(6) St. Paul, like all the Apostles, supports his theology by the Old Testament. His central theme, the Divine Christ, he sets at once in in- separable relations to Jehovah. The Jewish teach- ings of his day confounded ombx and ma (so Jehovah is rendered @eds in LXX of Nu 2213 988. while 5x and onbs appear as xdpvos in Nu 288%, Gn 21%); but St. Paul, with a few possible exceptions (1 Co 3°, Ro 14%), agrees with St. James (1! 21-5) and St. Peter (Ac 2°) in distinguishing them as two Divine Persons. The Father is 6eds, though the name is also given to the Son (Ro 9°), and the Son is xtptos. This personal distinction of Father and Son is traced by St. Paul to the OT distinctions of obs and mm, and to the different relations of God to man expressed by those names (ef. Seeberg, Die Anbetung d. ‘Hern’ bei Paulus, p. 8f.). The distinction of God in Himself and the revealing Jehovah in the OT, St. Paul sees fully unfolded in the personal distinction of Father and Son. Christ did not become Lord; His xupidrns was but a form of His activity as a personal Divine Being. He was God before He was manifested as Lord; and He will be God after He ceases to rule as Lord (1 Co 15”; cf, August. J.c. i. 8). He is Lord, notin relation to God but in relation to man (Ro 5! 1-2! 64 148, 1 Co 12-10), St. Paul, too, goes back to Ps 110, which he quotes oftener than any other OT passage (Ro §*4, Eph 1°, Col 3!, 1 Co 15“). He found there the Lord Christ reigning with the Lord God until all
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enemies to God’s kingdom were subdued, and sharing the Divine majesty and power insepar- able from God. ‘This prophecy was fulfilled in the incarnate Lord conquering death and Satan, and through the Resurrection sitting down at the right hand of God, with all enemies at His foot- stool (Ro 84, Eph 1°). The glorified Christ is the Lord of glory (Ph 2°, Ja 2'). Not till after the Resurrection was Jesus Lord, though He was ever Divine (1 Co 28; cf. Mt 22%), Christ saves us as triumphant Lord (Eph 4°, 1 Co 7). He is also the Providence of the Church (Gal 2?, 1 Co 4!" 167). When all believers are saved His lordship ceases ; He gives the kingdom which He undertook to the Father and resumes the eternal relations of the Son (1 Co 15%), From the Resurrection to the Last Judgment is the rule of Christ. He rules with the Father (1 Co 15", Ro 8), as He saves with the Father (Col 1°, Ro 88). God’s work for man, St. Paul teaches, is never apart from Christ’s work. They are as rays of heat and light in the same sun- beam. Hence St. Paul was called to be an Apostle by both Father and Son (Gal 11), who formed one Divine power (as omission of 6:4 before deo and singular predicates show; cf. 1 Ti 11, 1 Th 3", 2Th 217, 1 Co 15%; Seeberg); and he sees the final judgment as by both God and Christ (2 Th 1%, 1 Co 4’). All between these in St. Paul’s survey of life is done equally by the Father and Son. ‘The active rule of the exalted Lord is, according to Paul, such that in every act of it contempor- aneously an act of God the Father is completed’ (Seeberg, p. 35). The grace of the Son is as much a Divine element in salvation as is the love of the Father (Tit 37); hence, with the possible ex- ception of Ro 8*4, St. Paul never speaks of inter- cession of the Son with the Father, so one are they considered in working. His God, 'in opposi- tion to polytheism, is ‘one God the Father, of whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things’ (1 Co 8°). He says (v.*), ‘there is none other God but one,’ and that one God is the Father and Son. These were equally God for St. Paul from Ps 110 to his own last ex- perience. The subordination of the Son was but a stepping-stone to lift the saints to the glory of the Father, which was shared by the Son. The words ‘Christ is God’s’ (1 Co 37) support the assurance ‘ye are Christ’s,’ as the statement ‘the head of Christ is God’ upholds the teaching that ‘the head of every man is Christ’ (1 Co 11%). St. Paul follows Jesus’ teachings that the Father was greater than the Son, not by way of contrast, but in a unity, which communicates all the greatness of the Father through the service of the Son (ef. Coley og):
(c) St. Panl’s theology is Christo-centric. He pro- ceeds from Christ outwards to Father and Spirit, yet everywhere recognizing the Divine relation of the Spirit to the Father and Son. The living bond between the Son, exalted as Lord, and man is the Holy Ghost. St. Paul echoes Jesus’ doctrine (Jn 16") that the Spirit teaches Christ and is an earnest of all good things to come (2 Co 1% 5°, Eph 1%), So one in working are they that he calls Christ a life-giving Spirit (1 Co 15*’), and says, ‘the Lord is the Spirit’ (2 Co 3"). They are one as in the Godhead, yet distinct, both in their subjective and objective relations to man; for he adds: ‘where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty,’ and elsewhere (Gal 5!) says, ‘stand fast in the