Righteousness is the starting-point of hia discus- sion ; it is seen in 'the wrath of God revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteous- ness of men' (Ro 1^*). God can never be at peace with sin. Law brings no righteousness ; 'by the law is the knowledge of sin' (3^°). All have sinned ; not one is righteous ; the necessity for a righteousness apart from the law is obvious. The provision of this, 'even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ unto aU them that beheve' (3--), is the Divine atonement. This imphes, of course, in its completion a great moral and spiritual change in the nature and character of those who ' have received the atonement ' ; that
* Cf. P. Wprnle, Anfonge unserer Religion, Tubingen, 1901, p. 146 ; Steveiis, Christian Doctrine of Salvation, 67.
end does not yet receive St. Paul's attention ; his mind is preoccupied with the means. He is not even at present intent on demonstrating the necessity of this ethical transformation ; he is in subjection to the arresting fact that all ungodliness and un- righteousness of men was exposed to the Divine wrath, and is constrained to show how the wrath was withheld. This was not primarily to be sought in the measure in which men might be arrested by the fact and cease to sin ; they must and would do that in proportion as they received the atonement. But for the time being St. Paul is confining his thought entirely to the 'objective' work of Christ in the atonement, whereby was provided and set forth the means by which the 'subjective' work of Christ in personal union with the believing soul might be possible ; indeed, in some respects it had been actual also in the past, for sins had already been remitted by God. 'Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus : whom God set forth to be a propitiation, through faith, by his blood, to show his righteous- ness, because of the passing over of the sins done aforetime, in the forbearance of God ; for the showing, I say, of his righteousness at this present season : that he might himself be just, and the justifier of him that hath faith in Jesus' (3-'"^).
Thus St. Paul conceived the method of deliver- ance from the wrath of God which was inevitable in the presence of unrighteousness ; it is an objective work and is in response to faith, however full of personal renewal in righteousness its ethical impli- cations may eventually become ; for the destruction of sin and the gift of hfe are regarded as depending upon a free bestowal on sinners of a righteousness of God. The interpretation of this crucial passage and its context depends upon the meaning assigned to the terms 'righteousness of God' and 'propitia- tion.' The idea expressed in the former term occupies the central place in St. Paul's conception of atonement. Righteousness was his passion ; its quest the summum bonum of his life; 'he had sought it long in vain, and when at length he found it he gave to it a name expressive of its infinite worth to his heart: the righteousness of God.'* To this title — 'a righteousness of God' — he firmly adheres ; it is distinctive ; to him it is something belonging to the Christian man, yet it is not his personal righteousness of character; he receives it. It also belongs to God, but it is not His personal righteousness which is imparted to the believer. St. Paul's conception of it does not occur in the Gospels, where the term stands for the righteous- ness of which God is the centre, which is His essential attribute. The nearest approach to the Pauline sense in the teaching of Jesus is the grace of God in the free pardon of sin. In St. Paul, righteousness is a 'gift' from God to him who believes in Christ. He is dealt with as righteous. To regard the righteousness of God as essentially self-imparting, taking hold of human fives and filling them with its Divine energies, without any reference to the problem sin has created, is not Paufine. To St. Paul, as well as to all NT teaching, God's righteousness was the affluent, overflowing source of aU the goodness in the world, but he felt that sin made a difference to God ; it was sin against His righteousness ; and His righteousness had to be vindicated against it ; it could not ignore it.
Any view which failed to appreciate this problem would miss the characteristic solution that St. Paul unceasingly presents in the 'propitiation' in the blood of Christ, 'whom God had set forth to show his righteousness in passing over sins done afore- time.' Ritschl's view, that always in St. Paul the righteousness of God means the mode of procedure which is consistent with God's having the salva- * Bruce, St. Paul's Conception of Christianity, 146.
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tion of believers as His end, * overlooks the emphatic contention of the Apostle, that it is the ungodly to whom God is gracious rather than the faithful within the covenant privilege; this latter is the class referred to in the Psahns and Second Isaiah, to whom God exhibited His righteousness in pres- ence of the wrongs done them by their enemies. Ritschl's conception is an attractive presentation of the meaning of the term in other relations, but it is irrelevant to St. Paul's distinctive meaning. The suggestive view of the term expounded by Seeberg in Der Tod Christi, that the righteousness of God means simply His moral activity in harmony with His true character, the norm of which is that He should institute and maintain fellowship with men ; that if He did not do so He would not be righteous and would fail to act in His proper character, leaves unanswered in any distinctive Pauline fashion the question what means God takes to secure fellowship wnth sinful men so that He may act towards the ungodly in a way which does justice to Himself. St. Paul does not leave the presentation of Chi-ist as a means by which this fellowship may be instituted, without a much closer definition ; he clearly relates it to the vicarious principle lying for him in his elect word 'propitiation,' whether it be taken as a strictly sacrificial term or not (see, in addition, art. Propitiation).