With this hopeful prophecy, which seems yet far off, but which is steadily approaching fulfilment, and will be realized in God's own time and way, the apostle closes the doctrinal part of the Epistle to the Romans. "God has shut up all men (tous pantas) unto disobedience that he might have mercy upon all men. O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past tracing out! ... For of Him (ex autou) and through Him (di autou), and unto Him (eis auton') are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen." [813]
Before this glorious consummation, however, there will be a terrible conflict with Antichrist or "the man of sin," and the full revelation of the mystery of lawlessness now held in check. Then the Lord will appear as the conqueror in the field, raise the dead, judge the world, destroy the last enemy, and restore the kingdom to the Father that God may be all in all (ta panta en pasin). [814]
Notes.
I. The Pauline System of Doctrine has been more frequently explained than any other.
Among the earlier writers Neander, Usteri, and Schmid take the lead, and are still valuable. Neander and Schmid are in full sympathy with the spirit and views of Paul. Usteri adapted them somewhat to Schleiermacher's system, to which he adhered.
Next to them the Tübingen school, first the master, Baur (twice, in his Paul, and in his New Test. Theology), and then his pupils, Pfleiderer and Holsten, have done most for a critical reproduction. They rise far above the older rationalism in an earnest and intelligent appreciation of the sublime theology of Paul, and leave the impression that he was a most profound, bold, acute, and consistent thinker on the highest themes. But they ignore the supernatural element of inspiration, they lack spiritual sympathy with the faith of the apostle, overstrain his antagonism to Judaism (as did Marcion of old), and confine the authentic sources to the four anti-Judaic Epistles to the Galatians, Romans, and Corinthians, although recognizing in the minor Epistles the "paulinische Grundlage." The more moderate followers of Baur, however, now admit the genuineness of from seven to ten Pauline Epistles, leaving only the three Pastoral Epistles and Ephesians in serious doubt.
The Paulinismus of Weiss (in the third ed. of his Bibl. Theol., 1881, pp. 194-472) is based upon a very careful philological exegesis in detail, and is in this respect the most valuable of all attempts to reproduce Paul's theology. He divides it into three sections: 1st, the system of the four great doctrinal and polemical Epistles; 2d, the further development of Paulinism in the Epistles of the captivity; 3d, the doctrine of the Pastoral Epistles. He doubts only the genuineness of the last group, but admits a progress from the first to the second.
Of French writers, Reuss, Pressensé, and Sabatier give the best expositions of the Pauline system, more or less in imitation of German labors. Reuss, of Strasburg, who writes in German as well, is the most independent and learned; Pressensé is more in sympathy with Paul's belief, but gives only a meagre summary; Sabatier leans to the Tübingen school. Reuss discusses Paul's system (in vol. III., 17-220) very fully under these heads: righteousness; sin; the law; the gospel; God; the person of Christ; the work of Christ; typical relation of the old and new covenant; faith; election; calling and the Holy Spirit; regeneration; redemption; justification and reconciliation; church; hope and trial; last times; kingdom of God. Sabatier (L'apôtre Paul, pp. 249-318, second ed., 1881) more briefly but clearly develops the Pauline theology from the Christological point of view (la personne de Christ Principe générateur de la conscience chrétienne) under three heads: lot, the Christian principle in the psychological sphere (anthropology); 2d, in the social and historical sphere (religious philosophy of history); 3d, in the metaphysical sphere (theology), which culminates in the theos ta panta en pasin"Ainsi naît et grandit cet arbre magnifique de la pensée de Paul, dont les racines plongent dans le sol de la conscience chrétienne et dont la cime est dans les cieux."
Renan, who professes so much sentimental admiration for the poetry and wisdom of Jesus, "the charming Galilaean peasant," has no organ for the theology of Paul any more than Voltaire had for the poetry of Shakespeare. He regards him as a bold and vigorous, but uncouth and semi-barbarous genius, full of rabbinical subtleties, useless speculations, and polemical intolerance even against good old Peter at Antioch.
Several doctrines of Paul have been specially discussed by German scholars, as Tischendorf: Doctrina Pauli apostoli de Vi Mortis Christi Satisfactoria (Leipz., 1837); Räbiger: De Christologia Paulina (Breslau, 1852); Lipsius: Die paulinische Rechtfertigunglehre (Leipz., 1853); Ernesti: Vom Ursprung der Sünde nach paulinischem Lehrgehalt (Wolfenbüttel, 1855); Die Ethik des Paulus (Braunschweig, 1868; 3d ed., 1881); W. Beyschlag Die paulinische Theodicee (Berlin, 1868); R. Schmidt: Die Christologie des Ap. Paulus (Gött., 1870); A. Delitzsch: Adam und Christus (Bonn, 1871); H. Lüdemann: Die Anthropologie des Ap. Paulus (Kiel, 1872); R. Stähelin: Zur paulinischen Eschatologie (1874); A. Schumann:Der weltgeschichtl. Entwickelungsprocess nach dem Lehrsystem des Ap. Paulus (Crefeld, 1875); Fr. Köstlin: Die Lehre des Paulus von der Auferstehung (1877); H. H. Wendt: Die Begriffe Fleisch und Geist in biblischen Sprachgebrauch (Gotha, 1878).
II. The Christology of Paul is closely interwoven with his soteriology. In Romans and Galatians the soteriological aspect prevails, in Philippians and Colossians the christological. His christology is very rich, and with that of the Epistle to the Hebrews prepares the way for the christology of John. It is even more fully developed than John's, only less prominent in the system.
The chief passages on the person of Christ are: Rom. 1:3, 4 (ek spermatos Daueid kata sarka ... huios theou kata pneuma hagiosunes); 8:3 (ho theos ton eautou huion pempsas en homoiomati sarkos hamartias) 8:32 (hos tou idiou huiou ouk epheisato) 9:5 (ex hon ho Christos to kata sarka, ho on epi panton, theos eulogetos eis tous aionas--but the punctuation and consequently the application of the doxology--whether to God or to Christ--are disputed); 1 Cor. 1:19 (ho kurios hemon, a very frequent designation); 2 Cor. 5:21 (ton me gnonta hamartian); 8:9 (eptocheusen plousios on, hina humeis te ekeinou ptocheia ploutesete); Phil. 2:5-11 (the famous passage about thekenosis); Col. 1:15-18 (hos estin eikon tou theou tou aoratou prototokos pases kriseos, hoti en auto ekristhe ta pan'ta ... ta panta di autou kaii eis auton ektistai...); 2:9 (en auto katoikei pan to pleroma tes theotetos somatikos); 1 Tim. 3:16 (hos ephanerothe en sarki...); Tit.2:13 (tou megalou theou kai soteros hemon Christou Iesou, where, however, commentators differ in the construction, as in Rom. 9:5).
From these and other passages the following doctrinal points may be inferred:
1.The eternal pre-existence of Christ as to his divine nature. The pre-existence generally is implied in Rom. 8:3, 32; 2 Cor. 5:21; Phil. 2:5; the pre-existence before the creation is expressly asserted, Col. 1:15; the eternity of this pre-existence is a metaphysical inference from the nature of the case, since an existence before all creation must be an uncreated, therefore a divine or eternal existence which has no beginning as well as no end. (John carefully distinguishes between the eternal enof the pre-existent Logos, and the temporal egenetoof the incarnate Logos, John 1:1, 14; comp. 8:58.) This is not inconsistent with the designation of Christ as "the first-born of all creation," Col. 1:15; for prototokosis different from protoktistos(first-created), as the Nicene fathers already remarked, in opposition to Arius, who inferred from the passage that Christ was the first creature of God and the creator of all other creatures. The word first-born corresponds to the Johannean monogenes,only-begotten. "Both express," as Lightfoot says (Com. on Col.) "the same eternal fact; but while monogenesstates it in itself, prototokosplaces it in relation to the universe." We may also compare the protogonos,first-begotten, which Philo applies to the Logos, as including the original archetypal idea of the created world. "The first-born," used absolutely (prototokosbkrr Ps. 89:28), became a recognized title of the Messiah. Moreover, the genitive pases ktiseosis not the partitive, but the comparative genitive: the first-born as compared with, that is, before, every creature. So Justin Martyr (pro panton ton ktismaton), Meyer, and Bp. Lightfoot, in loc.; also Weiss, Bibl. Theol. d. N. T., p. 431 (who refutes the opposite view of Usteri, Reuss, and Baur, and says: "Da pases kriseosjede einzelne Creatur bezeichnet, so kann der Genii. nur comparativ genommen werden, und nur besagen, dass er im Vergleich mit jeden Creatur der Erstgeborne war"). The words immediately following, John 1:16, 17, exclude the possibility of regarding Christ himself as a creature. Lightfoot, in his masterly Comm. (p. 212 sq.), very fully explains the term as teaching the absolute pre-existence of the Son, his priority to and sovereignty over all creation.
The recent attempt of Dr. Beyschlag (Christologie des N. T., pp. 149 sqq., 242 sqq.) to resolve the pre-existent Christ of Paul and John into an ideal principle, instead of a real personality, is an exegetical failure, like the similar attempts of the Socinians, and is as far from the mark as the interpretation of some of the Nicene fathers (e.g., Marcellus) who, in order to escape the Arian argument, understood prototokos of the incarnate Logos as the head of the new spiritual creation.
2. Christ is the mediator and the end of creation. "All things were created in him, in the heavens and upon the earth, things visible and things invisible ...; all things have been created through him (di autouand unto him (eis auton); and he is before all things, and in him all things consist," Col. 1:15-18. The same doctrine is taught in 1 Cor. 8:6 ("Jesus Christ, through whom are all things"); 10;9; 15:47; as well as in the Ep. to the Hebrews 1:2: ("through whom he also made the worlds" or "ages"), and in John 1:3.
3. The divinity of Christ is clearly implied in the constant co-ordination of Christ with the Father as the author of "grace and peace," in the salutations of the Epistles, and in such expressions as, "the image of the invisible God" (Col. 1:15); "in him dwells the fulness of the Godhead bodily" (2:9): "existing in the form of God," and "being on an equality with God" (Phil. 2:6). In two passages he is, according to the usual interpretation, even called "God" (theos), but, as already remarked, the exegetes are still divided on the reference of theosin Rom. 9:5 and Tit. 2:13. Meyer admits that Paul, according to his christology, could call Christ "God" (as predicate, without the article, theosnot ho theos); and Weiss, in the 6th edition of Meyer on Romans (1881), adopts the prevailing orthodox punctuation and interpretation in Rom. 9:5 as the most natural, on purely exegetical grounds (the necessity of a supplement to kata sarka, and the position of eulogetosafter theos): "Christ as concerning the flesh, who [at the same time according to his higher nature] is over all, even God blessed for ever." Westcott and Hort are not quite agreed on the punctuation. See their note in Greek Test., Introd. and Appendix, p. 109.
4. The incarnation. This is designated by the terms "God sent his own Son (Rom. 8:3, comp. 8:32); Christ "emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men" (Phil. 2:7). Without entering here into the Kenosis controversy (the older one between Giessen and Tübingen, 1620-1630, and the recent one which began with Thomasius, 1845), it is enough to say that the Kenosis, or self-exinanition, refers not to the incarnate, but to the pre-existent Son of God, and implies a certain kind of self-limitation or temporary surrender of the divine mode of existence during the state of humiliation. This humiliation was followed by exaltation as a reward for his obedience unto death (Phil 2:9-11); hence he is now "the Lord of glory" (1 Cor. 2:8). To define the limits of the Kenosis, and to adjust it to the immutability of the Godhead and the intertrinitarian process, lies beyond the sphere of exegesis and belongs to speculative dogmatics.