4. St. Paul's doctrine. — It is St. Paul who most fully develops the doctrine in its strictly theological aspects. His teaching, however, only expands that of our Lord on the same subject, as when He speaks of those whom the Father had given Him (Jn G^'^' 3" 17-' -*), to whom He should give life eternal, and whom He should keep so that they would never perish (Jn 10^^). St. Paul from an early period of his missionary labours saw results which were recognized in his circle to be due to an influence higher than man's — to the predestinating counsel of God. For the historian tells how, on St. Paul's preaching for the first time to Gentiles at Antioch of Pisidia, * as many as were ordained to eternal life believed' (Ac 13*^). This was on his first missionary journey. On his second he preached to the Thessalonians among others, and in the two Epistles written to them on that extended journey there is the clear recognition of the same influence. Giving thanks to God for them, St. Paul in the opening Avords of the First Epistle discerns in their experience, and sets forth for their comfort, the proofs of their ' election ' ( 1 Th l"-'"). From their response to the gospel call, their acceptance of the gospel message, their patient endurance of affliction, and the joy they had in their new spiritual life, a joy begotten in them of the Holy Spirit, St. Paul inferred and knew their election. And not long after, when he wrote tlie Second Epistle to correct misapprehensions produced by the First, he set before the Thessalonian Christians, in language still loftier and more explicit, this profound and encouraging truth of a Divine election (2 Th 2^3-i5)_ God is liere represented as taking them for His own (the verb is eTXaro, not i^eXi^aro), and it is 'from the beginning,' from eternity (there is a reading airapxnv, ' firstfruits,' instead of air^ &PXV^)^ that the transaction dates. It is not to religious privileges merely, nor even to a possible or con- tingent salvation, that they have been chosen, but to an actual and present experience of its blessings, felt in holiness of life and assurance of the truth. This was, indeed, what they were called
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to enjoy through the gospel preached by St. Paul and his colleagues, so as at length to obtain the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. In his Epistle to the Komans, ^^Titten not long after, St. Paul, in ch. 8, rising to the loftiest heights of Divine inspira- tion, and penetrating, as it might seem, to the secret place of the counsels of the Most High, apprehends for himself, and makes known for the encourage- ment of faith, the links of the great chain of the Divine election by which the Church of believers is bound about the feet of God — ' foreknown,' ' foreordained,' ' called,' ' justified,' ' glorified ' (Ro g28-30)_ Here ' they that love God ' are co-extensive and identical with ' them that are called according to his purpose.' They are 'foreordained,' so that they may attain the likeness of God's Son, and, further, that He may be glorified in them and see of the travail of His soul and be satisfied. God's elect (Ro 8^^) may have the assaults of temptation and trial to face, and tribulation, anguish, perse- cution, famine, nakedness, peril, and sword to en- dure ; but nothing can separate them from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus.
These disclosures regarding God's eternal pur- pose of grace are continued and extended by St. Paul in the Epistle to the Ephesians, Avhere the spiritual blessings enjoyed in such abundance by them are traced up to their election by God — ' even as he chose us in him (Christ) before the founda- tion of the world, that we should be holy and with- out blemish before him in love : having fore- ordained us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace' (Eph I^'®). It is a further development of this when St. Paul says again in the same Epistle : ' We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God afore prepared that we should walk in them ' (Eph 2i"). The unconditional character of the Divine choice, emphasized in these statements of the Apostle, is affirmed again when, writing to Timothy, he bids him suffer for the gospel ' according to the power of God, who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose of grace which was given in Christ Jesus before times eternal ' (2 Ti P).
In a separate passage of the Epistle to the Romans (chs. 9-11) St. Paul deals with the mystery of the call of the Gentiles to take the place of gain- saying and disobedient Israel. In so doing he first vindicates God from the reproach of having de- parted from His ancient covenant — a reproach which would be well-founded if the covenant people were rejected and the Gentiles put in their place. Such a rejection, he contends, would not be altogether out of keeping -with God's treatment of His people in the course of their history.