And once again, the idea of a predestination for good, taking effect necessarily and irrespective of men's co-operation, is an idea which has been intruded unjustifiably into St. Paul's thought. It exalts his whole being to consider that he is co-operating with God, and that the conditions under which he lives represent a divine purpose with which he is called to work. It is this which makes him feel it is worth while working: it is this which nerves and sustains him in all sufferings, and enlarges his horizon in all restraints: but he never suggests that it does not lie within the mysterious power of his own will to withdraw himself from co-operation with God. It is at least conceivable to him that he should himself be rejected[78]. In that famous list of external forces which he feels are unable to tear him from the grasp of the divine love, his own will is not included[79], nor could be included without gross inconsistency.

Beyond all question there is here one problem which remains for all time unsolved and insoluble – the relation of divine fore-knowledge[80] to human freedom. If we men are free to choose, how can it be, or can it really be the case at all, that God knows beforehand actually how each individual will behave in each particular case? This is a problem which we cannot fathom any more than we can fathom any of the problems which require for their solution an experience of what an absolute and eternal consciousness can mean. But the problem belongs to metaphysics. It inheres in the idea of eternity and God. The Bible neither creates it nor solves it. We may say it does not touch it.

Certainly when St. Paul dwells upon the thought of divine predestination he dwells upon it in order to emphasize that, through all the vicissitudes of the world's history, a divine purpose runs; and especially that God works out His universal purposes through specially selected agents 'his elect,' on whom His choice rests for special ends in accordance with an eternal design and intention. And the sense of co-operating with an eternal purpose of God inspires and strengthens him. For God will not drop His work by the way. Whom He did foreknow or mark out beforehand for His divine purposes, them He also foreordained or predestinated to sonship, and in due time called into the number of His elect, and justified them, that is, pardoned their sins and gave them a new standing-ground in Christ, and glorified or will glorify them by the gradual operation of His grace[81]. The steps or moments of the divine action recognized in the Epistle to the Romans are practically the same as those alluded to in the Epistle to the Ephesians. There also is the eternal choice, and the predestination to sonship, and at a particular time the call into the Church, and the justification or remission of sins through the blood of Christ, and the gradual promotion through sanctification to glory. And the moral fruit of contemplating God's eternal purpose for His elect, and the stages of His work upon them, is to be cheerful confidence of a right sort. God will not drop them by the way, nor the work which they are 'called' to accomplish. 'God who hath begun a good work will perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ[82].' Wherever St. Paul recognizes a movement towards good in the single soul or in the world, he knows that it is no accidental or passing phase: it has its roots in the eternal will, and unless we resist it in wilful obstinacy, the eternal will shall at last carry it on to perfection. 'There shall never be one lost good.'

It is not out of place to notice in this connexion how closely akin is St. Paul's thought to the modern philosophy of evolution. Only to St. Paul the slow process of cosmic or human evolution is in no kind of opposition to the idea of divine design.

iii

The elect

This predestinated body, the Church, is what in another word St. Paul calls the 'elect' or 'chosen.' The idea of election has had a very false turn given to it, partly through mistakes which have been already alluded to, partly because the idea of election has been separated from another idea with which in the Bible it is most closely associated, the idea of a universal purpose to which the elect minister. No thought can be more prominent in the Old Testament than the thought that some men out of multitudes have been chosen by God to be in a special relation of intimacy with Him. 'You only have I known, O Israel, of all the families of the earth.' But this election to special knowledge of God, and special spiritual opportunity, carries with it a corresponding responsibility. It is no piece of favouritism on God's part. The greater our opportunity the more is required of us. 'You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore will I visit upon you all your iniquities[83].' The fact is that the principle of inequality in capacity and opportunity runs through the whole world both in individuals and in societies. A great genius or a great nation has special privileges and opportunities, but also, in the sight of God who judges men according to their opportunities, special responsibilities. But also (and this is by far the most important point) the special vocation of every elect individual or body is for the sake of others[84]. It is God's method to work through the few upon the many. That is the law of ministry which binds all the world of strong and weak, of rich and poor, of learned and ignorant, into one. Thus Abraham had been chosen alone, but it was that, through his seed, all the nations of the earth should be blessed. Israel was exclusively the people of God, but it was in order that all nations should learn from them at last the word of God. The apostles were the first 'elect' in Christ with a little Jewish company. 'We' – so St. Paul speaks of the Jewish Christians – 'we who had before hoped in Christ.' But it was to show the way to all the Gentiles ('ye also, who have heard the word of the truth, the gospel of your salvation,') who were also to constitute 'God's own possession' and His 'heritage.' The purpose to be realized is a universal one: it is the re-union of man with man, as such, by being all together reunited to God in one body. And this idea is to have application even beyond the bounds of humanity. Unity is the principle of all things as God created the world. 'In Christ,' St. Paul writes to the Colossians, 'all things consist' or 'hold together in one system[85].' It is only sin, whether in man or in the dimly-known spiritual world which lies beyond, which has spoiled this unity, and in separating the creatures from God has separated them from one another. And the Church of the reconciliation is God's elect body to represent a divine purpose of restoration far wider than itself – extending in fact to all creation. It is the divine purpose, with a view to 'a dispensation of the fulness of the times, to sum up' or 'bring together again in unity' all things in Christ; the things in the heaven, the dim spiritual forces of which we have only glimpses, and the things upon the earth which we know so much better.

This great and rich idea of the election of the Church as a special body to fulfil a universal purpose of recovery, cannot be expressed better than in the very ancient prayer which forms part of the paschal ceremonies of the Latin liturgy. 'O God of unchangeable power and eternal light, look favourably on Thy whole Church, that wonderful and sacred mystery, and by the tranquil operation of Thy perpetual providence, carry out the work of man's salvation; and let the whole world feel and see that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and all things are returning to perfection through Him, from whom they took their origin, even through our Lord Jesus Christ.'

The divine secret disclosed

This universal reconciliation through a catholic church was God's eternal purpose, but it was kept secret from the ages and the generations, only at last to be disclosed to His apostles and prophets. The word 'mystery' in the New Testament means mostly a divine secret which has now been disclosed. Just as the secret of Nebuchadnezzar's dream, i.e. the purpose of God in the then order of the world, was imparted to Daniel, so now the great disclosure of the divine mystery or secret has been made, primarily indeed to apostles and prophets, but through them to the whole body of the faithful. The faithful must of course begin by receiving that simplest spiritual nourishment which is milk for babes. They are to welcome the divine forgiveness of their sins in Christ, and the gift of new life through Him in their baptism and the laying-on of hands. They are to be taught the rudimentary truths and moral lessons which are the first principles of the oracles of Christ. But they are not to stop with this. They are, and they are all of them without exception[86], intended to grow up to the full apprehension of the wisdom of the 'perfect' or perfectly initiated. They are to dwell upon the divine secret, now revealed, of God's purpose for the universe through the church till their whole heart and intellect and imagination is enlightened and enriched by it.

It is all of grace

And is the greatness of this exaltation and knowledge vouchsafed to the Church to be a renewed occasion of pride – that spiritual pride, the fatal results of which had already become apparent through the rejection of the Jews? No: unless through a complete mistake, the very opposite must be the result. The strength of human pride, as St. Paul had seen long ago, lay in the idea that man could have merit of his own, face to face with God: could have good works which were his own and not God's, and which gave him a claim upon God. That Jewish doctrine of merit[87

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.

The Committee of the Conference of Bishops at Lambeth, 1897, in a report commended by the bishops as a body to the 'consideration of all Christian people,' write: 'Your committee do not hold that a true view of Holy Scripture forecloses any legitimate question about the literary character or literal accuracy of different parts or statements of the Old Testament.'

Acts xxiv 14; xxvi. 6, 7, 22, 23; 2 Tim i. 3.

Eph. ii. 12-19.

1 Thess. ii. 14-16.

Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Romans.

See app. note C, p. 257.

Acts ix. 20; 1 Cor. viii. 6; Rom. ix. 5; 2 Cor. viii. 9; Gal. iv. 4.

Colossians, Ephesians, Philippians, Philemon.

Col. ii. 18: 'by a voluntary humility (or 'taking delight in humility') and worshipping of the angels.'

See i. 13-20; ii. 2, 3, 9-23; iii. 11. Cf. i. 27-28.

Hort, Judaistic Christianity (Macmillan, 1894), p. 125.

Cf. app. note C, p. 257.

Cf. Hort, Prolegomena to Romans and Ephesians (Macmillan, 1895), p. 100.

Col. iv. 2-4; Philemon 22; Phil. i. 12-14.

Ramsay, Paul the Traveller (Hodder and Stoughton, 1895), pp. 130 ff.

Ramsay, l. c. p. 132.

See Mommsen, Provinces of Roman Empire (Eng. trans.), i. 344 ff.; Lightfoot, Ign. and Polyc. iii. pp. 404 ff.

App. note A, p. 251.

Tatian, Ad Graecos, 28, 32.

Ramsay, l. c. p. 135.

Rom. xiii. 1-7; cf. ii. Thess. ii. 6.

1 Tim. ii. 1, 2.

Acts xxv. 12.

Ramsay, l. c. p. 147.

Lightfoot, Galatians, 'St. Paul and Seneca,' pp. 287 ff.

See app. note B, p. 253.

'The zeal of its inhabitants for philosophy and general culture is such that they have surpassed even Athens and Alexandria and all other cities where schools of philosophy can be mentioned. And its pre-eminence in this respect is so great because there the students are all townspeople, and strangers do not readily settle there.' Strabo, xiv. v. 13. I do not suppose that St. Paul received any formal education in Greek schools at Tarsus. But I think we must assume that at some period St. Paul had sufficient contact with Gentile educated opinion, whether at Tarsus or elsewhere, to be acquainted with widely-spread religious and philosophical tendencies.

Cf. Hort, Christian Ecclesia, p. 143.

Acts xix. 21.

Rom. i. 15, 16.

Acts xxiii. 11.

Acts xxvii. 24.

Acts xxviii. 15.

Acts xx. 29, 30.

Among other articles of commerce, tents made in Ephesus had a special reputation, and St. Paul and Aquila had special opportunities there for the exercise of their trade. Acts xx. 34.

Strabo. xiv. 1, 25.

Migne, P. L. xxvi. 441.

Acts xvi. 6-10.

Acts xviii. 19.

Hort, Prolegomena, p. 83.

Acts xix. 1-7.

Ramsay, l. c. p. 143.

'From the fifth to the tenth hour' (11 a.m. to 4 p.m.), an early addition to the text of the Acts tells us; i. e. after work hours, when the school would naturally be vacant and St. Paul would have finished his manual labour at tent-making. Ramsay, l. c. p. 276.

1 Cor. xv. 32.

Acts xix. 23 ff.

Prof. Ramsay asserts that instead of 'robbers of temples' (Acts xix. 37), we should translate 'disloyal to the established government.' l. c. p. 282. But the word is used in the former sense in special connexion with Ephesus by Strabo, xiv. 1, 22, and Pseudo-Heracleitus, Ep. 7, p. 64 (Bernays).

See app. note B, p. 253, on the contemporary 'letters of Heracleitus.'

Acts xx. 17 ff.

Col. iv. 16.

2 Cor. viii. 23.

1 Cor. ix. 1.

1 Cor. xv. 8.

2 Cor. xii. 11.

Gal. i. 1.

Tertullian, de An. 39, rightly interprets 1 Cor. vii. 14, 'now are they [the children of whose parents one was a Christian] holy,' as meaning, now are they already consecrated and marked out for baptismal sanctification by the prerogative of their birth.

Acts ix. 13, 33.

Cf. 1 Cor. viii. 6; Col. i. 16.

Rom. ix. 5.

Tit. ii. 13.

Rom. viii. 29.

1 Cor. xv. 23.

Eph. iv. 15, 16.

Eph. v. 32; Rev. xxi. 9.

1 Cor. xv. 45; Rom. v. 12-19.

1 Cor. xii. 12.

Acts xix. 1-7.

Rom. iii. 24-26. I have tried to develope St. Paul's hint.

Rom. iii. 25; Acts xiv. 16; Acts xvii. 30.

The earliest and simplest expression of the matter is that in St. Paul's earliest epistle (1 Thess. v. 10), Christ 'died for us … that we should live together with him.'

Eph. i. 7; cf. ii. 13 ff.

Rom. ix. 21.

1 Cor. xii. 22 ff.

Cf. St. Matt. xiii. 13-15; St. John xii. 39, 40. We are not (Rom. ix. 17) told why Pharaoh was brought out on the stage of history as an example of God's hardening judgement. But no doubt there was a moral reason.

Rom. ix-xi.

Rom. xi. 29.

Rom. xi. 33.

1 Tim. ii. 4.

1 Cor. ix. 27.

Rom. viii. 38, 39

I am using the word here not in its Bible sense, for in the Bible God is said to 'know' men in the sense of fixing His choice or approval upon them; and to 'foreknow' is therefore to approve or choose beforehand, as suitable instruments for a divine purpose. I am using the word in its ordinary sense.

Rom. viii. 28-30.

Phil. i. 6.

Amos iii. 2.

On the Jewish idea of election, cf. app. note C, p. 261.

Col. i. 1.

Col. i. 28.

See app. note C, p. 257.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента

Купить и скачать всю книгу

<1 2 3 4

На страницу:

Перейти