ROMANS i. 16 237
gathered several friends who have come down to the harbour to see her off. Among these is one man, little in stature and insignificant in his general appearance, but with a face that bears the marks of deep thought, of hard study, of resolute will. This man, as he bids farewell to the woman I have mentioned, draws from beneath his arm a bulky roll of manuscript, which he gives to her with careful instructions jis_ to its proper rigTryp.ry. And then the last farewells are said, the passengers step on board, the helmsman takes his place, the sails are hoisted, the vessel glides slowly from the shore, and soon is cutting her way across the fair Gulf of Corinth — the blue water curving upwards from her prow and falling off in snowy sheets of foam. I cannot tell you that vessel's name ; I cannot tell you what kind of general cargo she carried wmut this I can say, she had a treasure on .board ^ more precious to ;the world than a shipload of the purest gold.-/ For that little man with the striking face whom we saw standing ' on the quay was Paul, the gre^A^postle of the Gentiles ; that woman to whom he spoke wasrchoebe, tjtte deaconess of the Church at_Cenchrea and Paul's sister^Sa the Lord; while that roll of manuscript which Paul gave to. Phoebe was the Epistle written from Corinth_to^the Church which was in Eome, an Epistle of sujih- consummate importance to the future of Christianity that ( ^enanjfcg harffipra^iggerating when he makes the startling state- men£that ^hcebej)_a.a. she sailed away from Corinth, " carried*^, beneath-the foMs of her robe the whole future of Christian )) theology." The Apostle begins this great letter by sending his salutations to the Christians at Eome, and expressing his desire to preach the Gospel in their midst. jje_igeis_that the possession .... Cff th p Gn&pgJ pi^j-.R fr i 171 .n n H p.r a. posi ti vp> obligation to preach it — making ^tnr^sdebtor both to the^Greeks and to the barbarians. What is this Gospel ? 1
2. St. Paul has given to us in his own rapid way a summary statement, abbreviated to the very bone, and reduced to the barest elements, of what he meant by the Gospel. JVhat is the irre- ducible miniTTmm ? TJhe facts of the Death and Eesurrection of Jesus Christ, as you will find written in the fifteenth chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians. So, then, to begin with, the
1 J. C. Lambert.
238 NOT ASHAMED OF THE GOSPEL
f,GjOjir)el is not a statement of principles, Jaut a... record. joJLiacis, things that have happened in this world of ours. But the least )art* of a fact is the visible part of it, and it is of no significance unless it has explanation ; and so Paul goes on to bind up with the facts an explanation of them. The mere fact that Jp,snHJ a. . yjDung Nazarene, was executed.is.no more a gosnel than the other one, that .two^brigands were crucified beside Him. But the fact that could be seen, plus the explanation which underlies- and interprets it, turns the chronicle into a gospel, and the explanation begins with the name of the Sufferer ; for if you want to under- stand His death you must understand who it was that died. His death is pathetic in all aspects, and very precious in many. But when we hear " Christ died according to the Scriptures," the whole symbolism of the ancient ritual and all the glowing anticipations of the prophets rise up before us, and that death assumes an altogether olifferent aspect. If we stop with " Jesus died," then that /death jnay^be a beautiful example of heroism, a sweet, pathetic instance of innocent suffering, a conspicuous example of the. world's wages-. to the world's teachers, but it
[,is__Jittle morev-^ If^Jiowever, we take St. Paul's words upon our lips, "Brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached . . . how that Christ died, . . . according to the Scrip- tures," the fact flashes up into solid beauty, and becomes the Gospel of our salvation. And the explanation goes on, " How that Christ died for our sins." Now it is difficult to see in what intelligible sense the Death of Christ can be held to have been for, or on behalf of our sins — that is, that they may be swept away and we delivered from them — unless the atoning nature of His sacrifice for sins is admitted. The explanation goes on, " And that he wasQburied." Why that trivial detail ? Partly because it guarantees the fact of His Death, partly because of its bearing on the evidences of His Kesurrection. " And that he rose from the dead according to the Scriptures." Great fact, without which Christ is a shattered prop, and " ye are yet in your sins."
3. And St. Paul was not alone in this construction of his message. We hear a great deal to-day about Pauline Christianity, with the implication, and sometimes with the assertion, that he was the inventor of what, for the sake of using a brief and
ROMANS i. 16 239
easily intelligible term, may be called Evangelical Christianity. Now, it is a very illuminating thought for the reading of the New Testament that there are, roughly, three sets of teaching, the Pauline, Petrine, and Johannine, and you cannot find the distinctions between these three in any difference as to the fundamental contents of the Gospel ; for if Paul rings out, " God commendeth his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us," Peter declares, "Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree," and John, from his island solitude, sends across the waters the hymn of praise, "Unto him that loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood." And so the proud declaration of the Apostle, which he dared not have ventured upon in the face of the acrid criticism he had to meet unless he had known he was perfectly sure of his ground, is natural and warranted — " Therefore, whether it were I or they, so we preach."