The interpretative word used in St. Paul's soteri- ology is KaraWayTi, 'reconciliation' (Ro 5" AV 'atonement'), the root idea of wliich is restora- tion of jiersonal relations between parties hitherto estranged. This involves the explanation of the ' catastrophe in human life,' sufficiently evident in common experience but inexplicable apart from the Hebrew realization of the personal God, which is set forth in Ro l'^'^^ as the rebellion of the un- thankful human -will against the claim of the Divine Creator (v.='). The need is universal (Ro 39. 23) .« ijm tijg later Augustinian terminology, which, in spite of Luther's return to a fuller Paulinism, still dominates the language even of Protestant divinity, tends by tlie use of .such figures a-s '\-ice' {vitiiC7n), 'flaw,' 'disea.se,' to palliate the exceeding sinfulness of sin and to obscure the personal significance of the Cross, which is always uppermost in St. Paul. Three points must be noted.
1. Christ died 'to reconcile the Father to us.'— This phrase, if not strictly Biblical, conveys the essential idea of Scripture, which is quite oh- scured by the statement that His death recon- ciles men to God. Modern teachers, concerned to vindicate the love of God, have inclined to repre- sent the Cross as intended to produce merely a change in the moral life of the sinner. Not only
* Notice that St. Paul more Behraico states sin as a universal fact—' all have sinned '—without developing a theory by physical analogy. No amount of ' originality' in sin detracts from full morarresponsibility towards God in the individual. Mr. Ten- nant in his Htilsean Lectures speaks as though the traditional doctrine of sin neutralized personal disobedience ; but this is not the case, as a right understanding of St. Paul's doctrine of reconcihation in Christ will show.
is this inconsistent with the idea of reconciliation, but St. Paul, whUe, with the NT generally, always re])resenting the work of Christ as arising in the gracious will of the Father (2 Co 5'»- »», Ro 5^ 8'=, Col l'-'- =», Eph P- ", 1 Th 5», Tit 3* ; cf . 1 P l^ JnS'^ and passiyn, 1 Jn 3^), yet invariably regards it as the loving act (2 Co 5» 8', Gal 1* 2™, Ko 8", Eph 5=, cf. Jn 10", Rev P) of a mediator (1 Ti 2*-«, cf. He 9'^), producing in the first instance a change in God's attitude towards the sinner (2 Th 18- ^ Ro S\ cf. vv.'-s), turning away ■v\Tath (1 Th V, Ro 5^), removing trespasses (2 Co 5''), and pro- riding a channel through which God miglit forgive sins as an act not only of mercy but of justice (Ro 3-").
It is perhaps unnecessary to argue with the formality which sets up an abstract Law * to which even God must do homage. At this point even Dale becomes somewhat cumbrous. But it is obvious that even the parable of the Prodigal Son would not ring true in human ears unless it was for ever interpreted by a transaction which gives due weight to the enormity of a sin that entailed the sacrifice of the Father's only Son. Nor would St. Paul have succeeded in commend- ing the death of Christ to the Christian conscience save by insisting that only thus could God recon- cile a world unto Himself and be alike just and the justifier of the believer.
2, The death of Christ is the act of God (Tit 2" [cf. 2 P VI Ro P, 2 Co i\ Col P=, Ph 2«, Ro S^m, Ac 20^).— 'It is at this point in the last resort that we become convinced of the deity of Christ ' (Denney). ' God was in Christ,' who was ' marked off as the Son of God by the resurrection.' Grace is always in St. Paul the free act of God's favour (Ro 3^ 4*-^ al.), and it is 'the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ' (Ro 5" 16™, 2 Co 8' 13"), wherebv we have been enriched. The love of Christ which constrains us, because He died for all, is Divine (2 Co SI-'-"--'" 'on behalf of Christ'='as though God were entreating by us '). The position of the justified sinner is that of a restored sonship, Ix;- cause his redemption from first to last is the action towards him of the eternal God Himself. His right relation to the Father is witnessed by, or rather is, the presence of the Spirit of the Son ' sent forth ' into his heart by that same God who had ' sent forth ' the Son Himself to work out a redemption under the conditions which imixised this necessity of love upon the paternal heart of God (Gal 4^-*). AVhen this is once apprehended, the objections to a doctrine of substitution (' ego sum peccatum tuum, tu es justitia mea' — 2 Co o^) are seen to have no application in fact. They are valid only if the activity of the Mediator is separated sharply from that of the Father. Such a distinction is neither Pauline nor Christian. The threefoldness of God is a revelation inci- dental to 'the unfolding of the work of Divine Atonement' (see Moberly, Atonement and Person- ality, ch. viii.). With St. Paul, as with St. John, it is the Father who is revealed in the Son (see above), whose work is manifest in the work of Christ. Redemption is parallel to Creation (Gal 6'5, Col 1'8, Eph 1", 1 Co IS*'-^* ■«'; cf. Jn P", Rev 2P-5). K the moralitv of the latter lies in the fact that 'God saw that it was good,' the justice of the former is witnessed not only by the 'new creation' but by the infinite worth of tlie Son (1 Co 6-"), whom God gave up for us all and who endured the Cross.