(i.) This is exaggerated by Wernle's thesis t that St. Paul never thought about the problem of sin in the Christian, or at least, very seldom, since the hope of the immediate End was so vivid that it left no place for any ethical transformation of the believer ; the Christian who is justified is thereby guaranteed all the bliss that belongs to the Messianic community of the aiCnv ij.4\\(j>v, but St. Paul does not leave either time or need for dealing with defects of character in the brief interval before the End. Sin belongs to this present world, whereas the Christian life is the beginning of the new age, and therefore is sinless. Such an un- qualified estimate of the eschatology implies that faith does not possess any distinctive ethical force or regenerating energy. It is true that St. Paul did say something about 'faith working by love,' and Wernle {op. cit. p. 85) is troubled by this remark (Gal &'). However, he reflects tliat it must be an obiter dictum ! After all, we must remember that it does not occur in Romans ! The content of faith, in Paulinism, is not to be evapo- rated into adherence to the Messianic community, however ; Paulinism was not a religion of sheer eschatological enthusiasm, which refused to see facts that contradicted its theory ; and it is a mistake to regard the doctrine of righteousness as little more than a piece of mission-propaganda, which had no significance for the life of Christians in the Church.
(ii.) Nor is it possible to regard righteousness in St. Paul's theology as the state which qualifies for the final salvation, the condition God appoints and will accept (E. J. W. Williams, St. Paul's
' Sketched, e.g., by Kolbing, K. Miiller, Titius, and Shailer Mathews (see Literature).
t In Der Chriat und die Silnde bei Paulus, Freiburg i. B., 1897, pp. 22 f., 92 f., 100 f. He is right in emphasizing the fact that ' justification is the first boon of the Messianic age, and signifies reception into the community of the true worship and the true hope ' (p. 93).
RIGHTEOUSNESS
RIGHTEOUSNESS
381
Doctrine of Justification, Lonilon, 1912) ; this tlieory is open to the same olijection, that it ifinores the ethical suhstratuin of tlie sotciioh)<iy and escliatolog}-. God might no (h)iiht be con- sidered free, as we shall see in a moment, to lay down a fresh qualilication for acceptance, viz. faith. He might replace the v6pio^ fpyuiv \>y the fdfjLO! irfcTTfuis, altliougli that would not explain St. Paul's full attitude to the Law. Also, tlie i)riniary idea of justilicaticm was the status of a man liefore God, not Ids ethical character. Granted. But in I'aulinism we cannot distinguish rigidly between a man's standing and his heart; and faith, the faith which justilies, is more tlian a special method of enabling men to get out of their inherited status of original guilt and become qualified for the linal salvation. Such a theory fails to tit St. Paul's deep sayings about the present position of the believing man. We cannot, e.g., translate the opening words of Ro 5 as if they meant, 'Being therefore made eligible from faith, we are to have peace before God.' It is not untrue to say that, when St. Paul regards God as pronouncing a man righteous on the score of faith, he assumes that He is not pronouncing the verdict of a judge but laying down a legal principle, as He is entitled to do ; yet this is not all the truth. The faith in question cannot be left as a mere attitude of mind, unrelated to the moral self ; and the experience of the justified man is more than an assurance of being qualified for some future position of bliss. St. Paul's conception of Christ's victory over sin, death, and the Law, in the flesh, gave a fresh content to the idea of ' righteousness ' alike in God and in human nature, and at the same time it reset the idea of faith.
We must now attempt to define this content more closely.
(c) Apologetic and controversial setting. — ' Right- eousness ' was a term common to Jew and Christian. What diHerentiated the two, according to St. Paul, was the metliod of attaining this religious position of acceptance with God which ensured acquittal and bliss at the end. St. Paul's motto was, ' right- eousness by faith,' and he defined his meaning con- troversially by way of contrast ; ' by faith ' meant ' not by the Law,' ' not by works.'
The controversy was not simply witli Jews, but with Jewish Christians as well. Many in the primitive Church had not thought out their rela- tion to the Jewish Law ; they were not alive to the full consequences involved by their faith in Jesus Christ. They were content to rest in a Messianic conception of the Lord, as if His forgive- ness availed for such sins as their obedience to the Law failed to cover. His pardon was a welcome and necessary supplement ; still, it was a supple- ment. The Law and Christ were two saving principles. In a word, their position might be summed up thus : justification by the Law plus Jesus Christ. This seemed to ofler an indispens- able guarantee for morality and to preserve contin- uity. It was only under the logic of facts, like the conversion of Gentiles, and the stress of St. Paul's arguments, that they admitted that obedience to the Law was not essential to salvation. The ad- mission was hard to make, but it had to be made for the sake of the Gentiles as well as for them- selves. We have this put strongly in Galatians, the fighting line of Paulinism against the Jewish Christian propaganda of the early Church. Thus, in 2'"-, the Apostle starts for the sake of argument from the same premisses as St. Peter and the Jewish Christians (' since we know a man is justi- fied by faith in Jesus Christ, and not by doing what the Law commands, we ourselves have believed in Jesus Christ '), but he draws a con- clusion from these premisses which they did not