(3) Side by side with this redemptive death in Christ — a death to the penalty of sin— St. Paul sets a mystical dying — a dying to its power. The Christian's union with Christ in His redeeming Death is not only the ground of his justification but the secret source and spring of his sanctifica- tion. If the transition from the one to the other is not very clearly marked, the reason is tliat for
St. Paul the two were inseparably joined together. He passes at a bound, and as it were unconsciously, from the legal aspect of the Christian's death in Christ to its mystical aspect, from a death in the eyes of the law against sin to a death to the prin- ciple of sin itself (2 Co 5"*). Baptism into Jesus Christ is the symbol and seal of a baptism into His Death, which means not only a dying to the retri- bution of the offended law but a crucifixion of the old man, a destruction of ' the boily of sin,' so that we should no longer be in bondage to sin's power (Ro 6--7; cf. Gal 2'^). It may be that St. Paul's view of the body, not indeed as essentially sinful, but as the invariable seat and source of sin in fallen humanity (see art. Body) helped him to think of the Crucifixion of Christ as carrying with it a destruction of the polluted flesh (cf. Ro 8*) through which the way was opened for a new life of holiness. But in any case death to the law meant life unto God, because crucifixion with Christ meant the death of the former self and the substitution for it of a life of faith in the Son of God (Gal 2'"-). Nor is it only to sin that the Christian died in Christ, but to the world (G^'*), to the world's doctrines and precepts (Col 2-'*''), to the attitude and attections of the mind that is set on earthly things (3-). ' For ye died,' the Apostle writes, 'and your life is hid with Christ in God' (v.*). And in tiiis case, at least, it is jjlain that the death of which he thinks is not the judicial but the mystical dying, the dying which is at the same time the birth to a new life (cf. Jn I2-^'-) that carries with it a putting to death of all that ia earthly and evil in the natures of those whom Christ has redeemed (Col 3').
(4) Once more, death is used to denote the spiritual atrophy and moral inability of fallen man in his lanregenerate condition. This is the sense that belongs to it in the expression ' dead in trespasses and sins' (Eph 2^ ; cf. Col 2^*), in the summons to the spiritual sleeper to awake and arise from the dead (Eph 5^'*), in the description of true believers as tiiose that are alive from the dead (Ro 6^*) and of false professors as having a name that they are living when they are really dead (Rev 3'), in the statements that the mind of the flesh is death (Ro 8®) and that the woman who lives in pleasure is dead while she liveth (1 Ti 5®). This, especially on the side of moral inability, is the death which St. Paul describes so powerfully in Ro 1^^^-, from which, conscious of his helplessness, he cries to be delivered (v.^^), and from which he recognizes that no deliverance is possible except through the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus (82).
Literature. — I. Life. — S. D. F. Salmond, Th& Christian Doctrine of Immortality^^ 1895, p. 487 S. ; E. White, Life in Christ, 1878 ; E. von Schrenck, Die johan. Aujfassung von ' Leben,' 1898; the NT Theologies of B. Weiss (Kng. tr., 1882-83, 2 vols.) and W. Beyschlag (Eng. tr., 1895, 2 vols.), pansivi ; J. R. Illingworth, Sermons preached in a Colleje C/icepe?, 1882, p. 60; J. Macpherson, in fiipositor, 1st. ser. v. [1877] 72 ff. ; J. Massie, in do., 2nd ser. iv. [1882J 380ff. U. Death. — J. Laidlaw, The Bible Doctrine of Man, 1895, p. 233 ff. ; J. Miiller, The Christian Doctrine of Sin, Eng. tr., ii. [18Sfi] 286 fif.; H. Martensen, Christian Dogmatics, Eng. tr., 1806, p. 209 fl. ; J. Orr, The Christian View of God and the World, 1893, p. 228 fif.; G. B. Stevens, The Thcologn of the NT^, 1906, p. 423 ; J. R. Illingworth, Sennons preached in a College Chapel, 1882, p. 1 ; G. Matheson, in Expositor, 2iid ser. v. [1883]
40 ff. J. C. Lambert.
LIFE, BOOK OF.— See Book of Life.
LIGHT AND DARKNESS. — Apart from the literal and ordinary uses of the words ' light' (</>ws) and 'darkness' {<tk6tos, (XKOTia), they are frequently employed in metai)liorical senses, and especially either in express combination and contrast or with a reference to each other that is latent but implied. Tins figurative use of the terms is an inheritance
LIGHT AND DARKNESS
LIGHT AND DARKNESS
701
from the OT, There ' light ' (lix = LXX 4>uis) often denotes a state of happiness and well-being (Job 3328. 30^ ps 5613), but more particularly the salvation which comes from God, and God Himself as the giver of salvation and blessing to His people (Ps 4^ 271 36» 43=*, Is 10'^ Mic 78). 'Darkness' (Tifn = LXX CKdros), on the other hand, stands for ignor- ance, misery, and death (Job 10^^ 19^, Ps 18^ 107'»-", Ec 2'^ Is 5^" 92, etc.), and generally for everything tbat is opposed to light as a symbol of life, happiness, and moral purity. The metaphors are very natural, and are by no means peculiar to the biblical literature. Reference may be made to the Babylonian Creation narrative with its struggle between Marduk, the god of light, and Tiamat, the god of darkness ; to the Skr. name for deity — deva, ' a shining one' (cf. Oebs and chus) ; to the Gr. conception of Olympus as a place where a bright radiance is diffused (cf. \€vkt) 5'^iri848po/j.ev atyXr], Ocl. vi. 45), and of the nether regions as a world of gloomy shades occupied by 'infernal' or subterranean deities ; to the Zoroastrian antithesis — hardened into a definite dualism — between Ormazd, the god of light and life, and Ahriman, the evil power of death and darkness. But as we find them in the NT, and especially in the Johan- nine and Pauline writings, the figures of light and darkness have been developed on Christian lines which impart a deeper and fuller meaning to each of the conceptions, and bring tliem into an opposi- tion that is stronger than any known to the older religions, because it is more spiritual. The material relevant to the present art. may be con- veniently treated as it bears upon the doctrines of (1) God, (2) Christ, (3) salvation and the Christian life.