Philippians and Philemon - MR Vincent - 1906.pdf

I. 2, 3] THE PROLOGUE 5
and consequently the capacity or ability due to that gracious state
(Eph. iv. 7). It is this free favor of God, with all that follows it,
that Paul in his salutation desires for his readers. is not
tranquillity or repose, save as these are conceived as resulting from
the cessation of hostility between God and man. Reconciliation
is always at the basis of the Pauline conception of peace. Simi-
larly Ps. xxix. II, Ixxxv. 8; Is. liii. 5. These terms, therefore,
are not to be regarded as mere equivalents of the ordinary forms
of salutation. They Unk themselves with these, and it is also true
that Paul does not use them with any distinct dogmatic purpose ;
but it is inconceivable that he should have employed them without
some consciousness of the peculiar sense which attaches to
them throughout his letters. Thus Weiss justly says that "the
fact that these terms connect themselves with the ordinary Greek
and Hebrew greetings does not exclude the employment of ' grace
in its specifically Christian and Pauline sense in which it denotes
the unmerited divine operation of love, which is the source and
principle of all Christian salvation. Similarly, * peace ' is not to
be understood primarily in the technical sense of Rom. v. i, as
the first-fruit of justification ; but we may be sure that, in Paul's
mind, the whole state of tranquillity and general well-being which
was implied in ' peace ' attached itself
reconciliation with God."
at the root to the fact of
The fact that God and Christ appear on an equality in the salutation
cannot be adduced as a positive proof of the divine nature
of Christ, though it falls in with Paul's words in ch. ii., and may
be allowed to point to that doctrine which he elsewhere asserts.
We cannot be too careftil to distinguish between ideas which
unconsciously underlie particular expressions, and the same ideas
used with a definite and conscious dogmatic purpose. This Epis-
tle especially has suffered from the overlooking of this distinction.
€
3.
oerjaei ,
7«
The Thanksgiving
€ -] 8 Trj , ficra