Neither, with this key in our hand, will it be possible to raise a (question whether the election here expounded is to eternal hfe or not rather merely to prior privilege or higher service. These too, no doubt, are included. Hut l>y what right is this long section intruded liere as a substantive part of tliis Epistle, busied as a whole with the exposition of 'tlie power of God unto salvation to every one that bclievelh, to the Jew first and also to the Greek,' if it has no direct concern with this salvation? Ily what chance lias it attached it*<elf to that noble grounding of a Christian's hope and assurance with which the eighth chapter closes? Uy what course of thought does il rea<-ii its own culmination in that l)Ui'8t of pniise to God, on whom all things cli-pcnd, with which it concludes? By what accident is it itself filled with the most unequivocal references to the saving grace of God 'which hath been poured out on the vessels of bis mercy which he afore prepared for glory, even on us whom he also called, not from the Jews only, hut also from the Gentiles' V If such language boa no reference tc salvation, there Is no language in the NT that need be inter pretcd of final dcetlny. Beyond question this section don
60
PKEDESTIKATION
PREDESTINATION
explain to us some of the grounds of the mode of God's action in patliering a people to Himself out of tlie world ; and in doin)^ this, it does reveal to us souie of the ways in which the distributiun of Uis eleeliiig grace serves the purposes of His kingdom on earth ; readin<j it, we certainly do Icam that God has many ends to serve in His gracious dealings with the children of men, and that we, in our ignorance of His multi- farious purposes, are not fitted to be His counsellors. But by alt this, the iact is in no wise obscured that it is primarily to salvation that Ho calls His elect, and that whatever other ends their election may subserve, this fundamental end will never ^xil ; that in this, too, the gifts and calling of God are not .epented of, and will surely lead on to their goal. The diffi- culty which is felt by some in following the apostle's argument here, we may suspect, has its roots in part in a shrinking from what appears to them an arbitrary assignment of men to diverse destinies without considerat^ion of their desert. Cer- tainly St. Paul as explicitly artirms the sovereignty of repro- bation as of election, — if these twin ideas are, indeed, separable even in thought: if he represents God as sovereignly loving Jacob, he represents Him equally as sovereignly hating Esau ; if he declares that He has mercy on whom He will, he equally declares that He hardens whom He will. Doubtless the difh- culty often felt here is, in part, an outgrowth of an insufficient realization of St. Paul's basal conception of the state of men at large as condemned sinners before an angry God. It is with a world of lost sinners th.at he is representing God as dealing ; and out of that world building up a Kingdom of Grace. Were not all men sinners, there might still be an election, as sove- reign as now ; and there being an election, there would still be as sovereign a rejection : but the rejection would not be a rejection to punishment, to destruction, to eternal death, but to some other destiny consonant to the state in which those passed by should be left. It is not indeed, then, because men are sinners that men are left unelected ; election is free, and Its obverse of rejection must be equally free : but it is solely because men are sinners that what they are left to is destruc- tion. And it is in this universalism of ruin rather than in a universalism of salvation that St. Paul really roots his theodicy. When all deserve death it is a marvel of pure grace that any receive life ; and who shall gainsaj' the right of Him who shows this miraculous mercy, to have mercy on whom He will, and whom He will to harden ? (See Bkfrobatk).
(c) In Eph 11-12 there is, if possible, an even higher note struck. Here, too, St. Paul is dealing primarily with the blessings bestowed on his readers, in Christ, all of which he ascribes to the free grace of God ; but he so speaks of these blessings as to correlate the gracious purpose of God in salvation, not merely with the plan of operation which He prosecutes in establishing and perfecting His kingdom on earth, but also wth the all-embracing decree that underlies His total cosmical activity. In opening this circular letter, addressed to no particular community whose special circumstances might suggest the theme of the thanksgiving witli which he customarily begins his letters, St. Paul is thrown back on what is common to Christians ; and it is probably to this circumstance that we owe the magnificent descrip- tion of the salvation in Christ \vith whicli the Epistle opens, and in which this salvation is traced consecutivelj; in its preparation (vv.^-"), its exe- cution ('•'), its publication (*■'»), and its applica- tion ("■"), both to Jews ("• ") and to Gentiles ('«• "). Thus, at all events, we have brought before ns the whole ideal history of salvation in Christ from eternity to eternity — from the eternal pur- pose as it lay in tlie loving heart of the Father, to the eternal consummation, when all things in heaven and earth shall be summed up in Christ. Even the incredible profvision of the blessings which we receive in Christ, described with an accumulation of phrases that almost defies exposi- tion, is less noticeable here than the emphasis and reiteration with which the apostle carries back their bestowment on us to that primal purpose of God in which all things are afore prepared ere they are set in the way of accomplisliment. All this accumulation of blessings, he tells his readers, has come to them and him only in fulfilment of an eternal purpose— only because they had been chosen by God out of the mass of sinful men, in Christ, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless before Him, and had been lovingly predestinated unto adoption throujih Jesus Chnst to Him, in accordance with the good-