(a) Sometimes they are, so to speak, unstudied : the truth is put, and possibly with emphasis, but there is no particular reflexion upon it. Thus, in 1 Co 3" ' other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Christ Jesus.' This comes very close to Ac 4"'- (see above). Again, when we read in 2 Co P" ' how many soever are the promises of God, in him is the yea,' we are confronted with the same truth. There is not a single promise God has made, not a single hope with which He has inspired human hearts, which is to have any fulfil- ment except in Him. The mental attitude is the same in Gal 1*'-. The form of St. Paul's argu- ments is sometimes more disconcerting to us in Galatians than in any other of his Epistles, yet nowhere does he keep closer to the heart of hi? gospel. What these two seemingly intolerant verses mean is that Christ is the whole of the Christian religion, and that to introduce other things side by side with Him, as if they could supplement Him, or share in His absolute signifi- cance for salvation, is treason to Christ Himself. Christ crucified — the whole revelation of God's redeeming love to sinners is there ; the sinful soul abandoning itself in unreserved faith to this reve- lation— the whole of the Christian religion is there. Whoever brings into religion anything else than Christ and faith, as though anything else could conceivably stand on the same plane, is, wittingly or unwittingly, the deadly enemy of the gospel. Such expressions as these exhibit the absolute significance which Christ had for the Apostle in the most unquestionable way, but they imply no speculative Christology. We may hold them, and to preach Christ we must hold them, but Ave may do so without raising any of the theological ques- tions which have been raised in connexion with them. There is hardly a page of St. Paul's writ- ings which could not be quoted in illustration.
PKEACHIXG CHRIST
PKEACHING CHRIST
401
Confining ourselves to the Epp. to the Thess., as his eailiest letters, and omitting the salutations referred to above, ve find everywhere the absolute dependence of the Christian on Christ, — a kind of relation which would be not only inconceivable but immoral if any other than Christ were the subject of it. Just as men in general are said to live and move and have their being in God, Ciiris- tians live and move and have their being 'in Christ.' What space is to bodies, Christ is to believing souls : thev live in Him, and all the functions of their life are determined by Him. St. Paul has contidence in the Lord toward the
Thessalonians (II 3^) ; he charges and entreats them in the Lord Jesus Christ (II 3'-) ; they stand in the Lord (I 3**) ; he gives them commandments through the Lord Jesus (I 4-) ; church rulers are tliose who are over them in the Lord (I 5'-) ; the Christian rule of life is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning them (I 5"^) ; the Christian de- parted are the dead in Christ (I 4^") ; all benediction is summed up in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ (I 5^, II 1'- 3i«) ; Jesus and the Father are co-ordinated as the object of prayer (I 3^'), and jirayer is directly addressed to the Lord, i.e. to Christ (I 31-). Our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we are to obtain salvation at the gi'eat day, is He who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep we should live together with Him (I 5'"). It is as though all that God does for us were done in and through Him ; so that He confronts us as Saviour in Divine glory and omnipotence. "We may trust Him as God is trusted, live in Him as we live in God, appeal to Him to save us as only God can save ; and it is only as we do so that we have in Him a Person whom we can preach. Such a Person we can have, as the pas.sages cited show, without raising any of the questions with which St. Paul himself subsequently wrestled. But the right way to express all this — which does not first apjtear in Colossians, but is of the essence of Christianity from the beginning — is not to say with Wernle that the consciousness of God has been weakened, but that the idea of God has been Christianized : the Father is known in the Son, and is known as working through Him to the end of our salvation. And this, it need hardly be repeated, is identical in religious import with what we have found in the mind of Christ Himself.
(h) Sometimes, however, the Apostle presents us with more speculative conceptions of Christ. He is not simply a Person who has appeared in history, and has been exalted in Divine power and glory. He is what may be called a universal Person, a typical or representative Person, who has for the new humanity the same kind of significance as Adam had for the old. Adam was the head of the one, Christ is the head of the other. As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive. The acts of Christ have a representative or universal character : the death that He died for all has somehow the significance which the death of all would itself have ; in His resurrection we see the first-fruits of a new r.ace which shall wear the image of the heavenly. Broadly speaking, this