But there is another side to the Pauline doctrine of the cross. When it is said in Ro 8'* that ‘God by sending his own Son in likeness of sinful flesh, and (as a sacrifice) for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us,’ the subjective moral effect ὁ Christ’s death comes into view. The mission of
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134 PAUL THE APOSTLE
PAUL THE APOSTLE
Carist has so brought home the guilt of human sin as to bring about a full reaction. While en- during the penalty, Christ has broken the power of sin, and dethroned it (cf. 5"), even in that ‘flesh’ which was its seat ; so sanctification (Ro 6), equally with justification (Ro 3-5), springs from the death of the cross, the saving power of which is certified and made eflicacious by the resurrection of the Sinbearer (Ro 49" 5. 8* 108°, Ph 3°). As ‘condemnation’ ceases for ‘ those who are in Christ Jesus,’ there begins to operate upon them that ‘law of the Spirit of life in him’ which ‘frees from the law of sin and death,’ substituting ‘the mind of the Spirit’ for ‘the mind of the flesh’ and giving them victory over bodily death, whose ‘sting’ is gone for those who in Christ have ‘died to sin’ (Ro 6? 8', 1 Co 15%), The change of status and the change of character effected in believers are, to Paul’s mind, inseparable; he blends them in Ro 6, where those who ‘died to sin’ are such as have in Christ at once expiated its curse and renounced its dominion, to ‘walk’ with their risen Lord ‘in newness of life’—living in Him, and as He does, ‘to God.’ In the pregnant words of ν.7, they are ‘justified (so as to be free) from sin.’ The so-called ‘juristic’ and ‘ethical’ theories of the Atonement are complementary to each other ; Paul passes from one to the other with no sense of discrepancy (see Stevens’ Pauline Theol., on ‘ Justi- fication’; Pileiderer’s Paulinismus*, ‘Der Tod Christi’; Sabatier’s Apostle Paul, p. 297 ff.). See, further, arts. ATONEMENT, PROPITIATION.
(c) The new Life of Faith.—From the moment that he dies with Christ, there begins for the be- liever the new life of faith (Gal 2"), The word Faith on the human side is as characteristic of Paulinism as Grace on the Divine. Faith is the hand reached out to receive the gifts of grace ; it is the root by which the soul is planted into Christ and draws its life from Him. It is ‘ prora et puppis’ to Christian experience (Ro 118: 1"), and conditions all security and progress (Eph 61° 14"),
Faith is the characteristic function of the ‘heart’ (Ro 10”, Eph 3'7)—of the entire inward man there centred. It includes the response of the affections to the love of God and of Christ (Ro δ᾽, Gal 2”), self-surrendering submission to the will and call of God (the ‘obedience of faith,’ Ro 15 618-37 103. 18, ] Th 2!" 13), and the grasp of the understanding which apprehends ‘the ate of the gospel’ (2 Th 2-8), Especially in the later ipistles, addressed to instructed Churches now endangered by intellectual forms of error, stress is laid on the mental element in faith; and ‘know- ledge (of God, of truth,’ ete. ; ἐπίγνωσις, advanced, exact knowledge) is represented as the means of growth and the condition of safety (Col 15:1} 93 31 45) Eph 118 ἘΠ Phe 1 Ti 24 Tit 1). St. Paul’s ἐπίγνωσις is simply an educated faith. This is one of the aspects of Christian perfection. The revelation of the gospel assumes faith and depends at every point on this condition (Ro 333-35 4% 51-2, 1 Co 124, 2 Co 1%, Gal 32, Eph 13-19 1 Th 238, Tit 3°, ete.), just as the legal covenant assumed for its efficacy the performance of ‘works.’ Christian men are briefly described as ‘believers’ (οἱ πιστεύ- ovtes, ol πιστεύσαντες, ol ἐκ πίστεως). Faith is the one subjective condition of justification,—that Divine acquittal with which our salvation begins and in which its whole process is virtually contained. The ‘righteousness of faith,’ the ‘ gift of righteous- ness,’ supersedes that ‘righteousness of one’s own’ which the legalist vainly sought by self-directed efforts; failing to be ‘justified of works,’ men are
freely ‘justified of faith’ (Ro 37% 515-17 9%_}0)3), The power of faith lies in the fact that it is man’s reliance on God’s ae and grace ; it reco
’s righteousness’; fait
izes
and ‘submits to ac-
cepts His promise—in a word, it ‘gives glory to God’ without any thought of merit or claim upon man’s part (Ro 4}δ' #4108), On this account Abraham’s faith,—the instantia probans for Israel- ites, —notwithstanding the difference of its content, is a pattern to Christians (Ro 4, Gal 3). Such ‘faith is reckoned for (to amount to) righteousness’ ; this is, in fact, the normal attitude of the soul toward God, the disposition which alone makes a right understanding and right relations possible between man and God. While faith appears to supersede law, it is a principle Pde y just, and supplies the true guarantee for the establish- ment of Divine law in human life (Ro 3% *; ef. ii. 1 (d), above). Christian faith has for its specific object the revelation of God’s e and righteous- ness in Christ, and for its primary result the re- mission of sins grounded on His expiatory death.