As kindred expressions we may notice the words Xo-pl^effdai — properly, ' do a favour to a person,' or, with the accusative of the thing, ' make a present of ' — sometimes in the sense of making a present of an act of wrong-doing, i.e., not insisting on the penalty for it (2 Co 12•^ Col 2'3) ; -n-apeais (Ro 3=^), ' a temporary suspension of punishment which may be one day inflicted,' and therefore entirelj' distinct from forgiveness (seeR. C. Trench, NT Synonyms^, 1876, p. 110 tt.) ; Ka\inrTeiv, ' to conceal, cover over ' (cf. the Hebrew kipper) (Ro 4' [quoting from Ps 321], 1 p 48) . and Xuetv, 'to loose' (Rev l^).
Literature. — Forgiveness has very little modern literature devoted to it ; but it is discussed in all literature dealing with Atonement and Reconciliation, and, at least indirectly, in that referring to Sin and Conversion. See the artt. Atonement, Con- version, Justification, Repentance, Sin, with the Literature there cited. Reference mav also be made to G. B. Stevens, Theology of the JN'r, 1899; A. Ritschl, The Christian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation, Eng. tr., 1900; W. E. Orchard, Modern Them-ies of Sin, 1909 ; W. L. Walker, The Gospel of lieconciliation, 1909 ; P. T. Forsyth, The Work of Christ, 1910; R. Mackintosh, Christianity and Sin, 1913. W. F. LOFTHOUSE.
FORM. — The first occurrence of this word in the Epistles is in Ro 2^", where St. Paul speaks of the Jew as ' having in the law the form of knowledge and of the truth.' The word he uses is fiSpcpwais, which is found again only in 2 Ti 3^ (' having the form of godliness'), where it clearly has a dispar- aging sense and may be taken to mean an att'ecta- tion of or an aiming at the iJ.op<pri of godliness. /jLopipri itself is that which manifests the essence or inward nature of a thing, * outward form as deter- mined by inward substance,' in contrast with crxv/^"- which means ' outward form as opposed to inward substance.' fiSpcpwais occupies an intermediate position between these words ; the Apostle hesi- tates to use (TxvP'-^-t yst ^6 will not use p.opcfi'f). The term happily expresses his meaning in Ro 2-" — the Law, so far as it went, was an expression, one might even say an embodiment, of Divine truth. It did not go far enough to be called /j.op<pri, yet it was more than mere outward fashion {<Txvf^<^)- There is not the same note of disparagement about the word here as in 2 Ti 3^ ; it is rather one of in- completeness.
We may turn now to the well-known use of the word nopcprj itself in Ph 2^*-, where Christ is said to have been in the form of God and to have taken the form of a slave. The first thing to bear in mind is that St. Paul used the common speech of his day, and this word, like many others, had wandered far from the accurate metaphysical sense in which it was used by Plato and Aristotle. The lengthy and thorough discussions of the word and its relation to ovaia, (pvcris, eWos, and similar terms by Liuhtfoot (Philippians\ 1878, p. 127 tf.) and E. li. Gi'fibrd {The Incarnation, 1897, p. 22 tt'.) remain as examples of fine scholarship, but it is now generally recognized that St. Paul uses nop<j>ii here
416
FOEMALIS^I
FORMALISM
in an easy, jaopular sense, much as we use the word 'nature.' Several passages in the LXX (c.<7. Job 4'«, Dn 5«, Wis 18'-^ 4 Mac 15^) witness to the same tendency — fJ.op<pri is the appeai-ance or look of some one, that by which onlookers judge. But, while St. Paul avoids metaphysical speculations on the relation of the Son to the Father, he implies here, as elsewhere, that Christ has, as it were, the same kind of existence as God. The closest parallels are eiKuv rov Oeov (Col V^) and TrXovaLos &iv (2 Co 8^), the latter passage reminding us of the great antithesis in Ph 2®- " between the fxop(p7j deov and the /j-oppij 5ov\ov. dovXos stands for man in opposition to God and must not be pressed literallj'. It is wortli noting that St. Paul insists on Christ's direct exc'iange of the one form for the otlier, in contrast to Gnostic views which represented Him as passing through a series of transformations. To return to M-op^Tj, which here denotes, as it usu- ally does, an adequate and accurate expression of the underlying being, and so points to the Divinity of the pre-existing Christ, one may, without any detraction from this honour, point out that St. Paul always regards the Death and Resurrection of Christ as adding something to it. It is after the return to glory that Clirist is declared the Son of God 'with power' (Ro P- ■*), and becomes Lord (Ph 2^"^^). It only remains to point out that Christ's assumption of the ' form' or ' nature ' of a servant does not imply that His ' Ego,' the basis of His per- sonality, was changed. (See further art. Christ, Christology, p. 193f.)
Before leaving this word, we may notice the use of the verb fiopcpou in a beautifully expressive pas- sage. Gal 4'^, wliere the Apostle adopts the figure of a child-bearing mother ; he is in travail for the spiritual birth of Christ within his Galatian friends, straining every power to shape their inner man afresh into the image of Christ. The use of the word ' form ' in Ro 9^" and 1 Ti 2^^ (in each case translating irXdao-o}) calls for no remark.