The conception of Christ's Sonship here may seem to be quite different from that commonly found in the Epistles. But a comparison with Ro 1* may show that the two at root agree. Both here and in Romans the Resurrection is due to His holiness (Ac 1335). In Rom., further, the holiness is due to His sonship, of which the Resurrection is (iod's formal declaration, or (as Me.ver) into which the Resurrection instates Him. May this not he the idea here also? Linguistic usage permits ; for the priest was said 'to cleanse' the leper when he officially pronounced him 'clean' ; so may it not be that the thought in v.'iS is that in the Resurrection God formally declared Jesus to be His begotten Son ? On the other hand, the occurrence of the term 'justified' (v. 39) shows how precarious a procedure it is to assert development of doctrine according to the occurrence or non-occurrence of a particular expression in brief letters addressed to different local conditions. The word here shows that .St. Paul's doctrine of justification was not born just at the time of writing to the Galatians, even though it is not formally stated in the Thessalonian or Corinthian letters. The three accounts of St. Paul's conversion in Acts (9-^- ^«) show how the details of an event may be varyingly presented according to the character of those addressed and the purpose of the speaker.
(3) To find the genesis of St. Paul's view of Christ, we must go back to his conversion. There his conviction, at least as to the Person and jire- eminence of Christ, seems to have been settled. For {a) the light that shone about him, brighter than the Syrian noon-day sun (cf. Rev 1'^), was a light out of heaven. To him, as a well-instructed Jew, tliat was the Glory of God's revealetl pre- sence. Would it not be natural for Saul, Avith his great con.scientiousne.ss, zeal for God, and hope of attaining to the promise made to the fatiiers (Ac 26"), to conclude immediately that tiie Lord had again visited His people, and that the august Person who appeared to liini was none other than Jeliovah Himself (cf. Is 6 and 1 Co 9')? If so, we can understand the pre-eminent place that Person for ever after held in his tiiought. The words of rebuke and heaven-laden pity naturally stun and bewilder him, and lead to the .strange mingling of surprise and faith that breaks out in his question, ' ^^ ho art thou. Lord ?' The definite answer, ' I am Jesus whom thou persecutest,' however it may have wrenched his .soul, compelled his conversion. rie surrendered unreservedly, and hencefortli Jesus is his uriciiallenged and peerless Lord. Would sucli an unqualified surrender be justifiable had he not identified Je.sus with the Jehovah of his peoiile's history? Does any other view as fully explain all the facts?* {h) Unquestionably Saul was at once committed to the acceptance of Jesus as He was j)reaclied by those whom he was per-
* A sample fact would be the use of the word KCpm;, which in L\.\ is used to translate .Jehovah, in the Gospels 'usuallv designates God, and in the Epistles, especiallv St. I'aul's, most freciiiently Christ' (Winer; cf. Cremer, and Somerville, ,SY. J aids Conception ofChrif:t, p. 295 ; and esp. Knowling, Witness qf/lie Epistles, 261 ff.). The view here taken obviates Cremer's ditficulty. For it would then be natural to use t)ii; of the invisible God (as in Jn 118), and Kv,w; of God manifesting Himself as Jehovah in OT or as Christ in NT
For he must have been quite familiar with the claims made on behalf of Jesus by the Apostles and their associates. That Jesus was the Messiah, for example, he must have heard again and again. And what they declared Him to be, Jesus here plainly endorses. These two facts touching Christ's Person as Divine and His office as Messiah, Saul probably apprehended in the order here given. The record of his early preaching seems to follow the same order. For there he is represented as first preaching that Jesus is the Son of God, and later proving that Jesus is the Mes.siah (Ac 9-"-^-).
Doubtless he experienced some intellectual be- wilderment. It was one thing to feel that the Mighty One who had appeared to him was Jehovaii, and another to understand Iioav the Man Je.sus of Naza,reth could be verily God. It might seem to strike at Jewish monotheism, and yet the two facts are before him. His mind must find some .solution. Possibly it flashed ujjon him that God was essentially invisible (hinted at in Ex 33^'"^-^ ; cf. Col 1", 1 fi V' 6'"), and that therefore Jeliovah, the august Person who was Mont to appear to men and had now appeared to him, did not exhaust the mystery of God. Possibly he remembered that in the OT the closest relation to God was ex- pressed by 'sonship' (2 S 1^'^, Hos IP). Perhaps he had heard from Christians utterances which .suggested distinctions of Persons in the Godhead. For certainly the language both of St. John and of the Synoptists implies them, and in the baptismal formula mention would be made regularly of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It is quite possible that in the light of his new experience some or all of these may have led him to the assertion that Jesus is the Son of God as the first declaration of his faith. But Gal I'^ may mean that some special access of revealing light was given him. In either case, the probability is that when he pro- claimed Jesus to be the Son of God he did so in a sense transcending the ethical, equalling in signi- ficance its use on the lips of Jesus, and in full harmony with the Trinitarian conception. Jesus is God, Jesus is also Son. Certainly, if the meaning of the expression was specially revealed to him, the term chosen by St. Luke [iK-qpvcraiv, 9'-") becomes peculiarly apiu'opriate, as representing not so much something which he had laboriously reasoned out, as something Avhicli he recei\ed by so direct a revelation that he can come forward proclaiming it with all the certainty of a commissioned herald.