Human cooperation, then, in the work of sancti- lication is strongly emphasized, if ' the fruits of the Spirit ' are to be brought forth in human character. It is no doubt to St. Paul that we lirst owe the idea that the Holy Spirit is the factor not only in the Christian as a member of the com- munity (a saint among saints), but in the individual Christian in his daily thought and life. We are exhorted to ' walk by the Spirit' (Gal 5"). It has often been shown that St. Paul rescued the con- ception of ' spiritual gifts ' as confined to extra- ordinary manifestations such as took place at Pentecost, or are associated with ordinary meet- ings for worship in the Apostolic Church, and enabled these gifts to include the ethical require- ments of daily life (1 Co 12-14). 1 Co 13 is not merely a song in praise of love ; it is a landmark in the history of the Christian ethic. The Spirit is a gift not only of emotion, but of motion, and furnishes the . driving power for the ministry which includes all other ministries, the ministry of love. It is, in Bengel's phrase, 'via maxime vialis,' a way that all may tread, in which even men incapable by temperament of great emotional disturbance may walk secure (cf. Denney, The JVa;/ Everlasiinrj, London, 1911, p. 152ff.). 'It shall be called The way of holiness ; . . . the way- faring men, yea fools, shall not err therein' (Is 35«). _
This ethical reference of the work of the Spirit is emphasized equally in nearly all the NT writens. We need mention only passages like He 12'°, where sufTering Is regarded as a Divine discipline, and intended to issue in participation in the Divine holiness: 1 P 1'"-, 'Ye shall be holy; for I am holy' ; 2 P I''"-, and especially v.', where ethical failure is said to be due to 'short-sightedness,' imperfect vision of the 'cleansing from old sins.' In Rev 22'^, 6 fi^ios ayioadriTui Itl should probably be translated ' Let the saint stUl act as a saint ' on the analogy of the preceding clauses.
(3) In the NT sanctilication is not equivalent to moral perfection. 'Holy and blameless' {dt/.oifios) is an expression St. Paul uses elsewhere (Eph 1* 5", Col 1=2). He also speaks in 1 Th 5=^ of his readers being 'sanctified wholly.' It is evident that 'blamelessness' is not regarded as equivalent to holiness, and it is also noticeable that in the Thessalonians passage this condition of complete sanctification ensues at the Parousia (cf. 1 Th 3'^). No doubt the controversy as to 'progressive sanctification ' would have seemed to St. Paul unreal. We fall into the habit, of necessity, of drawing distinctions which never occurred to the NT writers. It is easily seen that there was no real place for the idea of moral progress in our sense of
the word, so long as the Parousia was regarded as imminent. There can be little doubt, However, that the end became for him less near as time went on, and the idea of sanctification became more and more associated with moral progress, as a fruit of the Sjiirit's ccmtinuous worlcing. The l{isen Christ, whom one day he hopes to see face to face, manifests Himself more and more as a present spiritual power in the man himself. The miinl removes Him to a farther distance, but the heart draws Him nearer. ' Christ in you, the hope of glory' (Col 1-'') breathes the sense of moral im- perfection, and at the same time the sense that ' Christ . . . carries the man who clings to Him in faith through all the great crises which came to Him, on the path of His perfecting' (H. A. A. Kennedy, EGT, ' Philippians,' London, 1903, p. 455^ See also the exposition of Ph 3*"- by li. Ilainy, Expositor's Bible, 'Philippians,' 1893, pp. 199-256). More and more, as St. Paul's ex- perience deepens, the work of the Spirit in sancti- lication is identified with the work of the Risen Christ. The sense of present fellowship with Him becomes more real, and has its corresponding ethical effect. ' Now the Lord is the Spirit : and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face beholdin" as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit' (2 Co 3""'"). There are certain exegetical difficulties connected with this passage which cannot be dealt with here. The AV render, ing ' beholding as in a mirror ' has been adopted, as best suiting the thought. 'Glory' is just that type of character and life which is fully manifested in Jesus, risen and reigning, and St. Paul's present communion with the Saviour is the source of a daily moral progress. The thought is much the same as in 1 Jn 3'"'. This cannot fairly, either in St. John or in St. Paul, be called mysticism. The ' beholding' is not immediate, but ' as in a mirror,' which, however obscure as an image, at least indicates a medium of communion, probably the Christian Church ; and St. John speaks of a ' hope ' which purifies, and of a moment yet to be realized when 'we shall see him as he is.' The Hellenic idea of metamorphosis is clearly present, but to what extent it colours St. Paul's thought is disput- able. The idea that the risen body of Jesus is a kind of semi-physical light substance which mingles with ours in this communion is certainly not present in Paul's thought, notwithstanding that he may have robbed Hellenic mysticism of a word {/j.(Ta/j.op- (poujieBa ; cf. P. Kolbing, Die geistige Einwirkimg der Person Jesu aiif Paulus, Gottingen, 1906, p. 104 f.). The conception is, in any case, that ]iro- gress is from within outwards (Ro 12-', Eph 4™), and the forces that prevent the influx of the new- life are broken and overcome one by one (Ro 8", 1 Th 3'» 4', 2 Co 9'» 10" 16", Ph P- ^, Col l'»- ").