God were summoning Death and the:
Grave to ply all their forces for Israel’s annihilation, and this accords with the prophet’s context; but violent alterations of mood are characteristic of Hosea: see Nowack ad loc. in Handkom. s. A.T., also Orelli’s Minor Prophets, or Cheyne in C.B.S.] The passage has the Hebra-
istic lilt of Paul’s more exalted passages ; cf. xiii. 4 ff., and parls. there noted.
“Where, O Death, is thy victory? Where, O Death, is thy sting? Now the sting of Death is Sin, and the strength of Sin is the Law; But to God be thanks, who gives to us the victory Through our Lord Jesus Christ |”
P. freely adapts the words of Hosea, re- peating θάνατε in the second line, where Hosea writes sh’6l (LXX ᾷδη), since death is the enemy he pursues through- out (Ed. notes that δης never occurs in Paul’s Epp.); and he substitutes syn. terms for each of the other nouns to suit his own vein, νῖκος being taken up from ver. 54, and κέντρον preparing for the thought of ver. 56.---τὸ δὲ κέντρον κ.τ.λ. throws into απ epigram the doctrine of Rom. iv.-vili. and Gal. iii. respecting the inter-relations of Sin, Law, and Death: ‘‘Mors aculeum quo pungat non habet nisi peccatum; et huic aculeo Lex vim mortiferam addit” (Cv.). Sin gives to death, as we mortals know it, its poignancy, its penal character and humi- liating form, with the entire ‘‘ bondage of corruption” that attaches to it: see esp. Rom. ν. 12, 17, Vi. 1Ο, 23, Vii. 24, Vilj. το, 20 ff., Heb. ii. 14 f. Apart from sin, our present bodily existence must have terminated in the course of nature (44- 46); but the change would have been effected in a far diff. way, without the horror and anguish of dissolution—as in- deed it will be for the redeemed who have the happiness to be alive at the Second Advent (see 51 f., and parls.).
.
ΜΗ ΠΡΟΣ ΚΟΡΙΝΘΙΟΥΣ Α 943 ε ; a A a A - κ , ~ k See x. : H δὲ δύναμις τῆς ἁμαρτίας ὁ νόμος: 57. τῷ δὲ Θεῷ "χάρις τῷ LK OEE * 3° or ¢ α ~ a ιά ς ~ > ~ a ν διδόντι ἡμῖν τὸ " νίκος διὰ τοῦ Κυρίου ἡμῶν ᾿Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ. 58. ο... . , ε a , 2 , ο i. 16, “Qote, ᾿ ἀδελφοί pou ‘dyamntol, " ἑδραῖοι γίνεσθε, " ἀμετακίνητοι, Jas 2 ο ͵ 2 τς ῦ ΡΚυρί 4 ἰδό ὅ 5 m See vii. περισσεύοντες ἐν τῷ "ἔργῳ τοῦ "Κυρίου πάντοτε, εἰδότες ὅτι o mS ο. εώς el oF r ee ίω. α οκ. ο. κόπος ὑμῶν οὐκ ἔστι * κενὸς ἐν Κυρίῳ ο ο,
ah ον _., ο See viii. 8; ym in like connection, 2 Cor. viii. 2, 7, ix. 8; Rom. xv. 13; Phil. 1. 9; Col. ii. 7; 1 Th. iii. 12, iv. 1, 10.
p xvi. 10; Phil. ii. 30; cf. Rom. xiv. 20 (r. epy. τ. Θ.).
For those who “ fall asleep in Christ” (18, 20; 1 Thess. iv. 14), death, while it is still death and naturally feared (οὐ θέλομεν ἐκδύσασθαι, 2 Cor. v. 4), is robbed of its ‘‘sting”’ (cf. 1 John iv. 18; also John v. 24, viii. 51 f., xi. 25 f., 2 Tim. i. 10; Rev. xx. 6), vis., the sense of guilt and dread of judgment—* tametsi adhuc nos pungit, non tamen letaliter, quia retusum est ejus acumen, ne in anime vitalia penetret’’ (Ον.).--κέντρον
is sting (as in Rev. ix. 10), not goad (as.
in Acts xxvi. 14); Death is personified as a venomous creature, inflicting poisoned and fatal wounds. Here Death reigns through Sin, as in Rom. v. 17; Rom. v. 21 pictures Sin reigning in Death: the effect through the cause, the cause in the effect.—While Death gets from Sin its sting, Sin in turn receives from the Law its power. ἡ δύναμις τῆς ἁμαρτίας 6 νόµος condenses into six words Paul’s teaching on the relation of Sin to Law (see Rom. iv. 15, ν. 20, vi. 14, vii.; Gal. ii. 16, lil., iv. 21-ν. 4)—the view, based on his experience as a Pharisee, that the law of God, imposing on sinful man im- possible yet necessary tasks, promising salvation upon terms he can never fulfil and threatening death upon non-fulfil- ment, in effect exasperates his sin and involves him in hopeless guilt; 4 apap- tia... διὰ τ. ἐντολῆς . . . µε ἀπέκ- τεινεν (Rom. vii. 11).—The exclamation of relief, ‘‘ Thanks be to God, etc.,” is precisely parl. to Rom. vii. 25a, viii. 1 f.— The believer’s ‘‘ victory ’’ lies in deliver- ance through Christ’s propitiatory death (Rom. ti, σα ο. ὃς 1.. 7 £.,.30, vie 1x above) from the condemnation of the Law, and thereby from ‘“‘the power of Sin,” and thereby from the bitterness of Death. Law, Sin, and Death were bound into a firm chain, only dissoluble by ‘“‘the word of the cross—God’s power to the saved” (i. 18; cf. Rom. i. 16 f., viii. 1 ff.). Thus the Ap. finally links his doctrine of the Bodily Resurrection and Transformation of Christians to his funda- mental teaching as to Justification and the Forgiveness of Sins; ch. xv. is a part