previously under restraint, will be allowed one day a full manifestation (cf. Ro 7%); and ‘the lawless one,’ Satan’s perfect embodiment (apparently, a
PAUL THE APOSTLE
PAUL THE APOSTLE 725
elf deltvats autocrat of universal power), ‘shall be revealed, whom the Lord shall destroy’ by His coming (2 ΤῊ 2°"), Nowhere more decidedly than in this field of thought does Paul show himself the child of Judaism. See, further, art. MAN OF SIN.
(c) The Consummation. —The Divine kingdom embraces in its scope present mundane affairs; the ‘ powers that be are ordained of God,’ e.g. those of Rome though heathen and corrupt ; the magistrate is ‘God’s servant to thee for good,’ enforcing His laws in the civil state (Ro 13'7)._ Throughout the perishing ‘fashion of this world’ Paul recognizes the will of Him ‘of whom and for whom are all things,’—the demands of duty, the exercise of conscience ; a realm where, despite ‘the god of this world,’ the true God leaves Himself at no point without witness or without authority.
But the Kingdom belongs in its proper manifes- tation and glory to the future. In ‘this present evil world’ it is hidden and thwarted, realized at best only ‘in part’ and with ‘groanings’; its bestowments are no more than an earnest and firstfruit, the experience of a babe, in comparison of ‘the plory that shall be revealed to us-ward’ (Ro 8, 1 Co 13%, 2 Co 4:6-δὅ). It is ‘through much tribulation’ that we shall reach the goal and ‘enter into the kingdom of God.’ Hope, there- fore, plays a leading part in St. Paul’s teaching, by the side of faith and love. The certainty of ¢. consummation of the kingdom of God crowns his theology, and determines it throughout as the end determines the way. The aims of Paul’s life, as of the whole NT teaching, courte upon ‘the kingdom and glory’ yet to come. The following chief points may be noted in the apostle’s doctrine of the Last Things :—
(a) The moral perfection of each believer, and the collective paren of the Church, are the ends of the apostle’s ministry as of Christ’s own sacrifice (Col 12-2 27-8, Eph 5°77, Tit 37, 1Th 219. 20 312. 13 523 Ph 2156.18) his inner glory and true wealth of God’s kingdom, now being acquired (2 Co 318, Ro 8”, 9%), shall shine forth at ‘the un- veiling of the sons of God,’ when state shall corre- spond to character and the ‘spiritual body’ to the worth and needs of the informing spirit. On the other hand, it is well known that ‘the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God’ (1 Co 6" ete.). Their ‘end shall be according to their works’ (Ro 2) 5.00 1115, 2 Ti 412).
(8) The resurrection of the body is ey to the realization of the life of the spirit. St. Paul knows nothing of Hellenic or Oriental dualism. The body is not the detachable envelope, but the
roper organ of the spirit. Its existing form of Gee and blood perishes, but only to be reconstituted in fitter fashion. It is true that in 1 Co 15" ete. Paul thinks only of of τοῦ Χριστοῦ ; but if the wicked exist in the world to come, they too must have an appropriate bodily form ; there is nothing in the Epp. inconsistent with the statement of Ac 24% ‘that there shall be a resurrection both of just and unjust’ (cf. Jn 5%). In the risen Christ Paul sees ‘ the firstfruit of them that have fallen asleep’ ; the certainty and the kind of the harvest are evi- denced by this first ripened sheaf (1 Co 15”). The fact that ‘Jesus died and rose again’ assures our faith that the Christian dead shall return, with Him (1 Th 4% 4), The saints found alive at the παρουσία shall be transformed, the natural body giving place to the spiritual, and ‘the mortal’ in them being ‘swallowed up of life’ (1 Co 15%, 2 Co δ᾽").
(y) On the intermediate state Paul has no reve- lation. ‘Sleep,’ Jesus’ name for death, oo a comparative quiescence (cf. Rev 14"), yet without unconsciousness or torpor. The apostle expects ‘to
depart and be with Christ, which is very far better,’ —in some communion nearer than the earthly ; hence ‘to die is gain’ (Ph 1“, 2Co5*8; cf. Lk 23%), In his earliest Epp., up to 1 Co, the interval before the Parousia appears inconsiderable (‘the time is short,’ 1 Co 7”); Paul includes himself with those alive at the Lord’s return (1 Th 47). Afterwards the Advent receded in his view; when writing 2 Co, he anticipated a martyr’s death and was ‘ bearing about the dying of the Lord Jesus’ (47-8). This ex- perience effected ‘a marked change in the Pauline eschatology’ (Sabatier, Ap. Paul, on 2 Co 4. 5); St. Paul’s earlier, half-Judaistic idea of a visible advent, a universal resurrection of the sleeping dead and a great judgment-scene, gave pluce, it is said, to the more spiritual theory of the soul’s entrance through death into its perfected heavenly state and full communion with Christ. Similarly, Beyschlag (NT Theology, ii. pp. 268-272); and, with limitations, Kabisch (Lschatologie εἰ. Paulus, 296- 305); Pfleiderer thinks that the apostle held in his mind the two conceptions, Judaic and Hellen- istic, unassimilated (Paulinismus*, pp. 274-289). This interpretation is incorrectly Gained from 2 Co 5 (see ee and Klépper, ad loc.; Weiss, NT Theol. § 96d). The FEN says (5') that ‘if the earthly tabernacle should be dissolved, we have an eternal house in the heavens,’—not that we enter it at once, but it belongs to us (as συνκλη-