pation of the Cliristian life from everything statu- tory, whatever its origin. The Christian is not under law, but under grace ; no statute contri- butes in the least degree to make him what he is , or to give him the experiences which he has ; it is as he stands in the iiresence of the crucified and risen Christ, and abandons himself in faith to the Divine love there revealed, that the Divine power descends into his heart which annuls all the statutes and conventions he has ever known, and is itself everything to him henceforth. It is under the inspiration of this power, and of this power alone, tnat he now lives and acts ; not conformity to any external standard, however high, but moral originality like that of Jesus, because inspired by the consciousness of Jesus and of all he owes to Him, is what is required of him at every step. That such a conception is not without moral perils, and that it is capable of being abused, St. Paul was well aware (Gal S^^, Ro 6") ; but it is in one respect the fundamental truth of his gospel, and he would never compromise upon it. That it has its basis in the teaching of Jesus— as its su- preme illustration in the whole life of Jesus — we may see from the Sermon on the Mount, or from Mt 17^-", Jn 83'-*.— {(/) Again, the Pauline idea of the earnest of the Spirit (ippa^dv 2 Co 1- 5*, Eph 1"), or of the first-fruits of the Spirit (airapxh, Ro 8^), according to which the Spirit is a guaran- tee of eternal life, is continuous with the teaching of Jesus. The Spirit is such a guarantee because it is a quickening spirit, 'the Spirit of him that raised Jesus from the dead ' (8") ; it brings to men the life of God, the same life that was manifested in Jesus, and that made it impossible that He should be holden of death (Ac 2--'). The argu- ment, or rather the assumption of the Apostle, in all these passages is the same as that of Jesus in His answer to the Sadducees. When God lias pledged His friendship to men as He did to the patriarchs in ancient days, or as He does to Chris- tians now in making them, through the Spirit, par- takers of His own life. He has entered into a relation to them to which death can make no difference. His love outwardly, His Spirit in- wardly, both mean immortality. They both say of God's flock : ' They shall never perish ; none can pluck them out of the Father's hand ' (Jn 10=^). The only difference is that when immortality is deduced from the possession of the Spirit (that is, the life of God), it is referred, so to speak, to a natu- ral or supernatural law, and we see it as part of a constitution of things ; whereas when it is deduced from the friendship of God, we see it purely as a gift of His grace. — (e) Formally, there is one great contrast which brings out the meaning of spirit in St. Paul, but which cannot be directly connected with Jesus, the contrast of spirit and flesh. This pervades the Apostle's writings, and is conspicu- ous in such passages as Ro 8, Gal 5. The flesh represents for him sin in its virulent and consti- tutional character ; the Spirit is the Divine power given to the believer in Jesus, which enables him to do what the Law could not do— to vanquish or put to death the flesh. Yet when St. Paul learned the lesson that only the Spirit could overcome the flesh, he merely learned wtiat Jesus taught the rich ruler—' There is none good but one, that is God ' (Mk 10'*)— with its necessary inference, that for any goodness we can ever attain we must be abso- lutely dependent on God. St. Paul's gospel means not only that we must be so dependent, but that by God's mercy sucli dependence is made possible for us: God puts His Holy Spirit in those who believe in Jesus, with their sanctification expressly in view (1 Th 4"-). There is, of course, a reference here to the OT conception of the Spirit in Ezk 36" 37'^
The
passaj^es
throug:h the Sp
Au+z,-, ftc), tht'
l"it. Ill lioUi
garded by St. Paul as a source oi Kimw ic-iuc <ir ri-\L-iaiion are amon^^ the most
the Synoptic wonis .it .Irsiis. lieyides 1 Co 12« (where the
' ' " ■ owledge ' are mediated
explains hihux-n, a-^oxa.- Ses in 1 Co 2 and Eph isdoin is spoken of which is LTs (though >;,;t7» in 1 Co 2'" may other inspired teachers). The because it searches all thing^s, thedepths of God. The contents of the wisdom in ques- tion are in both cases, apparently, eschatological. It is wisdom which God has foreordained * for our glory ' (not In honour of us, but with that glory in view which we are to share with the Lord of glory), 1 Co 2'. It speaks of the things ' which eye has not seen nor ear heard ... all that God has prepared for those who love him ' (2»), or, in the words of Eph lis, of ' the hope attached to God's calling, of the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints.' Only the man who has the Spirit himself, who has had the eyes of his heart illumined, can receive, teach, or appreciate this wisdom. If we should say that we have a notable specimen of it in 1 Co 15, then its Christian character is thoroughly safeguarded : it speaks not merely of the things that are freely given to us by God (2»), but of the things that are freely given to us by God in Christ. It is ill Him that all shall be made alive, and put on the body of glory (1 Co 15'^^, Pli 3^i)- It is Christ in us who is the hope of the glory contemplated for us in God's wisdom (Col 127, i Co 27). The power with which God wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and set Him at His right hand in the heavenly places (Eph I'Hf), is the same as ' the power which worketh in us ' through the Spirit (320), and it works in us to the same glorious issue. It is perhaps impossible for us to appreciate as revelation all the forms in which St. Paul's thought and imagination clothed themselves as he laid hold of the hope of glory and immortality in Christ ; but, judging from the combination of these passages, this seems to have been the substance of his Spirit-taught wisdom. On its agreement In substance with the mind of Christ see under (d) above. The truth of passages likelCo2'^'6is generalized in such Johannine words of Jesus as ' SIj/ sheep hear my voice . . . you do not be- lieve because you are not of my sheep . . . every one that is of the truth heareth my voice ' (Jn 1027- 26 1837). This again unites with Jesus the Pauline conception of the Spirit.