(c) The Spirit and theflesh. — St. Paul uses the term ' flesh ' to denote man's incapacity to bring his de- sires into conformity with the Divine Law. The Apostle tliereby gives expression to the idea that the inner life of man is dependent upon bodily processes. In deriving the evil state of man from that dependence he was not simply thinking of the impulses wliicii are directly subservient to the needs of the bod}^ but he also recognized in the dimness of man's consciousness of God and the meagreness of his religious experience that des- potism of the flesh to which our whole inner life lies in subjection. From ancient times ' flesh ' had been used as the correlative of 'spirit.' How is man to rise above himself, and be delivered from the thraldom of sensuous impressions and bodily appetites ? The power that sets men free from selflsh desire — natural though such desire may be — and turns liira towards the Divine purposes, is the Spirit (Ro S*-8).
(d) The Spirit and the work of Christ. — St. Paul recognized in the Death and Resurrection of Jesus tiie factor which determined the relation of all men to Jesus Himself. That the Messiah had been cruciiied and raised again from the dead was, in the Apostle's view, the good tidings of God. What St. Paul saw here was not Law, which dooms man to death, but Love, which dies for man ; nor was it the separation of the guilty from God, but rather the protter of such fellowship with Him as takes sin awaj' by forgiveness ; it was not tiie preservation of the tlesii, but the complete sur- rencler of it — the judgment of the Divine Law upon the flesh, and the beginning of a new life, a life no longer subject to natural conditions, but one that makes manifest the glory of God. By what means, then, can Clirist carry on in man the experience whicli He had consummated in His own person, and so effect the due issue of His Death and Resurrection ? For St. Paul the only answer that could be given to that question was that Clirist reveals Himself through the Spirit. Love asks for the fellowslup that rests upon an inward foundation, and draws men to Christ not by force but through tlieir own volition. Thus love rises supreme above tlie interests of the flesh, and is directed to an end tiiat wholly transcends nature. Man now becomes a mirror of Christ's glory (2 Co 3'^), and his end is to know Christ as the power which raises him from the dead (Ph 3'"'-).
(e) The Spirit and faith. — Once St. Paul had come to recognize a revelation of God in the Deatli and Resurrection of Jesus, it was for him a fact beyond dispute that man's participation in the Divine 'Tace rests upon faith. Man's need of the Divine forgiveness, as well as his actual experience of it, finds its consummation in the fact tiiat he gives his trust to God, and ])ossesses righteousness in faith alone. This attitude implies, however, that he is now delivered from self-centred desire, and has renounced all the cravings of the flesh. But the act of thus committing oneself wiiolly to the Divine grace is the work of the Spirit. Only in
virtue of that work can our faith become our rigiiteousness. The very fact that faith has a source lying above human nature makes it possible for faith to influence our thoughts and desires, so that we can now act by faith, as those who no longer commit sin, but do the will of God.
(/) The Spirit and the Church. — St. Paul, in re- garding the Church as the fellowship of faith, tliereby made the Church free — the sanctuary of the perfect sincerity which safeguards each from undue accommodation to otiiers, and the home of that perfect love which actuates each to labour with all his capacity on behalf of the common fellowship. St. Paul's conHdent belief that the communities maintain their unitj% even though that community is not protected by external force or strengthened by an outward bond, could have its source only in his conviction that the unity of the Ciiurch was rooted in the Spirit. Because he believed in the one Spirit he believed in the one body.
Thus all the lines which exhibit the character- istic tendencies of the Apostle's thought converge in his doctrine of the Spirit. As St. Paul aspired to a righteousness apart from the Law, and to a knowledge of God apart from the wisdom of the world ; as he sought to secure the victory over evil by emancipation from the flesh ; as he drew from the Cross the conviction that Jesus binds men to Himself in a perfect union, and as he tlius came to have faith, and found fellowship with all through faith, he could not make his gospel complete with- out the doctrine that the Spirit of God dwells in man. Apart from that principle, his doctrine of sin becomes a torment, his opposition to the Law would be antinomianism, his union with the Cruci- fied an illusion, his idea of the righteousness of faith a danger to morality, and his doctrine of the Church a fanaticism. For the vindication of his gospel it was therefore necessary that his Churches should exhibit the workings of the Spirit ; only in that way could they become the Epistles of Christ and set their seal upon the Apostle's com- mission (2Co3Ml4, Gal 3-).