, in the
power of the Holy Ghost. The process is accomplished in the
order of logic or of cause and effect, though not in the order
of time, first on the person of Christ, and then on the persons
of all believers after the example of Christ. The redemption
of Christ's own person was the redemption of the whole
world in principle, and similarly the redemption effected
on the person of each believer, in the first moment of faith, is
the redemption of that believer in principle ; but in neither
of these cases would the use of the word impetration serve
any other purpose than to mislead. Nor is there the smallest,
reason to suppose that the distinction of impetration and
application has any more foundation in the Old Testament
than it has in the New. If the Jewish sacrifices could have
effected the redemption of the Jewish people from sin at all,
they would have effected it directly in the act of their being
offered, not in a separate and subsequent process of applica-
tion. So much is plainly implied in the passage now before
us, which presents the Christian process under the Jewish
form, and where we read of "a death having taken place for
340 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant,
in order that they which have been called might receive the
promise of the eternal inheritance." Thus, confessedly, the
Jewish people, when " called " to enter the land of Canaan,
were redeemed or sanctified, though ineffectually, in a body,
and therefore by means of a death (scil. on the part of the
inaugural victim), and so were prepared to enter in a body on
the inheritance. But in point of fact believers are effectually
sanctified, not by a death, but by innumerable deaths from
the foundation of the world to its consummation ; they enter
on the inheritance, not together, but separately through an
individual lifelong process whereby God's own possession is
redeemed unto the praise of His glory (Eph. i. 14); the
promise is coming more and more into the believer's possession
during his whole earthly life ; it will come into his possession
fully and finally only when the process of dying to sin and
consequent redemption from sin has been completed.
These remarks may suffice to indicate how totally different
the so-called new covenant is from the old which preceded it.
The difference is so complete that it is difficult to put one's
finger on a single point in which the two transactions resemble
each other. Each is apparently a relation between two parties
in the formation of which a mediator plays a prominent part ;
but when we come to look at the 4 two relations, and at the
respective functions of the two mediators, we find that they
are altogether different. Moses received the law at the hand
of angels, couched in the form of commands addressed by God
to the people of Israel, and accompanied by a promise in case
of obedience ; he rehearsed all the words of the law in the
ears of the people, and the people answered, " All that the
Lord hath spoken we will do ; " he then slew the sacrificial
victim, and sprinkled all the people with blood, and this com-
pleted the whole transaction. The essence of the covenant,
which was an engagement between God and the whole people
of Israel, consisted in the fact that the people were pledged to
obey the law, while God was pledged to confer an inheritance
in fellowship with himself. The sprinkling with blood is con-
ceived by our author to have aimed at purifying the people
prior to their entering on covenant obedience, and the inheri-
VII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 341
tance to which such obedience conferred the title. Jesus, on
the other hand, began His work of mediation by assuming
human nature, being in Himself the eternal Son of God; He
passed through a lifelong course of obedience in the midst
of suffering and death, whereby his human nature was
redeemed and glorified ; and He completes His work by
bestowing the grace of His Holy Spirit on each individual
believer, so that he, after the example of Christ, passes through
a lifelong course of obedience in the midst of suffering
and death, whereby his human nature is redeemed and
glorified. The process of which these are the principal
steps extends from the foundation of the world to its
consummation : it was begun, if we may trust our
author himself (chap, xi.), long before the formation
of the Sinaitic Covenant ; it continued throughout the patri-
archal period, throughout the Mosaic or legal period, and into
the Christian period ; and it will end only with the end of
time. Now, surely these two things are different from each
other. To say that in both cases a relation is constituted
between God and a people who are called His is to say almost
nothing, for the word relation is the most general word in the
language ; no two persons or things can exist in the whole
universe without bearing some relation to one another ; and
" every beast of the forest is His " (Ps. 1. 10), " the world is
His and the fulness thereof" (v. 12). When we are told that
Jesus is the Mediator of a covenant between God and the
whole body of believers, this really tells us nothing as to the
nature of Jesus' work, or as to the state of things which He
is the means of bringing into existence. I defy any man to
say beforehand what the nature of the Gospel scheme of sal-
vation would be, merely from being told that it would be a
covenant, and that the law imposed upon Israel at Sinai was
a covenant. All that such a statement could do would be to
lead one to suppose that the Gospel was something quite
different from what it is that it was a bargain of some kind
or other between God and the whole body of believers, which
it is not. The law scheme of salvation gives us absolutely no
clue to the nature of the Gospel scheme of salvation. To call
the Gospel a covenant gives us no more information as to its
342 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
character than to call it a new law. In fact, the present
writer, by calling the Gospel a covenant, does virtually, and
sometimes even expressly, call it a law, as, for example, when
he says of Jesus that " He hath obtained a more excellent
ministry by how much He is the Mediator of a better covenant,
which hath been legislated (Vei/o/xo^e'r/frcu) upon better pro-
mises " (viii. 6). But will any one pretend that the Gospel is
really and literally a law, or that the word law would of itself
convey to the mind any notion whatever of the thing Gospel ? If
not, it is impossible to pretend anything else of the word covenant
or bargain. The Gospel is not even a figurative covenant in
the usual sense, for when a word is applied figuratively, there
is always some obvious and substantial resemblance between
the literal thing and the figurative thing, which has given
rise to the use of the same name for both ; but in the case of
the word covenant, as applied to the Gospel, it is impossible
to discover any such resemblance ; the essential elements of a
covenant are all wanting. For example, there are no mutual
pledges passed between God and the body of believers. There
is no " Do this, and thou shalt live," on the one side, " All
that the Lord hath spoken we will do," on the other. There
is nothing to form the basis of such pledges. God no doubt
promised beforehand to send His Son to save the world, or to
bestow His Spirit on the human race, and this promise, when
viewed as an engagement between God and Abraham or God
and the human race as a pledge given on the one hand and
accepted on the other might be regarded as a covenant
(Gal. iii. 8, 15, &c.). But then it is not the promise of God
to write the law on the people's hearts that is regarded by
the author of Hebrews as the new covenant, for that
promise was not mediated by Christ, nor by any one else, nor
was it accompanied by the slaughter of a sacrificial victim-
things which enter into the very essence of a covenant in our
author's conception of it (ix. 15). It is the relation con-
stituted by the fact that the law has been written on the
people's hearts that is thought of and spoken of by the author
of Hebrews as the new covenant. Now, that relation has
nothing whatever in common with the relation constituted by
the mutual pledges passed between God and Israel at Sinai,
VII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 343
The relation between husband and wife is a covenant because
of the mutual pledges passed when it was entered into ; the
relation between master and servant is a covenant for a like
reason ; but the relation between God and the redeemed in
glory, like that between God and Christ, is not a covenant in
any sense. It is, on the one hand, like the relation between
father and son, where obedience is given not by contract but
out of pure love ; and, on the other hand, like the relation
between master and slave, where obedience is given not by
contract but through sheer necessity. If it be said that the
formation of the Sinaitic covenant was attended by the sprink-
ling of blood on the people, while the formation of the so-
called new covenant is attended by the lifelong sufferings and
death of all who enter it, this, though true, is nothing to the
purpose, for these two things are as different from each other
as the world is wide. What is there in common between the
sprinkling of the blood of slaughtered oxen on a whole con-
gregation of people and the lifelong sufferings and death of an
indefinite series of individuals engaged in doing well ? It is
only inveterate prejudice and habit that could lead any one to
suppose there is the least intrinsic resemblance between the
two things. On the other hand, if it be said that the process
of renewal is followed by obedience in the case of believers as
the act of passing the mutual pledges was intended to be
followed by obedience in the case of the Israelites, this also
may be admitted ; but the obedience which follows renewal
in the case of believers no more constitutes the Gospel a cove-
nant than the failure to obey which followed the passing of
the pledges in the case of Israel constituted the law not a
covenant.
It is not strange, therefore, that the author should not hold
very rigidly by the parallel between the Sinaitic covenant and
the Gospel dispensation. In the very act of stating it, he
passes over to another meaning of the Greek word for covenant
(SiaOrtKTj), which, if the parallel implied in its introduction
were sustained by facts, would have the effect of transforming
completely our idea of the Gospel scheme of salvation. This
new meaning is brought in for the purpose of proving what is
obviously contrary to fact, and therefore cannot be proved
344 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
viz., that before a covenant can be formed there must have
been death, either on the part of the contracting parties, or on
the part of a sacrificial victim a conclusion which the author
contrives to reach through the logical fallacy of an ambiguous
middle term. " For where a testament (SiaOyK^ is, there
must of necessity be the death of him that made it ; for a
testament is of force where there hath been death ; for doth
it ever avail while he who made it liveth?" (vv. 1C, 17).
The argument is : The Scripture asserts that a covenant
(StaOtjKij) will be made between God and His people (viii. 8) ;
and since every testament (SiaOrjKr)') must be preceded by the
death of Him that made it before it can become valid, therefore
the covenant (StaOifai) between God and His people must be
preceded by the death of Him that made it before it can be-
come valid. But this argument proves something less, and a
great deal more, than is required. It does not prove that Christ,
the Mediator of the new covenant, must have died, though
this is what the author wishes to prove ; for it is not Christ
but God who declares that He will make the covenant (viii. 8).
The two covenanting parties are distinctly said to be God and
the houses of Israel and Judah, neither of which parties is
conceived of as dying in order that the covenant might become
valid. It does prove that not merely the maker of every
diaOriKt] [= testament] must die before it can become valid,
but that the maker or makers of every SiaOrjKt] [= covenant]
must do the same, which is a thoroughly false conclusion.
There might be a covenant, such as marriage (Mai. ii. 14), or
such as that referred to by the Apostle Paul (Gal. iii. 15),
without any death accompanying it at all. Indeed, one might
just as legitimately turn the writer's argument the other way
about, and prove that no SiaOiJKrj need have a death attending
it, because a certain special kind (e.g., marriage) needs to have
none. If the fact that one special kind of SiaOijKrj requires
death in order to its validity, prove that every kind of SiaOqien
requires death in order to its validity, then, by parity of reason-
ing, the fact that one special kind of SiaOrjKt] does not require
death in order to its validity, must pfrove that no kind of
Ao&yffiy can require death in order to its validity. The simple
truth is, that the writer's argument proves nothing as to a
VII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 345
covenant like the Sinaitic, which was not a testament. It is,
therefore, utterly worthless for the purpose in hand. The
argument would be valid only if the Gospel scheme of salvation
were not a covenant at all, but a veritable testament, and in
this light the author seems for the moment to regard it. And
there is really very little to choose between a covenant and a
testament, as a type or representation of the Gospel dispensa-
tion. The work of redemption is quite as like to the latter
transaction as it is to the former ; that is, it has hardly any
resemblance to either, and of course it cannot at the same time
resemble both. The reference to the nature of a testament,
in proof of the nature of a covenant, is indeed abortive as a
piece of reasoning ; but such logical and exegetical devices are
quite in keeping with the methods by which New Testament
writers endeavour to commend their ideas to the acceptance
of their readers. The fact that Christ died, and that His
death was necessary to the salvation of the world, was known
to the author upon other and quite independent grounds, but
this is the method he adopts of proving the fact to the satis-
faction of his readers. The word StaO^icri is a Scripture word,
applied to the future Messianic salvation. If, therefore, it can
be plausibly made out that a death is requisite in order to the
valid formation of a SiaOq&j, this will establish the necessity
of Christ's death to the satisfaction of readers who bow
implicitly to the authority of Scripture. To us the writer's
argument appears to weaken the cause which it is meant to
support ; but then it was not intended for us, but for his
original readers, to whom it would doubtless appear in a differ-
ent light. Anyhow, such arguments plainly indicate that the
author is reading his ideas into words that were never meant
to convey them, and from which they cannot be extracted by
any rational method. The Christian plan of salvation has
just as little in common with a covenant, of the form described
in the present chapter, as it has with a testament; its nature
can be extracted from either or both of these words only by
first reading it into them.
Something has been said above as to how the author of
Hebrews, in seeking to commend the Gospel to his readers,
346 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
endeavours to support his views and reasonings by constant
reference to Old Testament Scripture ; how the method of
interpretation which he adopts and makes use of is manifestly
popular and unhistorical, so that the sense which he extracts
from an Old Testament passage is never, or almost never, the
sense which it was intended to convey ; how the results of his
exegesis of single passages are sometimes of the most startling
character, while the results of his exegesis of separate passages
frequently contradict each other ; and yet how he attributes
all his fanciful notions respecting the Old Testament to the
direct authority of the Holy Ghost. It may, therefore, be
deemed desirable, before we proceed further, to add a remark
or two of a general nature on the author's way of looking at
Scripture.
There is no doubt that the author of Hebrews, in common
with the other New Testament writers, regards the whole Old
Testament as having been dictated by the Holy Ghost, or, as
we should say, plenarily, and, as it were, mechanically, inspired.
It is God that speaks in Scripture, and the words of Scripture, in
all its " divers portions" (i. 1), are the words of God pure and
simple (i. 5, 6, 7, 13 ; iii. 7; iv. 3, 7; v. 5, 6; viii. 8, 13; x. 15).
Whoever may have been the human author of a passage, the
words of the passage are " even as the Holy Ghost saith "
(iii. 7), or "beareth witness" (x. 15); and the meaning of
Scripture, including the ordinances and arrangements contained
in Scripture, is not what the human author may have signified
or intended, but what the Holy Ghost signifies and intends
(ix. 8). In communicating Scripture, which is the very Word
of God, the human author is nowhere, and is scarce worth
mentioning the Holy Ghost is everywhere, and the words
are therefore directly ascribed to Him. In short, the human
author of Scripture is the mere penman of the Holy Ghost;
" for a prophet," as Philo says,^ " is an interpreter, God within
him, suggesting to him what should be said ; " or, as the (prob-
ably) pseudonymous 2 Peter puts it, " No prophecy of Scrip-
ture is of private interpretation [i&'ctf eV/XJo-ea)? = is an
exposition of the writer's own thoughts], for no prophecy ever
* De Prcem. 9, Mang. ii., p. 117.
VII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 347
came by the will of man, but men spake from God, being
moved by the Holy Ghost" (i. 20, 21). Even when a Scrip-
ture writer appears to be speaking of himself, and recording
his own experiences, he is not speaking of himself, but record-
ing the words of Christ in His incarnate state, as dictated to
him by the Holy Ghost (Heb. ii. 12, 13; x. 5-7). In the
same way Paul asserts that "All Scripture is inspired of God,
and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for
instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be com-
plete, furnished completely unto every good work " (2 Tim.
iii. 16) ; and, again, when interpreting a passage from Ps. Ixix.,
so as to imply that it records the words of Christ in His
incarnate state, as dictated beforehand to the human author by
the Holy Ghost, he says that " whatsoever things were written
aforetime were written for our teaching" (Rom. xv. 4) " for
our admonition, on whom the ends of the ages are come "
(1 Cor. x. 11).
With this notion that Scripture in its every word and letter
was directly communicated to the human author by the Holy
Ghost is naturally connected another viz., that all the parts of
Scripture must have a profound spiritual sense worthy of their
Divine Author. The burden of all the Old Testament writings
must be the Christian plan of salvation ; every passage that is
or can be quoted must have a reference of one kind or another
to Gospel facts, persons, or processes ; and if a Christian or
Messianic sense cannot be elicited by the ordinary method of
interpretation, it must be elicited by the typical or allegorical
method. Everywhere almost in the Old Testament the Saviour
Himself is speaking, and speaking concerning Himself, and the
work which God has given Him to do. In Ps. ii., in Ps. viii.,
in Ps. xviii., in Ps. xxii., in Ps. xl., in Ps. xlv., in Ps. xcv., in
Ps. xcvii., in Ps. cii., in Ps. ex., in Isaiah viii., and in other
similar passages, which means in all Old Testament passages
whatever, Messiah or His work is the theme. To suppose any-
thing else would be to suppose that the Holy Ghost occupied
Himself in revealing and dictating, if not the merest trifles, at
least the most ordinary matters of human observation, such as
the every day experiences of Old Testament saints an idea
which cannot for a moment be entertained. " Thou shalt not
348 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn," says the author of
Deuteronomy (xxv. 4). " Doth God take care for oxen," asks
the Apostle Paul, expecting a negative answer, " or saith He it
altogether on account of us [the preachers of the Gospel] ?
Yea, on our account [alone] it was written, that he that
ploweth might plow in hope," &c. (1 Cor. ix. 10). It is in
this same spirit that the author of Hebrews constantly looks
at Scripture.
Now it is unquestionable that the New Testament writers,
in so regarding the Old Testament, were not enunciating a
new theory either of inspiration or interpretation, they were
simply adopting and following out the current theory. The
notion that Scripture is fully inspired down to the utmost
limits of every phrase, that it has all been written by prophets
in a state of ecstasy, having been directly communicated word
for word by the Holy Ghost, who operated on the faculties of the
human author much in the same way that the hand of a musician
operates on his lyre ; that it is, therefore, in the most imme-
diate and absolute sense the Word of God, unadulterated by
the slightest admixture of anything human ; that it can con-
tain nothing trivial, nothing faulty or unworthy of God, nothing
that is matter of common experience and observation, and has
a bearing merely or chiefly on the daily life of those to whom
it was first addressed, but must consist of prophetic oracles
(such as the Divine Spirit would be required to reveal) whose
meaning is occult and mysterious, and belongs rather to the
future than to the present, is beyond all doubt a Jewish
scholastic notion which the New Testament writers adopted
in the same way that they adopted the typico- allegorical
method of interpretation."' 5 "
* " For a prophet utters nothing that is his own (tSiof, cf. i8ia$, 2 Pet. i. 20),
but everything is foreign, being prompted by another. Neither is it lawful for a
wicked man to be an interpreter of God ; and therefore no bad man is properly
inspired, but the thing is suitable to the wise man alone^ since he alone is (Joel's
sounding instrument, being beaten and struck invisibly by Him. . . . For these
also [Isaac, Jacob] show themselves to be prophets, as by many other circum-
stances, so especially by their addresses to their children. For ' Assemble your-
selves together that I may tell you what shall happen to you in the last days ' uas
the statement of one inspired ; for the perception of the future is not natural to
man. ... As long, therefore, as our mind shines around and hovers around,
VII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 349
The whole spirit of the age in which the New Testament
was written tended in the direction of such a dead, ossified,
mechanical theory of inspiration, and in matters of this kind
matters, that is, of Scripture criticism and exegesis the
New Testament writers were completely dominated by the
spirit of the age, so that their testimony on the question of
pouring as it were a noontide light into the whole soul, we, being masters of our-
selves, are not taken possession of; but when it approaches setting, then, as is
natural, the ecstasy of inspiration falls upon us both possession and mania. For
when the Divine light shines upon us, the human light sets, and when the former
sets, the latter rises and begins to shine. And this is wont to happen to the race
of the prophets. For the mind that is in us goes abroad at the arrival of the
Divine Spirit, but at His departure it again comes home. For it is not lawful for
what is mortal to dwell with what is immortal. . . . For in real truth the prophet,
even when he seems to be speaking, is silent, and another Being is employing his
vocal organs, his mouth and tongue, for the reporting of whatever He wishes ; and,
beating these organs with invisible art and perfect musical skill, He produces
sounds that are sweet and perfectly harmonious, and full of every kind of melody "
(Philo, Quis rer. div. her. 52, 53, Mang. i., pp. 510, 511).
Such is Philo's view of inspiration, of which we have an echo in the passage of
2 Peter, already quoted. That it coincides exactly with the view underlying our
own epistle will hardly be questioned by any one. Both writers alike ignore
absolutely the existence of a human element in the inspired writings, identifying
the words of Scripture with the words of God in the closest manner possible; both
alike are manifestly without even the rudiments of an historical consciousness, and
regard Scripture exclusively from the dogmatic standpoint ; to both prophecy in
the sense of prediction is the characteristic feature and the test of an inspired reve-
lation ; both find everywhere in the sacred oracles just their own peculiar sub-
jective ideas, the one his system of Greek philosophy, the other his Gospel of
Jesus Christ ; and both, we may add, imagine that they are specially inspired or
divinely guided in interpreting Scripture as they do. If the exegesis of the one
appears more forced and unnatural than that of the other, this is due simply to
the fact that the doctrines of the Greek philosophy ai'e further removed from the
historical sense of the Old Testament than is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. A
dogmatic view of Scripture with subjective exegesis is common to both writers as
it was universal in the age in which they lived.
The reader who wishes to see the evidence on this important matter more fully
gone into than my limits will allow may be referred to The Inspiration of Holy
Scripture, by William Lee, D.D. (Rivingtons), especially Lect. II., with the
relative notes. Dr. Lee, while contending strenuously, and, as I think, success-
fully (1) that the views of Philo and Josephus on the subject of inspiration were
the views universally received among their fellow-countrymen in their own day,
and (2) that these views were adopted in all their essentials by Christ and His
apostles as well as by later Christian writers, maintains, on the ground of reasons,
the force of which altogether escapes my apprehension, that these Jewish scholastic
notions, inseparably bound up as they are with the most fantastic allegorical
exegesis, are to be accepted as absolutely and infallibly true.
350 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
Scripture inspiration possesses no independent value. The
manner in which the later Jews transcribed and amended the
text of the Old Testament would of itself be sufficient to prove
that they held the verbal-dictation theory of inspiration : we
know, at any rate, that both the leading schools of Jewish
thought at and before the Christian era the Palestinian or
Hebrew, and the Alexandrian or Hellenistic had embraced
a doctrine of inspiration quite identical with that which
appears in the New Testament, and that their methods of
interpretation, like those of the New Testament writers, were
purely artificial and subjective, utterly divorced from history,
and having for their aim simply to elicit from the sacred
oracles a meaning that, while harmonising with the idea of
their immediate Divine origin, should meet the practical
exigencies of the interpreter's own day ; and we can easily
see that the apostles, in reasoning with their contemporaries,
could hardly avoid accepting the same or similar views, even
if they had known of any other. The mechanical theory of
inspiration belongs properly to the Jewish schools. From them
it has passed into the New Testament, and thence into the
heads of hyper-orthodox modern theologians, who, following the
example of the Church Fathers, apply it to the New Testament
as well as to the Old. Or rather, perhaps, we ought to say,
that modern theologians hold a theory of inspiration, some-
what akin to that which was universally accepted in the
apostolic age ; for no one at the present time would dare to
adopt and defend the verbal-dictation theory in the exact
form in which it was held by the Jewish doctors and by the
apostles. The plenary inspiration of modern theologians is
not the plenary inspiration of the Jewish schools and the New
Testament writers, but a diluted, rationalised form of it, a
halting half-way accommodation between it and the doctrine
suggested by the facts, and held more or less explicitly by all
reasonable and candid men. The plenary inspiration of
modern theologians is not the mechanical dictation of pro-
phetic oracles, but dynamical assistance in recording matters
of history and experience, with perhaps a sprinkling of pro-
phecy in the strict sense of the word, a work for which each
of the human writers of Scripture is thought to have been
VII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 351
specially prepared, and in the execution of which his peculiar
qualifications, natural and acquired, are everywhere visible.
Just as the orthodox doctrine of the atonement occupies a middle
place between the Jewish method of sacrifice, countenanced
by the author of Hebrews, and the actual literal method, so
the orthodox doctrine of inspiration occupies a middle place
between the Jewish theory of mechanical dictation and the
theory suggested by a study of the facts. And as in regard
to inspiration, so in regard to interpretation. The Messianic
interpretation of modern theologians is not the Messianic
interpretation of the apostles, nor does the typological inter-
pretation of the one coincide with the typological inter-
pretation of the other. No one would now defend the
doctrine that the leading subject of direct discussion in almost
every part of the Old Testament is the Christian plan of sal-
vation, and that Christ is introduced speaking in numberless
passages where the human writer appears to be simply describ-
ing his own experiences. No one would dare to modify and
adapt the language of the Old Testament, in the way that
the New Testament writers modify and adapt it, for the pur-
pose of bringing out a Messianic sense ; as little would any one
think of extracting from the plainest historical statements of
the Pentateuch a recondite prophetic allusion to the Gospel
of Jesus Christ. In cases where the New Testament
writers have themselves applied their method of exegesis, the
result, if it cannot be explained away, must be accepted,
however bitter the pill may be ; but no one would dream of
extending the method to analogous cases ; independent
Messianic interpretation, so far as it exists, proceeds upon
quite different and far more rational lines. Again, scarcely
any one professes to accept the typological system of the writer
to the Hebrews in its entirety, along with the exegetical
reasonings upon which it is based. Who, for example, rests
his belief in the typical character of the Jewish sacrificial
system, on the fantastic conceit that Moses was shown a
model of the earthly tabernacle on Mount Sinai, and that
this model was "heaven itself"? If we look into any
modern work on the " Typology of Scripture," we shall find
that the author pursues a course of his own, paying very
352 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
little attention to the results of New Testament typological
interpretation, and none at all to the exegetical reasonings by
which those results are obtained. In short, the method of Old
Testament interpretation, followed by orthodox theologians,
is not the method of the apostolic writers, but a diluted,
rationalised form of that method, a halting half-way
accommodation between it and the historical method of modern
times. The method of the apostolic writers is the very
method of the Jewish schools, but the method of orthodox
theologians is quite different and far more rational.
In saying that the views of the New Testament writers upon
inspiration and interpretation are just the views of their con-
temporaries, it is not meant that they never interpret a
passage except upon lines previously sketched, or that there is
nothing novel in the results of their exegesis. Their method
of interpretation, so far as they have a method, is identical
with that of their contemporaries, and many of the results
likewise betray coincidence ; but the apostles brought to the
Old Testament new ideas touching the person of Christ and
the plan of human salvation, and the results of the current
exegesis had to be adjusted to these new ideas. So that the
exegetical phenomena presented by the New Testament are
the outcome of an attempt to combine the popular exegetical
method and its results with ideas properly apostolic. It must
also be confessed that the apostles quote and handle the text
of the Old Testament with a freedom that appears to us not
quite in harmony with the belief that every word had been
dictated by the Holy Ghost. But then we know that the
same thing was practised, not only by the Jewish theologians
before them, but by the Fathers of the Christian Church after-
wards, though all alike held the verbal -dictation theory of
inspiration, and held it too with reference to the Greek trans-
lation of the LXX., not less than with reference to the original
Hebrew. And the thing may be accounted for, partly by the
fact that such free handling of the text was unavoidable, if the
Old Testament was to be interpreted as they were bent on
interpreting it that is, if it was to be construed throughout in
a Messianic sense ; partly by the fact that they believed them-
selves to be Divinely inspired and guided in dealing with the
I
VII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 353
Old Testament as they did, and seeing in it the details of the
Gospel they preached ; whilst the utter absence of an historical
consciousness would greatly, or it may be totally, blunt their
sense of the inconsistency that appears so glaring to us.
And, at any rate, not only their express statements, but the
very nature of the meanings which they are constantly putting
upon Old Testament passages, prove unmistakably that they
regarded the whole of Scripture as the Word of God in the
most immediate and absolute sense.
When, therefore, the writer to the Hebrews asserts that the
Holy Ghost signified such or such (ix. 8), nothing more is
implied than that, in the author's judgment, the Old Testament
was dictated by the Holy Ghost, and that the popular typico-
allegorical method of interpreting the Old Testament was a
correct method both which positions we now know to be
thoroughly erroneous and untenable. It is sometimes alleged
that we cannot reject the doctrine of plenary inspiration with-
out impugning the veracity of the New Testament writers,
who evidently held that doctrine, with reference at least to the
Old Testament.* But the question is not a question of veracity
(in the sense in which that word is commonly used), but a
question of knowledge. It would be absurd to charge a man
with inveracity because he does not happen to be omniscient.
A man is chargeable with inveracity only if he states to be
true what he knows to be false a thing which no one alleges
against the New Testament writers. There is no doubt what-
ever, that when the New Testament writers adopt the doctrine
of plenary inspiration, and the current scholastic method of Old
Testament exegesis, they state to be true what they believe to
be true, but there is just as little doubt that they state what
is quite inconsistent with demonstrable historical fact (cf. e.g.,
Heb. x. 5, seqJ), the reason being that in all such matters their
knowledge was simply on a level with that of their contem-
poraries. It does not require an extravagant amount of
charity to believe that the doctrine of inspiration universally
accepted in the apostolic age was honestly accepted, and that
the method of exegesis generally employed was honestly
* See, e.g., Westcott, Introduction to the Study of the Gospels, Appendix A.
2 A
354 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
employed : the difficulty is to believe that the same doctrine
and the same method can be honestly accepted and employed
by learned and intelligent men amid the light of modern
times. That both as regards the Old Testament and as
regards the New, the plenary theory of inspiration is a false
one ought not at this time of day to require to be said, nor
should any sober-minded man who knows the facts, and
whose conscience has not been drugged by self-interest or
something worse, make any pretence of defending it any
more than of defending the typical method of interpretation.
VIII.]
CHAPTER VIII.
OLD TESTAMENT RELIGION ACCORDING TO THE AUTHOR
OF HEBREWS.
TTTE said above that the Gospel is no more a covenant in
T V the proper literal sense than it is a law, and we
showed that, if the writer to the Hebrews sometimes speaks
of it as a covenant, he also sometimes speaks of it as a law
as a scheme legislated upon promises (viii. 6). To this we
have now to add that the Gospel is no more a law than the law
was a Gospel, and that if our author sometimes speaks of the
Gospel under the name of the law, he also sometimes speaks
of the law under the name of the Gospel. In chaps, iii., iv.,
he draws a parallel between Israel under Moses at the exodus
and believers under Jesus at the time of their spiritual
deliverance ; but instead of assimilating the circumstances of
believers to those of Israel, by presenting the Gospel under
the form of the law, he assimilates the circumstances of Israel
to those of believers, by presenting the law under the form of
the Gospel. The object in view and the method of argument
are substantially the same as we meet with elsewhere. The
writer proceeds on the basis of Scripture quotations. His aim r
as usual, is an immediately practical one, to encourage and
stimulate his readers to faith and obedience, or, more strictly,
to deter them from unbelief and disobedience, in the midst
of the trials to which they were exposed. This is accom-
plished by first establishing a parallel between the case of
Israel and the case of believers, and then holding up the fate
of the former as a beacon of warning to the latter arguing
that if Israel suffered the well-known historical penalties as
the consequence of unbelief and disobedience, believers must
355
356 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
suffer penalties equally great, or still greater, if they bebave
in a similar way. He endeavours to show that the law was a
message of good tidings, calling the people of Israel to enter
into fellowship with God, just as the Gospel is a message
of good tidings, calling all who hear it to enter into fellow-
ship with God. By way of proof are adduced two Old
Testament passages, which the author quotes, combines, and
interprets in a fashion peculiarly his own. One is from
Gen. ii. 2, where it is said that " God rested (/caTeVauo-ej/) on
the seventh day from all His works " (iv. 4) ; from which the
author infers that there is a definite something called the
Rest (/caraVaucrf?) of God, which God Himself has enjoyed
since the works of creation were finished, and which men may
share with Him. The other passage is from Ps. xcv., and is
in the following terms : " To-day if ye hear His voice,
harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, like as in the
day of temptation in the wilderness, wherewith your fathers
tempted Me by proving Me, and saw My works forty years.
Wherefore I was displeased with this generation, and said,
They do alway err in their heart : but they have not known
My ways ; as I swear in My wrath, they shall not enter into
My rest" (KaTairavariv JULOV, iii. 7-11).
These words, which were really addressed to the Jews, pro-
bably in the time of the exile, are understood by the writer of
our epistle to have been addressed to the hearers of the Gospel
in his own time. " To-day " is identified with the Christian
era (iii. 13), and "His voice" with the voice of God, who
" at the end of these days hath spoken unto us in His Son "
(i. 2). The " rest " of God, which the writer of the Psalm
used as a descriptive synonym for Canaan, is identified with
the " rest " of God spoken of in Gen. ii. 2, from which Israel
at the exodus is supposed to have fallen short through un-
belief, which was never offered to any one subsequent to that
time (iv. 4-7), and which is therefore still in reserve ; and
the "word of hearing" (iv. 2), to which the "voice" gives
utterance, is represented as a message of good tidings, " call-
ing " (iii. 1) a people to enter into tkat rest and share it
with God, which they may and ought to do by faith (iv. 2).
In this way the author reads the Gospel into the framework
VIII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 357
of the Psalm by the help of the passage in Genesis. And he
does so without in the least modifying its essential nature.
For the Gospel is in truth a message of good tidings, calling a
people to enter by faith into rest in fellowship with God.
But when the Psalm is so interpreted, we discover at once
that the same identical rest which is offered to believing
Christians in the Gospel must have been offered to believing
Israelites in the law, in other words, that the law must have
been a message of good tidings, calling a people to enter by
faith into rest in fellowship with God, just as the Gospel is a
message of good tidings, calling a people to enter by faith into
rest in fellowship with God. If believers under the Christian
dispensation can be warned against unbelief and hardness of
heart by the example of Israel at the exodus, on the ground
that the circumstances of Israel at the exodus era were in all
respects identical with the circumstances of believers at the
Christian era that the voice speaking was the same (the
voice of God), the nature of the message or word spoken the
same (good tidings), the thing offered, or promised, or to
which men were invited, the same (the rest into which God
entered at creation), the condition of acceptance or compliance
the same (faith) then it follows that the law, which was
spoken to Israel through Moses, is here represented as absol-
utely identical with the Gospel, which is spoken to us through
Jesus just as the relation constituted between God and Israel
on the basis of the law through the mediation of Moses is
elsewhere represented, if not as absolutely identical, at least
as very similar to the relation constituted between God and
believers on the basis of the Gospel through the mediation of
Jesus (viii., seq.) and that Canaan is here represented as
absolutely identical with heaven just as heaven is elsewhere
represented, if not as absolutely identical, at least as very
similar to Canaan (ix. 15; xii. 18, seq.)
There is no manner of doubt that the above is a true
account of the meaning of the whole passage. " Exhort one
another day by day, so long as it is called To-day ; lest any one
of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. . . . Let
us fear, lest haply, the promise being left of entering into His
rest, any one of you should seem to have come short of it :
358 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
for indeed we have had the Gospel preached to us, even as
also they [cf. " Now the first covenant also (as well as the
second) had ordinances of service and its sanctuary," &c.
(ix. 1) ; " Wherefore, not even the first covenant (much less
the second) hath been dedicated without blood" (ix. 18)],
but the word of hearing did not profit them, because they
were not united by faith with them that heard. . . . Seeing
therefore it remaineth that some should enter into ['His
rest '], and they to whom the Gospel was before preached
[soil. Israel at the exodus] failed to enter in because of dis-
obedience, He again defineth a certain day. ... If Joshua had
given them rest, He would not have spoken afterwards of another
day. There remaineth therefore a sabbath [= heavenly] rest to
the people of God ; for he that is entered into ' His rest ' hath
himself also rested from his works, [as the saints do in heaven
(Rev. xiv. 1 3), and] as God did from His. Let us therefore
give diligence to enter into that rest [of ' His '], that no man
fall after the same example of disobedience" (iii. 13 ; iv. 1, 2,
6-11). It is clear from these quotations that the inheritance
set before Israel at the exodus was the same spiritual, heavenly
inheritance that is set before all men now, that it was then
offered to Israel in a message of good tidings, as it is now
offered to all men in a message of good tidings, and that faith
was the means of appropriation for Israel then, as it is the
means of appropriation for all men now. The writer dis-
tinctly infers that Israel must have fallen short of God's rest
simply through want of faith, because, in present experience,
faith is the means of attaining thereunto ; " for," says he,
" we who have believed are entering into the rest " (iv. 3).
It would, of course, be idle to think of reconciling this view
of the manner in which the inheritance was offered to Israel,
and of the manner in which Israel fell short of it, with other
representations on the same subject which the epistle contains.
Elsewhere, and particularly throughout chapters viii., ix., and x.,
the author's representation is that the inheritance offered to
Israel was the same inheritance indeed as is now offered to us,
but that, instead of being offered unconditionally in a message
of good tidings, it was attached conditionally to the Sinaitic
covenant or the law ; and the reason why Israel fell short was
VIII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 359
not that they lacked faith to profit by the good tidings which
they heard, but that they continued not in the covenant
which they had come under obligation to obey (viii. 9), while
the ritual system of the covenant was wholly unable to take
away their sins, or perfect them as pertaining to the conscience
(x. 1, seq.). When the writer speaks of the inheritance as
attached to the old covenant, there is no notion of faith in
connection with it, for, as the Apostle Paul says, " the law is
not of faith, but the man that doeth them shall live in them "
(Gal. iii. 12). And the new covenant, though assimilated as
far as possible to the old, is so far from being spoken of as the
same identical Gospel, the same promise of rest, which Israel
heard and received (iv. 1, 2), that, on the contrary, it is spoken
of as a better covenant which hath been legislated upon
better promises, as a better hope through which we draw nigh
to God (viii. 6 ; vii. 19). Nor will it avail to urge that the
generation which came out of Egypt by Moses had the Gospel
preached to them as well as the law, that the inheritance
was offered to them unconditionally as well as conditionally,
and that they fell short, not merely and simply because they
failed to obey the law, but because, in addition to this, they
refused to believe the Gospel. This will not meet the diffi-
culty. For though the writer agrees with Paul in holding that
God made an unconditional promise to Abraham, which
Abraham obtained through faith and endurance (vi. 13-15);
and though he indicates with .sufficient plainness that faith in
that or a similar promise was a means of salvation from the
time of Abel downwards (xi., passim); yet, on the other hand,
he distinguishes in the passage before us two periods and two
only, when the good tidings were preached, when the word
was spoken and the inheritance offered. the period of the
-exodus and "to-day" (iv. 6, 7); he evidently thinks of the
invitation as conveyed to the people by an authoritative
" voice," co-ordinate in importance with that which was heard
in the Son ; and he infers from the words of the Psalm that if
Israel had complied with the voice in the time of Moses, the
promise would not have been left over, and the voice would
not again have been heard (vv. 8, 9). Now we know that the
writer constantly sets over against each other the law, as the
360 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIAN!! Y. [Chap.
former revelation of God, and the Gospel, as the latter revelation
of God ; that he distinguishes the word spoken through angels
from the things which were heard (ii. 1-4), the word spoken
through the Son (i. 2) ; that he contrasts the voice heard at
Sinai and the voice heard at Zion (xii. 19, 25), declaring that
if they escaped not who disregarded the one, much less shall
we escape if we disregard the other (v. 25) ; that he compares
and contrasts the first covenant made at the exodus through
Moses, and the new covenant made " to-day " through Christ
(vii., viii., &c.), alleging that if the first covenant had not failed
of its object, the second would never have been made (viii. 7),
that there is a disannulling of a foregoing commandment
because of its weakness and unprofitableness, and a bringing in
thereupon of a better hope through which we draw nigh unto
God (vii. 18, 19), and more to the same effect. Surely it is
inconceivable that in chapters iii., iv. the Gospel of Jesus
Christ should be compared to a grand epoch-making revelation
of the will of God made to Israel at the exodus, that
elsewhere throughout the epistle the same Gospel of Jesus
Christ should in like manner be compared to a grand epoch-
making revelation of the will of God made to Israel at the
exodus, and yet that these two epoch-making revelations of the
will of God to Israel, which were made at the same time, and
under the same circumstances, and to both of which the Gospel
of Jesus Christ is compared, should not only be quite distinct,
but should have no manner of connection with one another !
Besides, there is absolutely no historical foundation for the
supposition of a Gospel revelation to Israel at the exodus,
co-ordinate in importance with the Gospel revelation to us
through Christ. There was, at the exodus, no hearing of a
voice calling to enter God's rest by faith, in the same manner
that the voice of Christ is heard "to-day" calling to enter
God's rest by faith. Indeed, the idea that a grand Gospel
invitation to enter the Divine inheritance by faith was issued
simultaneously with the grand law invitation to enter the same
Divine inheritance by obedience is manifestly out of the
question ; two such invitations could not possibly stand
together; nor could the people be said to have perished for
refusing to comply with the one, when in point of fact they
VIII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 361
perished for refusing to comply with the other. What our
author himself says elsewhere as to the presence of the Gospel
in Old Testament times is to quite a different effect. He
holds, no doubt, that the Gospel was present under the old
covenant, and even before the old covenant was made ; but it
was present equally throughout the whole course of Israelitish
history ; it was present, not as an abortive early revelation
made through Moses, but as a projection backward of the one
effectual revelation made through Christ ; if there was any
occasion when it was specially spoken or preached, that
occasion was not at the exodus, but in the time of Abraham.
There is no trace elsewhere in the epistle of a contrast
between the Gospel as spoken through Christ and the same
Gospel as spoken to believers under the Old Testament. Nor
do we meet, in precisely the same shape, with the startling
position that entrance by faith into the rest of God was
possible, and took place, only on two occasions, when the
Gospel was specially preached, at the exodus and " to-day." It
appears certain, therefore, that what the writer refers to under
the name of "the Gospel formerly preached" (iv. 6) is
nothing else than the law, the word spoken through angels
(ii. 2), the revelation to which Moses bore testimony (-iii. 5).
The truth evidently is, that the author's exegesis of the two
Old Testament passages which he quotes yields a result irre-
concilably at variance with the conclusions drawn from other
passages, and more particularly from those quoted and inter-
preted in chap. viii. We have here just another example of
the same phenomenon which we met in the two-fold represen-
tation of the priesthood of Christ. If Christ were a priest
after the order of Melchizedek, glorified and seated at God's
right hand, His functions could have no resemblance whatever
to those of Aaron, and no comparison could possibly be insti-
tuted between the two ; and, in like manner, if the revelation
made to Israel through Moses were a message of good tidings,
identical with that made to us through Jesus, it could not
possibly be the basis of a covenant identical with what our
author conceives the Sinaitic to have been ; nor, conversely,
could the revelation made to us through Jesus be what our
author here admits it to be, a message of good tidings requiring
362 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
only the assent of faith, and yet be the basis of a covenant
similar to, if not identical with, the Sinaitic. Some of the
conclusions involved in our author's exegesis are indeed curious
enough, almost as curious as those having reference to the
historical Melchizedek. When he says, for example, that
Israel under Joshua could not have attained to the rest of
God, because in that case the rest would not have remained
over to be offered to us " to-day " (iv. 6-8), the idea is quite
extravagant as if heaven would have been filled choke full
with a single generation of Israelites ! Again, when he speaks
of those to whom the Gospel was formerly preached failing to
enter in because of disobedience, and of God as again defining
a certain day to afford a second opportunity of entering (vv.
6, 7), it is clearly implied that no one entered the rest of
God, that no one even had an opportunity of doing so, from
the time of Moses to the time of Christ. But the writer him-
self expressly contradicts this, when he exhorts his readers to
" be imitators of those who through faith and endurance are
inheriting the promises" (vi. 12, seq.), recounting a long line
of worthies who lived and died in faith (xi.), among whom are
those who came out of Egypt by Moses (v. 29), as well as those
who entered the promised land by Joshua (v. 30).
Perhaps it will be said that, when the author speaks of the
rest of God as having been offered on but two occasions, to
Israel at the exodus and to us " to-day," he refers not to the
perfect rest in heaven (xii. 23), which all Old Testament saints
might and did enter by faith, but to a perfect rest on earth,
such as none of the Old Testament saints obtained (xi. 39, 40),
such as Israel at the exodus was alone offered, and such as the
author expected in his own day (ix. 28). And it may be
thought that when he speaks of believers seeming (^o/cj, iv. 1)
to have fallen short, the expression points to the case of
Israel at the exodus, who, though they really entered the
rest of God (xi. 29, 39, 40), yet seemed to have fallen short
of it, by not attaining to it on earth as originally offered,
believers in like manner being warned, not against falling short
of God's rest absolutely, but against seeming to have fallen
short of it, by perishing through unbelief before the Second
Coming, which their unbelief would delay. But not to insist
VIII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 363
on the extreme artificiality of such a view, it is quite opposed
to the whole tone of the warnings throughout the epistle, as
well as to the drift of the argument in the immediate context.
'The writer's warnings are not against seeming to fall short of
salvation, but against really falling short of it (vi. 1-12 ; x.
26-39; xii. 25-29). And when he says, for example, that
"the word of hearing did not profit them ( = the Israelites),
because they were not united by faith with them that heard,"
while, on the other hand, " we who have believed are entering
into the rest," this evidently implies that the Israelites were
entirely destitute of that faith which we possess, that they
derived no benefit whatever from the Gospel preached to them,
and could not have entered the rest of God at any time or in
any sense. Besides, the above view, even if admitted, would not
relieve the difficulties, for there is no trace of a special Gospel
message offering the fellowship of God in a special manner to
Israel at the exodus. The promise given to Abraham offered
the fellowship of God as fully as it was ever offered to any one
in Old Testament times, and that promise descended as a
legacy to all Abraham's seed (xi. 9), to Israel at the exodus
not less or more than to subsequent generations. The law
itself was of the same nature, for the covenant made at Sinai
was open to be acquiesced in by the nation ever after, so that,
had the condition been fulfilled at any period by Israel, the
promise on God's part would not have been wanting.
The truth of the matter has been already stated. The
author wishes to drive home a practical exhortation. He
adduces two Old Testament quotations, and reasons upon
them. These quotations, as he interprets them, imply that
God issued a Gospel call to Israel at the exodus co-ordinate
in importance with the one issued through Jesus Christ,
and that Israel rejected the call, and perished through
unbelief, as the hearers of the Gospel "to-day," if they do
the same, will "all likewise perish." They imply, also, that
no Gospel call was issued to any one from the time of the
exodus to the time of Christ, and that no one during that period
did or could enter into fellowship with God through believing the
Gospel. These conclusions are utterly at variance with the
writer's teaching in other parts of the epistle. What is referred
364 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
to under the name " Gospel " is just the law given by the hand
of Moses to Israel. And the law was not a Gospel gratui-
tously offering an inheritance on condition of faith, any more
than the Gospel is a law offering an inheritance by way of
reward on condition of obedience ; at least the author in the
main body of his epistle does not look upon either the law or
the Gospel in such a light. The law is elsewhere represented
as a scheme of salvation entirely distinct from the Gospel, and
greatly inferior to it in every respect, as a weak and unprofit-
able commandment in contrast to a better hope (vii. 18, 19),
- as a carnal commandment in contrast to the power of an
indissoluble life (v. 16) carnal ordinances imposed until
a time of reformation (ix. 10) as having only a shadow of
the good things to come, and not the very image of the things
(x. 1.) as being obviously and necessarily unable to effect
the object at which it aimed (v. 4 ; ix. 9). Elsewhere, also r
the Gospel is represented as preached, not merely to Abraham
and all his descendants (vi. 13, seq.\ but to men from the time
of Abel to the time of Christ (xi.). These difficulties, how-
ever, do not trouble our author. His practical point has been
gained, and that is all he is concerned about. Objections of
the kind just adverted to would never be raised by his original
readers, who would accept his method of exegesis, and its
result too, entirely without question.
Reference has already been made to the teaching of chap. xi.
That chapter is in many respects of a piece with the passage
now discussed, and its language is to be explained upon similar
principles. In chap. x. 38, the writer quotes as if from
Habakkuk ii. 4 the words, " But My righteous one shall live
by faith, and if he shrink back, My soul hath no pleasure in
him." As usual, our author follows the LXX., though he trans-
poses the two clauses, and the LXX. in this, as in many other
instances, has departed considerably from the Hebrew original.
The prophet's words are, " Behold his soul is puffed up, it is
not upright in him ; but the just shall live by his faithfulness,"
words which are spoken with reference to " the Chaldeans,
that bitter and hasty nation, which march through the breadth
of the earth to possess dwelling-places that are not theirs"
(i. 6). The " My " inserted before " righteous " is due to the
VIII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 365
LXX., and is referred by the author of Hebrews to God, as is
also the " My " before " soul " in the following clause ; while
the words "faith," or "faithfulness," and "shall live," are
both understood in their specifically Christian senses. Thus
the former clause of the verse is held to teach that the only
means whereby any man can attain to righteousness and life
is faith, and consequently that the means whereby every
righteous man that ever lived attained to righteousness and
life must have been faith. The latter clause, which is wholly
mistranslated and perverted from its historical meaning and
reference, is held to supply the negative counterpart to the
same thought viz., that unbelief is the sure path to perdition.
The outcome of the two clauses combined is that faith in God
is the principle of righteousness and life, and that apart from
faith in God righteousness and life are impossible (xi. 6). It
follows that all the righteous men of Old Testament times
must have been believers, and that the works which gave them
their character must have been works performed through faith.
The words quoted from the prophet are true universally of
men in every age of the world's history, but as they were
spoken in Old Testament times, and with special reference to
Old Testament circumstances, they must be especially true of
the heroes of Old Testament history, and of the deeds of
renown which have shed lustre around their names. Accord-
ingly, the author proceeds to run down the roll of those who
in Old Testament times obtained witness, explicit or implicit,
that they were righteous, signalising in particular the most
notable deeds of their lives, and asserting in each case that
faith was their animating source and principle. " Now faith
is the assurance of things hoped for, the proving of things not
seen. For therein the elders had witness borne to them [sciL
that they were righteous (v. 4)] ... By faith Abel offered
unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which
he had witness borne to him that he was righteous. ... By
faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death ; and
he was not found, because God translated him : for before his
translation he had witness borne to him that he had been
well -pleasing unto God ; and without faith it is impossible to
be well-pleasing unto Him : for he that draweth nigh to God
366 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them
that seek after him" (xi. 1, 2, 4-6). Then follow references
to Noah, Abraham, and Sarah, and the author proceeds :
" Wherefore sprang there of one [Abraham], and him as good
as dead, so many as the stars of heaven in multitude, and as
the sand which is by the sea-shore innumerable. These all
died in faith, not having received the promises, but having
seen them and greeted them from afar, and having confessed
that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they
that say such things make it manifest that they are seeking
after a country of their own. And if indeed they had been
mindful of that country from which they went out, they would
have had opportunity to return ; but now they desire a better
country, that is, a heavenly ; wherefore God is not ashamed
to be called their God, for He hath prepared for them a city
(vv. 12-16). . . . By faith Moses, when he was grown up,
refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing
rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy
the pleasures of sin for a season, accounting the reproach of
Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt, for he looked
unto the recompense of reward. By faith he forsook Egypt,
not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured as seeing
Him who is invisible. By faith he kept the passover and the
sprinkling of the blood, that the destroyer of the first-born
should not touch them. By faith they passed through the Red
Sea as by dry land, which the Egyptians assaying to do were
swallowed up. By faith the walls of Jericho fell down, after
they had been compassed about for seven days (vv. 24-30).
. . . And what shall I more say ? for the time would fail me
to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah ; of David and
Samuel and the prophets : who through faith subdued king-
doms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, &c. . . .
Women received their dead by a resurrection, and others were
tortured not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a
better resurrection; and others had trial of mockings and
scourgings, yea, moreover, of bonds and imprisonment ; they
were stoned, they were sawn asunder, they were tried, they
were slain with the sword ; they wandered about in sheep-
skins, in goat-skins, being destitute, afflicted, evil entreated
VIII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY, 367
(of whom the world was not worthy), wandering in deserts and
mountains and caves, and the holes of the earth. And these
all, having had witness borne to them [scil., that they were
righteous] through their faith, received not the promise, God hav-
ing provided some better thing for us, that apart from us they
should not be made perfect. Therefore let us also [as well as
them] . . . run with patient endurance," &c. (32-40 ; xii. 1).
There can be no mistake as to the drift of these quotations.
Loosely speaking, we might say that the writer is here again
drawing a parallel between Old Testament and New, and
basing an exhortation upon it ; but there is this peculiarity in
the present case, that the parallel is absolute, being uncon-
nected with any element of contrast, so that it would be more
correctly described as an identity. According to the present
chapter, there is absolute correspondence and continuity be-
tween Old Testament and New. The law and the Gospel,
Judaism and Christianity, mean exactly the same thing. Or,
rather, there is no such thing as law as opposed to Gospel.
And there is no such thing as Judaism as opposed to Chris-
tianity. The revelation of God's will was Gospel from the
very beginning, and the religion of Israel was Christian from
the very beginning. The men of Old Testament times were
situated and circumstanced exactly as the men of New Testa-
ment times are situated and circumstanced. It is not here,
as in chaps, iii. and iv., that the same Gospel which is preached
to all men under the New Testament was preached to a single
generation under the Old Testament, and preached ineffectu-
ally: what we are here taught is that the Gospel was preached
throughout the whole Old Testament period in the form of
promises (vv. 13, 39, 40; cf. vi. 13, seq.), just as it shall be
preached throughout the whole of the New Testament period
in the same form (v. 40 ; vi. 18), and that it was believed
unto salvation under the Old Testament very much as it is
and shall continue to be under the New. That the sub-
stance of the promise which Old Testament saints accepted
and believed was identical with the import of the Gospel
message which New Testament saints likewise believe is
quite manifest, for it is spoken of as heaven (v. 5), the city
which hath the foundations whose Builder and Maker is God
368 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
(v. 10), a better country, that is, an heavenly (v. 16), the
reward of fellowship with Christ in His sufferings (v. 26, cf.
Phil. iii. 10, 11 ; Rom. viii. 17, &c.). In fact, as already indi-
cated, the promises formerly made to Old Testament believers
are once and again identified with those made to New
Testament believers (vi. 13-18; xi. 13, 39, 40). And these
promises appear to be attached to every revelation of the will
of God made in Old Testament times. They are attached, for
example, to the command to offer sacrifice as Abel did (v. 4),
to the command to build the ark as Noah did (v. 7), to the
command to leave his country and kindred and sojourn in a
strange land (vv. 8, 9), as well as to the command to offer up
Isaac (vv. 17-19), as Abraham did, to the command or pre-
monition to preserve Moses as his parents did (v. 23), to the
command or duty to refuse the crown of Egypt (v. 24), to
choose rather to be evil entreated with the people of God
(v. 25), to forsake Egypt (v. 27), to keep the passover and
the sprinkling of blood (v. 28), as Moses did, to pass through
the Red Sea as Israel under Moses did (v. 29), to compass the
walls of Jericho seven days as Israel under Joshua did (v. 30),
to receive the spies in peace as Rahab the harlot did (v. 31),
to do the life-work of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David,
Samuel, and the prophets (v. 32), nay, the life-work of all the
innumerable seed of Abraham (vv. 12, 13) down to the latest
periods of Old Testament history (vv. 35-39). The mention
of Abel's offering, and Moses' keeping of the passover, proves
that the promise is thought of as attached to the keeping of
the ceremonial part of the law, and there is no doubt that the
life-work of such Old Testament characters as David and the
prophets, not to speak of later generations, was to keep the
whole law of God, so far as it had been revealed. It appears
certain, therefore, that the entire circle of Old Testament
revelation is here regarded as Gospel and a means of salvation
through faith, in like manner as the entire circle of New
Testament revelation is Gospel and a means of salvation
through faith. The way of salvation under the Old Testament
was through believing that God is, and that He is a rewarder
of them that seek after Him (v. 6), or through obeying His
revealed will in the strength that He Himself supplies to
VIII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 369
them that put their trust in Him, and this is just the way of
salvation under the New Testament. On this view, there is
no antithesis between law and promise, or law and Gospel, or
letter and spirit, such as we find in Paul's writings, and such
as the present writer himself favours in other connections.
The promises made to Abraham were made on condition that
he and his seed should obey the then revealed will of God
through faith; the promises attached to the Sinaitic Covenant
were made on exactly the same condition, that Israel should
obey the then revealed will of God through faith; and, of
course, the presence of faith implies the presence of the Divine
Spirit, and this again implies that the law is no longer the
letter that killeth but the spirit that givefch life, or that law
and Gospel are one and the same thing. The Old Testament
does not differ from the New, in respect that the former con-
tains legal precepts and the latter not. Both alike are full
of legal precept for the guidance of human conduct. The
only difference is that the precepts of the New Testament
gospels and epistles are far more numerous, far more detailed,
and far more fully developed than the precepts of the Old
Testament Pentateuch and prophets at any rate, if we leave
out of account those precepts of the Old Testament which are
not regarded as binding in the New. When an antithesis is
drawn between law and Gospel, the word law is used to
denote the objective revealed will of God minus the spirit of
faith through which alone obedience can be rendered, while
the word Gospel is used to denote the spirit of faith through
which obedience can be rendered minus the objective revealed
rill of God. In this way law and Gospel are mutually ex-
clusive, and may be contrasted with each other as dead letter
and living spirit. But if we include under the meaning of
the word law the promise of the spirit of faith which accom-
panied the communication of the will of God in Old Testa-
ment times, and if we include under the meaning of the word
Gospel the communication of the will of God which accom-
panies the promise of the spirit of faith in New Testament
times, then law and Gospel become absolutely identical and
interchangeable ; they become parts of a single, continuous,
homogeneous dispensation of religion ; and it is in this light
2B
370 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
that the author of Hebrews regards them in the chapter
before us.
How completely the present view of Old Testament religion
differs from the view set forth in chaps, iii., iv. hardly requires
to be pointed out. We saw, in examining the last-named
chapters, that the writer's argument involved the sweeping and
startling conclusion that no one in the whole course of Israel-
itish history from Moses to Christ attained to salvation, and
received the heavenly rest, that no one had even an opportunity
of doing so, with the exception of the single generation that
came out of Egypt by Moses. In chapter xi. the exigencies
of the writer's argument have so totally changed that he
appears to represent every one, not only in the whole course
of Israelitish history from Moses to Christ, but every one
descended from Abraham (v. 13), and, in addition, the elders
before Abraham (v. 2), as attaining to salvation and inheriting
the heavenly rest. Previous to Abraham's time, at least Cain
(v. 4), and the generation contemporary with Noah (v. 7),
perished through unbelief; but subsequent to Abraham's time
we read of no one belonging to the chosen seed that fell short
of salvation. And when the writer, after stating that " there
sprang of one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars
of heaven in multitude and as the sand which is by the sea-
shore innumerable," follows up the statement by the explicit
assertion that " these all died in faith," it is sheer arbitrari-
ness to introduce any limitation, as for example by saying that
only a certain elected number of Abraham's descendants were
saved in any period of Old Testament history. All the more
unwarrantable will such a limitation appear, if we consider
that when the author proceeds to give the details which his
general assertion involves, he includes in the number of the
saved the generation that passed through the Red Sea with
Moses (v. 29 ; cf. v. 25), whom he had previously doomed to
perdition (iii. 16, 17), as well as the generation that com-
passed the walls of Jericho with Joshua (v. 30), whose salvatioi
he had declared to be incompatible with the salvation of
one else (iv. 8, 9) ; while he winds up the detailed account bj
repeating the general assertion that ''these all had witnes
borne to them [scil., that they were righteous] through theii
VIII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 371
faith " (v. 39). Was any subsequent generation of Israelites
more likely to have contained unbelievers than the generation
that came out of Egypt with Moses, or, for that matter, than
the generation that compassed the walls of Jericho with
Joshua ? Surely not. And therefore we must suppose the
writer's idea to be that the chosen people as such were
"the people of God" (v. 25), that in all their sufferings and
vicissitudes of fortune, they were suffering and enduring for
Christ's sake (v. 26) ; that the covenant made at Sinai was
identical in nature with the covenant made with Abraham
(vi. 13) ; that it was made through faith, in Christ, and kept
through faith in Christ, and that God Himself was surety that
the conditions on both sides should be carried out ; in other
words, that the so-called dispensation of law was absolutely
identical with the Gospel dispensation in so far as the latter
is effectual, that is, in so far as it concerns the elect. This
means that "the people of God " under the Old Testament dis-
pensation were the exact counterpart of " the people of God "
under the New, and since the people of God under the Old
Testament dispensation were the whole body of Israelites, while
the people of God under the New are the whole body of
believers, it follows that the whole body of Israelites must here
be regarded as being believers. If objection be taken to such a
conclusion that it is manifestly quite at variance with historical
fact, it is sufficient to reply that it has manifestly not been
reached by a process of induction from historical fact, but by a
process of deduction from the isolated Old Testament text
quoted in the close of the previous chapter. Hence we can
easily understand how there is just as utter an absence of
unbelieving Israelites in chap. xi. as there is an utter absence
of believing Israelites in chaps, iii. and iv., and how in these
earlier chapters the writer's practical exhortation is purely
negative, being directed to dissuading his readers from
imitating the example of Israel, whereas in the later chapter
his practical exhortation is purely positive, being directed to
persuading his readers to imitate the example of Israel (xii. 1).
There is no doubt that the promises made to Abraham and to
his seed included especially the land of Canaan, which all the
people of God were intended to enter and possess ; and as the
372 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
import of these Abrahamic promises in chap, xi., not less than
in chaps, iii. and iv., is identified with heaven, all the seed of
Abraham must here be thought of as entering heaven, just as
they are all thought of as falling short of heaven in chapters
iii. and iv. The author has no more intention, either in chap,
xi., or in chaps, iii. and iv., of distinguishing between a natural
Israel and a spiritual Israel, between a natural seed of
Abraham and a spiritual seed of Abraham, than he has of
distinguishing between a natural rest of God, and a spiritual
rest of God, or a natural heaven and a spiritual heaven.
There is one, and only one, proffered heavenly inheritance
which believers obtain under the Gospel, and as all the
seed of Abraham are represented as falling short of that
inheritance through unbelief in chaps, iii. and iv., so they are
all represented as obtaining it through faith in chap, xi., the
reason of course being that the quotation from which chap xi.
is deduced yields an opposite result to the quotations from
which chaps, iii. and iv. are deduced. It would therefore be
absurd to think of reconciling the representation of Old
Testament religion contained in the present passage with that
contained in the passage last discussed : the two representa-
tions are diametrically opposed to each other.
But further, if the view of Old Testament religion pre-
sented in chap. xi. differs completely from the view presented
in chaps, iii. and iv., it differs just as completely from the
view presented in chaps, viii., ix., and x. For the argument
of these last chapters implies, quite as distinctly as the
argument of chaps, iii. and iv., that no one in Old Testament
times was or could possibly be saved. This may appear
a strong assertion, both in itself and in view of some things
that have been said above, and, therefore, a word of explana-
tion is necessary. We have spoken of the new covenant as-
projected back through the whole extent of the Old Testament
period. We have said that it began to be formed from the
very foundation of the world, or at least from the time of
Abel, and that it will be completely formed only at the final
consummation of the ages. And this manner of speech
could hardly be avoided if we were to convey a just idea of
what we believe to be the true state of the case as regards the
VIIL] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 373
history of the world's redemption. But, undoubtedly, such
language is fitted somewhat to mislead the mind. The word
covenant, as applied to the dispensation of grace, is not ours,
but the author's whose opinions we are discussing, and
it might be thought, when we used the expression new
covenant, and stated what is the nature of the thing referred
to, that we were presenting our author's view of what the
new covenant is, and how it comes into existence. That,
however, is a mistake. When we stated how the new
covenant is formed, we stated not how our author conceives
and represents it to be formed, but how as a matter of literal
fact the eternal redemption of the world through Jesus
Christ is carried out. Our author's conception of how the
new covenant is formed is based, not on a literal view of
how the world is actually redeemed through 'Jesus, but on a
literal view of how the Sinaitic covenant was formed through
Moses. According to him, the earlier Sinaitic covenant,
having been instituted in the time of Moses, continued in
force as long as the first tabernacle continued to stand (ix. 8),
or, in plain terms, as long as the rites of the old dispensation
continued to be practised ; during the whole of " the present
time" (v. 9); down to "the time of reformation" (v. 10);
to "the consummation of the ages" (v. 26), which is conceived
to have practically coincided with the death of Christ. In
other words, the old covenant continued in force throughout
the whole of what we are accustomed to speak of as the Old
Testament period, always excepting the pre-Mosaic or patri-
archal age, when there was no covenant at all. On the other
hand, and in correspondence to this, the new covenant is con-
ceived to have been initiated by the death of Christ (ix. 15)
in much the same way as the old covenant was initiated
by the death of the inaugural victim (vv. 18, 19). It was
brought in upon the old after the latter had been disannulled
as weak and unprofitable (vii. 18, 19). No place could have
been found for a new covenant unless the old had first been
taken out of the way (viii. 7). The author no where speaks
of the new covenant as being projected back to the beginning
of the world, and as co-existing alongside of the old, in the
manner that we represented. On the contrary, he distinctly
374 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
holds that the two cannot permanently exist together, and
that the bringing in of the one must have the effect of
superseding and abolishing the other. The very name new
covenant implies that it came in only after the first covenant
had become old and was nigh unto vanishing away (v. 13).
It is only for a brief transitionary period that the two cove-
nants are thought of as existing together. If the new
covenant had been in process of initiation from the foundation
of the world, the old could never have existed at all, seeing
that " no place would have been sought for " it (v. 7). The
very raison d'etre of the new covenant lies in the faultiness,
weakness, unprofitableness of the old, and it were absurd to
suppose that men would have continued to play the solemn
farce of acting in the capacity of parties to an old covenant
that was already proclaimed to be worthless by the intro-
duction of a new to take its place. Accordingly, not till the
days of which the Lord through the prophet had spoken is
the new covenant thought of as being made (v. 8, seq.}\ and
these days coincide with the fulness of time, when Christ
came (ix. 11); with the last of these days, when the Gospel
began to be spoken (i. 2) ; with the time of reformation,
when the carnal ordinances were to be done away (ix. 10);
with the consummation of the ages, when Christ was mani-
fested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself (v. 26).
Now, since the only covenant in force during the whole
of the Old Testament period was the old covenant, and since
that covenant was weak and profitless, outward, carnal, shadowy,
and evanescent, in one word, absolutely nugatory for purposes
of salvation, since the new covenant, and that alone, has true
saving validity, it follows that no one during the entire course
of Old Testament history was or could possibly be saved.
It will not do to evade this inference by alleging that " the
seed of Abraham," who were parties to the old covenant were
really sanctified and saved, but that their sins were not
" expiated " till the initiation of the new covenant in the
fulness of time, for what our author means by expiation is
just redemption, purification, or sanctification. When he says
of Christ that He taketh not hold of angels but of the seed
of Abraham (ii. 16), and that He became a merciful and
VIII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 375
faithful High Priest, in order to expiate the sins of the people
(v. 17), the seed of Abraham or the people referred to is not
the whole body of Abraham's descendants, but simply the
writer's own believing contemporaries. The parties to the
new covenant are "we" (vii. 19), "us" (v. 26), "we"
(viii. 1), "you" (ix. 14), "us" (v. 24), "we" (x. 10), "us,
brethren" (vv. 19, 20), all which pronouns refer simply to-
the writer and his contemporaries, to the generation sub-
sequent to the coming and death of Christ, in contrast to all
previous generations, mainly indeed to the Christian Hebrews
to whom the epistle is addressed. Hence " the transgressions
under the first covenant" (ix. 15) are nothing else than the
transgressions of the apostle's own Christian contemporaries
before they were renewed and sanctified through faith in
Christ. If " the transgressions under the first covenant,"
which the death of Christ redeemed, were, as they are
commonly imagined to have been, the transgressions of all
who had ever been parties to the first covenant, this would
imply not only that all who ever were parties to the first
covenant are actually saved a thoroughly false conclusion
as we know -but that they were kept in some sort of limbus
patrum till Christ came and redeemed them, a position that
few Protestants will be disposed to maintain. Speaking of
the literal history of the world's redemption, we have asserted
that the transgressions under the first covenant include all
the transgressions of all believers from the foundation of the
world to its consummation; but speaking of our author's
conception of the new covenant, we must assert that the
transgressions under the first covenant include merely the
transgressions of those who are conceived to be parties to
that covenant, those who are "called" in connection with it,
and these belong exclusively to the author's own generation,
being practically identified with his own readers. I take it
to be beyond all doubt that the author represents the new
covenant as being made with a single generation, in much
the same way as the old covenant was made with a single
generation ; the proclamation of the Gospel at Zion by Jesus
corresponds to the proclamation of the law at Sinai by Moses ;
while the death of Jesus answers to the death of the inaugural
376 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
victim. This is what gives an air of plausibility to the
author's parallel between the two covenants, which it would
not otherwise possess ; for when the new covenant is thought
of as formed with the generation contemporary with Jesus,
in the way that the Sinaitic covenant was formed with the
generation contemporary with Moses, it can also be thought
of as being acquiesced in by subsequent generations, in the
way that the Sinaitic covenant was acquiesced in by sub-
sequent generations. But it is evident that all this seeming
parallelism is purchased at the expense of consigning the
entire pre-Christian world to perdition. Such a consequence,
indeed, arises naturally and inevitably out of the construction
which the author puts on the passage which he quotes from
the prophet Jeremiah. For when the antithesis between the
two covenants, which was in reality a relative antithesis, the
Sinaitic covenant having been only relatively and not absolutely
a failure, is regarded as absolute, and identified with the
antithesis between the dead naturalistic Judaism of the
apostolic age and the living spiritual Christianity of the
apostolic age, then the new covenant must be regarded
as the alone means of salvation, and all who are not parties
to it must necessarily be thought of as falling short of the
Divine fellowship. And such is manifestly the view which
our author takes. The worshippers of Old Testament times
might and did continue all their life-long offering the same
sacrifices year by year, yet were they never sanctified, purified,
or perfected, their sins were never taken away, they died just
as they lived, with all their sins about them, unholy, impure,
imperfect (x. 1-4), and must therefore be supposed to have
perished eternally. So matters stood at the coming of Christ,
when the priests and offerings of the old covenant were taken
away, that a true Priest and a true offering, one that really
sanctified and perfected a people, might be established in
their stead (x. 5-11). And the people who were so sanctified
and perfected were just people who existed to be sanctified and
perfected at the time when the offering was made (x. 19).
Similarly the Apostle Paul, as we shall see more fully by-and-
by, represents the whole pre-Christian world as being shut up
under sin (Gal. iii. 19, 22), kept in tutelage and bondage
VIII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 377
under the elements of the world (iv. 3, 9), till the fulness of
the time came, when God sent forth His Son, born of a woman
born under the law, to redeem them that were under the law
(vv. 4, 5) ; he represents the coming of faith into the world
and the coming of Christ into the world as coinciding in point
of time, men previous to the coming of Christ having been
shut up unto the faith that should afterwards be revealed
(iii. 23); and of course with the coming and exercise of faith
came the very possibility of effectual redemption and sonship
(tv. 5); he represents the entire Jewish race from Moses to
Jesus as having lived and died in the practice of a system
of ritual religion, which had no more real saving validity than
the sacrificial observances of the heathen (vv. 8-10); and, in
harmony with all this, he represents Christ as having actually
redeemed simply the generation contemporary with Himself
"us" (iii. 13), "we" (v. 14), "we"( v - 23), "us"(v. 24, &c.),
" we " (iv. 3, &c.) no one having received the promise of
the Spirit as the instrument of renewal from Abraham to
Christ, the " seed " to whom, and to those who should believe
on whom, the promise was made (iii. 16, 19, 29).
Thus, there are three distinct and more or less contra-
dictory views of the religion of Israel contained in the
Epistle to the Hebrews, one which occupies chaps, iii. and iv.,
another which occupies the main body of the epistle,
particularly chaps, viii., ix., and x., and a third which occupies
chap, xi., with which may be associated chap. vi. 12-20. It
remains to ask which of these three different views is accord-
ant to history and fact, or whether any of them be so, or
which is the more so. Now, it may be said at once that the
writer to the Hebrews looks at the Old Testament with the
eye of an orator and a systematist, not with that of an
historical critic. Every one of the above views as to the
state of religion in Old Testament times bears on the face of
it that it is systematic, not historical, that it has been reached
deductively, and not inductively. Apart from other consider-
ations, the mere fact that they are all obviously and avowedly
based on an isolated passage or passages of Scripture and not
on a general survey of the teaching of Scripture as a whole,
378 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
ought to satisfy even the most prejudiced that such is the case.
And when we find three such widely divergent views pro-
pounded alongside of each other within the compass of a
short letter, this must be taken as conclusive evidence that
neither the author nor his readers had anything beyond the
most rudimentary consciousness of history. We are not there-
fore entitled to expect that any of the above views will accur-
ately represent the historical reality: all that we can count
upon is that one based on an historical interpretation of an
Old Testament text will approach nearer the reality than one
based on a purely fanciful interpretation of an Old Testament
text.
With respect to the representation of Old Testament re-
ligion contained in chaps, iii. and iv., not much need be added
to what has been already said. That it has been directly
deduced from, and that its validity is entirely dependent upon,
a purely fanciful interpretation of the passage from Ps. xcv.,
has been, I trust, sufficiently shown. And it is nothing less
than absurd, in view of the historical facts which a study of
the Old Testament reveals, to allege that there was no true
religion in the world from the time of Moses to the time of
Christ, and that no one during the whole of that period had
so much as an opportunity of closing with the offer of God's
grace and attaining to salvation. It is simply self-evident to
the historical student that there was true religion, a con-
tinuous if not a copious stream of it, throughout the entire
course of Old Testament history. The merest glance at the
records will convince any one that such was the fact. And our
author himself knows it as well as we do. The rounded,
systematised view of the religion of Israel presented in these
two chapters, as it has no other foundation than a manifestly
fanciful interpretation of an isolated passage of Old Testament
Scripture, so it has no other aim than to point a practical ex-
hortation : as soon as that has been done, the author himself
hastens to depart from it, and to adopt other widely different
views. We may, therefore, well be allowed to pass it by
without further remark.
The case is hardly different with respect to the second of
the three views mentioned above. It, too, implies that there
VIII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 379
was no true religion in the world from the time of Moses to
the time of Christ. It implies that the religion of Israel was
purely outward, fleshly, material, mechanical, and not at. all
inward, spiritual, moral, and real. During the whole of the
pre-Christian period, a revelation of the will of God existed,
but it existed merely as a dead letter, and mainly (so our
author represents it) as a system of ritual ordinances utterly
devoid of life and power. The author does not distinguish
any more than does the Apostle Paul between the moral and
the ceremonial parts of the law, for the very obvious reason
that both alike were regarded by him as the expression of the
will of God. Still, in the main body of the epistle, it is the
ceremonial law with which he is almost exclusively occupied,
since it is that which is regarded as furnishing a shadowy
representation of the Gospel dispensation. This does not
imply that, in the author's opinion, what we are accustomed
to speak of as the moral law was living and operative in Old
Testament times, while the ceremonial law was dead and in-
operative : it merely implies that the moral part of the law
has been allowed to fall into the background, and that " the
law " (x. i.) is practically identified with what we are accus-
tomed to speak of as the ceremonial law. Even when the
writer refers to the covenant as affording a parallel to the
Gospel scheme of salvation, it is not the covenant itself but
the ritual ceremonies connected with it that he really has in
view, for it is these latter that he brings into comparison with
the spiritual realities of the Gospel. And it is certain that
he regards the law in its whole extent as having been nothing
more than a dead letter, a shadow, a mere form, absolutely
without spirit or vitality, during the whole of the Old Testa-
ment period, that is. so long as it continued to exist.
Theological writers commonly suppose that when a typical
significance is attributed to the ritual law of the Old Testa-
ment, this means that the people of Old Testament times,
who practised the ritual law, discerned its typical character,
and that, foreseeing the advent of Christ, and the nature of
His work, they realised the presence of the Gospel in and
through the ceremonies that prefigured it. According to this,
the official theory of Old Testament religion, while the Old
380 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
Testament worshipper might seem to be occupied with mere
outward fleshly shadows, he was really occupied with the in-
ward spiritual verities of which the shadows were perceived to
be types or prophetic symbols. The ritual observances of the
law, which were in themselves of no religious validity, became,
in virtue of their typical character, a direct means of Gospel
grace.
" The types and shadows were a glass
In which they saw the Saviour's face."
So it is said. Bat the writer to the Hebrews is so far from
lending his countenance to an idea so peculiarly extravagant,
that everything which he says is flatly opposed to it. He
nowhere asserts that the ritual law was perceived to be typical
by those who observed it, much less does he assert that Gospel
blessings were received in and through legal observances. ]No,
but he indicates quite plainly that had the law been perceived
to be typical, it would not have been observed at all. For,
with him, typical is equivalent to shadowy, lifeless, profitless,
and evanescent, and, though not expressly asserted, it is clearly
implied that the man who perceived the ritual observances to
be of such a nature would never have continued to practise
them. The principal reason why the author seeks to make
out that the law is typical is that he may induce his readers
to cease from observing it, and then, having done so, to
embrace and hold fast the Gospel in its stead. The very soul
of his argument is that the law is typical and therefore profit-
less (avaxftcXes, vii. 18) not worth observing; it did no good
to any one who ever practised its injunctions (x. 1) ; it was
impossible in the nature of things that it should do any good
(v. 4). Was then the Gospel combined with it in order to
give it saving validity? No such thing. It was disannulled
(vii. 18), or taken away (x. 9), in order that the Gospel might
be established in its stead (id.), a thing which could not other-
wise have been done. The writer has not the remotest idea
that under the Old Testament the shadow of the law was
combined with the substance of the Gdspel, so that the two
might be found existing together, and working into each
other's hands. To him the law and the Gospel are not co-
VIII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 381
existent but successive dispensations. The law is shadow, and
nothing else. The Gospel is substance, and nothing else.
What a fantastic intermixture of opposite representations
would it have been first to allege that the Old Testament
sacrifices were offered day after day, and year after year,
without producing any effect on the worshippers beyond
purifying the flesh (x. 1, seq.), and then to add immediately
that the worshippers were actually purified in heart and
conscience, though not by means of, yet on occasion of, the
offering of their sacrifices ! The author may have made
representations respecting Old Testament religion just as
directly opposed to each other as these would have been ;
but then he has made them in distinct sections of the epistle,
and they are easily accounted for when we observe that each
particular section is deduced from a different set of Old Testa-
ment quotations. The fact is, that to have asserted that the
law was all along perceived to be a system of evanescent types
and shadows, having no intrinsic religious validity, but deriv-
ing whatever validity they possessed from the Gospel of Jesus
Christ, would have been the height of absurdity in the circum-
stances of the apostolic age. This was just what the apostles
found it so infinitely difficult to bring home to the conviction
of Jewish minds, even after Christ had made His appearance,
and His work had become an accomplished fact. Paul, for
example, goes so far as to say that the reason why Moses put
a veil on his face after he came down from the mount was that
he might conceal from the children of Israel the fact that the
law was a merely typical and transitory, and not a finally valid
dispensation ; and he explicitly avers that " until this very day,
at the reading of the old covenant, the same veil remaineth
unlifted," that "whensoever Moses is read, a veil lieth upon
their heart" (2 Cor. iii. 13-15), statements that must be
held to prove that, in his judgment at anyrate, no one from
Moses to Christ discovered that the law was that ephemeral
and religiously indifferent or valueless affair which he himself
bad discovered it to be. This assertion may be considered
somewhat too sweeping, in so far as it conveys the idea that
no one in Old Testament times perceived that ritual was a
matter of indifference, but there is no doubt that it accurately
382 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
reflects the state of the Jewish mind in the apostle's own day.
The Jews, at and before the Christian era, never dreamt that
their law, or any part of it, was a piece of temporary, ghostly
paraphernalia, as destitute of real religious validity as a shadow
is destitute of substance, least of all had they any notion that
instead of being what it professed to be, a direct means of
salvation, it was meant to point forward to the possibility of
salvation through a crucified Redeemer. On the contrary,
their law was to them the expression of the will of God. and
as such it must have religious value and efficacy, obedience to
it must be right, must constitute them righteous in the sight
of God, and must be the true and only true way of salvation.
Such was the opinion of Paul himself previous to his conver-
sion, and according to his deliberate testimony, repeated time
and again, it was the universal opinion among his Jewish
contemporaries. " I could wish that I myself were anathema
from Christ for my brethren's sake, my kinsmen according to
the flesh, who are Israelites, &c. . . . Brethren, my heart's
desire and prayer for them is that they may be saved. For I
bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not
according to knowledge. For being ignorant of God's righte-
ousness, and seeking to establish their own [through obeying
the letter of the law without reference to the spirit of the
Gospel], they did not subject themselves to the righteousness
of God " (Rom. ix. 3 ; x. 2, 3). How utterly inconsistent are
such statements as these with the idea that the law was either
regarded as having no intrinsic validity, or that it was meant
to point forward to, and to receive validity from, a crucified
Saviour ! That the latter notion was repugnant to all the
prepossessions of natural- born Israelites in the apostolic age,
the whole history of primitive Christianity proves.
Nor is there any just ground to suppose that the ritual law
was even remotely imagined to typify the death of Jesus Christ
in the earlier periods of Israel's history any more than in the
later. There is not a trace of such an idea in any part of the
Old Testament not even in Isaiah liii. 10, though that passage
may have helped to originate the typical interpretation that
afterwards came into vogue. When the prophet speaks of the
Servant's soul being made a sin-offering, nothing more can be
VIII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 383
held to be fairly implied than that the prophet perceived some
sort of general resemblance between the death of a sacrificial
victim and the death of the Servant of Jehovah, and that he
felt himself justified in founding a metaphor on the basis of
the resemblance. The expression is a mere isolated metaphor
drawn from the language of ritual or sacrifice. Similar meta-
phors might be drawn from almost any department of human
activity. For example, instead of saying, " When thou shalt
make his soul a sin-offering, he shall see a seed," he might,
following out the metaphor suggested by the word seed, have
said, " When thou shalt make his soul a seed-corn, he shall
see abundant fruit " (c/. John xii. 24). On the same prin-
ciple he actually does say of Cyrus, " He is my shepherd"
(xliv. 28), and, more generally, " Woe unto him that striveth
with his Maker, a potsherd among the potsherds of the earth "
(xlv. 9), and plenty of other things of a like nature. To say
that because the writer uses an isolated metaphor drawn from
the rites of sacrifice, with reference to the death of Jehovah's
Servant, therefore, he regards sacrifice in general, and Jewish
sacrifice in particular, as having been instituted and intended
to typify the death of Jehovah's Servant, is neither more nor
less absurd than to say that because he uses a metaphor
drawn from the art of sheep-keeping, with reference to the
action of Cyrus in restoring the Jewish exiles, therefore, he
regards sheep-keeping in general, and Jewish sheep-keeping
in particular, as having been instituted and intended to
typify the action of Cyrus in restoring the Jewish exiles. It
is really quite preposterous to found on an isolated metaphor
a theory as to the typical nature of the Old Testament sacri-
ficial system. The writer gives no indication that he regarded
any of the Old Testament sacrifices as being typical or pro-
phetical of anything, and of course he gives no indication
that he regarded the whole of that gigantic mass of cere-
monial ordinances, which makes up the ritual law of the Old
Testament including all the priests or ministers, all the
different kinds of offerings, bloody and unbloody, and all the
meats and drinks and divers washings, &c., &c., as having
been expressly instituted to pre-signify the individual person
and the isolated fact of the death of Jesus Christ. There is
384 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
not a vestige of evidence to show that such a notion ever
dawned 011 the imagination of this or any other Old Testament
writer. There is no more evidence to prove that the Jews
regarded their sacrificial observances as typical of the death of
Christ, than there is to prove that the heathen regarded, or
for that matter that they still regard their sacrificial obser-
vances as typical of the death of Christ. If the ancient
Israelites held the opinion that their sacrificial system had a
typical reference to the death of Christ, how has that opinion
left no traces in their writings ? Was it handed down from
generation to generation by a secret tradition ? But in that
case how did not that tradition descend to the Jews of the
Christian era, who were so particularly zealous in preserving
traditions ? If it be said that some parts of the ritual law,
such as the ceremony on the day of atonement, bear on the
face of them an evident resemblance to the crucifixion of the
Saviour of the world, it may be replied, first, that it is in the
last degree questionable whether any one in Old Testament
times had any idea of a crucified Saviour of the world ; it is
certain that such an idea was extremely repugnant to all the
instincts of later Judaism ; and, second, that the allegation
itself, plausible though it may appear, will really be very
difficult to make good. Persistent, inveterate misinter-
pretation of Scripture has led men to believe that there is
a something I had almost said a ceremony called " the
atonement," which plays the same part in reference to the
sanctifi cation of the whole body of believers, as was played by
the Mosaic atonement ceremony in reference to the sanctifi-
cation of the whole people of Israel. But when we come to
look narrowly, on the one hand, at the manner in which the
people of Israel were abortively sanctified, and on the other
hand, at the manner in which the whole body of believers are
really sanctified, the resemblance between the two is found to
have vanished into thin air. It would be possible to name a
thousand things that have just as much resemblance to the
process of human salvation through faith in Jesus Christ,
as the Jewish ceremony on the day of atonement can pretend
to have things in respect to which it is not even pretended
that they were instituted to be symbolic prefigurations of the
VIII.J PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 385
plan of salvation or of anything else. Not to travel beyond
the limits of the Bible itself, any one of the parables used by
our Lord to set forth the kingdom of heaven represents the
process of salvation in the individual and in the race at least
as closely as the sprinkling of a goat's blood on the mercy-seat
by the Jewish high priest. No one, however, would dream of
alleging that the process of sowing seed, for example, was
expressly instituted to prefigure the process of salvation
through Jesus Christ ; nor could any one possibly have divined
that because men sow seed as they do, therefore the world
would be saved as it is and not otherwise. As little ought it
to be alleged that the Mosaic ceremony of atonement was
expressly instituted to prefigure the process of salvation
through Jesus Christ, or that men, by observing how the
people of Israel were atoned, could possibly have divined how
the world would be saved. The manifest, exact, circum-
stantial resemblance between the supposed type and the
so-called antitype, though much harped upon by writers on
" the atonement," has no existence save in the morbid imagi-
nation of disordered " orthodox" brains. No one would have
ever detected it, or even dreamt of it, had not attention
been called to it by the New Testament writers.. And the
atonement ceremony, be it remembered, is only one chosen
out of a large number, as the most favourable specimen that
can be had of Gospel prefiguration in the Mosaic ceremonial
law. Nothing can be more evident than that if the bloody
offerings of the law had no meaning, and no religious value,
save as types, the unbloody offerings of the law can have had
no meaning, and no religious value, save as types. If one
part of the law is to be regarded as typical, every part of the
law must be regarded as typical. How strange would it be
if, in a system of ritual observances so elaborate, so intimately
connected, so intertwined with one another, one part were
expressly intended to prefigure Gospel realities, while the
other parts were meant to have no reference to Gospel
realities at all ! Certainly no such strange notion was for a
moment thought of by the writer to the Hebrews. He
regards the law as typical, as all typical, and as all equally
typical. The law in its whole extent had a shadow of the
2c
386 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
good things to come, and not the very image of the tilings
(x. 1). In no other way could it have come into existence.
On no other supposition could it be set aside in favour of the
Gospel. But if the entire law be typical, what on earth or in
heaven can it be supposed to typify ? Does the law in its
whole extent bear on the face of it that it was meant to pro-
phesy the Gospel dispensation ? Connected with the law in
the work of mediation, were the angels, Moses, the priests, and
high priest ; and, in default of any other suitable person, Jesus
has to sustain the part of all of these. Not only so, but in
the absence of any sacrificial victim, Jesus has likewise to
supply the place of that. And since there is nothing to
answer, on the one hand, to the ceremony at the initiation of
the covenant, and on the other hand, to the daily offerings of
the priests (bloody and unbloody), and the annual offering of
the high priest, not to speak of the multitude of other rites
and observances, the death of Christ on the cross has to do
duty as the Gospel antitype of all of these. Besides, as the
heavenly holy place happens to be without a veil, the flesh of
Christ must, in addition to all its other functions, occupy the
position and discharge the function of a veil. Now, the mere
fact that all this gigantic mass of heterogeneous materials, per-
sonal and impersonal, is huddled together, and put in parallel-
ism to the individual person and the isolated fact of the
crucifixion of Christ, is surely enough to prove that there is
no real resemblance between the details of the ritual law and
the Gospel scheme of salvation. How could any one possibly
have divined that such a congeries of ritualistic machinery
had no other object than to furnish a prophecy of Jesus Christ
in the act of His death ? That the Mosaic tabernacle is in no
sense a representation of heaven ; that, even if it were, the
so-called offering of Jesus was not made in heaven, but upon
earth ; that the work of Christ, properly understood, has no
more real resemblance to any of the ceremonies of the law
than a multitude of other earthly processes that could easily
be named ; that of course it cannot possibly have the smallest
resemblance to all the legal ceremonies put together ; that the
second tabernacle and the mass of ministers and services, rites
and ceremonies, of the law are and must be entirely without
VIII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 3^7
equivalents under the Gospel ; and that the Gospel is not the
basis of a covenant in the sense, or in anything like the sense,
in which the law is the basis of a covenant all these things
have been already abundantly shown. It is, therefore, simply
the height of extravagance to assume that the Israelites
either did or could have discovered the incarnation, death,
and resurrection of Jesus Christ, together with all the eternal
world-historical consequences of these immortal facts, in the
medley of rites and observances that make up the ceremonial
law. In point of fact they neither did nor could have dis-
covered any such thing. If the Israelites must needs have
perceived that their sacrifices bore a distinct typical reference
to the death of Christ, then the heathen, whose ritual
systems contain the germs of everything or almost everything
in the Israelitish, must likewise have perceived that their
sacrifices, especially their human sacrifices, bore a distinct
typical reference to the death of Christ. The human sacri-
fices of the heathen bore and still bear a much closer analogy
to the death of Christ than any sacrifices whatever. Were
these human sacrifices then divinely instituted types of the
death of Christ? Will any one dare to allege that the heathen
foresaw the death of Christ by the help of their sacrifices, and
that they received Gospel blessings in the exercise of their
sacrificial rites through faith in the Coming One whom they
foresaw? If not, it is impossible on reasonable grounds to
allege any such thing of the Israelites.
In any case, however, it is beyond doubt that the writer to
the Hebrews represents the religion of Israel to be little else
than a majestic piece of mummery and masking, which served
only to betray its own absolute worthlessness and inefficacy to
the generation who first received the Gospel, and to " impose "
on all previous generations, who practised it without perceiving
it to be worthless and inefficacious. It was a religion of
shadows, which is equivalent to a religion of shams, and it
was "imposed until a time of reformation" (ix. 10), when the
religion of truth and reality made its appearance, presumably
with the view of giving the world sham religious practice,
before it should be called to real religious practice, much in
the same way that sham fighting is imposed upon soldiery
388 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
with the view of giving them sham military practice before
they are called to real military practice. There is, however,
this very essential difference between sham fighting and sham
religion, that whereas the former is attended with no detri-
ment to those who practise it, differing in this respect from
real fighting, the latter must have the effect of plunging its
votaries in hopeless perdition. The sham religion of Old
Testament times might afford an interesting if not an amusing
spectacle to the hearers of the Gospel at the Christian era, but
it was serious work for those who engaged in it. The author
of Hebrews has no scruple in adopting a theory of Old Testa-
ment religion which involves the ultimate destruction of the
entire pre-Christian world, provided only that by so doing he
can influence aright the conduct of his own readers. Accord-
ing to him, whatever real value belonged to the religion of
Israel was a value simply and solely in relation to his readers ;
for all other men, it was not only valueless but positively per-
nicious. The author's view distinctly is that pre-Christian
religion served as a foil to set off the excellence and ideal
validity of the religion which his readers had embraced, and
that it served no other useful purpose whatever. Just as the
Apostle Paul regards the law dispensation in no other light
than as a negative preparation for the Gospel dispensation,
while he supports his view by the dead-letter theory, so the
author of Hebrews regards the religion of Israel simply as a
foil to commend his own religion and that of his readers, basing
his representation on the typical theory. Both writers start
from Old Testament texts, into which they read unhistorical,
that is, purely fanciful meanings. Both have an immediately
practical end in view. Both have recourse to the most flimsy
and artificial reasonings in order to make good their case.
And both fall into the most glaring contradiction with their
own teaching in other connections.
Now, it goes without saying that such a theory of Old
Testament religion has no value whatever in an historical
point of view. The single circumstance that the writer
makes out the religion of Old Testament times to have
meaning, interest, and importance only for his readers, is a
sufficient proof that his account of it has been directly manu-
VIII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 389
iactured for persuasive purposes. The present theory of the
religion of Israel resembles both the other theories contained
in the epistle in respect (1) that it is systematic, (2) that it
has evidently been deduced from an isolated passage of Old
Testament Scripture, and (3) that it is brought in for the
purpose of grounding upon it a practical exhortation. The
systematic character of the theory appears in the fact that
according to it not a single individual in the whole pre-
Christian period of the world's history could possibly have
been saved. This implication alone is more than sufficient to
stamp it as utterly incredible. As we said before, it is simply
self-evident on the face of the historical records that there
was true religion or heart piety, a continuous if not a copious
stream of it, throughout the whole of the Old Testament
period And it is only the exigences of the writer's general
argument that has led him to make representations implying
anything else. He knows as well as we do that the religion
of Israel was not a shadowy religion pure and simple, as the
argument of chap. xi. clearly proves. But he has a direct
interest in so representing it, that he may induce his readers
to break with it in the particular form ivhich it had assumed
in his own day, which was in truth an outward, shadowy,
unreal form. Let us explain.
At the Christian era religion has assumed a form which it
has often assumed since, and which it has always a strong
tendency to assume : it had become dead, ossified, formalised,
ritualised, externalised, unspiritualised. True religion, which
consists in love to God and man, or in obedience to the moral
law, and which is prompted by the spirit of faith, had all but
completely died out, buried as it was beneath a mass of outward
observances. The religion of the best men in the best periods
of Israel's history, the religion of the heart and conscience, the
religion of the prophets and psalmists, which consisted in
" doing justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God,"
had become practically extinct, and the religion of the Scribes
and Pharisees, who made clean the outside of the cup and the
platter, while their inward part was full of extortion and
wickedness (Luke xi. 39), the religion which consisted in tith-
ing mint and rue and every herb, while passing over judgment
390 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
and the love of God (v. 42), in devouring widows' houses and
for a pretence making long prayers (Mark xii. 40), had obtained
the all but exclusive ascendancy. Whatever may have been
the origin of the ceremonial law, it had come in the course of
centuries completely to overshadow and obliterate the moral,
so that religion, instead of being the handmaid, had become the
deadliest enemy of morality. Men who were living in the
grossest selfishness, worldliness, rapacity, cruelty, envy, malice,
pride, sensuality men, in short, who were habitually violating
every precept of the moral law flattered themselves that
they were in the best possible religious state because they
went through with punctilious regularity the usual prescribed
round of outward observances. There was no real faith in
God, no true fear of God, no genuine heartfelt love either to
God or man, and therefore there was no true righteousness
(Matt. v. 20 ; xxiii. 23 ; Luke xi. 42), which is equivalent to
saying that there was no true religion. In these circum-
stances, what Christ and His apostles had to do, and what all
religious reformers in similar circumstances, both before and
since, have had to do, has been to tear off the mask of outward
formalism, and lead men back to religion of the heart. The
sum of all that Christ and His apostles taught was that men
should obtain through faith a new heart, which would enable
them to love God and their fellow-men, and that beyond this
everything was matter of absolute indifference. Hence the
Gospel, when put in contrast to the law, means the spirit of
religion in contrast to the outward form or letter of religion.
Christ and His apostles may have had a clearer, deeper, purer
insight into the moral law than any one before them, but this
did not constitute the peculiarity of the Gospel, nor was it this
that made the Christian era the epoch-making period that it
was. It was the prodigious influx of the spirit of religion
which Christ brought with Him into the world, and which He
left behind Him in the world, that constituted His coming
a new era in the religious history of the world. If the religion
of the world had not been practically dead when Christ came,
if it had not degenerated into a mere " form of godliness''
without life or power, there could have been no antithesis
between law and Gospel. The ground of that antithesis lies
VIII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 391
in the fact that religion had become a lifeless, powerless, ex-
ternal rule what the Apostle Paul calls " the letter " and
that Christ when He came supplied the infusion of spirit and
life which made the letter powerful over the hearts and con-
sciences of men. Religion is a combination of law and Gospel,
of letter and spirit, and religion existed in the world long
before the coming of Christ : but owing to the excessive pro-
minence given to the ceremonial law, and the almost total
obliteration, or at any rate the practical neglect, of the moral
law, religion at the coming of Christ was identified with mere
letter in separation from spirit, which was what gave rise to
the sharp distinction between law and Gospel that appears
everywhere in the New Testament. In the New Testament
law, even moral law, usually means letter without spirit, be-
cause in New Testament times it existed only in the spiritless
form. And in like manner, to obtain a true antithesis, Gospel
is used in the sense of spirit without letter. In other words,
at the dawn of the Christian era, the letter and the spirit of
religion had fallen well-nigh completely apart, and they were,
in consequence, sharply distinguished from one another, and
called by different names ; and the task which Christ and His
apostles had to accomplish was to bring the two things to-
gether again, and so to bring religion back into a healthy
state.
And yet there was something more to be done than just to
bring together letter and spirit by reasserting the former and
introducing or supplying the latter. For the letter of the law
that continued to exist subsequent to the Christian era was not
identical with that which existed previously. We have said or
hinted that, to all appearance, one main reason why religion
before Christ had become so completely ossified was that
the moral part of the law had been for centuries overshadowed
and well-nigh obliterated by a ceremonial part. So much, at
least, is clear : that the mass of ceremonial ordinances, which
could easily be obeyed by any man without a tincture either
of faith or piety, or even of common morality, had so powerful
a tendency to foster and keep up dead formalism, that it was
next to impossible, in the circumstances of the apostolic age,
to bring men back to spirituality and truth and life, unless
392 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
this mass of external ordinances could somehow be got
rid of.
By the moral part of the law, is meant that part which is
summed up in the words, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God
with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy
strength, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbour as thyself;"
and the religious insight of Christ and His apostles could not
but perceive that this was the only really essential part in a
religious point of view, and that all else was mere lumber.
The prime importance attached by Jesus Himself to the moral
as distinguished from the ceremonial law, appears plainly from
His answer to the scribe who questioned Him regarding the
first or great commandment. " Jesus answered, The first is,
Hear, O Israel ; The Lord our God, the Lord is one : arid
thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with
all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.
The second is this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
There is none other commandment greater than these [= ' On
these two commandments hangeth the whole law and the
prophets ' (Matt. xxii. 40)]. And the scribe said unto Him,
Of a truth, Master, Thou hast well said that He is one, and
to love Him with all the heart, and with all the understanding,
and with all the strength, and to love his neighbour as him-
self, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sac-
rifices. And when Jesus saw that he answered discreetly,
He said unto him, Thou art not far from the kingdom of
God " (Mark xii. 29-34). Similarly, the Apostle Paul writes:
" He that loveth his neighbour hath fulfilled the law. For
this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill,
Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not covet, and if there be
any other commandment it is summed up in this word, Thou
shalt love thy neighbour as thyself" (Rom. xiii. 8, 9). And
again : " For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, even in
this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself" (Gal. v. 14).
Once more, the Apostle James says : " Howbeit if ye fulfil the
royal law according to the Scripture, Thou shalt love thy
neighbour as thyself, ye do well ; but if ye have respect of
persons, ye commit sin, being convicted by the law as trans-
gressors. For whosover shall keep the whole law and yet
VIII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 393
stumble in one point, he is become guilty of all. For He that
said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now,
if thou dost not commit adultery, but killest, thou art become
a transgressor of the law. So speak ye, and so do, as those
who shall be judged by the law of liberty " (ii. 8-12).
Such was the view taken of the moral law, as we are
pleased to call it. But in addition to this essential moral
part, there was a vast and complicated system of ceremonial
ordinances which claimed, equally with the two great com-
mandments, to have been given direct by God through the
instrumentality of Moses. These ordinances had been in
existence for centuries, and were accepted by every one as of
Divine authority and of Mosaic origin. Historical critics of
the more sober-minded and earnest class are inclining more
and more to the opinion that the sacrificial and ceremonial
system of the Israelitish nation was not of positive Divine
institution, but of natural origin, just as much so as the sacri-
ficial systems of the heathen ; that in the earliest ages it was
of a simple nature, and as nearly as possible identical, in its
general character, with that which existed among the surround-
iug nations ; that, though accepted by the God of Israel as a
convenient form in which religious feeling might develop and
express itself, it was at no time regarded by the best spirits of
the nation as entering into the essence of true religion, or as
being in itself anything more than a matter of indifference ;
that as soon as it became in any way corrupted by association
with immoral, that is, with strictly irreligious practices, it was
regarded not only as worthless, but as positively offensive ;
that, for many generations subsequent to Moses, sacrificial rites
were performed at a variety of local sanctuaries throughout the
land of Canaan, and that only when the worship connected
with these had become hopelessly corrupt, through admixture
and association with heathen and immoral elements, was it
prohibited and finally abolished through the prevailing influ-
ence of religious reform ; that as ritual worship in Israel
became centralised, it also and very naturally become more
elaborate, though, of course, it could not change its essential
nature as the merely outward, temporary, and more or less
accidental form in which the religious spirit exercised itself;
394 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
that the ceremonial system in its most fully developed written
form the form in which it appears in the middle books of the
Pentateuch did not take shape, or at any rate did not cflrne
into actual practice, till after the Babylonian exile ; and,
finally, that long before the Christian era the written
law had been greatly augmented by unwritten additions, and,
instead of being a help, had become a positive hindrance to the
progress of true religion, and was ripe for being swept out of
existence, as soon as some great prophet or religious reformer
should appear to tear off the mask under which ungodliness
and immorality were parading themselves in the name of
religion.
Such, or something like such, is the view of the best his-
torical critics on the nature and origin of the Jewish ceremonial
law. The Apostles, however, were not historical critics, but
religious men. They saw, as the prophets had seen before
them, that mere observance of the ceremonial law was to all
truly religious intents on a level with heathen or nature wor-
ship (Gal. iv. 8), and that it was in no sort necessary to
acceptance with God (Acts x. 34, 35). They saw, also, that
besides being unsuited, highly centralised as it was, to a time
when religion was to become universal, and besides being, in
its now fully developed form, an oppressive " yoke of bondage "
(Gal. v. 1 ; iv. 3) which " neither our fathers nor we were
able to bear" (Acts xv. 10) a mode of characterisation, by
the way, which is very inexplicable, if the knowledge and
practice of the ceremonial law was absolutely necessary to
show men the way of salvation through a " vicarious atone-
ment" it had become so deeply perverted by being allowed
to usurp the place of what was the only really essential part
of religion, " the fearing of God and the working of righteous-
ness" (Acts x. 35), that it must at whatever cost be set aside,
or at least must no longer be imposed upon Gentile converts
to the true faith as a matter of religious obligation. Believ-
ing, however, in common with all their contemporaries, that
the entire system was of direct Divine institution, and of
Mosaic origin, they were debarred from attacking it upon any
but grounds that conserved this assumption. Jesus Himself,
whatever He might know as to the origin and nature of the
VIII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 395
system, did not feel it to be either necessary or expedient for
the purposes of His mission to enter into any questions of the
kind. That He should not have done so must always be a
source of deep disappointment to men who go to the Bible,
not for light on the problems of practical life and experience,,
but in order to find in it a cut-and-dried system of scholastic
theology, which, however unsuited to the wants of the million,
shall supply an infallible " rule of faith " to a lifeless and
barren orthodoxy. But Jesus was not a scholastic divine, as
scholastic divines would fain make Him out to be. He did
not come to assure the world of what it was assured already
that the doctrine of plenary inspiration was sound ; that the
text of the Jewish Scriptures was immaculate, or nearly so \
that the authorship of the different books was exactly what it
professed to be ; and that the ordinary traditional view of
Jewish history was correct. He felt, no doubt, that He could
easily accomplish " the work which the Father had given Him
to do " without raising any such points. He foresaw, we may
well believe, that the advance of critical inquiry would clear
up the enigmas of Jewish history and Jewish literature, as
soon as the world was capable of understanding them, or of
turning them to any practical account. Christ and His-
apostles use the Old Testament history and literature for no-
other purpose than to illustrate and give practical point to
independent living religious ideas, and for such a purpose the
ordinary view was quite as serviceable as a critically accurate
one. Accordingly, the attitude of Jesus Himself toward the
ceremonial law is indefinite. Full of new ideas instinct with
spirituality and power, He occupied Himself almost exclusively
in communicating positive truth, and took little pains to set
aside anything ; leaving the leaven to spread, the mustard-seed
to grow and develop, as best it might, and for the rest content-
ing Himself with such general statements as these : " The
Scribes and Pharisees sit on Moses' seat : all things therefore
whatsoever they bid you these do and observe, but do not ye
after their works, for they say and do not " (Matt, xxiii. 2, 3) :
" Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! for ye
tithe mint and anise and cummin, and have left undone the
weightier matters of the law, judgment, and mercy, arid faith,
396 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
but these ye ought to have done, and not to leave the other
undone" (vv. 23, 24). It is only from the general strain and
tendency of His teaching, and the prominence assigned in it
to what is moral above what is ceremonial, that we can gather
anything as to how Jesus regarded the Mosaic ceremonial
system, and the something that we do gather must be left
vague, general, and undefined. The problem of the relation
of Christianity to the ceremonial law, or, which is really the
same thing, of the relation of Christianity to Judaism as
Judaism was in the apostolic age, never took distinct shape,
nor became living and practical till after Jesus had passed
away, and Christianity had begun to extend itself beyond the
limits of Judaism : it is, therefore, to the epistles and not to
the gospels, to the disciples and not to the Master, that we
must turn for definite teaching upon it.
The apostles, then, had this task to face : they had to find
a method of justifying what could not but appear even to
themselves as a very extraordinary and extreme step (cf. Acts
x. 17, 45, &c.), the setting aside as religiously worthless of
the entire ceremonial system, which they and all other men
had hitherto regarded as absolutely necessary to salvation, and
this had to be done without impugning the Divine institution
and Mosaic origin of the system, in which they and all other
men still continued to believe. What produced overwhelming
conviction in the minds of the apostles that the ceremonial
part of the law was a matter of religious indifference, and that
the only really essential part in the sight of God was the moral
part, was the fact that Gentile converts, who had neither been
circumcised, nor had kept any ceremonial ordinance, received
the Holy Ghost instantly on believing equally with the apostles
themselves (Acts x. 45-47; xi. 15-18; xv. 8). So far as
practice was concerned, this was a sufficient warrant for ignor-
ing ceremonial ordinances altogether. But then the question
arose, both in their own minds and in those of their converts,
especially their Jewish ones, if the ceremonial law was directly
imposed by God, and if strict obedience to its injunctions was
required of all would-be worshippers of God at a former period,
how could it nowbe a matter of religious indifference ? How could
a system of ordinances once religiously binding become no longer
VIII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 397
religiously binding, when God was unchangeably the same ?
How could any ordinance directly imposed by God be a merely
temporary and not a permanently obligatory ordinance ? How
could a specific course of action be absolutely necessary to
acceptance with God (for that, and nothing less, is implied in a
thing being of direct, positive, Divine institution) at one time,
and wholly unnecessary at another time ? These, and such-
like questions, could not but suggest themselves, and press for
an answer, at the hands of the apostles, and it is to answering
such questions as these that some of the weightiest portions
of the apostolic epistles are devoted.
Two well-marked, though not wholly independent, solutions
are found in the New Testament, one peculiar to the Apostle
Paul, and the other to the author of Hebrews. As a matter of
course, both writers start from the assumption that the Jewish
law is a unity which cannot be broken up ; all the parts
of which are equally Divine in their institution and equally
Mosaic in their origin, all having been imposed at the same
time, under the same circumstances, and with the same object
in view; no part of which can be represented as being less
valid, less authoritative, less obligatory, less permanent, or less
final than another. The modern distinction between what is
ceremonial and what is moral in the law, as between the
temporary, occasional, imperfect, transitory, and the permanent,
universal, ideal, and eternal, never would have occurred to
Jewish minds of the first century, had not extraordinary cir-
cumstances forced it upon their attention. It traversed in the
most direct manner all their preconceived ideas. They were
brought to admit the possibility of it only with the utmost
difficulty. And even after the reception of the Spirit by
Gentile converts had compelled them to recognise it in
practice, they were quite unable to justify it in theory, with-
out having recourse to transparently unwarrantable dialectic
and exegetical devices. To them it could not but appear to
be nothing short of a flat contradiction, first to assert that the
whole law was instituted at the same time, and under the
same sanctions, and then to assert that one part of it was
temporary, occasional, imperfect, transitory, while the other
part was permanent, universal, ideal, and eternal. Modern
398 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
theologians may be able to accept extravagant notions of that
description ad libitum, but not so the apostles of Christ and
their contemporaries. Hence the New Testament writers
make no attempt to account for the abrogation of a part of the
so-called Mosaic law viz., the ceremonial, as distinguished from
the moral part. That was really what required to be done.
But they could have done that only by denying the equal
Divine authority and Mosaic origin of the part that was proved
to be unessential, and that was now in consequence to be set
aside. What they actually do, or endeavour by forced exe-
getical and dialectic expedients to do, is, first to prove that
the whole law, moral and ceremonial, must be abrogated on
the ground that it was and had always been utterly worthless
for properly religious purposes, and then but this applies
chiefly, if not exclusively, to Paul to account for the whole
of this profitless and transitory system of law ever having been
imposed by God at all. Both Paul and the author of Hebrews
agree in representing the law meaning thereby the whole
Mosaic system as a preparatory, evanescent, and, for saving
purposes, abortive dispensation ; they agree also in represent-
ing this abortive dispensation as being set aside in favour of
the Gospel, the final ideally- valid dispensation. In both cases,
too, so far as one can gather, the way is opened for this result
by regarding the religious spirit, the substance of the Gospel,
as being a law to itself, and as having no need even for the
moral law, either on the one hand to curb and restrain it
from what is wrong, or on the other hand to guide and direct
it to what is right. With this, of course, is connected the
constant tendency, which appears especially in the writings of
Paul, to represent the Christian man as having reached the
ideal state, in which he will really "do by nature the things
contained in the law," and will have no need for " the law
(which) is made not for a righteous man but for sinners"
(1 Tim. i. 9). At present, however, we are concerned only
with the position occupied by the writer to the Hebrews.
That position has been already indicated with tolerable,
some will perhaps think with undue, plainness. The author,
on the ground of a variety of isolated, fancifully interpreted
Scripture texts, tries to make out that the law communicated
VIII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 399
through Moses had no other real object than to furnish a
shadowy representation of the communication of the spirit of
the Gospel through Jesus. He takes it for granted that this
earlier revelation of the will of God, in contrast to the later
Gospel revelation, had always been, nay, was from its very
nature, the same system of dead, inefficient, unspiritual,
external ordinances which it had so generally become in his
own day. He will have it that the law, in its whole extent,
in its moral not less than its ceremonial parts, had all along
been absolutely futile, so far as concerned the salvation of those
to whom it was given, and by whom its injunctions were obeyed;
arguing that the first covenant bore on its very face in the form
of its tabernacle, in the time and manner of its high priest's
action, in the endless repetition of the same sacrifices, in the very
nature of its offerings the evidence that it was shadowy, imper-
fect, transitory, profitless ; though he is very far from alleging
that those who practised its rites and ceremonies perceived them
to be of this nature. He remembered too well that at no
very distant date neither he nor any of his contemporaries
had ever dreamt that they were of such a nature, otherwise
they would at once have ceased to practise them, and have
betaken themselves to that by which they could truly please
God, and so attain to righteousness and life. Nay, he was
well aware how very difficult it would be even now to con-
vince his readers that the law was of that ghostly, good-for-
nothing character which he attributes to it, and hence the
elaborate care with which he endeavours to fortify all his
leading positions with Scripture proof. In fact, his whole
demonstration has no other object than to furnish a basis for
exhorting his readers to cease from practising the ordinances
of the law, and to hold fast the spirit of the Gospel, which
they had received, and might still retain, through faith or
hope.
As before remarked, the author's typological argument
rather leads him to sink the moral part of the law in the
ritual and ceremonial. He cannot be said to represent the
moral law in distinction from the ceremonial as typical of the
Gospel message announcing the presence of the Spirit.
Neither does he follow the Apostle Paul in representing the
400 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
moral law in combination with the ceremonial as shutting
men np unto the faith that should afterwards be revealed, and
so acting as a tutor to lead them to Christ. Indeed, the author
hardly touches on the positive point as to the usefulness of
any part of the law : what he is bent on establishing is the
negative point that every part of it is useless, and therefore
ought to be abandoned. All that we know about the moral
part of the law is that it was in no sense living and operative
as a means of salvation in Old Testament times, but was
simply a part of the first covenant, inseparable from the rest
of the dead carnal ordinances imposed until the time of
reformation, when the spirit of truth and life entered the
world through Jesus Christ.
In one respect, indeed, the author's position does seem to
approach that of Paul in so far as the latter represents the
law as "the letter that killeth," by which he means that it is
the instrument of condemnation and death ; for the leading
warning or dissuasive appeal that runs through the epistle
rests on the assumption that " the word spoken through
angels was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience
received a just recompense of reward." Yet even here there
is no real parallelism. For when Paul represents the law as
" the letter that killeth," he contrasts it with " the spirit that
giveth life," that is, with the Gospel as the means of justifica-
tion and life ; whereas the practical exhortation of the author
of Hebrews is based on the presupposition that law and
Gospel are not opposed to each other as dead letter is opposed
to life-giving spirit, but resemble each other as letter that
killeth resembles letter that killeth. And this may be taken
as another striking illustration, in addition to the many we
have already had, of how extremely artificial is the structure
of the whole epistle. The law from its very nature is a thing
of two sides. It possesses negative as well as positive
sanctions. It holds forth a threat in case of disobedience as
well as a promise in case of obedience. And it is perfectly
true that " the word spoken through angels proved steadfast,
and every transgression and disobedience received a just
recompense of reward/' But then this is just the very
essence of the distinction betiveen law and Gospel, which
VIII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 401
occasioned and permitted of their being set over against each
other as different things, and being called by different names.
The Gospel, as its very name implies, is a thing of only one
side. It holds forth a promise of life to those who accept it,
but, properly speaking, it has no threatening of death to those
who reject it, or fail to hold it fast. It is a thing of grace,
and of grace only, a thing purely promissory and not at all
minatory. " God so loved the world, that He gave His only
begotten Son, that whosoever belie veth on Him should not
perish, but have eternal life. For God sent not His Son into
the world to judge the world [through His communicating the
letter of the law that killeth], but that the world should be
saved through Him [through His communicating the Spirit of
the Gospel that giveth life]. He that believeth on Him is
not judged ; he that believeth not hath been already judged
[scil. through the law], because he hath not believed on the
name of the only begotten Son of God" (John iii. 16-18).
These words contain in brief compass a literally accurate
description of the Gospel ; and they prove that however
judgment and penalty may attend the rejection of it, such
judgment and penalty are not, properly speaking, the work of
the Gospel, but of the law that preceded the Gospel. Men
are born into the world in a state of condemnation under the
law, from which the Gospel seeks to deliver them, but those
who refuse to believe the Gospel do not strictly incur the
penalty attached to the Gospel, they simply fail to escape the
penalty attached to the law, under which they already lie.
So that an exhortation based on an assumed parallelism
between law and Gospel in respect to penal sanctions has only
the veriest semblance of a foundation to rest on. Possibly it
will be said that the writer's exhortation would have a real
basis, if we assume that the law is a combination of letter
and spirit, while the Gospel is a combination of spirit and
letter. But not to mention that here law and Gospel are no
longer different things, but the same identical thing viz.,
the true religion, the assumption in question, so far from
being countenanced by the writer himself in the main body of
the epistle, would overthrow everything, or almost everything,
which the epistle contains in the way of argument.
2 D
402 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
To return. The author's general position is that the whole
Mosaic law is typical of the Gospel, and therefore it must be
shadowy, imperfect, evanescent, profitless, and therefore the
readers of the epistle ought to renounce it for ever, and hold
fast the Gospel in its stead. In other words, the writer
makes use of the typical method of interpretation for the pur-
pose of setting aside the entire Mosaic law, in the form in
which it existed, and was practised in his own day in the
form, that is, of the letter that killeth and of commending
the Gospel as the corresponding living spiritual reality, intended
to take its place. That his real object, however, is the setting
aside of the ceremonial law, which was the grand stumbling-
block to the reception and propagation of the Gospel, and that
he is merely adopting a dialectic expedient for this purpose,
is evident on many considerations.
In the first place, it is not true that the moral law is or
can be dispensed with under the Gospel in the way that the
ceremonial law can confessedly be dispensed with. The
moral law is simply not abrogated, and never can be abro-
gated, in the sense that the ceremonial law is abrogated
viz., through obedience to its dictates having become a matter
of indifference ; it is, on the contrary, as imperatively obliga-
tory, and as necessary for direction and guidance, to the
Christian man as to any other. Our author, no doubt, appears
to agree with the Apostle Paul in regarding the Christian
spirit " the spirit of life in Christ Jesus " as being a law
to itself, so that it can dispense with any objective rule of
moral conduct ; particularly when he represents it as the sum
of Christian duty to " hold fast our boldness and the glorying
of our hope firm unto the end " (iii. 6), to " hold fast the
beginning of our confidence firm unto the end" (v. 14), to
" hold fast our confession" (iv. 14), to " show the same dili-
gence unto the fulness of the hope unto the end" (vi. 11),
&c. But this is a mere dialectic device, having no practical
reality. Paul himself hardly ever closes an epistle without
laying down elaborately the injunctions of the moral law, and
exhorting his readers to obey them. And the writer to the
Hebrews does the same thing in his epistle (xii. 14-17 ;
xiii. 1, seq.\ Both writers are compelled, by the exigencies
VIII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 403
of theory, to assume that the moral part of the law must be
abrogated, otherwise they could not account for the abroga-
tion of the ceremonial part. Both are likewise compelled by
the exigencies of practise to repudiate their own theory, and
assume that the moral part of the law is not abrogated, not-
withstanding the abrogation of the ceremonial part. Indeed,
to represent the letter of the moral law as in any way superseded,
rendered less necessary, or less obligatory, through the intro-
duction of the spirit of the Gospel, is to contravene in the
most direct manner the plain teaching of Jesus Himself, who
reaffirmed the precepts of the moral law in the most stringent
form, prefacing his reaffirmation of them with the words :
" Think not that I came to destroy the law or the prophets ;
I came not to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto
you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle
shall in no wise pass away from the law, till all things be
accomplished. Whosoever, therefore, shall break one of these
least commandments, and shall teach men so, shall be called
least in the kingdom of heaven, but whosoever shall do and
teach them he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
For verily I say unto you, that except your righteousness
shall exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, ye
shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven" (Matt,
v. 17-20). Words sufficiently remarkable, and that almost
seem to imply that Jesus did not regard the ceremonial
system as being, in strictness of language, a part of the law
instituted by God at all (cf. xv. 3). Not only does He not
reaffirm any part of it in the verses that follow, or elsewhere,
but as a matter of fact it was all " destroyed," and " passed
away," very soon after. Anyhow, it is clear that the two
great commandments " on which hangeth the whole law and
the prophets" (xxii. 40) were not set aside by Jesus, but
reasserted as absolutely and eternally obligatory on all who
would enter the kingdom of heaven.
But, further, the theory that ignores the radical distinction
between what is moral and what is ceremonial, and represents
the whole law as being disannulled on account of its weakness
and unprofitableness, in order that a better hope, the spirit of
the Gospel, might be brought in thereupon, implies, as we
404 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
said before, that the law never was, and never could have
been, a means of salvation, and this again implies that no one
in Old Testament times was or could possibly be saved a
consequence that amounts to a reductio ad absurdum of the
whole theory. A theory which carries with it the implication
that there were no true servants of God during the entire
course of Old Testament history, bears on the face of it the
sentence of its own condemnation. The theory has the ap-
pearance of being conservative and moderate in its character,
since it attempts to account for the setting aside of the cere-
monial law without impugning its Divine institution ; but,
like many other conservative and moderate-looking theories,
it is really far more rash and unwarrantable, and certainly far
more God-dishonouring, than the theory of the critics, who
allege that the ceremonial law was set aside because it was
simply an outgrowth from heathenism, which never had
received positive Divine sanction, which formed no proper
essential part of "the law and the prophets" (Matt. v. 17),
whose teaching was communicated by God, and sanctioned
anew by Jesus Christ. What could be more injurious and
derogatory to the character of God, than to represent Him as
imposing on His chosen people a system of ordinances, such as
would reduce the whole pre-Christian religion of the world to
the level of a farce, intended for the benefit, if not for the
amusement, of the generation contemporary with the author
of Hebrews, a farce which differed from other farces only
in the circumstance that those who played it were unconscious
that it was farcical and not real ? It is a fair inference, too,
that since the theory by which the author attempts to account
for the abrogation of the ceremonial law leads to consequences
so absurd, the assumption on which it is based, and which it
is framed to conserve, is a false assumption, and that the tru<
reason why the ceremonial law came to be set aside is th<
reason suggested by the critics (cf. Matt. xv. 7-20).
The two foregoing views of the religion of Israel having
been found to be both utterly, and about equally, unhistorical
we have now, in conclusion, to glance briefly at the view
presented in chap. xi. And the first thing that has to b(
remarked in connection with it is that the fundamental text
VIII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 405
from which it is avowedly deduced, is not at least the really
important clause of it is not fancifully or flagrantly unhistori-
cally interpreted. It is true that our author understands the
word " faithfulness/' which means simply uprightness, probity,
fidelity, springing from general faith in God, in the specific
sense of " faith " in Christ, as appears from what he says
about Moses sharing the reproach of Christ (xi. 26), and from
other circumstances. So far, therefore, he must be allowed
to have deviated from the strict historical sense. But even
so, the deviation is in the form rather than in the substance.
When the prophet Habakkuk says, " The righteous shall live
by his faithfulness," this is equivalent to saying, " The
righteous shall live by his righteousness," and righteousness
in the Old Testament, especially in the prophets, is always
thought of as the fruit of piety or faith in God. When, on
the other hand, the writer to the Hebrews says, " My righteous
one shall live by faith," he means, " The righteous shall live
by faith in Christ," and he regards faith in Christ as life-
giving, not in itself, but because it is the source of righteous-
ness (xi. 4). So that the fundamental idea of the two writers
is substantially though not formally and exactly the same.
And this leads us to expect that the representation of Old
Testament religion deduced from the prophet's words, so
interpreted and understood, will be substantially though not
formally and exactly correct : which, accordingly, we shall
find it to be as soon as we come to examine it.
We must premise, however, that it is by no means a part
of our duty to settle the exact nature of Old Testament
religion. That is a function which belongs properly to the
historical critic and interpreter of the Old Testament, rather
than to us, who are merely historical critics and interpreters
of the New Testament. In all our remarks, therefore, we
must be understood to be stating, either what is obvious on
the face of the Old Testament, what is universally admitted,
or what appears to be sanctioned by the best historical
criticism.
Now, the following passages give us some insight into how
true religion was conceived and practised by the best men of
Old Testament times. " I hate, I despise your feasts, and I
406 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
delight not in your solemn assemblies ; yea, though ye offer
Me burnt- offerings, with your meat offerings, I will not accept
them ; neither will I regard the thank-offerings of your fat
beasts. Take thou away from Me the noise of thy songs ; for
I will not hear the melody of thy viols ; but lei justice roll
down like waters, and righteousness as an unfailing stream "
(Amos v. 21-24). "Hear the word of the Lord, ye children
of Israel ; for the Lord hath a controversy with the inhabitants
of the land, because there is no truth, nor love, nor knowledge
of God in the land; there is nought but swearing, and
breaking faith, and killing, and stealing, and committing
adultery ; they commit outrages, and blood toucheth blood. . . .
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. . . . O Ephraim,
what shall I do unto thee ? Judah, what shall I do unto
you ? for your love is as a morning cloud, and as the dew
that goeth away. Therefore have I hewed them by the
prophets ; I have slain them by the words of My mouth ; and
My justice goeth forth as the light. For I desire love and
not sacrifice, and the knoivledge of God more than burnt-
offerings" (Hos. iv. 1, 2, 6 ; vi. 4-6). "Hear the word of
the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom ; give ear unto the law of our
God, ye people of Gomorrah. To what purpose is the multi-
tude of your sacrifices unto Me? saith the Lord. I am full
of the burnt- offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts,
and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of
he-goats. When ye come to appear before Me, who hath
required this at your hand, to trample My courts ? Bring no
more vain oblations ; incense is an abomination unto Me ; new
moon and Sabbath, the calling of assemblies I cannot away
with iniquity and the solemn meeting. Your new moons and
your appointed feasts My soul hateth ; they are a trouble unto
Me ; I am weary to bear them. And when ye spread forth
your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you; yea, when ye
make many prayers I will not hear ; your hands are full
of blood. Wash you, make you clean, put away the evil of
your doings from before mine eyes, cease to do evil, learn to
do well, seek justice, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless,
plead for the widow. Come now, and let us reason together ;
though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow ;
VIII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 407
though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If ye
be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land ;
but if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the
sword : for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. ... Arid
I will turn My hand upon tbee, and throughly purge away
thy dross, and will take away all thy tin ; and I will restore
thy judges as at the first, and thy counsellors as at the
beginning ; and afterward thou shalt be called the city of
righteousness, the faithful city. Zion shall be redeemed by
justice, and they that return of her by righteousness [=" The
righteous shall live by His faithfulness " (Hab. ii. 4) ]. But
the destruction of the transgressors and the sinners shall be
together, and they that forsake the Lord shall be consumed."
(Isa. i. 10-20; 25-28). "Wherewith shall I come before
the Lord, and bow myself before the high God ? Shall I come
before Him with burnt-offerings, with calves of a year old ?
Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with
ten-thousands of rivers of oil ? Shall I give my first-born
for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of
my soul? He hath showed thee, man, what is good;
and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justice,
and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with thy God
(Micah vi. 6-8).
The reader cannot, of course, expect me to go on in this
way, but I may be allowed to refer him for further illustration
to a few more representative passages : Jer. vii. 3-10, 21-23 ;
Isa. Iv. 6, 7 ; Ivi. 6, 7 ; Ivii. 15-17; Iviii. 4-8'; Ps. xl. 6-8;
1. 7-23; li. 1-17 ; Zech. viii. 14-17.
To make these quotations complete, we should have required
to preface them with the Ten Commandments, which formed
the basis of the covenant between God and the people of
Israel so often referred to (1 Kings viii. 9, 21 ; Deut. v. 2-22 ;
Ex. xix. 5-9 ; xx. 1-17); for it will be readily perceived that
the Ten Words are presupposed as the standard of religious
conduct in almost all 'the above passages. Taken as a whole,
and with the addition of the Ten Words, the passages cited
may be regarded as affording a very fair specimen of the views
entertained by the most eminent men of Old Testament times
on the fundamentals of religious faith and practice. And they
408 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
appear, when duly considered, to warrant the following con-
clusions :
(1.) That the essence of true religion lies injustice, righte-
ousness, truth, faithfulness, knowledge of God, likeness to God,
love to God and man, fellowship with God, fear of God,
humility, purity of heart and life, holiness, obedience to -God's
word or will, keeping God's covenant (the Ten Commandments),
all these having their source in, and being directly dependent
upon, faith in God. In one word, therefore, true religion
consists in obedience to the moral law to the two great com-
mandments on which hangeth the whole law and the prophets
through faith in God.
(2.) That worship by sacrifice forms no part of the essence
of religion, and is in no sort necessary to salvation, or to accept-
ance with God, though the neglect of it may, under certain
circumstances, be considered culpable, as being a token of
religious indifference ; just as, on the other hand, the officious
observance of it may become an abomination to God, when it
is put forward as a substitute for religion itself. In short,
sacrifice, like prayer, praise, fasting, Sabbath-keeping, alms-
giving, tithe - paying, &c., is simply an outward religious
exercise, a form of religious worship, comparable in every
respect to the forms of religious worship that still survive in
the Christian Church, which may, when rightly used used,
that is, as a help to the development of the religious affections
and the strengthening of the religious spirit be a real efficient
means of grace to the worshipper, and of glory to God who is
worshipped, though they possess in and of themselves no proper
religious value, and though they are not obligatory in any
other than the general sense that everything which tends to
strengthen and develop religious life is obligatory.
(3.) That forgivenness of sins is absolute and unconditional
on the part of God, and on the part of the sinner is conditioned
solely by repentance, contrition of heart, conversion or turning
from sin to God, renewal of heart or spirit, purification, sancti-
fication. Sacrifice in particular is not in the least essential to
forgiveness, as appears very plainly from the language of Ps. li.,
which is occupied with the idea of forgiveness and with nothing
else. Sacrifice to be acceptable must be offered in a repentant
VIII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 409
contrite frame of mind, and a person in such a frame of mind
will be forgiven by God whether his feelings are embodied in
corresponding ritual actions or not.
(4.) That suffering undergone by God's people is viewed as
punishment inflicted by God on account of sin, is, in that
regard, a manifestation of the Divine justice, and is intended
besides to work repentance, contrition, conversion from sin to
God.
(5.) That, in like manner, prosperity enjoyed by God's
people is viewed as the reward of obedience, and so serves to
manifest the Divine justice, and that, when it follows suffering,
it is a token that God has forgiven His people's sin.
It is evident how completely this view of the nature of true
religion agrees with the teaching of Jesus as we find it in the
Sermon on the Mount, and elsewhere. According to Jesus
also : (1) True religion consists in righteousness, obedience
to the moral law, love to God and man, likeness to God, truth-
fulness or sincerity, purity of heart and life, holiness, humility,
charity, &c., exercised in and through faith in God (Matt,
v. 17-20; xxii. 37-40; v. 43-48; vi. 2, seq.', v. 3-9;
xix. 17-21 ; Luke ix. 46-48, &c.). (2) Religious observances,
such as sacrifice, prayer, praise, fasting, Sabbath-keeping, alms-
giving, tithe-paying, &c., are not of the essence of true religion,
but may be used as helps to the development of religious life,
and as such " ought to be done " when convenient (Matt,
xxiii. 3, 23); although, on the other hand, as soon as they
become hindrances to the development of religious life, by
usurping the place or obstructing the exercise of moral obedi-
ence, they are to be traversed and broken through, as being an
abomination in the sight of God (Matt. xii. 7, 12, seq.', ix. 13;
xv. 1-20 ; Luke xiii. 15, seq. ; vi. 9, seq. ; Matt. vi. 1, 2, 5, 16;
Mark xii. 40). (3) Forgiveness of sins is absolute and un-
conditional on the part of God, and on the part of the sinner
is conditioned solely by repentance, contrition of heart, right-
eousness, love, a forgiving disposition, &c. (Matt. vi. 14;
Luke xviii. 13; vii. 47; xv. 20, 21; Matt, xviii. 35, &c.).
Sacrifice has no essential connection with forgiveness, but
acceptable sacrifice can only be offered by a person in a loving,
forgiving frame of mind (Matt. v. 23). (4) In one point, and
410 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
one only, does the teaching of Jesus appear to differ materially
from that of the law, the prophets, and the psalms, and even
that point is one of development rather than of difference.
By the Old Testament writers the issues of God's moral
government are thought of as strictly confined to the present
life. When God punishes His people, or His enemies, He
does so in the present world, by the sufferings, trials, reverses
(personal and political) which He inflicts upon them. And, in
like manner, when God rewards His people, He does so in the
present world, by giving them to enjoy peace, prosperity, and
plenty in their own land, which, when taken along with its
accessories, is the sum of the reward attached to the keeping
of the covenant. All the expostulations, warnings, threats,
and promises of the prophets are based on the presupposition
that God is the righteous Governor of the world, and that,
consequently, righteousness must ultimately triumph and
iniquity be confounded in the present life, if not of the in-
dividual, at least of the nation or people. This assumption
was indeed discovered even by the later Old Testament writers
themselves to be altogether too sweeping ; and hence the
difficulties which were felt to be involved in the observed
order of things, and the doubts and perplexities thence arising,
which find expression and are discussed in some of the psalms,
in the Book of Job, and in Ecclesiastes. Jesus, on the other
hand, without disputing the fact that the present world is
under the moral government of God, taught that the issues of
God's moral government, in the way of reward and punish-
ment, are to be sought mainly in the world to come (Matt.
v. 12; xxv., passim; Luke xvi. 19-31, &c.). The punish-
ment of God's own people, so far as they are punished, is
indeed still confined to the present life. But even here there
is a difference. For while the believer may and ought to
regard his sufferings as in general the effect of sin and the
punishment of it, he is neither bound nor entitled to construe
particular calamities as the manifestations of the Divine anger
on account of particular sins, in the way that Old Testament
saints were in the habit of doing (Luke xiii. 1-9 ; John ix.
1-3). As regards the reward of the godly and the punish-
ment of the ungodly, both these are thought of as mainly
VIII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 411
though not exclusively reserved for the time of reckoning that
shall set in at the final judgment.
So much for the general correspondence between true
religion as expounded and practised by the most eminent men
of Old Testament times, and true religion as expounded and
practised by Jesus Christ. Our chief concern, however, is
with the view of Old Testament religion presented in Hebrews
xi., and particularly with its relation to what we have found
reason to think is the proper historical view. We have
already indicated that the author of Hebrews understands the
word " faithfulness," used by the prophet Habakkuk, in the
specific sense of faith in Christ, and that he attributes faith
in Christ to all, or at anyrate to some, of the righteous men
of Old Testament times. Now, there can be no doubt that,
in doing this, the author was simply attributing to Old Testa-
ment saints his own state of mind : because he had attained
to righteousness and life through faith in Christ, therefore he
assumes that all Old Testament saints must have attained to
righteousness and life through the same means. The conse-
quence, however, does not follow, natural though it may have
been for him to draw it. For after the advent and death of
Christ, true religion assumed a somewhat more definite and
specialised form than that which it had previously. Before
the advent of Christ, the religious spirit drew its inspiration
direct from God himself, in accordance with the command,
" Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth ; for
I am God, and there is none else" (Isa. xlv. 22). Faith
rested simply on Jehovah, the God of Israel, who alone could
help and reward them that sought after Him. There was
" one God," but there was not " one Mediator also between God
and men, Himself man, Christ Jesus" (1 Tim. ii. 5) at least
there was no consciousness of such a Mediator. Jehovah
Himself was everything to His people Father (Isa. Ixiii. 1 6 ;
Ixiv. 8), Bridegroom (Ixii. 4), Husband (liv. 5), Redeemer (id.),
Saviour (xlv. 15), Teacher (xlviii. 17), and, in particular, the
object of faith (1. 10), and the Giver of the Spirit (lix. 21 ;
Ixiii. 11, &c.). After the advent of Christ, the religious
spirit drew its inspiration from God, as manifested and made
known in Jesus Christ, in accordance with the command,
412 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
" Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved "
(Acts xvi. 31). The apostles, having found Christ to be
everything to them in the way of communicating spiritual life,
recommended all men to look to Him and be saved, just as
the prophets at a former period, having found Jehovah to be
everything to them in the way of communicating spiritual life,
recommended all men to look to Him and be saved. Hence-
forth religious life became specifically life in Christ, religious
faith became specifically faith in Christ, and the religious
spirit became specifically the Spirit of Christ. Henceforth
men had not only abstract moral precepts to point them God-
ward, together with the imperfect embodiment of these pre-
cepts in the lives of eminent patriarchs, judges, kings, and
prophets, but they had abstract moral precepts, together with
the ideally perfect embodiment of these precepts in the life of
the Son of God. Henceforth men had not only God for a
Father, but they had Christ for an elder brother, a forerunner,
and (in the conscious sense) a mediator. So that our author
can say, " Let us also .... run with patience the race set
before us, looking [for an example] to Jesus, the leader and
perfecter of faith" (xii. 1, 2). "Us also [as well as the Old
Testament worthies]," says the author. But, in point of fact,
the Old Testament saints did not, and could not, look for an
example to Jesus. Nor could they understand that they were
sharing the reproach of Christ, enduring the same sufferings
that He should one day endure. When the author of Hebrews
attributes such a state of mind to them, he is merely project-
ing his own experiences and ideas back into the history of the
Old Testament period. So far, therefore, his view of Old
Testament religion must be regarded as unhistorical.
Again, when the writer says of Abraham that " he looked
for the city which hath the foundations, whose builder and
maker is God" (v. 10), and of the Old Testament saints
generally, that they "all died in faith, not having received
the promises, but having seen them and greeted them from
afar, and having confessed that they were strangers and
pilgrims on the earth, . . . that they desired a better country,
that is, an heavenly" (vv. 13-16), he is plainly attributing to
them tliat distinct knowledge of the future life which he
VIII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 413
himself possessed, but which they did not possess. Neither
Abraham, nor any of his descendants, at least until we come
down to a very late period down say to the period and the
parties referred to, when it is said that " others were tortured,
not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better
resurrection" (v. 35) had anything like a clear, definite, or
fixed belief in a future state of existence. In fact, such a
belief had not attained to the universal prevalence which our
author assumes (v. 13) even at the time of Christ's advent,
for a large and influential sect of the Jews still maintained
that there was no resurrection of the dead (Matt. xxii. 23).
It is clear, therefore, that the author is representing Old
Testament religion as being not only substantially identical
with New Testament religion, which it actually was, but
formally and exactly identical, which it was not ; in other
words, he is projecting the form which religious faith and
religious life had assumed in his own day, in consequence
mainly of the advent of Christ, back to the beginning of the
Old Testament period, a thing which is constantly done by
one and all of the New Testament writers.
But there is another and more general way in which the
author departs from the strict historical view of the religion
of Israel. Speaking of Abraham's descendants, he alleges that
"these all died in faith," &c. (v. 13), and speaking of Israel
under Moses, and under Joshua, he says that " by faith they
passed through the Ked Sea as by dry land, which the
Egyptians assaying to do were swallowed up," and that " by
faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they had been
compassed about for seven days" (vv. 29, 30); whilst he
closes the whole chapter with the statement that " these all,
having had witness borne to them through their faith, received
not the promise, &e." (v. 39). It appears certain, therefore,
that he represents the outward form, or (as the Apostle Paul
would say) the letter, of Israel's religion as being not merely
united to the Spirit of Christ's religion, but united in its
whole extent; in other words, he teaches, in express opposi-
tion to the Apostle Paul, that they are all Israel which are
of Israel, and that because they are the seed of Abraham they
are all children (Rom. ix. 6, 7) that he is a Jew which is
4H PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
one outwardly, and that circumcision of the flesh, if not
identical with, is at least invariably accompanied by, circum-
cision of the heart or spirit (ii. 28, 29). The religion of
Israel had an outward form comparable in all essential
respects to the outward form of the Church of Christ. And
the present writer, pursuing his a priori deduction from the
words of Habakkuk, represents this outward form as pervaded
throughout with the Spirit of Christ, much in the same way
that modern high churchmen, following out their theory of
the absolute efficacy of the sacraments when duly administered,
represent the visible Church of Christ as identical with the
invisible. Manifestly, however, the Apostle Paul's view of
the matter is that which accords with history and fact. The
merest glance at the records, or even at the quotations from
the prophets adduced above, will satisfy any one that at no
period of Israel's history was there more than what Isaiah
speaks of as " a very small remnant " (i. 9) who truly loved
and served Jehovah, and held fast by His covenant. It was
with the Old Testament Church as it is with the New Testa-
ment Church, the mass of its adherents showed only too
plainly by their lives that they were members of God's
kingdom in name, but not in reality, that instead of being
just, loving, humble, pure, as the terms of the covenant
required that they should be, they were selfish, worldly,
impure, proud, grasping, tyrannical, cruel. Again, therefore,
the author's systematised representation of the religion of pre-
Christian times must be regarded as palpably unhistorical.
Still, when these abatements are made, I know not that
any others require to be made. There is no doubt whatever
that the author's fundamental idea is correct viz., that
righteous men in Old Testament times were saved by their
righteousness exactly in the same way as righteous men in
New Testament times are saved by their righteousness.
There is as little doubt that when he represents Abel's offer-
ing as being accepted through faith (v. 4), and the passover
as being kept through faith (v. 28), this correctly describes
the condition on which Old Testament rites and ceremonies
were really of any benefit to the worshipper, or redounded in
any degree to the glory of God, always assuming of course
VIII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 415
that faith is simply faith in God, and not faith in Christ, and
that Old Testament sacrifices and ceremonies were never
understood to have any reference whatever to the future
advent of a personal Saviour. The idea which still prevails in
official modern theology, that there was no faith in Old
Testament times that was not faith in Christ, that there was
no Gospel in Old Testament times which was not the Gospel of
Christ, that there was no salvation in Old Testament times
which was not salvation consciously derived from Christ, that
the sum and substance of all that is taught in the law, the
prophets, and the psalms is simply and only Christ, Christ,
Christ, in short, that the whole Old Testament has no mean-
ing except as a prophecy of Christ, this idea, though true
enough to New Testament representations, is quite opposed to
history and fact. The faith of the New Testament writers
was faith in Christ, the Gospel of the New Testament writers
was the Gospel of Christ, the salvation of the New Testament
writers was salvation consciously derived from Christ, for the
New Testament writers the law, the prophets, and the psalms
had no meaning and no value except as a prophecy of Christ ;
and they assumed, and no doubt believed, that, as it was with
them, so it must have been with religious men from the
beginning of the world. But this assumption was simply
contrary to fact, and there is no need to say anything more
about it. The Old Testament, instead of being as the New
Testament writers represent it to be, entirely made up of
direct Messianic prophecy, might more correctly be said not
to contain a single particle *of direct Messianic prophecy
within its compass. It has, I hope, been sufficiently proved,
with respect to the New Testament in general, and to the
present epistle in particular, that not merely the view taken
of individual texts and passages, but the whole conception of
Old Testament religion, as well as of the records of Old Testa-
ment religion, is nothing, if it be not the systematised
product of a priori dogmatic reflection and deduction,
the results of which are for the most part diametrically
opposed to the plain facts of the case.
[Chap.
CHAPTER IX.
THE LAW AND THE PROMISE, " THE ATONEMENT," ETC.
HAVING finished what we have to say on the Epistle to
the Hebrews, we now return to the Apostle Paul.
We have already touched on his view of Old Testament
religion, and its relation to New Testament religion, but it is
necessary that we examine it somewhat more carefully ; which
we shall endeavour to do within as narrow limits as possible.
The following paragraph contains the main outlines of the
apostle's scheme. "Brethren, I speak after the manner of
men : though it be but a man's covenant, yet, when it hath
been confirmed, no one maketh it void or addeth thereto.
Now to Abraham were the promises spoken, and to his seed.
He saith not, and to seeds, as of many, but as of one, and
to thy seed, which is Christ. Now this I say, a covenant
confirmed beforehand by God, the law, which came four
hundred and thirty years after, doth not disannul, so as to
make the promise of none effect. For if the inheritance is
of the law, it is no more of promise ; but God hath granted
it to Abraham by promise. What then is the law ? It was
added to further transgressions, till the seed should come to
whom the promise hath been made, having been ordained
through angels in the hand of a mediator. Now a mediator
is not a mediator of one, but God is one. Is the law then
against the promises of God ? God forbid ; for if there had
been a law given which could make alive; verily righteousness
would have been of the law. Howbeit the Scripture [=the
law (cf. iv. 21, 30)] hath shut up all things under sin, that
the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to them
that believe" (Gal. iii. 15-22).
416
IX.J PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 417
As already observed, the apostle's aim is to induce his
readers, on the one hand, to give up seeking salvation through
the mechanical observance of the ceremonial law, by their
own natural efforts ; on the other hand, to continue seeking
salvation through the spiritual observance of the moral law,
by faith in Jesus Christ. This comes out plainly in, for
example, the verses that follow : " Howbeit at that time, not
knowing God, ye were in bondage to them which by nature
are no gods ; but now that ye have come to know God, or
rather to be known of God, how turn ye back again to the
weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire to be in
bondage over again ? Ye observe days and months and
seasons and years. I am afraid of you ; lest by any means
I have bestowed labour upon you in vain" (iv. 8-11). The
" weak a*nd beggarly elements," elsewhere spoken of as " the
elements of the [present earthly] world" (v. 3; Col. ii. 20)
refer to the " carnal ordinances imposed until a time of
reformation (Heb. ix. 10) ordinances touching " gifts and
sacrifices " (v. 9), " meats and drinks and divers washings "
(v. 10), "'days and months and seasons and years" (Gal. iv. 10)
ordinances by which one might be judged " in meat, or in drink,
or in respect of a feast-day, or a new moon, or a Sabbath day 3>
(Col. ii. 16); they refer, in short, to the whole ceremonial
system, considered as forming part of the present earthly
sphere of existence, and as adapted for men in their fleshly
natural state, in which they too form part of the same sphere
of existence. The practice of that system, the apostle implies,
or rather expressly asserts, is identical in nature with heathen
worship. When the Galatians observed the days and months
and seasons and years prescribed by the Mosaic ceremonial
law, they did what had been done from of old, not only by the
Israelites, but by their heathen neighbours as well paid that
homage which custom assigned to heathen deities on the part
of their votaries, but which the true God could not accept as
in itself of any value. If they should again fall back into the
practice of such observances, they would again be serving,
not the true .God, but heathen gods no gods at all. The
Galatians imagined that when they observed the ceremonial
law, they were doing service to the true God in His own
2 E
418 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
prescribed way, but this was an imagination, nothing more.
They were really ignorant of the true God. They were doing
what He had never required at their hand, and what He
could not accept. They were merely observing heathenish
customs and practices. Such being the case, they ought to
cease for ever from observing the ceremonial law, and hold
fast the beginning of their faith in Christ firm unto the
end.
This is the apostle's most general argument. And the
natural, nay, the necessary, complement to such an argument
would seem to be that as the ordinances of the ceremonial law
were heathenish in their nature, so they were heathenish in
their origin also, and therefore ought to be abandoned.
Jesus Himself had almost gone as far as this. When He
made all "meats and drinks" clean (Mark vii. 19), when He
denounced the " divers washings " of the Pharisaic ceremonial
code including by implication those of the so-called Mosaic
ceremonial code as the " precepts of men," handed down by
tradition, in contrast to " the commandment of God " (vv. 1-8),
when He condemned the offering of " gifts and sacrifices "
(v. 11 ; Matt. xii. 7), and the observance of "days" (v. 1),
in all cases where they in any way interfered with the keeping
of "the commandment of God," i.e., the 'moral law (Mark
vii. 9, 10) as summed up in "mercy" or love, the doing of
good (Matt. xii. 7, 12) condemned them as things which
God did not desire (id.), things by which His Word was made
void through tradition (Mark vii. 1 3) when He limited the
things that defile a man to those that proceed from within, out
of the heart, such as " evil thoughts, fornications, thefts,
murders, adulteries, covetings, wickedness, deceit, lascivious-
ness, -an evil eye, railing, pride, foolishness" (vv. 21, 22)
in all this, it is hardly too much to say that He enunciated
principles leading by necessary implication to the conclusion
that the moral law, and it alone, was the Word or commandment
of God, and that the ceremonial law, in its whole extent, was
made up of traditional precepts of human origin, the observ-
ance of which might be tolerated indeed, and even commended,
as long as it tended to promote the exercise of obedience to
the moral law, although, on the other hand, it must be
IX.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 419
condemned and discontinued as soon as it tended to impede
such exercise. But to say that the ceremonial system of the
Jews was made up of traditional precepts of human origin,
is equivalent to saying that it was identical, both in nature
and origin, with the ceremonial systems of the heathen. This
much at least is obvious to every reader, that in the earliest
Christian period the entire Jewish ceremonial law that part
of it which was avowedly of Mosaic origin, equally with that
part which was confessedly of post-Mosaic origin had become,
in the judgment of the leading apostles, a positive hindrance
to the progress of religious truth and life, possessed of no
proper religious authority, and no binding religious validity,
and which ought no longer to be represented and imposed
as obligatory, in the sense that the moral law is obligatory.
The Apostle Paul, in particular, strenuously contended that
neither circumcision (Gal. vi. 15), nor the Sabbath, nor any
part of the ceremonial system, ought to be regarded as any-
thing more than a matter of pure and perfect indifference;
that men ought to have absolute liberty in the way either of
keeping or abstaining from keeping all such commandments ;
that no man ought .to be adversely judged whatever he might
do or forbear to do " in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a
feast-day, or a new moon, or a Sabbath day" (Col. ii. 16);
that ceremonial ordinances, whether professedly Mosaic or not,
were " elements of the world " to which religious men ought
not to be subjected, being all of a piece with the following,
" Handle not, nor taste, nor touch (all which things are to
perish with the using), after the precepts and doctrines of
men ; which things have indeed a show of wisdom in will-
worship and humility and severity to the body," but are of no
real religious value (Col. ii. 20-22).
Still, though the Apostle Paul clearly perceived and taught
that the entire ceremonial law, if not made up of " the pre-
cepts and doctrines of men," was at least of the same nature
with " the precepts and doctrines of men," having not a whit
more religious value or efficacy, he was not at liberty to set it
aside upon such a ground. For the apostle himself and all his
contemporaries accepted the greatest part of the current cere-
monial system as being what it professed to be, of Mosaic
420 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
origin and of Divine authority. If Paul were to dispute the
soundness of this common opinion, he must needs be prepared
to adduce reasons, adequate to satisfy not only himself but his
readers as well, a thing which he was by no means in a posi-
tion to do. Hence he was obliged to have recourse to a
variety of dialectic expedients for the purpose of making out
what nevertheless could not be made out viz., that the law,
taken as a whole, never had been, and never was intended to
be, a means of salvation, and that the believer in Christ was
no longer subject to any part of it, moral or ceremonial. The
principal of these expedients is contained in the paragraph
cited above.
The apostle starts from the assumption that the law always
had been, nay, that it was from its very nature, what it had
so generally become in his own day, and what he in particular
had experienced it to be, a dead, spiritless, powerless letter,
utterly inefficient as a means of conferring righteousness and
life. He goes so far as to claim for this assumption that it is
self-evident. " Now, that no man is justified by the law in the
sight of God is evident ; for the righteous shall live by faith ;
and the law is not of faith, but he that doeth them [apart
from faith] shall live in them" (iii. 11, 12). When the pro-
phet Habakkuk said, " The righteous shall live by faith " or
rather " by his faithfulness " he meant that the man who
obeyed the moral law through faith in God would live by his
obedience. When God said through Moses, " He that doeth
them [the commandments of God] shall live in them," the
Apostle Paul affirms that he meant that the man who obeyed
the moral law, apart from faith in God, would live by his
obedience. In other words, when God revealed His will
through Moses and commanded Israel to obey it, He made
it an express condition that the obedience should be rendered
without a tincture of faith or piety ! The assumption is
clearly out of the question. The apostle, however, is bound
to make it, if an antithesis is to be established between law
and Gospel as between dead letter and living spirit, and unless
the law can be shown to be a dead letter, absolutely devoid
of saving efficacy, it is impossible to insist on its being set
aside, whilst if the law as a whole cannot be set aside, no part
IX.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 421
of it (e.g., the ceremonial part) can be set aside, seeing that,
ex hypothesi, it is all of equal Divine authority.
The apostle finds a still more potent instrument for his
purpose in the covenant made by God with Abraham. The
passage of Genesis, to which reference is made, is in these
terms : " The Lord appeared to Abram, and said unto him,
I am God Almighty ; walk before Me, and be thou perfect ;
and I will make My covenant between Me and thee, and will
multiply thee exceedingly. And Abram fell on his face, and
God talked with him, saying, As for Me, behold My covenant
is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations.
Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy
name shall be Abraham, for a father of many nations have
I made thee. And I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and
I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee.
And I will establish My covenant between Me and thee, and
thy seed after thee, throughout their generations, for an ever-
lasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after
thee. And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee,
the land of thy sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an
everlasting possession, and I will be their God?' (xvii. 1-8).
The historical meaning of these verses is so obvious that it
may justly be said to be absolutely above dispute. They
describe the terms, parties, and conditions of a covenant so
nearly identical with the Sinaitic, that the two are hardly to
be distinguished from one another. In fact, if we regard the
Sinaitic covenant as being acquiesced in by all the generations
of Israel subsequent to the exodus, the two covenants are not
two at all, but one and the same. The parties to both are
the same parties God on the one side, the descendants of
Abraham on the other; only, in the case of the Abrahamic
covenant all Abraham's descendants are included together
with Abraham himself; in the case of the Mosaic covenant,
as a matter of abstract necessity, simply the descendants
subsequent to the exodus from Egypt. The conditions to
both are likewise the same on the side of Abraham and
his descendants, perfect obedience to the revealed will of God ;
on the side of God, the promise of the land of Canaan for an
everlasting inheritance, along with His favour, fellowship, and
422 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
protection. In both cases the parties to the covenant receive
the seal of circumcision, and in both cases faith or piety is
evidently presupposed as the source of obedience. In short,
the two covenants could not more completely accord with one
another, even if the one were a reflection backward from the
other in the shape of a vaticinium post eventum, which, of
course, many hold it to be. That which the passage of
Genesis describes prophetically is the same identical thing
with that which the passage of Exodus describes historically.
One difference, indeed, there is viz., that whereas the will
of God revealed to Abraham was practically co-extensive with
the moral law, including, besides, only the rite of circumcision,
the will of God revealed to Moses included, in the form
assigned to it by tradition, the moral law, the rite of circum-
cision, and, in addition, a gigantic mass of ritual ordinances,
dead mechanical obedience to which had usurped the place
and become identified with the sum of religion in the apos-
tolic age. But this difference, though one of great import-
ance from the apostle's point of view, whose real object is the
setting aside of the mass of ritual ordinances, does not touch
the fundamental character of the two transactions, which are,
in all essential respects, absolutely the same.
The apostle, however, assumes that the two covenants, so far
from being identical, are totally distinct, nay, radically opposed
to one another. According to him, the Abrahamic covenant
is related to the Sinaitic, not as prophecy is related to history,
but as Gospel is related to law, as spirit is related to letter, as
the living Christianity of the apostolic age is related to the
dead Judaism of the apostolic age. The promise attached to
both covenants is indeed the same, the land of Canaan, together
with the fellowship of God. But then, in the apostle's view,
the fulfilment of the promise is conditioned in the case of the
Abrahamic covenant by obedience through faith in God, but
in the case of the Sinaitic, by obedience apart from faith in
God. This is what the apostle means when he says, " If the
inheritance is of the law, it is no more of promise ; but God
hath granted it to Abraham by promise" (v. 18). The word
" promise " is here used in a pregnant sense to specify, not the
bare offer of the inheritance on condition of obedience an
IX.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 423
offer which the letter of the law itself conveyed but along
with that the offer to faith of the Spirit of the Gospel, by whose
help obedience should be rendered (v. 14). The " promise"
in this deeper sense was not, the apostle would have us
believe, attached to the law given by Moses ; for that would
imply that the law was the same identical thing with the
Gospel, and that the Sinaitic covenant was the Abrahamic
under another name a conclusion which must above all
things be avoided. If the covenant made through Moses were
held to have been accompanied by the tacit promise of the
Spirit to faith, as was the case, by the apostle's own admission,
with the covenant made through Abraham, then the law must
be supposed to have been effectual as a means of salvation in
the same way that the Gospel is so, and there would thus be
no room for arguing that the former should be set aside in
favour of the latter, since both would be equally valuable.
What, therefore, the apostle assumes and alleges is, that the
covenant made through Moses had always been, and could not
but be, a dead letter, being fettered by the impossible condi-
tion that obedience should be rendered apart from faith, and
from the Divine Spirit which faith appropriates an hypothe-
sis on which it was quite open to argue that it should be set
aside in favour of the covenant made through Abraham, which
contained the promise of the Divine Spirit as the source and
principle of obedience through faith. And as the covenant
made through Abraham is regarded as freed entirely from cere-
monial ordinances freed even from the ordinance of circum-
cision which really attached to it freed also from the moral
law so far as then revealed, and reduced to the bare promise of
the Spirit, which is thought of as being a law to itself the
apostle's ultimate aim, the setting aside of the ceremonial law
is thus fully, if somewhat violently, attained.
Moreover, when a sharp antithesis has been drawn between
the Abrahamic promise and the Mosaic law as covenants radi-
cally different in kind, the apostle can found an argument on
the fact that the promise was given 430 years before the law,
to prove that the law could never have been intended as an
effectual means of salvation, and, consequently, that his readers
need not cling to it as if it were. For if the law had been
424 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
intended to be anything more than a dead letter, it must have
been intended to supersede the promise. But the analogy of
human covenants proves a fortiori that a covenant which had
once been ratified by God could neither be disannulled nor
have anything added to it. Ergo the law could not have
been intended as an effectual means of salvation ; that is, the
apostle's readers may give it up as worthless for saving pur-
poses. It may, perhaps, strike the reader that the human
analogy, which the apostle invokes for the purpose of bringing
out his point, proves somewhat more than his argument
requires. For, granting that a covenant between two parties
cannot be set .aside without the consent of both, will not this
principle forbid the setting aside of the Mosaic law, or any part
of it, just as necessarily as the Abrahamic promise? The
apostle can produce no evidence to show that both the parties
to the Sinaitic covenant are willing that it should be set aside.
We have even the Master's word for it that God will never
consent to the setting aside of "one jot or one tittle" of what
is,, properly speaking, the law (Matt. v. 1 8). In these circum-
stances, the apostle's argument, if it prove anything, will prove
that at least the moral part of the Sinaitic covenant cannot
be set aside ; while, if the assumption be correct that the cere-
monial part of the law is of equal Divine authority with the
moral, it will prove that no part whatever of the Sinaitic cove-
nant can be set aside. This difficulty, however, is not felt by
the apostle. He insists that the Abrahamic covenant is diffe-
rent in nature from the Sinaitic, that the former cannot have
been disannulled by the establishment of the latter, and that
as the promise is in every way preferable the law ought to be
abandoned as worthless.
But the apostle goes further than this. He assumes not
only that the Abrahamic covenant was radically different in
nature from the Sinaitic, but also that it was made with
different persons. The Sinaitic covenant was made with the
children of Israel, the seed of Abraham. But the apostle
asserts, in defiance of the plain meaning of the word as defined
conclusively by the context, in defiance also of the meaning
which he himself has put upon it elsewhere (Rom. iv. 16, seq.},
that " seed " in the above quotation is to be understood, not
IX.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 425
collectively of the " many nations " of Abraham's descendants,
but individually of Jesus Christ. When God preached the
Gospel and promised to bestow His Spirit first upon
Abraham and then upon Abraham's seed, his meaning, if we
are to trust the apostle, was that the gift of the Spirit would
be offered and imparted first to Abraham and then to Christ.
This implies that while Abraham attained to righteousness
and life through faith in God, and while Christ and those who
believe on Christ attain to righteousness and life by the same
means, no one during the intervening period had so much as
an opportunity of becoming true servants of God through
exercising faith and receiving thereby the promise of the
Spirit. In other words, during the whole of the Old Testa-
ment period from Abraham to Christ true religion was literally
extinct. The world, not excluding the chosen people of God,
was in a state of absolute spiritual death. No Gospel was
preached. No Spirit was offered. No faith was or could be
exercised. No one entered heaven. No one even had an
opportunity of doing so.
That this is what the apostle means is quite evident, for he
proceeds in conformity with the supposition to answer the
question, which could not but present itself, " What then is
the law ? " If the Abrahamic covenant were conceived to
have been in force during the whole of the Old Testament
period, it would be quite impossible to account for the intro-
duction of the dissimilar and rival Sinaitic covenant. Theo-
logians commonly assume and assert that the two covenants
might and did exist alongside of each other during the whole
of the Old Testament period. And, of course, they likewise
assume and assert that they must continue to exist alongside
of each other during the whole of the New Testament period.
But the apostle clearly holds the reverse. His statement is,
" It [the law] was added to promote transgressions, till the seed
should come to whom the promise hath been 'made," when it
ought to be set aside. Such a statement must be held to
imply, on the one hand, that the law existed as a practical
reality before the promise had become a practical reality, that
is, during the pre-Christian period; and, on the other hand,
that the law Ccannot continue to exist, as a practical reality
426 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
after the promise has become a practical reality, that is,
during the Christian or post-Christian period. The latter
point is strenuously insisted on by the apostle, as that which
his whole argument aims at establishing : " Yea, I testify
again to every man that receiveth circumcision, that he is a
debtor to do the whole law ; ye are severed from Christ, ye
who would be justified by the law; ye are fallen away from
grace " (v. 3, 4). Nothing could show more clearly than do
these words that the apostle desires his readers to cease from
observing the ordinances of the law, because the promise has
come to take their place. The law was intended only for the
Old Testament period, when faith had not yet come, and the
promised Spirit had not yet been given. It was never more,
and was never meant to be more, than a dead letter. Its aim
was not to confer righteousness and life, but rather to promote
sin and death, and so to bring the world into a fitting state
for receiving the Spirit of life through faith as soon as He
should be offered. According to Paul, the law promotes
transgressions by providing a clear standard of conduct, and so
imparting that distinct consciousness of sin, without which
there is no guilt (Rom. iii. 20 ; iv. 15 ; v. 13 ; vii. 7, seq.}.
But this is a purely negative process so far as the conferring
of righteousness is concerned. And men who experience this
process, and nothing more, cannot possibly be saved. They
must rather be in a worse case than if the law had never been
communicated to them, agreeably to the statement of Jesus,
" If I had not come and spoken to them they had not had sin,
but now they have no excuse for their sin " (John xv. 22). As
bearing on the apostle's readers, the introduction of the law
might serve an useful, positive purpose in preparing the way
for the reception of the Gospel, but as bearing on all previous
generations, who never heard, and therefore could not receive
the Gospel, the introduction of the law could have no other
purpose and no other effect than a purely negative one. And
this is distinctly recognised by the apostle himself. In
general, the purpose and effect of the law was to " shut up all
things under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ
might be given to them that believe" (Gal. iii. 22). In
particular, " Before faith came, ive [the apostle and his
IX.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 427
Christian contemporaries] were kept in ward under the law,
shut up unto the faith that should afterwards be revealed ; so
that the law hath been our tutor to bring us unto Christ, that
we might be justified by faith. But now that faith is come,
we are no longer under a tutor" (vv. 23, 24). In other
words, in the case of the generation who received the law for
the last time, and the Gospel for the first time, the law might
be said to work into the hands of the Gospel, by producing in
men's minds a consciousness of sin favourable to its reception.
So far, therefore, the law, dead letter though it was, per-
formed a real service. But the apostle does not allege that
this service was rendered in the case of any previous genera-
tion. What he says plainly implies the opposite. Theologians
hold and teach that, in pre-Christian not less than in post-
Christian times, the law wrought into the hands of the Gospel,
shutting men up to faith in Christ, which they were enabled
to exercise through the help of a copious stream of direct
Messianic prophecy; but in this, as in many other instances,
theologians, while professedly accepting, are chargeable with
completely remodelling and rationalising the teaching of the
apostles. The latter, no doubt, hold that direct Messianic
prophecy existed in Old Testament times, and even that the
whole Old Testament admits of interpretation in a directly
Messianic sense ; but then they never allege that this
Messianic sense was perceived by the men of Old Testament
times; much less do they allege that faith in Christ was
exercised through the perception of it. No, but they give us
quite frequently to understand that they held an opinion the
direct opposite of that which is commonly attributed to them.
They teach that the Messianic sense of the Old Testament
was a "mystery" to the men of Old Testament times,- a
mystery " which hath been kept in silence through times
eternal, but now [in the apostolic age] is manifested, and by
the Scriptures of the prophets ... is made known unto all
nations, for obedience of faith" (Rom. xvi. 25, 26), "the
mystery of Christ, which in other generations was not made
known unto the sons of men, as it hath now been revealed
unto His holy apostles and prophets through the Spirit"
(Eph. iii. 4, 5), "the salvation concerning which the pro-
428 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
phets sought and searched diligently ... to whom it was
revealed that not unto themselves but unto you they did
minister these things, which have now [in the apostolic age]
been announced unto you, through them that preached the
Gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent forth from heaven "
(1 Pet. i. 10-12); so that, by the common testimony of the
apostles, the Old Testament on its aspect as Messianic
prophecy, not less than on its aspect as law, has true
significance and value only for the men of New Testament
times, who are under the guidance of inspired apostles and
prophets. The Apostle Paul in particular manifestly believes
and teaches, in the passage before us, that the advent of faith
in Christ and the advent of the Christ of faith were coincident
in point of time, and that the one was impossible apart from
the other. Before the advent of Christ faith had not yet
come, but men were kept in bondage under the letter of the
law, especially under its ceremonial ordinances "the elements
of the world ; " and only after the fulness of the time came,
when God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the
law, to redeem them that were under the law, did we escape
from our bondage into the liberty of adopted sons of God
(iv. 1-5). In this it is clearly involved that men who died
before the advent of Christ never did and never could have
escaped from bondage under the elements of the world, and
that the law could have served as a tutor only with reference
to " us " the generation subsequent to the coming of Christ
the apostle and his contemporaries. Even to say that the
law served as a tutor from the coming of Christ onwards is
saying a deal too much ; for when Paul speaks of the law as a
tutor unto Christ, he has in view mainly the ceremonial law,
and the moral only in so far as it had become a dead letter
through being sunk in the ceremonial and identified with it ;
but as the ceremonial law was entirely set aside very soon
after the apostle wrote, and as even the moral law ceased to
be practised in the dead-letter form which it had previously,
the function of tutor could not in these circumstances continue
to be discharged either by the law as a whole or by any part
of it. Indeed, it is quite manifest that the apostle conceived
of the whole law as having been ripe for supersession as soon
IX.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 429
as Christ came in the fulness of time. The very point of his
argument is that since the law had served as a tutor up to the
coming of Christ, it could serve no useful purpose whatever
after the coming of Christ, and therefore observance of it
ought to be discontinued as unprofitable. Nothing is farther
from the apostle's thoughts than the notion, favoured by
theologians, that the moral law, in separation from the cere-
monial, should be allowed to continue alongside of the Gospel,
in order to act as a tutor. However much truth there may
be in such an idea, assuredly it was not present to the mind
of the writer of our epistle. For according to him, the law
was instituted only for the time of the world's childhood, " till
the seed should come to whom the promise hath been made."
It cannot, at least in the apostle's judgment it ought not, to
survive, either in whole or in part, after the world's majority
" the term appointed of the Father " has been attained.
The Sinaitic covenant was not the complement of the
Abrahamic in the sense that it was meant to exist and operate
alongside of the Abrahamic, but only in the sense that it was
meant to prepare the way for the establishment of the
Abrahamic, when, having fully discharged its function, it
behoved to pass away. Thus it is only to the single genera-
tion that happened to exist at the fulness of time that the law
is thought of as playing the part of a tutor, or as serving any
useful purpose whatever. In other words, the law has posi-
tive value only for the apostle's oivn readers. For all other
parties it is not only valueless, but positively pernicious.
It is true, then, beyond all doubt that the Apostle Paul
represents the entire pre-Christian world, from Abraham down-
wards, as having lived and died in a state of abject unmiti-
gated slavery to a system of ordinances having no proper
religious validity. During the interval that elapsed from the
promise of the dispensation of grace made to Abraham to the
practical realisation of that promise in Christ, the only dispen-
sation in existence was the dispensation of law, which, in con-
trast to grace, was nothing but a dead letter, utterly powerless
to confer righteousness and life. No one, therefore, during
that entire period, did or could enter heaven, or attain to
fellowship with God. The religion of the pre-Christian world
430 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
was not living religion of the heart, but dead formal religion
of the lips ; and it was so from the nature of the case ; it was
even intended by God to be so. The religion of Old Testa-
ment times consisted exclusively in dead mechanical obedience
to the letter of the law, especially the ceremonial law, and the
Sinaitic covenant which formed the necessary basis of this
religion was imposed by God for no other purpose than to
keep the hands of the world full till the religion of truth and
reality should make its appearance. The religion of the pre-
Christian period was intended merely to serve as a foil and a
preparation to the religion of the generation contemporary
with the Apostle Paul. When the men of pre-Christian times
imagined they were serving God by obeying the letter of the
Mosaic law (and they could only obey the letter), they were
but deluding themselves, and playing with their eternal inter-
ests ; and the game, though it was death to the players, was
of no real practical benefit to any one. The Sinaitic covenant
was not even the means of convincing Old Testament letter-
law-observers of sin, it rather imposed upon them, leading
them to suppose that letter-obedience was all that God
required. The only parties who really derived benefit from
the introduction of the Sinaitic covenant were the first genera-
tion of Christians, to whom it was the means of conviction of
sin, and so the " tutor unto Christ," though only after Christ
had appeared, and the Abrahamic promise had begun to be
realised.
Now, it is superfluous to say of a doctrine so truly mon-
strous that it is wholly unhistorical. Indeed, the apostle him-
self confesses as much, for he elsewhere not only admits, but
expressly teaches, that even in the worst periods of Israel's
history there was "a remnant according to the election of
grace " (Rom. xi. 4, 5). The view of Old Testament religion
presented in the paragraph quoted above betrays, on the most
superficial examination, that it is systematic, not historical,
and that it has been directly concocted for a practical purpose.
Like the corresponding representations in the Epistle to the
Hebrews, it has evidently been constructed by d priori dog-
matic reflection on isolated passages of Old Testament Scrip-
tures, simply with the intention of grounding upon it a
IX.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 431
practical exhortation : that being done, it can at once be
thrown aside, even by the writer himself, as utterly worthless.
The whole is plainly the result, not of induction, but of deduc-
tion, and of deduction that is transparently erroneous and
unwarrantable. The apostle's object is to induce his readers
to cease from seeking salvation through mechanical obedience
to the ceremonial law, and to begin, or rather to continue,
seeking salvation through vital spiritual obedience to the
moral law. He himself, in common with almost all his con-
temporaries, had once sought salvation by the first of these
methods, and had continued to do so utterly unconscious that
it was not the true method, till Christ had appeared and
given him a deeper view. Then he had turned to the second,
receiving the Spirit of God in response to faith in Christ,
being thereby enabled to meet the requirements of the moral
law, and obtaining in consequence the life in which the
essence of salvation consists. Henceforth the ordinances of
the ceremonial law appeared to him as mere heathenish
lumber, imposed for the purpose of keeping him at work in
the position of a slave, till the proper time should come for his
being called to the rights, privileges, and duties of a son ;
while the ordinances of the moral law, so lofty and spiritual
in their nature, so impossible for him to fulfil in his own
natural strength, and yet so awful in their threatenings
against transgression, seemed to have been appointed
negatively, for the purpose of reducing him to utter helpless-
ness, by convincing him of his absolute inability to attain
salvation through natural law-obedience positively, for the
purpose of shutting him up to accept salvation through
spiritual law-obedience, by believing on Christ as soon as He
should appear to offer the Spirit of God. This being the
history of salvation in the apostle's own experience, he pro-
ceeds to draw from it the following inferences as to the history
of salvation in the experience of the world generally, viz. :
(1) That the law never was obeyed, and never was intended
to be obeyed, in any other than the dead-letter form in which
he had attempted to obey it before Christ had appeared to
him ; (2) that the Spirit of God never was given except in
response to specific faith in Christ such as he had exercised
432 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
after Christ had appeared to him ; (3) that up to the advent
of Christ the world was in a state of tutelage and bondage
identical with that in which he was up to the appearance of
Christ to him personally, and that the law, which kept the
world and him in subjection, was instituted by God for this
express purpose and no other ; (4) that though Abraham, to
whom the Gospel of Christ was preached beforehand, and to
whom the promise was given that it should be ultimately
preached to the whole world, might receive the Spirit of God
through faith in Christ, and so attain to righteousness and life,
no one else either did or could do so till Christ appeared in
person, bearing and offering the gift of the Spirit of God as
the source of living, spiritual law-obedience. Now, as it
happens, every one of these inferences is directly contrary to
fact. The law was -not always the dead letter which the
Apostle Paul, before his conversion, had found it to be : the
Spirit of God was given in response to faith that was not speci-
fically faith in Christ: the world was not in a state of universal
tutelage and bondage up to the advent of Christ, and the law
was not instituted by God to keep it in such a state : there
were men, during the whole course of Old Testament history,
who received the Spirit of God in response to general faith in
God, and who rendered true spiritual obedience to the law
through the help of the Spirit so received, and thereby
attained to righteousness and life. The apostle's theory of
Old Testament religion has arisen simply through projecting
his own experience, before and after conversion, back into the
history of Old Testament times. Instead of investigating
what Old Testament religion actually was by the historical
study of the Old Testament itself, he has assumed a priori
what it must have been, viz., since it could not be absolutely
identical with what he had experienced genuine religion to be
absolutely identical with what he had experienced counter-
feit religion to be.
In point of fact there existed both genuine and counterfeit
religion in Old Testament times, but neither the one nor the
other was absolutely identical with the genuine and the
counterfeit religion of the apostolic age, though both were
substantially so. More particularly, at the Christian era
IX.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 433
genuine religion received a new impulse in consequence of the
appearance of God in human nature, on the one hand, embody-
ing in Himself a perfect example of that religion, and on the
other hand, bestowing on the world a fuller measure of its
spirit, while at the same time counterfeit religion received a
corresponding check. This is the real state of the case as
regards the relation between the pre- and post-Christian
religion of the world, and the judicious reader, however partial
to authority when uncontradicted by plain historical fact, will
be compelled to reject the apostle's account of it.
It need not be added that the apostle's argument in favour
of the abrogation of the entire Mosaic law is in no degree
strengthened by allegorising in support of it the passage of
Genesis relating to the disinheriting of Ishmael in favour of
Isaac, making Hagar a type of the Sinaitic covenant as
mechanically obeyed by " the Jerusalem that now is," i.e., by
the Israel of the apostolic age, understood as strictly repre-
sentative of Israel from Moses downwards ; and Sarah a type
of the Abrahamic covenant as spiritually obeyed by "the
Jerusalem that is above," i.e., by Christ and all who believe
on Christ; and construing the words, <<c Cast out the bond-
woman and her son, for the son of the bond woman shall not
be heir with the son of the free woman " words which were
really spoken by Sarah without any reference but the plain
and obvious one as if they had been spoken direct by God,
and spoken with a distinct typical reference to the abrogation
of the dead letter of Judaism in favour of the living spirit of
Christianity (Gal. iv. 21-31). The fact that the apostle has
recourse to such puerile Rabbinical whimsies for the purpose
of defending his position, serves only to show how thoroughly
indefensible his position is, and how entirely destitute of real
historical Scriptural authority.
Nothing less can be said of the allegory which the apostle
discovers in the shining and veiling of Moses' face at the revela-
tion of the Sinaitic covenant (2 Cor. iii. 6-18). That allegory-
has been manufactured, and is introduced, for the very same
purpose as the previous viz., to prove that the whole Sinaitic
dispensation, and especially the moral part of it, " written
and engraven on stones," was destined from the very beginning
2 F
434 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
to pass away, as being from its very nature what it had well-
nigh universally become in the apostolic age a dead letter
utterly devoid of saving efficacy. The shining of Moses' face
was ephemeral, and this was intended for a type of the
ephemeral character of the dispensation from which the shining
was a reflection. When Moses veiled his face, he did so with
the view of concealing from the children of Israel the fact that
the dispensation which he administered was not a final or
permanent, but an ephemeral, fleeting, abortive dispensation.
As a matter of fact, the dispensation was not ephemeral
(Matt. v. 18). And the idea that the transitory shining of
Moses' face was meant to typify that or anything else is just
a product one among many of the current Rabbinico-
Alexandrian exegesis.
Nor, again, can the apostle derive any real assistance from
the analogy which he draws into his service in Rom. vii. 1,
seq. He asserts that, because the covenant between husband
and wife is dissolved by the death of either or both of the
contracting parties, therefore the covenant made at Sinai
must be dissolved in the same way. But loose, general
analogies of this description might be adduced to support
almost any view of any subject. For example, the author of
Hebrews adduces an analogy quite as much to the point to
prove that the death of either or both of the contracting
parties, so far from dissolving a covenant like the Sinaitic, is
rather the means, and the necessary means, of ratifying and
making it valid (ix. 16, 17) ! The covenant between husband
and wife is avowedly a covenant for life only. The covenant
between God and Israel at Sinai was avowedly an everlasting
covenant (Deut. v. 29 ; Ps. Ixxxix. 3, 4, &c.). So that the
apostle's analogy fails entirely in the only really essential
point. Besides, the analogy, if it prove anything, must prove
a great deal too much, since it implies that there can be no
such thing as punishment in the future life, the unregenerate
dead having been freed by death from all their legal obliga-
tions !
The Apostle Paul has nowhere applied the typical method
of interpretation with anything like the same detail as the
author of Hebrews, for the purpose of setting aside the Jewish
IX.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 435
ceremonial law. With the author of Hebrews that is the
principal instrument by which the abrogation of the cere-
monial law is sought to be justified ; with Paul it is at the
best only a subordinate instrument. The principal instrument
or expedient by which Paul attempts to get rid of the cere-
monial law, is the driving of a forced antithesis between the
law as a whole and the promise made to Abraham, as between
a covenant of the letter and of death on the one hand and a
covenant of the spirit and of life on the other. Still, the
typical method of interpretation was in the air, and the
apostle has adopted it, implicitly if not explicitly, in a variety
of passages and connections.
For example, in a passage already quoted from Colossians,
where it is said that meats and drinks, feast days, new moons,
and Sabbath days are a shadow of the things to come, and
that the corresponding body or substance is Christ's, the typi-
cal method of interpretation is evidently applied in exactly the
same way, and to exactly the same purpose, as the writer to
the Hebrews applies it. Again, when believers are exhorted
to present their bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to
God (Rom. xii. 1 ; cf. xv. 16 ; Phil. ii. 17 ; iv. 18), when it is
said that " Our passover also hath been sacrificed, even Christ :
wherefore, let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither
with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the
unleavened bread of sincerity and truth " (1 Cor. v. 7, 8), and
elsewhere, that " Christ gave himself up for us, an offering and
a sacrifice to God, for an odour of a sweet smell " (Eph. v. 2)
in these and other similar cases (cf. Phil. iii. 3 ; Col. ii. 11;
1 Cor. iii. 16 ; 2 Cor. vi. 16 ; 1 Cor. ix. 13; x. 18), it is
clearly implied that the Jewish sacrifices and other ritual
observances bore a typical reference to the spiritual realities of
the Gospel dispensation.
But by far the most noteworthy of all the Apostle Paul's
implicit applications of the typical method is contained in the
famous passage, Rom. iii. 24-26. The fact that this passage,
in preference to others of equal or greater importance, should
have been selected for designation as " the Acropolis of the
Christian faith," furnishes a good illustration of the avidity
with which theologians pounce upon every passage where the
436 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
apostles clothe their ideas in figurative language borrowed from
the Old Testament, as if there and there only the true nature
of the Christian plan of salvation were distinctly revealed, and
could be definitely discovered. The Old Testament ritual
forms may have the remotest resemblance conceivable, or no
resemblance at all, to the New Testament spiritual facts,
which they are understood to have typified, and which they
are used to set forth : all the same, the language of these,
which are probably no better than heathenish, forms must be
assumed to afford the ideal expression, and the absolute
measure of the deepest and most vital truths of the Christian
religion ; it must be elevated into the standard language of
theology, and everything else which the New Testament, or,
for that matter, which the Bible contains, must be hammered
and twisted into accordance with it. It would be out of place
to traverse again ground that has been already so fully
traversed in dealing with the Epistle to the Hebrews : all that
I propose to do in connection with this passage is to present
some aspects, real and supposed, of the earthly experiences of
Christ, in themselves and in their relation to the earthly
experiences of each believer, which may not yet have been laid
before the reader with sufficient fulness and clearness.
The Apostle Paul speaks of Christ Jesus as one "whom
God set forth [to be an] expiatory [sacrifice]." And the
Apostle John, in like manner, says that " He is the propitia-
tion for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the whole
world" (1 John ii. 2). Theologians assume, as a matter
of course, that the word expiation or propitiation (/A 007/0 9,
t\a<TTqptov) in these passages is to be understood quite liter-
ally. There is some doubt, however, as to what the literal
meaning actually is. We have seen that the author of
Hebrews uses the word " expiate " (i\curK<rOcu) as a synonym
for " purify " (KaOaplfy) or " sanctify" (ayia(u>\ implying that
in his judgment the object aimed at in the offering of an
expiatory sacrifice is the purification or sanctification of tl it-
worshipper, by which is meant the total removal of sin from
his person, and through that, of course, the turning away of
the Divine displeasure which sin evoked. Now, a good deal
IX.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 437
of evidence can undoubtedly be led to show that this is the
proper historical sense of the word in the Greek Version of the
Old Testament. And if the word is certainly used in this
sense in the Epistle to the Hebrews, and probably used in this
sense in the Greek Version of the Old Testament, it is hard to
see upon what rational ground it can be understood in any
other sense in the writings of Paul and John. Theologians,
however, have no manner of difficulty in disposing of the
matter. The above meaning, however interesting in other
respects, does not suit their theory, and, therefore, it must be
ruled out of court, and treated very much as if it had no exist-
ence. If Jewish sacrifices be found unsatisfactory, unmitiga-
tediy heathen sacrifices may be found more to the purpose.
Still, there is room for dubiety even here. If we may trust
the highest authorities on such questions, the inner idea
attached to sacrifice varied considerably in different ages and
countries. In the earliest ages sacrifices were offered simply
to feed the gods (cf. Ps. 1. 12, 13). In later times the rite
was frequently observed for no other reason than because it
was customary, and because somehow or other no one cared
to inquire very distinctly how it pleased the gods, whose good
pleasure it was prudent to retain. When Jephthah offered
his daughter, and Mesha his son, they did so because they
imagined that such offerings would gratify Javeh and Chemosh.
So when Agamemnon sacrificed Iphigenia (if this be not the
Jephthah incident dressed up in a poetic garb). It was by no
means necessary that the anger of the gods should be awakened
by special sins before sacrifice could be required by them ;
much less was it necessary that the sufferings of the victim
offered should be proportioned to the sin committed. The
gods were supposed to be pleased with sacrifice whatever might
be their mood of mind, whether angry or indifferent, and what-
ever might be the cause of that mood, whether mere caprice,
or the sin of the offerer, or something else. But it was not
the torture of the victim that pleased and propitiated them.
Rather, it was the surrender of the victim's life, as of its
dearest possession, as of that which made it of any value either
to itself or to the offerer. Hence the gods were pleased not
merely with the lives of men and animals, but with other
438 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
material gifts valuable to the offerer. And although, in the
case of the God of Israel, who was a God of righteousness, sin
became an all-important factor in connection with sacrifice,
and became so more and more as the nation's sense of sin
deepened in the later disastrous portion of its history, sin being
the occasion of provoking the Divine displeasure which sacri-
fice was needed to remove, it was otherwise in the case of the
heathen deities. These, not being righteous themselves, did
not affect to be much troubled about sin ; the cause of their
displeasure, when they were displeased, was usually something
else. A heathen propitiatory sacrifice, so far from implying
the removal of the offerer's sin, does not even imply that he has
sin to remove ; it merely implies that he desires to produce a
favourable impression on the mind of the deity toward himself.
Even in the case of a Jewish expiatory sacrifice, the blood
atoned not through the sufferings but through the soul or life
(Lev. xvii. 11), and the God of Israel, not less than the gods of
the heathen, was pleased with other material gifts besides the
lives of animals, though neither burnt-offering, nor sin-offering,
nor any other kind of offering, was acceptable to Him, unless
there were at the same time a repentant and obedient heart.
But, as already said, theologians have no difficulty either in
assuming that the word " propitiation " must be understood
literally, or in settling what the literal meaning actually is.
If the object aimed at by the death of Christ was, directly,
the sanctification of those on whose behalf it took place,
indirectly, the removal of God's anger towards them on the
ground of that sanctification, then the death of Christ must
have really effected this object. But if the death of Christ
really effected this object, it could not possibly have done so
after the manner of a literal expiatory sacrifice, one half of
the parties concerned having already reached the unchange-
able state, and the other half not having yet come into exist-
ence. Therefore (theologians infer) the object aimed at in an
expiatory sacrifice cannot be the removal of God's anger
through the removal of the sin which evoked it. What, then,
can it be? It must be the removal of tjrod's anger simply in
the way that the anger of heathen deities was supposed to be
removed, and their favour conciliated, by offericg to them the
IX.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 439
lives of men, or animals, or other material gifts. But even so,
there are serious difficulties in the way of understanding how
the death of Christ could be an expiatory sacrifice of the kind
here indicated. For the circumstances under which the
heathen and Jewish sacrifices were offered differed entirely
from the circumstances that existed in the case of Christ.
When the heathen offered sacrifice to appease the anger of the
gods, that anger was always supposed to be directed against
the offerers, to whom the favour of the gods was held to be
conciliated in the act of offering. So with the Jewish sacri-
fice, on the day of atonement, which, if offered to appease the
wrath of God at all, was offered to appease wrath awakened
by the sins of the parties offering, to whom the favour of God
was immediately conciliated. But in the case of Christ, the
people with reference to whom the sacrifice is supposed to be
offered are the whole world, or the whole body of believers
throughout the world's history. The wrath of God which is
said to be appeased is wrath awakened by sins one half of
which have already been done away, the persons concerned
being thereby admitted to the divine favour, and the other
half of which have not yet been committed ; and the persons
to whom the favour of God should be immediately conciliated
are for the most part either persons whose final destiny is
already fixed, or persons who have not yet come into exist-
ence. Surely one may be allowed to demand very distinct
evidence before he accept a doctrine involving consequences at
once so strange and so preposterous !
Possibly we shall be told that the sins which awakened the
wrath of God appeased by the death of Christ were the sins of
all believers imputed to Christ. But the idea that innumer-
able sins which have not even been committed, which have not
and never had any existence, were imputed to Christ, in such
a manner that while lying on Him they awakened the wrath
of God, is itself so singularly extravagant and improbable,
that nothing but the most overwhelming evidence would
warrant us in entertaining it even for a moment. And where
is such evidence to be found ? How do we know that God
was angry, and that Christ was offered on account of imputed
sin ? When we ask for proof that the sins of all believers
440 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
were imputed to Christ, the answer, in the entire absence of
direct evidence, can only be, because the death of Christ was
a proper expiatory sacrifice. When we ask how the death of
Christ could have been a proper expiatory sacrifice, the answer
is, because the sins of all believers were imputed to Him.
Which is an evident circle.
Besides, even if we assume that the sins which awakened
the wrath of God appeased by the death of Christ were the sins
of all believers imputed to Christ, the difficulties are scarcely
if at all diminished. For it is certain that, with respect
to all pre-Christian believers, the wrath of God was already
laid aside as soon as they repented ; and it is equally certain
that, with respect to all post-Christian believers, the wrath
of God is not laid aside until they repent. How, then, could
the death of Christ have appeased the wrath of God towards
the whole body of believers, or, indeed, towards any believer,
Christ Himself excepted ? How could the offering of Christ
have propitiated God towards all believers, as a heathen's
offering was supposed to propitiate his god towards himself, or
as the annual Jewish offering is alleged to have propitiated
God towards the whole living generation of Israelites ? The
thing is impossible, absurd, contradictory. If the sins of the
Israelites were imputed to the goat, they were no longer
imputed to the Israelites, and as soon as the goat was offered,
God was propitious, not to the goat, but to the Israelites. So
with the heathen sacrifices, if imputation be assumed in their
case also. But in the case of Christ, however the sins of
believers may have been imputed to Him, they certainly did
not cease to be imputed to them, nor was God a whit more
propitious either to them or to the world generally after the
offering of Christ than before.
It will be said perhaps that if Christ did not immediately
render God propitious to the whole body of believers by the
act of His death, still He impetrated propitiation, and this
propitiation which Christ impetrated is applied to each
believer in the first moment of faith. But here again we are
plunging into the depths of the most miserable scholastic
sophistry. What is meant by impetrating propitiation ? The
normal effect of an expiatory sacrifice is to produce a favour-
IX.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 441
able feeling in the mind of the deity toward the person or
persons with reference to whom the sacrifice is offered. The
sacrifice may be offered either by a professional priest, or by
the person or persons themselves : in either case the effect is
exactly the same immediate change in the feeling of the deity
toward the person or persons. Such is propitiation. But
what is the impetration of propitiation ? And how is propi-
tiation, once impetrated, applied ? Above all, what warrant is
there, either from analogy to heathen or Jewish sacrifices, or
from the language of the New Testament, for drawing such a
distinction ? Is the distinction a pure figment of scholasticism,
or is it not ? I suppose that by the impetration of propitia-
tion is meant the propitiation of God, not towards the whole
body of believers, the parties with reference to whom the
sacrifice is offered, but towards Christ, the sacrifice itself;
that by the application of propitiation is meant the propitia-
tion of God towards each individual believer ; and that the
application is made by imputing the expiatory death of
Christ to each individual believer, so as to effect in his case
what it has already effected in Christ's own. But this
scheme, even if sustained by evidence, would be weighted
with enormous difficulties.
In the first place, it completely destroys any analogy that
may have seemed to exist between the so-called atoning work
of Christ and an ordinary expiatory sacrifice. For, assuming
that the sins of the whole generation of Israelites were im-
puted to the goat, and that the goat suffered death instead of
the Israelites, bearing the penalty due to their sins, God was
not first rendered propitious to the (dead) goat(!), and then
separately and subsequently to each individual Israelite, by
the imputation to him of the expiatory death of the goat.
Such a thing would have been utterly incongruous and dis-
proportioned, as was shown in a previous connection. If the
death of Christ was an expiatory sacrifice for the whole body
of believers, if the sins of all believers were imputed to Christ,
and their penalty inflicted and borne by Christ, if the wrath
of God awakened by all these sins, instead of falling on
believers, expended itself upon Christ, to whom the cause
which evoked it had been transferred, how comes it that the
442 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
Divine anger is not immediately appeased? If punishment
have the effect of satisfying the Divine justice and appeasing
the Divine anger at all, why did it not do so in the present
case ? And again, why should the merits of a sacrifice,
adequate to expiate the sins of all believers in every age of
the world's history, be imputed to each individual believer in
every age of the world's history ?
Nor is this all. There being no pretence whatever for
alleging that the mere death of Christ is imputed to each
individual believer, theologians assert that the thing imputed
is the obedience and sufferings of His whole life, maintaining
that the aggregate which these constitute is expressed in the
New Testament by the word righteousness (Sucaio<rvvf). It
might have been presumed that the lifelong sufferings alone
would constitute the expiatory work of Christ, for as the
Jewish, if not also the heathen, sacrificial victims were always
brute creatures, incapable from their very nature of intelligent
obedience, obedience could form no part of an ordinary ex-
piatory sacrifice. Yet nothing is more common than to find
it asserted that, if the death of Christ had been involuntary,
it would not have constituted a sacrifice at all, but simply an
ordinary crucifixion. Perhaps we may suppose that, while
the lifelong sufferings alone corresponded to the death of the
victim, the lifelong obedience was equally necessary as a
counterpart to the voluntary action of the priest in making
the offering. Still, it appears strange that the voluntary
action of the priest should be imputed to each believer along
with the proper merits of the sacrifice. Apart from this, how-
ever, it is plain that when the lifelong sufferings of Jesus are
set down as part of His atoning work, His so-called sacrifice
assumes an entirely different character from that in which we
have hitherto regarded it, and wears the aspect of something
altogether unique, totally different from every other expiatory
sacrifice that was ever heard of. In ordinary sacrifices, whether
Jewish or heathen, the sufferings of the victim were of no
account, and are never alluded to ; the death was the only
point of importance, and as that took "place instantaneously,
the suffering attending it was reduced to a minimum. But
here the sufferings are so far from being unimportant that they
IX.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 443
constitute the very essence of the expiatory work. The ex-
piatory value of the offering is held to be measured, partly by
the amount of suffering undergone, and partly by the dignity
of the victim undergoing it. The sufferings of Jesus are
supposed to have been exceeding great, while the dignity of
His person was the highest possible, the result being that the
expiatory value of His offering was altogether infinite. And
since the sufferings of Jesus extended throughout His whole
life, the act, or rather the process, of offering occupied some-
where about thirty-three years ! I need not say that such a
sacrifice, so offered, on such an altar, by such a priest, in such
a sanctuary, bears no resemblance at all to the thing which in
common speech is called an expiatory sacrifice, that it cannot
therefore be an expiatory sacrifice in the proper literal sense
of the word. Nor need I remind the reader that when the
author of Hebrews represents Christ in the character of a
priest as offering Himself in the form of a sacrifice, he does
so by representing all that He ever did from the foundation
of the world, or will yet do to its consummation, on behalf of
sinful men as being done in the act of His death. Only in
this way could even the " shadow " of a parallel be made out
between the action of Jesus as Saviour of the world and the
action of the Jewish high priest as atoner of the whole people
of Israel.
But to pass from these and other equally gross absurdities
connected with them, which have already received far more
attention than they deserve, let us endeavour to establish by
irresistible evidence the true nature of Christ's earthly experi-
ence and the relation that subsists between it and the earthly
experience of each believer. An answer on both these points
will have been given if we can show that the obedience and suf-
ferings of every believer, while on earth, are exactly the same
in nature and in effect as were the obedience and sufferings
of Christ. I say in nature and in effect ; for, of course, the
degree varies in the case of each believer, as well as in the case
of Christ,
Scores of texts might be quoted in proof of this position.
For the present let the following suffice : " If when ye do well
and suffer, ye endure, this is acceptable (x a 'j' ? )
444 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
[cf. (< Ye know the grace (x/*0 f o ur Lord Jesus Christ, who
... for your sakes became poor " (2 Cor. viii. 9)] ; for unto
this [endurance of sufferings on behalf of Christ (Phil. i. 29)]
were ye called (1 Thes. iii. 3, 4 ; Acts xiv. 22), because
Christ also suffered on behalf of you, leaving you an example
that ye should follow His steps ; who did no sin, neither was
guile found in His mouth [ = who did well], who, when He was
reviled, reviled not again, when He suffered He threatened
not [ = who suffered and endured], but delivered Himself over
to Him that judgeth righteously [=inflicteth suffering or
punishment (as well as bestoweth reward) where it is due
which it was in the present case, as witness], who Himself
carried our sins in His body up to the tree, in order that we,
having died [after His example (vTroypajULjuiov, v. 21) as slaves]
to our sins, might live [after His example as slaves] to His
righteousness" (1 Pet. ii. 20-24).. "But even if ye should
suffer on account of righteousness, happy are ye ... for it is
better, if God should so will, to suffer while doing well than
while doing ill ; because Christ also [not less than you] once
suffered for sins, a righteous one [while doing well] on behalf
of unrighteous ones [=r while we were yet sinners (Rom. v. 8)],
that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in
and through [His sinful] flesh, but made alive in and through
[His holy] spirit" (iii. 14-18 ; cf. Rom. i. 3, 4 ; viii. 10, 11).
" Therefore, since Christ hath suffered in the [sinful] flesh
[thereby dying as a slave to sin, and since ye were called to
follow his steps], arm yourselves also with the same [holy]
mind [with which Christ armed Himself], because he that hath
suffered in the [sinful] flesh [as both Christ and ye have done]
hath ceased from sin [by dying as a slave thereto, in order
henceforth to live as a slave to righteousness] " (iv. 1,2; cf.
Rom. vi. 1-11 ; Col. ii. 11-15 ; iii. 1-11 ; Eph. vi. 10-12,
&c.). " Inasmuch as ye have fellowship in the sufferings of
Christ, rejoice ; [for ye suffer with Him] in order that in the
revelation of His glory also [not less than in His sufferings] ye
may rejoice with exceeding joy [being glorified with Him
(Rom. viii. 17, &c.)] If ye are reproached in the name of
Christ, happy are ye, because the Spirit of glory and of God
resteth upon you [as it rested upon Christ, whose reproach was
PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 445
identical in nature with yours]. ... It is now (i. 6) the time
when the judgment [with its awards of suffering to the sinful
(cf. " judgeth righteously " (ii. 2 3)] has begun at the House of
God ; and if it hath first begun at us, what shall the end be of
them that obey not the Gospel of God ? And if the righteous
[=they that do well Christ and we] is saved with difficulty
[through much tribulation (Actsxiv. 22)], where shall the ungodly
and the sinner [they that do ill, that obey not the Gospel of
God] appear ? Wherefore let them also [as well as Christ
(ii. 23)] that suffer according to the will of God deliver over
themselves while doing well to a faithful Creator [to " Him
that judgeth righteously" (ii. 23)]" (iv. 13-19; cf. v. 1, 10).
" We ourselves glory in you in the Churches of God,
for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and the
afflictions which ye endure [ persecutions and afflictions which
are] a manifest token (evdeiyima; cf. Rom. iii. 25, e^c/^z?; Phil. i.
28, 29, n^ci^ir) of the righteous judgment of God [with its awards
of suffering to the sinful, " beginning " with the House of God],
to the end that [having been made perfect through sufferings
(1 Pet. v. 10)] ye may be counted worthy of the Kingdom of
God, on behalf of which ye also suffer [cf. " Ought not Christ
to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory " in
consequence thereof (Luke xxiv. 26)] : [the righteous judg-
ment of God], if so be that it is a righteous thing with God
[at " the end "] to recompense affliction to them that afflict
you, and to you that are afflicted rest with us, at the revela-
tion of the Lord Jesus . . . rendering vengeance to them that
know not God, and to them that obey not the Gospel of our
Lord Jesus ; who shall suffer punishment, even eternal destruc-
tion from the face of the Lord and the glory of His might,
when He shall come to be glorified in His saints " (2 Thes.
i. 4-10). ''Now I rejoice in my sufferings on your
behalf, and fill up that which is lacking of the afflictions
of Christ [in His flesh (v. 22)] in my flesh on behalf of
His body, which is the Church" (Col. i. 24). "I am
already being offered, and the time of my departure is
come ; I have fought the good fight [of afflictions (Col. i. 24,
29 ; ii. 1)], I have perfected the race-course, I have kept the
faith, henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of [=due
446 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
to] righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge [=\vho
inflicts suffering on the sinful and confers glory on the righte-
ous], will recompense to me on that [the judgment] day"
(2 Tim. iv. 6-8). "The God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ . . . who comforteth us in all our affliction, that we
may be able to comfort them that are in any affliction through
the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.
For as the sufferings of Christ abound unto us, so our comfort
also aboundeth through Christ. Now, whether we be afflicted,
it is on behalf of your comfort and salvation, or whether we be
comforted, it is on behalf of your comfort, which worketh in
the endurance of the same sufferings [of Christ] which we also
suffer ; and our hope is steadfast on your behalf, knowing that
as ye have fellowship in the sufferings [of Christ], so also ye
shall have fellowship in the consolation [through Christ] "
(2 Cor. i. 3-7). " We are pressed by affliction on every
side, yet not straitened ; perplexed, yet not unto despair ;
persecuted, yet not forsaken ; smitten down, yet not destroyed;
always bearing about in the body the putting to death of
Jesus [=the suffering of Jesus (Matt. xvi. 21 ; Mark viii. 31 ;
Luke ix. 22; xvii. 25; xxii. 15; xxiv. 26, 46; Acts i. 3;
iii. 18 ; xvii. 3)], in order that [in consequence of so suffering
or dying] the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our body.
For we which live are alway being delivered unto death for
Jesus' sake, in order that [in consequence of having died] the
life also of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh
. . . knowing that he who raised up the Lord Jesus shall
raise up us also with Jesus, and shall present us [for judgment
and reward (v. 10 ; 2 Tim. iv. 8; Eph. v. 27 ; Col. i. 22)]
with you ; for all [the sufferings] are for your sakes, in order
that the grace [through which and to propagate which we
suffer (Phil. i. 7, 29 ; 2 Cor. xii. 9, 10 ; 1 Pet. v. 10, &c.)],
being multiplied through the greater number, may cause the
thanksgiving to abound unto the glory of God. Wherefore
we faint not ; but though our outward man is being destroyed,
our inward man is being renewed day by day ; for our
momentary light burden of affliction worketh for us more and
more exceedingly an eternal heavy burden of glory " (2 Cor.
iv. 8-17; cf. I Pet. i. 6, 7; Rom. viii. 18). "Only behave
IX.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 447
worthily of the Gospel, in order that whether I come and see
you, or be absent, I may hear of your state, that ye stand fast
in one spirit, with one soul contending [" a great contention
of sufferings" (Heb. x. 32)] for the faith of the Gospel-
being also in nothing terrified by your adversaries which
{contention of sufferings] is a manifest token (eWt?; cf.
eV&Tiy/xa, 2 Thes. i. 5; ev$eii$ Rom. iii. 25) of perdition [in
store] for them, but of salvation [in store] for you, and this
[judgment for them and for you] from God, [the righteous
judge, who will recompense suffering to the sinful, glory to the
righteous beginning with you the house of God, and ending
with them the ungodly adversaries (Rom. ii. 6-10; 2 Thes.
i. 5, seq. ; 1 Pet. iv. 17, seq.J] ; because to you it hath been
granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe on Him, but
also to suffer on behalf of Him, [which guarantees your
being glorified with Him (2 Tim. ii. 12)]; having the same
conflict which ye saw in me, and now hear to be in me, [the
same conflict also which ye have heard was in Christ
(ii. 5-11)]" (Phil. i. 27-30). "Endure hardship as a good
soldier of Jesus Christ . . . And [to change the figure] if
one also contend, he is not crowned, except he contend law-
fully ; the husbandman [to change the figure again] that
labour eth must be the first to partake of the fruits. . . .
Therefore I endure all [sufferings] for the elect's sakes, in
order that they also [as well as I] may obtain [through suffer-
ings] the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.
. . . For if we died with Him, we shall also [in consequence]
live with Him ; if we endure with Him, we shall also [in con-
sequence] reign with Him" (2 Tim. ii. 3-12). "Jesus
answereth them, saying, The hour is come that the Son of
Man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you,
except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it
abideth by itself alone, but if it die, it beareth much fruit.
He that loveth his life [-=dieth not] loseth it, and he
that hateth his life [ = dieth ] in this world shall keep
it unto life eternal. If any man serve Me, let him follow Me
[in suffering and death], and where I am [in glory and life],
there shall also My servant be ; if any man serve Me, him
shall My Father honour [= crown with glory and honour
448 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
(HeK ii. 7, 9)]. Now is my soul troubled, and what shall I
say? Father, save Me from this hour. But for this cause
came I unto this hour. Father, glorify Thy name. . . . Now
is the judgment of this world [rrthe righteous retribution of
this world's sin in principle, i.e., in My person] ; now shall the
prince of this world be cast out [= shall the sin of this world
be brought to nought in principle, i.e., in My person (Heb. ii.
14, 15 ; Rom. viii. 3 ; vi. 6)]. And I, if I be lifted up from
the earth, will draw all men unto Myself [leading them after
Me in the path first of suffering and then of glory, first of
retribution and then of reward (vv. 25, 26)]. Now, this He
said, signifying by what death He was about to die " (John
xii. 23-33). "From that time began Jesus to show unto His
disciples how that He must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer
many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be
killed, and the third day be raised up. ... Then said Jesus
unto His disciples, If any man would come after Me [to glory],
let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me [in
suffering and death] ; for whosoever would save his life shall
lose it, and whosoever shall lose his life for My sake [as I lose
My life for his sake, he and I alike losing our lives for the
kingdom of heaven's sake (Matt. xxv. 31-46)] shall find it.
. . . For the Son of Man shall come in the glory of His
Father with His angels, and then shall He. render to every
man according to his deeds [to them who by endur-
ance of suffering by denying themselves and taking up
their cross while doing well (vv. 35-40) seek for glory and
honour and incorruption, eternal life (v. 46) ; but to them who
do none of these things (42-45) who seek rather to save
their life in this world shall be wrath and indignation, afflic-
tion and anguish, in one word, eternal punishment (v. 46) ;
the former class being the righteous, who shall be justified, the
latter the unrighteous, who shall be condemned] " (Matt. xvi.
21-27 ; cf. Mark viii. 31-37 ; Luke ix. 22-26). " And they
[James and John] said unto Him, grant unto us that we may
sit one on Thy right hand and one on Thy left in Thy glory.
But Jesus said unto them, Ye know not what ye ask. Are
ye able to drink the cup that I drink [zr endure the sufferings
that I endure as the condition of entering into My glory
IX.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 449
(Luke xiv. 26 ; xxiv. 26 ; Phil. ii. 9 ; Heb. ii. 9 ; xii. 2)] ?
or to be baptised with the baptism that I am baptised with
[= undergo the death in slavery to sin that I undergo as the
means of My perfection and glorification (Rom. vi. 3 5 4 ; Col.
ii. 11, 12; Heb. ii. 9, 10)]? And they said unto Him, we
are able. And Jesus said unto them, The cup that I drink
ye shall drink [=the sufferings that I endure ye shall endure],
and with the baptism that I am baptised withal shall ye be
baptised [=the death in slavery to sin that I undergo shall ye
undergo] ; but to sit on My right hand, and on My left hand,
is not Mine to give, but it is for them for whom it hath been
prepared [as the reward of pre-eminent sufferings while doing-
well (2 Cor. iv. 17 ; 1 Pet. i. 5, 6, 7 ; Rom. v. 3, 4, 5)] . . .
Ye know that they which are accounted to rule over the
Gentiles, lord it over them ; and their great ones exercise
authority over them ; but it is not so among you ; but
whosoever would become great among you shall be your minis-
ter, and whosoever would be first among you shall be servant
of all. For the Son of Man also [as well as you, whose
exemplar He is (Phil. ii. 5, seq., cf. cbcnrep Matt. xx. 28)], came
not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life
[hating or losing His life in this world for the kingdom of
heaven's sake (Mark viii. 35 ; Luke xviii. 29, 30 ; John xii.
25, 26)] as a means of redemption [from slavery to sin
through death to sin by faith (Tit. ii. 14; 1 Pet. i. 18-22;
Rom. vi. 4) ; cf. ' means of expiation through faith in His
blood ' (Rom. iii. 25)] on behalf of many [all (1 Tim. ii. 6 ;
cf. Rom. v. 6-8 ; Tit, ii. 14)]" (Mark x. 37-45 ; cf. Matt. xx.
21-28).
These quotations, which, though extensive, are by no means
exhaustive, prove beyond possibility of doubt that the experi-
ences of each believer are identical in nature and in effect with
the experiences of Christ, inasmuch as (1) the sufferings of
Christ and the sufferings of believers are alike punishments of
sin attaching to their persons, they are alike manifestations of
the wrath and righteous judgment of God against sin, they
are alike the outcome and expression of retributive justice in
the same sense that the sufferings of the lost in the future
world are of that character : (2) the sufferings of Christ and the
2G
450 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
sufferings of believers are alike means of probation and perfect-
ing in holy obedience, the}' are alike means of destroying the
old man with his sinful deeds, and of bringing the new man
with his holy deeds to perfection, they are the instrument of
redemption from slavery to sin, and the condition of resurrec-
tion in slavery to righteousness : (3) the sufferings of Christ
and the sufferings of believers are alike altruistic, being alike
undergone on behalf of others, to benefit others, or while doing
good to others ; in other words, the sufferings of Christ and the
sufferings of Christians as Christians are alike undergone for
the kingdom of heaven's sake : (4) the future glory alike of
Christ and of each believer is the reward of present obedience
in the midst of suffering for the kingdom of heaven's sake,
and is proportioned to the degree of such obedience; the
future glory, like the present sufferings of Christ and be-
lievers, is the outcome and expression of retributive justice in
the same sense that the sufferings of the lost in the future
world are of that character : (5) we may add that the suffer-
ings of Christ and the sufferings of believers, as believers, are
alike undergone by the grace of God, which means in the
power of the Holy Ghost ; the sufferings of believers as evil-
doers falling, of course, into the same category as the sufferings
of any other evil-doers, being punishments alone and nothing
more.
X.]
CHAPTER X.
" THE ATONEMENT," ETC. Continued.
IS there theD no such thing as the expiation of sin in the
ordinary sense of the term ? If by expiation of sin is
meant a mere change in the mind of God, unattended by any
corresponding change in the mind of man, then, undoubtedly,
there is no such thing. As long as sin continues to exist, so
long the anger of God cannot but go forth against it. The
carnal mind is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed
can it be, and, therefore, the wrath of God must abide upon it,
the law of God cannot but curse and condemn it. If sin be
taken to mean guilt merely, and if the guilt of the whole
human race be thought of as transferred to Christ, and if the
anger of God awakened by all this guilt be supposed to have
been removed through the sufferings and death of Christ, inso-
much that God is henceforth well pleased instead of being as
before angry with the whole human race, if this be what is
meant by expiation, then, I say, undoubtedly, there is no such
thing. On the other hand, if it be asked whether God is
angry with sinful men at all, whether there is such an attri-
bute as retributive justice in God, whether His anger
prompts Him to inflict punishment on sinful men in the shape
of suffering and death, whether such punishment is in fact
inflicted both on Christ and on believers on account of sin,
whether in immediate connection with the endurance of suf-
fering and death, sin, as a living working principle in human
nature, is done away, and whether, in consequence of the
destruction of sin in human nature, God and men are recon-
ciled, are mutually well pleased and at peace with one another,
though they were previously at variance and at enmity on the
451
452 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
one side and on the other, all these questions must be dis-
tinctly answered in the affirmative. The idea of wrath and
retribution on account of sin has been sufficiently proved and
illustrated in the quotations already made ; as also the idea
that the principle of sin is done away in immediate connec-
tion with suffering and death. The idea of reconciliation
between men and God including well pleasedness of God
toward men, and love of men toward God these two things
being mutually dependent, and being the joint outcome of the
extinction of sin in the whole nature, whereby righteousness is
attained by the believer this idea will be more fully brought
out in the passages now to be cited.
" If any man be in Christ [ in Christ's nature], he is a
new creature ; the old things are passed away, behold they
are become new. And all the [new] things are of God, that
[in renewing us] reconciled us to Himself through Christ [in
whose nature received by faith we are new], and gave to us
the ministry of reconciliation [for others], to wit, that God
was in Christ reconciling [by renewing] the world to Himself,
not reckoning unto them [that are renewed] their trespasses
[cf. " because of the passing over of the sins committed before
(faith and repentance or renewal) during the forbearance of
God " (Rom. iii. 25)], and hath put in our charge the M-ord of
reconciliation ["= the word announcing the method of recon-
ciliation]. Therefore we are ambassadors on behalf of Christ
[or of God in Christ, who is seeking to reconcile the world to
Himself it being], as though God were entreating by us ;
we beseech you, on behalf of Christ, be ye reconciled to God
[by being united to Christ through faith, and so renewed and
made righteous in Christ which is possible in that] Him
who had not known sin He made sin on our behalf [in Adam],
in order that we [who had not known righteousness] might
become the righteousness of God in Him " (2 Cor. v. 17-21).
" But now, in Christ Jesus, ye [the Gentiles] that once were
far off are become near in [or through (Eph. i. 7)] the blood
of Jesus [= through death identical in nature with that of
Jesus (Rom. vi. 5)]. For He is our peace who made both
the [Jews and Gentiles] one, and brake down the middle wall
of partition, having brought to nought [in principle] the
X.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 453
.enmity [ cause of enmity sin (Rom. viii. 3, 7, 8; vi. 6)]
in His flesh, [wherewith was identified or inseparably bound
up] the law of commandments contained in ordinances [which
formed the basis of a system of religion purely negative in its
character adapted to men in their fleshly natural state, and
having a tendency to keep them in that state and away from
God which formed at the same time the barrier of separa-
tion and the cause of enmity between Jews and Gentiles], in
order that He might create in Himself [=in His spiritual
nature] of the two one new man [or race of men (1 Cor.
xv. '22)], so making peace [through renewal]; and [in thus
renewing them according to His own Divine nature (iv. 23, 24)]
might reconcile both the [Jews and Gentiles in principle] in
one body to God through the cross, having slain the enmity
[ = sin in the flesh] thereby; and [in pursuance of the recon-
ciliation which He effected in principle in His own person]
He came and preached peace to you [the Gentiles] that were
far off, and peace to them [the Jews] that were near [cf. ' put
in our charge the word announcing the method of reconcilia-
tion ' (2 Cor. v. 19)]; for through Him we both have our
access in one Spirit unto the Father [and are therefore recon-
ciled to God in His spiritual nature, our fleshly nature, like
His, having been brought to nought through death] " (Eph.
ii. 13-18). " He is the head of the body, the Church ; who
is the beginning, the first-born from the dead, in order that
among all [the redeemed] He might have the first place. For
it pleased God that in Him all the fulness [of the Spirit]
should dwell, and through Him [it pleased God] to reconcile
[by renewing through the power of the Spirit] all things unto
Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross
[whereby sin was brought to nought, and with it the enmity
between God and His creatures] ; through Him, I say, whether
things upon the earth, or things in the heavens. And you
[Gentiles] that were once alienated and enemies [to God] in
your mind, in your evil works, yet now hath He reconciled
[by enabling you to ' put off the old man with his doings '
through death, and to ' put on the new man, which is renewed
after the image of Him that created him ' (iii. 9, 10) this
being done in accordance with, arid in virtue of, the principle
454 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap
settled by Christ as ' first-born '] in the body of His flesh-
through death [ death being the means whereby the sin that
existed in the body of His flesh was brought to nought ], to
present you [after being renewed and reconciled (Eph. v. 26)]
holy and without blemish and unreproveable before Him "
(Col. i. 18-22). "In Him dwelleth all the fulness of the
Godhead in a body, and in Him [=in His Divine nature] ye
are made full, who is the Head of all principality and power ;
in whom ye were also circumcised with a circumcision not
made with hands, [consisting] in the putting off of the body
of the flesh [through death consisting, that is to say,] in the
circumcision of Christ, [when He put off the body of His flesh
through death], having been buried with Him [= like as He
was buried] in baptism, wherein ye were also raised with Him
[=rlike as He was raised] through faith, [by which ye appro-
priated or submitted yourselves to] the working of God, that
raised Him from the dead. And you that were dead through
your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, you, I
say, did He quicken together with Him, having forgiven us
[who were so quickened] all our trespasses, [= ' not reckoning
to them (who were renewed) their trespasses' (2 Cor. v. 19)];
having blotted out the manuscript with the ordinances that
was against us, which was contrary to us [= ' the law of
commandments contained in ordinances ' (Eph. ii. 15)], and
He hath taken it out of the way, nailing it to the cross ;
having put off from Himself the [devilish (Eph. vi. 12)] prin-
cipalities and powers [the sin inherent in the body of His
flesh, which drew upon Him the law with its curse, and the
devil with his tyranny, and which was brought to nought
through His death (Eph. ii. 15), along with the law (id.} and
the devil (Heb. ii. 14) its correlates], He made a show of
them openly, triumphing over them in it" (Col. ii. 9-15).
" We who believe on Him that raised Jesus our Lord [as the
beginning, the first-born (Col. i. 18), the first-fruits (1 Cor.
xv. 23)] from the dead, who was delivered up because of our
trespasses [in principle i.e., in His own person], and was
raised because of our justification [in principle i.e., in His
own person (1 Tim. iii. 16)]. Therefore, having been justified
by faith [whereby we submitted ourselves to the working of
X.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 455
God putting off the body of the flesh through death, and
being raised through the Spirit of life], we have peace with
God through our Lord Jesus Christ ; through whom also we
have had our access into this grace whereby we stand fast
[=: ' continue in the faith grounded and stedfast, and are not
moved away from the hope of the Gospel ' (Col. i. 23)], and
rejoice in hope of the glory of God."*. . . God commendeth His
* The preponderance of external authority is in favour of ^w^v, let us have,
instead of 2-xojj.ev, we have, in the opening verse of the present chapter ; but the
internal evidence is as completely decisive in favour of the latter and against the
former of these readings as could well be imagined. It is not merety general
doctrinal considerations, such as that death, including the destruction of sin, is
everywhere represented by Paul as preceding and conditioning justification, while
sin is everywhere represented as the sole cause of enmity between men and God,
and the sole barrier to reconciliation between them, so that when sin has been
done away through death, God and men are necessarily and already at peace it
is not this merely that condemns the idea of an exhortation to personal reconcilia-
tion based on the fact that personal justification has taken place ; but the imme-
diate context is absolutely opposed to such an idea. In vv. 9, 10, the fact of
having been justified in Christ's blood, and the fact of having been reconciled
through Christ's death, are spoken of as practically identical and interchangeable,
both taking place at the same time, and being equally the condition and the
guarantee of ultimate eternal salvation. Not only so, but in v. 11 the fact of
present continuous rejoicing (in hope of the glory of God) is based on the fact
of past reconciliation effected simultaneously with justification. Hence, when we
meet in vv. 1, 2 with the same three ideas of justification, reconciliation with
God, and rejoicing in hope of the glory of God, it is impossible, on reasonable
grounds, to doubt that they stand in exactly the same relation to one another,
that justification and reconciliation (whereby peace with God is made a present
possession) are regarded as simultaneous past acts, that rejoicing is a present con-
tinuous process, based on these acts and arising out of them, and that there is
nothing whatever of a hortatory nature in the whole paragraph. This view is
further confirmed by the first clause of v. 2, which is undeniably indicative, and
which points to an indicative form in the clauses both before and after it. The
same clause likewise conspires with the whole connection, and, indeed, with the
whole tenor of the epistle, to refute the opinion of some commentators that the
participial clause in v. 1 is meant to partake of the hortative character of the prin-
cipal verb, as if the sense were, Let us, having got ourselves justified (?) by believing,
have peace with God, and as if the apostle regarded his readers as still unbelievers.
2 Cor. v. 20, which is sometimes cited as a parallel to the hortative ^wfj-ev, i g no *
really parallel at all, but rather makes in favour of %o,uei'. For in that verse the
exhortation to be reconciled is grounded on the fact of Christ's personal reconcilia-
tion through death to sin, not on that of the believer : the latter is spoken of, not
as actually accomplished, but as merely possible or contingent (v. 21). We should
obtain a parallel to this in Bom. v. 1 only by omitting 5t/ccuw0eVres entirely, and
reading ^x w f j - ev ^ v ? K TiVrew? eiprivrjv, K. T. A., and even then the statement con-
tained in iv. 24, 25 immediately preceding would render such an exhortation in-
tolerably harsh and abrupt.
456 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died
on our behalf. Much more, therefore, being now justified in
His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath [= kept in the
state of reconciliation] through Him. For if, when we were
enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His
Son [as the example after, and in virtue of, which we died by
faith], much more, being reconciled, w ? e shall be saved in His
life [= in and through possessing life derived from Him and
identical with His]. And not only so, but we also rejoice in
God, through whom we have now received the reconciliation "
(Rom. iv. 24 v. 10).
No one who reads these, and the passages previously quoted,
can entertain a doubt that God was angry with Christ while
on earth on account of sin, as He is angry with every man,
and particularly with every believer while on earth, on account
of sin ; that He indicated (evSeiKWfu) His anger by inflicting
suffering and death on Christ, as He indicates His anger by
inflicting suffering and death on each believer; that the anger
of God awakened against Christ by the sin attaching to His
person was pacified when the sin had been brought to nought
through death, as the anger of God awakened against each
believer, by the sin attaching to his person, is pacified when
the sin is brought to nought through death ; that the destruc-
tion of sin, the putting off of the sinful body, and the pacifica-
tion of the Divine anger consequent thereon was a lifelong
process in the case of Christ, as it is a lifelong process in the
case of each believer ; that this process of pacification, conse-
quent on the destruction of sin, was complete as regards the
inner man or Spirit of Christ from the first moment of the
incarnation, just as it is complete as regards the inner man or
spirit of each believer from the first moment of faith ; that
the process was completed on the whole person of Christ after
His resurrection, as it will be completed on the whole person
of each believer after his resurrection ; and so, finally, that the
reconciliation of the world to God, which Christ effected in
principle in His own person, implying as it does the utter
destruction of human sin, and the total extinction of the wrath
of God awakened by it, will be fully accomplished, will be
effected in its entirety, only when Christ shall have " put all
X.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 457
the enemies under His feet," when death itself, the token
(*w$iy/ma) of the Divine anger against sin, shall have been
brought to nought (1 Cor. xv. 25, 26), when the all things of
which Christ was the first fruits shall have been summed up
in Christ (Eph. i. 10), and reconciled to God through Christ
(Col. i. 20). Thus, if we continue to apply the terms expia-
tion and propitiation to the -process by which men are recon-
ciled to God, it must be distinctly understood that the expia-
tion of sin implies the doing away of sin as a principle in
human nature, and that the propitiation of the Divine anger
implies the total extinction of that by which the Divine anger
was awakened.
The question has been debated with much earnestness
whether or not the sufferings of Christ were penal, whether
they possessed the character of judicial retribution inflicted by
God on account of sin. That such a question should ever
have been brought under discussion, must be regarded as a
somewhat singular phenomenon. One would have thought
that the mere fact of Christ's having lived under the moral
government of God, and suffered as He did suffer, would have
rendered any dispute on such a point impossible. To say that
God is righteous, and that He is the Governor of the universe,
that " of Him and through Him and unto Him are all things "
(Kom. xi. 36), has no meaning whatever unless it mean that
all the suffering existing in the universe is of the nature of
judicial retribution on account of sin, which is the same as
saying that it is penal. One can deny that the sufferings of
Christ were penal only by denying either (1) that He lived
under the moral government of God which amounts to a
denial that He lived at all ; or (2) that He suffered under the
moral government of God which amounts to a denial that
He suffered at all. Grant that God is, and that He is a
re warder of them that seek after Him, as well as a punisher of
them that know Him not : grant (1) that there is a Governor
of the universe One " for whom are all things and through
whom are all things" (Heb. ii. 10); and (2) that the
Governor of the universe is a righteous Governor that it
can be said of Him, " Righteous art Thou, which art, and
which wast, Thou Holy One, because Thou didst thus judge
458 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
[= inflict suffering]. . . . Yea, Lord God, the Almighty,
true and righteous are Thy judgments" (Rev. xvi. 5-7) : grant
these two things, and it follows inevitably that the sufferings
of Christ, like the sufferings of every one else, must have been
the expression of the righteous judgment of God, and this is
all that is meant when they are affirmed to have been penal.
Now, whatever difficulties may be thought to exist in the way
of accepting these two postulates, at least it cannot be denied
that they are the fundamental postulates on which the entire
circle of Scripture teaching on the subject of human suffering
rests. It is certainly open to any one to argue that the view
which the Bible writers take of prosperity and adversity as the
reward and the punishment of righteousness and sin respec-
tively depends directly on their view of the immediateness of
the relation between God and the world, and on the absence
of any conception on their part of what we are accustomed to
speak of as " the laws of nature," and that, consequently, it
may not after all express the ultimate truth on the subject.
However this may be, there is room for but one opinion as to
the matter of fact, that one and all of the writers of Scripture
do regard prosperity and adversity, whether in this world or
the next, as the reward and the punishment of righteousness
and sin respectively. The observed order of things may be
such as to prompt the exclamation, " the depth of the riches
both of the wisdom and knowledge of God ! how unsearchable
are His judgments, and His ways past tracing out " (Rom.
xi. 3 3) ! But neither the prophets of the Old Testament, nor
the apostles of the New, would have refused to join with
Moses and the Lamb in saying, " Great and marvellous are
Thy works, O Lord God, the Almighty; righteous and true
are Thy ways, Thou King of the Ages. Who shall not fear,
O Lord, and glorify Thy name ? for Thou only art holy . . .
for Thy righteous acts have been made manifest" (Rev. xv.
3, 4). The doctrine that God is the righteous Governor of
the universe may be justly said to be the doctrine of the
Bible. From Genesis to Revelation : with Moses and the
prophets not less than with Christ arid the apostles; it is
central, fundamental, and all - pervasive. It is the main
thread which binds the several Scripture writings together.
X.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 459
Remove it from the Bible, and nothing, or almost nothing,
will be left. The New Testament, in particular, teaches with
an explicitness that is both unsurpassable and unmistakable
that suffering and death are invariably the effect of sin, and
the wages of it, and that the sufferings and death of Christ, so
far from being an exception, to the general principle, furnish a
signal example and illustration of it. " Through one man sin
entered into the world, and through sin death, and so death
passed unto all men, for that all sinned " (Rom. v. 12). " The
wages of sin is death " (vi. 23). " The sting of death is sin ;
and the power of sin is the law [the expression of God's right-
eous judgment against sin witness, ' Cursed is every one
that continueth not in all things that are written in the book
of the law to do them' (Gal. iii. 10)] " (1 Cor. xv. 56). " The
mind of the flesh is death . . . because the mind of the flesh
is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of
God, neither, indeed, can it be ; and [therefore] they that are
in the flesh cannot please God [but are under His wrath and
curse as embodied in the penalty of the law, which is death] "
(Rom. viii. 6-8). " Christ redeemed us from the curse of the
law, having become accursed on our behalf. . . . God sent
forth His Son, born of a woman [and therefore] born under
the law [with its curse or penalty against sin~\, that He
might redeem them that were under the law, that we might
receive the adoption of sons" (Gal. iii. 13 ; iv. 4, 5).
If these, and numberless other passages of a like tenor
such as those quoted above to show that the sufferings of
Christ were identical in nature with those of believers do not
prove that death in general, and the death of Christ in parti-
cular, was and is the penalty of the Divine law, the embodi-
ment of the Divine wrath and righteous judgment against sin,
if they do not prove that death is always and everywhere
the effect of sin, and that apart from sin there can be no
death, then it is impossible to prove anything by the use of
language. Sin and death are so intimately and so universely
associated that they can be spoken of as identical ; the mind
of the flesh is enmity against God is sin is death. Death
has no sting, can therefore do no harm, without sin, and sin
has no power apart from the law, which expresses the wrath
460 rRL\CIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
and curse of God. To ask whether the sufferings of Christ
were penal amounts very much to the same thing as to ask
whether the sufferings of Christ were painful. To affirm
that the death of Christ was penal is equivalent to affirming
that the death of Christ was death. All the suffering that
ever was or ever will be is penal, inasmuch as it is part of the
penalty which the law threatens against sin. Every death
that ever did and ever will take place is penal in that it con-
stitutes the penalty of the Divine law, the expression of the
Divine anger, the wages of sin. The sphere of sin and the
sphere of death and the devil are absolutely co-extensive, and
the existence of the latter, as living operative powers, is
entirely dependent on the existence of the former ; when sin
has been brought to nought, then death and the devil will be
brought to nought, as in like manner when sin came into
existence, death and the devil came into existence. Many
writers seem to suppose that because, as they think, the suffer-
ings of Christ were chiefly spiritual, therefore they were not
penal. But that is abject nonsense. The sufferings of the
lost in hell will probably be exclusively spiritual, but all the
same they will be penal. The sufferings of vicious as well as
virtuous men in the present life are largely spiritual : does it
thence follow that they are not penal ? But, indeed, it is
quite impossible to draw a distinct line between mental and
bodily suffering; for bodily suffering affects the mind, and
mental suffering affects the body ; so that the two are at
bottom only one. No more is it possible to fix upon one
person and say that while his sufferings and death are penal,
the sufferings and death of this other person are not penal at
all, but something else. Such notions are really perfectly
ridiculous. The relation between sin and death as cause and
effect, transgression of law and penalty of law, is as stable and
unchangeable as the respective natures of sin and death them-
selves. All the epithets in the world will not affect it in the
very least.
Another much debated but equally frivolous and nonsensical
question is whether the sufferings and death of Christ were
strictly vicarious, whether they were strictly substituted for
the sufferings and death of each believer. Strict substitution
X.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY.. 461
of the sufferings and death of Christ for the sufferings and
death of each believer would imply, as we before observed,
that every believer in the first moment of faith is translated
to heaven, and treated exactly as Christ was treated after His
sufferings and death had been undergone, when, as the writer
to the Hebrews affirms, He was crowned with glory and honour
on account of the suffering of death (ii. 9), or, as Paul
puts it, God highly exalted Him, giving Him a name that
it above every name, because He had humbled Himself,
becoming obedient unto death, yea, the death of the cross
(Phil. ii. 8, 9).
Of course we are met here again with another scholastic
distinction. The sufferings and death of believers, it is said,
are not punishments of sin at all, but merely chastisements of
the sinner, and as the sufferings and death of Christ were
punishments of sin (and not chastisements of the sinner), the
fact that each believer suffers and dies in exactly the same
manner as Christ is not incompatible with the idea that the
sufferings and death of Christ were strictly substituted for
what should have been those of each believer. That is to say,
though believers suffer and die after the example and in the
Spirit of Christ (1 Pet. ii. 20, 21); though their sufferings
are so absolutely identical in nature with those of Christ that
they are spoken of again and again as " the sufferings of
Christ" (2 Cor. i. 5 ; 1 Pet, iv. 13); though believers are
said to take up their cross and follow after Jesus (Mark viii.
34), to bear about in the body the putting to death of Jesus
(2 Cor. iv. 8), to have fellowship with the sufferings of Christ,
becoming conformed unto His death (Phil. iii. 8) ; though
they are declared once and again to suffer (Rom. viii. 17), to
die (vi. 8), to be crucified (Gal. ii. 20) with Christ meaning
as Christ suffered, died, was crucified ; though their sufferings
fill up that which is lacking in the afflictions of Christ (Col. i.
24) ; and much more to the like effect : yet, it is alleged, we
must apply the term punishment solely to the sufferings and
death of Christ, the term chastisement solely to the sufferings
and death of the believer, and hold that the sufferings and
death of Christ were the substitute not for the believer's
actual sufferings and death (which were absurd) but for cer-
462 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
tain penal sufferings, and a certain penal death, which the
believer would have suffered in case Christ had not suffered
at all ! Curiously enough this allegation is made, not by the
parties who deny that the sufferings of Christ were penal, but
by the parties who are never tired of affirming that they were
penal. Widely as they differ in other respects, both parties
appear to agree in the notion that they can change the essen-
tial nature of suffering and death as the penalty of sin, though
that can be done only at the expense of subverting the moral
principles on which the universe is governed, by the simple
process of fabricating a scholastic distinction and applying an
epithet. Surely more wretched sophistry never entered into
human brains !
In the first place, when it is said that the sufferings and
death of Christ were punishment, while those of believers are
chastisement, it seems to be taken for granted that punish-
ment and chastisement are distinct things. But chastisement
is really nothing else than corrective or educative punishment.
There is a large and influential school of modern moralists who
go so far as to maintain that punishment, as applied to human
beings, can be justified on no other ground than because it is
chastisement, because it is directed to educating and improving
the person punished, and the truth of their opinion, though
disputed as regards moral beings of mature intelligence, will be
universally admitted as regards the lower animals, and prob-
ably, too, as regards infants. Anyhow, all chastisement is
punishment, only it is punishment intended to discipline, cor-
rect, or educate the person punished. A person absolutely
without fault would have no need for chastisement any more
than for punishment, and could not possibly be chastised in the
proper sense of the word. Whether all punishment, when
viewed as the dispensation of providence, is to be regarded as
at the same time chastisement need not be here decided ;
the converse position that all chastisement is punishment is
enough to prove that the sufferings and death of believers are
penal ; and such they are constantly represented to be, alike
in the Old Testament and in the New, as we have already
abundantly shown.
In the second place, there is just as much evidence to prove
X.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 463
that the sufferings and death of Christ were chastisements as
there is to prove that the sufferings and death of believers are
so. I know not what special Greek word is supposed to con-
vey the idea of chastisement as distinguished from uncastiga-
tory punishment, possibly the word Travel a, which occurs in
the twelfth of Hebrews. But in that very passage the writer
draws an explicit parallel between the endurance of sufferings
by Christ and the endurance of sufferings by each believer,
implying that both alike are " sons," and that the sufferings of
both are alike chastisements. " If," says he, " ye are without
chastisement, whereof all [sons] have been made partakers,
then are ye bastards and not sons " (v. 8). Elsewhere the
same writer affirms that Christ, "being a son, learned [ = was
taught] obedience from the things which He suffered " (v. 8),
that He was "perfected through sufferings" (ii. 10), that He
is able to sympathise with our infirmities, having been tried and
trained through suffering in all respects like as we are (iv. 15),
and more to the same effect ; indeed, throughout the Epistle to
the Hebrews, the castigatory aspect of Christ's sufferings is
much more prominent than the merely penal aspect/'' Nor
is the case materially different in the other New Testament
writings. The baptism 'of Jesus symbolised the putting off of
the body of His flesh, and this was done through death (Col.
ii. 11, 12), He was crucified, in order that the body of sin
might be brought to no Light, that so He might no more be
enslaved to sin, precisely as each believer is (Rom. vi. 8-10).
He became obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the
cross (Phil. ii. 8). But it is needless to argue a point so
clear.
The truth is, that the sufferings and death of believers are
everywhere represented as absolutely identical in nature with
those of Christ ; both alike are manifestations of the righteous
* How nearly identical the two notions of punishment and chastisement are
both in Greek and in English is shown by the fact that the words jc6Xa<rt* and
punishment are constantly employed where the words iraiSeia and chastisement
would suit equally well. No butter example of chastisement could be found
than ordinary school discipline. Yet schoolmasters invariably use the word
punish, in preference to chastise, to describe their disciplinary operations. Does
any one accuse them of solecising in so doing ?
464 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
judgment of God against sin ; both alike constitute the pen-
alty of the law ; and both alike have the effect of destroying
sin, of producing repentance, of proving faith, of perfecting the
person in holy obedience. And it were strange if it were
otherwise. How passing strange would it be, if the nature of
a man's sufferings were not only changed but revolutionised in
consequence of his exercising faith on Christ if they were one
thing before faith in Christ, and another entirely distinct, and
as it were opposite, thing after faith in Christ ! The notion
is evidently preposterous. And theologians, while obliged by
the exigencies of theory to adopt and defend it, never maintain
it consistently, but desert it in favour of the Scriptural and
common-sense view the moment their opponent's back has been
turned. Save when directly occupied in parrying objections to
the doctrine of strict substitution, they not only admit, but
assume as self-evident to every reader of the Bible, that God
has punished His saints in all ages more or less on account of
their sins. And if every believer suffers and dies in his own
person on account of sin, it is absurd to allege that the suffer-
ings and death of Christ were strictly substituted for those that
are actually undergone by each believer.
But what of the current notion that the absolute forgive-
ness of sin is impossible under the moral government of God ?
Is there not a certain definite amount of suffering correspond-
ing to every amount of sin, and must not this exact amount
of suffering be inflicted infallibly, either on the sinner himself,
or on a substitute provided and accepted by God ? Surely,
you will say, it cannot be pretended that the sufferings and
death of each believer, allowing them to be penal, are a full
and adequate punishment for all his sins ? And if not a full
and adequate punishment, what becomes of the stern
unchangeableness of the Divine law? Besides, what of the
great inequalities in respect to suffering experienced by diffe-
rent believers ? Can it be maintained that these correspond
to inequalities in respect to sin, and that the greatest sinner
is always the greatest sufferer ? Surely not. And what of
the amount of suffering that Christ underwent ? Did this
correspond to a certain definite amount of sin, and if so, what,
amount, relatively, if not absolutely ?
X.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 465
Before any of these questions can be approached impartially,
the reader must dismiss from his mind all unwarranted pre-
possessions. In particular, he must dismiss the idea that sin
and suffering can be weighed and measured over against each
other, and that we can fix upon a certain definite amount of
suffering, and say of it that it constitutes a full and adequate
punishment for this or that amount of sin. We have already
had occasion to observe that sin from its very nature, and
irrespective of its amount, must separate for ever between
the sinner and God, unless it is taken out of the way, that it
must therefore involve, on the part of the sinner, eternal or
infinite suffering. The wages of sin as such is death eternal
death. The only thing therefore that can render the punish-
ment of even a single sin less than infinite, is the doing away
of the sin itself. And since God may step in and sanctify an
individual at any stage of his history, and in any length of
time, however limited, the whole idea of adeqiiate punishment
in order to remission of sins is seen to be quite chimerical.
Adequate punishment of even a single sin involves a plain
contradiction, for it implies that the infinite has become
finite. Not even the sins of the lost in the pit of woe, will
ever be adequately punished. It is evident, therefore, that
God must pass over sin without adequate punishment in the
case of every sinner whose sins have been done away ; and it
would manifestly be out of the question to think of assigning
any limit to His so doing ; all we can say is (and we are
warranted in saying this, simply by observing the order of
things as we find it in history and experience), that the
amount of suffering undergone by forgiven sinners, bears no
definite proportion whatever to the amount of their sin,
which means that God may forgive absolutely, and pass over
sin to an indefinable extent.
Coming to the case of Christ, I am not aware that the
Scripture writers take any account, either of the amount of sin
which He assumed, or of the amount of suffering which He
underwent. The mere fact that He assumed human flesh, that
He became sinful at all, was enough to render Him amenable
to any amount of suffering that God might see fit to inflict,
and to account for all the suffering which He actually endured.
466 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
It is the qualitative, not the quantitative aspect of sin that
alone comes into view in the case of Christ. When the New
Testament writers refer to the sin which Christ took upon
Him by the act of the incarnation, they speak of it simply as
"sin" (2 Cor. v. 21 ; Rom. vi. 6, 10; viii. 3), or as "our
sins" (Rom. iv. 25 ; 1 Pet. ii. 24),* or in other equivalent
terms. The latter expression, which is used especially in
connection with the phraseology of sacrifice, has simply been
* With reference to this last passage, it ought to be noted that the form of the
language has evidently been influenced by Isaiah liii. 4. 5, 12 (LXX.). Yet it would
be a grave error to assume, as theologians are in the habit of doing, that the
apostle must necessarily have used the words which he borrowed in the same
identical sense in which they were used by the Old Testament prophet. The
fact is, that the meaning of the expression " bore our sins," is obviously quite
different in 1 Pot. ii. 24, from what it is in Isaiah liii. 12, and necessarily so from
the nature of the case to which it is here applied. This is proved not only by the
following clause "in His body up to the tree," (e?ri TO &\ov) which positively will not
bear the sense " by means of His body, [tortured as it was] upon the tree," as if
the sins of all mankind, had been imputed to the body of Christ, and the suffer-
ing undergone by it alone (!) but by the whole context, which points to the
destruction of the principle of sin inherent in the flesh, first in the case of Christ
through His death, and then in the case of each believer through death on his
part after the example of Christ. "The sins" which Christ "bore," and "the
sins " to which we " have died," in order that we might live unto righteousness,
are manifestly identical ; but they can be identical only in the sense that the
principle of sin inherent in Christ's flesh, which stood in the way of His living to
righteousness, was identical naturally and organically with the principle of sin
inherent in our flesh, which stands in the way of our living to righteousness this
principle of sin being that which was brought to nought through the death of
Christ, as it is that which shall be brought to nought through our death after the
example of Christ (cf. Rom. vi. 1-11). No doubt, under these circumstances, we
should expect simply "sin," or at the most "our sin," instead of "our sins," to
describe the thing which Christ "carried in His body up to the tree," and to
which we die after His example. And so in all likelihood the apostle would
have expressed himself, had he been framing language suited precisely to convey
his thought. So at least the Apostle Paul most commonly expresses himself (cf.
Rom. viii. 10, 11, where the equivalent literal form of language will be found).
But inasmuch as the Apostle Peter, instead of framing language of his own,
elected to borrow language from Isaiah liii., where the phrase rds apapTlas avruv
occurs repeatedly, the lack of precision in his phraseology ought not to cause
us any surprise, seeing that the same phenomenon is of frequent occurrence
elsewhere.
Elsewhere do we say ? The same phenomenon is found in the phrase " delivered
up because of our trespasses," of Rom. iv. 25, cited immediately before, the form
of which has likewise been determined by Isaiah liii. 12, as rendered by the LXX.,
and which must be interpreted in exactly the same way (cf. again Rom. viii. 10, 11,
for the corresponding proper form of expression).
X.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 467
taken over from the Old Testament, and being diverted from
its original reference, must, when applied to the sin attaching
to Christ's person, be understood in a somewhat qualified
sense, since it is quite impossible that it should bear an
absolutely literal one. The sins of one half of the human
race which is what is referred to by " our " had already in
Scripture phrase been " brought to nought," so far as they
ever will be brought to nought, before the death of Christ took
place ; while the sins of the other half had not yet come into
existence ; so that Christ could not possibly have carried "our
sins " in the proper literal sense " in His body up to the
tree." Thus far all must concur. The only question, therefore,
is in what precise qualified sense Christ was " delivered up
because of our trespasses," in what qualified sense He " carried
our sins in His body up to the tree." The answer of theolo-
gians is that He took our sins by imputation. And those
who make any pretence of adhering to grammatical principle,
do not shrink from holding that He " carried our sins [imputed]
in His body(ty up to the tree." But we have already shown
that the imputation of sin from one person to another, and
particularly from us to Christ, is a pure fiction of the imagina-
tion, absolutely devoid of Scripture authority ; and a very
unintelligible one to boot ; one that involves manifold con-
tradictions and absurdities within itself. My answer is that
Christ '''carried our sins in His body up to the tree," in the
manner and to the extent that sin, the characteristic of the
nature common to us and Him, existed as a pervading
principle in His body to carry ; that He " was delivered up
because of our trespasses," in the sense that, having been born
of a woman, He was born under the penalty of the law, and
so had to endure that penalty ; that He took our sins by
taking our nature, sinful as it was and is ; that He became
sin by becoming flesh ; and put away sin in that He put
away the body of sin, the flesh in which sin inhered. Now it
were obviously idle to ask what amount of sin dwells in
human flesh as such, what amount of sin each of us brings
into the world with us, or what amount Christ brought into
the world with him. Such questions, even if answerable,
would have no manner of interest. They have no bearing
468 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
upon anything. Probably they never so much as occurred to
any of the Scripture writers. And it is equally idle to ask
what was the amount of suffering which Christ underwent
during His life and at His death. As well might one ask
what amount of suffering each believer undergoes during his
life and at his death. As well might one ask what
amount of enjoyment Christ and Christians have during
their earthly life, and throughout eternity. It is just as
legitimate to ask what is the amount of the reward, the
promise attached to the law, during a given period, as it is to
ask what is the amount of the penalty, the threatening
attached to the law, during a given period. The sufferings
of Christ, whatever their amount, had no manner of relation
to the amount of sin which He assumed, whatever that
amount may have been, they were in no sort the adequate
penalty of that, or of any other amount of sin. That the suf-
ferings and death of Christ were not infinite, any more than those
of other believers, is sufficiently proved by the fact that they
were not eternal, and, being simply limited sufferings, suffer-
ings limited like those of each believer by temporal or bodily
death, they could not possibly exhaust the penalty of even a
single sin. If we accept the teaching of the Apostle Paul
(Rom. v. 12, seq.\ we must hold that a single sin is sufficient
to cause the eternal death, not merely of a single individual,
but of an indefinite number of individuals, even of the whole
race of Adam. A single sin, therefore, would have been
quite sufficient, nay, would have been much more than
sufficient, to bring about all the sufferings of Christ, be they
so great as ever they will ; so that even if sin could be
weighed and measured, and we were acquainted with the precise
weight and measurement of the sin assumed by Christ, this
would afford us no clue to the precise amount of His sufferings.
Accordingly, we find that when the Scripture writers refer
to the sufferings of Christ, they never hint at any propor-
tion existing between them and the amount of human sin,
whether the sin directly connected with His own person, or
the sin connected with the persons of believers, or the sin
connected with the persons of all men, whether believers or
not, They declare that in Christ's death as in ours, the body
X.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 469
of sin was brought to nought (Rom. vi. 3), God having con-
demned to death, and brought to nought through death, the
sin in the flesh (viii. 3) ; but they make no mention of any
definite or indefinite degree of suffering, which had to be
undergone before the sin in the flesh could be brought to
nought. The death of Christ was just the ordinary human
experience that passes under that name. Says the Apostle
Paul, "For while we were yet weak, in due time Christ died
for the ungodly; for scarcely for a righteous man will one die;
for peradventure for the good man, some would even dare to
die ; but God commendeth His love toward us in that while
we were yet sinners Christ died for us " (Rom. v. 6-8)
where it would surely be very strange and misleading, if the
word die had one meaning in the first and last cases, and quite
another meaning in the two intermediate cases. In fact,
I believe that had the apostles been asked what was the
amount of the sufferings of Christ, they would have been just
as unable to tell as we ourselves are. Their point of view, as
regards the matter, is simply the historical one. They knew
that Christ lived on earth for so many years ; that He suffered
more or less during all these years, bodily as well as mentally
the latter, it may be, chiefly in connection with the sin,
unbelief, and misery of men ; that He was visited by peculiar
fits of mental depression and anguish, particularly when
circumstances suggested the thought of His own departure
from the world (John xii. 27, seq.) ; that the greatest, most
awful, and most mysterious of these fits was experienced in
the garden of Gethsemane on the night of His betrayal ; and
finally, that He underwent the cruel, agonising, and accursed
death of the cross. These are the broad facts which are
patent to every reader of the gospel narratives, and there is no
evidence that the apostles ever went beyond them, or even
that the thought of attempting to do so ever so much as
occurred to them. The idea that every sin has its exact
equivalent punishment, which the law, otherwise the retribu-
tive justice of God, demands inexorably, and that Christ paid
such equivalent punishment, or paid what was accepted
instead of equivalent punishment, for all human sin, this idea,
the fruit of pure scholastic construction, based on arbitrary
470 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
and unwarrantable moral principles, is not only without the
smallest real evidence, but is plainly excluded by the nature of
the case, as well as by numerous express declarations of
Scripture. The apostles teach nothing as to the amount of
Christ's sufferings, beyond what is contained in their historical
narrations : what they teach as to their purpose and effect,
is something quite different from the scholastic figment of
adequate satisfaction to Divine justice for all human sin.
The substance of what is taught by the author of Hebrews,
has been already before us, and may be gathered from the
statement that "it became Him [was a righteous thing for
Him (2 Thess. i. 6 ; 1 Pet. ii. 23)], for whom are all things,
and by whom are all things, when many sons were led to
glory, to perfect the leader of their salvation through suffer-
ings " (ii. 10). Why, or in what view it became God to
perfect Christ through sufferings, will appear by combining
the above statement with the passage from which our present
discussion took its rise, and which we are now in a position
finally to dispose of. " There is no distinction [between Jew
and Greek] ; for all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of
God; being justified freely by His grace [which enables to
endure affliction, suffering, death to sin, while doing well :
cf. v. 2, " through whom also we have had our access by
faith into this grace, whereby we stand fast (amid trial, Phil,
i. 27), and rejoice in hope of the glory of God (the reward
of endurance while doing well, ii. 7 ; 1 Peter i. 7)], through
the redemption [from slavery to sin, by death to sin (vi. 2,
seq. ; viii. 23; Eph. i. 7, 14)], that is in Christ Jesus [=in
Christ Jesus' nature (vi. 3, 5 ; 1 Cor. xv. 22; 2 Cor. v. 17)],
whom God set forth to be a means of expiation * [ = redemp-
* Here again the language is not only borrowed, as in iv. 25, but typico-figurative ;
very different, therefore, as to its form from the ideas which it is used to convey ;
and hence more than ordinary caution is needed in the interpretation of it. The
fact that Christ alone is spoken of as "an expiatory sacrifice," undoubtedly
suggests that His sufferings alone afford " a manifest token " of the righteous
judgment of God, just as the "our" in the second member of iv. 25, which is
framed to correspond with the " our " of the first member, and is therefore simply
an echo of the "we," "our," &c., of Isaiah liii., suggests that the justification of
the whole world took place at the moment of Christ's death (as Ritschl actually
holds that it did). But that this cannot be the case, is shown conclusively both
X.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 471
tion from, or remission of sins (Eph. i. 7)], through faith [as
the subjective means (1 Peter i. 2 ; Heb. x. 19, 22) of putting
men] in his blood [ = in his death as a slave to sin (Rom. vi.
2-4) i.e., in the likeness of His death as a slave to sin
(vv. 5-7 ; cf. v. 9) sprinkling with the blood of Christ, or
death identical with Christ's, being the medium through which
men are put into Christ Jesus (vi. 2. 3 ; Eph. ii. 13), in whom,
being redeemed from slavery to sin (Eph. i. 7 ; 1 Peter i. 18,
19, 22), they have been justified (Rom. vi. 7 ; viii. 1, &c.)],
aiming [in this method of expiation through death to sin by
by the words which follow, and by various parallel passages (cf. those cited
pp. 443-449, especially Phil. i. 28, 29 ; 2 Thess. i. 5, seq.) ; indeed, by the whole
tenor of Scripture, and almost, one might say, by actual experience and observa-
tion. It is usual to construe the words " whom God set forth as an expiatory
sacrifice through faith in His blood," in one or other of two ways : either (1) con-
necting " in His blood " with " faith," the blood of Christ being regarded as the
object on which faith rests ; or (2) connecting "in His blood" with "whom"-
the clause being regarded as one of nearer definition, describing the state in which
Christ was set forth as an expiatory sacrifice. But neither of these views can be
accepted as satisfactory. The first cannot ; for the idea that faith has for its
object the blood of Christ, if not exactly absurd, is at least entirely foreign to the
New Testament, as a reference to the passages where the blood of Christ is spoken
of will show. And the second cannot ; for besides that "in His blood," ought in
that case to have been placed before, "through faith," a glance at the parallel
occurrences of the same, or a similar expression will convince any one that " in
His blood," describes the element in which the believer is "through faith," not
the element in which Christ was set forth as an expiatory sacrifice. For example,
at v. 9 we are said to " have been justified in His blood," which proves that as
faith is the means of justifying us, so it .must be the means of placing us "in His
blood," in which "we have our redemption through His blood" (Eph. i. 7), and
through our redemption thus obtained our justification (Rom. iii. 24). With this
agrees the statement of the author of Hebrews, that believers have their "hearts
sprinkled " through faith, and are thus prepared for entering the holy place " in
the blood of Jesus" (x. 19, 22). Thus "in His blood" (Rom. iii. 25), is in
its natural and proper place, after, and not before "through faith." All the
more clearly, however, does it appear from this expression, that the sufferings bf
each believer, equally with those of Christ, afford " a manifest token " of the
righteous judgment of God ; for when translated into literal terms " in His blood
through faith," can mean nothing else than " in death with Him through faith,"
which implies that the death of each believer bears exactly the same relation to
the justice of God as the death of Christ. Yet the apostle did not call each
believer "an expiatory sacrifice." And why ? Because that would have been to
depart entirely from the form of the Old Testament type, which furnished the
linguistic mould in which his ideas are here expressed. Believers must stand for
" the people," on whose behalf the sacrifice is offered, and this forbids their being
spoken of each as "an expiatory sacrifice."
472 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
faith] at giving a manifest token (ev$eit? ; cf. Phil. i. 28 ;
2 Thess. i. 5) of His righteousness [ = righteous judgment
(SucaiOKpuTtas, Rom. ii. 5 ; rrjs Succuag Kplcreco?, 2 Thess. i. 5)],
because of the passing over [without retribution (Rom. ii. 6-8)],
of the sins committed before [faith (v. 25), or repentance
(ii. 4)], during the [time of] the forbearance of God [when the
wrath against sin was neither pacified by repentance and the
remission of the sin, nor manifested (ix. 22), or given effect to
in the form of punishment, but simply treasured up against
the day. of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of
God (ii. 5)], aiming, I say, at the giving of a manifest token
of His righteousness during the present time [ = the time of
faith (v. 25), of repentance (ii. 4), of endurance while doing
well (v. 7), of sufferings (viii. 18), of proving faith (1 Pet. i.
6,7), of judgment having begun at the house of God (iv. 17)],
to the end that He might be Himself righteous [=the
righteous judge (2 Tim. iv. 8), Him that judgeth righteously
(1 Pet. ii. 23), the Father who without respect of persons
judgeth according to each man's work (i. 17) requiting
suffering to the sinful, and glory to the righteous (Rom. ii.
7-10), beginning with believers, the house of God, and ending
with the ungodly and the sinner (1 Pet. iv. 17; 2 Thess. i. 5,
seq.)], while justifying Him that is [righteous] by faith in
Jesus [in the day when He shall judge the secrets of men by
Jesus Christ (Rom. ii. 16), the day of the revelation of the
righteous judgment of God (v. 5), of the revelation of the
Lord Jesus from heaven (2 Thess. i. 7), that day of His
appearing (2 Tim. iv. 8), the appointed day in which He shall
judge the world in righteousness by that man whom He hath
ordained (Acts xvii. 31)]" (Rom. iii. 23-6).
Neither have these verses anything whatever to do with
adequate, by which is meant infinite, satisfaction to Divine
justice on account of the mass of human sin. What they
teach is something quite different, and, in some respects,
directly opposed to such an idea. They assert that in con-
sequence of the passing over of believers' sins in the past,
there is needed (what actually takes place) a signal manifes-
tation of the Divine retributive justice on Christ and believers
in the present, in order that that justice may be acknowledged
X.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 473
when Christ and believers come to be acquitted and rewarded,
while the ungodly are condemned and punished, at the future
day of judgment. This signal manifestation of the Divine
retributive justice is seen, on the one hand, and in its prin-
ciple, in the sufferings and death of Christ ; on the other
hand, and in its detail, in the sufferings and death of all
believers after the example and in the spirit of Christ. And
the just or equitable retribution thus begun at the house of
God is carried out and completed when the ungodly, whose
sins have not been passed over, are punished with everlasting
destruction from the face of the Lord and from the glory of
His might, at the same time that Christ and believers are
crowned with glory and honour on account of their endurance
of suffering and death while doing well (2 Thess. i. 6, 7 ;
1 Pet. iv. 13, 17; Rom. ii. 4-16). Will any one pretend
that the temporal sufferings and death of each believer are
infinite ? or that they are a full and adequate punishment for
all his sins ? or that no part of the penalty of any believer's
sins is really and truly remitted ? If not, it is impossible to
pretend any such things of the temporal sufferings and death
of Christ. The sufferings of Christ and the sufferings of
believers serve equally to manifest the Divine justice ; but is
it necessary, in order to this, that they should be infinite, or
equal in amount to the eternal sufferings of the lost in the pit
of woe ? The sins of the two thieves on the cross may be
supposed, without much risk of error, to have been of equal
amount : were the two or three hours of suffering undergone
by the penitent thief equal in amount to the eternal suffering
of the impenitent? Surely not. Yet such they must have
<>een if the righteous judgment of God can be manifested only
by exacting the full punishment of every sin. If the sins
committed by the two thieves during the time of God's for-
bearance were practically the same, the full punishment due
to both must likewise have been practically the same ; yet the
punishment of the one was temporal, the punishment of the
other eternal ; the reason being that the sins of the one were
passed over, and not visited with full punishment ; while the
sins of the other were not passed over, but visited with full
punishment.
474 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
In point of fact, so far are the sufferings of each believer
from being infinite and the adequate penalty of his sins, that
the Apostle Paul could say, " I reckon that the sufferings of
the present time [whereby the righteous judgment of God is
manifested (Rom. iii. 26 ; 1 Pet. iv. 13, 17; Phil. i. 28, 29 ;
2 Thess. i. 4, 5)] are not worthy to be compared with the
glory that shall be revealed to us-ward [the adequate and
infinite reward of obedience (2 Tim. iv. 8)]." (Rom. viii. 18).
" Our momentary light burden of affliction worketh for us
more and more exceedingly an eternal heavy burden of glory "
(2 Cor. iv. 17). How entirely incompatible are such state-
ments as these with the idea that the sufferings of believers
amount to the full penalty which the law threatens against
sin ! They show, on the contrary, that while the temporal
sufferings of believers are just as real a manifestation of the
righteous judgment of God as were the temporal sufferings of
Christ, and while, in their case as in His, they are the means
of perfecting the persons by whom they are undergone, they
are so far from being infinite in degree, that they are utterly
insignificant as compared with the infinite glories that shall
follow them. The degree of suffering in every case is, in fact,
just the historical one, which meets all the requirements of
the Divine government, and there is nowhere any thought of
balancing suffering over against sin, so as to wipe out its
penalty, either in the case of Christ or in that of believers.
The Scripture writers (for this applies to the Old Testament
prophets not less than to the New Testament apostles) confine
themselves to interpreting the meaning of sufferings known
from history to exist ; they do not speculate, nor deduce the
particular amount of these sufferings from a priori ideas
touching the nature and exigencies of the Divine justice.
According to them, the exigencies of the Divine justice are
to be learned from what the Divine justice actually does,
not from what they or any one else^ may imagine it ought
to do.
Scholastic theologians, on the other hand, indulging their
favourite taste for a priori speculation, pursue a method as
nearly as possible the reverse of this. They begin by assum-
ing that forgiveness of sins in the ordinary sense of the phrase
X.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 475
is impossible, being inconsistent with the Divine character and
government, which demands that every sin shall somehow be
visited with its exact, equivalent punishment. Hence, when
the apostle speaks of " the passing over of the sins done afore-
time in the forbearance of God/' they understand by "the
sins done aforetime " the aggregate sins of the whole pre-
Christian world. The " passing over " they take to mean the
suspension of the penalty due to these sins. And they hold
that the way in which the Divine justice was manifested and
vindicated was by inflicting the penalty hitherto suspended,
not on those who committed the sin, but on Christ, their
appointed and accepted substitute. But the difficulties attend-
ing this interpretation of the passage are insuperable. To
begin with, the death of Christ would have no bearing on any
sins but those of the pre-Christian world, whose penalty He
bore, and the passing over of any other sins would, on the
principles assumed, be impossible without violation of the
Divine justice. But is it not certain that the death of Christ
bears equally on all human sin ? Do we not read elsewhere
that " He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours
only, but also for the whole world" (1 John ii. 2)? Next, it
appears undoubted that the apostle's point of view and mode
of representation in the present passage is identical with that
of the author of Hebrews in the body of his epistle (cf. especi-
ally ix. 15), and similar to that of Paul himself in Gal. iii., iv.,
where the entire pre-Christian world is thought of as having
lived and died in a state of slavery to the law before the
advent of a true atoning sacrifice in the person of Christ, and
before faith as the means of appropriating the blood that
" cleanseth from all sin " was or could be exercised ; where
" the people" on whose behalf the sacrifice of Christ is offered,
and who are really sanctified by it, are identified with the
apostles themselves and their Christian contemporaries ; and
where Old Testament religion is regarded in no other light
than as a foil to set off the excellence and ideal validity of the
religion which Christ came to inaugurate. And if this be so,
the sins whose penalty Christ bore must, on the above inter-
pretation, have been exclusively the sins of persons who were
not and could -not possibly be saved ! Further, why should
476 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
the sins committed before Christ be singled out and spoken
of as having been passed over any more than the sins after
Christ ? According to the unanimous testimony of the New
Testament writers, the sins of Old Testament saints (if any
such there were) were dealt with in exactly the same way as
the sins of New Testament saints. Abraham and David
obtained forgiveness of sins through faith and repentance pre-
cisely in the same way as Peter and Paul, precisely in the
same way as Augustine and Luther. Under the Old Testa-
ment as under the New, there was a passing over, a remission,
a non-reckoning of the sins done before faith and repentance,
just as there was a bringing to nought of the sinful nature
through suffering and death, whereby the righteous judgment
of God was manifested. Now, if the sins of all Old Testament
saints had been passed over in the sense that they had been
forgiven, if their sinful nature had been done away, if the
righteous judgment of God had been manifested in their
sufferings and death, and if they had received the reward
which it was righteous for God to bestow (Heb. vi. 10, 12),
how could the full penalty of all their sins be still suspended
so as to fall upon Christ ? If Abraham and David were
inheriting the promises and enjoying the beatific vision,
where was the penalty of their sins suspended? How could
God be still cherishing his anger towards them, or even
towards their sins apart from them ? It is idle to talk about
the precise force of the word " passing over " (Trdpecris), as if
that word applied to God's method of dealing with Old Testa-
ment sins as distinguished from New Testament sins. The
word " passing over " is not the only word applied to the for-
giveness of sins under the Old Testament. In the very next
chapter the apostle uses, or at least quotes, the words " re-
mitted/' " covered," " not reckoned," to describe the forgive-
ness obtained by Old Testament saints, and these are the very
words used to describe the forgiveness obtained by New Testa-
ment saints. He also, in the same passage, asserts that
Abraham was the father of the faithful (v. 16), and the type
of believers in all ages, especially of New Testament believers
(vv. 23-25), and this implies that God has from the beginning
accepted believers on precisely the same terms as regards for-
X.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 477
giveness and everything else. Again, as to forbearance God
was not more forbearing toward the sins of His people before
the coming of Christ than after it. The whole plan of salva-
tion being exactly the same in both periods, the forbearance
of God was the same also, so that the Old Testament period
was in no special sense the period of forbearance. There is
not even a particle of truth in Lord Bacon's remark that
" Prosperity was the blessing of the Old Testament, adversity
is the blessing of the New " a remark which rests on the
extravagant assumption, that the laws of nature, or the prin-
ciples of God's moral government, were entirely changed at the
advent of Jesus Christ ! That, as a general rule, Old Testament
saints supposed and believed that God had in the past, and
would in the future, reward righteousness and punish sin in
the present life to a greater extent than He actually does
under the New Testament may be readily admitted ; but that
God actually did reward righteousness and punish sin a whit
more fully under the Old Testament than under the New is an
assumption which genuine Old Testament history completely
disproves, and the falsity of which Old Testament saints them-
selves came latterly at least to perceive. Once more, the
apostle's statement is that Christ was " set forth as an expia-
tory sacrifice through faith in His blood." But if the sins
expiated through the death of Christ were merely pre-Christian
sins, which had up to that time been passed over, then the
expiation effected through the death of Christ could in no sort
depend on faith, could not therefore be an expiation " through
faith in His blood." Indeed, the mention of " faith in His
blood " (however we may choose to construe the latter phrase)
as the means by which expiation is obtained in individual
cases after the expiatory sacrifice has been " set forth " for
that is evidently what is meant points to the curious result,
that whereas the sins held to have been expiated by the death
of Christ are exclusively Old Testament sins, the persons who
actually obtain the expiation are exclusively New Testament
persons ! More than that : since faith is the means of obtain-
ing expiation, this is a proof that expiation must take place
wherever and whenever there is faith ; that is to say, expia-
tion must have taken place from the time of Abel downwards
478 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
a fact which quite explodes the notion that all pre-Christian
sins were passed over unexpiated till the time of Christ, when
they were expiated by Him personally in toto. Finally to
return to the point from which we started it may be taken
as self-evident that the death of Christ, if it bear at all, should
bear equally on the sins of the whole human race, whether
pre- or post-Christian, and that the righteousness of God
should require to be manifested equally with reference to the
passing over of all human sin that is passed over, whether
before or after the death of Christ. Any exegetical theory
that does not conserve these conditions must be regarded as
transparently erroneous and untenable.
The true explanation of the words is that which has been
already indicated. The " sins committed aforetime," are the
sins committed by believers before faith in Christ, and these
comprehend practically all the overt sins of believers, for the
believer is here thought of as being what he ought to be, a
perfect follower of Christ, who did no sin (1 Pet. ii. 22).
" When [aforetime] we were in the flesh," says the Apostle,
"the sinful passions which were through the law, wrought in
our members to bring forth fruit unto death. But now [ = in
the present time], we [as to our flesh], have been brought to
nought from the law, having died to that wherein we were
held, so that we [as to our spirit] serve in newness of spirit,
and not in the oldness of the letter " (Rom. vii. 5, 6). " Before
faith came [ aforetime], we were guarded under the law
[by which came the knowledge of sin] ; but now [ = in the
present time] that faith is come, we are no longer under a
tutor [having no need of law repression] ; for ye are all sons
of God through faith in Christ Jesus" (Gal. iii. 23-26).
" And you, when [= aforetime] ye were dead through your
trespasses and sins wherein aforetime, ye walked according
to ... the spirit that now worketh in the sons of disobedi-
ence among whom we also all had our conversation aforetime,
in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh, and
of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as
the rest : when we were dead through our trespasses, God,
who is rich in mercy . . . quickened us together with Christ
[having forgiven us all our trespasses (Col. ii. 13)], and
X.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 479
raised us up with Him, and made us to sit with Him in the
heavenly places in Christ Jesus, [so that] . . . now [=in the
present time], ye that aforetime were far off, are made nigh
in the blood of Christ" (Eph. ii. 1-6, 13). "And you, when
[= afore time] ye were dead through your trespasses, and the
uncircumcision of your flesh, did He quicken together with
Him, having forgiven us all our trespasses . . . mortify
therefore [in the present time] your members which are upon
the earth, fornication, uncleanness, &c because of which
things the wrath of God cometh upon the sons of disobedience,
among whom also ye walked aforetime, when ye lived in
these things. But now [ = in the present time] put ye away
also all these, anger, wrath, &c., . . . seeing ye have put off
the old man with his doings" (Col. ii. 13; iii. 5-9). "We
thus judge that one died on behalf of all, therefore all [with
Him by faith and baptism (Col. ii. 11, 12)] died ; and He died
on behalf of all, in order that they which live [in the present
time], should no longer [as aforetime] live unto themselves,
but unto Him who died on their behalf, and rose again . . .
And all things are [now] of God, that reconciled us to Him-
self, through Christ . . . not reckoning unto the [reconciled]
their trespasses" (2 Cor. v. 14-19). "As children of obedi-
ence, not fashioning yourselves according to your former
[ = aforetime] lusts, in the time of your ignorance, but like as
He which called you is holy, so be ye yourselves also holy
in all manner of conversation. . . . Pass the time of your
sojourning [ = the present time] in fear; knowing that ye
were redeemed, not with corruptible things, with silver or
gold, from your vain conversation, handed down by tradition
from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ "
(1 Pet. i. 14-19). "He that hath suffered in the flesh, hath
ceased from sin, that ye no longer should live the rest of your
time in the flesh, [=the present time] to the lusts of men, but
to the will of God. For the time past [= aforetime], may suffice
to have wrought the will of the Gentiles . . . who shall
render account to Him that is ready to judge the living and
the dead ; for to this end was the Gospel preached to the dead
also [as well as to the living], in order that, though (f*v), they
had been judged [= condemned], after the manner of men in the
480 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
flesh [scil. by suffering temporal death], they might neverthe-
less (oe) live [having been justified through accepting the
Gospel] after the manner of God in the spirit" (1 Pet. iv. 1-6 ;
cf. 1 Tim. iii. 16). These quotations may suffice to show what
is the period to which the Apostle refers, when He speaks of
the passing over of the sins afore committed in the time of the
forbearance of God.
There are, in fact, three great stages in the history of
ordinary believers. The first is the period anterior to faith,
the period when they are slaves of sin, sons of disobedience,
children of wrath, when they are in the flesh, and live after
the flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind
presenting their members as instruments to uncleanness, and
to iniquity unto iniquity bringing forth fruit unto death.
In one word, therefore, this is the period when sin is com-
mitted. It is also the period of God's forbearance, when sin
is practically left unpunished. It corresponds to the whole
earthly life of the unbeliever, with respect to whom the
Apostle asks, "Reckonest thou this, man, . . . that thou
shalt escape the judgment of God ? Or despisest thou the
riches of His goodness, and forbearance, and longsuffering,
not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repent-
ance ? but after thy hardness and impenitent heart, treasurest
up for thyself wrath in the day of wrath, and revelation of the
righteous judgment of God, who will render to every man,
according to his works " (Rom. ii. 3-6). These words entirely
refute the opinion entertained by some writers, that sin is its
own punishment, that the penalty follows instantly and
inevitably on the transgression, and that such a thing as an
accumulation of penalties is impossible. They prove, on the
contrary, that through the Divine forbearance, the evil works
of sinful men may be left unpunished for a lengthened period,
while yet the penalties are not remitted, but treasured up
against a final day of reckoning. And what is true of the
finally impenitent, is equally true of believers, up to the first
moment of faith. In their case, also, there is a period during
which evil works are practised, forbearance is shown, retribu-
tion is left over, and penalties are accumulated against a time,
not of reckoning, but of repentance and remission.
X.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 481
The second period of the believer's history is that which
begins with the first moment of faith, and extends to the final
judgment. In its ideal state, this is a period when no sin is
committed, when believers are engaged always and only in
doing well, when they are the slaves of righteousness, the sons
of God, when they are in the Spirit and live after the Spirit,
minding the things of the Spirit, presenting their members as
instruments to righteousness, having their fruit unto holiness,
and the end everlasting life. And if the former period corres-
ponded to the whole earthly life of the unbeliever, this period
corresponds to the whole earthly life of Christ. It is spoken
of as the present time, the time of sojourning upon earth, the
remaining time in the flesh, the time when the judgment has
begun at the house of God. Two things are to be noted in
connection with this period. The first is that the sins com-
mitted in the former period are passed over definitively that is.
they are graciously forgiven (Col. ii. 13), they are not reckoned
unto believers (2 Cor. v. 19). Nor is this passing over any
mere suspension of the penalty until a time of reckoning come.
It is forgiveness pure and simple, forgiveness springing from
compassion, kindness, love, mercy, forgiveness identical with
that which one tender-hearted man bestows upon another
(Eph. iv. 32; Col. iii. 13; Luke vii. 47-50, &c.). Ideally,
forgiveness is a single act, taking place in the first moment of
faith and repentance, when the bond standing against the
sinner on account of his past life is cancelled ; but if sin is
repeated subsequent to faith, as it invariably is, forgiveness
must, of course, be repeated also (Matt. vi. 12, seq.; 1 John i. 9).
The second thing to be noted is that, in consequence of
the forgiveness which believers have received for all their past
sins, whereby the wrath treasured up, the guilt accumulated,
during their whole previous life has been completely wiped
out and forgotten, there is needed some signal manifestation
(evSeii$) of the righteous judgment of God toward them on
account of present sinfulness, some punitive retribution
answering to that which shall be awarded to the ungodly at
the final judgment, when believers shall be justified and
rewarded on account of the righteousness which they shall then
possess. If God, at the final judgment, is to appear as a
2*1
482 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
righteous Judge, rendering to every man believers and
unbelievers alike according to his works, then He must not
only condemn and punish the ungodly on account of sin, while
justifying and rewarding believers on account of righteous-
ness, in that day; but He must, at some time, and in some
manner, give a palpable indication of His impartiality, by in
some sort condemning and punishing believers on account of
sin. This palpable indication of God's righteous judgment is
given " in the present time," by inflicting temporal sufferings
and death, first on Christ as leader of salvation and head of the
house of God, and then on all believers as followers of Christ
and members of the house of God. " The present time,"
accordingly, is " the time when the judgment [ = 'the right-
eous judgment of God who shall render to every man accord-
ing to his works ' (Rom. ii. 5, 6)] has begun at the house of
God" (1 Pet. iv. 17). It corresponds, on the one hand, to the
whole earthly life of Christ, being the time of His humiliation,
sufferings, and death (Phil. ii. 5-8), and, on the other hand, to
the whole earthly life of the believer as a believer, being like-
wise in his case a time of humiliation, sufferings, and death
(Rom. viii. 18, seq. ; 1 Pet. iv. 12, seq.). It is also the time of
redemption from the power and dominion of sin, a process
which was accomplished for Christ by death in subjection to
sin, as it is accomplished for each believer by similar death in
subjection to sin. In both cases the cause of death and the
effect of death are exactly the same. In the case of believers,
not less or more than in the case of Christ, death is a judicial
penalty, inflicted by God in His capacity as a righteous judge,
so that its effect is to manifest the righteous judgment of God
(2 Thess. i. 5). Not, however, as if each believer suffered the
full and adequate penalty of all his sins; still less as if the full
penalty of all the believer's sins were transferred to Christ and
borne by Him : it is expressly asserted that the believer's sins
are graciously forgiven (Col. ii. 13), passed over (Rom. iii. 25),
that they are not reckoned to him (2 Cor. v. 19), or to any
one else ; and it is precisely because they have been thus
forgiven that there is needed a special manifestation of the
Divine judgment in the case of Christ, supplemented by a
similar manifestation in the case of each believer. I say a
X.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 483
special manifestation in the case of Christ. For in one
respect the case of Christ differs somewhat from that of all His
followers. Christ Himself had no sins committed aforetime
requiring to be passed over, He had merely that sin in the
flesh which He assumed in order to accomplish human redemp-
tion, and which God condemned and brought to nought through
death (Rom. viii. 3). Hence, in so far as the sufferings of
Christ and of believers reflect back on the Divine procedure in
forgiving human sin, the sufferings of Christ (whatever may be
thought of those of believers) have an equal reference to all
human sin forgiven, to the sins of all the many sons that are
led to glory. This fact gives the death of Christ a central and
universal significance in the way of manifesting the Divine
righteousness that does not perhaps belong to the death of each
believer ; and this, together with the circumstance that it is,
or at least is regarded as being, the primary and ruling case,
accounts for the central place that is everywhere assigned to it.
All the more clearly, however, does it appear from the case of
Christ that human sin is really forgiven, and that the mani-
festation of God's righteousness does not take place by simply
enforcing the full penalties that men have incurred. For if,
as is quite obvious and as all must allow, the manifestation of
the Divine righteousness does not require that the full penalty
should be inflicted on each believer on account of sins which
are really his, but rather permits of " the passing over of the
sins committed aforetime," with what show of reason can it be
maintained that the manifestation of that righteousness
requires that the full penalty should be inflicted on Christ on
account of sins which are not really His, sins which He did not
commit, and with which He never had any connection ? K"o,
the justice of God and the forgiveness of human sin are not
incompatible in any absolute sense. They are incompatible
only to this extent that men who are found wearing flesh and
blood, saints or well-doers though they be, must suffer and die
before they can reach the perfected glorified state. That
Christ and believers do actually suffer and die in the path of
well-doing is an historical fact patent to all, and this is the
explanation of it, or which the apostles put upon it. By this
means the righteousness of God is manifested. By this means
484 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
it is made possible for God, " judging without respect of per-
sons according to each man's work" (1 Pet. i. 17), to award
eternal glory to the righteous, while awarding eternal destruc-
tion to them that obey not the truth but obey unrighteous-
ness. Neither in the case of Christ, nor in that of the
believer, is there any thought of estimating the amount of
suffering undergone. The amount differs in each individual
case, and is to be known from history only. The apostle is
not even speculating on the abstract necessity of suffering at
all. He is still further from speculating on the abstract neces-
sity of the incarnation in order to suffering. He is simply
interpreting the meaning of sufferings whose existence history
itself proclaims. And the sum of what he teaches concerning
Christian suffering is : (1) as to its nature, it is a penal inflic-
tion, and is, in that view of it, a manifestation of the righteous
judgment of God on account of sin attaching to the parties
suffering ; (2) as to its effect (a) it destroys the principle of
sin inherent in the flesh, (6) it causes God to appear righteous
in justifying and glorifying Christ and believers on account of
righteousness at the day of judgment, in spite of the fact that
the mass of believers sins have been passed over and par-
doned.
The third period of the believer's history is that which sets
in at the final judgment, when he is finally and completely
justified. And here again the believer is treated exactly as
Christ was treated, but in a manner directly opposite to that
in which the ungodly are treated. Christ was justified in the
Spirit (1 Tim. iii. 16); He was crowned with glory and
honour on account of the suffering of death (Heb. ii. 9) ; He
became obedient unto death, yea, the death of the cross, and
therefore God highly exalted Him (Phil. ii. 8, 9) ; He endured
the cross, despising the shame, and, in consequence, sat down
at the right hand of the throne of God (Heb. xii. 2). The
believer, in like manner, having been a doer and not a mere
hearer of the law, shall be justified in the day when God
shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ (Rom. ii.
13, 16); having by patient continuance in well-doing sought
for glory and honour and incorruption, he shall receive eternal
life, and this by the righteous judgment of God, who will
x.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 485
render to every man according to his works (ii. 5-10) who
without respect of persons will judge according to each man's
work (1 Pet. i. 17) when all shall be manifested before the
judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things
done in his body, according to what he hath done, whether it
be good or bad (2 Cor. v. 10) ; having suffered with Christ,
he shall be glorified (Rom. viii. 17), and shall reign (2 Tim. ii.
11, 12) with Him ; having ministered to Christ, by minister-
ing to His brethren, he shall be called to enter into life
eternal (Matt. xxv. 34-40, 46) ; he shall be counted worthy
of the kingdom of God for which he also suffered, it being a
righteous thing with God to recompense rest or peace (Rom.
ii. 10) at the revelation of Jesus Christ to them that have
been afflicted for the kingdom of heaven's sake (2 Thess.
i. 5-7) ; having finished his course and kept the faith, he shall
receive as his prize the crown of righteousness, which the
Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give him at that day (2 Tim.
iv. 7, 8). Thus, and not otherwise, it is that God will be
" Himself righteous, while justifying him that is righteous by
faith in Jesus" (Rom. iii. 26).
On the other hand, the ungodly, though they have already
so far met the judgment of God in suffering temporal death
(1 Pet. iv. 6), just as the righteous have already so far received
their justification and their reward (Rom. v. 1, seq.)-, yet, since
their transgressions are still unforgiven, besides being greatly
aggravated by persistent disobedience to the truth ; since they
are still impenitent, the goodness of God not having led them
to repentance ; since they have used the forbearance of God
merely to treasure up wrath against the day of wrath and
revelation of His righteous judgment : therefore they shall
suffer punishment, even eternal destruction from the face of
the Lord and from the glory of his might (2 Thes. i. 9), being
visited with wrath and indignation, tribulation and anguish
(Rom. ii. 9) ; having denied Christ before men, failing to take
up their cross and follow Him, they shall be denied by Him
before the angels of God (Matt. x. 33, 38; 2 Tim. ii. 12);
not having ministered to Christ by ministering to His brethren
(Matt. xxv. 41-45), nor suffered for the kingdom of heaven's
sake (v. 10-14), they shall go away into everlasting punish-
486 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
nient (xxv. 46) ; this shall be the end of them that obey not
the Gospel of God (1 Pet. iv. 17), when they give their
account to Him that is ready to judge the living and the dead
(iv. 5). In this way shall God manifest (evSeiKvva-Oai) His
wrath, and make known His power, on vessels of wrath fitted
to destruction (Rom. ix. 22 ; cf. Phil. i. 28), while making
known the riches of His glory on vessels of mercy which He
aforetime prepared unto glory.
Thus, on the whole, it appears that the forgiveness of sins
is a reality, otherwise no flesh could be saved ; that God at
the final judgment judges with strict impartiality, and with-
out the intervention of any fictions ; that men are justified
and condemned according to their character as righteous or
unrighteous, rewarded and punished according to their works
as good or bad; that the temporal sufferings and death of
Christ and of believers as believers are the expression of a
preliminary judgment on the part of God ; that they are of
the same nature, and serve the same purpose in respect to the
exigences of the Divine justice, as the eternal (including the
temporal) sufferings and death of the unbelieving ; that they
had the effect, retrospectively viewed, of bringing into mani-
festation the judicial righteousness of God, which otherwise
would have been obscured by His mercy in the forgiveness of
human sin prospectively viewed, they had the effect of
meriting glorification for Christ and believers respectively ;
that, in the process of dying, the principle of sin is brought to
nought, so that further commission of sin is impossible, and
that in the case of believers the forgiveness of sins committed
before is inseparably connected with the process of dying ;
that there is no such thing as transference of penalties from
one party to another, as for example from believers to Christ ;
that there is no such thing as adequate, by which is meant
infinite, punishment of any sin, whether belonging to Christ
or to believers ; that neither in the case of Christ nor in the
case of believers is any estimate formed of the amount of suf-
fering undergone, only it is asserted to be insignificant, and
unworthy of comparison with the glory following it as a
reward ; that there is no just ground to suppose that the suf-
ferings of Christ were appreciably in excess of those undergone
X.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 487
by at least some of His followers rather, there are plain
enough indications to the contrary (Matt. x. 23, seq. ; John
xv. 20, seq.) ; that the notion of one person's suffering being
more valuable than another's is a pure figment, as also the
notion that the merit of one person's suffering may be trans-
ferred to another, as, for example, from Christ to believers ;
that the degree of suffering does not depend on the degree of
sin in individual cases rather, it is the degree of reward that
is proportioned to the degree of suffering (Matt. xx. 22 ;
2 Cor. iv. 17) and yet that all suffering is the effect of sin,
and the punishment of it; in particular, that the sufferings
and death of Christ were the direct effect of His assuming our
flesh, pervaded as it is by the principle of sin, just as our
glorification is the direct effect of our receiving His Spirit,
pervaded as it is by the principle of righteousness; and,
finally, that the obedience unto death of Christ while on
earth, as leader of salvation, and the obedience unto death of
all believers, after the example of Christ, are to be attributed
wholly to Divine grace, to the immediate, manifold, sublime
operation of the Holy Ghost.
[Chap.
CHAPTER XL
CHRIST AND THE BELIEVER.
WE have now reached a point from which we can almost
see the close of our investigations. It has been said
oftener than once that the only thing which the New Testa-
ment writers were commissioned and qualified to teach, the
only subject upon which they dogmatise (instead of arguing),
and in respect to which their opinions have any claim to be
accepted as valid, is the plan or method of human salvation ;
and this has now been so fully canvassed that there is scarcely
any part or aspect of it that has not been before us in one
connection or another. 1 know not that there is a single New
Testament text of more than ordinary consequence which has
not been somewhere quoted or referred to, and its meaning
indicated more or less distinctly. Still, it should not be for-
gotten that well-nigh every inch of the ground over which we
are travelling is battle-field, strewed with the mangled corpses
of rejected interpretations, and with weapons of argument
offensive and defensive ; we are, so to say, in the very heart
of a territory which the enemy claims as his own, and that,
too, on a double title by right of prescription as well as by
right of conquest; to which he is therefore likely to cling
with a tenacity proportioned to the length of time during
which he has been in possession ; for which he will fight as
for dear life, stimulated by self-interest, blinded by fanaticism,
and maddened with vexation, rage, and despair. Hence the
necessity of fortifying every point against, his assaults. What
shall be said in the present chapter will not be entirely new
to the reader : nevertheless, if it serve in any degree to illus-
trate and confirm facts and principles which have not as yet
been satisfactorily established, it will not be without its use.
488
XI.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 489
At the close of the paragraph, Rom. v. 12-21, we found
that the parallel between the method of ruin through Adam
and the method of restoration through. Christ assumed a form
all but identical with that in which it appears in 1 Cor. xv.
22, 45, seq. Sin is conceived of as a principle, inherent in
the flesh, that is, in the nature which each man derives from
Adam, or brings into the world with him a principle which
reigns over the personality, and by means of the law entails
upon it the penalty of death ; while righteousness, in like
manner, is conceived of as a principle, inherent in the spirit,
that is, in the nature which each man derives from Christ, or
receives in regeneration a principle which likewise reigns
over the personality, and by means of grace entails upon it
the reward of life. In virtue of his natural birth, the indi-
vidual is thought of as the subject of sin, and through sin of
death. In virtue of his spiritual birth, the individual is
thought of as the subject of righteousness, and through right-
eousness of life. No doubt, in Rom. v. 21 the reign of sin
in death is represented as commencing only after the introduc-
tion of the law, by which sin was brought into distinct con-
sciousness ; but this difference arises out of the artificial line
of argument pursued in the previous portion of the paragraph,
and may for practical purposes be left out of account. The
reign of sin in death is seen in the case of infants, where there
is just as little consciousness of sin as there could have been
in adults before the Mosaic law was given, and this proves that
the simple natural view of human sinfulness and mortality, as
we find it in 1 Cor. xv. 22, 45, is in every way the more
accordant to fact and experience. As we said before, nature
or character determines experience or destiny; the natural
man is ipso facto the slave of sin, and through sin of death ;
the spiritual man is ipso facto the slave of righteousness, and
through righteousness of life.
It was pointed out, further, in the same connection, how
the two races, possessed of the two common natures which,
for convenience' sake, we shall still continue to call the Adamic
and the Christian never during the present life exist in com-
plete separation from one another ; how the members of the
second race, being all originally members of the first, unite in
490 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
the totality of their persons both the common natures, and
how, in consequence, they must undergo experiences proper
and peculiar to both. In this it is implied that the simple
parallel between Adam and Christ, with their respective
descendants, runs up into a complex parallel between Christ
and each believer. The simple parallel is expressed by saying,
that as Adam and all in Adam die, so Christ and all in Christ
shall be raised from the dead. The complex parallel is
expressed by saying, that as Christ died in the flesh and
was raised from the dead in the spirit, so each believer shall
die in the flesh and be raised from the dead in the spirit.
That is to say, the circumstances on both sides of the former
parallel are combined on each side of the latter, which lies,
not between those who possess Adam's nature and those who
possess Christ's nature, but between Jesus Christ, who unites
Adam's nature to that of Christ, and each believer, who unites
Christ's nature to that of Adam.
It is this complex parallel that meets us, when, on passing
from chap. v. of the Epistle to the Romans, already discussed,
we enter chaps, vi., vii., upon which a few observations must now
be made. We shall first of all quote the opening paragraph
of chap, vi., which contains the parallel couched in several
different forms of language, and accompanied with a good deal
of explicative matter ; and then make some attempt to
disentangle the essential points, and present them in separa-
tion. As the parallel in the present case is very compre-
hensive, embracing on one side the entire historical experience
of Christ, and, on the other, the entire historical experience
of each believer, it will afford us an opportunity of surveying
the whole process of salvation from a stand-point in some
respects new, and so of assuring ourselves that we understand
it thoroughly. Here, too, for the first time, we shall have no
trouble from the presence of figurative language, borrowed
from the Old Testament, or from attempts to accommodate
the Gospel scheme of salvation to popular prejudice, by throw-
ing it into the forms, and supporting it by the methods of the
current Rabbinical exegesis. There is not a single Old
Testament quotation or allusion in the whole chapter. The
apostle expresses himself throughout in simple, easily intelli-
XL] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 491
gible language, framed by himself. On this ground, I must
regard the present passage as not inferior in importance to the
passage last discussed, which indeed it serves to supplement
and to elucidate, many points being here perfectly clear which
are there very obscure.
" What shall we say then ? Shall we continue in sin, that
grace may abound? God forbid. We who died [enslaved]
to sin, how any more can we live [enslaved] therein ? Or [to
carry the argument a step farther back], are ye ignorant that
all we who were baptised into Christ Jesus, were baptised into
His death [as a slave to sin] ? We were therefore buried
with Him by means of baptism into death [as slaves to sin],
in order that as Christ was raised from death [as a slave to
sin] by means of the glory of the Father [ = the Spirit of the
Father (viii. 11, cf. 'Spirit of glory and of God,' 1 Pet. iv. 14)],
so also we might walk in newness of life [as slaves to right-
eousness]. For if we have become organically united [=of
one nature] with Him by the likeness of His death [in the
flesh (1 Pet. iii. 18)], then also we shall be organically united
[=of one nature] with Him in the likeness of His resurrection
[in the spirit, (id.)]; knowing this, that our old man [ = our flesh]
was crucified with Him [in the flesh = His old man], in order
that the body of sin [ = the flesh] might be brought to nought,
that so we might no more be enslaved to sin ; for He that hath
died [enslaved to sin] is justified [having been freed] from
sin. Now [to repeat what was said above,
v. 5] if we died with Christ [as slaves to sin], we believe that
we shall also live with Him [as slaves to righteousness] ;
knowing that Christ, being raised from death [as a slave to
sin], dieth no more [as a slave to sin] ; death no more
hath mastery over Him [through sin] ; for in that He died,
He died [as a slave] to sin for once, but in that He liveth, He
liveth [as a slave] to God [for ever]. So also ye reckon your-
selves to be dead [as slaves] to sin, and living [as slaves] to
God in Christ Jesus" (vv. 1-11).
One word, in passing, as to the terms in which the parallel
is here expressed. It will be observed that the explicit
parallel form, introduced in the first member by as (coa-Trep),
in the second by so also (ovrcos /ecu;, is not so fully preserved
492 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISJ^IANITY. [Chap.
in the present section, as in chap. v. 12-21, and in 1 Cor. xv.
21, 22. We find it, indeed, in v. 4, at the beginning, and
again in v. 11, at the close of the paragraph, showing that the
idea of instituting a parallel, is still uppermost in the apostle's
mind ; but the necessity of arguing, instead of merely stating
the parallel, has led to the frequent employment of other and
less explicit forms of speech. In particular, the idea of the
parallel, is mostly conveyed by means of the preposition with
(<ruv). What is the precise nature of the relation which this
preposition is used to describe ? And how does it differ from
that expressed by the preposition in (/), which occurs in
v. 11, and often elsewhere?
Our first thought is, that the two prepositions are used to
convey exactly the same idea, and that they might be inter-
changed with one another. But this in itself is improbable,
and, on fuller consideration, is seen to be quite erroneous. It
is true that we are said to live either with Christ (v. 8), or
in Christ (v. 11 ; 1 Cor. xv. 22); so that as regards living,
either one or other of the particles may undoubtedly be used.
Not so, however, as regards dying. We are never said to
die in Christ, in the sense in which the word die is here used.
Christ and we together (crvv) die in Adam, in whom all die
(1 Cor. xv. 22). And our death, which is here represented
as taking place in our baptism (v. 4), is spoken of as the
means of putting us into Christ (v. 3), not as a thing
which happens to us in Christ. The reason, of course, is that
our union to Christ by faith takes place, not in the element
of flesh (the dying perishing element), but in the element of
spirit (the living quickening element) ; we do not then assume
Christ's fleshly nature, but He had before assumed ours, which
is also Adam's ; so that to complete our sameness of nature, or
rather of natures, with Him, an assumption of the body of His
humiliation on our part, is neither needful nor possible. To
be in Christ implies two things, and two only. It implies
being in His spirit, through possessing a spirit derived from
Him, and identical in nature with His ; and this again carries
with it the necessity of being ultimately in His spiritual body
(whatever that may mean), through possessing a body " con-
formed ' r - not to the body of His humiliation, but "to the
XL] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 493
body of His glory" (Phil. iii. 21). The Christ in whom the
believer is said to be, is Christ the God-man, as now exalted
and glorified, alike in body and spirit ; and to be in Him,
means to be conformed to His image, to possess His two-fold
nature, in its present ultimate glorified state (Rom. viii. 29, 30).
Baptism, on the other hand, which is the symbol of death with
Christ, represents " the putting off of the body of the flesh "
(Col. ii. 11, 12), which is not done in Christ, but in Adam
with Christ, whose baptism represented exactly the same thing
as ours. In short, the case stands thus: we die in Adam
with Christ, meaning as Christ the Divine-human humili-
ated Christ died in Adam ; we live in Christ with Christ,
meaning as Christ the Divine-human glorified Christ
lives in Himself. Still, though we cannot properly be said to
die in Christ;* we may properly enough be spoken of as dead
in Christ, which is no doubt the meaning of v. 11, where the
concluding phrase " in Christ Jesus," must apply equally to
both of the previous clauses.
In discussing 1 Cor. xv. 22, we asserted that identity of
nature was the only medium through which men could be
said either to die in Adam or to live in Christ. Could any-
thing more clearly confirm what was there said than the
explanation which the apostle himself has here furnished ?
Before a man can be made alive ." in Christ Jesus " (v. 11), he
must have been baptised " into Christ Jesus " (v. 3), thereby
becoming a sharer of Christ Jesus' nature (o-Jyu^uro?, v. 5), so as
in and through that nature (<pv(ri^ to undergo a resurrection
identical with tJie resurrection that Christ undenvent (TO>
o/xotto/xcm rtjs ai/aa-rda-cox, v. 5). And in like manner, before
a man can die with Christ in Adam, he must have become a
sharer with Christ of Adam's nature, so as in and through
that nature to undergo a death like the death that Christ
underwent (TW o/uLoico/uLan TOV Oavdrov avrov), which means a
death identical with the de.atli that Christ underwent (ei? TOV
OdvaTOv CIVTOV, v. 3).
If now we attempt to restore the explicit parallel form
*The "falling asleep in Christ" spoken of in 1 Cor. xv. 18, applies, as the
context shows, to the believer's renewed nature only, and is therefore quite
different from the strict dying spoken of in the passage before us.
494 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
throughout the paragraph, it will run somewhat as follows :
" Therefore, as Christ Jesus was buried by means of baptism
into death as a slave to sin, so also we (believers) were buried
by means of baptism into death as slaves to sin ; in order that,
as Christ Jesus was raised from death as a slave to sin by
means of the glory of the Father, and walked in newness of
life as a slave to righteousness, so also we might be raised from
death as slaves to sin by means of the glory of the Father, and
might walk in newness of life as slaves to righteousness.
For since, as Christ through death as a slave to sin
became (head) of the one new man (Eph. ii. 15), so also we
through death as slaves to sin have become (members) of the
one new man ; therefore also, as Christ in life as a slave to
righteousness is (head) of the one new man, so also we in life
as slaves to righteousness shall be (members) of the one new
man; knowing this, that as Christ's old man ["his flesh "
(Eph. ii. 15)] was crucified, in order that the body of sin
[=" flesh of sin" (Rom. viii. 3)] might be brought to nought,
that so He might no longer be enslaved to sin, but might be
justified (1 Tim, iii. 16), having been freed from sin (1 Pet.
iv. 1) ; so also our old man was crucified, in order that the
body of sin might be brought to nought, that so we might no
longer be enslaved to sin, but might be justified, having been
freed from sin (Rom. vi. 18). Now [to repeat
what was said above, v. 5], since as Christ died as a slave to
sin, so also we died as slaves to sin ; therefore also as Christ
lives as a slave to righteousness (or God), so also we shall live
as slaves to righteousness (or God) ; knowing that as Christ, in
His dying, died as a slave to sin for once, so that death no more
hath mastery over Him through sin (v. 23), and, therefore, He
dieth no more as a slave to sin, but, being raised from death
as a slave to sin, in His living He liveth as a slave to right-
eousness (or God) for ever (v. 23); so also we in our dying
died as slaves to sin for once, so that death no more hath
mastery over us through sin, and, therefore, we die no more
as slaves to sin, but, being raised from death as slaves to
sin, in our living we live as slaves to righteousness (or God)
for ever."
The above translation and paraphrase speak for themselves.
XL] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 495
Not much, therefore, will be required to commend them to
the reader's acceptance.
One very obvious but not altogether superflous remark may
be made at the outset. If the passage quoted is to be under-
stood, it must be interpreted in the light of the connection in
which it occurs, because that connection settles decisively the
meaning of one or two expressions in it that might be con-
sidered of unusual or doubtful import. Nothing certainly
could be more wide of the mark than the popular notion that
there is a violent break in the continuity of the epistle at the
end of chap, v., and that from chap. vi. onwards the apostle is
dealing with a new subject viz., sanctification as distinguished
from justification, the discussion of which occupies chaps, i.-v.
There is not a vestige of evidence to support such an idea.
In chaps, i.-v. the apostle has been speaking of sin arid right-
eousness, the law and grace, condemnation and justification,
death and life. In chaps, vi.-viii. he is occupied with pre-
cisely the same topics. To suppose that after the fifth chapter
each of these terms is used in an entirely new meaning, or
even that any of them is so, is manifestly preposterous.
What, for example, could be more unwarrantable than to
suggest, as do the American revisers, that the word justified
(SeSiKaidorai), in chap. vi. 7, might by some strange possibility
be taken to mean released (^XevOepcorai) ? The word release
has about as much and as little connection in meaning with
the word justify as any other word taken at haphazard from
the dictionary. And the Greek words have not one whit
more connection with each other than their English equiva-
lents. All the more objectionable does the suggestion appear
when we observe that this very word release is used by the
writer again and again in the course of this and the two
chapters that follow. Surely if the apostle had meant released
in chap. vi. 7, he would have said so, instead of saying, as he
does, justified. The word release (eXevOepoa)) is nowhere used
as a synonym for the word justify; it is used as an antonym
for the word enslave (SovXow, vv. 18, 22); and to release a
slave is one thing, to justify him is another. The word release
bears the same relation to justify that the word enslave does
to condemn ; therefore to release a man is no more identical
496 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
with justifying him than to enslave a man is identical with
condemning him. I have myself, indeed, supplied the phrase
" having been freed " (eXevOepaOeis) after justified, some such
phrase being evidently involved in the whole connection of
ideas, and presupposed by the preposition from (OTTO), which
can follow justify only in a construction more or less pregnant
(cf. Acts xiii. 39) ; but this is a very different thing from
saying that the word justify (Sucaiwo) may be taken to mean
free (eXevOepow'). Another word that might be supplied is
the word ceased, which occurs in 1 Pet. iv. 1, under exactly
similar circumstances ; and the verse would then read, "He
that hath died is justified (having ceased) from sin." But the
word , freed, is suggested by enslaved preceding, by the occur-
rence of the same word in vv. 18 and 22 following, and
especially by the opening verses of chap, viii., where the fact
of having been freed from sin, is the ground on which " there
is now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus "
the ground, therefore, on which they " have been justified."
It cannot be doubted, therefore, that eXevOepcoOels was the
word nascent in the apostle's mind, suppressed in his utterance,
but demanded for the full expression of his thought.
The' leading terms, then, in chaps. vi.-viii. must be under-
stood in their ordinary senses, that is, in the senses which they
bear in chaps. i.-v. And if the words employed in the so-
called second section of the epistle are the same as in the first,
and are used in the same senses, what ground can there be
for alleging that the latter section is particularly occupied with
sanctification to the exclusion of justification, or that the former
is particularly occupied with justification to the exclusion of
sanctification? In truth, the word sanctification (in the theolo-
gical sense) has no place in the doctrinal portion of the epistle
at all, any more than it has in the kindred Epistle to the
Galatians. The thing to which sanctification corresponds, is
of course everywhere present as being an essential part of the
work of salvation, practically it covers the whole of the work
of salvation ; but it is never spoken of as sanctification, either in
the first eight chapters of Romans, or m Galatians. Indeed,
the word sanctify (ayid'fyo), by which alone theological sancti-
fication is expressed, occurs only a few times in the whole of
XL] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 497
Paul's writings, and always in incidental, or, as one might say,
non-doctrinal connections. We meet, it is true, in Rom. vi.
19, 22, with a word (aymo-ywo?) which the Revisers have
thought fit to translate sanctification ; but it is sufficiently
plain that the word describes not a process but a state,
and is used to all appearance quite accidentally as a
synonym for the usual word righteousness (Suca4O<TVVfj) t The
parallelism and the sense put this beyond all reasonable doubt.
The word means sanctity, or sainthood, not sanctification, and
is correctly enough translated by holiness in the Authorised
Version. The process described by the theological term
sanctification is spoken of in the epistle as believing unto
righteousness (i. 17; -x. 10), attaining to righteousness by
faith (ix. 30), being made righteous (v. 19) ; as dying to sin
and rising again to righteousness (vi. 4) ; as putting off the
old man or the flesh, and putting on the new man or the
spirit (vi. 4; viii. 4) ; as adoption (viii. 15, 23), reconciliation
(v. 11), redemption (iii. 24 ; viii. 23), calling (i. 7; viii. 30);
but never as sanctification, if we except the incidental
occurrence of the word sanctify in xv. 16. On the other
hand, it is quite evident that justification on the ground of
righteousness by faith pervades the whole epistle, and especially
the first eight chapters. The following clear statement, bear-
ing directly on the ground of justification, occurs at the
opening of chap. viii. : " There is therefore now no condemna-
tion [= justification] to them that are [new creatures (2 Cor.
v. 17)] in Christ Jesus [having no sin, but having righteous-
ness], for the law of the spirit of life [the reigning principle
of righteousness, and through righteousness of life] in Christ
Jesus hath freed me from the law of sin and of death [=the
reigning principle of sin, and through sin of death in Adam]."
The same is likewise true of the Epistle to the Galatians,
which closes with these weighty words : " Far be it from me
to glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ through
which the world hath been crucified unto me, and I unto the
world ; for neither is circumcision anything [as a means of
justification] nor uncireumcision, but a new creature [created
in righteousness after God (Eph. iv. 24), and so conformed to
the image of His Son (Rom. viii. 29)]." Indeed, it is hardly
2K
498 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
too much to say, that for the Apostle Paul, justification and
salvation are practically identical, just as sanctification and
salvation are practically identical for the author of Hebrews,
and as regeneration and salvation are practically identical for
the Apostle John. Paul contemplates salvation mainly from
the judicial standpoint, and the other elements of the process
present themselves to him, and are represented by him,
mainly as accessories to justification.
We must, therefore, dismiss all such crude and unsupported
notions touching the plan of the epistle, and look at the para-
graph above quoted in the light of what precedes and of what
follows. The two expressions that lie at the foundation of the
apostle's reasoning, and constitute the pivots on which his
whole argument turns, are the expressions " die to sin " and
" live to righteousness." It is the exact meaning of these
expressions that we must here endeavour to settle. Now, to
die to sin and live to righteousness can only mean to die in
relation to sin and live in relation to righteousness, where
the specific nature of the relation is open to be determined by
the nature of the related terms, and this, again, by the con-
text. And, in the present case, the context puts it beyond all
doubt that the relation is constituted by a power exercising
mastery on the one side, and a person exercising slavery on
the other. We have just seen that in chap. v. 21 sin is con-
ceived of as a principle inherent in the flesh, and exercising
a dominating influence over the person tending, that is, to
compel obedience to itself, or (which is the same thing) dis-
obedience to the Divine law, and through the Divine law to
inflict the penalty of death ; whilst righteousness, in like
manner, is conceived of as a principle inherent in the spirit,
and exercising an opposite dominating influence over the
person tending, that is, to compel obedience to itself, or
(which is the same thing) obedience to the Divine law, and
through the Divine law to confer the reward of life. In other
words, the apostle's representation, implicit if not explicit, is
that " the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against
the flesh, for these are contrary the one to the other, that ye
[the persons exposed to the opposing influences of flesh and
spirit] may not [by reason of the one] do the things that [by
XI.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 499
reason of the other] ye will" (Gal. v. 17), and that " the body
[= the flesh] is dead [= under the power of death] because of
sin, while the spirit is life [= under the power of life] because
of righteousness " (Rom. viii. 10). Still more fully and expli-
citly are these same ideas expressed and reiterated in the con-
text following our passage. " Therefore, let not sin reign
[= exercise mastery] in your mortal body [= your flesh], that
ye should obey [= exercise slavery to] the lusts thereof;
neither present your members to sin [in the capacity of your
master] as instruments of unrighteousness, but present your-
selves to God [in the capacity of your Master] as alive from
the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness
to God [the Spirit of holiness]. For sin shall not exercise
mastery over you, for ye are not under the law, [are. not there-
fore being left powerless (viii. 3) in your natural state of
slavery to sin], but ye are under grace, [are therefore being
brought through the power of *the Holy Ghost (viii. 2, 9, 11)
into the renewed state of slavery to righteousness and freedom
from sin]. What then ? Shall we sin because
we are not under the law, but under grace? God -forbid.
Know ye not that to whom ye present yourselves as slaves for
obedience, his slaves ye are whom ye obey [as slaves], whether
[slaves] of sin unto death [= of sin. and through sin of death],
or [slaves] of obedience unto righteousness [= of righteousness,
and through righteousness of life] ? But thanks be to God,
that whereas ye were slaves of sin [and through sin of death],
ye became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching
whereunto ye were delivered, and, having been freed from sin
[by the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus (viii. 2)], ye were [by the
same Spirit of life in Christ Jesus] enslaved to righteousness
[and through righteousness to life]" (vv. 12-18).
It is impossible for any one who is not blinded by inveterate
unwillingness to see, to mistake the plain meaning of these
verses. Sin and righteousness are both represented as reigning
powers, the seat of the one being the body, the flesh, the natural
man ; that of the other, the mind (vii. 23), the spirit, the
renewed man. The person to whom flesh and spirit belong is
influenced, on the one hand, by sin, and, on the other, by
righteousness ; each of the two influences strives to produce
500 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
through the person effects corresponding to its own nature ;
and in so striving, both aim at reducing the person to absolute
subjection to themselves. Moreover, as both act on the person,
and to opposite effects, they necessarily tend to counteract and
nullify one another's influence. The reign of sin takes effect
in producing obedience to the lusts of the flesh (v. 1 2), in using
the members as instruments to accomplish its own unrighteous
objects (v. 13); the reign of righteousness, on the contrary,
takes effect in producing obedience to the holy desires of the
spirit (vv. 16, 18), in using the members as instruments to
accomplish its own righteous objects (v. 13). The presupposi-
tion is that sin and righteousness, once introduced into human
nature, have each a tendency to propagate themselves, and so
to extend their dominion when only partial, to maintain it
when absolute. These opposing tendencies, inherent in the
nature of sin and righteousness respectively, constitute them
masters by which is meant determining influences within
the spheres where they exist, while the persons open to their
influence are slaves.
It is true that the word " slavery " appears incongruous and
inappropriate in describing the believer's relation to righteous-
ness, since it is apt to suggest the idea of shameful degrada-
tion ; and hence the apostle apologises for using it, explaining
that He does so, because such a figure drawn from human
relations, though not particularly apposite to the case of
righteousness, is eminently apposite to the case of sin, and
may by reason of the analogy be applied to the case of
righteousness also. " [In saying] slaves of sin ... enslaved
to righteousness, I speak humanly [ = employ a metaphor
founded on a well-known human relationship], because of the
weakness [and consequent degradation (1 Cor. xv. 43}] of your
flesh \cf. Sin shall not lord it over you, as a master over his
slave, because ye are not under the law, as weakened by the
flesh (v. 14 ; viii. 3)]: for [though your spirit is not weak and
degraded like your flesh, still] as ye presented your members
as slaves to uncleanness, and to iniquity unto iniquity, even
so now ye present * your members as slaves to righteousness,
* The use of the imperative present, instead of the indicative ye present, required
by the reasoning, is due to pregnancy or compression of the thought.
XI.J PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 501
unto holiness. For when ye were slaves of sin, ye were free
in regard of righteousness [having your fruit unto sin, and
through sin unto death] ; but now, having been freed from
sin, and having become enslaved to God, ye have your fruit
unto holiness, and [through holiness] unto eternal life ; for the
wages of sin is death, but the gift of God [=the wages of
righteousness attained through the grace of God (2 Tirn. iv. 7. 8 ;
Phil. iii. 14)] is eternal life" (vv. 17-23). Liberty the
apostle seems to say liberty, and not slavery, would be the
more fitting term on abstract grounds to describe the relation
of the renewed man to righteousness ; and this term will
be above all suitable, when the perfect state has been reached,
and the sway of righteousness has become absolute (viii. 21).
But then liberty would be wholly inappropriate to describe
the relation of the unrenewed man to sin. Unlike the spirit,
the flesh is actually " weak" (vi. 19 ; viii. 3 ; 1 Cor. xv. 43),
" corrupt " (Rom. viii. 21 ; 1 Cor. xv. 42), " degraded " (v. 43),
"sold [as a slave] under sin" (Rom. vii. 14), and therefore
also "under the law" (vi. 14 ; vii. 1, seq.\ so that it is properly
spoken of as in "slavery" (viii. 21), and the possessor of it
as a "slave" (vi. 17 ; cf. Heb. ii. 15). On the other hand,
the case of the spirit in relation to righteousness, is strictly
parallel to the case of the flesh in relation to sin, as far as
bent, inclination, or tendency towards a specific course of
action is concerned, which is the very point the apostle
desires to emphasise, as affording a basis for his general
argument. And, in default of any more suitable term to
express that in which the two relations agree, the word slavery
is applied to both, the accessory notion of degradation being
left out of account.*
* Many writers suppose that " the weakness of the flesh " spoken of in our text
refers to the defective apprehension for things spiritual of the unrenewed mind,
to which the apostle's figurative language is an accommodation. But this idea is
foreign to the whole connection. For (1) the apostle contemplates his readers as
no longer carnal, but spiritual (v. 17). (2) It is not evident how the use of figura-
tive language, and particularly such figurative language as the apostle employs,
could make that easy, which would otherwise be difficult to understand. On the
apostle's own showing (viii. 21), his metaphor is properly applicable to only one
side of the parallel, being in a manner the reverse of applicable to the other side :
how strange, therefore, is it to suppose, that instead of explaining to his readers
why and in what sense he is using an inapposite and misleading metaphor, he is tell-
502 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
1 trust it may now be taken as conclusively established,
that the relation expressed by the preposition "to" in the
phrases " die to sin " and " live to righteousness," is that of a
slave to his master, subsisting in the one case between the
person and the principle of sin, inherent in unrenewed human-
ity ; in the other case, between the person and the principle of
righteousness, inherent in renewed humanity. So long and so
far as the two principles of sin and righteousness exist, they
exist as motive powers, prompting the person to courses of
action corresponding to their own natures, and are the means
of entailing consequences corresponding to their own natures,
and to the actions springing therefrom.
But, further, it is clear from the language used in the
paragraph we are now considering, from the context, and from
numerous parallel passages, that the effect of death is to
abolish the relation of slavery between the person and the
principle of sin inherent in the flesh, by "bringing to nought"
(Korapyciv) the latter of the two related terms ; and that the
effect of resurrection is to constitute the relation of slavery
between the person and the principle of righteousness inherent
in the spirit, by " creating " (KT&eiv) the latter of the two
related terms. The effect of Christ's death was to bring to
nought His "body of sin " (vi. 6), " the body of Christ " (vii. 4),
"the body of the flesh" (Col. ii. 11), the "flesh of sin"
(Rom. viii. 3), &c. ; and so to bring to nought the mastery of
sin and death over Him (Rom. vi. 9, 10; 1 Pet. iv. 1). The
ing them that his language has here been made particularly plain, because their
apprehension is particularly dull ! (3) There is no trace of special difficulty in the
matter of which the apostle is treating. Literally expressed, his thesis is that " the
flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, for these are contrary
the one to the other, that ye may not do the things that ye will." Are the relations
here stated to subsist between the believer's personality and his flesh and spirit
respectively made more clear or more easily intelligible, by applying to them the
metaphor drawn from the relation of master and slave ? (4) The argument con-
tained in the latter half of v. 19 is left without premises, and the for (yap] without
a reference, on the above supposition. (5) The ordinary usage of the word " weak-
ness," as an attribute of "flesh," and the meaning which it unquestionably
bears at viii. 3, are alike opposed to the idea, that here it denotes mere intellectual
deficiency. On these and other grounds, therefore, I must regard the apostle's
meaning as being substantially what I have tried to explain. But the point is
not one of primary importance.
XL] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 503
effect of each believer's death " after the likeness of Christ "
(Rom. vi. 5) is to bring to nought "his old man" (v. 6), his
"body of sin" (id.), "the body of the flesh" (Col. ii. 11),
his flesh of sin (Rom. vii. 18), &c. ; and so to bring to
nought the mastery of sin and death over him (Rom. vi. 6, 7 ;
1 Peter iv. 1, 2). In like manner, the effect of Christ's
resurrection was to create in him a "new man" (Eph. ii. 15),
"the spirit of holiness" (Rom. i. 4), "the Spirit of God, or of
Christ" (viii. 9), "the Spirit" (1 Tim. iii. 16 ; 1 Peter iii.
18), &c. ; and so to bring him into the state of slavery to
God, to righteousness, and to life (Rom. vi. 10 ; 1 Peter iv. 2).
The effect of each believer's resurrection " after the likeness
of Christ " (Rom. vi. 5) is to create in him a " new man "
(Eph. iv. 24), a "new spirit " (Rom. vii. 6), "Christ" (viii.
10; Gal. iv. 19), " the Spirit of God or of Christ" (Rom.
viii. 11), "the Spirit" (Gal. v. 25), &c.; and so to bring him
into the state of slavery to God, to righteousness, and to life
(Rom. vi. 18, 22; 1 Peter iv. 2). Nothing can be plainer
than that in such passages as those here adduced sin is
thought of being destroyed with the destruction of the old
nature humanity in which its seat is ; while righteousness is
thought of being created with the creation of a new Divine
humanity in which its seat is. Some of the more thorough-
going advocates of imputation have indeed tried to make out
that by "body of sin" (Rom. vi. 6) is meant "the mass of
human guilt," which the death of Christ expiated, and in that
sense " brought to nought ; " alleging, of course, agreeably to
this, that to " die with Christ " means to be reckoned to
have died when Christ died, or to have the merit of Christ's
death imputed to us. There is no doubt that the exigencies
of the doctrine of imputation demand that the apostle's
language should be so understood ; for there is not a single
consideration in favour of reading that doctrine into the first
five chapters of Romans, that may not be urged with equal
force in favour of reading it into the following three. We
cannot stop even with chapter vi., for the theory is just as
urgently needed in chapter viii. 2, seq., as anywhere in the
epistle ; and, accordingly, the writers to whom I refer, actually
find imputed sin and imputed righteousness in "the law of
504 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
sin and death" and "the law of the spirit of life" of that
verse, and imputed sin again, or something like it, in " flesh
of sin " and "the sin in the flesh " of the verse that follows.
But if we are to have imputed religion, then we must have
imputed religion, and therewith be content. If to " die with
Christ " be held to mean to have the merit of Christ's death
imputed to us, then to be "raised from the dead" and to
" walk in newness of life " with Christ must be held to mean
to have the merit of Christ's resurrection and of His glorified
life imputed to us. And in that case, not only the believer's
sin and his righteousness, but his heaven and his hell, his
life, death, and resurrection, his God and his devil, in short,
the entire circle of his religion and morality, must be mere
ideas, judgments, putative concepts, existing in a mind exter-
nal to his own, and, never entering within the horizon of his
experience, so as to affect either his character or his destiny,
either for good or for evil. The attempt to combine real
religion with imputed religion is worse and more hopeless far
than an attempt to combine iron and clay. The result is
neither one thing nor another, but a muddle of sense and
nonsense, intelligible ideas and arrant absurdities. What
could be more extravagant or ridiculous than to allege that
the expression, " body of sin " (vi. 6), means " the mass of
human guilt," when it is evidently interchangeable with " old
man" (id.), " mortal body " (v. 12), "the flesh" (vii. 5), "this
body of death" (ver. 24), "flesh of sin" (viii. 3), &c. ! Do
all these expressions mean " the mass of human guilt " ? The
man who asserts any such thing is fit only for a lunatic
asylum.
The context, we said, clearly proves that the effect of death
is to abolish the person's relation to sin by abolishing the
thing related, and that the effect of resurrection is to con-
stitute the person's relation to righteousness by creating or
calling into existence the thing related. The opening
paragraph of chap. vii. bears directly on this very point, and
teaches the substance of what we contend for in so many
words. " Or [to put the same truth (cf. vi. 14, seq.) in
another light] are ye ignorant that the law hath mastery over
a man for so long time as he liveth ? For [to quote an illus-
XL] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 505
trative analogy] the woman that hath an husband is bound by
the law to her husband, while he liveth ; but if her husband
die, she is brought to nought from the law of her hus-
band. So then, if while her husband liveth she be joined
to another man, she shall be called an adulteress ; but if her
husband die, she is free from the law, so that she is no
adulteress though she be joined to another man. Wherefore,
[in accordance with this analogy] ye also were made dead to
the law through [the death of your body of sin with (vi. 6)]
the body [of sin] of Christ, in order that [having been raised
from the dead] ye should be joined to another, even to Him
who was raised from the dead, that we might bring forth fruit
unto God. For when we were in the flesh [as we were before
we died], the sinful passions which were through the law
wrought in our members to bring forth fruit unto death ; but
now we have been brought to nought from the law, having
died to that wherein we were held fast, so that we exercise
slavery [to righteousness] in newness of spirit [= by the help
of the grace or Spirit of Christ] and not [slavery to sin] in
oldness of the letter [by the help of the law of Moses]."
(vv. 1-6).
The leading points in the apostle's analogy appear to be
these. The wife represents the person of the believer. The
first husband represents the flesh, derived from nature, to
which the believer was once enslaved, but from which he ha?
now been set free through death, wherein the old man was
brought to nought. The second husband represents the
Spirit, derived from Christ, from which the believer was once
free, but to which he has now been enslaved through resur-
rection, wherein the new man was brought into existence.
So far all is clear. But some difficulty and perplexity is
occasioned by what the apostle says concerning the law.
The word "law" throughout the paragraph must be under-
stood in its ordinary sense viz., as the Mosaic law, which,
among other things, regulates the marriage relation. Where
marriage has taken place, the law is thought of as binding
the contracting parties to perform the duties which they have
vowed to one another. On the death of one or other of the
parties, the survivor is at once released from the obligation
506 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
which the law imposed in respect of the marriage, and, to
that extent, he or she is released from the law. A new
marriage may accordingly be contracted, in respect of which
the law will again impose the same obligation, which will be
liable to be again dissolved in exactly the same way. Now
since the relation of the believer, first to sin in the flesh, and
then to righteousness in the Spirit, is compared to the rela-
tion of a wife to two successive husbands, we naturally expect
that as in the latter case so also in the former, the law should
be regarded as regulating the relation, or, more correctly, the
two successive relations. In a general way this is actually
done, but only in a general way, and the fact that the analogy
is maintained at all, raises serious difficulties. The parallel
requires that the law should be the means of keeping the
believer in slavery to sin in the flesh, just as the law is the
means of keeping the wife in subjection to her first husband :
and that the same identical law, should in like manner be the
means of keeping the believer in slavery to righteousness in
the spirit, just as the same identical law is the means of keep-
ing the wife in subjection to her second husband. The
parallel does not require that the law should be the means of
bringing to nought the sin in the flesh through death, and of
calling into existence the righteousness in the spirit through
resurrection, any more than the law is the means of killing
the wife's first husband, and of creating her second. But
these conditions are not really fulfilled. So that there can be
no real parallel. According to the Apostle Paul, the law is a
dead letter, and as such it can neither bring the believer into
the state of slavery to righteousness, nor can it keep him in
that state, when he has been brought ; both these things are
done by grace, which is the antithesis of the law, as this word
is commonly used by Paul. That which regulates the
believer's relation to righteousness in the spirit, must there-
fore be quite different from that which regulates his relation to
sin in the flesh. In fact, the principal point which the apostle
wishes to establish in the opening paragraph of chap, vii., is
that the law, which (as he will have it) kept the person in
slavery to sin in the flesh, must be practically defunct, now
that the person has become enslaved to righteousness in the
XL] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 507
spirit. " But now we have been brought to nought from the law,
having [through the law] died [to the law (Gal. ii. 19)], wherein
we were held fast, so that we serve as slaves in newness of the
spirit [of grace], and not in oldness of the letter [of the law]."
But further, the law at least the moral law, which the
apostle has here principally in view (vv. 7-12) has nothing
whatever to do with keeping the believer enslaved to sin in
the flesh, and preventing his becoming enslaved to righteousness
in the spirit, though the apostle endeavours for a special
purpose to prove that it has. The moral law is in every sense
a help, and in no sense a hindrance, to the pursuit of righteous-
ness. The ceremonial law, in so far as it tends to obliterate
the moral by diverting attention from it, may have the
effect of fostering and perpetuating the dominion of sin;
but the moral law, in and by itself, has no such effect ;
certainly it was never meant by God to have such an effect ;
least of all, was it ever intended to be set aside because it had
such an effect. What really stands in the way of a man's
becoming enslaved to righteousness, is the " flesh " in which
sin dwells, and bears sway. And it is this that must be
brought to nought through death, in order that the believer
may be joined to Him, that was raised from the dead, and
may bring forth fruit unto God. Indeed, the apostle himself
acknowledges as much, when he says that we are " made dead
to the law, through the body of Christ." The presence of the
flesh, with the principle of sin inseparable from it, would have
kept the person in the state of slavery to sin though the law
never had been given at all ; neither did the introduction of
the law create that state of slavery to sin, nor would the
entire removal of the law dissolve it. And conversely, the
believer's relation to the law is not in the least affected by his
death with Christ in the flesh whereby slavery to sin is dissolved,
and his resurrection with Christ in the spirit, whereby slavery to
righteousness is created ; that relation remains precisely as it
was before ; nor does it appear that the law has the smallest
tendency to provoke the renewed believer to sin, as on the
apostle's theory it would have ; it rather serves to prevent him
from sinning, and he can say, " I delight in the law of God
after the inward man" (vii. 22).
508 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
The apostle, indeed, speaks of " the sinful passions which
were through the law," as if the presence of the law, and that
alone, prevented men from emancipating themselves from the
flesh, and the sinful passions incident to it. But this manner
of speech is due entirely to the special circumstances of his
own day. The presence of the law could prevent men from
emancipating themselves from the dominion of sin in the flesh
only if it prevented them from receiving the Spirit by faith,
and so from dying to sin, and rising again to righteousness
things which can be done only in the power of the Spirit.
Now to Paul, the ceremonial law, as a thing purely physical,
external, and of the present world, appeared to have been
framed exclusively for man in his natural state, and to have
no relation whatever to the spiritual service of God, so that
the practise of it, if it were practised at all, must necessarily
be a natural thing, done by a natural man, and the system
could therefore have no other effect than to keep the practiser
of it in his natural state. The ceremonial law was an incubus,
lying upon men, and crushing them down in their natural
state (Gal. iv. 3). And in the apostle's day, when the cere-
monial law had practically usurped the place of the moral, the
tendency to seek salvation by the mechanical observance of
ceremonial ordinances, did actually prevent men from receiving
the Spirit of God, by which alone the power of sin could be
broken and overcome. Thus, at the time when the apostle
wrote, the law might truly be said to foster and perpetuate the
dominion of sin, and a man's separation from the law, might
be the leading step in the process of his deliverance from sin
and enslavement to righteousness. But in our day, when the
moral law occupies its true place, the ceremonial having been
set aside as a matter of human invention, or for some other
reason, the same can hardly be maintained.
No doubt the apostle does seem to maintain something
more than the negative position that the letter of the law can
afford men no real assistance in overcoming sin and attaining
to righteousness that it rather exists as a stumbling-block,
blinding their minds, and hindering them from accepting the
promise of the Spirit contained in the Gospel : he seems to
attribute to it a positive efficiency in the way of producing
XL] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 509
sin, and that not merely by bringing it into distinct con-
sciousness, and so conferring upon it the power to inflict death,
but also by provoking the principle of sin, which otherwise
would have lain dormant, to exercise and develop itself, to
work in the sinner all manner of lusting (v. 8), and so to
bring forth fruit unto death (v. 5); and this is a function
which appears to be attributed especially to the moral law
(v. 14). The apostle's words are: " What shall we say
then ? Is the law sin [a natural enough question when he
had just represented ' the passions of sins ' as being ' through
the law '] ? God forbid. Rather I had not known sin except
through the law; for I had not known lust except the law
had said, Thou shalt not lust ; but sin finding occasion
wrought in me through the commandment all manner of
lust; for apart from the law sin is dead. And I was alive
apart from the law once, but when the commandment came,
sin revived, and I died ; and the commandment, which was
[professedly] unto life, this I found to be [really] unto death;
for sin finding occasion through the commandment beguiled
me, and through it slew me" (vv. 7-11). The idea present
in these verses, and particularly in the words emphasised, is
generally held to be that expressed in the line of Ovid,
Nitimur in vetitum semper cupimusque negata : " We
strive after what is forbidden always, and desire things denied
us." Some commentators, it is true, dispute this, holding
that the apostle regards the law as the means of awakening
the knoivledge of sin and nothing more ; an opinion which
they are probably led to entertain all the more readily,
because the idea of sin being actively promoted and produced
by the law is both startling in itself, and is not adequately,
or not at all, borne out by experience. For my own part,
I greatly doubt whether such an idea has any real foundation
in fact. And yet I cannot deny that it is here taiight by the
apostle. To be plain, I can hardly help thinking that the
apostle has misunderstood and misinterpreted his own ex-
perience, and that he attributes effects to the letter of the
law which were really produced by other means. When he
says, "I was alive apart from the law once, but when the
commandment came," &c., the period to which he refers as
5io PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
that at which the commandment came is the time of his con-
version, and what the apostle then received. was not the letter
of the law but the Spirit of the Gospel, which " came " and
began to operate in his soul. The letter of the law had been
familiar to Paul from his youth up, so that he could say, " As
touching the righteousness which is in the law I was found
blameless " (Phil. iii. 6) ; but the knowledge of the letter of
the law produced none of the effects which he here ascribes to
it. What really came to the apostle at his conversion, and
what really produced the effects which are here so vividly set
forth was not the commandment, with which he had all along
been perfectly well acquainted, but the Spirit of Christ, of
which he had up till then been utterly ignorant. It was the
advent of the Spirit, not the advent of the letter of the law,
that, as an opposing hostile power, stirred into lively exercise
the dormant power of the sin existing in the flesh. It was
the presence of the Spirit, not the presence of the letter of the
law, that brought into existence that state of inner conflict of
which the apostle was ever afterwards conscious more or less,
and which constrained him at times to cry out, " O wretched
man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this
death ?" (vii. 24) and to say, " I buffet my body and bring it
into bondage, lest by any means after that I have preached
to others I myself should be rejected " (1 Cor. ix. 27). That
vivid consciousness of the power and working of sin within
him, which the apostle experienced, and which others like
him have experienced, was not due to the mere knowledge of
the letter of the law, for that knowledge was possessed by him
before there was any experience of it ; but rather to the
antagonistic power and working of the Spirit of God. Even
the bare knowledge of sin as sin, which is here and elsewhere
attributed wholly to the knowledge of the letter of the law,
must be largely ascribed to other causes. We had occasion
to point out in an earlier chapter that the apostle, when he
wishes to make a special point, greatly under-estimates the
knowledge of sin possessed by men who do not possess the
Mosaic law, and we can easily see from' the present passage,
where he has also a special point to make, that he greatly
over-estimates the knowledge of sin possessed by men who do
XL] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 511
possess the Mosaic law and nothing more. He acknowledges,
with reference to his own experience before conversion, that
he was alive once, and that sin in him was dead ; meaning by
this (1) that he had no distinct "knowledge of sin actually
committed by him he was " found blameless " (Phil. iii. 6) ;
and (2) that the principle of sin inherent in his flesh did not
work in him all manner of lust it was comparatively in-
active at least so he felt it to be. Now the apostle asserts
that these two results were due to the fact that he was
" apart from the law." But was he really apart from the
law ? No such thing. How could he have been found
blameless as touching the righteousness which is in the law
(Phil. iii. 6) how could he have been in the same frame of
mind as was the young man with great possessions (Mark
x. 20) if he had been apart from the law in the sense that he
did not know what it said (v. 7) ? In fact, we are aware
from other sources that he was thoroughly well versed, at the
time of which he speaks, in every precept which the law con-
tained. Yet the law did not awaken in him a distinct
knowledge of his own sinfulness, any more than it did in the
young ruler, any more than it did in the mass of his Jewish
contemporaries, whom he says elsewhere it was intended to
shut up under sin (Gal. iii. 23). Nor, again, had the law
any effect in the way of causing the principle of sin to exercise
and develop itself in him. That the apostle lusted in his un-
converted state is very likely, nay is quite certain ; but that
his doing so was in no respect occasioned by the law is
equally certain. He was conscious of no inner conflict, no
struggling against the uprisings of sin in his heart ; he lusted
simply as a matter of course, and his doing so was not felt to
be sin at all, nor resisted as such ; and this for no other
reason than because the law had failed to awaken in him a
deep or adequate consciousess of sin. Instead of saying
" Apart from the law sin is dead; and I was alive apart from
the law once, but when the commandment came sin revived,
and I died/' the apostle ought really to have said, " Apart
from the Spirit sin is dead [in the flesh] ; and I was alive [in
the flesh] once, but when the Spirit came sin [in the flesh]
revived, and I died [in the flesh]." It was the relativity
512 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
created by the presence of righteousness in the spirit that
brought sin into distinct consciousness, and it was the
resistance offered by righteousness to sin that made the latter
to appear (if not actually to be) quickened, stimulated, and
increased. As the man who has never been conscious of cold
can have no adequate consciousness of heat, so the man who
has never been conscious of righteousness can have no
adequate consciousness of sin. Not till the apostle's con-
version did he attain to an adequate knowledge of sin, and
not till then did the inward conflict with sin commence ; but
then it was not the letter of the law but the Spirit of the
Gospel that constituted the new factor in the apostle's experi-
ence ; and, therefore, it is to this factor, and not to the other,
that we must attribute whatever changes took place. It is
the presence of the Spirit that really brings sin into conscious-
ness, as well as provokes it to exercise its power ; and the
apostle's anxiety to find a reason for setting aside the letter of
the law has led him to attribute functions to it which are
really discharged not by it but by something else.
It may be said, indeed, that the apostle's knowledge of sin
really came through the law, only it came through the law, as
adequately understood by the Spirit. But to say that the
knowledge of sin came through the Spirit, and to say that
it came through the law as adequately understood by the
Spirit, is merely to express the same thing in two different
ways. The idea so expressed is no doubt true enough, and it
is that to which the apostle refers when he speaks of the law
as spiritual, while he is carnal, sold under sin (v. 14). Ordin-
arily the law is regarded by the apostle as a dead letter, in
contrast to the living Spirit of the Gospel (2 Cor. iii. 3, 6), and
then it is spoken of not as spiritual but as carnal, and is prac-
tically identified with the ceremonial law (Gal. iv. 3 ; Eph. ii.
1 5 ; Heb. vii. 16; ix. 1 0). Here, where the law is practi-
cally identified with the moral law, and is thought of as com-
bined with the Spirit, it is spoken of as spiritual, and, of
course, it can no longer be spoken of as either a dead letter or
as carnal. In fact, the law, as adequately understood by the
Spirit, is absolutely identical with the Gospel itself ; for the
same spiritual insight that perceives the deeper meaning of the
XL] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 513
moral law, perceives also the utter meaninglessness of the cere-
monial, and therefore leaves it out of account. This identity of
the law, considered as spiritual, holy, righteous, and good, with
the Gospel comes out plainly on comparing the closing verses
of chap. vii. with the opening verses of chap. viii. The anti-
thesis between "the law of the spirit of life " and " the law of
sin and death," which appears in viii. 2, is regarded, not with-
out reason, as corresponding in substance to the apostle's
favourite antithesis between the Gospel as the spirit that
giveth life and the law (with which is inseparably associated
the flesh) as the letter that killeth. Now the antithesis of
viii. 2 evidently corresponds exactly to the antithesis of vii.
25 between "the law of God," to which the mind (or spirit)
of the believer is enslaved, and " the law of sin," to which his
flesh is enslaved. It follows that <( the law of God " must be
identical with " the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus,"
that is, with the Gospel. And this proves how completely
justified we were in the line of argument pursued in last para-
graph. The commandment, which came to the apostle at his
conversion, was nothing else than the Gospel. Whatever
deeper knowledge of sin was then attained, it was the Gospel
that gave birth to it. Whatever inner conflict, and whatever
increase of sin was then created, it was the Gospel that brought
it about. But the result just indicated proves more : it proves
how completely the apostle has circumvented himself. He
began with the position that the believer must by every means
be brought to nought from the law, in order to be joined to
Christ, to the spirit of life, to the Gospel, that so he might
bring forth fruit unto God (vv. 4-6). He ends with the posi-
tion that the believer is permanently joined to the law as a
slave to his master, and that, in being so joined, he brings
forth fruit unto God (v. 25). He began by regarding the law
as a dead letter, calculated only to foster and produce sin, and
requiring to be set aside, if righteousness and life were to be
attained by the believer (vv. 4-6). He ends by regarding the
law as instinct with a living spirit, to which the believer is
enslaved, and by which he attains to righteousness and life
(v. 25). And, of course, when the law is regarded as the
means of salvation, the idea of setting it aside, or of the
2 L
514 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
believer dying to it, is out of the question.'"" The thing to
which the believer must die, and from which he must be
brought to nought, is not the law of God, but the flesh, with
the principle of sin inherent therein, which is constantly war-
ring against him, and bringing him into captivity to itself, and
to death as its wages or consequence (v. 25). And this is
exactly what we asserted. There is no such thing as a setting
aside of the whole law, though the apostle endeavours to prove
that this must be done, because he has no other means of
proving that the ceremonial part must be set aside. What
required to be done, in the case of the moral part of the law,
was not to set it aside like the ceremonial part, but to com-
bine with it the spirit of the Gospel, so that it should no longer
be a dead letter but living and operative as a means of salva-
tion. It was the ceremonial law and that alone that required
to be set aside, inasmuch as it tended to obscure the import of
the moral, and, by leading men to rely on their own natural
efforts, to prevent them from asking or accepting the promised
aid of the Spirit of God, by which the latter was always
intended to be accompanied and obeyed. To represent the
* The edge of the present argument cannot be turned by falling back on the
Protestant scholastic distinction between "the law as a covenant of works " and
"the law as a rule of life," and alleging that the law is abrogated in the former of
these characters, but re-enacted, or rather not abrogated, in the latter. For (1)
the antithesis between "the law as a covenant of works," and "the law as a rule
of life," has no existence for the Apostle Paul, who distinguishes merely between
"the law as a dead letter" and "the law as a living spirit," which is another antithe-
sis altogether. (2) The antithesis between " the law as a covenant of works," and
" the law as a rule of life," is not only unscriptural but anti-scriptural. For " the
law as a covenant of works," if it mean anything, must mean "the law supported
by penal sanctions," with which every transgressor is visited ; and "the law as a
rule of life," if it is to have any meaning distinct from this, must mean "the law
unsupported ~by penal sanctions" from which every transgressor escapes. But the
law is never unsupported by penal sanctions. It enters into the very nation and
essence of law, considered simply as such, that it is supported by penal sanctions.
A law unsupported by penal sanctions would not be a law at all, but merely a
guide-book. And it is certain that the law under which the believer lives, and to
which he is subject, is not "the law unsupported by penal sanctions," but just the
same identical law under which the unbeliever lives, and under which, if he repent
not, he will suffer and die eternally. The believer incurs the penalty of the law
every time he transgresses it, otherwise he could not require forgiveness ; his rela-
tion to the law is therefore absolutely identical with that of the unbeliever, who is
said to be under it " as a covenant of works."
XL] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 515
moral law as designed to do nothing more than convey the
knowledge of sin, and further its development in human
nature is thus manifestly a mere artifice, which the apostle's
own argument, ere the chapter is concluded, affords materials
for confuting.
Indeed, I suspect the reader will now more than ever be
disposed to doubt whether the law in any form either as
dead letter, or as living spirit is a means of increasing or
developing sin in human nature. The idea that apart from
the law sin is dead, must strike one as a little strange, when
viewed in the light of what the apostle himself says in chap. i.
respecting the sins of the heathen. That chapter may be
taken as proof that sin in the natural man, even in the
heathen natural man, is dead only in a very qualified sense,
viz., in the sense that the higher forms of sin, which the
apostle speaks of as lust, are committed habitually without
being felt to be sin, and consequently without causing any
mental struggle. The truth appears to be that the apostle
in saying that "apart from the law, sin is dead," is simply
elevating his own special experience before conversion into a
universal principle. The apostle could look back (as others
like him can do), on a time when his inner life was compara-
tively unruffled, and when the peculiar form of sin which he
calls lust, though it might be habitually indulged without
restraint, mingled with his other feelings, and was not felt
to have any specific existence. This state of things continued
till the commandment came, and the Spirit of God entered
his soul. Then the lusts of the flesh had to do battle for
existence against the new desires of the Spirit, which were at
once felt to be contrary to them. Then the apostle became
vividly conscious of the existence of lust as a specific form of
feeling, of its antagonism to the Spirit, of its character as sin,
of the need of repressing it, and of its power and energy to
resist repression. Then he could feel, as with a stethoscope,
both its uprising and its subsidence, and the effect which each
had on the presence and working of the opposing power. And
this vivid consciousness of the presence of lust and its work-
ing, and of the inward struggle arising through conflict with
the Spirit and his working, made it appear as if sin were now
516 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
greatly increased, and as if the law more properly the Gospel
were the cause of its increase. But was it really increased ?
or was it only brought into distinct consciousness ? Can we
maintain so much as the apostle does, even when guarding
himself against misconstruction to the very uttermost ? "So
that the law is holy, and the commandment holy and righte-
ous and good. Did then that which is good become death
unto me ? God forbid. But sin, that it might be shown to
be sin, by working death to me through that which is good ;
that through the commandment sin might become exceeding
sinful " (vv. 12, 1 3). In estimating the force of the
apostle's language in this and similar passages, it is by no
means out of place to remember that he was a bachelor,
besides being, like Augustine, a man of strong feeling and
warm imagination. Human nature now, as always, is very
delicately balanced ; in its finer specimens, particularly so.
Most of us, who are similarly circumstanced with the apostle,
are, I daresay, familiar enough with the kind of inward
struggle between good and evil desire, which he has here in
view. In deciding, therefore, whether the manifestations of
evil desire are actually enhanced by the presence of religious
life, in the strict sense, let every reader who can appeal to
his own experience. Those whose strictly religious experience
dates from a period somewhat later in life than my own will
be better qualified to give an opinion on the subject than I
can profess to be.
To return. In spite of its inexactness, the essential point
of the apostle's analogy is obvious enough. The believer is
related to his sinful flesh very much as a wife is related to
her first husband ; and as the wife is released from the obli-
gation or duty to obey her husband by his death and con-
sequent destruction, so the believer is released from the
obligation or tendency to obey bis sinful flesh by its death
and consequent destruction. Again, the believer is related to
the Spirit of Christ very much as a wife is related to her
second husband ; and as the wife comes under the obligation
or duty to obey her husband by the act 'of her union to him,
so the believer comes under the obligation or tendency to
obey the Spirit of God by the act of his union to it. In
XL] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 517
other words, the effect of the believer's death with Christ in
the flesh is to place him out of relation to sin as a ruling
power ; the effect of the believer's resurrection with Christ in
the spirit is to place him in relation to righteousness as a
ruling power.
So much having been said by way of explanation, the reason-
ing of the paragraph with which we started (vi. 1-11) will
now, I trust, be found sufficiently clear and intelligible.
The one point, which it is the aim of the whole section to
establish, and upon which every part of it directly bears is
negatively viewed, the impossibility of the believer's continu-
ing in sin positively viewed, the necessity of the believer's
continuing in righteousness ; and the steps by which this
conclusion is reached, will be distinctly seen, if we throw the
argument into the syllogistic form, thus :
I.
(1.) Baptism into Christ represents death with Christ (in
the flesh) into organic union with Christ (in the Spirit).
(2.) The believer has undergone baptism into Christ.
(3.) Therefore the believer must have undergone death
with Christ (in the flesh) into organic union with Christ (in
the Spirit).
II.
(1.) Organic union or identity of nature involves identity
of experience.
(2.) The believer possesses organic union with Christ (in
the Spirit).
(3.) Therefore the believer must undergo a like experience
with Christ (in the Spirit).
in.
(1.) The believer must undergo a like experience with
Christ (in the Spirit).
(2.) Christ (in the Spirit) experienced resurrection and life
to righteousness.
(3.) Therefore the believer (in the Spirit) must experience
resurrection and life to righteousness.
5i8 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
From these syllogisms we gather that resurrection with Christ
to righteousness is the necessary outcome of death with Christ to
sin, being represented, from the standpoint of the Divine purpose
(tva, v. 4), as the end for which death to sin took place. And
the mediating link between the past certainty (vv. 2, 3) of death
with Christ to sin, and the future certainty (vv. 5, 8) of resur-
rection and life with Christ to righteousness, is the experi-
mental fact of identity of nature as between the believer and
Christ, combined with the historical fact of Christ's resurrec-
tion and glorification. It is held to be self-evident that if
Christ were raised (v. 9), then all in Christ must in like
manner be raised (v. 11 ; cf. 1 Cor. xv. 12, 13). The state-
ments of v. 5 and v. 8 correspond to each other, and might
be combined into one in the following way : " If we died
with Christ (at baptism), and so have become of one nature
with Christ, then also we shall be of one nature with Christ
(at resurrection), and so shall be raised to life with Christ."
That is to say, death with Christ in the flesh is represented as
the cause of union to Christ ; resurrection with Christ in the
Spirit is represented as the effect of union to Christ. And
hence, while death is ascribed to the agency of baptism (v. 4),
and the power of sin (viii. 10), resurrection is ascribed to the
agency of the Spirit (viii. 11), and the power of God (id.;
vi. 4), or of righteousness (viii. 11). The rendering of the
Revisers would lead us to understand that death and resurrec-
tion are alike the means of union to Christ, and that because
death with Christ in the flesh effected our union to Christ,
therefore also resurrection with Christ in the Spirit will effect
our union to Christ. In other words, according to them the
argument is :
(1.) Whatever death with Christ (in the flesh) causes resur-
rection with Christ (in the Spirit) causes.
(2.) Death with Christ (in the flesh) caused our union with
Christ (in the Spirit).
(3.) Therefore resurrection with Christ (in the Spirit) will
cause our union with Christ (in the Spirit).
But this reasoning, so far from being self-evident, is not
even intelligible, unless we understand by the first crvtKfrvros
partial union, and by the second complete union, which we
XL] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 519
have no warrant for doing. Besides, such a conclusion is
quite apart from the apostle's purpose. What his argument
(v. 4) requires is that resurrection and life with Christ should
necessarily follow death with Christ : what is proved by the
above syllogism is that resurrection with Christ, when it takes
place, will necessarily cause union .to Christ. This would lend
support to the apostle's position only if our union to Christ
were a self-evident future necessity, and if resurrection with
Christ were the only means by which it could be effected.
But it is plain that neither of these two things is the fact.
The believer's union to Christ is not a future necessity, but a
past contingency, as appears from the opening clause of the
verse; and vv. 8, 11, as well as chap. viii. 9-11, prove
beyond all doubt that the believer's resurrection and life with
Christ is not the means, but the consequence, of his union to
Christ in the Spirit. Resurrection and life with Christ has
no other meaning than resurrection and life in organic union
with Christ. Finally, the Revisers' rendering is opposed to
the language used, since it takes no proper account of the
change of verb in the two members of the verse (yeyova^ev
e<70yue$a). To translate the latter verb shall be, while retain-
ing the preposition by along with it, is simply to use language
fitted to mislead the reader ; for the notion of becoming is
pre-supposed in the preposition by, and, though not expressed,
must be supplied in thought after the substantive verb, along
with the other words which the Revisers have put in italics ;
so that " shall be " (eoroimeOa) when accompanied with " by the
likeness of His resurrection," means nothing less or more than
"shall become" (yevtja-o/uLeOa). If we are to insist on the
same preposition in both clauses, where the Greek has no pre-
position in either clause, then we must use not by (which is
too specific), but in (which, like the Greek dative, is suffi-
ciently indefinite to allow the sense of the different verbs to
express itself). Thus : " If we have become organically united
with Him in the likeness of His death, then also we shall be
organically united with Him in the likeness of His resurrec-
tion " where the force of the latter verb, and the change of
relation which it implies, are felt distinctly and at once. It is
indeed evident that the apostle's language here, as often else-
520 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
where, does not express his thought with perfect precision.
We should expect, '- If we have become of one nature with
Him by undergoing a like death, therefore also, as being of
one nature with Him, we shall undergo a like resurrection.
There was a certain conflict between the requirements of
sense, w r hich dictated the verbs yeyova/mev and ea-ojmeOa, and
the requirements of symmetry, which determined the general
form of the sentence, and the result has been a compromise,
in which neither sense nor symmetry is perfectly preserved.
To render, therefore, as the Revisers do, is to purchase seeming
literal ity at the expense of obscuring the sense, and throwing
the reader off the track.
It thus appears that the apostle's object, which is to estab-
lish the impossibility of the believer's continuing in sin, and
the necessity of his continuing in righteousness, is accom-
plished by proving that the experience of each believer must
be parallel to that of Christ. If it be certain that Christ,
after He rose from the dead, possessed the non posse peccare,
then it is also certain that each believer must possess the non
posse peccare. This, in a single sentence, is the sum of the
whole paragraph.
But the point of view in some verses of the paragraph is
evidently a little peculiar. The apostle represents the be-
liever's death to sin and his resurrection to righteousness as
things already completed, implying that the believer's earthly
experience must be parallel to Christ's heavenly experience,
and that continuance in sin must be just as impossible, and
continuance in righteousness just as necessary, to the believer
during his present life as they are to Christ, now that He is
exalted at God's right hand. Such a mode of representation
is not, it is true, entirely peculiar to the passage before us, for
not Paul merely, but all the New Testament writers are fond
of contemplating the believer in his ideal state, and of identi-
fying him with the renewed or Christ-like element within him.
However, there is a special reason why that should be done
here. The apostle's point of view is largely determined by
the symbolism of baptism, which enters as an important factor
into the proof of his position. The baptism of his readers
was already a thing of the past. Baptism represents death
XL] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 521
to sin, the putting off of the old man the body of the flesh
(Col. ii. 11, 12) with which is inseparably connected resur-
rection to righteousness, the putting on of the new man the
Spirit of Christ (id.). The demergence into the water sym-
bolises burial (v. 4). The emergence from the water symbolises
resurrection, of which the necessary outcome is walking in
newness of life (id.). Not that the water of baptism is to be
regarded as the symbolic agent in resurrection as well as in
death. Death is " by means of baptism," but resurrection is
" by means of the glory of the Father," by the ineffable
" working" (Iwpyeta) of the Father through the Spirit (i. 4 ;
viii. 11 ; Eph. i. 19). Regeneration, renewal, or sanctification
is by water and by the Spirit (John iii. o ; Tit. iii. 5 ;
Eph. v. 26). The two are contradistinguished here as always,
and the latter alone is an efficient and proper agent. For
while the communication of new life is directly and efficiently
the work of the Holy Spirit, the putting off of the body of sin
is only symbolically the work of baptism ; efficiently it may
be regarded as the work of that " cross " of trials and suffer-
ings which every Christian has to bear; just as the baptism
of Jesus symbolically represented (Col. ii. 11, 12), while His
cross really effected (v. 14; Eph. ii. J6), the putting off of
the body of His flesh, the wrestling-ground of the powers of
evil (Col. ii. 15; Eph. vi. 1 2). But it is not clear that
anything beyond the creation of the new man by the power of
the Holy Ghost is needed to effect the putting off of the old,
which is merely the negative side of the same process, and
this may account for the fact that only the symbolical instru-
ment is usually mentioned in connection with it. The notion
that baptism is the instrument of regeneration ex opere operato
is a little beside the mark, seeing that baptism does not even
represent what is confessedly the essential part of regeneration
-viz., repentance or renewal what the apostle speaks of as
resurrection. Baptism is no more the efficient cause of re-
generation than the baptism of Jesus was the efficient cause
of His miraculous conception, of His bodily resurrection, and
of every step in His spiritual development between these two.
The baptism of Jesus effected, not the communication of the
Holy Spirit, though that was done in a special manner after
522 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
baptism, but, if anything, His crucifixion and death, which
no one will attribute to it in any other than a symbolical
sense. The believer's baptism, in like manner, symbolises a
process that begins with the first moment of faith and is com-
pleted with the death of the body, and this negative process
is correlative to, and contemporaneous with, a positive process
that likewise begins with the first moment of faith and is
completed with the resurrection of the body. In the passage
before us the one process is spoken of as death, the other as
resurrection ; the one is attributed to the agency of baptism,
the other to the agency of the Holy Ghost. I have said they
are contemporaneous ; for the same act of faith that secures
each successive step in the one, secures at the same time a
corresponding step in the other ; it were bootless, therefore, to
inquire which is first or which is second in the order either of
time or logic.
Now, since baptism represents the entire process of death
to sin, and since the exigencies of the apostle's argument lead
him to identify the sign and the thing signified, it is quite
natural that he should speak of the latter equally with the
former as being a thing already completed and past. That
this was merely an assumed point of view, a mode of con-
templating and representing known and acknowledged facts,
was self-evident, and did not require to be specially stated.
Accordingly, it is taken for granted that the reader will under-
stand, when the apostle recurs in the sequel to the matter-of-
fact point of view, and speaks of the " mortal body " as still
in existence, and of its lusts as still claiming to reign (v. 12).
The truth is, that it lies on the very face of the passage
under consideration, it is involved in the whole texture of the
reasoning, and besides it is rendered perfectly self-evident by
the historical and experimental facts themselves, that the
present earthly experience of the believer is parallel, not to
the present heavenly experience of Christ (though the apostle
seems at times to imply this), but to the past earthly experi-
ence of Christ ; or, to be more exact, the earthly experience of
Christ is the ideal which believers on earth are exhorted to
imitate and reproduce. That Christ had a body of sin as well
as a spirit of righteousness while on earth, that He was related
XL] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 523
to both precisely as each believer is, the only difference being
that He obeyed the injunction, " Let not sin reign in your
mortal body," with a constancy to which no other believer has
been able to attain ; that His earthly life, like the earthly life
of all His followers, was occupied in dying to sin and rising
again to righteousness, is taught either expressly or by implica-
tion in every verse of the paragraph after the subject has been
introduced (v. 3), and is so manifestly the fundamental pre-
supposition that lies at the basis of the author's reasoning
the keystone of His argumentative arch, if one may so say
that, if we suppose it removed, the whole fabric will collapse
and " tumble all together " in utter chaos and unintelligibility.
I defy any man to give a consistent and intelligible account,
either of the apostle's language, or of his reasoning, on any
other supposition than that Christ had an earthly experience
parallel in every respect to the earthly experience of each
believer, just as he has a heavenly experience parallel in every
respect to what shall be the heavenly experience of each
believer. And, not to speak of the results already obtained,
both in the Epistle to the Hebrews, and in connection with
iii. 24-26 above, the same truth is taught with equal, if not
with greater clearness in two other well-known passages of the
present epistle, which have not yet received so much atten-
tion as they deserve. Let us turn for a moment and look at
these.
The first is contained in the writer's prologue, of which it
forms the most important part. " Paul, a servant of Jesus
Christ, called so as to be an apostle, separated unto the Gospel
of God, which He promised afore through His prophets in the
Holy Scriptures, concerning His son, who was born of the seed
of David [in weakness], as regards [His] flesh [of sin], who
was determined to be the Son of God in power, as regards [His]
Spirit of holiness, by resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ
our Lord, through whom we received grace and apostleship for
[to produce (xv. 18)] obedience [ = righteousness (vi. 16)] of
faith among all the Gentiles" (vv. 1-5). The parallelism in
v. 4, with which we are specially concerned, might be rendered
more exact thus: "Who was determined to be the Son of
man in weakness, as regards His flesh of sin, by death, who
524 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
was determined to be the Son of God in power, as regards His
spirit of holiness, by resurrection." Very noteworthy it is, that
Paul begins the greatest of his epistles, in which " his Gospel,"
as he elsewhere calls it, is most fully propounded, by declaring
explicitly that his vocation and separation as an apostle was
unto the Gospel of God, which means unto the planj)f human
salvation; showing that we were perfectly justified in assert-
ing that the only subject on which he was qualified to
teach authoritatively, was the method of human salvation.
But, indeed, the same idea runs through all his epistles,
notably, for example, through that to Galatians, where he
insists not merely with earnestness, but with passion, that the
Gospel he preached was revealed to him direct by God, and
was not dependent on any secondary evidence whatever.
Does he ever assert as much, or anything like as much, regard-
ing matters not directly connected with the plan of salvation ?
Never. It was the Gospel alone with respect to which the
apostles possessed profounder knowledge than their contem-
poraries, though we may readily admit that they themselves,
like religious men generally in whom the critical spirit has
not been developed, were imperfectly conscious of the limits
within which their higher knowledge was confined. Now the
rudiments of the Gospel, as the apostles taught it, are already
presented in the two relative clauses of the verse that forms
our present text. In the one clause we have on the part of
the Leader of Salvation and head of redeemed humanity,
incarnation, weakness, sin, suffering, death humiliation and its
consequences; in the other clause, spiritualisation, power,
holiness, resurrection, life exaltation and its consequences ;
and the result of both combined, is the ability to discharge
his function as " Jesus Christ, our Lord " to bestow the
grace of His Holy Spirit on all who believe on Him, so that
they, after His example, may attain to righteousness and life
on passing through suffering and death (v. 5).
That we are fully warranted in supplying " in weakness " as
the counterpart to " in power " is shown by, among other pas-
sages, the following from 2 Corinthians : " He was crucified
through weakness (e curQevelai), but liveth through the power
of God (e/c (Wayueo)? (9eov), for we also are weak with Him, but
XL] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 525
shall live with Him by the power of God " (xiii. 4) weakness
being the note of flesh and the cause of death, power the note
of spirit and the cause of resurrection, alike in the case of
Christ and in that of each believer. Again, that death is the
necessary outcome of incarnation, as resurrection is the neces-
sary outcome of spiritualisation, is manifestly pre-supposed in
the second of the two clauses itself, for without death there
could have been no resurrection ; and the same is plainly
taught in numberless other texts, of which these three may be
quoted as specimens : -" As in Adam [or David] all die, so
also in Christ all shall be made alive" (1 Cor. xv. 22), taken
along with " He was put to death through the flesh, but made
alive through the Spirit" (1 Pet, iii. 18), and with " If
Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the
Spirit is life because of righteousness " (Rom. viii. 1 0).
Further, it is easy to justify the insertion of the words " of
sin " after flesh, so as to correspond with " of holiness " after
Spirit. For the presence of sin is implied in the meaning of
the word flesh, just as the presence of holiness, even if left
unexpressed, would have been implied in the meaning of the
word Spirit. Throughout the New Testament flesh, when
contrasted with Spirit of holiness, invariably means " flesh of
sin," just as Spirit, when contrasted with flesh of sin, invari-
ably means " Spirit of holiness." The presence of sin in the
flesh is likewise implied in the fact of Christ's death, just as
the presence of holiness in the Spirit is implied in the fact of
His resurrection-life, as appears very clearly from the text
last quoted, " If Christ be in you [if ye be what Christ was],
the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because
of righteousness." Moreover, the presence of sin is clearly
implied when it is said that the flesh of Christ was born of
the sinful seed of David, in contrast to His Spirit, which was
born of the Holy God. For these words have no meaning,
unless they mean that the flesh of Christ was identical in
nature with the flesh of the seed of David, from whom He
received it, in like manner as His Spirit was identical in
nature with the Spirit of God, from whom He received it.
And that the flesh of David's seed was " flesh of sin " is as
certain as it is that the Spirit of God is a Spirit of holiness.
526 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
It is even impossible to understand why an antithesis should
be drawn between the man-derived flesh and the God-derived
Spirit of Christ at all, precisely such an antithesis as is con-
stantly drawn between the man-derived flesh of sin and the
God-derived Spirit of holiness of each believer, and then, in
particular, why the latter should be spoken of as characterised
by holiness, and the former not, if the former equally with the
latter were characterised by holiness, and not by sin, as it else-
where always is. Flesh of holiness ! Does not the very
expression sound like a contradiction ? How entirely unapos-
tolic it is ! Nor, again, can we escape the plain meaning of
the passage by alleging that the flesh of Christ was identical
with that of Adam before lie fell, for the apostle does not say
that the flesh of Christ was derived from Adam at all, much
less that it was derived from Adam before he fell. He simply
affirms that Christ was born of David's seed, which is equiva-
lent to affirming that He was " born of woman," and therefore
"born under [the curse of] the law [on account of sin], that
He might redeem them which were [born of woman and
therefore born] under [the curse of] the law [on account of
sin] " (Gal. iv. 4, 5). To be born of woman means nothing
less or more than to receive woman's nature in the way that
every child of woman receives it. The expression does not
point to the mere act of parturition, nor yet to the mere pro-
cess of gestation, but to " becoming " such as took place when
" God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man
became a living soul " (Gen. ii. 7). And in this sense the
"becoming" of Christ's flesh was from the seed of David"
(eK (TirepfJiaTog Aa/3^), or "from woman" (e/c yvvaiKos), just
as really as the becoming of His Spirit was "from God"
(e/c Oeov). What Dr. Owen says about the work of the Holy
Spirit in forming the natural body of Christ has no other
foundation than the blundering LXX. translation of Ps. xl. 6, as
quoted in Heb. x. 5. If the body of Christ had been formed,
as Dr. Owen alleges, by the immediate operation of the Holy
Ghost, it would not have been a natural body at all, but a
spiritual body ; it would not have been from the seed of David
or from woman at all, but from God, just as really as His
Spirit was, seeing that " all the [new] things are of God " (eK
XL] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 527
0ov, 2 Cor. v. 18); it would not have been a "body of
humiliation," but a " body of glory," and, being so, it would
not have required to be transformed by the operation of the
same Holy Ghost from the state of humiliation into the state
of glory, as every other body which is from the seed of David
and from woman requires to be (Phil. iii. 21) ; it would have
been from the first moment of the incarnation in the state of
redemption, and therefore could not have been under the law
as the body of every believer is under the law, and requiring
to be redeemed as the body of every believer requires to be
redeemed (Gal. iv. 5 ; Rom. viii. 23). Possibly it may be
thought strange and inexplicable that the flesh of Christ
should have been from woman in the same sense that the
flesh of every one else is from woman, while His Spirit was
from God in another sense than that in which the spirit of
every believer is from God ; but people who are not prepared
to accept what is strange and inexplicable in connection with
this subject had better give up the miraculous conception
entirely, and hold that Christ was an ordinary man begotten
in the ordinary way, instead of wasting their energy in futile
attempts to pervert the plain meaning of Scripture, and foist
their own rationalistic fancies on the New Testament writers.
Once more, independent of all other considerations, such a
text as the following proves decisively that the flesh of Christ
was characterised by sin, and that, unless it had been so, He
could have done nothing towards redeeming us from sin.
" Him who had not known sin He made to become sin on our
behalf [in David], in order that we [who had not known right-
eousness] might become the righteousness of God in Him "
(2 Cor. v. 21). The parallelism might be still further
adjusted thus : " He who had not known sin became sin of
man in David, in order that we who had not known righteous-
ness might become righteousness of God in Him." Who can
fail to recognise here the very same thought which we find in
Gal. iv. 4, 5 : " When the fulness of the time came, God
[= c He '] sent forth [= f made '] His Son ['Him who had not
known sin,' sell, before the fulness of time], become of a woman,
become under the law [=' become sin of man in David'], to
redeem them that were under the law ['on our behalf who
528 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
had not known righteousness '], in order that we might receive
the adoption of sons [rz'in order that we might become the
righteousness of God in Him '] ? " It is quite evident that the
time when God made Christ to become sin coincides with the
time when God sent forth His Son become of a woman, that
is, with the time when Christ became flesh ; God did not make
Christ to become anything at any other time. And this
implies that the becoming sin and the becoming flesh were one
and the same act. What more, therefore, can be required by
way of proof that Christ, when He became of the seed of
David, became flesh OF SIN ? It is also evident that the aorist
" did not know " (/mrj yvovra), cannot be taken as contemporan-
eous with the aorist " made " (eTroiycrev') ; although theologians,
who never scruple to attribute the baldest contradictions to a
Scripture writer when, by so doing, they can gain any semblance
of support for their favourite theories, assume almost without
exception, and as a matter of course, that it must be so taken.
To say that God did or could make Christ to become sin
while He continued sinless (which is what is meant by TOV /mrj
a/uLapTiav when taken as contemporaneous with eirotrjo-ev
is neither more nor less absurd than to say that God
could make an Ethiopian to become white while he con-
tinued black ; and it is equally absurd to say that a person
could become righteous while he continued sinful. Is it
alleged that Christ was made sinful in one respect while He
continued sinless in another ? In that case we must ask what
are the respects ? The standard of righteousness and sin, per-
fection and imperfection, is the Divine law. Now, a piece of
paper may appear black to one eye and white to another at
the same time. It will then be black with respect to the one,
and white with respect to the other. But the same identical
piece of paper cannot be at once black and white with respect
to the same eye. No more can the same identical person be
at once perfect and imperfect with respect to the same standard
of perfection. In what respect, then, was Christ sinful, and
in what respect did He remain sinless ? The only possible
answer is that He was sinful in respect to His flesh (Kara
a-dpKa), and that He remained sinless in respect to His Spirit
(Kara -jrveujuia) which is all that I at present contend for.
XL] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 529
The same solution must likewise be accepted in the case of the
believer, if contemporaneous sinfulness and righteousness be
insisted on in his case also. Yet the text before us is con-
stantly quoted as a triumphant proof of the doctrine of impu-
tation ! Some enraptured imputationists assure us that they
" see imputation everywhere, and see it most of all in a text
where the word impute does not occur." Clear-sighted souls !
They would see spots on a snowflake ! I prefer to take the
aorist participle yvo vra as past with reference to the aorist
indicative eTroiyarev. It is too little to say that the grammar
admits (cf. vii. 12 ; John v. 29, al.\ while both the sense and
the parallelism demand, this construction, for the grammar
appears to me to demand it, as well as the sense and the paral-
lelism. If the apostle had meant to represent Christ as con-
tinuing (in whatever respect) the Sinless One after God made
Him sin, he would have used, not the aorist participle (rov w
yvovrd), but the present participle (TOV w ytvuxTKovra), which
is the proper tense for designating permanent or timeless
character (Gal. ii. 2 ; 1 Thess. i. 10 ; 1 Pet. i. 17 ; Heb. ii. 11;
Rom. v. 17 ; John xii. 20, aL, and see Winer, E. T. (Moul-
ton), pp. 444, 445). If he meant to represent Christ as
having been sinless only before God made Him sin, he has done
so, not merely in the proper and most natural, but (with parti-
cipial construction) in the only possible way, since the Greek
has no pluperfect participle.
As to the notion favoured by some writers that the word
"sin" (auJLaprlav) is to be understood in the sense of "sin-
offering," this can only be regarded and characterised as the
last resource of exegetical despair. Besides that it is linguis-
tically unwarrantable, being entirely without parallel, it would
compel us in consistency to read the verse as follows : " Him
who had not known a sin-offering He made a sin-offering on
our behalf in Adam, in order that we who had not known a
righteous-offering might become a righteous-offering of God
in Him." Parallels to this might be sought in " Present
your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, well pleasing to God "
(Rom. xii. 1), and " That the offering up of the Gentiles might
be acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Ghost" (xv. 16),&c.,
but few, I imagine, will be disposed to contend that it is the
2M
530 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
correct view of the passage. And besides, even on such a view,
the antithesis between sin-offering and righteous-offering
would be meaningless, unless the body of Christ were sinful in
contrast to the spirits of believers that are holy. The apostle's
language must therefore be understood in its natural sense as
above explained, and the verse proves conclusively that the
flesh of Christ was identical in moral quality, as in everything
else, with ordinary human flesh from which he is said to have
derived it it proves, in one word, that it was flesh of sin.
Further evidence in support of the same conclusion will be
brought out in connection with the passage next to be
examined.
On the whole, therefore, it is beyond doubt that the mean-
ing of Rom. i. 4 is accurately expressed by the paraphrase :
" Who was determined to be the Son of Man in weakness, as
regards his flesh of sin, by death, who was determined to be
the Son of God in power, as regards his spirit of holiness, by
resurrection." The word " determined " (opio-Oevros'), as the
context plainly shows, means " defined by evidence," " demon-
strated," " proved." The apostle does not say that Christ
" ivas determined to be the Son of Man . ... by death,"
because he could take it for granted that his readers were
satisfied of the fact on historical grounds, prior to and quite
independent of Christ's death. I have said so, because the
truth is a Scriptural, and even a self-evident one, as much so,
at least, as is the antithetic truth in the other clause, which
it serves to illustrate and define, and because modern theolo-
gians, unlike the apostle's readers, require to be reminded
of it.
This, then, must suffice by way of exposition of the present
passage. For I will not detain the reader by discussing the
notion that " Spirit of holiness " refers, not to the Divine
nature of Christ at all, but to the third person of the Trinity,
considered as quite distinct from Christ's Divine nature.
Whether, in what sense, or to what extent the third person
of the Trinity is identical with the Divine nature of Christ, is
a question which it is hardly worth while to investigate (cf.
however, 2 Cor. iii. 17; Rom. viii. 9, 10), for, besides being
purely speculative, it has only an indirect and somewhat
I
XL] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 531
remote bearing on my present argument. But that " Spirit
of holiness " answers to " flesh " of sin, and that the former
indicates the Divine nature of Christ as the latter indicates
the human, is proved simply by being stated. The man who
disputes that at this time of day will dispute anything,
and has yet to be put through his first lesson in Scripture
exegesis.
The other passage to which reference was made is viii.
3, 4 a passage which we have quoted indeed oftener than
once already, but which it is necessary to examine somewhat
more minutely. " For [to give the rationale of our deliver-
ance from the principle of sin, and by consequence from con-
demnation], what the law could not do [soil, make men
righteous the end at which it avowedly aimed (x. 4 ;
Gal. iii. 21)], in that it was weak through the flesh [of sin
the flesh, whose mind is enmity against God, and which is not
subject to the law of God neither indeed can be (v. 7), was
done when] God, having sent His own Son in the likeness of
flesh of sin, and concerning sin [ = veiled in the flesh of sin,
which prevented men from attaining to righteousness by ful-
filling the law an obstacle which it was the purpose of His
mission to remove], condemned [to death] the sin in the flesh
[and thereby brought it to nought (Eph. ii. 15, 16)], that so
the righteousness required [and aimed at] by the law might
be fulfilled in us [the sin in whose flesh has been condemned
to death and brought to nought in death after the likeness of
Christ's (vi. 5, 6), and] who [therefore (vi. 4, 8)] walk not
after the flesh, but after the Spirit." The present passage
resembles the previous to this extent that it contains a
succinct outline of the plan of salvation. The problem to be
solved is how men may be delivered from the power of dark-
ness, and translated into the kingdom of God's dear Son, how
they may be brought out of their old state of slavery to sin in
the flesh, into a new state of slavery to righteousness in the
spirit. By nature men are in the flesh, which is essentially
characterised by sin, and at enmity with God, and renders the
law impossible for them to fulfil in their own natural strength.
This implies that the salvation of men is something which
the law cannot do. Salvation is TO a$vva.Tov TOU
532 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
How then are men actually saved ? Not by the law, but
by the Spirit of grace and of life (v. 2), which becomes theirs
through the incarnation and death of Jesus Christ. For God
so loved the world that He sent His own Son into the fleshly
state of men, with a view to redeeming them out of that state,
and bringing them into His own holy spiritual state. Re-
demption is effected first on the person of Christ Himself, and
then on the person of each believer after the example of
Christ, and in all cases it is effected through death. Christ's
death in the flesh, like every other death in the flesh, was
the expression of the judgment ( eKpive) of God against
(/car ) sin (vi. 10); it embodied the penalty of the law,
under whose curse Christ had become (Gal. iii. 13), when He
became flesh (iv. 4), and, in so doing, became sin (2 Cor. v.
21); it was the outcome of the reciprocal enmity (e-^jdpa)
between man on the one side (Rom. viii. 7) and God on the
other (Eph. ii. 15), which the sin in the flesh could not but
create ; and it was the means of bringing to nought the sin in
the flesh (Rom. vi. 6). and so of bringing to nought the
enmity inseparable therefrom (Eph. ii. 15, 16), and of pro-
ducing mutual reconciliation between men and God, when
that which has been effected in principle on the person of
Christ, shall be effected in detail on the persons of all believers
after the likeness of Christ.
Such are the essential points in the plan of salvation, as
briefly indicated in these two verses. The ideas are quite the
same as we found were contained in chap. i. 3, 4 ; only, here
the human side, the incarnation and death of Christ, receives
the prominence, there the Divine side, His spiritualisation and
resurrection ; so that the two passages serve at once to supple-
ment and to elucidate one another. There is also the closest
parallelism between the present text and Gal. iv. 4, 5, whose
correspondence to 2 Cor. v. 21 has been already exhibited.
"When the fulness of the time came, God [= 'God'] sent
forth [= ' having sent '] His Son [= ' His own Son '], born
of a woman [= 'in the likeness of flesh of sin'], born under
the curse of the law on account of sin [= ' condemned the
sin in the flesh'] that He might redeem them which were
born of woman and therefore born under the curse of the
XL] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 533
law on account of sin [= ' with a view to abolishing sin in
the flesh which prevented men from attaining to righteous-
ness by fulfilling the law '], that we might receive the
adoption along with the spirit of sons [ ' that the righteous-
ness required by the law might be fulfilled in us who walk
riot after the flesh of slaves, but after the spirit of sons']."
That the flesh, the weakness of which disables men from
fulfilling the law, is characterised by sin is not less clear than
it is that the spirit, the power of which enables men to fulfil
the law, is characterised by righteousness. The apostle him-
self teaches this in terms whose meaning cannot be mistaken.
"They that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh,
and they that are after the spirit the things of the spirit. For
the mind of the flesh is death, but the mind of the spirit is
life and peace; because the mind of the flesh is enmity
against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither
indeed can it be, and they that are in the flesh cannot please
God" (vv. 5-8). Nothing could express more clearly than do
these words the fact that "the flesh," as the apostle knows
and represents it, is naturally and necessarily opposed to the
will or law of God, and therefore subject to its curse or
penalty. " The flesh," as such, is " flesh of sin," while " the
spirit," as such, is "spirit of holiness." To be "in the flesh"
implies being under sin, just as to be "in the spirit" implies
being under righteousness. The apostle knows of no flesh
that is not "flesh of sin." He says not one word about
" flesh " having once been " flesh of holiness," much less does
he say that "flesh "[can again be made " flesh of holiness."
What he says plainly implies the opposite ; for he teaches
that to be " in the flesh " and to be subject to the law of God
are absolutely incompatible ; the only possible way in which
one can be freed from sin is by being freed from the flesh, in
which sin inheres; to be holy one must be "in the spirit," and
have the flesh brought to nought. The verses last quoted have no
meaning whatever, unless this be what they mean. And if this
be what they mean, then it will be easy to settle the precise force
of the clauses " in the likeness of flesh of sin and concerning
sin condemned the sin in the flesh," about which so many idle
fancies have been propounded by " orthodox " commentators.
534 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
To begin with the first. "In the likeness of flesh of sin "
differs from " in the likeness of the flesh," not in substance,
but merely in form viz., in the circumstance that whereas
in the former the characteristic quality of the flesh is
expressed explicitly, in the latter it is expressed implicitly,
and the apostle uses the explicit in preference to the implicit
form because it is the characteristic quality (ajuLapria) with
which he is mainly concerned, as may be inferred from the fact
that it appears in abstraction as soon as we pass to the clauses
that follow. Now that the word "likeness" (OJULOLCO/ULO) here
used may denote likeness amounting to substantial identity,
as opposed to mere semblance and substantial unlikeness,
does not require to be said. The word is used in four other
passages of the apostle's writings (Eom. i. 23 ; v. 14 ; vi. 5;
Phil. ii. 7), and in every one of these cases the identity
denoted is practically absolute. In the three first especially
indeed, unless I am much mistaken, in all the four the
substantial identity between the things compared is the sole
foundation on which the author's reasoning rests. So much
will be admitted even by my opponents ; and, therefore, the
only question that can possibly be raised is whether the word
" likeness " does actually bear this sense when applied to the
flesh assumed by Christ. * And this is a question that is no
sooner asked than it is answered. In the present passage,
where Christ is said to have become " in the likeness of flesh
(of sin) " the language may be thought susceptible of more
than one meaning, but the same cannot possibly be alleged of
other passages where the language is different, and absolutely
unambiguous. Elsewhere it is said that Christ "became
flesh" (John i. 14), that "since the children are sharers of
flesh and blood, He Himself also in like manner partook of
the same [flesh and blood] " (Heb. ii. 14), that He "became
of woman " (Gal. iv. 4)" became of the seed of David as
regards His flesh" (Rom. i. 3) that He was sent by God the
Father to reconcile all things unto Himself "in the body of
His flesh through death" (Col. i. 19-22), that in putting off
" the body of the flesh " men are circumcised with the circum-
cision of Christ (ii. 11), that Christ abolished "in His flesh "
the enmity between man and God (Eph. ii. 15, 16), that He
XL] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 535
was manifested "in the flesh " and justified "in the spirit"
(1 Tim. in. 16), that He suffered "in the flesh" and ceased
from sin (1 Peter iv. 1), being put to death " through the
flesh" but quickened "through the spirit" (iii. 18), even
as the dead, though they have been judged " after the manner
of men in the flesh," may nevertheless live " after the manner
of God in the spirit " (iv. 6), that He carried our sins " in
His body" up to the tree (ii. 24), that we are made dead to
the law " through the body of Christ " (Rom. vii. 4) His
" body of sin " (vi. 6) that we enter the holy place
" through the veil, that is to say, His flesh " (Heb. x. 20),
and much more of precisely the same nature. These passages
not only render it perfectly manifest that the flesh of Christ
was real human flesh, identical with that of other men in
every respect herein implying that it was pervaded by sin
as the flesh of other men is but they prove besides, in the
most explicit manner, that His flesh was opposed to His
spirit as something morally different, and that the former was
the seat and source of His (derived) sin and death, as the
latter was the seat and source of His (original) righteousness
and life. There is not even a trace of the idea that the flesh
of Christ was only apparent or seeming, or that it differed in
moral quality or anything else from ordinary human flesh.
Here, however, we are met with a challenge. If the flesh
of Christ was nothing less or more than ordinary flesh, identical
in moral quality, as in everything else, with that of all other
men, why did not the apostle, instead of writing " in the like-
ness of flesh of sin," write simply "in flesh of sin"? If the
word " likeness " does not point to dissimilarity between the
flesh of Christ and that of ordinary men, in respect that the
former was not while the latter is characterised by sin, what
conceivable reason can the apostle have had for using the
word at all ? Several answers may be given. In the first
place, one may surely retort by asking in turn why, if the
apostle meant to represent the flesh of Christ as differing from
that of ordinary men, in respect that the former was character-
ised by holiness, while the latter is characterised by sin, why
did he not, instead of writing " in the likeness of flesh of sin,"
write simply " in flesh of holiness," as he elsewhere writes
536 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
" Spirit of holiness," when this would have expressed exactly
what he meant. Why should the apostle have expressed
himself in language, the natural meaning of which is as "like"
as possible the reverse of what he intends, when language
whose natural meaning is identical with what he intends was
so familiar to him ? To say that Christ was sent in the like-
ness of flesh, whose characteristic is sin, is surely a very odd
way of stating that He was sent in flesh, characterised not by
sin, but by holiness just as odd as it would be to say that a
man appeared in the likeness of a black negro, when the
meaning was that a white negro made his appearance. How
can it be pretended, that " in the likeness of flesh of sin " is
identical in meaning with " in flesh of sinlessness," or "in flesh
of holiness " ? There is a world of difference between the two
expressions. Even allowing, for argument's sake, that the
word " likeness '*' points to dissimilarity between the flesh of
Christ and that of ordinary men, what right have we to infer
that the dissimilarity consists just in the absence of the
characteristic quality nothing else, nothing more, and noth-
ing less ? The apostle gives us plainly to understand that
ordinary flesh cannot exist without the characteristic quality
that if the characteristic quality is to be brought to nought,
the flesh itself must be brought to nought along with it
(viii. 7, 8 ; vi. b', &c.). How then dare we allege that the
flesh of Christ was unreal to the extent that it lacked the
characteristic quality, and no further ? What warrant is there
for making the word " likeness " apply to " sin," but not to
"flesh," in other words, for holding the writer's meaning to be
that the flesh of Christ was real flesh, only it seemed to be
characterised by sin, which really it was not ? Is there any
historical ground for thinking that the flesh of Christ seemed to
possess qualities (whether moral or physical) which it really did
not possess ? If not, the apostle must be stating as fact what
has no historical foundation. But does the apostle state any
such thing ? We certainly cannot infer it from the proximity
of the different words. For though both the English versions
(the Revised contrary to its usual practice, and evidently under
dogmatic bias witness the still more violent treatment of the
following clause), translate the apostle's phrase, " flesh of sin "
XL] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 537
(o-dpKo? a/xa/mcc?) into "sinful flesh," and though this, by
bringing the words " likeness " and " sin " into immediate
juxtaposition, has the effect of lending a certain air of plausi-
bility to the opinion I am now contesting, the fact that the
order, and with it the meaning of the words, is just the
reverse in the original from what it is in the Vss., proves
incontestably that if any inference is to be founded thereon,
it must be an inference the exact opposite of that which the
Vss. appear to countenance that is to say, we must infer
that the flesh was unreal, but not the sin. The same
conclusion might be supported as the preferable one by
reference to the exigencies of the writer's argument; for,
as we shall see presently, however the flesh of Christ may
have differed from ordinary human flesh in other respects,
it is essential to the apostle's argument that it should
have resembled ordinary human flesh in the circumstance
that it was pervaded by the principle of sin, since in any
other case that principle could not have been condemned
and brought to nought when Christ died, as the apostle asserts
that it was.
But further, those who understand the word " likeness " to
denote semblance, who make it apply exclusively to the word
" sin," which occurs not indeed in the closest, but still in close
proximity thereto, and who challenge us to assign any other
reason for the apostle's using the word " likeness " at all,
ought in consistency to apply the same rule of interpretation,
and to throw out the same challenge, when the word " like-
ness " occurs under exactly similar circumstances, but apart
from the word sin. If they were to do this, they might dis-
cover that their line cf argument will prove somewhat more
than they are prepared to accept. Whether we can assign a
satisfactory reason for the apostle's using the word " likeness "
remains to be seen : we shall, at anyrate, find it easy enough
to show that the reason assigned by those who challenge us to
do so is so far from being satisfactory that, if carried out to its
legitimate issues, it would have the effect of disproving both
the true humanity and the true divinity of Jesus Christ. It
so happens that there exists one other passage in Paul's writ-
ings where the word " likeness " occurs in a precisely similar
538 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
construction, and where it is alternated with two other words
expressing substantially the same idea, a passage, too, that
is so closely parallel to the one before us that reasoning from
the one to the other is a matter of course; and if we interpret
the word " likeness " there in the way that it is proposed to
interpret it here, if, besides, we take into account the effect of
such an interpretation on the whole connection, then we shall
be obliged to conclude, not only that the humanity which
Christ assumed was apparent or seeming, and not real
humanity, but also that the divinity which He for a time and
to a large extent demitted was apparent or seeming, and not
real divinity this latter in defiance of the plain statement of
the passage that the original divinity of Christ constituted
Him the equal of God. We must again allow the apostle to
speak for himself : " Have this mind in you which was also
in Christ Jesus, who, being [originally] in the form of God,
counted not [His] equality with God a thing to be grasped
[and retained], but [on the contrary] emptied Himself [of the
substance, while divesting Himself of the form, of Godhead],
taking the form [along with the substance] of a slave [to sin
and by consequence to death], becoming [that is to say] in the
likeness of men (ev ojuLoicojuLan dvOpcoTrwv = ev 6/moicofj.aTL crdpKos
anaprias), and [in consequence of] being found in fashion as
a man, He humbled Himself [= submitted to the trials and
indignities incident to sinful humanity], becoming obedient [in
the midst of suffering (Heb. v. 8)] even unto death, yea, the
death of the cross. Wherefore God also [on His part as
righteous Judge] highly exalted Him, and granted unto Him
the name that is above every name, that in the name of Jesus
every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things on
earth and things under the earth, and that every tongue
should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God
the Father" (Phil. ii. 5-11). It is evident that we have here
on the part of Christ the same course, first of humiliation and
then of exaltation, which we find sketched more or less fully
in Horn. i. 3, 4, in Rom. viii. 3, 4, in Gal. iv. 4, 5, in 2 Cor.
v. 21, and in many other passages. In all these passages,
and in others like them, Christ is represented as passing
through a process of incarnation and redemption in the char-
XL] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 539
acter of the leader, the type or exemplar, of every believer,
and as each passage gives special prominence to some part or
parts of the process which is less prominent in the others,
they are all more or less illustrative and supplementary of one
another. Nothing, therefore, could be more legitimate than
to interpret the statements of one, by the corresponding,
but more detailed, or more closely defined, statements of
another. Now, when the apostle says that Christ " became
in the likeness of men," and when he varies this expression by
saying that He " took the form of a slave," it cannot be
alleged that the word " likeness " (ojuLoiwima) is used to indicate
that the humanity of Christ was merely apparent ; for this
would imply that the word " form " (iu.op<pr]) is used to indicate
that the slavehood of Christ was merely apparent ; and this
again would imply that the apostle, in saying that Christ
" was originally in the form of God," instead of saying that
He " was originally God," meant to indicate that Christ's
divinity was merely apparent a position that is directly
falsified by the very next clause, which bears that he " counted
not His equality with God a thing to be grasped" and
retained, as well as by the statement that He " emptied Him-
self," which, like the correlative "fill," " fulness," &c. , must
apply to substance, and not to mere manifestation. Least of
all can it be pretended that the word " likeness " points to the
unreality of Christ's humanity in respect that it was sinless,
for then consistency will require, not only that the word
" form " shall be held to point to the unreality of Christ's
slavehood in respect that it was sinless, but also that " in the
form of God " shall be held to point to the unreality of His
original Godhead in respect that it was sinful ! Such assump-
tions are not merely utterly arbitrary, and without the small-
est warrant in the text, but they are utterly opposed alike to
the sense of the words and to the whole connection of ideas.
The word " slave " of itself is sufficient to prove that the flesh
of Christ, like that of all other men, was pervaded by the
principle of sin, for it is clear from the context that the word
is used in the sense which it bears in Rom. vi., and that the
slavery referred to is slavery to the principle of sin, and to
death as the penalty due to that principle. The language of v. 8,
540 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
in particular, indicates quite plainly that the death of Christ
was the direct effect of His human nature as such, which it
could not have been, unless that human nature had placed
Him under the penalty of the law, on account of sin inherent
in it. We may take it, therefore, as an absolute certainty
that the word " likeness," in the phrase " in the likeness of
men," does not mean that the human nature of Christ was
unreal or merely apparent in any respect, and least of all in
respect that it was sinless. And this again must be held to
prove decisively that the same word " likeness," in the phrase
" in the likeness of flesh of sin," was not meant to exclude the
idea that Christ assumed real and not merely apparent flesh
of sin ; least of all, as the sequel shows, was it meant to con-
vey the idea that the flesh of Christ was real, but the sin
merely apparent.
But this, after all, is only a negative result, and negative
results, however firmly established, are never wholly satisfactory
to the mind. What was the proper positive reason why the
apostle made use of the phrase " in the likeness " with refer-
ence to Christ's human nature, both in Rom. viii. 3 and in
Phil. ii. 7 ? That the expression cannot be due to mere
rhetorical amplification of style is evident from the fact that it
appears in both the passages referred to, and that in the latter
of the two it is virtually repeated several times, showing that
the writer not only has an idea, but that his idea is one of
very considerable importance one which the reader cannot
afford to overlook. The reason, it need scarcely be said, is
one that lies on the surface of the passages where the expres-
sion occurs. Both passages represent Christ as having been
originally the Son and equal of God. In this it is implied
that He was immeasurably raised above man as he at present
exists. And though the second states that in becoming man
He " emptied Himself"- a process the limits of which must
be here left by us, as they are by the apostle, undefined still
the emptied self (we may not say <: form," for that He had
resigned) of Godhead was united in the totality of His person
to the form of manhood from the first moment of the incarna-
tion. And as we learn from various indications (Luke ii.
40, 52, cf. Eph. iii. 16; Luke iii. 21, 22: iv. 1, cf. Col. ii.
XL] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 541
11, 12 ; Eph. iv. 13, cf. Heb. ii. 10 ; v. 8-14; vi. 1, seq.;
vii. 28), as we might have inferred, at any rate, from analogy
to the case of the believer (Col. ii. 9, 10 ; Eph. iii. 19 ; ii.
20, 21 ; iv. 12-16, &c.), this emptied self of Godhead con-
tinued during His earthly life to be refilled and to grow till,
on His ascension to glory, He was again, as He had been
before (John xvii. 5), " filled unto all the fulness of God "
(Eph. iii. 19), so that it could be said, " In Him dwelleth all
the fulness of the Godhead bodily" (Col. ii. 9, cf. Eph. i. 23;
John i. 16). It follows that Christ during His earthly life
was an ordinary man indeed, but also something more. He
possessed a human nature with all its ordinary characteristics
(sin included), and this placed Him absolutely on a level with us,
so that He could be said to have both the form and the sub-
stance of slavehood, just as before the incarnation He had had
both the form and the substance of Godhead. But in addition
to this human nature, common to Him with all other men, He
possessed a Divine nature emptied, it might be, and depo-
tentiated, but all the same a Divine nature peculiar to Him-
self and to such other men as are conformed to His image.
Yet He did not seem to be anything more than an ordinary
man. His Divine nature was deformed to such an extent that
the outward eye failed to detect it. He was therefore like an
ordinary man, as far as outward form or fashion was con-
cerned. This is simply an historical fact. The mass of His
contemporaries could not be brought to believe that He was
in any respect different from one of themselves. And the
same holds true of His followers as well as Himself. " Behold
what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that
we should be called children of God ; and such we are. For
this cause the world knoweth us not, because it knew Him,
not. Beloved, now are we children of God, and it is not yet
made manifest what we shall be " (1 John iii. 1, 2). Hence,
when the apostle says that Christ was sent " in the likeness
of flesh of sin," that He " took the form of a slave, became in
the likeness of men, and was found in fashion as a man," his
meaning evidently is that the Divine nature of Christ was so
overshadowed and concealed by the human that men could
hardly help taking Him for an ordinary human being and
542 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
nothing more. Thus far the words of the paraphrase express
the apostle's meaning admirably:
" His greatness He for us abased,
For us His glory veiled,
In human likeness dwelt on earth,
His majesty concealed."
In reality, Christ was something more than an ordinary
human being, and it is this fact that the word " likeness " is
used to express. The word does not point to the fact that
Christ's flesh of sin was something less than ordinary, some-
thing less than it appeared to be that it seemed to possess
characteristics which it really did not possess ; but rather to
the fact that His spirit of holiness was something more than
ordinary, something more than it appeared to be that it
really existed, and conferred a character on Christ which He
did not seem to possess. So far is the word " likeness " from
being meant to suggest that Christ's flesh of sin was unreal,
or that it lacked any of the characteristics of ordinary flesh of
sin, that it is meant to bring into the boldest relief its intense
reality and prominence, which was such as to obliterate and
shut out of view the fact that He had any other higher nature.
There is, therefore, not a shadow of reason for the allegation,
so often and so confidently made, that, according to the passage
before us, the flesh of Christ differed from ordinary human
flesh in respect that it was not characterised by sin ; on the
contrary, there is every reason, lexical, grammatical, and (as
I shall show immediately) contextual, for holding that the flesh
of Christ resembled ordinary human flesh in every respect, and,
most of all, in respect that it was characterised by sin.
So much for the first of the three clauses. The others will
be more easily disposed of. In the second clause, " and con-
cerning sin," the word " sin " takes up " sin " of the clause
preceding, and is in turn taken up by " the sin " of the clause
following ; indeed, as already remarked, the apostle used the
explicit form, " flesh of sin" instead of " flesh " or " the flesh,"
for no other reason than because not the flesh in all its bear-
ings, but specifically and exclusively the sin in the flesh was
to be taken up and dealt with in the two succeeding clauses.
XL] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 543
That the principle of sin, inherent in human flesh in general,
and in the flesh of Christ in particular, is the thing referred to
throughout is so obvious, in view of the whole context, that
nothing but the most resolute determination to dispute and
repel that idea at all hazards could blind any one to the plain
meaning of the apostle's words. It is objected that, if the
apostle had used the word " likeness" to indicate the presence
of Christ's Divine nature under the veil of His human nature,
the latter would, in that case, have been spoken of, not as
" flesh of sin," but simply as " flesh," after the precedent set
in i. 3. But I have just explained why the apostle here uses
the explicit form " flesh of sin," instead of the implicit form
" flesh " used in i. 3, and the reason given will, I believe,
satisfy every man having the slightest claim to impartiality.
Let any reader reflect how immensely the , apostle's statement
would lose in clearness and force if the word " sin " in the
opening clause were omitted, and then he will fed the reason-
ableness of my explanation. It is next asserted that, in order
to obtain a suitable meaning out of the clause " and concerning
sin," we must transform it completely by supplying the words
" as an offering," when it will read " and as an offering for
sin." But to supply "as an offering," in order to obtain a
suitable meaning, is a piece of wanton and intolerable caprice,
which those who perpetrate it make hardly any attempt to
justify. Neither in the meanings of the individual words, nor
in the connection of ideas, nor in parallel passages elsewhere,
is there the smallest warrant for so violent a proceeding. How
could the apostle have omitted a phrase, the insertion or omis-
sion of which would, if it were taken literally, alter so entirely
the meaning of the whole clause, and, with it, of the whole
verse ? Besides, the presence of the interpolated words, so far
from affording a suitable meaning, has the effect of changing
what was before perfectly clear into what is absolutely unintel-
ligible. The suitable meaning which the words are inserted to
obtain is a meaning presupposing that the flesh in which Christ
was sent was not flesh of sin, but flesh of holiness, and as we
have just proved that the flesh in which Christ was sent was
flesh of sin, and not flesh of holiness, such a meaning is neces-
sarily a wholly unsuitable one. The preceding clause, when
544 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
taken in its natural sense, is as completely at variance with
the proposed interpolation, as it is completely in harmony with
the simple sense of the words as they stand ; and the mutual
harmony of the two clauses, when taken as we have taken
them, as it justifies the natural interpretation of both, so it
condemns every forced interpretation of either. And, if this
be true of the clause that precedes, it is still more true of the
clause that follows. For, taking the words in their plain and
obvious meaning, it is quite impossible to understand how God
could have " condemned the sin in the flesh " when he inflicted
the penalty of death upon Christ, if Christ was sent simply as
a sin-offering, and if there was no sin in his flesh to condemn.
Another complete distortion of the natural sense is therefore
necessary, if the apostle is not to be convicted of writing abso-
lute nonsense. Accordingly, it is alleged that we must under-
stand " the sin " which takes up " sin " of the previous clause
of " the mass of human guilt," and connect " in the flesh,"
not with "the sin" at all, but with the verb " condemned; "
so that the meaning of the whole clause would be expressed by
saying, " God condemned in the flesh of Christ the mass of
human guilt." But even if this were intelligible, how utterly
arbitrary it is ! How do we know that either " sin " in the
second clause or " the sin " in the third refers to " the mass of
human guilt " ? Surely it will not be pretended that " flesh
of sin " in the first clause means " flesh of the mass of human
guilt," and, if not, how can any one be expected to believe that
the word "sin " in the other two clauses bears a meaning so
extraordinary ? The whole context is directly opposed to such
an idea, while the idea itself, as was shown previously, is beset
with difficulties so enormous, that nothing but the most over-
whelming contextual evidence could induce us even to take it
into consideration. Again, where is the warrant for discon-
necting " in the flesh " from " the sin," to which it stands in
immediate proximity? The article, we are told, is not repeated
between sin and flesh (r^v a/maprlav TIJV ev rrj trapxi). But
the absence of the article merely suggests that the connec-
tion between " the sin " and " the flesh " is an invariable one,
while its presence would suggest that the connection was a
variable one that is to say, the presence of the article would
XL] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 545
have suggested what the apostle did not mean, while its absence
suggests exactly what he docs mean (cf. Winer, E. T., pp. 169,
170). Even, however, were we to indulge caprice so far as to
allow the jerrymandering to be carried out without the assign-
ment of any reason whatever, what is the meaning of " con-
demned in the flesh of Christ the mass of human guilt " ? The
word " condemn " (KaraKplvw), which is a return on " con-
demnation " (KaTaKpi/ma) of v. 1, means adjudge to death;
but how can God be said to have adjudged the mass of human
guilt to death in the flesh of Christ ? The meaning cannot be
that the mass of human guilt is absolutely identical with the
flesh of Christ, so that when the latter was adjudged to death,
the former was adjudged to death ; for this is utterly absurd.
Neither can the meaning be that the mass of human guilt has
its seat in the flesh of Christ, as the principle of sin has its
seat in the flesh of ordinary men ; for this is equally absurd ;
guilt, being simply the relation of sin to the law, is not a thing
that can be seated anywhere. Now, when these two meanings
are set aside, the possibility of assigning a definite intelligible
meaning to the above combination of words appears to be quite
taken away. Besides all which, we must bear in mind the
results obtained in earlier chapters of this work. It has,
I hope, been conclusively proved, that if the word sin-offer-
ing, or any similar word, be applied to -the work of Christ in
saving the world, it can be understood only in a purely figura-
tive sense, and must have its meaning defined through the
medium of literal language, occurring either in the immediate
context or in parallel passages elsewhere. How preposterous
is it, therefore, to insist on arbitrarily supplying a word which,
even were it expressed, would leave the interpretation of the
whole passage precisely where it was !
These difficulties are felt so strongly by many of the com-
mentators, that they prefer other, though scarcely more warrant-
able, expedients for the purpose of explaining away the obvious
meaning of the apostle's language. It is held, for example,
that " the sin in the flesh " does not refer to the sin attaching
to the person of Christ at all, but rather to the sin attaching
to the persons of believers. The word " condemn " does not
mean " adjudge to death," at least in the ordinary sense, but
2 N
546 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
Christ, by living a holy life in holy flesh, " somehow or other
did something or other that had some connection or other"
with the deliverance of men from the dominion of sin, and in
that sense (!) He " condemned the sin in the flesh " of men.
On this view, it was not God that condemned sin by adjudg-
ing Christ to death the condemnation of sin had no special
connection with the death of Christ : it was Christ Himself
that condemned sin, and this He did, not by His death, but
by His lifelong obedience. All this, however, is manifestly
an utter perversion of the apostle's language. The word
" condemn " (/cara/cpW) has the same definite meaning in v. 3
which the word '"'condemnation" (/cara/cp/xa) has in v. 1,
and that the act of condemnation consisted in the adjudging
of Christ to death is self-evident, for, on the one hand, there
is nothing else to which the expression can possibly refer, and,
on the other hand, it is certain that the death of Christ was a
judicial penalty, the outcome of such a sentence of condemna-
tion as is here referred to. Further proof of the same, position
will be forthcoming presently.
The real meaning of the apostle's words is that which lies
on their very surface, and which can by no possibility be
explained away. " The sin in the flesh " is the principle of
sin inherent in human flesh as such, and therefore inherent in
the human flesh which Christ assumed, and this was " con-
demned " to death and brought to nought in death, when God
condemned to death and brought to nought in death the
human flesh of Christ. It is objected that, if this were his
meaning, the apostle would have written, not "in the flesh" (ei> T//
crape/), but "in His flesh" (ev Ty crapKi CIVTOV), so as to make the
reference more clear. But this objection only betrays the
incorrigible perverseness of those who raise it. The apostle
did not say " in His flesh," because to have done so would not
have expressed the precise meaning which he intended to con-
vey. The whole drift of the argument, and particularly the
statement of purpose contained in v. 4, makes it abundantly
manifest that the apostle views the flesh of Christ, not as an
isolated self-centred unit, unconnected with anything else, but
as a sample (aTrapyrj) of human flesh generally of "the flesh,"
whose weakness renders fulfilment of the law impossible (v. 3a)
XL] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 547
and that he regards the destruction of sin in the leading
case of Christ as the destruction in principle of sin in the
whole human race, or at least in the whole body of the
redeemed. That being so, his use of the general form of
expression " in the flesh," which re-echoes " through the flesh "
in the opening clause of the verse, was fitted to convey his
meaning more exactly than any other possible form. Moreover,
it is easy to produce parallel passages, where the apostle does
employ the pronominal adjective "His," and where it is as clear
as day both that the flesh in which sin was condemned is the
flesh of Christ, and that the sentence of condemnation was
carried out and consummated in the process of Christ's death ;
and yet, I suppose, the objectors will not be satisfied.
Take, for instance, the following from Ephesians : " For He
is our peace, who made both the [Jews and Gentiles] one, and
brake down the middle wall of partition, having brought to
nought the enmity in His flesh the law of commandments
contained in ordinances in order that He might create the
two in [union with] Himself into one new man, so making
peace, and might reconcile them both in one [spiritual] body
unto God through the cross, having slain the enmity thereby ;
and [in virtue of what He had done] He came and preached
peace to you [the Gentiles] that were far off, and peace to them
[the Jews] that were nigh ; for through Him [as leader of sal-
vation and giver of the Holy Ghost (Acts v. 31 ; ii. 33)] we
both have our access in one Spirit unto the Father " (ii. 14-18).
"The enmity in His [Christ's] flesh," which formed, as long as
it existed, the barrier to reconciliation between him and God
[cf. " The mind of the flesh is enmity against God," &c.
(Rom. viii. 7)], and which Christ "slew" and "brought to
nought" "through His cross" (vv. 15, 16), is evidently iden-
tical with "the sin in the flesh" which God "condemned"
when Christ died (Rom. viii. 3), since the condemnation,
death, and consequent destruction of both these things stand
in exactly the same relation to the reception of the Spirit
as the instrument of renewal by all believers (vv. 17, 18 ;
Rom. viii. 4). The apostle, indeed, in this, as well as in other
passages, would fain make out that " the sin in the flesh "
exists as a cause of enmity between men and God merely in
548 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
consequence of the existence of the letter of the law, and hence
he represents " the law of commandments contained in ordin-
ances," not only as the main cause of enmity between Jews and
Gentiles, but as the main cause of enmity between men and
God, he identifies it, in fact, with " the [cause of] enmity
in the flesh " (v. 15). But we had occasion already, in connec-
tion with the opening paragraph of Rom. vii., to point out
in what sense this is, and in what sense it is not, true.
In the apostle's day the day of enmity between Jew and
Gentile when the ceremonial law overshadowed the moral,
and lay as a stumbling block in the way of men's receiving by
faith the promise of the Spirit, as the instrument of redemp-
tion from slavery to sin, "the law of commandments contained
in ordinances," might truly be said, in that indirect sense, to
cause, or at all events to perpetuate, the enmity which the
principle of sin created between men and God. But the
principle of sin, and with it the enmity between men and
God, are as rife to-day as ever they were, though the cere-
monial law (so far at least as the Gentiles are concerned) has
long since been set aside as worthless ; which proves that
" the law of commandments contained in ordinances," was not
the main cause, nor even an essential condition, of the enmity
that existed between men and God that, indeed, the two
things had no necessary connection with one another. The
real cause of the enmity which existed then, and which exists
still, between men and God, was the principle of sin, inherent
" in the flesh," and it was this, and this alone, that was really
"brought to nought," through the crucifixion of Christ
(Rom. vi. 6). The death of Christ had nothing whatever to
do with the " bringing to nought "of " the law of command-
ments contained in ordinances," except in so far as a true
spiritual apprehension of the significance of that death, opened
the eyes of Paul to the fact that the ceremonial part of the
law ought to be abrogated as unprofitable for saving purposes.
The apostle's representation is based entirely on the state of
things that had once existed in his own experience, and that
still existed in the experience of his contemporaries ; and it is
directed to putting an end to that state of things. He wishes
to induce his readers, both Jews and Gentiles, to cease from
XL] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 549
seeking salvation by mechanical observance of the ceremonial
law, apart from faith in God, and to begin, or continue, to
seek salvation by spiritual observance of the moral law, through
faith in God. With this object in view, he tries to show,
though very unsuccessfully, that the law, especially the
ceremonial law, is inseparably bound up with the existence
and development of the principle of sin in the flesh, and that,
consequently, it can be nothing else than a means of con-
demnation and death. The idea that when the principle of
sin in the flesh of Christ was brought to nought in death, the
law of commandments contained in ordinances was likewise
brought to nought, is of course an inference from the more
general idea, that there exists an inseparable connection
between the law and the flesh wherein resides the principle
of sin. The same idea is expressed very clearly in the parallel
passage of Colossians : " Having blotted out the manuscript
with the ordinances, that was against us, which was contrary
to us, and He hath taken it out of the way, nailing it to
the cross ; having put off from Himself the principalities
and the powers [of darkness], He made a show of them openly,
triumphing over them in it" (ii. 14, 15). Here, also, the
putting off of the body of the flesh (v. 11), by which the
principle of sin was brought to nought (v. 1 5), and reconcilia-
tion effected between men and God (i. 22), is identified with
the taking out of the way of " the manuscript with the ordin-
ances " i.e., the letter of the law "which was contrary to
us." " The blotting out of the manuscript with the ordinances,"
does not mean the cancelling of the sinner's debt. That is
referred to by " having forgiven us all our trespasses " (v. 13).
The same expression might readily enough be used, though
there were no debt to cancel. It is quite identical in meaning
with " the bringing to nought of the law of commandments
contained in ordinances," as the mere fact of the parallelism is
sufficient to prove, as appears at any rate from the argument
of v. 16, and again of v. 20, seq. It refers, not to the cancel-
ling of guilt, but to the setting aside as worthless of the letter
of the law, which the apostle speaks of as having been nailed
to the cross. It was not, however, really the letter of the law
that was nailed to the cross, and so brought to nought, or
550 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
taken out of the way, but rather it was the principle of sin
inherent in the flesh, through which the nails literally passed,
and which is here and elsewhere regarded by the apostle as
corresponding in nature to, and being inseparably bound up
with the letter of the law, especially the ceremonial law. If
this were not self-evident, it could not be more clearly proved
than it is by the statement of v. 15, which is added as an
explicative apposition to v. 14, and which teaches in so many
words, that what Christ " put off from Himself" in the act of
His death, was " the principalities and the powers " of evil, by
which is meant the reigning principle of sin in the flesh. The
verse has indeed been regarded as a profound enigma. Any-
thing like definite interpretation of its meaning is usually
either abandoned as hopeless, or a sense is put upon the words
which the rules of grammar condemn. Certainly the language
is very mysterious, and even wholly inexplicable, on the
assumption that the flesh of Christ did not, like other
human flesh, contain the principle of sin ; but on the
opposite assumption, it is as plain as any other passage in
the apostle's writings. " Having put off from himself" (aVe/c-
$v<Tajmevoi), is manifestly a return upon " in the putting off
(ev Ty dTreicSvarei) of the body of the flesh" (v. 11). What
Christ put off from Himself was therefore " the body of His
flesh through death" (i. 22). From which it follows that
"the putting off of the principalities and the powers" of evil,
over which Christ triumphed, and "the putting off of the
body of the flesh," took place in one and the same act, viz.,
the act of His death on the cross. But this could have
happened only if " the principalities and the powers " of evil
were either on Christ's flesh adherently, or else in His flesh
inherently. Surely it is not difficult to decide between these
two. To suppose that evil powers and principalities were on
Christ's flesh adherently, is nothing less than absurd, and even
were it otherwise, the idea would be entirely without support,
as well as without parallel. On the other hand, we know that
ordinary men (including Christ) wrestle " against the princi-
palities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this
darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the
heavenly places " (Eph. vi. 12). And that these principalities
XL] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 551
and powers, against which ordinary men (including Christ)
wrestle, are in and not on the flesh, that they are either
identical with, or, if not that, inseparably associated with the
lusts of the flesh, against which the spirit wrestles and makes
war (Gal. v. 17; Rom. vii. 23), comes out plainly in the
opening verses of chap, ii., where we read : " And you [did he
quicken with Christ (i. 19, 20)], when ye were dead in your
trespasses and sins, wherein aforetime ye walked, according to
the course of this world [cf. " the world-rulers of this dark-
ness "], according to the prince of the power [cf. " the princi-
palities and the powers"] of the air, of the spirit that now
worketh IN the sons of disobedience [cf. "spiritual hosts of
wickedness in the heavenly places "] ; among whom we also
all once lived, IN THE LUSTS OF OUR FLESH, doing the desires
of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of
wrath, even as the rest": a passage whose appositeness can-
not be disputed, since it forms, with the verses that follow, the
exact counterpart of Col. ii. 11-15. The same truth is like-
wise taught with unmistakable clearness, when believers are
said, in the identical language of our text, to have put off from
themselves (aTreKSua-d^evot) the old man with his doings "
(Col. iii. 9) a thing which, as we know from other passages
(e.g., Rom. vi. 6), and even from the context of the present
(vv. 10, 11; cf. vv. 1-3), believers do with (= after the
example of) Christ, so far as " the old man " is concerned,
though not so far as " his doings " are concerned. How then
is it possible to doubt that, as in the case of ordinary men, so
in the case of Christ, " the principalities and the powers "
against which He wrestled, and over which He triumphed,
were so inseparably bound up with the sinful propensities
in the flesh, that when He " put off from Himself " the one, He
could also be said to have " put off from Himself " the other ?
Another passage and the only other with which I propose
to trouble the reader affording conclusive proof that " the sin
in the flesh" which God condemned in connection with the
death of Christ was the principle of sin inherent in the flesh
which Christ had assumed, is contained in two separate verses
of 1 Peter. " Christ also once suffered concerning sins, the
righteous on behalf of the unrighteous, in order that He might
552 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
bring us [sinners] to God, having been put to death through
[our] flesh [of sin], but made alive through [His] Spirit [of
righteousness] . . . who His own self carried our sins in His
body up to the tree, in order that we, having died [after His
example in slavery] to our sins, might live [after His example
in slavery] to His righteousness" (iii. 18; ii. 24). We
pointed out before that the Apostle Peter's language, when
speaking of the sufferings and death of Christ, is largely
borrowed from Isaiah liii., and that in consequence it does not
express his thought with perfect precision. For example,
while Paul says, in Rom. viii. 3, that Christ was sent and
suffered " concerning sin " (Trepi ajmapriai), Peter says, in the
present passage, that He was sent and suffered " concerning
sins " (irepi a^apri^v). And again, while Paul says that God
condemned human " sin " (rrjv a/mapriav) in the flesh of
Christ, in order that we might walk not after the flesh with
its sin, but after the spirit with its righteousness, Peter says
that Christ carried our " sins " (ra? ajmapriai) in His body up
to the tree, in order that we, having died to our body with
its sins, might live to our (Christian) spirit with its righteous-
ness. Yet nothing is more certain than that both writers
refer to exactly the same thing viz., the principle of sin,
inherent in human flesh as such, and therefore inherent in the
human flesh assumed by Christ, and carried by Him up to the
tree. This is clear from the identity of relation which the
death of Christ bears in both cases to the deliverance of the
believer from slavery to the principle of sin and his consequent
enslavement to the principle of righteousness ; for if the death
of Christ had not been a death in slavery to the principle of
sin, followed by a resurrection in slavery to the principle of
righteousness, how could the believer's death after Christ's
example (ii. 21) have precisely such a character, as it is
affirmed in Peter, not less than in Paul to have (ii. 24). It
is clear, also, from the statement that Christ was " put to
death through the flesh (OavarcoOels vapid)" for that we are
right in regarding the dative as instrumental (and not merely
local) is evident from the requirements of the sense, from the
parallelism to " made alive through the Spirit (fyoTroiriOeis
" where the Spirit is indisputably the instrument
XL] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 553
by which, and not merely the element in which, resurrection
takes place (1 Cor. xv. 45 ; Rom. viii. 11) and, above all,
from such a text as this, " And if Christ is in you, the body is
dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteous-
ness " (Rom. viii. 10), or this, " He was crucified through ^veak-
ness [of the flesh of man], but He liveth through poiver [of
the Spirit] of God " (2 Cor. xiii. 4). It is clear, finally, and
more especially, from the apostle's explicit and (in spite of
theologians) unambiguous assertion that Christ " carried our
sins in His body up to the tree." Taken in connection with
what immediately follows, these words can only mean that the
principle of sin was in Christ's body of flesh when it was
raised to the cross, that He suffered on the cross in slavery to
that principle, thereby escaping (aVoyej/o/xei/o?) from under
its mastery, that He was afterwards raised from the dead,
thereby becoming enslaved to the principle of righteousness in
the Spirit, and that in virtue of these experiences He can and
does bestow His Spirit on all who believe on Him, in order
that they, after His example, may die in slavery to the prin-
ciple of sin in the flesh, and thereafter be raised in slavery to
the principle of righteousness in the spirit. Once more, there-
fore, we have decisive evidence that what God condemned was
the principle of sin in the flesh of Christ, and that the sentence
of condemnation was executed in the process of Christ's death.
May I not now take it for granted that the true interpre-
tation of Rom. viii. 3 has been satisfactorily established, and
vindicated against all assaults ? May I not likewise assume
that the more general question with which we set out, and
which Rom. i. 3, 4, Rom. viii. 3, and the numerous illustra-
tive passages were adduced to determine, has now been
brought to a decisive issue ? Will theologians and exegetes
still continue to repeat the worn-out fable which finds expres-
sion in the following words of Meyer : " But that the Son of
God was sent in sinful flesh would be a paradox opposed to
the entire New Testament (!), which Paul could (!) by no
means utter, and which, in fact, he with marked clearness and
precision (!) guards against, by saying not ev vapia djmapTias,
but ev ofjLOKJofJLan v. dfs.., &c. (Rom. E. T., ii. 45)? I do not
hesitate to say that the fact is just the other way about, and
554 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
that there will not be produced a single New Testament text,
for which even a plausible case can be made out, in favour of
the idea that the flesh of Christ differed in any respect from
the flesh of all other men ; that, on the contrary, the absolute
homogeneity of the two is everywhere assumed, and often
expressly asserted, throughout the whole range of the apostolic
writings. And I cannot pass from the point with anything
more appropriate than by saying, in language borrowed from
an eloquent writer, that the result just obtained as to the con-
stitution of Christ's person " defies all reasonable contradic-
tion, and will in the end be generally received."
XII.]
CHAPTER XII.
THE FLESH AND THE SPIRIT IN THE PERSON OF THE
BELIEVER.
WHAT we have hitherto insisted upon has been the fact
that Christ during His life on earth was possessed of
a constitution identical in all essential respects with that pos-
sessed by each believer during the same period, both alike
consisting of two natures oppositely characterised, the one
Divine the other human, the one heavenly the other earthly,
the one spiritual the other fleshly, the one essentially holy the
other essentially sinful. But we require to proceed one step
farther. For what we wished to make out was, not merely
the identity of nature as between Christ and the believer while
on earth, but rather the identity of experience. More exactly,
the point to be established was, that the relation of the
believer to sin, considered as an indwelling principle tending
to lord it over the personality, and so to pass from the poten-
tial into the actual state, has its exact counterpart in the
earthly experience of Christ. The question raised in the open-
ing paragraph of Rom. vi. was as to the possibility of the
believer's continuing in actual or overt sin, and the apostle
based his answer to this question on the possibility of Christ's
committing actual or overt sin. Ostensibly it is the experi-
ence of Christ in heaven that is brought into comparison with
the experience of the believer on earth ; and this owing to the
circumstance that the exigencies of the argument, which starts
from the accomplished fact of baptism, lead the writer to con-
template the believer in his ideal state ; but in reality the
parallel lies between the experience of the believer on earth
and the experience of Christ on earth. The question before
555
556 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
us is therefore as to the possibility of Christ's I do not say
continuing in, but committing actual or overt sin during His
earthly life. And this question resolves itself into an inquiry
into the nature, origin, and limits of Christ's temptations.
Now, the gist of the whole matter is already contained in
the statement of the author of Hebrews that Christ was
" tempted in all points like as we are (/ca$' o/xofor^ra), with-
out sinning" (iv. 15). The Greek word "try" (-Tretpdoo) is,
indeed, somewhat more general than our English word
" tempt." In the present epistle, at any rate, it always
includes a reference to the external sufferings incident to
human life as such, and specially to the life of Christ and His
earliest followers. Still it always at the same time covers and
embraces the meaning of the English word "tempt." It does
so in the text just quoted in particular, as the contingency
suggested by the concluding phrase " without sinning" is suf-
ficient evidence. It may, therefore, be conveniently and
correctly enough translated by " tempt," when the special
aspect of its meaning conveyed by that word is under discus-
sion.
That the words " apart from sin " (x w pw aju-aprlas) will not
bear the meaning that is usually put upon them was pointed
out at a previous stage. The advocates of the sinlessness of
Christ's human nature are perpetually quoting and appealing
to these words, as if they amounted to an absolute demonstra-
tion in favour of that dogma, and as if they were palpably and
irreconcilably at variance with any other view. It is, for them,
a most unfortunate thing that the apostle should have said
what he does say at ix. 28, for, had he not done so, their posi-
tion, though utterly false, as this latter verse affords us the
means of demonstrating, might, perhaps, have claimed to rise
to the dignity of plausibility. As it is, no such claim can be
advanced or entertained by any reasonable man. When the
writer says that " Christ, having been once offered to bear
away the sins of many, shall appear a second time apart from
sin (x"/W apaprias)" he clearly implies that when Christ
appeared the first time, He was not " apart from sin," but in
connection with sin. There must, therefore, be a sense in
which Christ, while on earth, was not " apart from sin," as well
XII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 557
as a sense in which He was " apart from sin." What are these
different senses ? For answer, we must appeal to the contexts
of the two passages where the expression occurs, and to parallel
passages elsewhere. And, when such an appeal is made, it
becomes evident at once, that Christ, while on earth, was not
4 'apart from sin" in the sense in which it is affirmed that He
was " apart from sin," and that He was " apart from sin " in
no other sense than that in which each believer, while on
earth, may be, or at least is exhorted to be, '' apart from sin."
The difference between Christ's first and His second coming is,
that whereas at His first coming He came in a " body of sin "
(Rom. vi. 6) for the purpose of putting away sin through His
death, at His second coming He shall come in a "body of glory "
(Phil. iii. 21) for the purpose of bringing ultimate salvation to
them that wait for Him through His life. This is, beyond
question, what is taught, after a somewhat figurative fashion,
in the closing verse of Heb. ix., and in other similar passages
too numerous to be even referred to. That Christ, during His
life upon earth, was somehow in connection with sin, and that,
by His death upon earth, He escaped out of that connection, is
acknowledged on all hands. It is also acknowledged, that the
relation between Christ and sin came into existence through
incarnation, and that it ceased to exist through glorification or
spiritualisation. The only question, therefore, is as to how
Christ stood connected with sin. Now, we have offered what
I hope have appeared irrefragable reasons for holding that the
connection between Christ and sin was constituted through the
presence of sin, as an inherent principle, in the flesh which He
assumed, and that it was dissolved through the death and
destruction of that flesh, together with the principle of sin
inherent in it. This, then, is the sense in which Christ was
not " apart from sin " during His life upon earth. But this
is in no way inconsistent with the fact that Christ was " apart
from sin " during the same period in the sense evidently
intended in Heb. iv. 15, as the following passage from Peter
may suffice to show. " Christ also suffered [=was tried and
tempted through His trials in all points like as we are] on your
behalf, leaving you an example that ye should follow His steps ;
who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth; who
558
PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY.
[Chap.
when He was reviled reviled not again, when He suffered
threatened not, but delivered Himself over to Him that
judgeth righteously [=who was "apart from sin" as ye
should strive to be] ; ivho His own self carried our sins
in His body up to the tree [= who was not " apart from sin "
in the sense that His body of flesh was sinless while yours
is not], in order that we, having died to sin, might live
unto righteousness" (ii. 21-24).
The truth of the matter is, that the closing paragraph of
Heb. iv., so far from lending any countenance to the idea that
the flesh of Christ was sinless, furnishes a multiplicity of the
most cogent reasons in support of the opposite opinion. In
the first place, the mere fact that Christ was tempted at all
proves of itself that He was not " apart from sin " in the sense
usually held. For temptation is possible and conceivable only
as a conflict between good and evil impulses. And the powers
of evil with which man has to contend are usually compre-
hended, with special reference to John's first Epistle, under the
three categories, the world, the flesh, and the devil. Such a
division might certainly be objected to on the ground that the
different categories are not exclusive of one another, and that
they were not intended to be so by the apostle who used
them. The flesh is a part of the world, and the lust of the
flesh is at the same time the lust of the world. " All that is
in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and
the vainglory of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world ;
but the world passeth away, and the lust thereof" (ii. 16, 17).
The flesh is not only a part of the world, but being in imme-
diate contact with the spirit, it is that part through which,
directly or indirectly, all the world's temptations come. Again,
the devil and his emissaries cannot be viewed as sources of
temptation wholly distinct from the lusts of the flesh ; for it
is in and through the lusts of the flesh that the supersensuous
powers of evil act on human nature. We have seen that the
principalities and the powers of darkness are so closely asso-
ciated with the lusts of the flesh by the Apostle Paul that he
would almost seem to identify the two when he speaks of the
putting off of the body of the flesh as being at the same
time a putting off of those principalities and powers. The
XII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 559
flesh is, as it were, the battle-ground of the powers of evil,
from which all their assaults emanate. It is not strange,
therefore, that the last-named apostle should reduce all human
temptation to a simple conflict between the flesh and the
spirit. Whatever is good in human nature is ranged on the
side of the spirit ; whatever is evil on the side of the flesh ;
and whatever evil assails the good in human nature from
without assails it through the evil within. Temptation exists
because " the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit
against the flesh, these being contrary the one to the other,
so that ye may not do the things that ye would " (Gal. v. 1 7).
There is no doubt that the works of the flesh, which the
apostle proceeds to enumerate, are intended to comprehend, in
a general way, all evil works whatever, just as the works of
the spirit are intended to comprehend, in a general way, all
good works whatever ; therefore, the lusts of the flesh must
include all evil tendencies whatever that is, the conflict be-
tween flesh and spirit must embrace in itself every form of
human temptation. It follows that human temptation cannot
exist apart from fleshly lust, and that, wherever human temp-
tation does exist, there must exist sinful flesh.
But, I shall be told, is it not metaphysically possible that
temptation, even human temptation, may exist apart altogether
from the lust of the flesh, though all ordinary human tempta-
tion exists only in that form ? Doubtless rny opponents will
assert that it is. As soon as we enter the region of pure
metaphysics, every man believes, or at any rate pretends to
believe, whatever pleases his fancy, or flatters his pride, or
serves his immediate interest, knowing that he is in little
danger of being called to account. Were this question to be
settled by the methods of metaphysics alone, I for one should
utterly despair of ever bringing it to a decisive issue. But
happily it is not so. Let us hear what the Apostle James
has to say on the subject. " Let no man say when he is
tempted, I am tempted of God, for God cannot be tempted
with evil, and He Himself tempt eth no man ; but each man
is tempted by being drawn away of his own lust and enticed.
Then lust, when it hath conceived, beareth sin, and sin, when
it is full grown, bringeth forth death. [Thus it is the flesh
560 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
alone that is the source of temptation, but God is the author,
not of the flesh, but of the spirit, for] of His own will He
brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a
kind of first-fruits of His creatures" (i. 13-18). These verses,
again, may be taken as a clear proof that Christ could be
spoken of as " apart from sin," while yet His flesh was per-
vaded by the principle of sin, and that not only in a dead or
dormant condition (Rom. vii. 8, 9), but even in the state of
living activity which is called " lust," and which constitutes
the source of all human temptation. Moreover, they state
negatively, that God is " untempted of evil" (aireipao-Tos
KaKwv), which is the same in effect as that God cannot be
tempted of evil ; while they state positively, that every man
" is tempted " (ireipdigeTai), which is the same in effect as that
every man can be tempted only, by being drawn away of his
own lust and enticed ; and unless clear evidence to the contrary
is forthcoming, these two things when taken together, must be
held to imply, (1) that Christ could not be tempted in His
pre-incarnate state, (2) that He cannot be tempted in His
present spiritualised or glorified state, (3) that He was
tempted in His earthly incarnate state, by being drawn away
of the lust of the flesh and enticed, and that He could not
have been tempted in any other way. I know it will be
objected to this argument that it cannot be valid, since it
would prove too much. And that is why I have used the
words, " unless clear evidence to the contrary is forthcoming."
If God cannot be tempted of evil, and if human temptation
can exist only in the form of fleshly lust, then Adam could not
have been tempted before he fell, which, however, we know,
or imagine we know, that he was. When the apostle says
that God is not tempted of evil, and that man is tempted only
by the lust of the flesh, this, it will be said, must be held to
apply solely to man, as he at present exists, and therefore not
to Adam before he fell, nor by consequence to Christ, always
assuming that the human nature of Christ was identical with
that of Adam while yet unfallen and not with that of man
as he at present exists. The objection, however, is more
specious than solid. It is a trick of long standing, that of
thrusting all the difficulties of theology back into the period
XII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 561
before Adam fell, and solving them by means of assumptions
as to what did, or would, or might have happened then. The
same sort of expedient is much in favour with the more ardent
champions of " the atonement," who, when they are baffled in
the domain of New Testament exegesis proper, never fail to
take refuge amid the obscurities of the ritual law of the
Pentateuch, where, as they very well know, there is much
greater scope for arbitrary assumptions and baseless assertions.
It is certainly very convenient, when the prosaic statements of
Christ and His apostles refuse to yield satisfactory results, to be
able to fall back on such remarkably lucid, intelligible, and
trustworthy narratives as the opening chapters of Genesis, and
the priestly legislation of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers.
Unfortunately, many people now-a-days are perverse enough to
entertain serious doubts as to whether there ever was an Adam,
and doubts still more serious as to whether, assuming that there
was, he ever existed in a state essentially different from that
in which all men exist now. They tell us, that as we are
blissfully ignorant as to when, how, and in what particular state
the created world as a whole came into existence, so we are
necessarily equally ignorant as to when, how, and in what par-
ticular state each of its constituent parts (the human race
included) came into existence. Even if we were firmly per-
suaded upon New Testament grounds, that the human nature
of Christ was identical with the nature of man, as originally
created, we have, they allege, no reliable knowledge as to what
that original nature was at least we have no solid and substan-
tial ground for thinking that it differed in any respect from
the actual nature of man, as he at present exists. With such
persons, therefore, an argument based on the state of things
that existed before Adam fell, will hardly carry assured con-
viction. However, the above objection admits of a far more
decisive answer than this.
For, in the second place, the closing paragraph of Heb. iv.
affirms not only that Christ was tempted, but that He was
"tempted in all points like as we are." How is it possible
that Christ could have been so tempted, unless His human
nature, the source of all His temptations, that which alone
rendered Him liable to temptation, had been in all points like
2o
5 6 2
PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY.
[Chap.
as ours is ? It is not here affirmed that the word " likeness "
(ojULoioTrjra) does not imply substantial identity; the phrase,
" in all points," evidently excludes any supposition of the
kind. Neither can the meaning be that Christ was tempted
in all points like as Adam was before he fell ; for this is
absolutely opposed to the words used. Nor, again, can it be
pretended that the temptations of Christ did not arise from
His human nature, and especially did not arise from the fact
that His human nature was subject to sin, suffering, and
death ; for the writer clearly implies that this was exactly
how they did arise, particularly when he says that " we have
not an high priest that cannot sympathise with our weak-
nesses, but one that hath been tempted [scil. by the same
identical weaknesses] in all points like as we are." Least of
all can it be alleged that the weaknesses of Christ were " sin-
less infirmities," that they had no manner of connection with
sin, that they were such weaknesses only as Adam had before
he fell ; for, not to mention that we have no evidence what-
ever that Adam before he fell could have had any weak-
nesses, if the weaknesses of Christ had no connection with
sin, then His sufferings and death, which were the direct
effect of His weaknesses (2 Cor. xiii. 4), can have had no
connection with sin ; and in that case the death of Christ can
have been in no sense a penal affliction on account of sin ;
which, however, we know that it was. Besides, the author
expressly implies that the weaknesses of Christ were identical
in nature with " our weaknesses," with which He is able to
sympathise, and these are indisputably the effect of sin, as
they are also the source of temptation to further sin. In
proof of this last point we may refer to what the Apostle
Paul says of the " unknown yet well-known " weakness in
his flesh (cf. Gal. iv. 13, 14, &c.). " Wherefore, that I should
not be exalted overmuch, there was given to me a thorn in
the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, that I should
not be exalted overmuch. Concerning this thing I besought
the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me ; and He hath
said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee, My power [=the
power of My Spirit] is made perfect in weakness [of the flesh].
Most gladly, therefore, will I rather glory in my weaknesses,
XII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 563
that the power of Christ may rest upon me " (2 Cor. xii
7-9). The apostle, then, regarded the special weakness in
his flesh as a direct source of temptation to sin, as a
messenger sent by Satan to buffet him, whilst he looked
upon that weakness as special only in degree, and by no
means as different in kind from all the other weaknesses
incident to his flesh. The apostle saw and felt in all his
weaknesses and consequent trials (v. 10) direct sources of
temptation to sin, in and through which the adversary made
his assaults, and which could be resisted and overcome only
by the grace or Spirit of Christ dwelling and working
mightily in him. The apostle's flesh was sinful, and therefore
weak, and therefore a constant means of temptation to sin.
The Spirit of Christ was holy, and therefore powerful, and
therefore a constant means of resisting and overcoming tempta-
tion to sin. The same is of course true of all human flesh.
Hence, the essential weakness of the flesh is the one universal
cause of human inability to fulfil the law (Rom. viii. 3), and
the ground on which man may be properly spoken of as
enslaved to the principle of sin (vi. 19). Hence, also, the one
only means by which men can be " helped in time of need "
to overcome the temptations arising out of the weaknesses of
the flesh, is the Spirit of God, who is the effective operative
embodiment of the grace of God (Heb. iv. 16), and the source
of all holy impulses and powers. Now, if Christ, by becoming
" a sharer of the same [flesh and blood] " with believers,
underwent "in all points" the same temptations, arising out
of the same weaknesses (ii. 14, 18), and is able, in conse-
quence, to sympathise with believers in all their weaknesses
and temptations (iv. 15), how preposterous is it to allege that
the temptations of Christ did not arise from the lusting of
His flesh against His Spirit, as those of believers confessedly
do ! The greatest of the recorded historical instances
(Matt, iv. 1-10) certainly lends no support to such an assump-
tion ; for there the assaults of temptation came through
(1) a the lust of the flesh" [= "He afterwards hungered"
(v. 2)] ; and (2) " the lust of the eyes " [= " showeth Him
all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them " (v. 8)] ;
and (3) "the vainglory of life " [=' cast Thyself down " (v. 6)].
564 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
Whether "the devil," to whose agency the whole temptation
is ascribed, had any existence independent of the lusts of
Christ's fleshly nature, may be left undetermined. In any
case, it is beyond all dispute, that Christ was " drawn away
and enticed " directly and immediately through the cravings
of His fleshly nature. The extremity of hunger is just a form
of fleshly lust ; and the lusts of the flesh crave, each for its
own object, quite regardless of whether that object be for-
bidden or no. In this case the object was forbidden, in the
only way in which reason declared that it could be obtained,
and the existence of the craving, under these circumstances,
constituted the very essence of the temptation. Let it be
added, that the writer to the Hebrews elsewhere teaches
almost expressly, that the weakness of Christ, like that of every
one else, was weakness due directly to the sinfulness of His
flesh, and supplying an index of that sinfulness (v. 2, 3 ;
vii. 27, 28).
We may take it, therefore, as an established certainty, that
the temptations of Christ were of exactly the same nature, and
that they sprang from exactly the same source as the tempta-
tions of all other believers. And this is so far from implying
that the flesh of Christ was sinless, that it implies just the
reverse. What distinguished the case of Christ from that of
other believers, such as Paul, was not the fact that His flesh
was less weak, but rather the fact that His Spirit was more
powerful, insomuch that He could be " tempted in all points
like as we are without sinning." The grace or Spirit, and
with it the power of God, rested upon Christ (Luke ii. 40 ;
cf. i. 80) still more fully than they rested upon Paul
(2 Cor. xii. 9) ; of the former to a still greater extent than of
the latter it might have been said, " My grace is sufficient for
Thee, for My power is made perfect in Thy weakness " (id.).
Nevertheless, the believer is exhorted to " draw near with bold-
ness unto the throne of grace " (Heb. iv. 1 6), and pray that he
may be "strengthened with, power by His [God's] Spirit in the
inward man, that Christ may dwell in his heart by faith, and
that he may be filled unto all the fulness of God " (Eph.
iii. 16-19) in which event he might, like Christ, be " tempted
in all points like as we are without sinning" (Jas. iv. 6, 7 ;
XII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 565
1 Pet. v. 8-10). Is it not, therefore, as fully made out as
might be that the temptations of Christ differed in no respect
from those of the ordinary believer, that the possibility of sin-
ning was open to both alike, this being involved in the very
idea of temptation, that the means of resisting temptation
was also the same, although, as a matter of fact, Christ
uniformly resisted and overcame temptation, which all ordinary
believers fail to do ?
How the ordinary believer is tempted has been already in
part stated, and is described more at length in the classical
passage, Rom. vii. 14-25, upon which it now only remains to
offer a single brief observation or two. " For we know that
the law is spiritual [in that its requirement is met by the prin-
ciple of righteousness in the spirit, and by that alone (viii.
3, 4)], but I am fleshly, sold [as a slave] under [the principle of]
sin [in the flesh]. For that which I work out [ = actually
accomplish cf. " Lust when it hath conceived beareth sin "
(Jas. i. 1 5)] I know not [ = do not actually accomplish delibe-
rately'] ; for not what I will [= deliberately love] that do I
practise [= actually accomplish], but what I hate [deliberately]
that I do [actually]. But if what I do not will [deliberately],
that I do [actually], I consent [deliberately agree] with the
law that it is good. So now it is no more I that work it out
[actually accomplish what is actually accomplished], but [the
principle of] sin that dwelleth in me [that is, in my flesh].
For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good
thing [=no principle of righteousness] ; for to will [ = deliber-
ately love] is present with me [that is, with my spirit (cf. Gal.
v. 17)], but to work out [^actually accomplish] that which is
good is not [present with me, that is, with my spirit (cf. Gal.
v. 17)]. For not the good which I will [deliberately by means
of the spirit] I do [actually by means of the flesh], but the
evil which I do not will [deliberately by means of the spirit]
that I practise [^actually accomplish by means of the flesh].
But if what I do not will [deliberately], that I do [actually], it
is no more I [that is, my spirit] that work it out [ = actually
accomplish what is actually accomplished], but [the principle
of] sin that dwelleth in me [that is, in my flesh]. I find, then,
the law [=the above described, and now again to be repeated,
566 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
regular conflict of impulses which introspection reveals], that to
me, who am [deliberately] willing to do good, evil is present
[and is actually done]. For I am pleased [ = deliberately
agree] with the law of God as regards my inward man [that is,
my spirit (2 Cor. iv. 16), the spirit of my mind (Eph. iv. 23)];
but I see a different law \scil. the principle of sin] in [the
flesh of] my members (or body), warring against the law \scil.
the principle of righteousness] in [the spirit of] my mind, and
bringing me into captivity under [ = slavery to] the law of sin
which is in my members (or body). Wretched man that I
am ! Who shall deliver me out of this body of death [and
bring me into captivity under, or slavery to, that spirit of life] ?
I thank God [who shall, and is doing it], through Jesus Christ
our Lord. So, then [to put the whole matter in a nut-shell], I,
myself, whilst as regards [the spirit of] my mind I am enslaved
to the law of God, yet as regards the flesh [of my body I am
enslaved] to the law of sin."
The meaning of these verses has been the subject of more
difference of opinion than that of perhaps any other part of
the epistle, if we except the section v. 12-21. The main
point in debate as to whether the person of whom the apostle
speaks is to be regarded as in a regenerate or unregenerate
condition whether he is a person who is still under the law
with its curse, or a person who has been freed from the law,
and is under grace. If we can answer this question in a way
which shall be satisfactory to all reasonable men, we shall have
earned the lasting gratitude of a wearied public, and of future
generations, by putting an end to a controversy that has been
in existence since the days of Augustine, and that does not
appear, at the present moment, to be one whit nearer a final
issue than when it first commenced. The solution which I
am about to propose, if it has no other merit, will at least
possess the merit of simplicity, so that the reader need have
no fear of being troubled with any subtleties.
I assert, then, that the person spoken of in the verses
just quoted, like the persons spoken of throughout the whole
of chaps, vi. vii. and viii., is a person neither regenerate nor
unregenerate, but partly regenerate and partly unregenerate
a person, that is to say, in process of regeneration. But this
XII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 567
reminds us that the word regeneration requires to be denned ;
for in this, as in almost all other cases, the inappositeness and
ambiguity of the terms employed, lie at the root of the whole
controversy. " By a consent almost universal," according to
Dr. Charles Hodge, " the word regeneration is now used to
designate, not the whole work of sanctification, nor the first
stages of that work comprehended in conversion, much less
justification, or any mere external change of state, but the
instantaneous change from spiritual death to spiritual life." It
does not follow, however, that the usage is either Scriptural or
scientific, or that we can adopt it without rendering the simple
and accurate interpretation of the New Testament writings
almost, if not altogether impossible. When Dr. Hodge, and
those who concur with him, define regeneration as " the
instantaneous change from spiritual death to spiritual life,"
undergone by the person regenerated, they take it for granted,
that persons are usually changed from spiritual death to
spiritual life in an instant, whereas, in point of fact, they are
always so changed in a lifelong process, which reaches
completion only at the death, or perhaps at the resurrection of
the body. The product of the regenerative process is a " new
man," but no man is renewed throughout his whole person in
an instant, except in those rare cases when physical death
supervenes in the instant that regeneration commences. There
is no such thing as translation out of the kingdom of darkness
into the kingdom of God's dear Son in an instant at least in
ordinary cases. There is always, down to the last moment of
life on earth, a part of the person of every believer " the old
man which waxeth corrupt after the lusts of deceit " (Eph. iv.
22) in the kingdom of darkness, "dead in trespasses and
sins" (ii. 1), and therefore certainly not "changed from spiritual
death to spiritual life." You will say, This is a mere matter
of terminology. True ; but matters of terminology are of
great consequence, if controversies are to be put an end to.
We are seeking to interpret the New Testament, where the
word regeneration, or something equivalent to it, is of constant
recurrence. If we choose to adopt the same terms with the
New Testament writers in speaking of the same subjects, we
must be careful to use them in the same senses, otherwise we
568 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
shall plunge ourselves into a labyrinth of confusion, from which
extrication will be next to impossible. Now the New Testa-
ment writers use the word regeneration and its equivalents in
the sense of renewal. " In the regeneration when the Son of
Man shall sit on the throne of His glory" (Matt. xix. 28),
means in the renewed world that shall come into complete
existence after the final judgment, when He that sitteth on the
throne shall have made all things new (Rev. xxi. 1-5). The
" washing of regeneration," and the " renewing of the Holy
Ghost" (Tit. iii. 5), do not refer to different processes, but to
one and the same process ; and no one will dare to say, that
the believer is renewed in the whole man after the image of
God in the instant He first believes. It is true that the New
Testament writers often speak of the believer as if his regen-
eration were complete from the first moment of faith ; but then
they use the same form of speech in regard to sanctifi cation,
which is confessedly incomplete. When the believer's regenera-
tion is spoken of as complete, this is because his personality is
for the time being identified with the so-called " new man "
within him, with respect to which the process is actually
complete. That this, however, is a mere mode of representa-
tion, is evident from the fact that the believer's personality can,
in the same way, be identified with the so-called " old man "
without him, with respect to which his regeneration is still
entirely in the future. Both these modes of representation
are found in the passage cited above ; the one when the
apostle says, that " in me that is in my flesh, there dwelleth
no good thing ; " the other when he says, " / delight in the
law of God as regards my inward man." But when theolo-
gians define regeneration, they define it with reference, neither
to the old man, nor to the new, but to both combined, or to
the whole person of the believer ; and in this reference, the
change is not instantaneous, but extends from the first moment
of faith to the dissolution of the body, a period which cor-
responds to the period of gestation, or perhaps we should
rather say of parturition, in the analogous case of natural
birth (Rom. viii. 22, 23 ; Gal. iv. 19).
Exactly the same remarks that apply to regeneration apply
with equal force to the believer's relation to the law and to
XII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 569
grace respectively. The popular notion is that the believer,
during his earthly life, must be either under the law, that is,
under the curse of the law, or else under grace, and free from
the curse of the law. In point of fact, the believer is neither
under the curse of the law exclusively, and not under grace at
all, nor is he under grace exclusively, and not under the curse
of the law at all, but he is partly under the curse of the law
and partly under grace, that is, he is in process of being trans-
lated from under the curse of the law to under grace. As
regards the " new man " with which his personality is fre-
quently identified, the believer is under grace, and not under
the curse of the law. As regards the "old man" with which
his personality is also sometimes identified, the believer is
under the curse of the law, and not under grace.
So much having been said by way of clearing the ground, I
hold it to be perfectly manifest, that the conflict described in
Horn. vii. 14-25 between the apostle's "flesh" or outward
man and his " mind " or " inward man " is just the well-known
conflict between the flesh and the spirit, the old man and the
new, in the person of each believer a conflict that commences
in the first moment of faith, and that can come to an end only
when the flesh has been " brought to nought," arid the spirit
is left to reign alone. The parallelism between our passage
and the following passage of Galatians is so exact that it is
impossible on any rational ground to doubt that they both
refer to the same thing. " But I say, walk by the spirit, and
ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth
against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh ; for these
are contrary the one to the other, that ye may not do
[actually] the things that ye will [deliberately]. But if ye
are led by the spirit, ye are not under the law" (v. 16-18).
There is no question that here, at anyrate, the apostle is
describing the experience of the believer, and that the conflict
to which he refers continues more or less as long as the flesh
continues to exist. That which lusts on the one side is the
principle of sin inherent in the flesh, which tends to reign in
the members (Rom. vi. 12), and so to reduce the whole man
into slavery to itself. That which lusts on the other side is
the principle of righteousness inherent in the spirit, which
570 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
likewise tends to reign in the members (v. 13), and so to
reduce the whole man into slavery to itself. How then can it
be believed that the apostle is describing anything else in the
parallel passage of Romans? Even if we suppose that the
conflict referred to in Romans vii. commences before faith in
Christ, still it cannot be limited to the pre-Christian period of
the believer's life, since the flesh indisputably continues to lust
and war against the inward man after that period. But there
are the gravest objections to holding that the conflict is not
limited to the post-Christian period of the believer's life.
For one thing, the passage, so interpreted, would be without
the trace of a parallel in any other part of the apostle's writ-
ings, whereas it is easy to produce parallels to the language
used, if it be understood to describe the experience of believers
in Christ, including that of the apostle himself. The follow-
ing is especially interesting : "Know ye not that they which
run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize. Even so
run, that ye may obtain. And every man that striveth in the
games is temperate in all things. Now they do it to receive
a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible. I therefore so
run, not as uncertainly ; so fight I not as one that beateth the
air ; but / buffet my body and bring it into slavery [to my
spirit], lest by any means, after I have preached to others, I
myself should be rejected" (1 Cor. ix. 24-27; cf. Phil. iii.
8-14 ; 2 Tim. iv. 7, 8, &c.). Again, not only is there no
historical foundation for the idea of such a pitched battle
between the apostle's " flesh " and his " inward man " (suppos-
ing him to have had an inward man distinct from his "flesh")
before he exercised faith in Christ, but the apostle himself, in
the immediate context, expressly denies the existence of any
such thing. He says that " apart from the law sin is dead
[= in a state of dormancy and inactivity]; and I was alive
apart from the law once ; but when the commandment came,
sin revived and I died " (vv. 8, 9). It is quite impossible to
assign any period for the coming of the commandment, except
just the period when he was struck down on his way to
Damascus, when Christ was revealed in him, and when the
Spirit of God began to operate in his soul. The contrast
between what the apostle "was once" and what he "does
XII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 571
now," in the passage before us, is evidently the very same as
we find in Phil, iii., where, after recounting his many natural
advantages, he goes on to say, " But what things were gain to
me, these have I counted loss for Christ ; yea, verily, and I
count all things to be loss," &c. ; and in this latter passage it
is admitted that the point of transition is that of the apostle's
conversion. Unless we are to give rein to the purest fancy,
we must be content to accept the indications of history, and
the hints scattered throughout his own writings, as evidence
that the apostle's experience was continuous and homogeneous
up to that point, and that from that point onward it was
completely changed. Now, both these things are absolutely
opposed to the view that in our present text the apostle is
speaking of the natural man. The first is, for if the apostle's
pre-Christian experience was continuous and homogeneous up
to the point of his conversion, then the principle of sin in the
flesh must have been dead, dormant, or inactive up to that
point, which implies that it cannot have been warring against
the inward man. And the second is, for if the apostle's
experience was completely changed from the point of his con-
version onwards, he could not have experienced a conflict
between his flesh and his inward man before his conversion
that could be described in language than which nothing could
more exactly describe the conflict between his flesh and his
inward man that he experienced after his conversion.
Once more, the whole connection of thought, from the open-
ing of chap. vi. to the close of chap, viii., appears to me to be
directly at variance with the notion that in the verses before
us the apostle is describing the experience of a natural man.
For the points raised successively at chap. vi. 1, at chap. vi. 15,
and at chap. vii. 7, all bear on the experience of a man who is
in process of being saved by grace the first on how he cannot
continue in sin that the grace by which he is being saved may
abound, the second on why he cannot commit sin when he is no-
longer under the law as a condemning power, but under grace as
a saving power, and the third on how the law is not itself sinful,
though it bears only a negative relation to the experience of a
man who is being saved by grace. Chap, vii., in particular,
is occupied throughout in discussing the relation and function
572 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
of the law towards the believer's natural humanity. I say the
believer s natural humanity. For I take it to be quite certain,
that Paul never so much as dreamt that the law was meant
to discharge the peculiar function which he here assigns to it,
till, on being assured of Christ's resurrection, he perceived that
true righteousness was absolutely unattainable in the line along
which he had hitherto been seeking to reach it viz., through
obedience to the letter of the law in his natural state ; and that
it could be attained only, on the one hand, through the death
and destruction of his natural humanity, on the other hand,
through his resurrection in a new, Divine, Christ-derived
humanity. I admit, indeed, that the apostle, in viewing his
subject from the ideal rather than from the actual standpoint,
so as to make his argument more trenchant and forcible, and
in universalising his special experiences at and after his con-
version, so as to construct on their basis a general philosophy
of religion, sometimes represents the function of the law toward
the believer's natural humanity as having been completely dis-
charged at the moment when he became a believer. And this
might possibly suggest to the incautious reader, that he is
speaking of the function of the law toward natural humanity
considered in and by itself. But to suppose any such thing
would be a very serious mistake. The apostle has nothing
whatever to do, throughout these middle chapters of the epistle,
with the function of the law toward natural humanity in and by
itself, but only with its function toward the natural humanity
of the believer the man who is being saved by the method
of grace the man whose experience runs parallel to
that of the apostle himself after Christ appeared to him, and
his knowledge of what true religion was commenced. In no
other case could the apostle have referred to his own experi-
ence at all ; for, before his conversion, he had entertained quite
a different view of the law (i.e., of Judaism, as Judaism was in
the apostolic age), from that which he here expresses a view
identical with that of his Pharisaic brethren and Judaising
opponents. Natural humanity in and by itself must go to per-
dition if it so chooses, and the apostle cannot help it ; though
he does not say as much in these chapters, he does not touch
on the question as to its relation to the law or to anything
XII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 573
else. The question before him relates exclusively to the func-
tion of the law in the experience of a man who has become the
subject of Divine redeeming grace, having emerged at the
opening of chap. vi. in the form of an objection to the plan of
salvation through grace and faith unfolded in the first five
chapters of the epistle. The point raised at chap. vii. 7, not
less than the points raised at chap. vi. 1, and vi. 15, is an
objection which an opponent would be ready to urge against
the apostle's plan of salvation through grace and faith, and the
whole paragraph (7-25), which is quite continuous, is intended
to bear directly on the proposed objection. When, therefore,
it is said that the apostle, in vv. 14-25, is describing a conflict
between the " flesh " and the "mind " of the merely natural
man, in which the inind is necessarily the unsuccessful party,
for that is what is held, we are compelled to ask in amaze-
ment, what in the world has that to do with the apostle's plan
of salvation through grace and faith, or with the questions raised
and discussed from chap. vi. onwards ? The supposed conflict
will presumably go on to all eternity in the experience of the
impenitent without bringing them into any connection with the
Christian plan of salvation ; it can, therefore, have no bearing
whatever on the matter with which the apostle is dealing. If
that which the passage describes be the experience of a merely
natural man, and not that of a man in process of renewal, then
it is wholly out of place in the connection in which it stands,
and ought rather to have come in somewhere about chap. ii.
It has no perceptible connection with the context either pre-
ceding or following, for as soon as we enter chap. viii. we find
ourselves moving in exactly the same circle of ideas that sur-
rounded us in chap. vi. Indeed, it maybe observed that what
is contained in the two opening paragraphs of chap. viii. is
nothing else than a resumption and restatement, in language
but slightly varied, of the positions which were already laid
down in the two opening paragraphs of chap. vi. ; the parallel-
ism extends even to the breaking up of the thought into para-
graphs, which renders it all the more noteworthy and remark-
able. In chap. vii. the apostle allows himself to fall into what
is, to some extent, a digression, in order to discuss the bearing
of his main thesis (the answer to the objection raised at vi. 1)
574 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
on the nature and purpose of the law and the believer's rela-
tion to it, a subject which cropped up at vi. 14. When he
has removed any objections that might have been raised upon
that score, he returns to his main thesis, reasserts and enforces
it still further, and so gradually passes to bring to a point his
whole discussion on the plan of salvation.
On the other hand, the objections usually taken to the view
I have espoused are, to my mind, utterly insignificant, and
almost unworthy of notice, when weighed against the over-
whelming considerations in its favour. It is said, for example,
that the transition from chap. vii. to chap viii., is like passing
from storm and tempest into sunshine and calm, and that the
two sections cannot possibly refer to one and the same indivi-
dual, in the same stage of spiritual development. But this
objection is completely nullified by pointing out, what is
obvious alike from the nature of the case, and from the
context, that it is merely the point of view that is changed,
and not the state of the case. In giving a complete account
of the believer's experience, we may contemplate and represent
him either as he ought to be, that is, in his ideal state, which
the believer, while on earth, never reaches, though he may
sometimes approach it more or less closely ; or we may con-
template and represent him as he actually at least as he
often actually is, that is, in his actual state, which, though
it varies considerably in different individuals, and at different
stages of spiritual, and even of natural development, may yet
be depicted in its main outlines by the help of a typical
example. Now, throughout almost the whole of these three
chapters, the apostle is constantly passing from the actual to
the ideal, and again from the ideal back to the actual stand-
point. Even in the opening paragraph of chap, vi., where the
exigencies of his argument require him to keep as much as
possible to the ideal, he cannot refrain from slipping into the
actual, and so betraying to the reader that his leading point of
view is an ideal, and not an actual one. He speaks of the
believer's completed resurrection to life as still in the future
(v. 5). He uses language which, though plainly implying that
the new resurrection-life and the reign of righteousness have
already begun (vv. 2, 4), is yet of a hypothetical character (/a
XII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 575
v. 4>, TTUTTevojuev on, v. 8), implying that the sway of righteous-
ness and of life through righteousness has not yet become
absolute. Especially should the form of v. 11 be noted, as con-
veying the idea that the believer is dead and alive again only
in principle, not to the full or absolute extent. He is exhorted
to reckon himself dead and alive again, that is, to identify
himself with the new man, as regards which the two processes
or the two sides of the one process have been already completed.
And when we pass to the following paragraph, and to chap, vii.,
it becomes as clear as anything can be, that the double process
of dying to sin and rising again to righteousness is only in
progress, not completed, and that the reign of righteousness,
limited and counteracted by the opposing reign of sin, is only
incipient and partial, not final, absolute, or universal. Some-
times the transition from the ideal to the actual standpoint
occurs in the middle of a verse : e.g., "For as ye presented
your members as slaves to un cleanness and to iniquity unto
iniquity, even so now present (not ye present as it would be if the
ideal standpoint occupied in the protasis, and in the verses preced-
ing, were still maintained) your members as slaves to righteous-
ness unto holiness " (vi. 19). Now it is obviously just one of
those rapid transitions from the actual to the ideal that we have
at the opening of chap. viii. This, which is abundantly clear
of itself, is rendered superabundantly so, by the fact that the
apostle again returns to the actual standpoint in v. 12, where
he says merely that the believer ought not any longer to live
according to the flesh, and not as in v. 4, that he does not any
longer live according to the flesh. Just so he had said at
vi. 1 2, " Let not sin reign in your mortal body, that ye should
obey the lusts thereof," instead of saying as at v. 2, "we who
died to sin, how shall we live any longer therein ? "
But, again, it is objected that if the latter half of chap. vii.
be regarded as furnishing a picture, not of the unbeliever's,
but of the believer's experience, then it is greatly overdrawn ;
the true believer never or almost never experiences any such
violent conflict between opposing impulses as is here so vividly
set forth. To this it might be sufficient to reply, that if there
be doubt as to whether the believer is ever conscious of a
warfare so hot between his flesh and his inner man, there is
576 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
much more doubt as to whether the unbeliever ever is so.
Unless I am greatly mistaken, it will be difficult enough for
any one to find even the semblance of Scripture authority for
attributing a sustained struggle of the kind described to the
merely natural man. I know of nothing beyond the very
guarded and hypothetical language of Rom. ii. 14, 15, that
has so much as the appearance of pointing in the direction of
such a thing. And it must be remembered that conviction of
sin was far less likely to take place in the apostolic age than
now, for then the moral law was completely overshadowed by
the ceremonial, no distinction having yet been taken between
the two. What evidence is there to show that any other non-
Christian Pharisee ever had such an experience ? In fact, this
whole view of the passage appears to originate through carrying
modern experiences and ideas back into the apostolic age.
On the other hand, the apostle undoubtedly uses language
with reference to the inner conflict of the believer quite as
strong as that of our text in, e.g., Gal. v. 17 ; 1 Cor, ix. 27,
&c., and if the language be too strong in the one passage, it
must be too strong in the others as well. However, there is
no need to suppose that the believer is perpetually in the
throes of the struggle described in Rom. vii. 14-25. The
apostle never meant that what he says should be understood
in so sweeping a sense. Temptation is a thing that comes
intermittently, not a thing that abides constantly. It was so
in the experience of Christ as we know (Luke iv. 13), and it
is so in the experience of every believer. And that the
apostle never meant to assert anything else, is plain from the
fact that he passes over in chap. viii. to describe the ideal
state of victory and triumph, which is also experienced by
the believer in his measure, more particularly in periods of
high spiritual strength and enjoyment, and of exemption from
strong temptation. It is not even necessary to assume that
the state of inner conflict with the principle of sin is the
believer's normal state while on earth, or that it is anything
more than an occasional thing, and confined chiefly to the earlier
stages of Christian experience, though this last idea is, to say
the least, not supported by anything in the writings of Paul.
(See on the contrary, 2 Tim. iv. 7; Phil. iii. 12-14, &c.)
XII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 577
When, however, some writers, principally old men, go on to
say that the believer never, or almost never, experiences such
an inner conflict, this only shows what is confirmed by every-
day observation how impossible it is for people who have
been married for any length of time to throw themselves back,
even in imagination, into the position which they occupied
previous to that happy event, and realise the feelings that then
" stirred this mortal frame," and the temptations with which
they had then to contend ; how surpassing difficult, nay, how
impossible it is for people of a cold and phlegmatic tempera-
ment to have any idea of the surging waves of passion that
swayed betimes the spirit of a man so profoundly susceptible
as the Apostle Paul.
There is another objection which is perhaps more frequently
and more persistently urged than either of those I have just
noticed, but which I must regard as particularly weak and
frivolous. It is that whereas the inward man of the believer
is usually elsewhere spoken of as his spirit (Trvev/uid), the
inward man of the person referred to in these verses is twice
spoken of as his mind (vov$), which word, it is thought, might
be used to designate the inward man of an unbelieving, but
not that of a believing man. But, in the first place, though
it be true that the natural man has a " mind," it is not true
that the spiritual man has not a " mind," nor in consequence
can it be inferred that the word " mind," might not be used
just as readily to describe the inward man of a believer, as to
describe that of an unbeliever. In fact, it is easy to produce
passages where this word, or one derived from, and as nearly
as possible identical with it, is used to describe the believer's
inward man in contradistinction to his flesh. For example, in
a remarkable passage of 1 Cor., where the apostle is expressly
contrasting the natural with the spiritual man in respect to
the mental part of their constitutions, he says first, " But we
received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of
God, that we might know the things that are freely given to
us by God," and then adds, a little further on, evidently as
an alternative, " But we have the mind (vovv} of Christ "
(ii. 12, 16). Again, in 1 Pet. iv. 1, 2, it is said, " Foras-
much, then, as Christ suffered in the flesh, arm ye yourselves
2p
578 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
also with the same mind (ewoiav) ; for he that hath suffered
in the flesh, hath ceased from sin ; that ye DO longer should
live the rest of your time in the flesh to the lusts of natural
humanity [which are armed for war against the mind of
Christ in you (Eph. vi. 11, seq. ; Rom. vii. 23)], but to the
will of God [=to the lusts of renewed humanity, which are
armed for war against the lusts of the flesh (Eph. vi. 11, seq. ;
Gal. v. 17)]." I could produce more passages to the same
effect, but any reader will find them in the concordance, and
these are quite sufficient for my purpose, which is to show that
the Apostle Paul might readily enough have used the word
" mind," with reference to the spirit in contradistinction to the
flesh of a believing man. Further, the word " mind " is not the
only word which the apostle uses in the passage before us to
designate that part of the person which is opposed to the flesh.
To denote the outward man, the apostle uses, besides the
"flesh," the "body," and the "members," and these are just
the terms which we find in chap, vi., where the antithesis is
indisputably between the flesh and the spirit, in the person
of the believer. Does not this of itself create a strong proba-
bility, that the antithesis in chap. vii. is identical with that
in chap. vi. ? But the probability thus created rises almost
to certainty, when we observe that in chap. vii. itself, the
"mind" is alternated with the "inward man" (6 ecrft>
aiftpWTTO?). For there is no evidence elsewhere in the New
Testament that the apostle could have applied such a designa-
tion to any part of the person of an unbeliever, much less that
he could have contrasted this part of an unbeliever's person
with another opposite part which might be called the flesh.
I hope to show presently, from the meaning of that and
similar expressions, that he could not have so applied it.
What I wish to insist upon now is, that no one has yet pro-
duced any evidence that he could or did. On the other hand,
we have the most explicit evidence that this expression could
be applied, as it elsewhere actually is applied by the apostle,
to that part of the person of a believer which is the antithesis
of the flesh. " Wherefore we faint not;' but though our out-
ward man is perishing, yet our inward man is renewed day
by day" (2 Cor. iv. 16). "For this cause I bow my knees
XII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 579
unto the Father, from whom the whole family in heaven and
on earth is named, that He would grant you according to the
riches of His glory, that ye may be strengthened with power
by His Spirit as to the inward man, that Christ may dwell
in your hearts by faith," &c. (Eph. iii. 14-17). Texts like
these would almost suffice, apart from other considerations, to
convince one that the " mind " or the "inward man" in con-
trast to the " flesh " refers, not to a part of the person of the
unbeliever, but to the renewed part of the person of the
believer.
Still, we are challenged to say why the apostle used the
word " mind " at all, and not rather the word " spirit," to
which he recurs in chap. viii. Is it so clear, however, that we
ate bound to assign any reason beyond the fact that the
apostle chose so to express himself ? The same question might
be put with reference, for example, to " mind " in 1 Pet. iv. 1 ,
as against " spirit " in v. 6 following, where, however, no one
thinks of asserting that the word "mind" is not a suitable
word for expressing the writer's meaning, nor of inquiring why
he used that particular word and not the other. Those who
press questions so finely drawn in regard to the two occurrences
of " mind " in the close of Rom. vii. really need to be re-
minded that it was the apostle who wrote the letter, not either
I or they, and that he had a right to vary his phraseology
within certain limits as he saw fit, and to use any suitable
word that came to hand. However, I think I shall be able to
adduce a reason for the apostle's repeated use of the word
" mind " in preference to " spirit " throughout the latter half
of Rom. vii. that will give satisfaction to all readers of ordi-
nary candour. We have seen that the difference between
chap. vii. and chap. viii. is that whereas in the former the
inward man of the believer is represented as in a state of
violent conflict with the principle of sin in the flesh so
violent that he is often worsted and overborne, so far as action
is concerned ; in the latter the inward man of the believer is
represented as in the ideal state of victory and triumph, when,
for the time at least, the members are presented as the willing
instruments of righteousness. Now, at the opening of our
passage, the apostle says, " I am fleshly, sold as a slave under
580
PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY.
[Chap.
sin ; for that which I work out I know not " words which
might be paraphrased by saying, " What I actually do is done
in obedience to the blind impulses of fleshly passion, which
uses me as its slave, not in obedience to the rational impulses
which calm reflection, were that possible, would suggest."
That is to say, the reflective faculty, in so far as it is allowed
to operate, is thought of as operating mainly on the side of
the spirit ; the ideas which it brings into consciousness create
impulses that for the most part make for righteousness;
whereas the flesh is thought of as impelling the individual to
action almost instinctively, or, at anyrate, with a comparatively
small amount of aid from the reflective faculty. It is with the
free operation of the reflective faculty when the spirit contends
with the flesh, as it was with the holding up of Moses' hands
when Israel fought with Amalek ; when calm reflection pre-
dominates, the principle of righteousness in the spirit prevails ;
when calm reflection is rendered impossible by the pressure of
the blind, instinctive, automatic, animal impulses of unrenewed
nature, the principle of sin in the flesh prevails. The same
idea runs through the whole of the verses that follow. And
there is no doubt that it is perfectly true to experience.
When the natural faculties are in their highest state of
vitality, the spontaneous energy incident to them becomes of
itself a source of strong temptation, which all the opposite
impulses that the exercise of reason can call into existence are
often inadequate wholly to suppress or overcome. Who has
not felt, in the face of strong temptations, that the hope of
victory lay almost entirely in the motives or determining
influences that reflection could bring to bear on the course of
action ? It is the faculty of reflection that alone distinguishes
man from the brutes in such matters. Did he not possess it
he would be quite as much the creature of blind, irrational
impulses as they. His actions would, in fact, be determined
in precisely the same manner as theirs. Now, it is just this
faculty of reflection that is expressed by the Greek word vov$,
and translated somewhat vaguely, though not inaptly, by the
English " mind." What could be more natural, therefore,
than that the apostle, in discussing the origin, the limits, and
the issues of temptation, should designate the sum of the
XII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 581
rational impulses as opposed to the blind impulses of the sin
in the flesh by the name of the faculty to whose operation
they owe their immediate existence? Yet it is only when
there is a well-marked conflict of impulses that the reflective
faculty is called into special requisition, or that it becomes
conscious of itself as a source of impulses on one side or the
other. When the ideal state has been reached, when good is
so completely triumphant that it has driven its antagonist off
the field, and the principle of righteousness that before was
checked or even defeated by the principle of sin is now per-
mitted to reign alone and unopposed, then the spiritual man
obeys the law at the irreflective impulse of his spirit, just as
the fleshly man disobeys the law at the irreflective impulse of
his flesh. In other words, the better a man's character be-
comes, the more spontaneous and unconscious does his obedi-
ence to the law become. This, again, is an indisputable fact
of experience. And as the former point explained how the
apostle used the word " mind " in preference to " spirit" in the
closing paragraph of chap, vii., so the present point explains
how he uses the word " spirit " in preference to " mind " in the
opening paragraph of chap. viii. The change in the term
employed corresponds to the transition from the actual to the
ideal, from the state of conflict and defeat consequent on the
predominating power of the flesh to the state of victory and
triumph consequent on the predominating power of the spirit.
These remarks would be amply sufficient to justify the
interpretation we have put on the passage under consideration ,
but there are still one or two things that require to be said
before everything is made perfectly clear. For one, we must
define somewhat more exactly the relation of the "mind" (yovs)
to the " flesh " (<rap) and the " spirit " (Tn/ev/ua) respectively,
and this again will lead us to state explicitly and to justify
the meanings we have hitherto put upon these latter terms as
they are used more especially by the Apostle Paul. Let not
the reader suppose that I have the remotest intention of
plunging him and myself into the mazes of what is known as
" Biblical Psychology." The notion that the Neto Testament
writers were gifted with an " inspired " system of psychology,
or, in other words, that they either do present, or ever meant
582 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
to present, an original reflective analysis of the human mind,
is a little out of date, and need not come into our consideration
here. We may take it for granted that as the Bible writers
used the ordinary popular psychological terms current in their
day, so they used them in the ordinary popular senses.
Both the terms used and the senses attributed to them differed
at different periods of history, so that we have in the Bible
not one psychological system but several. It is of no conse-
quence, however, to ascertain precisely what these popular
psychological systems are, as they have very little bearing on
the Gospel of the grace of God, which the Bible writers were
specially commissioned to teach. The only distinction of
prime importance for understanding the plan of salvation
embodied in the New Testament writings is the distinction
between " the flesh " and " the spirit," the old man and the
new, and that distinction, as will be proved immediately, is
not, properly speaking, a psychological, but rather a physico-
moral distinction. There is, however, one properly psycholo-
gical term "the mind" (yov$) whose relation to "the flesh"
on the one hand and " the spirit " on the other will have to
be here distinctly defined, and for this purpose it will be
necessary to state in a single paragraph the most fundamental
distinctions of modern analytic psychology.
The best modern analysis at least, what I consider the
best divides the mental phenomena into two classes, thoughts
and feelings. Of these, the latter are the more fundamental,
and, as some would say, the more original. Feelings furnish
the materials or substrata of thoughts ; thoughts are the
cognitions or consciousnesses of the relations that subsist
between feelings. An old, deeply-rooted, but not I hope
ineradicable idea is that there exists a faculty of the human
mind which may be called the will. There is no such faculty.
There is a faculty of thought in the human mind which is
called intellect There is a capacity of feeling in the human
mind which may be called sensitivity. There is no faculty
or capacity in the human mind distinct from these ; all mental
phenomena are the product of one or other of the two. In
particular, willingnesses, like desires, are simply states of
feeling that precede and tend to give rise to specific actions,
XII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 583
to which they are always relative. There is no special capacity
of willing, any more than there is a special capacity of desiring,
distinct from the general capacity of feeling. Action (strictly
so-called) is not a phenomenon of mind but of body. Between
action and the feeling or plexus of feelings the subjective
motives, or desires, or wishes (volitions), or wills (OeX^ara),
or pleasures (voluntates) that precede it there is nothing,
absolutely nothing. Thought may watch over the conflict of
impulses. Observation and reflection may alter the balance,
by bringing new ideas, and with them new feelings, desires,
wishes, wills, pleasures, or impulses, into consciousness. But
THE WILL there is no such thing.
This being premised, the Greek word vov<s corresponds very
exactly to the intellect, the faculty of thought or intelligence
(1 Cor. xiv. passim). Now thought in itself that is, the
act of thought as distinguished from the objects of thought
is morally colourless. A thought may be either correct or
erroneous, true or false ; it cannot be either right or wrong,
good or bad ; it has and can have no moral quality whatever.
When we speak of pure thoughts and impure thoughts, holy
thoughts and unholy thoughts, we mean, not that the acts of
the intellectual faculty are characterised by such or such moral
qualities, but that the objects which the intellectual faculty
compares together so as to identify or discriminate them from
one another are objects which it is proper or improper, right
or wrong, to think of. A man may have an indifferent or bad
intelligence : he is not on that account a wicked or immoral
man. In fact, many upright and pious men are unspeakably
stupid, and every one knows that it is beyond the bounds of
possibility to make them anything else. Even when men in
their natural state are taxed with the darkness of their under-
standings, with their blindness, ignorance, and hardness of
heart, as with something morally culpable, the meaning is
not that their intellectual faculty is at fault, but that their
faculty of moral perception or feeling is disorganised, cor-
rupted, polluted, destroyed. This comes out clearly in the
following passage of Ephesians, which is otherwise peculiarly
instructive for our present purpose : " This I say, therefore,
and testify in the Lord, that ye no longer walk as the Gentiles
584 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
also walk in the vanity of their mind (cv /maraior^Ti TOV
I/GO?, cf. "became vain in their thoughts, and their senseless
heart was darkened," Rom. i. 21), being darkened in their
understanding, estranged from the life of God, because of the
ignorance that is in them, because of the hardening of their
heart, who being past feeling [moral] pain gave themselves
up to lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness
\cf. " Wherefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts
unto uncleanness . . . and even as they did not approve to
have God in their knowledge, God gave them up unto a
reprobate mind (vow) to do those things which are improper,
being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greediness,
maliciousness," &c. (Rom. i. 24, 28, 29)] ; but ye did not so
learn Christ, if so be that ye heard Him, and were taught in
Him, even as [moral] truth is in Jesus, that ye put away
concerning your former manner of life the old man, which
waxeth corrupt after the lusts of deceit, and that ye be
renewed in the spirit of your mind (TO> Trvevjmari TOV ^009),
and put on the new man, which after God hath been created
in righteousness and holiness of [moral] truth" (iv. 17-24).
It appears from these verses, that what has to be got rid of in
the process of renewal, is riot the thinking faculty, nor any of
its laws, but the lusts or immoral feelings characteristic of the
flesh, together with the actions to which these immoral feelings
tend to give rise; and that what has to be substituted is not
a new thinking faculty with different laws, but the lusts or
moral feelings characteristic of the spirit, together with the
actions to which these moral feelings tend to give rise. The
lusts of the flesh, and the actions to which they are relative
(when -the latter have been received into the mind in the form
of sensations) are the objects of (vain, deceitful, or improper)
thought to the unrenewed man not the acts of his thinking
faculty; and in like manner the lusts of the spirit, and the
actions to which they are relative (when the latter have been
received into the mind in the form of sensations) are the
objects of (morally truthful, or proper) thought to the renewed
man not the acts of his thinking faculty. The thinking
faculty is exactly the same in the renewed that it is in the
unrenewed man only, the practical objects with which it is
XII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 585
occupied are different. When the " mind " is said to be
renewed (Rom. xii. 2), it is not really the thinking faculty
that is reorganised, so that the renewed man thinks upon
different laws from the unrenewed man, but rather it is the
capacity of moral feeling, and therewith of willing or desiring,
which resides in " the spirit of the mind," that is recon-
stituted, so that what was not previously felt to be right and
wrong is now felt to be right and wrong, and what was not
previously done and avoided as right and wrong is now done
and avoided as right and wrong. This, however, will require
a little explanation.
When the apostle says, in the passage just quoted, that the
Gentiles are darkened in their understanding and estranged
from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them,
it is clear from the whole context that the ignorance to which
he refers is ignorance of moral truth of what is righteous and
what is unrighteous. And this ignorance is traced to the har-
dening of their heart, to their being destitute of moral feeling
that is, of the capacity for pleasure in well-doing and pain
in ill-doing which is explained by the fact that " the spirit
of their mind " is unrenewed.
By " the spirit " of the mind is evidently meant the natural
human spirit, which forms, together with the flesh proper and
the mind, the sum total of unrenewed humanity. That there
is a natural human spirit destined to survive the death of the
body is implied everywhere throughout the New Testament,
and more especially in such passages as the following : " For
who among men knoweth the things of a man save the spirit
of the man which is in him ? Even so the things of God none
knoweth save the Spirit of God" (1 Cor. ii. 11). "For I
verily, being absent in body but present in spirit, have already,
as though I were present, judged him that hath so wrought
this thing, in the name of our Lord Jesus, ye being gathered
together and my spirit, with the power of the Lord Jesus, to
deliver such a one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh
that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus "
(v. 3-5). " She that is unmarried is careful for the things of
the Lord that she may be holy both in body and in spirit "
(vii. 34). " Having, therefore, these promises, let us cleanse
586 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
ourselves from all defilement of the flesh and spirit, perfecting
holiness in the fear of God " (2 Cor. vii, 1). "As the body
apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is
dead" (Jas. ii. 26). The Spirit itself beareth witness with
our spirit that we are children of God" (Rom. viii. 16)."* In
these passages, and in others like them, the antithesis lies
between what I have called the flesh proper or the body, and
the natural spirit of man, as between two different physical
substances of the same ethical quality. This, be it observed,
is something quite distinct from the more familiar antithesis
between the flesh and the spirit as between two oppositely
characterised ethical subjects. Several of the texts quoted
clearly imply that the spirit as well as the flesh may be and is
defiled by sin, and this proves conclusively that there is here
no question of an antithesis between flesh and spirit as regards
moral quality. The physical application of the two terms is,
therefore, quite distinct from the ethical, though the two appli-
cations are, of course, very closely connected, the one being
merely an extension of the other. That the physical applica-
tion is the original, and the ethical the derived, may be taken
as self-evident, since it is highly absurd to suppose that the
former, in which " flesh " is alternated with " body," could have
been derived from the latter. But of this more immediately.
Both the flesh and the spirit (the words are now used in
their physical senses) are under sin, but they are not under
* It is unnecessary to waste time in discussing the idea that there is a soul
(^vxn) in human nature distinct from the body and spirit. That the New Testa-
ment writers had no intention of teaching any such thing appears most plainly
from the fact that the spirit (or soul) alone is that which is ever said to survive
death, while the body alone is that which is ever said to be brought to nought in
death. In 1 Cor. xv. 45, seq., the word soul is employed for no other reason than
because it occurs in the Old Testament quotation which lies at the basis of the
author's reasoning ; the meaning put upon it is evidently identical with that
conveyed by the word flesh, when the latter word is used in its pregnant ethical
sense (cf. Jude 19). Such an application of the words soul and soulish was
already in the apostle's thoughts when he penned ii. ] 4, where the verses that
follow (e.g., iii. 1) prove incontestably that soulish (i/'vxt/cis) is used as a synonym
for fleshly (crapKiKds). In 1 Thess. v. 23 (cf. Heb. iv. 12) the language is popu-
lar, liturgical, and highly rhetorical, like that of Luke i. 46 (comp. our own " with
all my heart and soul ") and it is really quite extravagant to set at defiance all the
rest of the New Testament, and build a physical system on an isolated text of such
a character.
XII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 587
sin in exactly the same way, nor can they be freed from
sin in exactly the same way. The flesh is all under sin.
So far as appears it is all equally under sin. And it is
so under sin that it cannot be freed from sin. The flesh, the
body, the members can be sanctified only by being put off
(Col. ii. 11), mortified or put to death (iii. 5), and so brought
to nought (Rom. vi. 6). When believers are exhorted to
" cleanse themselves from all defilement of the flesh and spirit"
so as thereby to perfect holiness in the fear of God (2 Cor.
vii. 1), the nature of the case forbids that the cleansing in
both cases should take place in precisely the same way. A
reference to the preceding context reveals the fact that the
" defilement of the flesh," which the apostle has in view, is
impurity in the technical sense of the word, or something of that
nature (cf. also 1 Cor. vii. 34, cited above) ; and when we turn
to Col. iii. 5, we find that sanctification from sins of impurity
is to be attained, not by expelling the principle of sin from the
flesh (if that were possible, bodily death would no longer be
a necessity), but by mortifying or putting to death " your
members which are upon the earth, fornication, uncleanness,
passion, evil desire," &c. The same thing comes out still more
clearly in the fuller discussion of the same subject which we
have in 1 Cor. vi. 12-20, where the apostle, while admitting
the lawfulness of using meats and marriage in proper circum-
stances, on the ground, as he says elsewhere, that " everything
created by God is good and nothing to be rejected" (1 Tim.
iv. 4), takes care at the same time to state explicitly that God
will bring to nought the bodily organism, together with the
meats and marriage appropriate to it, all these things being
part of the present evil world, the fashion of which passeth
away (1 Cor. vii. 31). The body is the temple of the Holy
Ghost, but only after it has been put to death, virtually if not
completely, and raised again after Christ's example (vi. 14).
The members are the members of Christ, but only through
their mortification, destruction (v. 5), and consequent redemp-
tion from sin (vi. 20 ; Phil. iii. 21), especially from fornication
(Col. iii. 5). Union to Christ takes place in the element of
spirit alone (1 Cor. vi. 17), and, therefore, the members of
the body before they can become the members of Christ must
588 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
pass through death and be spiritualised (v. 14 ; xv. 42-44).
Whether the statements regarding the redemption of the natu-
ral body, and its transformation into a spiritual body are to be
understood as implying anything more than the fact that the
redeemed personality of the believer will be a personality com-
plete in its kind, and not the surviving splinter or half of a
personality once complete, is very hard to say. 45 " In any case
* The problem presented by the statements of the New Testament respecting
the resurrection of the body is attended with difficulties of various kinds which I
cannot profess to be able completely to clear up ; but as it has emerged oftener
than once in the foregoing pages, and as the reader will probably expect that I
should offer an opinion on it, I will here add a remark or two which must be taken
into account by any one who would arrive at a definite conclusion thereanent.
The locus classicus on the subject will be admitted to be 1 Cor. xv. Now, in that
passage, the apostle's reasoning is avowedly based upon two presuppositions, the
one, the fact of Christ's resurrection from the dead (v. 12, &c.), the other, the idea
of a typical relationship between Adam and Christ (v. 45, &c.). As to the latter
when the apostle says, " If there is a natural body there is also a spiritual body"
(v. 44), he appears to rest his belief that the glorified individual, who is conformed
to the image of the Second Adam (v. 49), will have a body as well as a spirit
entirely on the circumstance that the first Adam, whom he regards as a type of
the Second, had a body as well as a spirit ; that is to say, his whole position is made
to turn on the reality of the typical relationship between Adam and Christ, and
on the exactness of the correspondence between the two. But we have already
seen (chap. iv. ) that the idea of a typical relationship between Adam and Christ
is a popular Rabbinical idea from which nothing can be deduced that does not par-
take of its own extremely questionable character. As to the former there can
be little doubt that the appearances of Christ after His death had a very large
share in determining the apostolic conception of a bodily resurrection (cf. Rom.
viii. 11). But those appearances can hardly be thought of by us as other than
purely miraculous or abnormal from the standpoint of the life after death. What-
ever may have been the case with the apostles, we cannot conceive of the material
particles of Christ's body having been transmuted into spirit at His resurrection,
any more than we can conceive of the material particles of our own bodies, which
may, for aught we know, be identical with those of other men's bodies, being trans-
muted into spirit at our resurrection. The disappearance of the material body of
Christ from the grave, and its subsequent reappearance, seemingly with all its
original properties (Luke xxiv. 39-43), must, therefore, be regarded as due not
only to Divine intervention, but to altogether special and extraordinary Divine
intervention. Thus it becomes somewhat of a precarious matter to allow the
appearances of Christ after His death to rule our conception of the state of glori-
fied saints in the life to come. On the other hand, it cannot be denied that Paul
frequently identifies the believer's resurrection with the process of regeneration
(Eph. ii. 5, 6 ; Col. iii. 1, seq., &o. ), which takes effect simply in the renewal of the
spirit through the expulsion of the principle of sin, the body being at the same
time brought to nought, and this might seem to point in the direction of a purely
spiritual resurrection completed in the moment of physical death. The peculiar
XII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 589
we are certain that the body of flesh which now exists will be
destroyed in death, and that the so-called body, which the
believer receives in its stead, will be something physically
different that it will not be " flesh and blood " which " cannot
inherit the kingdom of God," but spirit akin in nature to the
Divine (cf. 1 Pet. iv. 6 ; iii. 18). The death and consequent
destruction of the body of flesh would be an absurdity and an
anachronism if the substance of which it is composed were
sanctified from sin before death. But the whole New Testa-
ment concurs with history and experience in testifying that
such positive sanctification of the body is impossible. When
the body is said to be sanctified, this can be understood only
in a negative sense viz., in the sense that the individual is
sanctified through the mortification and consequent destruction
of his body.
On the other hand and this is the point more immedi-
ately before us the spirit is not and cannot be said to be
sanctified in such a manner. We never read of the spirit
being mortified, crucified, or put to death, and so brought to
nought. Such expressions would be wholly inappropriate and
inapplicable to the case of the spirit. The spirit is defiled by
sin, but it is not equally defiled in all men, nor is it all defiled
in any believer ; perhaps we ought even to go the length of
saying that it is not all defiled in some who are not believers,
though this might not be materially different from saying that
it is not equally defiled in all men (cf. Rom. ii. 14, 15).
Anyhow, it is certain that men are not all equally depraved ;
they are not all born equally depraved, nor anything like it ;
nor do they continue equally depraved after they have become
capable of conscious sin ; nor, again, do those who have once
been deeply depraved necessarily remain for ever deeply de-
praved ; on the contrary, they may be recovered, and become
passage, 2 Cor. v. 1, seq., may not lend distinct support to the same view, but it
cannot, to say the least, be easily harmonised with the idea of a strict bodily
resurrection.
If the good reader is dissatisfied at leaving undetermined a point which he may
possibly esteem as one of very considerable interest, not to say importance, let
him draw comfort from the reflection that a very definite solution will be forth-
coming l>y-and-by.
590 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
less and less depraved : all which things are possible, because
the spirit may be pervaded by sin in different degrees. And
this implies that the principle of sin is not essential to or in-
separable from the spirit of man. Hence the sanctification of
the spirit is not through the mortification and consequent
dissolution of its substance the substance of spirit, as far as
we know, cannot be dissolved but through renewal, which
consists simply in the expulsion of the principle of sin. The
spirit is the image of God in man, which may, to a greater or
less extent, be defiled, deformed, degraded, darkened, rendered
morally ignorant or insensible by being occupied to a greater
or less extent with the principle of sin inseparable from the
flesh ; or again, it may be recovered from under the dominion
of sin, and restored to ideal purity, knowledge, and glory.
This is clearly what is involved in the apostle's words when he
says, "that ye be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put
on the new man, ivhich after God hath been created in right-
eousness and holiness of [moral] truth;" or, as it is otherwise
put in the parallel passage of Colossians, "and have put on the
new man, which is being renewed unto knowledge [of right-
eousness and holiness of truth] after the image of Him that
created him" (i.v. 10). To be "renewed in the spirit of the
mind unto knowledge after the image of God " cannot mean
to have the method of thought altered from a human to a
Divine method, but rather it means to have the capacity of
feeling what is right and wrong altered so as to coincide with
God's capacity of feeling what is right and wrong. The spirit
of the mind perceives fnoral distinctions in the same way that
the palate perceives distinctions of taste, in the same way that
the eye perceives distinctions of colour. The spirit of the
Divine mind, which is absolutely pure, is the supreme standard
of taste in matters of morality. The nearer that the spirit of
a human mind approaches to the Divine in purity, the more
accurate does its perception of moral distinctions become; and,
obversely, the more that the spirit of a human mind is dis-
ordered, corrupted, and polluted by sin, the more darkened
and ignorant of moral distinctions does it become. Beyond
all doubt this is the idea expressed in the extract from
Ephesians quoted above, where the darkness of the Gentiles'
XII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 591
understandings with respect to right and wrong, their ignor-
ance of, and consequent estrangement from, the life of God,
the ideal moral life, is traced to the hardening of their hearts,
to their want of moral feeling a want which is explained by
the circumstance that the spirit of their mind is unrenewed.
And the same idea is expressed with equal clearness in other
passages. Speaking with reference to Jews and Gentiles
alike, the apostle says, " He is not a Jew which is one out-
wardly, neither is that circumcision which is outward in the
flesh, but he is a Jew which is one inwardly, and circumcision
is that of the heart, in the spirit . . . whose praise is not of
men, but of God" (Rom. ii. 28, 29). "A reprobate mind"
(i. 28) is the result of a spirit so utterly polluted and de-
praved as to be bereft of the most elementary moral sensi-
bilities, having no glow of satisfaction in what is good, and,
so far from feeling pain, positively delighting in every form of
evil, as practised both by itself and by others. The expres-
sion does not point to intellectual deficiency, or to properly
mental perversion, but rather to moral or spiritual corruption,
purity of spirit being the necessary condition of accurate moral
perception (Matt. v. 8) ; witness the following unambiguous
deliverance bearing directly on the very point: " To the pure
all things are pure, but to them that are defiled and unbeliev-
ing nothing is pure, but both their mind [ = the spirit of their
mind] and their conscience [= their moral perception, which
is a function of the spirit of their mind (Eph. iv. 23, 24)] are
defiled. They profess that they know God [= perceive and
approve the two things always go together the Supremely
Good], but by their works they deny Him, being abominable
and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate " (Tit. i.
15, 16). To have "a reprobate mind" is the same as to be
" corrupted in mind and bereft of the truth [as to what is
right and wrong], supposing that godliness is a way of gain "
(1 Tim. vi. 5) to be "corrupted in mind, reprobate concern-
ing the faith " (2 Tim. iii. 8) or, as it is otherwise put, to
be "seared in conscience as with a hot iron" (1 Tim. iv. 2).
The last is a figurative turn of expression that can only refer
to the cessation of all moral feeling, and therewith of all con-
sciousness of the distinction between right and wrong; in other
592 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
words, of all knowledge of moral truth. No other explanation
is in accordance with analogy, or, for that matter, yields a
sense that is at all intelligible.
Some of these texts put us very directly in the way of
ascertaining what is the proper Bible view of conscience.
According to what may fairly claim to be the orthodox or
received view the view of which Butler is the recognised
exponent, if not the original author conscience is a purely
intellectual faculty, that does not admit of pollution or deface-
ment once it has been developed, but, like other purely
intellectual faculties, has a character fixed and unchangeable,
and is in itself morally indifferent, albeit it is held to operate
directly as a motive to good action, on the principle of what is
known as "freedom of will." This explains how it comes to
pass that conscience is popularly identified with the Greek
word 1/01)9, or, more strictly, is regarded as a peculiar function
of the i/ous, which is unquestionably a properly intellectual
faculty. On the other hand, according to the Bible view,
conscience may be defined as " the consciousness of a pleasur-
able feeling of approbation attending the commission or con-
templation of good moral actions, and of a painful feeling of
disapprobation attending the commission or contemplation of
bad moral actions, when the moral character is in a healthy
state, the standard of goodness and badness in moral actions,
of health and dishealth in moral character, being the Divine
law, considered as expressing the feelings of approbation and
disapprobation in the Divine moral consciousness, which rests
on the unchangeable character of God." Just so literary style,
pictures, music, culinary dainties are good when they please
people in a healthy mental and physical state, bad when they
give pain to such people. The susceptibility to this feeling of
what is morally right and wrong, resides in the spirit of man,
and constitutes the image of God in him, which is deformed in
proportion as this feeling is lost, conformed in proportion as
this feeling is restored. It is quite clear from 2 Cor. vii. 1,
that all human defilement is defilement either of the flesh or
of the spirit, and that the man who is free from defilement of
the flesh on the one hand, and of the spirit on the other, is
perfectly holy or pure. It is equally clear from 1 Cor. xiv.
XII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 593
14-16, that the "mind" (vovs) of man is to be distinguished
from his " spirit " (Trvev/ma), that while the latter is a sub-
stance open to impressions, whether emanating from the
divine or other spirits, the former is the faculty of intelligence,
strictly so called, which reduces to distinct* consciousness and
order the impressions of the spirit, that would otherwise run
wild like those of the madman (v. 23) or the lower animals.
Obviously such a faculty must, from its very nature, be incap-
able of anything like defilement or purification, and therefore,
when we find all defilement ascribed either to the flesh or to
the spirit, this is only what we might have expected a priwi.
But if the " mind " be incapable of defilement, and if the
spirit alone of the inner nature be capable of defilement, then
we know that when the "mind" is sometimes spoken of as
being corrupted (1 Tim. vi. 5 ; 2 Tim. iii. 8), defiled
(Tit. i. 15), filled with deceit or vanity (Eph. iv. 17), repro-
bate (Rom. i. 28), and at other times as being renewed
(Rom. xii. 2), we know that this is only a loose popular way
of putting the matter, that it is not strictly speaking " the
mind " that is corrupted, &c., and that requires to be renewed,
but " the spirit of the mind," or, in other words, " the mind
as occupied by the spirit " (Eph. iv. 23). We know, also, that
conscience can neither be identified with the "mind," nor
regarded as a peculiar function of the "mind," the "mind"
exercises the very same function in the distinct apprehension
of moral truth, that it exercises in the distinct apprehension
of all other kinds of truth. We know that conscience must
be a function, not of the "mind," but of the "spirit," which
is capable of being defiled and rendered morally insensible,
and again of being purified and rendered morally sensitive.
We know this because conscience is everywhere spoken of as
a thing that may be polluted and made obdurate on the one
hand, or purified and made tender on the other ; conscience,
in fact, is not merely susceptible of moral quality, but it lies
at the very centre of the whole moral character, so that when
it can be pronounced good or bad, pure or impure, the whole
*Cf. the illustration, " Even things without life giving a voice, whether pipe or
harp, if they give not a distinction in the sounds, how shall it be known what is
piped or harped " (v. 7) ?
2Q
594
PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY.
[Chap.
moral character can have the same epithets applied to it
(Tit. i. 15). Thus the whole work of renewal is comprehended
in having the heart sprinkled from an evil conscience (Heb. x.
22), in having the conscience purified from dead works to
serve the living God (ix. 14); to be made perfect as concern-
ing the conscience, is to be made perfect entirely (ix. 9) ;
evidently because the spirit, of which conscience is a function,
is all that can be positively renewed. We read repeatedly
of a pure conscience (1 Tim. iii. 9 ; 2 Tim. i. 3), which is
the 'same thing as a pure heart (Matt. v. 8,) and on the other
hand of the conscience being defiled (Tit. i. 15), and cauterised
or seared (1 Tim. iv. 2). Again, it is said that "when
Gentiles which have not the law, do by nature [ = at the
impulse of their natural spirit] the things of the law, these
not having the law are a law unto themselves, being such as
show that they have the work of the law written in their
hearts [ = their natural spirits (v. 29)], their conscience [a
function of their spirits] bearing witness with them, and their
thoughts [the products of spiritual perception, and the subject-
matter of intellectual reflection (2 Cor. x. 4, 5)] one with
another accusing or else excusing them " (Rom. ii. 14, 15)
the meaning of which is, that morally upright Gentiles, when
they do wrong, are conscious of a painful feeling of self-dis-
approbation, and when they do right of a pleasurable feeling
of self-approbation, the source of which feelings is their con-
science, which is a function of their morally upright, circumcised
spirits (vv. 27-29). It is implied, also, that as the feelings
of approbation and disapprobation towards what is right and
wrong respectively, spring from purity of spirit, so they
become in turn motives to purity of action. Much in the
same way the Apostle Paul speaks of his " conscience bearing
witness with him in the Holy Ghost," to the truth of a state-
ment he makes (Rom. ix. 1), he having had a pleasurable
feeling of approbation, as the percept of his own natural
spirit purified and strengthened through the presence of the
Divine Spirit. So when he says elsewhere that "the Spirit itself
beareth witness with our spirit that we are children of God "
(viii. 16), be means that believers are conscious of the feeling
of love which is the mark of Divine sonship (1 John iv. 7) as
XII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 595
the percept of their natural spirit purified and strengthened by
the presence of the Divine Spirit. To have a good conscience
(Acts xxiii. 1 ; 1 Tim. i. 5, 19; Heb. xiii. 18; 1 Pet. iii. 16,
21), or a conscience void of offence (Acts xxiv. 16), is to have
the moral feelings unhurt (aTrpoa-KOTrov) by the thought of
evil deeds or pleased with the thought of " a good manner of
life" (1 Pet. iii. 16). To offend a weak conscience (Rom. xiv.
passim ; 1 Cor. viii. passim; x. 23-33) is to wound (1 Cor.
viii. 12) or grieve (Rom. xiv. 15) a man whose moral feelings
are inordinately sensitive through the want of full and accurate
intellectual (&fT<pi8lq> VOL, id. v. 5) knowledge (1 Cor. viii. 1-7,
11 ; Rom. xiv. 5, 14). When, on the other hand, the spirit of
the mind, the heart, the conscience, has been renewed and
made pure, men are able to " see God " (Matt. v. 8), to know
and " in knowing to approve (SoKi/j.aeiv) what is the good and
well pleasing and perfect will of God " (Rom. xii. 2).
Let me add the expression of my humble but very decided
opinion, that this Bible view of the nature of the human con-
science, or of the manner in which man comes by his moral
knowledge, is absolutely true to psychological reflection. Butler
himself cannot help bearing unconscious testimony to its accu-
racy. He says,* " Moral precepts are precepts the reason of
which we see." The last words, " we see," do not refer to bodily
but to spiritual sight, which is the exact counterpart of bodily
sight, and as bodily sight is properly called a sensation (feeling
of the body), so spiritual sight is properly called a sentiment
(feeling of the spirit). When an individual becomes conscious
that either the pleasurable sentiment of approbation, or the
painful sentiment of disapprobation, attends the commission or
contemplation of a moral action (I mean the action of a moral
being a being possessed of intellect and spirit), then the indi-
vidual knoivs ( eiStj(ri$) through his intellect with (vvv ) his
spirit that the action in question is either good or bad. This
is the sum of the whole matter as regards the moral sense. All
attempts to account for man's moral knowledge in any other
way, such as by tracing it to a faculty properly and purely
intellectual, rest simply on confusion of thought, and the use
* As quoted by Mr. Sidgwick, " The Methods of thics." Second Edition, Preface.
596 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
of language having no definite intelligible meaning. The above
view is the only one that is at once transparently intelligible,
and completely in harmony with all the facts of experience.
And it explains how there is so intimate a connection between
what is naturally good or bad and what is morally good or bad
what is naturally pleasant or unpleasant and what is morally
pleasant or unpleasant how the same words good and bad are
applied to both categories alike, and how attempts are so con-
stantly and so persistently made and with such perfect honesty,
though, in my opinion, without success to resolve the latter
into the former; things which are utterly inexplicable if the
knowledge of moral truth be not sentimental, as the knowledge
of natural truth is sensational. It explains, also, how love and
duty, or natural pleasure and moral pleasure, are the two main-
springs of human action, how the doctrine that action always
follows the greatest apparent good is in no way inconsistent
with a man's doing what he feels to be his duty in all cases,
save when he falls before overpowering temptation an excep-
tion which gradual improvement of character, through the help
of Divine grace, will ultimately do away how what is pleasant
in action is always accompanied by willingness in idea, how on
this account my will has come to be interchanged with my
pleasure that good thing (whether natural or moral) with
respect to which, when I contemplate doing it, I am pleased
how there is so often a conflict between natural impulses or
willingnesses which arise from the flesh, and moral impulses or
willingnesses which arise from the spirit, how a man's charac-
ter, natural and moral, would, if we knew it thoroughly, be so
unerring a guide to his conduct under given circumstances, yet
how the infinite subtlety and rapidity with which the opera-
tions of the intellectual faculty (especially memory) are carried
on, and modify the state of feeling, render it next to impossible,
in any given case, to predict with certainty the course of action,
or, in other words, to say that the individal must act so and
not otherwise, how, therefore, human beings are justly spoken
of as in a peculiar sense free, since they may always act in a
manner different from that which an onlooker, or even which
they themselves a short time before, would have anticipated
the word free expressing here, as always, nothing more than
XII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 597
the fact that we do not know how the future will develop
describing, that is to say, not a state of things in which the
future will not be determined by causes, but a state of know-
ledge in which we are ignorant of the causes that may at any
moment spring into existence to determine it and last, but
not least, it explains how the words will and shall have come
to express, at one time the idea of simple futurity, at another
the mixed idea which we call resolution. The original meaning
of I will was I love or like (to do an action = I have the
pleasurable feeling of love when I contemplate doing it). The
original meaning of I shall was I owe or ought (to do an action
= I have the pleasurable feeling of moral approbation when I
contemplate doing it). The existence of either, and, still more,
of both, of these feelings is known in general to be a powerful
determining cause of human action. Hence, when my neigh-
bour becomes aware, through the word will or shall, that either
the one feeling or the other, or the two combined, is present
in my mind, he at once infers that the relative action is about
to take place. The knowledge that the feelings exist is virtu-
ally the knowledge that the action is about to take place, since
it is known in general that the feelings have a tendency to pro-
duce the action, or, in other words, that, as a rule, when the
feelings are present, the action is done immediately afterwards,
or at such time as it can conveniently or ought to be done.
Thus, the words which originally expressed mental states, pass
first to express the relation between these states and physical
states, and then to express the same relation between different
physical states of things that are incapable of mental states.
Again, as to resolution, it is a bargain with one's self, which
resembles a bargain with one's neighbour in the circumstance
that it is deemed immoral to break it, if for no other reason
because it has a direct tendency to demoralise the char-
acter. In fact, the idea of a bargain or compact lies nearer
than any other to the root idea of owe or ought. When,
therefore, a resolution has been taken, it has the effect of
bringing the whole weight of the moral character to bear as a
determining influence on the relative course, and against any
other course, of action ; and so the word, expressing the fact
that a resolution has been taken, becomes at the same time a
598 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
token that the action resolved upon is about to take place. It
may be added that there could be no more convincing demon-
stration than is supplied by these philological facts, 4 ' 5 " of the
utter baselessness of the assertion (argument it cannot be
called, though it is all that those who make it have ever been
able to produce in lieu of argument), so often and so confi-
dently repeated, that the testimony of common sense is in
favour of the fantastic notion that intelligent human action is
not due to determinate causes, in the shape of feelings,
motives, or impulses. If the testimony of common sense be
obtainable pure and unbiassed anywhere, it must be obtainable
from the common use of language ; but this, instead of imply-
ing that human action does not follow human feeling in pre-
cisely the same way that other physical effects follow their
causes, implies just the reverse.
But what of the favourite modern way of putting it that
human beings possess the faculty of se^-determination ? The
word self, personality, or ego (as Germans and Germanisers
love to call it), appears to have a curious fascination for some
minds : I only wish they would ask themselves what they
mean by it. Human nature as at present constituted is made
up of the flesh, the spirit, and the intellectual faculty, and the
word self when properly used comprehends all of these. The
nail of my little finger is a part of myself in the full and
proper sense of the word. The flesh and the spirit are both
sensitive to impressions from without, and the intellect becomes
conscious of the relations subsisting between the sensations
and sentiments produced. Now, sometimes the personality is
identified with the intellectual faculty, the conscious ego ; at
other times with the spirit, the moral ego; and at other times
with the flesh, the physical ego, which last is called by pre-
eminence the " person." If, therefore, when it is said that
human beings are se/-determined in their actions, the meaning
* " I have the smallest possible confidence in the metaphysical reasonings
either of modern professors or of mediaeval scholastics. But I have immense
confidence in the profound metaphysics of human speech. The unconscious
recognitions of identity, of likeness, and of difference, in which that speech
abound?, are among the surest of all guides to truth." DUKE OF ARGYLL in Nine-
teenth Century, vol. xxi. p. 326.
XII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 599
be that a man's actions are all determined directly by his
intellectual faculty, we must deny it point blank, for none of
them are so ; the intellectual faculty determines no action
directly; it merely becomes conscious of the relations sub-
sisting among sensations and sentiments ; though in doing
this it is capable of determining sentiments, and so of in-
directly determining actions. If, on the other hand, the
meaning be that a man's actions are all determined by his
spirit, and particularly by the moral sentiments of which the
spirit is the special source, we must again meet it with a
denial, though not so sweeping a one ; for, in point of fact,
men's actions are determined only in part by their moral
sentiments, and in part by their natural sensations and senti-
ments, the two classes often conflicting, and the former being
by no means always victorious even in the best of men. If,
once more, the meaning be that a man's actions are all deter-
mined by his flesh, that is, by the natural sensations and
sentiments of which the flesh is the special source, we must
meet this again with a contradiction ; for men's actions are
determined in part by their moral sentiments, and only in
part by their natural sensations and sentiments. If, in the
next place, the meaning be that a man's actions are all deter-
mined by his intellectual faculty indirectly, since the sensa-
tions and sentiments by which they are determined directly
all pass through that faculty, we cannot grant it to the full
extent; for some, nay, many human actions are performed
unconsciously, at the bidding of blind impulses, special,
occasional, or habitual. If, yet once more, the meaning be
that a man's actions are all determined through his flesh, his
spirit, and his intellectual faculty combined, or through his
whole self independent of impressions from 'without, the
allegation is absurd, and must be met with a flat contradiction ;
for all the sensations and sentiments that go to determine
human actions even those that appear to be due entirely to
the ever-flickering movements of the intellectual faculty may
be traced back into connection with, and therefore into de-
pendence upon, impressions from without; the flesh, the
spirit, and the intellectual faculty exist and operate only in
connection with, and to that extent in consequence of, im-
6oo PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
pressions from without. If, lastly, the meaning be that a
man's actions are all determined by his combined sensitivity
and intelligence in connection with impressions from without,
we answer, yes ; except in so far as he acts through bodily
constraint, which is the purely external counterpart of mental
(fleshly and spiritual) impression.
We are now in a position to deal with the question, What
is the precise nature and limits of the two ethically opposite
categories, flesh and spirit, which are met with especially
though not exclusively in the writings of the Apostle Paul ?
Hitherto we have assumed, as sufficiently warranted and estab-
lished by the texts quoted, that these terms are used, the one
to describe man as he exists by nature, the other to describe
man as he is renewed by grace. This was evident enough and
exact enough to serve as a working hypothesis at a time when
closer definition would have been impracticable ; but as we
desire to take nothing for granted which the adversary might
fairly or plausibly dispute, we must now be a little more
specific. And the first remark we have to make is that the
" mind " forms no proper part of either " the flesh " or " the
spirit " (the words are now used in their ethical senses). The
proof of this lies in the fact that when " the flesh " has been
entirely " put off " or " brought to nought," the " mind "
remains precisely as it was, except that it is now occupied by
" the spirit," instead of being, as before, occupied by " the
flesh." Further, we may take it as conceded that the sphere of
sin in human nature and the sphere of " the flesh " are co-ex-
tensive, and in like manner that the sphere of righteousness
in human nature and the sphere of " the spirit " are co-exten-
sive. When the individual is entirely in " the flesh," he is
wholly under sin, and not at all under righteousness; when
he is entirely in " the spirit," he is wholly under righteousness,
and not at all under sin (Rom. viii. 1-11; Gal. v. 16-26).
Now this might suggest that the distinction between "the
flesh " and " the spirit " is simply a moral distinction and
nothing more, that " the flesh " means " human nature as
pervaded by sin" while " the spirit " means " human nature
as pervaded by righteousness," the " mind " in both cases
being left out of account as not being susceptible of any moral
XII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 601
quality. But such a view, on the face of it, is extremely
improbable, since it fails altogether to explain why the fact
that human nature is pervaded by sin should be indicated by
calling it flesh, and why the fact that human nature is per-
vaded by righteousness should be indicated by calling it spirit.
There is, I apprehend, no more certain fact within the domain
of Greek lexicography than that the application of the terms
flesh and spirit to contrasted physical substances is original,
fundamental, prior, and proper, with reference to their appli-
cation to contrasted ethical subjects, that the latter applica-
tion is a late and altogether special one, confined almost to
the New Testament, and more particularly to the writings of
Paul. No account, therefore, of these terms is either likely
to be correct, or can be accepted as satisfactory, that does not
show the link of connection between this original application and
the derived application, of which confessedly an essential part
is to indicate contrasted moral qualities. Accordingly, the
above view is found to break down as soon as we come to
examine it. If the distinction between " the flesh " and " the
spirit " were a moral distinction and nothing more, then to
be in " the flesh " would mean to be under sin and nothing
more, to be in " the spirit " would mean to be under right-
eousness and nothing more. The spiritual man would differ
from the fleshly man in respect that he was righteous instead
of sinful, and in no other respect. The putting off of " the
flesh " would mean the expulsion of the principle of sin from
human nature and nothing else. The putting on of " the
spirit " would mean the infusion of the principle of righteous-
ness into human nature and nothing else. In other words,
the physical constitution of men in heaven would be absolutely
identical with the physical constitution of men on earth ; their
moral character and that alone would be different. " The
flesh," in fact, would be just another name for the principle of
sin, and " the spirit " another name for the principle of right-
eousness. But all these suppositions are notoriously contrary
to fact. If any one thinks otherwise, let him read the two
classical passages last referred to (Rom. viii. 1-11 ; Gal.
v. 16-26) on the assumption that all or any of them is
correct, and he will soon discover that they will land him in
602
PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY.
[Chap.
absolute nonsense at every step. We must therefore dismiss
the idea that the distinction between " the flesh " and " the
spirit " is a purely moral distinction.
On the other hand, it is just as impossible to hold that the
distinction between "the flesh ".and "the spirit" is in the
last resort simply a physical distinction and nothing more,
that whatever is moral in it is essentially involved in the
physical, and does not require separate expression, that " the
flesh" means "human nature as earthy or material, and
therefore sinful," while "the spirit" means "human nature
as heavenly or immaterial, and therefore righteous" leaving
the " mind " again out of account, as being neither earthy nor
heavenly, but something we shall call it a function which
may belong to either, and be transferred from the one to the
other, in the way that materialists hold it to be transferred
from the ever-changing material particles of the brain. For
this, so far as the natural man is concerned, would be
materialism in as gross a sense as any one now-a-days would
care to maintain that doctrine. It would imply that man by
nature is of one substance, and one only viz., organised
matter, body, flesh and blood, and that the death of the
body is the utter extinction of all but those who are " born
from above" or "born of the Spirit." And these things are
absolutely opposed to the whole tenor of the New Testament,
which teaches that all men, whether regenerate or unregener-
ate, righteous or sinful, have spirits distinct in substance
from, and destined to survive the dissolution of their bodies
(1 Cor. ii. 11; v. 5; vii. 34; Jas. ii. 26; 1 Pet. iii. 19;
iv. 5, 6; Matt. xxv. 32; Rom. ii. 14-16; 2 Cor. v. 10;
vii. 1). We must agree to set the plainest declarations of
the New Testament at defiance before we can hold that the
sphere of sin in human nature is co-extensive with the sphere
of flesh understood in the sense of material substance, and that
the sphere of righteousness in human nature is co-extensive
with the sphere of spirit understood in the sense of
immaterial substance. And if we cannot hold this, then we
must dismiss as untenable the idea that the distinction
between " the flesh " and " the spirit " is a purely physical
distinction.
XII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 603
On these and other grounds, we asserted above that the
distinction between " the flesh " and " the spirit " was neither
a purely moral nor a purely physical, much less a properly
psychological distinction, but rather a physico-moral distinc-
tion. What this is intended to mean will be best expressed
by the help of the following formula, which will, I believe,
meet the requirements of the case ;
"The flesh "== the body of man as such + the spirit of
man in so far as it partakes of the moral
character of the body of man ;
" The spirit "=the Spirit of God as such -f the spirit of
man in so far as it partakes of the moral
character of the Spirit of God ;
it being implied that the union between the proper spirit
of the regenerate man and the Spirit of God resembles in its
intimacy the union between the proper spirit of the unre-
generate man and his body.
Not many remarks will be needed to establish the truth
of these definitions. It will be readily granted by every one
that " the flesh " is thought of as containing all human sin, or
that the sphere of sin and the sphere of " the flesh " are co-
extensive, so that when " the flesh " has been put off all
human sin has been got rid of. Now we have seen that all
human sin is defilement either of the flesh or of the spirit
(the words flesh and spirit being understood in their physical
senses), in other words, that sin extends both to the flesh and
to the spirit of the natural man. This leads us to infer that
the natural spirit of man is somehow included in " the flesh,"
and that the inference is correct is clear from 1 Cor. iii. 3
to mention but one passage. The apostle says, " Ye are yet
fleshly (tjapKLKo'C) ; for whereas there is among you jealousy and
strife, are ye not fleshly, and walk after the manner of man
(/caret avOpcoTTOvy The " man " of whom the apostle speaks
is the natural man, who possesses a spirit indeed (ii. 11) as well
as a body of flesh, but who, notwithstanding, " receiveth not
the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto
him, neither can he know them because they are spiritually
judged," who is therefore directly opposed to the spiritual
604
PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY.
[Chap.
man, that "judgeth all things" (vv. 14, 15). The natural
man and the fleshly man are thus evidently identical, and to
walk "according to man," is the very same thing as to walk
" according to the flesh " (Rom. viii. 4). It follows that " the
flesh " must comprehend the whole of the unrenevved man qua
unrenewed, that is, in so far as he is susceptible of moral
quality. On the other hand, it will be just as readily granted
that " the spirit " is thought of as containing all human
righteousness, or that the sphere of righteousness in human
nature and the sphere of " the spirit " are co-extensive, so that
when " the spirit " has been put on, the whole person has been
made righteous. Now there is no doubt that the process of
renewal unto righteousness in the strict and proper sense takes
effect especially, or rather exclusively, on the natural spirit of
man. It is in the spirit of the mind that men are renewed
after the image of God in righteousness and holiness of truth
(Eph. iv. 23, 24). The circumcision by which men are made
truly righteous, is circumcision of the heart in the spirit
(Rom. ii. 29). Hence we conclude that the proper spirit of
man must, when renewed, form part of " the spirit." To
offer detailed proof that it does so, would be superfluous, for
the fact is admitted on all hands. What we rather require to
insist upon is that the proper spirit of man, when it has under-
gone renewal, is not the whole of what is contained in " the
spirit," but that ' the ethical category likewise includes the
Spirit of God, as united with the renewed spirit of man, much
in the same way that the flesh is united with the unrenewed
spirit of man. The relation between the two is expressed
either by saying that the Spirit of God or of Christ is in the
spirit of the believer, or by saying that the spirit of the
believer is in the Spirit of God or of Christ. " He that is
joined to the Lord is one spirit" (1 Cor. vi. 17). "But we
received . . . the Spirit which is of God, that we might
know the things that are freely given to us by God . . .
know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the
Spirit of God dwelleth in you" (ii. 12; iii. 16)? "For
through Him we both have our access in one Spirit unto the
Father ... In whom [as chief corner stone] the whole build-
ing, fitly framed together, groweth into a holy temple in the
XII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 605
Lord, in whom ye also are builded together for an habitation
of God in the Spirit . . . Giving diligence to keep the unity
of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is [to Christ as
head] one body [mystical], and one Spirit [within it], even as
ye also are called in one hope of your calling" (Eph. ii. 18, 21,
22 ; iv. 3). Still more frequently we read that Christ is in the
believer, or that the believer is in Christ, these being other
ways of expressing exactly the same thing. The texts in
which this is said are so numerous that it is impossible even
to refer to a tenth part of them. " Therefore if any man be
in Christ, he is a new creature" (2 Cor. v. 17). "Christ in
you the hope of glory, whom we proclaim, admonishing every
man, and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may
present every man perfect in Christ" (Col. i. 27, 28). "He
that loveth his own wife loveth himself; for no man ever
hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it even as
Christ also the Church, because we are members of His body "
(Eph. v. 28-30). "But ye are not in the flesh but in the
spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you. But
if any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.
And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin
[essentially belonging to it], but the spirit [which has been
renewed through union with Christ] is life because of righteous-
ness . . . For ye received not the spirit of bondage again
unto fear, but ye received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we
cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit Himself beareth witness with
our spirit that we are the children of God " (Rom. viii. 9,
10, 15, 16). These last passages prove with a clearness
that leaves nothing to be desired, that " the spirit " is made
up of the Spirit of God or of Christ and the believer's own
spirit, the latter as renewed and made righteous in the
process of being united to the former, which was and is
essentially righteous. The believer is created in the image of
God, and conformed to the image of Christ, by having his
natural spirit renewed in being united to the eternal Spirit of
God" (Rom. viii. 29 ; Col. iii. 10). And, just as to be and
to walk "according to the flesh " (Rom. viii. 5) is identical
with to be and to walk " according to man " (1 Cor. iii. 3),
* so to be and to walk "according to the spirit" (Rom. viii. 5)
606 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
is identical with to be and to walk ' ' according to God "
(Eph. iv. 24). Agreeably to this, the Apostle Peter writes of
the dead to whom the Gospel is preached, that though they
have been judged "according to man" in " the flesh," they
may nevertheless live " according to God " in " the spirit "
(iv. 6). Thus, " the spirit " must comprehend the whole of
the renewed man qua renewed, that is, in so far as he is
susceptible of moral quality.
The general result is that the flesh of man belongs to "the
flesh " entirely and in virtue of its own essential nature, while
the Spirit of God belongs to " the spirit " entirely and in
virtue of its own essential nature. The spirit of man belongs
neither to " the flesh " nor to " the spirit" of its own essential
nature, but it belongs to " the flesh " in so far as it is unre-
newed, and to " the spirit " in so far as it is renewed, and as
renewal consists simply in the expulsion of the principle of
sin, or the infusion of the principle of righteousness, this
means that it belongs to " the flesh " in so far as it is pervaded
by sin, the essential characteristic of the flesh of man, and
to " the spirit " in so far as it is pervaded by righteousness,
the essential characteristic of the Spirit of God. In other
words, the spirit of man belongs to " the flesh " in so far as it
has become through union morally identical with the flesh of
man ; the spirit of man belongs to "the spirit" in so far as it
has become through union morally identical with the Spirit
of God. This explains how the proper spirit of man occupies
a place so very subordinate throughout the Pauline epistles
that some have even gone to the length of denying that the
Apostle Paul attributes to man any such thing. The proper
spirit of man is not prominent in the epistles of Paul, because
these epistles, like the Bible generally, were written to teach,
not physiology, but the way of true morality, which is the
way of salvation or of true religion, and because, from the
moral point of view, the spirit of man is while unrenewed,
the mere organ of the flesh of man while renewed, the mere
organ of the Spirit of God.
The above result as to the meaning of the two ethically
contrasted terms " the flesh " and " the spirit " is strikingly
confirmed by reference to the meaning of their well-known
XII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 607
equivalents, " the old man " and " the new man." It is usual
to dismiss these latter combinations with the remark that they
are figurative. But that is merely another way of saying that
we are unable to offer any rationale of them. Even figurative
terms are never applied at random : they are, on the con-
trary, just as susceptible of rational explanation as any other.
We cannot, therefore, shirk the question, Why does the
apostle speak of the believer quoad unrenewed as " the old
man" and of the believer quoad renewed as "the new man"?
The answer is easily given. The word man, when used with
strict propriety, is a general designation for a whole human
person. Now, it is very true that the unrenewed part of the
believer, which is what is spoken of as his " old man," is not
a whole human person. And it is equally true that the re-
newed part of the believer, which is what is spoken of as his
" new man," is not a whole human person. The whole person
of the believer is made up, not of either of the parts separ-
ately, but of the two combined ; and therefore, when each of
the separate parts is spoken of as a man, it is to be admitted
that the word man is not used with strict propriety. But
then, on the other hand, it is just as true that the unrenewed
part of the believer was once co-extensive with his whole per-
son, and that the renewed part of the believer is destined to
be co-extensive with his whole person ; and it is obviously on
these accounts that the former is spoken of as the old and the
latter as the new man. To put it otherwise, the believer so
far as unrenewed is called an old man, because from the
physico-moral point of view he is actually a man in process of
decay, destruction, and death ; the believer so far as renewed
is called a new man, because from the physico-moral point of
view he is actually a man in process of growth, construction,
and life. Thus the evident rationale of these designations
offers decided and strong support to the position advocated
above that " the flesh " is meant to cover the whole of the
unrenewed person, with the exception of the intellectual
faculty, which is a mere function and morally indifferent, and
that "the spirit" is meant to cover the whole of the renewed
person, with the exception again of the merely formal, or un-
substantial, and morally indifferent intellectual faculty.
6o8 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
Remarks very similar apply to the other well-known equiva-
lents for " the flesh " and " the spirit " respectively viz., " the
outward man," and " the inward man." Here, also, the word
man is employed, because the thing intended either was
co-extensive in the past, or is destined to be co-extensive
in the future, with a whole human person, which is what is
strictly and properly called a man. And this is the reason
why we before hinted, and now assert, that the expression
" inward man " in Rom. vii. 22, though it might readily enough
be applied to the renewed part of the person of the believer,
could not be applied to a part of the person of a mere un-
believer. The word man may, with sufficient, if not with the
strictest propriety, be used of that which is destined to be a
man in the ordinary sense, or which is actually a man though
only in principle ; but it is impossible to discover any ground
of propriety for applying such a designation to that which,
like the " mind " of an ordinary unbeliever, never was and
never will be coincident with a whole human person, -which
contains the promise or pledge or principle of nothing beyond
its bare self. Those who assert that "the inward man"
(Rom. vii. 22) refers to the "mind" of the mere unbeliever,
are bound to justify its propriety as so used, or at least to
offer an adequate reason for the apostle's using it, whether on
account of its propriety, or in spite of its impropriety, things
which they have as yet utterly failed to do, or even to attempt
doing. As, however, we have already shown that " the flesh/'
which is opposed to the " mind " or " inward man " in the
latter half of Rom. vii., comprehends the whole of the unre-
newed person, in so far as he is morally susceptible, and that
the " mind " in and of itself is a mere function, destitute alike
of moral quality and of determining influence, it is superfluous
to insist further on a point which must be presumed to be
decisively settled.
If, now, the question be asked how the apostle came to
designate the whole unrenewed person, spirit as well as flesh, by
the name of " the flesh," and the whole renewed person, spirit
of man as well as Spirit of God, by the name of " the spirit,"
there can be but one answer. The whole is named after that
which, from the writer's point of view (the moral one), is the
XII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 609
essential and determining part. If sin be an essential charac-
teristic of the flesh, or be involved in its very nature, and if
the flesh be the ultimate source and seat of all human sin,
then this explains how the word " flesh " came to denote the
whole believing man qua sinful. And in like manner, if
righteousness be an essential characteristic of the Spirit of God,
or be involved in its very nature, and if the Spirit of God be
the ultimate source and seat of all human righteousness, then
this explains how the word " spirit " came to denote the whole
believing man qua righteous. But in no other way is it
possible to understand how the ethical meanings could have
arisen out of the physical. The moral character of man as
human and sinful might naturally enough be indicated by
calling him " fleshly," if the empirical moral character of his
spirit were ultimately traceable to the essential moral character
of his flesh ; but not otherwise not, for example, if it were
vice versd, nor even if sin had merely the same empirical
connection with the flesh that it has with the spirit of man.
And in the same way, the moral character of man as divine
and righteous might naturally enough be indicated by calling
him " spiritual," if the empirical moral character of his own
proper spirit were ultimately traceable to the essential moral
character of the Spirit of God in him ; but in no other case.
The same conclusion receives further corroboration from the
fact that the believer's sin is very frequently spoken of as if it
were all directly bound up with his body, his members, his
flesh understood in the physical sense (Rom. vi. 6, 12; vii. 5,
23; viii. 10, 23; Col. ii. 11, &c.) a thing which must
appear surprising in the extreme, if sin do not belong originally,
essentially, and especially, and indeed, when the spirit has
been fully sanctified, altogether to the flesh ; and again, on the
other side, from the fact that the believer's righteousness is
often so entirely associated with the Spirit of God in him, that
it is matter of considerable difficulty to decide whether " the
spirit " is to be understood of the Divine Spirit alone, or of
the unity which is made up of the Divine and the renewed
human spirit (Rom. viii. 1-11 ; Gal. v. 16-26).
We can now also understand how the apostle should have
permitted himself to segregate and set upon one side the
2R
6io PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
sinful, and on another the righteous elements in human
nature, as if the two occupied spheres quite distinct from each
other, and between which a definite line of demarcation could
be drawn. The spirit of the believer belongs, as we have seen,
partly to "the flesh," and partly to " the spirit," that is, it is
partly under sin and partly under righteousness ; and spirit,
not being related to space, is a substance in which there can
be no such thing as dividing lines. At first sight, therefore,
it appears strange that the apostle should speak of "the flesh"
and " the spirit," " the old man " and " the new man," as if
they were clearly and definitely distinguishable from one
another. Such language would indeed be very inexplicable if
the flesh of the believer, as well as his spirit, were partly
under sin and partly under righteousness. But when we
perceive, and bear in mind, that the flesh of the believer is
wholly under sin, that " there dwelleth no good thing " in it
(Rom. vii. 18), and that it cannot be brought in any degree
under righteousness (viii. 7), the apostle's manner of speaking
becomes sufficiently plain and intelligible. For although in
actual experience, the boundary line between "the flesh" and
" the spirit " is merely an ethical one, that is, it is not properly
speaking a boundary line at all, yet in the limit (as mathe-
maticians would say), or when the ideal state has been reached,
the boundar} 7 line will be a physical as well as an ethical one,
that is, it will be a boundary line in the strict and proper
sense. Now we have seen again and again that the apostle
delights above all things to contemplate the believer in his
ideal state, when " the spirit " has been completely put on,
and the flesh put off, so far as in present circumstances
it can be put off. We ought not, therefore, to feel in the
least surprised when he speaks of the believer's sin and his
righteousness as occupying separate spheres, as if the one were
confined to the substance of his body, and the other to the
substance of his spirit, since that is in strict accordance with
his usual mode of expressing himself. And the point throws
still further light on the apostle's reason for using the terms
flesh and spirit, which are properly physical designations, to
denote the two ethical categories into which he divides the
person of the believer. It is perfectly true, as we have shown,
XII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 611
that the ethical distinction between " the flesh " and " the
spirit " cannot in the actual state of things be resolved into
the physical distinction between flesh-substance and spirit-
substance; but it is not less true that in the ideal state of
things the physical distinction does include in itself and
coincide with the ethical one. Nothing, then, could have
been more natural, from the apostle's favourite standpoint,
than that the terms which originally denoted the earlier and
more palpable distinction should have passed over to denote
the later and more subtle one. The same circumstance like-
wise helps to account for the fact noted in last paragraph that
the ethical meaning of the word flesh is often identified with
the physical, "the flesh" being interchanged with "the body"
or " the members," to which the believer's sin is thought of
as strictly confined : when this is done, the apostle is to be
understood as regarding the matter from the ideal rather than
the actual point of view. All this, however, serves only to
prove more convincingly than ever how absolutely essential
and unchangeable is the connection between human sin and
human flesh in the ordinary physical sense of the word.
The ideal mode of representation rises not unnaturally into
special prominence and clearness in connection with the person
of Christ. So constantly, indeed, do the New Testament
writers represent Christ as having assumed human flesh, or
become incarnate, and nothing more, that one might be
tempted to conclude that they attribute to him a human body,
but not a human spirit, whose place might be supposed to have
been occupied by the Divine Spirit. The inference would,
however, be a very precarious one. If Christ had not possessed
a human spirit, He could not have been a man, and the Son
of Man, as He claimed to be (John v. 27 ; viii. 40). If He
had merely assumed a human body, and again divested Him-
self of it, His union to human nature must have been
temporary as well as partial. It is difficult to see how He
could have redeemed humanity in any sense from the power
of sin and Satan, if there was no spirit in His humanity to
redeem, how in particular He could be the beginning, the
first begotten from the dead, the forerunner, prototype, and head
of the whole redeemed community, unless He had taken to
612 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
Himself a spirit as well as a body identical in nature with
theirs. We read, besides, of Christ having a spirit or soul in
which He was troubled (John xiii. 21, cf. xii. 27; xi. 33);
and there is no doubt that He had all the mental affections,
painful as well as pleasant, of an ordinary man (Matt. xxvi. 38),
which seems to imply that He must have had, in addition
to the Divine Spirit, a human spirit like every other man. In
harmony with this, we find mention of a struggle as between
a weak and shrinking human spirit, and the Divine Spirit
with which it was endowed and aided (John xii. 27 ;
Luke xxii. 42, seq.), and the two are sometimes sharply
distinguished from one another (John vii. 17 ; viii. 28, 29).
Moreover, we know that Christ, when He became man,
emptied Himself, laying aside the substance and form of
Godhead, and assuming the substance and form of slavehood,
that He grew and waxed strong in spirit, that He required to
be filled with the Divine Spirit, till He attained to all the
fulness of God, precisely as each believer does. But Christ
could have done these things only if He had possessed from
the first moment of the incarnation, a human spirit, such as
every other believer possesses. We are therefore bound to
suppose that the human spirit of Christ holds a position so
much less prominent than His flesh, simply because the former
had become the mere organ of His Divine Spirit, whereas the
latter was the seat and stronghold of that sin which He came
to put away. The ideal mode of representation, in which sin
is identified exclusively with the body of flesh, is common
enough in the case of other believers, but it is universal in the
case of Christ, doubtless because in Him more than in any
other, the human spirit was pervaded, purified, assimilated,
occupied as a temple, and used as an instrument by the
Divine (John viii. 29, 55 ; xii. 27).
To return, and apply what has been said. We should now
be able fully to understand every part and aspect of the con-
flict described in Rom. vii. and elsewhere. According to the
Apostle Paul, intelligent human action is determined by corre-
lative feelings, desires, wills, pleasures, or impulses. It is a
grievous error to imagine, as some have done, that the apostle's
doctrine is consistent with any theory of human will, that he
XII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 613
offers no decision on the question as to whether intelligent
human action be or be not immediately dependent on human
feeling as its cause or necessary condition. On the contrary,
one would find it difficult to frame, or even to conceive of
language more distinctly implying that a man's actions are not
independent of, but wholly dependent on, his states of feeling
than that which the apostle employs. There are two main
sources of feeling, and consequently two main springs of action,
in all believers " the flesh," of which the chief and determin-
ing part is the bodily organism, and " the spirit," of which the
chief and determining part is the Spirit of God. In the mere
unbeliever these two springs of action are practically reduced
to one. For, although there is in most men and in some
more than in others the rudiments of a natural conscience,
having its seat in the natural spirit, yet, when the influence of
society, direct and indirect, has been discounted, natural con-
science is found to be so inefficient as a spring of action that it
is left for the most part out of account. The change produced
in regeneration might be briefly described as a reorganisation
of human sensitivity, and through that of the springs to human
action. We might almost say that it is summed up in the
destruction of an old will and the creation of a new will, if the
word will were used, as it sometimes is,* like the word appe-
tite, or habit, or disposition, to describe a general susceptibility
or predilection for a specific class of actions. Still, it is hardly
correct or comprehensive enough to say that the ivill (in the
sense explained) has been reorganised, for that word most
commonly carries with it a reference to action strictly so called,
which means bodily movement, whereas, when the regenerative
process has been completed, as it will be in heaven, action in
* E.g., when we speak of a man having an ill-will toward his neighbour ; the
meaning being that he has a general tendency to do what is injurious to his neigh-
bour : or, more generally, when we speak of a man who is sclf-ivilled ; the mean-
ing being that he has a general tendency to do what appears good to himself,
without regard to the feelings, wishes, opinions, or interests of others : or, again,
when we speak of a man possessing a resolute will ; the meaning being that he has
a general tendency to do what he has once resolved upon : or, lastly, when we
speak of a good -man or a bad man ; this being equivalent to saying that the one
has a general tendency to do what is right, and the other a general tendency to
do what is wrong.
614 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
the proper sense will, in all likelihood, be an impossibility. It
is better, therefore, to say that the sensitivity which is more
general than the capacity of willing has been extended upon
one side, and contracted or curtailed on another. There is a
crucifixion, a deadening or destruction of sensitivity on that
side of the personality to which " the world " appeals, and a
creation, quickening, or constituting of sensitivity on that side
of the personality to which God appeals. The renewed spirit
is made sensitive to impressions which it can explain and
account for in no other way than by saying that they are
" from above," and which beget feelings in the form of loves,
hatreds, desires, longings, wishes, impulses, that change the
entire current of the active life. There is no alteration in the
faculty of thought proper, though the objects of thought and
the decisions of conscience are widely different. What is
created is a new main centre or source of feeling and impulse,
which, as it is of an opposite nature, gives rise to a standing con-
flict with the old main centre or source of feeling and impulse.
Otherwise expressed, the change consists in having the feelings,
which are the objects of thought, altered in so far as they are
morally wrong, and brought into perfect accordance with the
feelings or will of God. In one word, it is to be enabled to love
as God loves, and so to live as God lives. This implies that
as the feelings with which the " mind " of the renewed man is
occupied are the fruits of " the spirit," so the feelings with
which the " mind " of the unrenewed man is occupied are the
fruits of " the flesh." Hence we read, not indeed of " the flesh
of the mind " on the part of the natural man, but of " the mind
of the flesh" (Col. ii. 18), which amounts practically to the
same thing, and corresponds to " the spirit of the mind " on the
part of the spiritual man. " The mind of the flesh " differs
from " the flesh of the mind " only in the circumstance that in
the one case "the flesh " is regarded as the servant or subordi-
nate which furnishes materials for the " mind " to manipulate,
in the other case, the " mind " is regarded as the servant or
subordinate which manipulates the materials belonging to and
supplied by " the flesh." Thus the " mind " is something that
stands above both "the flesh" and "the spirit," that may be
occupied or made use of by either, and that remains unaffected
XII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 615
when the one has given place to the other. The " mind " is
the unchangeable centre of the personality. And this puts
in our hands a complete key to the peculiar language of Rom.
vii. 14-25. If the "mind," in the closing verses of that
chapter, were what many hold it to be a direct source of
impulses to good action in the natural man, corresponding as
far as it goes to " the spirit " in the man who is undergoing
renewal how could the apostle have written in the opening of
chap, xii., " Be not fashioned according to this world, but be
ye transformed by the renewing of your mind?" A "mind"
naturally good, and the immediate source of impulses to good
action, would not require to be transformed by being renewed.
If, on the other hand, the "mind" be the unchangeable centre
of the personality, which may be occupied and made use of
either by " the flesh " or by " the spirit," this explains how the
apostle can identify his personality at one time with "the
flesh," and at another with " the spirit," according as he thinks
of the " mind " as being occupied with the one or the other,
how he can even seem to divide his personality into two, and
identify it both with " the flesh " and with " the spirit," when
he thinks of the " mind " as being occupied partly with the one
and partly with the other at the same time. It explains, also,
how he can designate the renewed part of the believer as his
"mind" simply, and how, when he does so, the "mind" is
thought of as occupied especially, and almost exclusively, by
" the spirit," " the flesh " being regarded as relatively if not
absolutely blind or unconscious.
We can see, further, that the impossibility of sinning re-
ferred to in the opening paragraph of chap. vi. is 'not a
physical, but a moral impossibility, an impossibility arising
from the predominating influence of the Spirit of God in the
heart. It is only in heaven that the moral impossibility will
have developed into a physical impossibility either in the case
of Christ or in that of believers. The Spirit of God dwelt
with such power in Christ while on earth that sin was never
permitted to reign in His mortal body, or to develop into
action, but all the same Christ was tempted to sin, and the
thing was evidently and altogether possible from a physical
point of view. The Apostle John, who usually occupies the
616 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
highest ideal standpoint in his representation of Christ, de-
clares that " the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us (and
we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten of the
Father), full of grace and truth . . . For of His fulness we
all received, and grace for grace" (i. 14, 15). Such language
must indeed be understood as applicable only in a relative
sense to Christ while on earth, being applicable in the
absolute sense only after He ascended to glory. Christ was
not absolutely filled with the Holy Ghost during His earthly
life ; He was not so filled before His baptism, for instance,
else He could not be said to have been filled after His bap-
tism ; nor was His glory ever absolutely like that of the only
begotten of the Father (John xiii. 32; xiv. 28; xvii. 1, 5).
The Apostle Paul, we may rely upon it, states truth as well
as John when he says that Christ emptied Himself, and laid
aside His glory, taking the form of a slave. Still, when God
sent Christ into the world, He sanctified Him (John x. 86),
giving not the Spirit by measure (iii. 34), and He could say
in consequence to His bitterest enemies, " Which of you con-
victeth Me of sinning?" (viii. 46), "I do always the things
that are well pleasing to Him" (vv. 28, 29). But that the
sanctification of Christ was not completed at the outset of His
earthly career is clear from the following : " Sanctify them
in the truth ; Thy word is truth. As Thou didst send Me
into the world [having sanctified Me], even so sent I them
into the world [having sanctified them]. And for their sakes
I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified in the
truth" (xvii. 17-19). These words are proof-positive that
according to John not less than according to Paul the earthly
experience of Christ was in every respect parallel to that of
each believer. When, therefore, we read elsewhere, " The
prince of this world cometh, and he hath nothing in Me "
(xiv. 30), we must do so in the light of "They are not
of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray
not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world,
but that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil one "
(xvii. 14, 15). Similarly, the believer is represented ideally
in the statement, " Whosoever is begotten of God doeth no
sin, because his seed abideth in him, and he cannot sin,
XII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 617
because he is begotten of God. In this the children of God
are manifest, and the children of the devil" (1 John iii. 9, 10).
That there was a sense in which the prince of the world had
mastery over Christ, as he has mastery over all His followers,
is sufficiently proved by the fact that both He and they have
to pass through death, the power of which is expressly said to
belong to the devil (Heb. ii. 14).
An objection, however, has been raised to this conception
of the person of Christ, a brief notice of which shall conclude
the present chapter, which has already extended itself to inor-
dinate length. It is asked, " What are we in that case to
think of as the subject of the a/mapria of the flesh of Christ,
if it was not His ego, His soul, as that to which His indivisible
personality attaches ? Or how can the crap, pure and simple,
entirely separated from the personal principle of life to which
it serves as an organ, have a/mapria^ Or how can a concrete
ego exist in a fleshly life, without feeling it as its own life, at
least so far as to experience its cTriOu/mew as its own ? "
These may seem serious questions, but they are not difficult
to answer. We must start from the presupposition that the
person of Christ, like the persons of all who are conformed to
His image, was made up of a body, a spirit, and an intellectual
faculty. We may assume, further, that the human spirit of
Christ was so pervaded and occupied by His Divine Spirit that
the sphere or seat of sin was practically limited to His body.
We may not assume that the intellectual faculty of Christ was
susceptible of moral quality any more than that of His fol-
lowers. These three parts together make up Christ's per-
sonality in the full and proper sense of the word. The body
of the flesh, as long as it continued in union with the Spirit of
Christ, and with His intellectual faculty, was a part of His
personality in the very same sense that the other two parts
were parts of His personality. And, of course, when the
word personality is used in this its widest sense, the sin in
Christ's flesh did belong to His personality, and the conse-
quence was that He had to undergo the penalty of death as
the wages of the sin He had assumed. This is the very point
* Phleiderer's Paulinism, E. T., i. 154.
618 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap.
and substance of the apostle's statement, that God "made Him
[ His personality or ego] sin on our behalf, in order that we
[:= our personality or ego] might become righteousness "
(2 Cor. v. 21). If these words do not imply that Christ's ego
was made and was sinful in the same identical sense that
every believer's ego is made and is righteous, then it is im-
possible for words to imply anything. When, on 'the other
hand, the personality of Christ is identified with His spirit
alone, and particularly with His Divine Spirit, the sin which
He assumed cannot be said to have belonged to His person-
ality, but rather to His flesh, which was united in an intimate
manner to His Spirit, without, however, becoming part of it.
So that He might have said with Paul in regard to the lusts
of the flesh, "It is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth
in My flesh." If it be said that the Divine Spirit could not
have united itself to a human spirit, and so united itself to
flesh of sin, without being pervaded by sin, it may be
replied that this difficulty, if difficulty it be, is in no way
peculiar to the person of Christ, but attaches in an equal
degree to the persons of all believers. I shall defy any
man to produce a tittle of evidence to show that the indwel-
ling and inworking of the Divine Spirit in Christ differed in
any respect from the indwelling and inworking of the same
Divine Spirit in each believer. Yet no one thinks of alleg-
ing that the Spirit of God is pervaded by the sin of the believer,
or that the believer's sins belong to the Spirit of God. On the
contrary, every believer feels that the more fully and power-
fully the Spirit of God dwells in him the more impossible
it is for him to commit sin. Sin is an impulse directed to
what is wrong. But the Spirit of God impels and is con-
sciously felt to impel only to what is right. How then can it
be pretended that the Spirit of God is the author or pro-
prietor of the believer's sins ? And if this be the case in the
experience of the believer, why should it not have been the
case in the experience of Christ ? If the spirit of man could
be redeemed from under sin only by being united to and rein-
forced by the Spirit of God, to which it was originally akin,
who shall say that God might not have accomplished the
matter in that way ? Surely there is nothing strange, absurd,
XII.] PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. 619
or unintelligible in saying that the sinful propensities that
existed and arose in Christ's flesh were constantly met, resisted,
and overcome by the power of the Divine Spirit dwelling in
Him, when this very thing is the daily experience of all
believers. If, again, it be asserted that sinful propensities
cannot exist in mere flesh without passing over into the con-
scious spirit by which it is animated, this may prove that the
human spirit of Christ shared in the sinfulness of His flesh,
but it will not prove that His Divine Spirit did so, nor will
it in the least affect the ultimate result that the human nature
which Christ assumed was redeemed from under sin by the
power of the Spirit of God in precisely the same way that the
spirit of each believer is. The assertion, however, may be
called in question. The Apostle Paul certainly holds that
sinful tendencies exist in the flesh considered by itself, and
indeed that all sinful tendencies take their rise there. Any
objections that may be urged against this idea ought not to be
raised in connection with the person of Christ, as if they had
a special and peculiar bearing on that, since they will bear
equally on the apostle's entire teaching in regard to the state
of the material world in general, and of the human body in
particular. Besides, the existence of original tendencies to sin
in human nature, and even of tendencies having their special
seat in the bodily organism, is a fact of experience which can
by no possibility be explained away. I own, therefore, I can
find no more difficulty in conceiving of " the spirit," whose
characteristic is righteousness being pitted against " the flesh,"
whose characteristic is sin in the person of Christ, than I
can find in conceiving the same state of things in the person
of each believer (Rom. viii. 10). The principle involved is
exactly the same in both cases, and it is really too much that
objections should be urged against the one that are never
thought of in connection with the other.
One difficulty there is in the way of understanding the pre-
cise constitution of the person of Christ, but it is a difficulty
of a purely speculative character that does not touch His rela-
tion to sin. It relates to what I have called in the case of the
believer the unchangeable centre of His personality. And here
we had best refrain from all attempts at definition. We are
620 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY. [Chap. XII.
quite unable to conceive of intelligence different in almost any
respect from our own, and we are least of all able to think of
intelligence transcending our own. Nothing is easier than to
fancy to ourselves changes of very considerable extent in the
region of feeling or sensitivity, because such changes are matter
of common experience ; but it is far otherwise in regard to the
faculty, of intelligence. As already observed, regeneration pro-
duces no change in the intellectual faculty proper. Even
inspiration, so far as one can judge, operates through stimulat-
ing the emotional sensibilities, and thereby quickening and
strengthening the ordinary laws of association. The relation
of Divine to human intelligence is a speculative question on
which it is neither necessary nor desirable to enter. The idea
that Christ had two intellectual faculties, the one human the
other Divine, is highly improbable in itself, rests upon very
inadequate grounds, and ought not to be imposed upon any
one. But what the nature of His intellectual faculty was, and
whether or how far it was depotentiated, we shall not presume
to say. Something must be left to future research.
INDEX OF PASSAGES DISCUSSED.
GENESIS.
PAGE MARK.
PAGE
PAGE
xiv. 18-20 .
268
vii. 1-23
. 418
iv. 24 v.
10 . . 456
xvii. 1-8
421
x. 37-45
. 449
iv. 25 .
. 466
xii. 29-34
. 392
v. 1
. 455
EXODUS.
v. 1, 9 .
. 115
xxv. 40.
286
LUKE.
xxii. 37 .
. 43
v. 6-8 .
v. 12 .
. 469
. 459
LEVITICUS.
v. 12, 19
. 192
xvi. 17 .
248
JOHN.
j. 14, 15
. 616
v. 12-21
v. 12-14
. 152-203
. 152, 166
PSALMS.
iii. 16-18
. 401
v. 15
. 157
viii. 4-6
xl. 6-8 .
xcv. 7-11
211
297
356
xii. 23-33
xiv. 30 .
xvii. 17-19 .
. 448
. 616
121, 616
v. 15-17
v. 16, 17
v. 18 .
v. 18, 19
. 155
. 158
. 166, 191
. 153
ex. ...
274
ACTS.
v. 19 .
. 189
ISAIAH.
i. 16-20 .
. 49
v. 20, 21
v. 21
. 182
195
i. 10-20, 25-28
407
ii. 25 seq.
. 49
vi. 1-11 .
.' 491, 517
liii.
74
x. 34, 35
. 394
vi. 5
493
liii. 10 .
382
xv. 10 .
. 39
vi. 5, 8 .'
.' 518
JEREMIAH.
xx. 32 .
. 121
vi. 6 .
. 503
vi. 6, 7
118
xxxi. 31-34 .
288
ROMANS
vi. 7
115, 124, 495
HOSEA.
i. 1-5 .
i. 4
. 523
523-531
vi. 12-18
vi. 17-23
. 499
. 501
iv. 1, 2, 6 .
406
i. 18-21 .
. 176
vi. 23 .
. 459
vi. 4-6 .
406
i. 28 .
. 591
vii. 1-6 .
. 434, 505
AMOS.
ii. 2-6 .
. 176
vii. 5, 6 .
. 478
v. 21-24
406
ii. 3-6 .
ii. 11-13, 16 .
. 480
. 176
vii. 7-11
vii. 8, 9 .
. 509
. 570
MlCAH.
ii. 12-15
. 174
vii. 12, 13
. 516
ii. 13-16
90, 120
vii. 14 .
. 512
vi. 6-8 .
407 1 ii. 13-16, 26-29
. 179
vii. 14-25
. 565-615
HABAKKUK.
ii. 14, 15
ii. 25-29
. 594
. 89
vii. 22 .
vii. 22-25
. 608
. 139
ii. 4 . . 364,
405 j in. 10-18
. 140
viii. 1, 2
. 497
1 iii. 20 .
. 90
viii. 3 .
. 534
MATTHEW.
iii. 21, 22
. 61
viii. 3, 4
. 531-553
iv. 1-10 .
563 j iii. 23-26
. 472
viii. 5-8 .
. 533
v. 17-20
403
iii. 24-26
. 435
viii. 6-8 .
. 459
xii. 36, 37
120
iii. 25 .
. 470
viii. 9-11
. 132
xvi. 21-27
448 iv. 3
44,81
viii. 9, 10,
15, 16 . 605
xix. 28 .
568 iv. 4, 5 .
. 96
viii. 10 .
14
xxiii. 2, 3
395 iv. 7, 8 .
. 83
viii. 16 .
. 598
622
INDEX OF PASSAGES DISCUSSED.
PAGE
PAGE
PACiE
viii. 18 .
474
iii 13 .
459
2 THESSALONIANS.
viii. 19-23 .
144
iii. 15-17
423
i. 4-7 . . 240
viii. 23 .
124
iii. 15-22
416
i. 4-10 . . . 445
viii. 24, 25 .
123
iii. 16 . . 49,
424
viii. 29, 30 .
118
iii. 18 ...
422
1 TIMOTHY.
ix. 1 .
594
iii. 19 ...
425
iv. 2 . . 591
ix. 3 .
382
iii. 22 ...
426
ix. 30-32
x. 2, 3 .
88
382
iii. 23, 24
iii. 23-26
427
478
2 TIMOTHY.
x. 18 .
49
iv. 1-5 .
428
i. 8, 9 . . . 118
xii. 2 ...
593
iv. 4
31
ii. 3-12 . . .447
xiii. 8, 9
392
iv. 4, 5 .
459
iii. 16 . . 68, 347
xiv.
595
iv. 8 .
394
iv. 6-8 . . . 446
xv. 3 .
49
iv. 8-11 .
417
xvi. 25, 26 . 61,
427
iv. 21-31 . 48,
433
TITUS.
v. 3, 4 .
426
i. 15, 16 . . 591
1 CORINTHIANS.
v. 14 .
392
iil 4-7 . . . 118
i. 2
116
v. 16-18
569
iii. 5 . . .123
i. 30 .
119
v. 17 .
559
iii. 3 ...
603
vi. 15 ...
497
PHILEMON.
vi. 11 . 115, 116,
118
18, 19 . . . 3
vi. 12-20
587
EPHESIANS.
viii.
595
ii. 1-3 .
551
HEBREWS.
ix. 9, 10
49
ii. 1-6, 13
479
i. 3 . . . 244
ix. 10 ...
348
ii. 13-18
453
ii. 2, 3 . . . 400
ix. 24-27
xiv. 21 .
570
49
ii. 14-18
iii. 4, 5 .
547
427
ii. 5-18 . . 206-243
ii. 5-9 . . 207-221
xv. 12 seq.
588
iii. 5-9 .
60
ii. 6-9 . . . 48
xv. 20-22 . 128-152
iv. 8-10 .
49
ii. 6-8 . . . 211
xv. 42-44
132
iv. 10 ...
590
ii. 9 . . . 219
xv. 44 .
xv. 45-50
588
132
iv. 17-24
vi. 12 ...
584
550
ii. 10 . . 225, 241
ii. 10-18 . 221-243
xv. 45 . .
xv. 53-57
135
132
PHILIPPIANS.
ii. 13 . . .48
ii. 14 ... 228
xv. 56 . .
459
i. 27-30 .
447
ii. 16, 17 . . 256
2 CORINTHIANS.
ii. 5-11 .
ii. 7
538
539
ii. 17 . . 244, 309
ii. 18 . . . 237
i. 3-7 .
446
ii. 12, 13
123
iii.l iv.13 355-364,378
ii. 15 ...
123
iii. 3 ...
89
iii. 6 . . . 237
iii. 6-18
433
iii. 8-12 .
121
iii. 6, 14 . .229
iii. 13-15
381
iii. 7 seq. . . 48
iii. 13-16
49
COLOSSIANS.
iii. 7-11 . . .356
iii. 17, 18
17
i. 12-14 .
118
iii. 12, 14 . . 237
iv. 8-17 .
446
i. 18-22 .
454
iii. 13 ... 358
iv. 17 .
474
i. 24
445
iv. 1 . . . 362
v. 1 seq. .
589
ii. 9-15 .
454
iv. 1, 2 . . . 358
v. 14-19
479
ii. 11-13.
117
iv. 4 . . 356
v. 17-21
452
ii. 13 ...
479
iv. 6-8 . . . 362
v. 21 . 527-530,
618
ii. 14, 15
549
iv. 6-11 . . . 358
vi. 2 .
49
ii. 15 ...
550
iv. 14-16 . 237, 278
vii. 1 ...
587
ii. 16, 17
435
iv. 15 . . 231, 556
xii. 7-9 .
563
ii. 16-22
419
v. 1-5 . . . 245
xiii. 4 ...
18
ii. 18 ...
614
v. 1 vii. 28 . 263-282
iii. 5-9 .
479
v. 5 . . .265
GALATIANS.
iii. 9 ...
551
v. 6 . . .264
ii. 15, 16
91
iii. 9, 10
118
vi. 1 . . . 280
ii. 17, 18
121
vi. 1-6 . . . 279
iii. 8 iv. 11 .
376
1 THESSALONIANS.
vi. 2, 4, 5 . . 280
iii. 11, 12
420
v. 23 . . 121,
586
vi. 11, 12 . 230, 238
INDEX OF PASSAGES DISCUSSED.
623
PAGE
PAGE
PAGE
vi. 18-20
. 208
x. 5 seq.
. 48
ii. 12, 24
121
vii. 1 seq.
. 48
x. 5-10 .
. 297
ii. 21-26
91
vii. 1-3 .
. 269
x. 10-14
. 246
vii. 25 .
. 275
x. 14 .
252, 303
1 PETER.
vii. 26, 27
viii. 1-3 .
. 245
. 245
x. 17 .
x. 18-23
. 304
315, 331
i. 10-12 .
i 19
428
r o
viii. 1-13
viii. 1, 2, 4 .
viii. 1 x. 18 .
378-404
viii. 4, 5
viii. 5 .
viii. 8-12
283-292
. 283
372-377,
. 301
48, 284
. 284
x. 21 .
x. 29 .
x. 35-39 .
x. 38 . 364,
xi. 1-40 364-372
xi. 1, 2 .
xi. 4-6 .
. 259
. 116
. 238
405, 411
, 404-415
. 365
. 366
1. i /. . . .
i. 14-19 .
i. 18, 19.
ii. 20-24.
ii. 24 . . 466
iii. 14-18
iii. 18 ...
Do
479
118
444
,552
444
552
viii. 12 .
. 304
xi. 4, 28
. 414
iv. 1-6 .
480
ix. 1-28 .
ix. 1-10 .
313-345
. 314
xi. 10, 13-16 .
xi. 12-16
. 412
. 366
iv. 1, 2 .
iv. 13-19
444
445
ix. 8 .
. 353
xi. 13 .
370, 413
ix. 11-13
. 245
xi. 24-30
. 366
2 PETER.
ix. 11-15
. 323
xi. 29, 30
. 370
i. 20, 21.
347
ix. 11-28
323-345
xi. 32-40
. 367
ix. 13 .
. 334
xi. 39 .
238, 371
1 JOHN.
ix. 13, 14 .
. 331
xii. 1 .
. 367
f\
ix. 15 .
ix. 15-20
ix. 16, 17
339, 375
. 336
. 344
xii. 1, 2 .
xiii. 12 .
230, 238
. 246
11. Z
ii. 16, 17
iii. 9, 10
436
558
617
ix. 23-25
. 331
JAMES.
ix. 24-28
. 245
i. 13-18 .
. 560
REVELATION.
ix. 28 . 124,
332, 556
i. 25
95 ! xv. 3, 4 .
458
x. 1-18 .
293-313
ii. 8-12 .
95, 393 xvi. 5-7 .
458
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