^^ Cf. for statement of this point of view Beyschlag Die Christologie des N. T., 1866, pp. 203 seq.: "Whatever there may be great and unique lying in the e\<} xopioq^ it is undeniable that Paul purposely does not apply the name deoi; to Christ, but rather most distinctly dis- tinguishes the ££9 xupio<s from the el? ^ew? besides whom there is no other. The same conception and manner of expression runs excep- tionlessly and in numerous instances throughout the Pauline Epistles: everywhere ' God '=the Father, our Father, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and everywhere the ' Father ' and the Father only'='God, our God, the ' God of Jesus Christ' (Eph i^^) : everywhere in a word the conception of ' God ' and ' Father ' stand together, while the ' Son ' or the ' Lord ' is equally constantly distinguished from the ' Father.' " How overstated this is may be observed by comparing it with the text. Cf. the long argument to the same effect in Richard Schmidt's Die paulinische Christologie, etc., 1870, pp. 148 seq.; and the brief but pointed statement of Paul Feine, Jesus Christiis und Paulus, 1902, pp. 168, 169; also David Somerville, St. Paul's Conception of Christ, etc., 1897, pp. 140, 141.
The Corroboration of Paul 235
monotheism. " None Is God," says he, " but one "" (i Cor 8^) ; and he says it, as we have seen, in im- mediate connection with his recognition of ' one God, the Father" and " one Lord, Jesus Christ" (cf. Rom 3^« i6-\ Gal 3-«, Eph 4^ i Tim 2^). How, then, could he mean to set by the side of this " one God the Father " the " one Lord Jesus Christ " as a second, although somewhat inferior, God?^^ And nothing could exceed the clearness and emphasis with which Paul represents Jesus' divine majesty not as an attain- ment but as an aboriginal possession. He does not say that Jesus Christ became rich that by His riches we might be enriched, as he must have said if he had conceived of Jesus as a man to whom divine powers and dignity were communicated that He might save us. What he says is that our Lord Jesus Christ was rich, and became poor only for our sakes, that " through His poverty we might become rich " (2 Cor 8^). That Is to say, that, as he expresses it in another place, it was to make no account of Himself for Him to take the " form of a servant" (Phil 2'^). Nor does he leave us in doubt as to the quality of the riches He left when He thus made Himself of no reputation by taking " the form of a servant." No heavenly hu-
18 " No [Being] is God except One [Being]," Evans in loc; cf. Edwards in loc: " There is but one God and the Christians' God is that One."
1^ The fallacy of writers like Beyschlag, Christologie d. N. T., 1866, consists in treating the phrase " to us there is one God the Father " as taking up and repeating the " There is no God but One," and the phrase " and one Lord Jesus Christ " as a kind of afterthought added to it (pp. 203-4). In truth it is the double clause: "There is one God the Father . . . and one Lord Jesus Christ for us," which takes up and develops the phrase, " None is God but One."
236 The Designations of Our Lord
manlty suffices here: not even angelic grandeur:^" It was " in the form of God " that He was by nature {bridpy^cov) : it was "equality with God "which He did not graspingly cling to. And to be " in the form of God " means nothing less than to have and hold in possession all those characterizing attributes which make God God: having which He could not but be equal with God, because He was just God. No wonder then that Paul tells us that though He was crucified by man yet was He 'the Lord of glory' (i Cor 2^), that in Him dwelt " all the fulness of the Godhead bodily " (Col 2^), that Israelite as He was " according to the flesh " He was something much more than what He was according to the flesh — nothing less in- deed than " God over all, blessed forever " (Rom 9^).
He certainly does not mean then to contrast Jesus
as ' Lord ' with God the Father as an inferior God
or as possessing a merely delegated
mpica^iono jjyjj^j|^_ Nor, indeed, does the term
' Lord ' lend itself readily to such a contrast. On the pages of Paul's Bible — the Greek version of the Hebrew Scriptures — it stood side by side with ' God ' as the most personal and intimate name