The Pulpit Commentary — Galatians — Section 336

do wisely in not attempting to determine. riddles mther than revelations : 'Ap.,.. ,-c\p We can, it is true, imaqine w11ye of con- f3>,.,1r0µ.ev i,•. foJtr-rpov iv alvl-yl"'.-r• (1 Car, joining the two notions; but it will be best xiii. 12). It is, in fact, not our mteUect, but not to positively affirm thnt this or that our moral sense, that the revelations of the that WIIS St. Paul's manner of viewing the future state are designed ,to inform. Next, snh_iect. Possibly the Spirit had not re- looking out from the field of purely Pauline '\""caiL'd t.his to him; if so, he might feel it doctrine upon tho teaching presented io incumbc>nt upon him to forbear from giving other parts of the New Testament, we are forth definite statements on matters not reminded at once of that awful and repeated really disc.Josed to his view, .and, therefore, word of our Lord concerning the d Gehonna not intended to form a pa.rt of revealed offire"-"where their worm (1T1e~,\:,1t)dieth tn1th. This, however, should not keep us not, and the fire -is not quenched" (Mo.rk ix, back from aCC'epting what appc>us to be 43-48). It is known that, before our Lord the only probable view of the sense of the appeared upon earth, this .conception of present passage, namely, that they who live ~ehenna, the terms of which beyond ques- a Iife of selfishness and carnal self-indul- tion were borrowed from the closing verses gence mll reap the final award of having of Isaiah, had alreadv become current in a body -.nth flesh, in some most real and the eschatological views of the Jews, This important sense, subject to oorruption. The is evidenced by Judith xvi. 17; Ecclus. vii. con$ideration that the apostle is thinl..-ing 17. This imagery our Lord adopted, recog• of the awards of the day of judgment, ai nizing, it should seem, in thi~ portion, of once meets the objection that oorruption is rabbinical teaching a just evolution of· i,deas predicable of the Christian's body also. It which had been presented in the insp~d is obnons to reply that, though the body of volumes of the Old Testament-a develop- a believer is sown in oorruption even as the ment of them which we may fairly attribute body of an :nnrighteons man, it is revealed to the guiding influence of the Holy Spirit to us that it will be mised in inoorruption 1 promised to God's restored people, as e.g. which it is nowhere said that the body of in Ezek. x:x:xvi. 24-28. We cannot doubt him who dies in bis sins will be. As that the "worm" which our Lord spoke applied to objects lying on the other side of means the worm which preys upon of the veil wliich parts the spiritual world rotting flesh. The image, therefore, exactly from that visible world whence all our accords with the word " corruption " as images of thought are derived, this term interpreted above. Whether the apostle "cormption" must be undel'l!tood as de~ glanced at that disoourse of Christ, or was ecribing a oondition of bodily being, not even aw11-re of it, is uncertain; but thO:t, he necessarily identical with, but very oon- both knew of it and even inferred .from it ceivably only in some respects analogous in using this word " corruptim1," is by no to, that wbich it describes in relation to means unlikely. One other reference to a corpse in our present state. The resnr- "corruption " as the future doom of e.t' least rection state, with all that pertains to it, certain of the lost, is found in 2 Pet. inscrutably blending, as the story of the ii. 12, which, according to' the now approved forty days commencing with Christ's resnr- reading of the Greek text, runs thus: " But rection exemplifies, spiritual phenomena these, as creatures without reason, born with oorporeal, is one which we are wholly mere animals to be taken and. destroyed- unable to undel'Stand or to realize. This shall in their destroying be destroyed [or, 'in may be thought e. very superfluous obser- their oorruption shall even rpt away'.] (lv -r1i vation. But it is not so. The attempts q,6opij a.u,,-&11. ,cal ,p6apf,1Tona,)." Pos~):>ly intellectually to realize the events which the word . q,6op&, taken as " corruption,''. we are hereafter to witness and to be the points here to DlOral corruption; but the subjects of, and the dogmatic affirmations verb q,6apf,ffona, may very w,ell poin\ to relating to them, made, not merely in past the miserable doom of rotting nway by aaes, but in the very present, render it which they shall judicially perish, moral n~cessary that we should distinctly keep oorruption working physical corruption. this truth in view. The physical theory of But the exact sense is doubtful. With tlie that futnre state, and the eventual history clause before us we must group Rom. vili.13, which is to be evolved in it, we not merely ".H ye live after, tlte fle~Ii, ye ere certain do not know, but are absolutely incapable of to die;" whilst the sentence which follows, forecasting. W.e dare net say one syllalile "But if by, the Spirit ye put to death the about them beyond what is distinctly told doings of the body, ye shall live," answers us; o.nd what u told us, we are to remem- to the closing sentence of the present verse; ber, is tluough the very nature of the case as also does " death " as " the wages of sin," no other than imagefl, presented in a dark balanced against the •• eternal life" which dim minor, which shows them so obscurely, is "the gift of God," in Rom. vi. 25. The thiLt to our in'f;oU!lCtive peroeption they seem contrasted thoughts, in Phil. iii. 19, 2C ea, VJ. 1-18.J THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 303