06. St Paul's Conception of the Consummation of the Kingdom Of God
Chapter VI ST PAUL’S CONCEPTION OF THE CONSUMMATION OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD In the present chapter we must attempt not so much to describe St Paul’s conceptions of certain additional events of the End, as rather to gather together various hints, more or less vague, which he has thrown out in his Epistles, and from these to present as clear a view as we can reach of his foreshadowing of the final Consummation. Part of our task will be to carry a stage or two further some of the conceptions which have occupied us already, and to fill in the outline of a larger setting or background for these. And we will also endeavour to bring out into bolder relief several aspects of the Pauline Eschatology, which have hitherto only been touched in passing.
Students of New Testament theology during the past decade have grown weary of the endless, and it must be said, somewhat uninspiring, discussions which have centred round the idea of the Kingdom of God.
The teaching of Jesus has had frequently to suffer violence that it might square with the pet theory of theologians. After all, there still prevails a large divergence of opinion as to the meaning and content of this ruling thought of the Master. Thus, e.g., Ritschl defines Jesus’ doctrine of the Kingdom of God as “not the common exercise of worship, but the organisation of humanity through action inspired by love.”1 [Note: Justification and Reconciliation, vol. iii. (E. Tr.) p. 12.] Haupt, on the other hand, holds that Jesus regards the Kingdom, “not as a fellowship, but as an organism of heavenly-i.e. supernatural-blessings, gifts, and forces, which are to operate in humanity, and transform it into the province of the rule of God.”2 [Note: S.K., 1887, p. 383.] Kähler speaks of Jesus’ preaching of the Kingdom as His “veiled self-assertion,” as contrasted with the Gospel of Christ, which is “His revealed and fully unfolded self-assertion.”3 [Note: Gehört Jesus in d. Evangelium, p. 22.] Orr describes it as that idea which “defines the aim and purpose of God in Creation and Redemption.”4 [Note: Christian View of God and World, p. 354.] Whatever be its most accurate definition, in our judgment even so (apparently) rich a concept as this is far too meagre to embrace the spiritual outlook of Jesus Christ.
But we willingly allow that its formulation and application have been very fruitful, both for the comprehension of the basis of Christian thought, and for the relating of Jesus’ view of His Gospel to the needs of present-day religion. In the midst of all diversities of interpretation, most competent New Testament scholars admit that Jesus’ idea of the Kingdom included a distinctly eschatological element. We say “included,” for it is surely a case of theorising run mad to put forward the hypothesis, which J. Weiss defends so strenuously in his Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes, that the conception of Jesus was nothing else than eschatological.
Such a position can only be established by the clumsy device of arbitrarily weakening the force of those passages in the Synoptic Gospels which are its refutation. The Kingdom, in our Lord’s view of it, was unquestionably the Messianic kingdom, foreshadowed from of old under various guises. But then it was Messianic in the same sense in which He was the Messiah.
No unprejudiced reader of the New Testament needs to be reminded of the contrast between His conception of Himself and the Messianic forecasts dimly adumbrated in the Old Testament, and worked out in greater or less detail in Judaistic literature and the theology of the Synagogue. For Him the religious aspect of Messiah and His kingdom was all in all. Surrender to the gracious rule of God as Father which He proclaimed, and all the blessedness of fellowship with God which that surrender brought in its train, constituted in His view the true aim of life for individuals and for the world.
On this basis, the certainty of the Kingdom was, at one stroke, dissevered from all political and national contingencies. It was a certainty planted in the religious consciousness. Hence Jesus, in the midst of humiliation and rejection, could regard the fortunes of His Kingdom with unbroken calm.
For He felt the pledge of its consummation in His own experience, in that union of life with God which must be the supreme ideal for humanity. The soul which is made conscious of that life is, at the same time, made sure that God’s all-embracing purpose of good must be fulfilled. The community which knows that life of God, and is ruled by it, already forms the nucleus of the Kingdom.1 [Note: Ritschl expresses, with characteristic insight, the transformation of the kingdom-idea which Jesus wrought: “While the Divine purpose in the world is bound up with the naturally conditioned unity of the Israelitish nation, the position of this nation in the world is made dependent upon legal and political conditions and material advantages, which as such are of a mundane order, and do not correspond to the supra-mundane position of the one God.
Thus there was forced upon Israel the necessity of always postponing to a future, which never became present, the reconciliation between its position in the world and God. Jesus rose above this standpoint, and introduced a new religion by setting free the lordship of the supra-mundane God from national and political limitations, as well as from the expectation of material well-being, and by advancing its significance for mankind to a spiritual and ethical union, which at once corresponds to the spirituality of God, and denotes the supra-mundane end of spiritual creatures” (Justification and Reconciliation, vol. iii. (E. Tr.) p. 455). See also the instructive parallelism and contrast between the Synoptists and the Rabbinic writers with regard to the Kingdom of God, in Volz, op. cit., pp. 299, 300.] It was this religious aspect which He pressed home upon the hearts of His disciples and those who assembled to listen to His preaching.
As soon as it was appreciated and began to assert itself in human lives, He knew that the foundation of the Kingdom had been laid in the world. But inevitably, from this point of view, it must have a forward look. He plants the seed (Mark 4:26-29).
It germinates and begins to spring up. But the process, although present from the first-present in its essence and living reality-is at best but tardy. Thus the gaze of the Husbandman will always be directed to the distant end-the harvest-time-when the fruit of His toil is ripe for the ingathering, and His original aim is completely realised.
It would lead us too far afield even to attempt the briefest examination of the eschatological element in our Lord’s conception of the Kingdom. But hints of it have already been presented. In our discussion of the Parousia, we had occasion to quote many passages from the Gospels directly bearing upon it.
These prove beyond doubt that Jesus looked forward to a time, known only to the Father, when the Kingdom which he had already founded in the world should enter upon a new, which was to be the final, stage of its development. The Son of Man was to come “in the glory of His Kingdom.” There was to be the inauguration of that splendid epoch which He once names the
But the unparalleled impression made on the minds of the first generation of Christians by the destruction of Jerusalem (70 a.d.) and all the disturbances which led up to that crisis, has probably introduced complications into the eschatological discourses. This Synoptic tradition, as we have already noted, exerted a powerful influence upon the thinking of St Paul. He could receive it, not merely as stamped with the authority of Christ Himself, but also as embodying and bringing to a fit culmination all the foreshadowings of the great prophetic men.
The experiences and historical development of the people of Israel seemed, of course, to the apostle to supply the mould within which the highest spiritual life of humanity was to shape itself. No other conception could appear so truly adapted to set forth the future advance in the apprehension of God and His revelation, and in the realisation of His will in the world, as that of the Theocracy, the Divine rule of men. Only, it had to be raised above all nationalism, had to be viewed in the immense range of its significance and possibilities, had to be left unrestricted, so that it should, on the one hand, take the form of the brotherhood, the society, the Church (the side of organisation, if we may so call it); while, on the other, it stood for a Divine power, a Divine redemptive purpose, a Divine life actually working in individuals, and thus making the spiritual community possible as God’s representative in the world.
When we think of the largeness of scope belonging to this whole point of view, we are better able to understand the actual position of the apostle Paul.
It must appear strange, at first sight, that the central term of the Synoptic tradition,
In 2 Thessalonians 1:5, it is found in the phrase,
To the same category must be referred those statements of the apostle which speak of an “inheriting” of the Kingdom. Such are- 1 Corinthians 6:9, “Know ye not that unrighteous men shall not inherit the Kingdom of God”; Galatians 5:21, “They that do such things shall not inherit the Kingdom of God”; Ephesians 5:5, “Every fornicator, or impure person, or covetous man … hath not an inheritance in the Kingdom, of Christ and of God”; 1 Corinthians 15:50, “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God.” This last example clearly shows the sense in which St Paul uses the term, which is evidently that of the future epoch of the consummation, the era of a new and spiritual order of existence.2 [Note: See also Wernle, Reichsgotteshoffnung, pp. 2, 3.] Of precisely similar significance are his words in Romans 8:17, although the term “Kingdom” does not occur in that context: “If children, also heirs, heirs of God, joint-heirs with Christ, if so be that we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified with Him.” This passage is so typical for another aspect of the Kingdom in St Paul’s writings, that we must return to it. Meanwhile it is fair to say that no one with any true appreciation of Paulinism can restrict the apostle to the purely eschatological sense of the word, or the idea which it embodies.
Thus, in 1 Corinthians 4:20, he declares that “the Kingdom of God is not in word, but in power,” and from the context it is plain that the “power” is something not expected in the future, but now present, and capable of being put to the proof. We may compare the answer of Jesus in reply to the Pharisees who asked Him when the Kingdom of God should come: “The Kingdom of God cometh not with observation (
In Colossians 1:12-14, also, he gives thanks to the Father, “who delivered us from the power of darkness, and transferred (
IF IT WERE NECESSARY, THE ROOTS OF THE TWO CONCEPTIONS COULD BE TRACED BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. THE ONE, AS DALMAN POINTS OUT, “ATTACHES ITSELF TODaniel 7:14; Daniel 7:27, WHERE THE DOMINION IS GIVEN FIRST TO THE ‘SON OF MAN,’ THEN TO THE SAINTS OF THE HIGHEST. THE OTHER RESTS ONDaniel 2:44, ACCORDING TO WHICH ‘THE GOD OF HEAVEN’ WILL AT THE END SET UP AN EVERLASTING ‘DOMINION,’ WHICH DESTROYS ALL OTHER DOMINIONS” (WORTE JESU, P. 109).] that would explain the remarkable utterance of 1 Corinthians 15:24, “Then the end, when He shall have delivered up the Kingdom to His God and Father.”
Some scholars (e.g. Bornemann on 2 Thessalonians 1:5) endeavour to account for the comparative rarity of the term in the Epistles, by supposing that all the time the idea lay in the background of the apostle’s thought, and that the Christian communities to which he wrote were so familiar with it from his oral teaching, and so ready to take it for granted, that it required no direct emphasis. We cannot say that such an hypothesis carries conviction. It is hard to reconcile with the method of St Paul.
His favourite conceptions are not kept in the background, but have a habit of asserting themselves with remarkable prominence throughout his writings. We are far more inclined to believe that the idea of the Kingdom, which was certainly very familiar to him, has been clothed by St Paul in various guises. And these are not difficult to identify, as we shall discover.
The fact must be related to the teaching of Jesus Himself. We have already pointed out that the bare conception of the Kingdom does not suffice to contain all the breadth and depth of the revelation of Jesus. Again and again, for example, He uses the idea of the family to express the highest relationship between God and men.
It is scarcely necessary to give instances, but we may refer to such well-known passages as Matthew 7:9-11; Matthew 11:25 f., 5:43-48, 6:1-8; Luke 15:11 f. Here it is not the relation of ruler and subjects which He has in view, but that of father and children. Titius, indeed, endeavours to show that in the East there is no sharp distinction between the State and the family, and accordingly, that when Jesus speaks of God’s fatherly relation to men, the thought of the Kingdom is still implied. In proof of his position, he quotes the remarkable phrase, “the children of the Kingdom,” which occurs in Matthew 8:12; Matthew 13:38 (p. 32).
We would not deny that there is some force in the contention. But the very fact that the kingdom-idea has to be so enlarged as to become virtually a different (although it may be a related) conception, verifies our position. The example we have chosen is most suggestive for St Paul, as revealing one of the highest aspects in which he has remodelled the kingdom-idea, possibly on the basis of the teaching of Jesus.
In the words which were quoted from Romans 8:17, “If children, then heirs, heirs of God, joint-heirs with Christ,” the apostle brings the two related thoughts into intimate connection. The position of “children of God” is attained by the reception of the Spirit. The Spirit teaches the believer in whom He dwells to cry, “Abba, Father” (ver. 15).
The Spirit attests their own conviction that they are children of God (ver. 16). None other than children can inherit the future, eternal Kingdom. This passage shows how the central teaching of the apostle, his teaching on the Spirit and the sonship (
But a further evidence of the form in which the idea possessed him is to be found in his doctrine of the Lordship (
It is shown also by such utterances as Romans 12:11,
He is Lord of the realm of His
As Feine well sums it up, “The reason why Paul did not carry on Jesus’ preaching of the Kingdom is given in 2 Corinthians 1:20 : ‘Howsoever many are the promises of God, in Him is their yea’ ” (Jesus Christus u. Paulus, p. 172). But to realise the profoundness with which the apostle conceives the idea of the Kingdom, from the point of view which has been illustrated by our last quotations, we must refer to his far-reaching doctrine of the Body of Christ, the unity and mutual service of the members of the
But the liberty, based on a genuinely personal relation to Christ the Redeemer and Revealer of the Father, carries with it immense responsibilities, responsibility as regards the brethren (the members of the same elect family or society) for whom Christ died, and in mutual interaction with them, direct responsibility to the Lord Himself. Full justice must be done to those momentous passages, occurring with growing frequency as his life advances, in which the apostle earnestly reminds his readers of the duties of the “members” to the “body” (see Romans 12:1-21; Romans 13:1-14; Romans 14:1-23; Romans 15:1-6; 1 Corinthians 12:1-31; 1 Corinthians 13:1-13; 1 Corinthians 14:1-40; Colossians 1:13-23; Colossians 2:18-19; Ephesians 1:9-10; Ephesians 1:22-23; Ephesians 2:18-22; Ephesians 4:1-24), and exults in the unifying of all jarring elements through the possession of the same Spirit in the one Lord and Head.
Throughout our discussion we have been mainly occupied with the eschatological conceptions of St Paul in their bearing upon individuals, and that aspect must at no stage be allowed to slip out of view. But we must also leave room for the broader sweep of his spiritual vision. We must avoid one-sidedness in the presentation of the apostle’s thought, by emphasising the loftier flights of his religious intuition.
The Pauline doctrine of the New Life and of the
This crucial event, with all its accompaniments, is placed in intimate connection with the Parousia of the Saviour and the final Judgment of mankind. We must now inquire, What is to be the culminating experience, according to St Paul’s view, of those who belong to Christ, who possess the pledge of the Spirit? Their future condition is described by the apostle under various vivid pictures.
One of the most significant represents them as transformed into the image (
It bears a relation to the Divine purpose in the universe from the beginning. It is normative for the whole Divine self-expression which we call “creation.” Not mere semblance is implied in St Paul’s use of
That expectation is expressed in clear language by the remarkable statement of Php 3:21, which asserts that Christ “shall transform the body of our humiliation (the
He cannot conceive a true personal life on that basis. It must be a redemption of the whole person as a unity. And he finds a basis of certainty for that high prospect in the experience of the risen Lord, who cannot be regarded as a mere disembodied, glorified Spirit, but has been exalted in the glorification of His whole nature, His Spirit (the
This claim is now, in very deed, to be made good, made good in Him who is “the First-begotten among many brethren” (Romans 8:29). In Him human creatures are to become truly sons of God, for His Spirit which the believer receives is the “spirit of sonship” (
It has been noted in a former chapter, as a fundamental axiom of eschatological thought, that “the End is to be as the Beginning.” Thus, in 4 Ezra 7:30, we read that at the opening of the new epoch “the world shall be transformed into the silence of the primitive time, for seven days, as in the beginning.” One of the questions which Baruch puts to God is, “Shall the structure of the world return to its original nature?” (Apoc. Bar. iii. 7). And Enoch tells how the angel Uriel showed him all the laws of the heavenly lights and all the divisions of time, “until the new eternally-enduring creation is made” (Enoch lxxii. 1).
The Christian Father, Barnabas, expresses the conception distinctly,
Through the defacing influence of sin, humanity has failed of its high purpose in the Divine mind. It has failed to show forth the untarnished glory of its Divine source. Man’s God-given power of free choice has issued in disobedience to the Highest. But that is not the conclusion of the whole matter:
“My own hope is a sun will pierce The thickest cloud earth ever stretched; That after Last returns the First, Tho’ a wide compass round be fetched; That what began best, can’t end worst, Nor what God blessed once, prove accurst.”
(Browning, Apparent Failure, vii.) The Second Adam, who is from heaven, has become the Founder of a renewed humanity-not its Founder, as standing apart from it, and looking upon His work in aloofness, but as having brought the Divine into a relation of intimacy with it, in full accord with the original purpose of God. As the
But now this significance has been unveiled to men, can be understood by humanity in the new creation (
These, indeed, are only adumbrated in such expressions as transformation into the
This description, which focusses in itself various hints to be found throughout the Epistles, calls now for consideration. We have had occasion in previous chapters to notice St Paul’s predilection for describing the condition of future bliss by terms which imply brightness and radiance. In estimating the effect of his conversion-experience upon the shaping of his eschatological conceptions, we briefly sketched the Old Testament basis of his idea of
We saw that God’s revealed presence, was constantly designated His “glory,” as, e.g., in Isaiah’s vision of “the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up,” the Seraphim cry to one another, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory” (Isaiah 6:3). Yet almost always, the overpowering sense of radiance which is created by His presence in those who realise it, is accompanied by a no less irresistible impression of His unchanging and unceasing might, the energy which is the self-expression of the living God. His whole environment is one of glory in the senses named.
“They shall speak of the glory of Thy kingdom, and talk of Thy power” (Psalms 145:2). “Who is this King of glory? The Lord of Hosts, He is the King of glory” (Psalms 24:10).
“Let them praise the name of the Lord … His glory is above the earth and heaven” (Psalms 148:13). The conception is especially prominent in Isaiah 40:1-31; Isaiah 41:1-29; Isaiah 42:1-25; Isaiah 43:1-28; Isaiah 44:1-28; Isaiah 45:1-25; Isaiah 46:1-13; Isaiah 47:1-15; Isaiah 48:1-22; Isaiah 49:1-26; Isaiah 50:1-11; Isaiah 51:1-23; Isaiah 52:1-15; Isaiah 53:1-12; Isaiah 54:1-17; Isaiah 55:1-13; Isaiah 56:1-12; Isaiah 57:1-21; Isaiah 58:1-14; Isaiah 59:1-21; Isaiah 60:1-22; Isaiah 61:1-11; Isaiah 62:1-12; Isaiah 63:1-19; Isaiah 64:1-12; Isaiah 65:1-25; Isaiah 66:1-24, where the glory of the Lord is virtually equivalent to His saving revelation (see, e.g., Isaiah 40:5; Isaiah 60:1; Isaiah 06:2). In the postcanonical literature we can trace the idea in certain concrete and closely-related forms.
On the one hand, “glory” is used as a description of the Divine presence and sphere of existence. On the other, it is the designation of that future bliss which awaits the righteous, who are thus conceived as sharing in the condition of God. Examples of the former are, 4 Ezra 7:78, “Then the spirit severs itself from the body, and returns to Him who has given it, in order to do reverence before the glory of the Highest”; ibid., 91, “At first they behold with pure delight the glory of Him who takes them to Himself.” Closely related is the phrase which accurs repeatedly in Enoch, “the throne of His glory,” e.g., Leviticus 4:1-35, lxi. 8.
For the latter, we may refer to Apoc. Bar. xv. 8, “This world is for them trouble and labour, with much strenuousness, and that which is to come a crown with great glory”; xlviii. 49, “I will tell of their blessedness, and will not be silent in praising their glory, which is kept prepared for them”; 4 Ezra 8:51, “Do thou rather reflect on thine own lot, and inquire into the glory which thy brethren are to inherit”; and cf. Enoch lviii. 3, “The righteous shall be in the light of the sun, and the elect in the light of eternal life.” The Rabbinic literature contains the same line of thought. Thus in the world to come (Olam Habbâ), the righteous shall sit with crowns on their heads, and enjoy the radiance of the Shekinah (i.e., the localised presence of God, an idea prevalent in the Targums).
From the brightness of the Divine glory there streams forth a brilliance which the Targums and Talmud name
Perhaps it belongs to the common sense of Christian experience to preserve a certain margin of vagueness and mystery in their usage. But probably we lose something by ignoring their linguistic basis, and the origin of their existence in our religious terminology. We speak of “the saints in glory.” We sing- “Ten thousand times ten thousand, In sparkling raiment bright; The armies of the ransomed saints,
Throng up the steeps of light.”2 [Note: Cf. in the Avesta, Yast xxii. 15, which describes the soul of the righteous, after death, as coming, with the fourth step it takes, into the “unending light”; while that of the ungodly (according to Yast xxii. 33) comes into the “unending darkness” (see Böklen, op. cit., p. 60.) “Heaven is represented, above all, as the abode of light (Yast iii. 1; Yasna xix. 6; Vendîdâd xxii. 1), and light is used in a figurative as well as in its proper sense” (Söderblom, op. cit., pp. 97, 98).] No words of the New Testament come so readily to our lips, when we speak of the future state of the redeemed, as those which place them in the environment of pure radiance. Probably, if we were asked to define more strictly what we meant-e.g., by the glory we assign to departed believers, we should translate it into “blessedness,” “felicity,” “perfect rest,” and the like.
But it is possible, by a study of the apostolic terms, to penetrate deeper into the conception. St Paul does not employ those expressions at random. When he speaks, as above, of “the heritage of the saints in light,” he has, we believe, a more or less definite conception before his mind-that conception whose Hebrew and Jewish background we have endeavoured to fill in.
But it seems to us to stand closer to the Old Testament than to Judaistic literature. The latter, when it speaks of the “glory” of God, emphasises rather what we may call the sensuous side of the idea. It thinks of the condition of radiance which characterises the Divine sphere of existence.
The Old Testament keeps ever in the forefront the Divine might and energy, of which the radiance is the symbol.1 [Note: See Grill, Untersuchungen, i. p. 274.] We can easily discover St Paul’s main thought by looking at one or two instances. In Colossians 1:11 the phrase occurs, “strengthened with all power, according to the might of His glory.” Here
And a remarkable feature of that side of the conception is presented by Romans 6:4, “as Christ was raised from the dead through (
He speaks in chap. 3:7 of the “glory” of Moses’ countenance as he came forth from communion with God, a glory which the children of Israel could not gaze upon; so that their leader was obliged to veil his face. But this was a fading reflection, and he adds the comment that the very reason why they were not to look upon that glory was its transiency (3:13). In contrast to that experience of Old Testament times, St Paul places the experience of the Christian dispensation in which “we all, with unveiled countenance, reflecting as in a mirror1 [Note: The mirrors of the ancients were of metal, and so gave forth a blurred and broken image.] (or, beholding as in a mirror) the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image (
Quite evidently this
Here, plainly, there is no thought of anything sensible, any visible semblance. That is also true of his remarkable utterance in chap. 4:3, 4: “Now if our Gospel is indeed hidden, in the case of the perishing it is hidden, in whom the God of this age blinded the thoughts of the unbelieving, so that the enlightening (
But it must be noticed that in 3:18 he speaks of the transformation of believers as a process which passes through various stages. It is
That means complete assimilation to Him whom he calls
It has also been pointed out that the impression made upon him by the “vision” on the Damascus road was one of overpowering radiance. Hence, while great caution is needful, lest we should attribute crassly literalistic notions to St Paul for which there is no warrant, the evidence seems to justify us in affirming that he believed the
They rest on a conception which has shaped itself in St Paul’s mind (and probably the minds of other apostles)1 [Note: Cf. the narratives of the Transfiguration of Jesus, in which occur the vivid expressions:
Certainly
Probably Paradise is here pictured as in the “third heaven” (see Gebhardt in Luthardt’s Zeitschr., 1886, p. 569, who gives cogent reasons for holding that St Paul here understands by “the third heaven,” not the third of the Rabbinic series of seven heavens which is = the cloud-heaven, but the highest sphere of heaven in the religious sense). This is borne out by Slavon. Enoch viii. 1, 3, 8: “And these men took me from thence and brought me to the third heaven, and placed me in the midst of a garden (cf.
And I said: ‘What a very blessed place is this.’ ” Cf. Enoch lx. 8: “On the east of the garden, where the elect and righteous dwell.” Bousset traces the root of St Paul’s ecstatic experiences to his Rabbinic past (Archiv f. Religionswiss. iv. 2-144 ff.).] As the apostle pictures that future kingdom of redeemed believers, all transfigured into the likeness of their Redeemer and Head, the whole scene glows and quivers with radiant splendour.2 [Note: Cf. Philo, De Josepho, 146, C. W., who describes the nature of heaven as “an eternal day without night and without shadow, for it is lighted by inextinguishable and unalterably pure radiance”; 4 Ezra 7:42 (of Day of Judgment), “Not mid-day or night or dawn, not gleam or brightness or shining, but wholly and alone the radiance of the glory of the Most High.” (See also Enoch lviii. 3 f., already quoted.) According to the Persian religion, men shall cast no shadow in heaven (see Böklen, op. cit., p. 135). In a hymn of praise to Ahuza-Mazda, the worshippers speak of a time when, “united with parents and family, under trees through which a green-gold light sparkles, we solemnly move with rhythmic motions” (see F. Justi, Preuss.
Jahrbücher, lxxxviii. H. 2, p. 243). See the splendid vision of the Light of Paradise, in Dante’s Paradiso, xxx. 100 ff. (Cary), “the yellow of the rose-perennial, which, in bright expansion, lays forth its gradual blooming, redolent of praises to the never-wintering sun.”] Is there an obverse side to this glorious picture?
How does St Paul deal with the future condition of those who have turned a deaf ear to the appeal of the Gospel of Christ? It is of importance to notice that when he does treat of this awe-inspiring subject, he has almost exclusively before his mind those who have actually rejected the word of salvation. Indeed, the only passage where he deliberately takes a larger view is peculiarly interesting, as revealing the remarkable breadth and scope of his thought.
“For when-soever the heathen, which have not the law, do by nature the things of the law, they, although not having the law, are a law unto themselves, inasmuch as they show forth the effect (
Some exegetes have endeavoured to demonstrate, mainly on the basis of 1 Corinthians 15:21-22; 1 Corinthians 15:28; Romans 5:12-21; and the obscure passage, Ephesians 1:10, that St Paul has the conception of a universal salvation. Passing by the last-cited reference in the meantime, let us attempt to reach the apostle’s meaning in the other sections named. To begin with, it is of supreme importance to interpret any isolated affirmations of a writer in the light of his general view of things, so far as that can be gathered from his writings as a whole.
Now, whatever difficulty there may be in mutually adjusting some of the less essential details in St Paul’s religious teaching (and we have in our discussion been confronted by some of these perplexities) he is certainly not a writer who leaves his readers in doubt on the central themes of his Gospel. That Gospel is pre-eminently a setting-forth of the method of human salvation, the indispensable conditions of eternal life. These conditions have burst in upon the apostle with all the force of an epoch-making revelation.
If anywhere he feels sure of his ground, it is here. Accordingly, he makes as plain as the terms he employs can make them the spiritual processes by which a human soul is justified in the sight of God, is united to the living and exalted Lord, and receives the supernatural gift of the Holy Spirit. Apart from these saving momenta, if we may so describe them, he has no conception of salvation at all.
As to a period of probation after death, in which these redemptive opportunities, neglected during earthly existence, might again be offered and seized, he says not a single word. In fact, as we have noted, the idea of an Intermediate State is one which seems never to have appealed to him, and it is ignored as of secondary importance. Yet, if it were a condition which appeared to him in any way to make feasible the redemption of those who, in blindness, refused the grace of God while living their present life, we can scarcely conceive that so large-hearted a missionary as St Paul, who yearned with a surpassing ardour for the salvation of his fellows, should fail at least to express some faint hopes of a possible restoration of such as had died without God and without Christ in the world.
Plainly, the main outlines of his doctrinal teaching leave no place for, and suggest no approximation to, a theory of universal salvation. We are quite alive to the force of such passages as Php 2:9-11, “Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him the name that is above every name, that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow … and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord”; and Colossians 1:19-20 (a true parallel), “It pleased the Father that in Him should all fulness dwell; and having made peace through the blood of His cross, by Him to reconcile all things unto Himself.” The apostle, it seems to us, is quite clear as to the universal scope of the Divine purpose of mercy. But he realises also that there are proud and perverse wills which steadfastly refuse to bow to that purpose.1 [Note: See, e.g., Ménégoz, Le Péché et la Rédemption d’après St Paul, pp. 131-133, 143, 144.]
Just as little is any such theory to be found in those paragraphs of the Epistles which are usually quoted for it. Let us consider 1 Corinthians 15:21-22, in the first instance, as here he is specially occupied with the experience of death and a future life: “For seeing that by man (came) death, by man also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive.” These verses must on no account be isolated from their context.
Solitary proof-texts have wrought more havoc in theology than all the heresies. St Paul has just declared that Christ is the first-fruits of them that have fallen asleep (verse 20). He never applies
Here he states that Christ, as risen, is the first and choicest sheaf reaped of that which is to be a glorious harvest of risen souls. And then he turns to his favourite contrast of the first and second heads of the race. He was evidently versed in that Adam-theology which seems to have been current in the Rabbinic schools of the day, and more than once it supplies the framework of his discussions.1 [Note: “As the sentences which Paul utters concerning the fall of Adam and its meaning inRomans 5:11, are on precisely the same lines as those of 4 Ezra, Baruch, and the later Talmudic anthropology, we must affirm that already in the first half of the first Christian century, the Adam-theology was circulating in Rabbinic circles” (Bousset, Religion d. Judenthums, p. 389).
See also Bacher, op. cit., i. p. 36.] The comparison must obviously be taken in the widest sense. “Through man, death; through man, resurrection of the dead.” In these words there is no question as to the range embraced by the contrasted experiences. But when he adds, “For as in Adam (
As a matter of fact, the words of the clause are themselves sufficiently clear to prevent misunderstanding. All his readers knew well enough what to be
And even if this were not sufficient proof, there is abundance of further evidence in the verb
“In Adam,” we may paraphrase the words, “all who belong to Adam’s family must die. Similarly, in Christ, all who belong to Christ shall be made alive.” The passage in Romans is almost an exact parallel to this. Here, again, the two heads and the two families are before his mind.
On Adam’s side, transgression, condemnation, death; on the side of Christ, free gift of grace, justification, life. The closest similarity is to be found in 5:19, “For as through the disobedience of the one man the many were constituted sinners, so also by the obedience of the one shall the many be constituted righteous.” It is evident that he is not employing terms with any strictness, or he would have substituted
The same usage appears in verse 5, where he only affirms that
It is safe to conclude that no definite and unmistakable traces of a universalistic doctrine are to be found in the Pauline letters, while the whole content of his soteriology, as well as many distinct affirmations, points the other way.1 [Note: Cf. Wernle, Anfänge, pp. 174, 175.]
There is a strange disproportion between St Paul’s treatment of the future destiny of unbelievers and that accorded to it in modern times. And, looking at the matter from the largest point of view, the advantage lies on the side of the apostle. He was not possessed by any painful curiosity.
He knew that he had found eternal life in Christ Jesus. That fact gave its decisive basis to his Eschatology. The influence upon his heart and mind of the crucified and risen Messiah fixed for ever the point of emphasis in his outlook upon the future.
He was able to ignore many aspects of the Last Things on which Jewish and Christian Apocalyptic had set great importance. To go to Christ, to be with Christ, overshadowed all the accompaniments of the End. He knew that nothing could separate His followers from the love of Christ in time or in eternity.2 [Note: See this fact well brought by Bornemann in his introductory remarks on the section,1 Thessalonians 4:17-18; 1 Thessalonians 5:1-10.
“Felicity in the heaven of Mazdeism consists above all in being with the Lord; ‘yes, in truth, in the worlds where dwells the Lord’ ” (Yasna lxiii. 3), (Söderblom, op. cit. p. 101).] Of what use, then, or profit could it be for him to speculate on the fate of those who had rejected the choicest gift which had ever been offered them? What possible value could accrue to the Christian communities whom he addressed in his Epistles from any discussion of the penalties which awaited the stubborn and disobedient? Doubtless he would sympathise with the words of 4 Ezra 9:13, “Enquire not further how the ungodly are to be tormented, but rather investigate the manner in which the righteous are to be saved.” One may even question whether in his missionary preaching he laid strong emphasis on the doom of the impenitent in comparison with that on the bliss of the redeemed.
So much dearer were the positive aspects of the Christian faith at all times to this man than the negative.1 [Note: See Reuss, Histoire de la Théol. Chrét. ii. p. 237. In the sacred books of Persia, also, a far deeper interest is shown in the journey of the pious soul from earth to heaven than in the contrasted fate of the impious (see Söderblom, op. cit., p. 86).]
Whatever be the precise reason, there is extraordinarily scanty material in the writings of St Paul on which to build up anything like a detailed theory on this most awe-inspiring of all subjects. Yet we cannot but believe that he has said enough to permit of our drawing clear inferences of a more or less general kind. The terms he employs to denote the fate of the unbelieving are:
The last-named term applies strictly to the visitation of sinners at the Day of Judgment. It expresses the reaction of God against persistent sin. Necessarily it is an idea common to the other descriptions of doom which have to be examined.
These combine to form a group of conceptions which have the one idea of “destruction” linking them together. In one instance (2 Thessalonians 1:9), the much-debated adjective
The two questions which have bulked most largely in modern discussions of the problem before us are: (1) the nature, (2) the duration, of that experience which the apostle habitually views as “destruction.” In a preceding chapter, in dealing with St Paul’s conception of death, we endeavoured to show that this was an experience which he never attempted to analyse. He looked at the fact synthetically, and the thought of it filled him with horror. He felt no need of further inquiry into the nature of death, as it visited those who did not possess the life-giving (
Their death could only be regarded as sheer doom and disaster. Distinctions, such as “physical” and “spiritual” in the sphere of death, possessed, as we saw, no significance for the apostle. In a previous investigation, also, we sought to guard against unwarranted deductions which might be drawn from his use of the terms
Destruction, like death, means for St Paul paralysis of life: its negation, its undoing. For him it is not a question of existence-that is to say, not a physical or even a metaphysical problem. The problem belongs altogether to the religious sphere.
The use of
Philo’s teaching as to the bliss of the righteous and the condemnation of the wicked is tersely summed up by Volz, op. cit., pp. 143, 144.] It is because the modern mind has failed rightly to estimate the meaning of “life” and “death,” for the first Christians, and especially for St Paul, that it has exhausted its energies in striving to extract from the New Testament a decisive verdict as to the nature and conditions of future punishment.
We have noted that there are only two passages which explicitly shed any light on the apostle’s idea of the duration of doom. In one, he speaks of a “destruction” (
A large number of expositors, of whom Farrar and Cox may be cited as leading representatives; have expended a vast amount of ingenuity in the attempt to rid the adjective
We know, for example, that in the metaphysical arguments of Plato,
We have referred to the philosophical usage, since this is so frequently appealed to in exegetical discussions, although for our own part we believe that such an appeal often confuses the issues, inasmuch as the apostolic writers used the popular terminology of their day. Accordingly, when we turn to the LXX., which reflects the colloquial language, we find the phrase,
In this aspect it passes over into the sense of
The actual phrase is only found in St Paul’s writings in Ephesians 1:21, and the parallel,
Religion, pp. 295-299. The one epoch, in St Paul’s view, is drawing on towards its close. The ends of the age (
The new era, in which the rule of God shall be established, is soon to set in. That era, however, from the very nature of the case, has no termination. So strictly is this true, that at length the adjective
Aussagen Jesu, pp. 83-85. Haupt shows that in the third section of Enoch this same usage appears. The examples in Volz, pp. 286, 287, 328, 368, 369, clearly prove that in Jewish books the eternity of bliss and woe was the normal doctrine.] The age of God’s dominion is necessarily final.
If St Paul does not describe it as “eternal,” in so many words, it is because the conception is self-evident to his readers. “The things which are seen are temporal; the things which are unseen (
If the apostle affirms
It is also in strict accord with the general tenor of his teaching. To the one group of his hearers, the knowledge of Christ which he proclaims in the Gospel is a “savour from life unto life”; to the other (
At this point we are confronted by one or two perplexing problems, problems which mainly arise from the brevity of his descriptions, and his habit of throwing out isolated hints rather than of entering into detailed statements. It is perhaps most convenient to begin with the important paragraph in 1 Corinthians 15:22-28 : “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each (
For it is needful for Him to reign until He shall have put all his enemies under His feet. As the last enemy is abolished death (
But when all things shall have been subordinated to Him (i.e. Christ), then the Son Himself also shall be subordinated to Him (i.e. God) who subordinated all things to Him (i.e. the Son) that God may be all in all.” With this passage we may combine the difficult statement of Ephesians 1:9-10 : “(God) having made known to us the mystery (
These we followed up to their climax along certain lines in the case of individuals, both believers and unbelievers. Now we have to keep before us a larger development. The paragraph starts with the resurrection of deceased believers and the transformation of the living.
“In Christ all shall be made alive” (
Thus Polybius uses
But more probably the apostle employs the conception because he recognises two “groups” of the risen.1 [Note: There is a curious parallel in the Persian Eschatology. According to Bundehesh xxx. 7, men will rise in a determined order: first, Gaya Maretan, the original man, then Mastya and Mastyana, then the rest of mankind. Böklen, in quoting this statement, refers to Vita Adæ et Evæ xlii., and Apoc.
Mosis xiii. 41, which affirm that Adam shall first be raised, then his posterity (op. cit., p. 109).] The one contains none but Christ Himself: He stands solitary and unique: He is the First-begotten from the dead, the First-fruits (
It is at this stage that perplexities have been dragged into the discussion. Grimm (Z. w. Th., 1873, pp. 399 ff.), Kabisch (op. cit., pp. 259, 260), Teichmann (p. 108), and others have put forward the hypothesis that between the
Students of Paulinism are not in a position to determine whether the apostle did or did not hold this conception. But on the basis set before us in our present passage, we have no hesitation in asserting that it would be most precarious and unwarranted to build up any such theory.1 [Note: So also Titius, pp. 47, 48; Charles, Eschatology, pp. 389, 390; Reuss, Histoire de la Théol. Chrét, ii. p. 227 et al.] Here, again, there is a danger of being misled through ignoring St Paul’s standpoint.
We are accustomed to think of Christ’s conquest of the opposing forces of evil as a long and gradual process. That is the appearance of things as it presents itself in the fortunes of the Kingdom in this world. But St Paul, in the words we are reviewing, has before his mind a different series of events altogether.
We might almost say that for him these unique experiences of the End are timeless. After speaking of the Resurrection in the clause beginning with
See, e.g., John 13:4-5, “Taking a towel, He girded Himself, then (
The end (
But how does the case actually stand? In Colossians 2:15, he boldly declares of Christ: “Having hurled aside (
He has baffled, defeated, defied all “the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12).
It would lead us too far aside from the main course of this investigation to examine with care St Paul’s conception of those mysterious, spiritual forces, antagonistic to the Divine dominion, which, in the passage before us, he names
We may associate with these the strange figure of Ephesians 2:2,
Possibly we have a parallel to these mysterious powers in the four angels of Revelation 7:2, “to whom it was appointed to hurt the earth and the sea.” So, in Revelation 14:18, we read of an angel “who had power over fire.” But this is uncertain (cf. the observations of Volz as to the two-fold view of the stars in Jewish dogmatic, on the one hand as examples of obedience, on the other as demonic forces opposed to God, p. 298). In any case, we find many points of contact between this world of ideas and the Jewish apocalyptic writings. Thus, in Enoch lxi. 10, 11, it is said of the Messiah, “He shall summon the whole army of heaven, all the holy ones on high, the army of God, the Cherubim, Seraphim, and Ophanim, all the angels of the authority (
Enoch xx. 1 tells how Enoch was brought to the seventh heaven, “and I saw there a very great light, and all the fiery hosts of great archangels, and incorporeal powers, and lordships, and principalities, and powers; Cherubim and Seraphim, and the watchfulness of many eyes.” In Jub. ii. 2 there is a description of the creation of the various spirits which serve before God: “The angels of the Presence … the angels of the spirit of the wind, the angels of the clouds of darkness and of the snow and of the hail and of the frost, and the angels of the sounds and of the thunderbolt and of the lightning, and the angels of the spirits of cold and heat and winter … and of all the spirits of His works in the heavens and on earth, and in all the abysses of the deep and of darkness and of evening,” etc., etc. And Enoch lxxxii. 10 ff. gives an elaborate catalogue of the “leaders” (
V. tome ii. p. 458 f., qu. by Bousset, Archiv f. Religionswiss. iv. H. 3, p. 269.] a classification of angels is given, corresponding to the seven heavens, according to which
For in a quaint mediæval treatise of magic, of Jewish origin, the Schemhamphorasch Salomonis Regis,2 [Note: Horst’s Zauberbibliothek, iii. pp. 134 ff. (qu. by Bousset, loc. cit.).] the same classification is adjusted to the gods of the Roman Pantheon. Saturn is identified with
Evidently we have here a curious angelology, apparently unknown to the Old Testament, although a hint of it appears in Daniel 10:13, where the “prince” (LXX.
SEE STAVE, PARSISMUS, PP. 175, 196 F., 203; BOUSSET, RELIGION D. JUDENTHUMS, PP. 472, 473; MOULTON, ART. “ZOROASTRIANISM,” IN H.D.B. ON ST PAUL’S CONCEPTIONS IN THIS PROVINCE OF THOUGHT AS A WHOLE, SEE EVERLING, DIE PAULINISCHE ANGELOLOGIE UND DÄMONOLOGIE.
IT CONTAINS MANY EXAGGERATED STATEMENTS, BUT GIVES A FAIR SURVEY OF THE FIELD. OF IMPORTANCE FOR THE SUBJECT IN GENERAL IS MICHAEL, BY W. LUEKEN, GÖTT., 1898.] In all likelihood the prominence of these groups of intermediate spiritual beings in the apocalyptic period is mainly due to the feeling of the remoteness of God. His transcendence, as we have seen, was a characteristic belief of later Judaism.
In their craving to have some access to God, the apocalyptic writers fill in the gulf that lies between earth and heaven with a multitude of mediating supra-earthly existences. The New Testament only affords us the rarest glimpses into this strange realm, for the spiritual peerlessness of Jesus Christ banishes these dim figures of the invisible world into the darkness, whence they emerge again in the writings of the heretical sects, more especially of Gnosticism. In the Jewish tradition, they seem, for the most part, to be in the service of the Most High, exemplifying the description of Hebrews 1:14, “ministering spirits” (
St Paul appears not to have wholly departed from it, for his language in Colossians 1:16 at least is neutral. This may be due to the special circumstances of the Colossian Church, where Jewish influences were probably shaping a kind of incipient Gnosticism (cf. 2:18 ff.). But in any case, several of the instances we have quoted from the Epistles are unmistakable, notably Ephesians 6:12, “our conflict is not with flesh and blood, but with rules (
It is conceivable that the apostle, feeling no need of the mediation of angels between God and the world, once the supreme revelation in Christ, the Head of all things, has been given, applies the terms which were originally used in a good or a colourless sense (personifications of powers of nature) to those unseen forces of wickedness which strive against the complete establishment of the Divine Kingdom. The question cannot be decided on the basis of our evidence. But it is altogether groundless to rear on this foundation the theory of a cosmic dualism in St Paul.
He does not think of the present world as being, from its very essence, under the control of Satan, in contrast to the future era when God shall be supreme. For him the Old Testament principle is authoritative, that the world is God’s world, as created by Him and destined ultimately to fulfil His purpose. The passages we have already discussed, bearing on the cosmic significance of Christ, are sufficient evidence of this.
But necessarily, on the foundation of his own experience, he is conscious of the existence of opposing forces, which have to be subdued before God’s right to His own can be fully vindicated.1 [Note: SEE ALSO TITIUS, P. 247. UNDOUBTEDLY SUCH A DUALISM IS COMMON IN JUDAISTIC LITERATURE, AND REVEALS THE “IMMENSE PROSTRATION OF POST-EXILIC JUDAISM” (J. WEISS). PERHAPS THE FORMS IN WHICH IT CLOTHES ITSELF ARE RELATED TO PERSIAN INFLUENCE; SEE STAVE, EINFLUSS DES PARSISMUS AUF D. JUDENTHUM, P. 196, AND PORTER, ART.
“REVELATION,” H.D.B. IV. P. 246. CERTAINLY ONE OF ITS RESULTS WAS TO INSPIRE A MORE TRANSCENDENTAL VIEW OF SALVATION.] In 1 Corinthians 15:24, therefore, when read in the light of Colossians 2:15, he takes for granted that a great part of the victory has been already won by the triumphant Saviour, won in principle (cf. Chrysost. on
The “rules” and “authorities” and “powers” have been reduced to impotence against those who will arm themselves with the panoply of God (see Volz, pp. 270, 271). But Christ must still reign until all His enemies have been subdued. This reign, according to St Paul’s view, is not one which begins after the Parousia.
He has left behind him the Messianic Hope of Judaism. The rule of Christ has begun with His exaltation as
The apostle has one supreme Power in his mind, which apparently continues to defy the royal supremacy of Christ. That Power is Death. His expression,
“As the last enemy, death is abolished.” When “he” has been vanquished, Christ’s dominion is complete.1 [Note: WE MAY COMPAREIsaiah 25:8, “HE WILL SWALLOW UP DEATH IN VICTORY”;Hosea 13:14, “O DEATH, I WILL BE THY PLAGUE; O GRAVE, I WILL BE THY DESTRUCTION”; 4 Ezra 8:53, “THE GERM OF SIN IS SEALED UP FROM YOU, SICKNESS IS TAKEN AWAY, DEATH IS HIDDEN, HADES HAS DISAPPEARED”;Revelation 20:14, “DEATH AND HADES WERE CAST INTO THE LAKE OF FIRE.” BOUSSET FINDS IN THIS CONQUEST OF DEATH AN ASPECT OF THE FINAL CONFLICT BETWEEN GOD AND THE DEVIL, WHO IS LORD OF DEATH (RELIGION D. JUDENTHUMS, PP. 241, 242). THERE MAY BE SOME GROUND FOR THE HYPOTHESIS, BUT IT WAS QUITE NATURAL TO PERSONIFY DEATH VAGUELY, AND EXULT OVER HIS DOWNFALL.] Obviously, this final destruction of death is revealed by the event of the Resurrection, when the redeemed of the Lord prove by their rising that they also are stronger than death-that the indwelling might of the
But even had it been impossible to appeal to definite statements, we could not associate with the thought of the revelation of the returning Lord a further process of conflict with human conditions. This would be utterly alien to the apostle’s standpoint. Take, as an instance of his point of view, his description of the fate of the “lawless one,” “whom the Lord Jesus shall destroy by the breath of His mouth, and abolish by the manifestation of His coming” (2 Thessalonians 2:8); or, recall the pictures of judgment in 2 Thessalonians 1:7-10, and Romans 2:5-10.
These passages make it indubitably clear that, in the apostle’s idea of it, the crowning revelation of the exalted Christ is one which overwhelms and renders powerless all opposing forces, whether human or diabolic.2 [Note: SEE VOLZ, P. 302. A REMARKABLE PARALLEL IS FOUND IN THE PERSIAN DOCTRINE OF THE FINAL CONFLICT OF GOOD AND EVIL. AFTER LASTING THROUGHOUT THE COURSE OF THE WORLD, IT IS ENDED BY THE ANNIHILATION OF EVIL ON THE LAST DAY.
AHURA MAZDA, THE AMSHASPANDS, THE TRUE WORD, AND SRAOSHA ON THE ONE HAND, STRUGGLE WITH ANGRA MAINYU, THE ANTI-AMSHASPANDS, THE WORD OF LIES, AND AÊSHMA, ON THE OTHER SIDE-BUNDEHESH XXX. 29 FF. (SEE BÖKLEN, OP. CIT., P. 125; HÜBSCHMANN, JAHRB. F. PROT. THEOL. 1879, PP. 225, 226; SÖDERBLOM, OP. CIT., PP. 267, 268.)]
Probably this is the stage in God’s redemptive purpose which is before St Paul’s mind, when, in Ephesians 1:10, he speaks of the Divine intention “to sum up (
“He is before all things, and in Him all things consist” (
This unity is realised in the Eternal Son, who became incarnate, accomplished redemption, conquered sin and death (to the apostle’s mind the great forces of disturbance in the Divine order), and has been exalted at God’s right hand to claim that universal adoration which is His due (Php 2:9-10). In His Incarnation, He has become the type and pattern for humanity; in His atonement for sin, He has reconciled men to God; in His resurrection and glorified life, He reveals that splendid vista which is the consummation of perfected human nature. “As the inferior stages of existence are summed up in man, who stands at the head of earthly creation, and forms a first link between the natural and the spiritual, so are all stages of humanity summed up in Christ, who in His person as God-man, links the creation absolutely with God” (Orr, Christian View, p. 284).1 [Note: See also Weizsäcker, Apost.
Zeitalter, p. 120.] Bearing in mind that it involves this aspect, we may note that intimate connection with the idea of subordination to which reference has already been made. Now, when this subordination is viewed in the light of its context, it means that evil has been finally vanquished, so that it can no more raise up its head in defiance of the exalted Lord. The continuous existence of impenitent sinners, which might seem to conflict with that victory as affecting the completion of the divine purpose, is a question which lies outside the apostle’s horizon.
He is only concerned with the antithesis of life and the loss of it. It means that redeemed humanity has now reached its full assimilation to its Lord and Head. His Divine
There is no dissension between the Head (
They, the
The summing-up and the subordination each describes the crowning of the Father’s purpose in His exalted Son.
It is comparatively easy to understand the application of St Paul’s words to “the things that are in heaven.” We are not so ready to give its full force to his equally emphatic declaration about “the things on earth.” He takes a large view of creation. For him the whole universe is animated by the breath of the Divine life.1 [Note: Cf. Wisd. 1:14:
There is “one spiritual life,” as Dr E. Caird expresses it, “which flows out from God to the Creation, and which flows back to Him again through man, the highest of all the creatures” (Evolution of Religion, ii. p. 125). The being of the material world has been affected by that sin which human self-will has introduced into the universe. It has been subjected to futility, to vain striving (
We may compare 4 Ezra 7:11 : “For your sakes, indeed, I created the Æon; but when Adam transgressed my commandments, the creation was judged.”1 [Note: SEE GUNKEL (AD LOC.), WHO CALLS THE CONCEPTION OF A FALL OF CREATION “A COMPROMISE BETWEEN THE OLD OPTIMISTIC VIEW OF THE WORLD, WHICH IS ONLY RECOGNISED FOR THE PRIMITIVE AGE, AND THE MODERN PESSIMISTIC VIEW OF JUDAISM, WHICH HOLDS GOOD FOR THE PRESENT.” BUT THE GROWTH OF SUCH AN IDEA IS QUITE CONCEIVABLE WITHOUT ANY SUCH EXPLANATION.] It is under the sway of
It becomes animate to his mind, as the offspring of God’s creative will, and its sigh for permanence, for the realisation of purpose, for perfection, catches the ear of his soul (Romans 8:19-22), and echoes in sympathy with his own craving for complete, victorious life. Now if there is to be a redemption (
It finds frequent expression in apocalyptic literature: e.g., Enoch xlv. 4, 5, “I will transform heaven and make it an everlasting blessing and light. I will transform the earth and make it a blessing, and cause mine elect to dwell upon it”; Jub. i. 29, “And the angel of the Presence … took the tables of the division of the years … from the day of the new creation onwards, when heaven and earth and all its creatures are to be renewed”; Apoc. Bar. xxxii. 6, “Greater than both these tribulations shall be the conflict, when the Almighty will renew His creation.”1 [Note: “As the sin and death of the First Adam, the Old Man (
The same idea is expressed by the
The world is but the means of their intercourse. It is this moral character of its whole constitution, which explains how the external world is always drawn into the relations of God and man, and reflects these relations according as they are normal and disturbed, rejoicing and blossoming like the rose in man’s redemption, and falling into desolation in man’s destruction under God’s wrath” (Testament Prophecy, p. 209).] For St Paul, the expectation is confirmed by the future experience of believers as he conceives it. The material universe stands there as the realm of man’s earthly activity.
It is the sphere assigned him for the present realisation of his relation to God. May it not be that, when the spiritual reaches its full development, completely conquering and controlling the material in the person of redeemed man, there shall still be a province for this new, glorified life, consisting in a transformed and glorified universe in which that which has been imperfect shall be done away?1 [Note: Cf. Ducasse, Revue de Théol., July 1882 (summarised by Orr, op. cit., p. 447): “Does not a new kingdom appear in man?… He is the bond of union between the world of nature and the Divine world. Why then should it not have been precisely his vocation to spiritualise matter, and lead it up to the conquest of new attributes?” It is stating the facts in too speculative a fashion to say with Dr E. Caird, that inRomans 8:19f., “St Paul combines the idea of the spirituality of God, which was characteristic of monotheism, with the idea of the immanence of God, which was characteristic of pantheism, uniting both in one conception by the aid of the idea of evolution” (Evolution of Religion, ii. p. 125).
What we find in the passage is rather the poetry of the religious imagination.] Perhaps there is a hint of this prospect in 1 Corinthians 7:31 : “The fashion (
Such is the splendid vision which opens to the apostle’s ardent soul.2 [Note: A REMARKABLE PARALLEL IS FOUND IN THE PERSIAN CONCEPTION OF THE NEW WORLD. “THE DEAREST DREAM OF MAZDEAN PIETY,” SAYS SÖDERBLOM, “WAS THAT OF LIFE ETERNAL IN A PURIFIED, INCORRUPTIBLE BODY, UPON A NEW EARTH DELIVERED FROM ALL THAT WHICH AS YET MARS IT.… MEN, HAVING THE APPEARANCE OF PEOPLE OF FORTY AND FIFTY YEARS, LIVE IMMORTAL, WITHOUT NEEDS, FREE FROM EVERY EVIL. THE END OF ‘THE PROGRESS’ IS ATTAINED, ‘THE WORLD IS MADE PROGRESSIVE (FRASEM) ACCORDING TO ITS DESIRE’ (YAST XIX. 89).… THE IDEAL WORLD OF MAZDEISM IMPLIES NOT MERELY THE EXTINCTION OF HELL, BUT THERE IS NO LONGER ANY DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HEAVEN AND EARTH.
‘THE EARTH EXTENDS TO THE SPHERE OF THE STARS’ … MEN CAN EXIST IN HEAVEN WITH THEIR BODIES” (OP. CIT., PP. 269, 270). SEE ALSO MOULTON, ART. “ZOROASTRIANISM,” IN H.D.B.] Is it not in harmony with the profoundest intuitions of those who have “The sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns And the round ocean and the living air And the blue sky, and in the mind of man: A motion and a spirit, that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls through all things.”1 [Note: It is of curious interest to compare with this forecast one which is thrown out by an evolutionary philosopher like Herbert Spencer.
“Confining ourselves to the proximate and not necessarily insoluble question,” he says, “we find reason for thinking that after the completion of the various equilibriums which bring to a close all the forms of Evolution we have contemplated, there must continue an equilibrium of a far wider kind. When that integration everywhere in progress throughout our Solar System has reached its climax, there will remain to be effected the immeasurably greater integration of our Solar System with other such systems” (First Principles, p. 536). His conclusion appears to be a succession of evolutions, “ever the same in principle, but never the same in concrete result.”]
There still remains one stage to be considered in St Paul’s conception of the consummation of the Kingdom of God. He introduces it in the paragraph which we have been examining, at first, without any qualification. “Then the end, when He shall have delivered up (
Some further light is thrown upon this momentous statement by verses 27, 28. In verse 27, quoting Psalms 8:7 (cf.Psalms 110:1, which our Lord Himself quotes in support of His Messianic Kingship), he assigns the subordination of all things under Christ to the direct power of God. Still keeping this fact in the forefront, he draws the inference that one Power or Authority lies outside this universal subordination.
For manifestly He, by whose operation the subordination is brought about, cannot Himself be included in it. Not only so; he takes a further step. There cannot remain two co-equal authorities in the Kingdom of redemption.
For “when all things have been subordinated to Him (Christ), then the Son Himself also shall be subordinated to Him (God), who subordinated all things to Him (Christ), in order that God may be all in all” (
Various suggestive utterances may be found which help us to understand his view in the words before us. We are familiar with such passages as Romans 8:11 : “If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised from the dead Christ Jesus, shall quicken also your mortal bodies.” Here, and in its parallels, the potency of the new spiritual life is directly referred to God the Father, even as regards Christ Himself (cf., e.g., 1 Thessalonians 4:14, “So also them that sleep through Jesus will God bring with Him”). But the apostle looks upon this power as mediated by the Son.
Thus, in 1 Corinthians 15:57, he ascribes thanks “to God who giveth us the victory through (
But Christ Himself carries forward the Divine purpose to its fulfilment. As the Son, He performs His mediatorial function; as the Son, in the deepest reciprocal relation of love with the Father, His life is “with God, for God, in God.” The Divine consummation is attained when “God is all and in all.”1 [Note: IT IS PERHAPS NEEDLESS TO POINT OUT THAT ΠΑΝΤΑ AND
HE IS ONLY CONCERNED WITH THOSE WHO, THROUGH CHRIST, HAVE BEEN SUBORDINATED TO THE SWAY OF GOD. EVERYTHING BEYOND THE SCOPE OF THE DIRECT DEVELOPMENT OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD LIES OUTSIDE HIS RANGE. (SEE ALSO AN EXCELLENT NOTE OF HEINRICI, AD LOC.)] The process by which such a climax of the highest development of life is reached, may be felt to be suggested by the statement of 1 Corinthians 3:22-23, “All things belong to you, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.” This relationship is expressed even more definitely in 1 Corinthians 11:3, “Now I desire you to know that of every man, the Head is Christ.
But the Head of Christ is God.” Here is an ascending scale, as in the preceding passage, in which God, as it were, gives unity and complete realisation to the whole series of spiritual relations. It is from the same point of view that St Paul, in dealing with the supreme glory of the risen Christ (Php 2:9-11), declares that “God hath highly exalted Him, and given Him the name which is above every name (i.e., the name
It would be useless to speculate on the manner in which St Paul conceived this great consummation to be fulfilled. Unquestionably he would have regarded all philosophical categories as inapplicable to his momentous theme. For his mind, its interest and importance are wholly religious.
He could not realise a more glorious issue for the wondrous process which germinated for humanity with the Incarnation, blossomed in the atoning Passion, and came to full maturity in the Exaltation, than a re-entrance of the glorified Lord into the depths of the Godhead, so that His own words should receive their profoundest significance, “I and my Father are one.” In that crowning end, the Consummation of the Kingdom of God is accomplished.