Πε.
ἐν τῇ ἀνοχῇ τοῦ Θεοῦ, 26. πρὸς ἔνδειδιν τῆς δικαιοσύνης αὐτοῦ ἐν
Ch.viii18, A A a “xi. TOVaV™ καιρῷ, εἰς τὸ εἶναι αὐτὸν δίκαιον καὶ δικαιοῦντα τὸν ἐκ πίστεως taken. Faith must have its place, there- ter with a view to demonstrate His
fore, in the profoundest statement of the Gospel, as the correlative of grace. Thus διὰ (τῆς) πίστεως, though parenthetic, is of the last importance. With eis ἔνδειξιν τῆς δικαιοσύνης αὐτοῦ κ.τιλ. we are shown God’s purpose in setting forth Christ as a propitiation in His blood, It is done with a view to de- monstrate His righteousness, owing to the passing by of the sins previously committed in the forbearance of God. God’s righteousness in this place is ob- viously an attribute of God, on which the sin of the world, as hitherto treated by Him, has casta shadow. Up till now, God has ‘passed by” sin. He has ‘winked at’ (Acts xvii. 30) the transgres- sions of men perpetrated before Christ ΟΆΠΠΕ(προ-γεγονότων), ἐν τῇ ἀνοχῇ αὐτοῦ. The last words may be either temporal or causal: while God exercised forbear- ance, or because He exercised it, men sinned, so to speak, with impunity, and God’s character was compromised. The underlying thought is the same as in Ps. l. 21: ‘* These things hast Thou done, and I kept silence: Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as Thyself”. Such had been the course of Providence that God, owing to His forbearance in suspending serious dealing with sin, lay under the imputation of being indifferent to it. But the time had now come to remove this imputation, and vindicate the Divine character. If it was possible once, it was no longer possible now, with Christ set forth in His blood as a propitiation, to maintain that sin was a thing which God regarded with indiffer- ‘ence. Paul does not say in so many words what it is in Christ crucified which constitutes Him a propitiation, and so clears God’s character of the charge that He does not care for sin: He lays stress, however, on the fact that an essential element in a propitiation is that it should vindicate the Divine righteousness. It should proclaim with unmistakable clearness that with sin God , can hold no terms. (The distinction be- tween πάρεσις, the suspension, and ἄφεσις, the revocation, of punishment, is borne out, according to Lightfoot, Notes on Epp. of St. Paul, p. 273, by classical usage, and is essential here.) In ver. 26 / this idea is restated, and the significance of a propitiation more fully brought out. “‘ Yes, God set Him forth in this charac-
righteousness, that He might be right- eous Himself, and accept as righteous him who believes in Jesus.” The words ἐν τῷ viv καιρῷ refer to the Gospel: Age, the time in which believers live, in contrast to the time when God exercised forbearance, and men were tempted to accuse Him of indifference to righteous- ness. πρὸς, as distinguished from εἰς. makes us think rather of the person: contemplating the end than of, the end contemplated; but there is no essential difference. τὴν ἔνδειξιν: the article means “the ἔνδειξις already mentioned in ver. 25”. But the last clause, els τὸ εἶναι αὐτὸν κ.τ.λ., is the most important. It makes explicit the whole intention of God in dealing with sin by means of a propitiation. God's. righteousness, compromised as it seemed by His forbearance, might have been vindicated in another way; if He had executed judgment upon sin, it would have been a kind of vindication. He would have secured the first object of ver. 26: “ειναι He might be righteous Himself”. But part of God’s object was to justify the ungodly (chap. iv. 5), upon certain conditions; and this could not be attained by the execution of judg- ment upon sin. To combine both: objects, and at once vindicate His own righteousness, and put righteousness. within reach of the sinful, it was neces- sary that instead of executing judgment God should provide a propitiation. This He did when He set forth Jesus in His blood for the acceptance of faith. (Haring takes the ἔνδειξις of God’s righteousness here to be the same as the ‘revelation ”’ of δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ in i. 17, or the “manifestation”? of it in iii. 21; but this is only possible if with him we completely ignore the context, and especially the decisive words, διὰ τὴν πάρεσιν τῶν προγεγονότων ἅμαρτη- µάτων.) The question has been raised. whether the righteousness of God, here spoken of as demonstrated at the Οτοςς,. is His judicial (Weiss) or His penal righteousness (Meyer). This seems to: me an unreal question; the righteous- ness of God is the whole character of God so far as it must be conceived as inconsistent with any indifference about sin. It is a more serious question if we ask what it is in Christ set forth by God in His blood which at once vindicates-