It may be worth while to note how the previous
f)ha.ses of which we have been speaking enter into lis conception. They would do so in some such order as this —
(a) The broad fundamental meaning of iSixoio-
avvT) is conformity to right. As applied to Goo it is the sum of all moral excellence, of which He is the standard to Himself. Even when the word is used in narrower senses, tliis still remains in the background of the apostle's mind, and from time to time comes more to the front.
(/3) In a primitive state of society, the decisions of the chieftain or king acting as judge are tlie standard of ri^ht. And the virtue most highly valued in the judge is that of equal dealing be- tween man and man. There was therefore a ten- dency for the broad idea of righteou.sne.ss in the ruler to contract into the narrower idea of justice.
(7) In sucli a state of society, however, some- thing more than simple justice was needed. Tlie king or chief was the one efhcient champion of the weak against the strong, of the poor against the rich, of the friendless against the powerful. Thus in the opinion of the common people, or of the masses, the form of rigliteousness fijr wliicli they looked was even more than justice, care for the weaker side.
(S) In direct dealings with the poor and weak, where the question was rather of what we should call criminal than of civil law, the Wrtue of the judge would be mildncisand lenience, not exacting the full penalties for misdoing; in other words, treating an offender as innocent, or not so guilty as he really was.
(e) Such acquittal or remis.sion of punishment would be the act of the judge, of his own free grace pardoning the guilty. When the judge, for whatever rea.son, dismisses the culprit, pronounc- ing him ' righteous,' or free from guilt in the eye of the law, it is really the judge hunself who, by his verdict, is the author of tliat righteousness or guiltlessness, and not the person acquitted. And the motive which impels the judge to this is Ills o^^"n personal righteou.sness of character, manifested under the particular aspect of lenience in judging.
(f) This is the process that really takes place when tlie sinner is indicted before the judgment- seat of God ; and that not merelv at the final judgment, but whenever his state in God's sight IS considered. The motive which prompts the ab.solution is no righteousness of the sinner's own, but the righteousness of God.
())) When we attempt to analyze the nature of that righteousness, we might, on a .superficial view, identify it witli the narrower sort of judicial righteousness which is seen in the mild treatment or forgiveness of the guilty. Rut the righteous- ness of God, as St. Paul regards it, is sometliing much more than this. The mildness of a judjje may have in it no higher injjredient than a cert.nin easy good nature because it is indifferent to guilt. The forgiving righteousness of God is not of this kind. It embraces nothinp less than the whole scheme of salvation, in which the central feature is the atoning death of Clirist. The absolution of the sinner is no act of momentary indulgence, but a delil)crately ccmtemplated incident in a viust and far-reaching plan which has for its object the restoration of the human race.
{d) Tlio leading factor in it, then, is the supreme energizing righteousness of God, which in the course of its ojieration includes several minor kinds of righteousness, and which eniis by attri- buting to the sinner a condition of rigliteou.sne.sa wliich he has very imperfectly realized for himself. So that from his point of view it mav well Iw called a righteousness not his own, but 'of"' or 'from Go<l.' We have seen that as far hack as Peutero- I.saiali and liaruch there were traces of this conception (^ irapd ToiJ Oeou SiKaio>jtnf), St. Paul therefore was not the first to introduce it. But it
is a mistake to refrarri it as forming the wliole or even the main 2)ait of his conception.
LiTERATiBB.— On tliis part of the subject the reader may cons\ilt the commentator!* on Itomans, anil in particiilnr those Dienlioned above ; alao Ptleidt-rer, PaiUinuninm ; iloltitcn, Kvaiuj, tl. ratUtis; Hitachi, liechtjertumntj u. i'erii6/inunfj. The stand wliich has receiilly been made iur explaining )<«. Cislot the personal ritrhteousness of God is associated in this country- esp. with the late Dr. James Bannby, Ptiipit Comin.on tin., R.id Ezpogitor, 1SSI6, ii. Viift., and Ur. A. Kobert«on in Tlie Thuiker, Nov. lsi)3 ; ct. Exp. Times, Feb. ISlls, p. 217. In Germany an art. by Kolbin^ito somewhat similar etlect appeared in SK, 1S!*.">, p. 139ff., followed by a monoirraph on the subject by Prof. HiirniK of Tubingen (Alk.\10iTNH ttKOT bei J'autM, Tubingen, 1S9'''). Further literature is piven on p. 6 of this treatise. The German writers were quite independent of the English, who preceded them in time. On the history of the OT conception there is a valuable tract by Dalman, Die rickttrliche GerechtigkeU im AT, Berlin, 1897, which suggested much of the line of treatment followed above.
2. Tni'. Revelation of God.— The more theo- logical writers of NT clearly lay it down that in Christianity a new revelation i.s given of the nature and character of God. They connect this new re- velation, (i.) with the coming of Christ, and (ii.) ^nth the special outpouring of tlie Holy Gliost.