The life and work of St. Paul

476 THE LIFE AND WORK OF ST. PA.TTL.
future, but even in the afflictions of the present, which tend to hope because first
they work endurance, then approved firmness.1 The certainty of our Hope is due'
to the love of God poured into our hearts by His Holy Spirit, and unmistakable to
us, since, by a stretch of self-sacrifice unknown to humanity, 2 Christ died for us, :
not because of any justice, much less any goodness of ours, but while we were yet
sinners and enemies. And since we have been reconciled to God by His death,'
much more shall we be saved by His life, so that our hope founded on this reconciliation
to God may even acquire a tinge of exultation. 8 Our Peace, then, is an
immediate sentiment"which requires no external proof ; and our Hope is founded on
the love of God assured to us in three ways namely, by Christ's death for us while
we were yet enemies to God on the ; strength to endure afflictions and BOG their
blessed issue and above all on union with Christ in death and life. ; 4
And this universality of Sin, and universality of Justification, leads Paul
to one of his great sketches of the religious history of humanity. To him
that history was summed up in three great moments connected with the lives
of Adam, Moses, and Christ, of which the mission of Moses was the least:
important. Those three names corresponded to throe stages in the world's-
religious history Promise, Law, and Faith of which the third is the realisation
of the first. Adam was a type of Christ, and each stood as it were at
the head of long lines of representatives. Each represents the principle of
a whole aeon. Adam's first sin developed a principle from which none of
his posterity could be free ; and Christ introduced the possibility of a new
and saving principle, the necessity for which had been made manifest by the
dispensation of Moses. Here, however, as so often, the logical statement is
incomplete and entangled, owing to the rush of the Apostle's thoughts. 6
" So then, at by one man sin entered into the world, and by sin death, and so
death extended to all men on the ground that all sinned," ' he probably meant to
i Matt. v. 1012 ; Acts v. 41 ; 1 Pet. iv. 13, 14 2 ; Cor. xii. 10, 11.
8
v. 7, Chrysostom, Theodoret, Erasmus, Calvin, Meyer, &c., make 110 difference
between oyoflbs, "good," and Siicaio*, "just," as though St. Paul meant "one would
scarcely die for a good man, though possibly one might." It is, however, more probable
that St. Paul meant " one would not die merely for a man of ordinary integrity, but for
a truly good man one might even dare to die " (cf . Cic. De Off. iii. 15).
8 v.
4
11, oAAi KM Kavxw^eroi.
Verses 1 12.
8 1 Cor. xv. 45. The difference between Adam and Eve (1 Tim. ii. 14) was a smaller
matter, and one which had little or no bearing on the destiny of the human being,
whether male or female.
6 Pages and almost volumes of controversy have been written on verse 12.