622
ραντα Ingodv τὸν Κύριον ἡμῶν ἐκ νεκρῶν, 25. ὃς παρεδόθη διὰ τὰ
ο ΟΝ. v.18 παραπτώματα ἡμῶν, καὶ ἠγέρθη διὰ τὴν ° δικαίωσιν ἡμῶν.
the time determined by Providence, they receive the Gospel. Hence διὰ τὴν δικαίωσιν ἡμῶν at least must be prospec- tive.* (2) The διὰ has been taken in both clauses prospectively. ‘“‘He was delivered up on account of our offences —to make atonement for them; and he was raised on account of our justification —that it might become an accomplished fact.” That this interpretation is legiti- mate, so far as the language goes, cannot be questioned; and if we avoid unreal separations between things that really form one whole, it is thoroughly Pauline. Paul does ascribe expiatory value to the death or the blood of Christ; in that sense it is true the work of Christ was finished on the Cross. But Paul never ¢ thought of that by itself; he knew Christ “only as the Risen One who had died, and who had the virtue of His atoning death ever in Him; this Christ was One, in all that He did and suffered—the Christ who had evoked in him the faith by which he was justified, the only Christ through faith in whom sinful men ever could be justi- fied; and it is natural, therefore, that he should conceive Him as raised with a view to our justification. Butit would have been equally legitimate to say that He died for our justification. It is only another way of expressing what every Christian understands—that we believe in a living Saviour, and that it is faithin Him which justifies. But then it is faith in Him as One who not only lives, but was delivered up to death to atone for our offences. He both died and was raised for our justification ; the work is one and its end is one. And it is a mistake to argue, as Beyschlag does (Neutest. Theologie, ii., 164), that this reference of faith to the Risen Christ who died is inconsistent with the vicarious nature of His ex- piatory sufferings. That His sufferings had this character is established on in- dependent grounds; and to believe in the Risen Christ is to believe in One in whom the power of that propitiatory vicarious suffering abides for ever. It is indeed solely because the virtue of that suffering is in Him that faith in the Risen Lord does justify. For an exposition of the passage, in which the retrospective force
is given to διὰ, see Candlish in Ex- positor, Dec., 1893. See also Bruce, St. Paul’s Conception of Christianity, p. 160 ff. The identity in principle of Abra- hamic and Christian faith is seen in this, that both are faith in God. But Abra- ham’s is faith in a Divine promise, which only omnipotence could make good ; the Christian’s is faith in the character of God as revealed in the work ofredemption wrought by Christ. That, too, however, involves omnipotence. It was the great- est display of power ever made to man when God raised Christ from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places; and the Christ so raised was one who had been delivered to death for our offences. That is only another.way of saying that the ultimate power in the world—the omnipotence of God—is in the service of a love which provides at infinite cost for the expiation of sin. The only right attitude for any human being in presence of this power is utter self-renunciation, utter abandon- ment of self to God. This is faith, and it is this which is imputed to men in all ages and under all dispensations for
righteousness ————__ Cuap. V.—Vers. 1-11. The blessings
of Justification. The first section of the epistle (chap. i. 18-ili. 20) has proved man’s need of the righteousness of God; the second (chap. iii. 21-30) has shown how that righteousness comes, and how it is appropriated ; the third (chap. iii. 31- iv. 25) has shown, by the example of © Abraham, and the testimony of David, that it does not upset, but establishes the spiritual order revealed in the O.T. The Apostle now, like David, enlarges on the felicity of the justified, and especially on their assurance of God’s love and of future blessedness. We may describe the contents of vers. 1-11 in the words which he himself applies (iv. 6) to the 32nd psalm: λέγει τὸν µακα- ρισμὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ᾧ 6 θεὸς λογίζεται δικαιοσύνην χωρὶς ἔργων.