The life and work of St. Paul

104 THE LIFE AND WORK OF ST. PAUI*
a potsherd ! But had not something of the splendour faded from these more
youthful dreams P What had the righteousness of the Law done for him ?
Ho had lived, as far as men were concerned, an honourable life. He had been
exceedingly zealous, exceedingly blameless in the traditions of the fathers ;
but what inward joy had he derived from them? what enlightenment?
what deliverance from that law of his members, which, do what he would,
still worked fatally against the law in his mind? His sins of pride and
passion, and frailty would not a jealous God avenge them P Was there any
exemption at all from the Law's curse of " death ? " Was there any deliverance
at all from this ceaseless trouble of a nature dissatisfied with itself, and
therefore wavering like a wave of the troubled sea P
Would the deliverance be secured by the coming of the Messiah ? That
advent for the nation would be triumph and victory; would it be for the
individual also, peace of conscience, justification, release from heavy bondage,
forgiveness of past sins, strength in present weakness ?
And then it must have flashed across him that these Nazarenes, at any
rate, whom he had been hunting and slaying, said that it would. For them
the Messiah had come, and certainly they had found peace. It was true that
their Messiah was despised and rejected ; but was not that the very thing
which had been said of the Servant of Jehovah in that prophecy to which
they always appealed, and which also said that which his troubled conscience
needed most :
" Surely He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows : yet we did
esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for
our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities : the chastisement of our
peace was upon him ; and with His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep
have gone astray ; we have turned every one to his own way ; and the Lord
hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all." 1
This passage certainly gave a very different aspect to the conception
of the Messiah from any which he had been taught to contemplate. Tot
the Rabbis had said that all prophecies were Messianic. Jesus had been
crucified. A crucified Messiah was a horrible thought ; but was it worse than
a Messiah who should be a leper ? Tet here the ideal servant of Jehovah was
called a leper. 2 And if His physical condition turned out to be meaner than
Israel had always expected, yet surely the moral conception, the spiritual con-
ception, as ho had heard it from these hated Galilseans, was infinitely lovelier!
those were blessed words! of a Messiah
They spoke and oh, undeniably
through whom they obtained forgiveness of sins. If this were true, what
infinite comfort it brought ! how it ended the hopelessness of the weary
struggle ! The Law, indeed, promised life to perfect obedience. 3 But who
ever had attained, who could attain, to that perfect obedience? 4 Did he see
it in the Gentile world, who, though they
had not the Law of Moses had
1 Isa. liii. 46.
Isa. lii. 14, liii/4, "stricken," Heb. ; of. Lev. xiii. 13, Sanhedr. f. 98,
3 Lev. xviii. 5 ; Gal iii. 12.
4 Bom. x. 5.