The life and work of St. Paul

EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS, AND THEOLOGY OP ST. PAUL. 479
abounded, that as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through
righteousness into life 1
eternal, by Jesus Christ our Lord.
The next chapter (vi.) is of vast importance as stating an objection which
us how best to deal with an
might well be regarded as deadly, and as showing
apparent paradox. If grace superabounds over sin, why should we not con-
tinue in sin P After first throwing from him the hateful inference with a
" Perish the thought !
" he proceeds in this chapter to prove, first in a mystic
(vi. 1 15), and then in a more popular exposition (15 23), the moral conse-
quences of his doctrine. In the first half of this chapter he uses the
metaphor of death, in the latter the metaphor of emancipation, to illustrate
the utter severance between the Christian and sin.
he is
Ideally, theoretically, it should be needless to tell the Christian not to sin ;
dead to sin the ; very name of " elect " or " saint " excludes the entire conception
of sin, because the Christian is " IN CHRIST." Those two words express the very
quintessence of all that is most distinctive in St. Paul's theology, and yet they are
identical with the leading conception of St. John, who (we are asked to beHeve)
rails at him in the Apocalypse as Balaam and Jezebel, a sham Jew, and a false
apostle ! That the two words " in Christ " sum up the distinctive secret, the
revealed mystery of the Christian life, especially as taught by St. Paul and by St.
John, will be obvious to any thoughtful reader. If this mystic union, to which
both Apostles again and again recur, is expressed by St. Paul in the metaphors of
stones in a temple of which Christ is the foundation, 2 of members of a body of
which Christ is the head, 3 St. John records, and St. Paul alludes to, the metaphor of
the branches 4 and the vine, and both Apostles without any image again and again
declare that the Christian life is a spiritual life, a supernatural fife, and one which
we can only live by faith in, by union with, by partaking of the life of the Son of
God. 8 With both Apostles Christ is our life, and apart from Him we have no true
life. 6
St. Paul, again, is fond of the metaphor of wearing Christ as a garment,
putting on Christ, putting on the new man, 7 reflecting Him with ever-brightening
splendour. 8 In fact, the words " in Christ " and " with Christ " are his most constantly
recurrent phrases. "We work for Him, we live in Him, we die in Him,
we rise with Him, we are justified by Him. We are His sheep, His scholars, His
soldiers, His servants.
1 v. 20, 21. The old Protestant divines thus stated the uses of the Law : L Usus
primus, civil or political to govern states. 2. Usus secundus, convictive or paedagogio
to convince us of sin. 3. Usus tertius, didactic or formative to guide the life of a
believer (Formula, Concordiae, p. 594). Dr. Schaff, in his useful additions to the translation
of Lange's Romans, points out that these three correspond to the German sentence
that the Law is a Zugel (1, a restraint) ; a Spiegel (2, a mirror) and a ; Rieyel (3, a rod).
The Law "
multiplies transgressions because i. Nitimur in vetitum semper, cupimus
que negata." "Ignoti mdla cupido." ii. "Because desires suppressed forcibly from
without increase in virulence" (St. Thomas), iii. "Because suppressive rules kindle
anger against God " (Luther). But the real end of the Law was not the multiplication
of transgressions per se, but that the precipitation of sin might lead to its expulsion ;
that the
"
culmination of sin might be the introduction of grace. Non crudeliter hoc
fecit Deus sed ratione medicinae augebatur morbus, crescit malitia, quaeritur inedicus,
et totum sanatur" (Aug. in Ps. cii.).
a Eph. ii. 1922 (1 Pet. ii. 5 ; Isa. xxviii. 16).
8 Rom. xii. 5 ; Eph. iv. 16 ; 1 Cor. xii. 12, 13, 27 ; Col. i. 18.
* John xv. 5 ; Rom. vi. 5 ; Phil. i. 11.
s 2 Cor. v. 17 ; Rom. vi. 8 ; Gal. ii. 20 ; Eph. iii. 6 ; Col. iii. 3 ; John x. 28 ; xiv. 19 ;
xv. 410 ; 1 John v. 20 : ii. 24. &c.
6 John v. 24 ; xi. 25 ; xiv. 20 : Gal. ii. 20 ; CoL iii. 4 ; 1 John i. 1 ; v. 12, &o.
7 Gal. iii. 27 ; Rom. xiii. 14 ; Eph. iv. 24 ; Col. iii. 10.
2 Cor. iii. 18.