To this synopsis of his gospel St. Paul adds (1 Co 15"), ' Whether then it be I or they, so we preach, and so ye believed.' In all essentials St. Paul stood on the same ground as the Twelve — St. Peter, St. James, and St. Paul were absolutely unanimous. Had it been otherwise, one can hardly see how he could have won recognition among 'the pillars' or been accepted by the Church. His gospel was not
a ditterent {irepos) gospel, though his rapidly chang- ing spheres, and the pressing need of the occasion, may have shifted the accent. This he acknow- ledges when, speaking of the evangelical mission of the Church, he says (Gal 2''), ' I had been entrusted with the gospel of (for) the uncircumcision, even as Peter with the gospel of (for) the circumcision.' But it was the same gospel in all its manifold adaptability. There is no schism in the NT as to the content of the gospel message. The opinion that there is has been well called a ' perversity of criticism.' Thus [HDB, s.v.) the apostolic gospel may be defined as ' the good tidings, coming from God, of salvation by His free favour through Christ.' But as the ' gospel ' of a church is to be sought not only in the message of its preachers, but also in its condensed creeds and in its hymns, there ought to be added to the above summary at least two splendid fragments that have the true liturgical ring about them :
(1) Christ exalted: 1 Ti S^^ (Sx, not Oebs, is the subject, RV) —
6j i<l>avepd)6T] iv capKl, i5iKai(j3$rj iv irvevfiari, (ji<p6r} dyyiXois, iKTjpvxOv iv idve<nv, iiriaTeidri iv Koafitf), aveXi)fi,(pd7) iv 56^7],
'This fragment, in its grand lapidary style, is worthy to be placed by the side of the Apostles' Creed (Kohler, quoted by J. Strachan, Captivity and Pastoral Epistles [Westminster NT, 1910], p. 218 f.).
(2) God glorified : 1 Ti 6'»-i«—
6 /xaKapios Kal /iSvos SvvdarijSt 6 /3o(rtXei)j twv ^affiXevdvrav Kal Kipios tCiv Kvpiev6vT(x)V, 6 fidvos ixuv ddavaaiav, (pus oIkwv dirpdaiTov, 5v elSev ovSels dvdpthtrujv
ov5i ideiv dvvarat.
({> Ttf/ii} Kal Kpdroi alihviov,
8. The relation of the gospel to the Law.— Ao 13
records the opening of St. Paul's official missionary labours, and there (vv.**- ^^) we have the first indica- tion of the Pauline attitude to the Law. In his address in the synagogue of Pisidian Antioch, he generalizes the incident of Cornelius : 'Be it known unto you therefore, brethren, that through this man (Jesus) is proclaimed unto you remission of sins : and by him everyone that believeth is justi- fied from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses.'
But Ro 7, Avith its logical conclusion in eh. 8, is the crucial passage for the understanding of the relations of Law and gospel in the life of St. Paul, and in that of the NT Church generally. It is the Apostle's account of the struggle, 'often baffled, sore baffled,' that filled the years before his conver- sion. He also was a rich young ruler troubled with tiie haunting question, ' What shall I do to inherit eternal life ? ' For years he had struggled to put down sin in his own heart, to be righteous in the sight of God, passionately longing to have the assurance of the forgiveness of sins, that in peace he might will his will and work his work. In this respect he is like his spiritual kinsmen, Luther and Bunyan. In some respects, St. Paul sharpened the antithesis between Law and grace to a point that was extrenie, in that it did not take account of the pro]>hetic element in the Old Testament which was not legal. Jeremiah, 2 Isaiah, and Hosea may be instanced.
But in his day, as a general rule, it was the le^al aspect of the OT that held the thought of the Jewish people. Judaism knew but one answer to such
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questionings as St. Paul's — ' Keep the law ' ; and if a man replied, 'I cannot,' the answer came back remorselessly : ' Nevertheless, keep it.' ' Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is become guilty of all ' ( Ja 2^°, Gal 3'").
As the Apostle looked back on the long, weary way over which he had come, he found that he had travelled into ' a dark and dreadful consciousness of sin and disaster' (Rainy in The Evangelical Suc- cession, p. 20). And this refers to the observance not of one part of the Law but of the whole ; what appealed to the conscience of men everywhere, ceremonial Judaism, and the tradition of the elders — all that i'6/xos means is included.
'All his experience, at whatever date, of the struggle of the natural man with temptation is here [ch. 7] gathered together and concentrated in a single portraiture. [But] we shall probably not be wrong in referring the main features of it especi- ally to the period before his Conversion ' (Sanday- Headlam, op. cit. p. 186). But of course, as St. Paul presents it to the churches, it is his own ex- perience universalized. There is no possibility of winning a standing before God by the Law —
' For merit lives from man to man, And not from man, O Lord, to Thee.'