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™ ἔνδειξιν τῆς m2 Cor viii. ή ; 24; Phil 1. 28.
Most critical Weiss puts it in text, and
᾿Ισραὴλ προκακωθέντα διέσωσεν) is inde- cisive, owing to the doubtful reading.* Perhaps the grammatical question is insoluble; but there is no question that Christ is conceived as endued with pro- pitiatory power, in virtue of His death. He is set forth as ἱλαστήριος(ν) ἐν τῷ αὐτοῦ αἵματι. It is His blood that covers sin. It seems a mere whim of rigour to deny, as Weiss does, that the death of Christ is here conceived as sacrificial. It is in His blood that Christ is endued with propitiatory power ; and there is no propitiatory power of blood known to Scripture unless the blood be that of sacrifice. It is not necessary to assume that any particular sacrifice—say the sin offering—is in view ; neither is it necessary, in order to find the idea of sacrifice here, to make ἱλαστήριον neuter, and supply θῦμα; it is enough to say that for the Apostle the ideas of blood with propitiatory virtue, and sacrificial blood, must have been the same. The precise connection and pur- pose of διὰ (τῆς) πίστεως is not at once clear. Grammatically, it might be con- strued with ἐν τῷ αὐτοῦ αἵματι; cf. Eph. i. 15, Gal. fii. 26 (?), Mk. 1. 15; but this lessens the emphasis due to the last It seems to be inserted, almost
.parenthetically, to resume and continue
the idea of ver. 22, that the righteous- ness of God which comes in this way,— namely, in Christ, whom God has set forth in propitiatory power in virtue of His death—comes only to those who believe. Men are saved freely, and it is all God’s work, not in the very least their own; yet that work does not avail for any one who does not by faith accept it. What God has given to the world in Christ, infinitely great and absolutely free as it is, is literally nothing unless it is
κ Seeberg, Der Tod Christi, S. 185, adduces it with the reading τοῦ θανάτον,
to support the view that in ἱλαστήριον (as a substantive) Paul is thinking not of the concrete Kapporeth, but only of that on account of which this sacred article received its name; in other words, of a covering by which that is hidden from God’s eyes on account of which He would be obliged to be angry with men. It is possible to take ἱλαστήριον as a substantive = a means of propitiation (as this passage from 4 Macc. shows, if we read τοῦ θανάτου), without special allusion to
che TY ‘BD. But see Deissmann, Bibelstudien, 9. 121 ff.
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