of your joy." This view of the passage is given by many commentators. It does not, however, so well, as just re- marked, agree with the context; and it would require, to prevent ambiguity, the insertion of vfjuv, with you. As an apostle or minister of the gospel, Paul was a co-worker with God.
That ye receive not the grace of God in vain. What is it to receive the grace of God in vain ? Some say that the meaning is to accept of the atonement of Christ, or reconcilia- tion with God spoken of in the preceding chapter, and yet to li\ e in sm. The favour of God is then accepted to no purpose. But this is an unscriptural idea. Justification and sanctifica- tion cannot be thus separated. A man cannot accept of recon- ciliation with God and live in sin ; because the renunciation of sin is involved in the acceptance of reconciliation. Paul never assumes that men may accept one benefit of redemption, and reject another. They cannot take pardon and refuse sanctification. Others say that the apostle here exhorts his readers to guard against " falling from grace ; " that having been graciously pardoned they should not, by a relapse into sin, forfeit the grace or favour which they had received. This is a very common interpretation. Olshausen says, " It is un- deniable that the apostle assumes that grace when once re- ceived may be lost ; the Scriptures know nothing of the dan- gerous error of the advocates of predestination, that grace cannot be lost ; and experience stamps it as a He." But in the first place, it is no argument in favour of this interpreta- tion that the apostle uses the infinitive aorist (Se^ao-^ai), have received^ because the aorist infinitive is very commonly used for the present after verbs signif}ing to command or exhort. See Rom. 12, 1. 15, 20. 2 Cor. 2, 8. Eph. 4, 1. Winer's Idioms of the New Testament, p. 386. In the second place, the " grace of God," here spoken of, does not mean the actual forgiveness of sin, nor the renewing, sanctifying influence of the Spirit, but the favour of which the apostle spoke in the preceding chapter. It is the infinite grace or favour of having made his Son sin for us, so that we may become the righteous- ness of God in him. This is the grace of God of which the apostle speaks. He exhorted men not to let it be in vain, as it regarded them, that a satisfaction for sin suflScient for all, and appropriate to all, had been made and offered to all who hear the gospel. In precisely the same sense he says. Gal. 2, 21, "I do not frustrate the grace of God." That is, 'I do