3. The Place of the Doctrine Op the Fatherhood of God in the Theology of the New Testament

CHAPTER III THE PLACE OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD IN THE THEOLOGY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

WE come now to the next and most important stage of our inquiry. For any operative doctrine of the Fatherhood of God it is not enough that we should find the name of Father given to Him, or that we should be able to point to a certain number of passages, which conclusively declare that His Fatherhood is universal. The question is, whether the Fatherhood of God is the only and sufficient spring of all His dealings with mankind, and whether it is so represented in the New Testament. The real test of the universality of the Fatherhood of God is its supremacy as originating and shaping the whole of a universally creative and redemptive action. Similarly, the only satisfactory test of the New Testament doctrine of the subject is not the discovery of proof-texts, but the establishment of the fact that the New Testament writers everywhere set forth the Fatherhood of God as the clue to all His action, whether in creation or in redemption, whether in grace or in law, in bestowment on man or in requirement of him. Are all the purposes and deeds of God explicable and explained in terms of His Fatherhood? Or is the primary, and therefore the true, universality assigned to some other relationship say, His sovereignty? Or are His various purposes and activities shared out as themanifestations of different and independent relationships? Is the Fatherhood a stray gleam here and there, or an all-revealing light? If the former, then we must conclude either that some other relationship of God to man is prior to and more influential than His Fatherhood, or that all His relationships are independent one of another, and have different spheres, or that His Godhead is a unique relationship, of which Fatherhood, kingship, and the like, are subordinate and partial manifestations. And if none of these conclusions, considered apart from Holy Scripture, will bear critical examination, while, notwithstanding this, the teaching of the New Testament necessitate one or the other of them as its basis, then we shall be driven to infer that the insight of the apostolic writers was insufficient to apprehend the Fatherhood of God as the supreme and all-embracing relation ship, and to trace the fatherliness of all His dealings with mankind. In that case we shall conclude that their writings are unmethodical not only in form, but also in substance, resting on no clear and consistently held conception of God’s relationship to mankind.

We must therefore proceed to examine the doctrine of the New Testament as a whole, and especially the teaching of our Lord, of St. Paul, and of St. John, in order to find out how the matter stands.

I. OUR LORD’S TEACHING

1. It may seem almost superfluous to point out that the name “ Father “ is that which is almost exclusively used by our Lord to denote God. And yet the significance of this fact for Christian theology has not been adequately realised.

Certainly our Lord uses from time to time the name God. But a slight study of the passages will show the reasons for this. Sometimes our Lord adopts phrases current in His time, as, for example, when He speaks of the “ Kingdom of God.” Sometimes He uses the word in quotations from the Old Testament. Sometimes because He is answering questioners who used it, as, for example, when to those who asked, “ What must we do that we may work the works of God? “ He replies, “ This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He hath sent” (John 6:28, John 6:29). At other times the word is used to emphasise the contrast with man, or with the world. Examples of this are to be found in such sayings as, “ Thou mindest not the things of God, but the things of men” (Matthew 16:23); “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible “ (Matthew 19:26; Luke 18:27); “Bender therefore unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s “ (Matthew 22:21).

Again, the word is used when the Divine power or authority or all-sufficiency is dwelt upon. Thus our Lord bids His disciples, “Have faith in God” (Mark 11:22); reminds Martha, “ Said I not unto thee, that if thou be lie vedst, thou shouldest see the glory of God? “ (John 11:40).

Once more, the name is used in dealing with unbelieving Jews, when the tenderer name would have been out of keeping with their state of mind. There are several examples of this in the Gospel of St. John. The name God is sometimes substituted by St. Luke for the name “ Father “in the parallel and probably more accurate passages of St. Matthew. And in St. John’s Gospel the name “ God “ is somewhat frequently used in close association with the name “ Father,” or with the corresponding name “ the Son.” Thus, “ God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son “ (John 3:16); “The true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such doth the Father seek to be His worshippers. God is a Spirit,” etc. (John 4:23, John 4:24). But all these are exceptional and carry their explanation on their face. And their presence, when thus explained, does but bring into higher relief the fact that the almost habitual name for God, with our Lord, is Father, whether as “My Father,” “ your Father,” or “ the Father.” The change of name is easily understood. The name of God (Elohim) signified the awfulness and adorableness of the Divine Being, looked at in Himself and as the subject of personal attributes. The Covenant-name, Jehovah (“ He who is what He is “), declared the absolute and self-consistent life of Him who is therefore the strength and stay of Israel. But the name “ Father,” laying even increased stress on theperfection which makes Him adorable, and on the supreme and abiding life which makes Him the hope of man, declares that His glory is not in Himself, but in the relationship and fellowship in which His life is manifested, and that in them He is revealed as infinite love, originating that He may uplift and bless those who are akin to Himself. His supreme perfection is revealed in spiritual and vital relationship and fellowship with mankind. The condition of that revelation is in the original Fatherhood of God towards His onlybeo-otten Son. Thus the communion of heaven is reflected in & the creation and redemption of man on earth. And to this highest truth our Lord unceasingly witnesses. The Fatherhood of God is with Him always supreme. And it is the guide, in our Lord’s teaching, to all the purposes and acts of God. The disposition which He attri butes to God is everywhere the fatherly in its perfection. That this is so as towards Himself, St. John’s Gospel bears abundant witness. The love of the Father to the Son is shown in all the ways in which perfect fatherliness can manifest itself. It reveals itself in complete intimacy: “ The Father loveth the Son, and sheweth Him all things that Himself doeth” (John 5:20). It displays the full trust which commits to the Son the largest powers. He is conscious “ that the Father had given all things into His hands “ (John 13:3). It assures Him of unfailing support: “ I am not alone, because the Father is with Me” (John 16:32).

It is consummated in fullest satisfaction with the filial obedience of the Son: “ Therefore doth the Father love Me, because I lay down My life, that I may take it again” (John 10:17). But this fatherliness has a more general manifestation.

It is the cause of unfailing mercifulness towards sinners, as is shown in the Parable of the Prodigal Son; and in the command to the disciples: “Be ye merciful, even as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6:36). It pities and cares for the weak: “ It is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish “ (Matthew 18:14). It inspires a sleepless Providence which watches over each and all in order to satisfy all their needs: “ Behold the birds of the heaven, that they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; and your Heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not ye of much more value than they? “ (Matthew 6:26Luke 12:24). There is therefore no need of anxiety concerning the necessaries of life: “ For your Heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things “ (Matthew 6:32). This care extends to the humblest creatures, and to the minutest interests: “ Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and not one of them shall fall to the ground without your Father: but the very hairs of your head are all numbered” (Matthew 10:29, Matthew 10:30). The love of the Father, therefore, foresees our need, and waits to satisfy it, without requiring to be urged: “ Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask Him “ (Matthew 6:8). And His generosity exceeds that of all earthly fathers, both in its bounty and in the readiness of its response: “ If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask Him? “ (Matthew 7:11; Luke 11:11-13). And His gifts are irrespective of desert: in His fatherly magnanimity, “ He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and seudeth rain on the just and the unjust” (Matthew 5:45). So He rejoices to reward His faithful children: “ Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom “ (Luke 12:32). And His love is the motive of the whole work of salvation. As to this, one great saying may stand for the whole of our Lord’s teaching: “ God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have eternal life “ (John 3:16). On the other hand, salvation, according to our Lord’s teaching, is simply the entrance into the fulness of the life of sonship, in and through the Son. The words, “ that ye may be sons of your Father which is in heaven “ (Matthew 5:45), may be taken to express the whole end of God’s redemptive purpose, as well as the standard set before man’s faith and conduct. We may adopt Dr. Hort’s words on this subject. “ Salvation only by Christ,” he says, “ is a true deduction, but only when salvation is biblically interpreted, namely, as the perfecting of human natures into the mind and form of sonship in and through the Son.” l What is the 1 The Way, the Truth, the Life, p. 211. secret of the great transformation which the conception of the kingdom of God, or of heaven, underwent at our Lord’s hands? What gave to it its new inwardness and spirituality? The answer is, that, as our Lord revealed it, it was the kingdom of “ our Father,” realised in and through those who entered into the life of sonship, and whose character, religion, conduct were moulded by the filial spirit. That this was our Lord’s idea of salvation, becomes abundantly clear when we penetrate below the surface of His teaching as recorded in St. John’s Gospel. Our Lord’s discourses are full of teaching as to life, “ eternal life “ being His great gift to men. They dwell upon the necessity, in order to attain eternal life, of “ coming unto “ Him, of “ beholding and believing on” Him (John 6:40), of “abiding in” Him. And as the object of this faith, the sphere of this indwelling, He almost universally uses the name “ the Son.” Why all this? What is the content of “ eternal life “? Why this stress on “ coming unto Him “ and “ abiding in Him “?

Why this constant emphasis on His “ Sonship “? Three great sayings answer these questions: “ I am the way, and the truth, and the life: no one coineth unto the Father, but by Me “ (John 14:6). Coming to the Son, is in order to coming to the Father. In order to reach that goal, men must take the way, apprehend the truth, receive the life. And these three are one, and Christ is all three. 1 The way to the Father can only be found by becoming His sons, through the Son. The next saying makes it still more manifest that this was our Lord’s meaning. “In that day” the day of His return to His disciples in the Spirit of truth “ ye shall know,” He says, “ that I am in the Father, and ye in Me, and I in you” (John 14:20). Christ abides in His Father, the disciples in Him, He in them. Then they also, through Him, abide in the Father, realising the perfect fellowship of sonship. The last saying to be quoted, completes the proof of this: “ righteous Father, the world knew Thee not, but I knew Thee; and these knew that Thou didst send Me; and I made known unto them Thy name, and will make it known; that the love wherewith Thou lovedst Me 1 See Hort, The Way, the Truth, the Life, p. 153, and elsewhere. may be in them, and I in them” (John 17:25, John 17:26). The name made known is that of Father. To make it known is to unfold the fulness of the gospel it contains. And the end of making it known is that the fatherly love, which was the peculiar possession of the Son, may be “ in “ His disciples, and that the Son Himself may be in them. These two the indwelling of the Father’s love and the indwelling of the Son represent the two sides of the same spiritual fact; and that fact is sonship, as the characteristic experience which the whole ministry of Christ has been designed to bring to His disciples.

These sayings at once illustrate another great passage of the Gospel, and are illustrated by it. Our Lord promised the believing Jews: “ If ye abide in My word, then are ye truly My disciples; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” To their objection that they “ had never yet been in bondage to any man,” He answered, “ Verily, verily, I say unto you, every one that committeth sin is the bondservant of sin. And the bondservant abideth not in the house for ever; the Son abideth for ever. If, therefore, the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed” (John 8:31-36). The bondservants of sin are also but bondservants of God; this is the suppressed thought. And the bondservant is cast out, like Hagar and her son.

Only the Son abides in the house for ever, and enjoys the freedom of fellowship with His Father, and of secured heirship. The Son, then, who alone is free, can alone make free, and this by causing those who “ abide in “ His word to know “ the truth.” What can that truth be which proceeds from the Son, and gives to those who abide in it the freedom which the Son alone whether in the heavenly or in the earthly family enjoys? It can be no other than the truth of sonship in and through the Son. His is the original Sonship.

It is “ the truth “ for us, because of our kinship with Him. It is realised by us, as we become incorporate in Him, or (what is equivalent) as He dwells in us. Thus He, the only-begotten Son, is the vine; we are the branches (John 15:1-10). Thus He is eternally “the Bread of Life”; and “he that eateth Him, he also shall live because of Him” (John 6:32-59). Hence everywhere the evidence meets us, that the one conception of salvation, everywhere set forth by our Lord, is that of sonship of sonship as universally offered as “ the truth “ to men but realised only through the Son and by faith in Him. The destruction involved in sin is, primarily, that it shuts us out from the life of sonship; so that this can only be restored by the atonement of Christ and by the operation of His Spirit.

Finally, the teaching of our Lord shows that the salvation of mankind is wrought by His perfect filial obedience. Space will not permit us to set forth this fact in detail, nor is there need to do so. Suffice it to say that, in all conditions of age, duty, temptation, suffering, and shame, our Lord’s course is determined by absolute and self-sacrificing obedience to His Father’s will; and that this “ obedience unto death, even the death of the Cross,” is set forth by Him, as of the essence of His redemptive work. The profoundly filial.character of His offering is declared in His great saying: “ Therefore doth the Father love Me, because I lay down My life, that I may take it again. No one taketh it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment received I of My Father “ (John 10:17, John 10:18). It is emphasised in the great highpriestly prayer, which at once sums up the spirit and work of our Lord’s life, and expresses the meaning of His death, both in itself and in relation to His life: “ I glorified Thee on the earth, having accomplished the work which Thou hast given Me to do “ (John 17:4).

Thus we may conclude that the whole of our Lord’s teaching concerning God, man, the nature and the means of salvation, is moulded by His realisation of Fatherhood and sonship as the determining relationship between God and man, as constituted in and for the Son. Not only is no part of our Lord’s teaching incompatible with this dominant relationship, but no part of His teaching falls outside its allembracing sphere.

II. ST. JOHN

It is natural to pass first from our Lord’s teaching to that of St. John, as contained in his First Epistle. And here we shall find, as manifestly as in our Lord’s teaching, that the whole of St. John’s theology is contained under the relation ship of Fatherhood, and the sonship which corresponds to it. The task of showing systematically that this is so, by tracing the connecting links of thought throughout St. John’s teaching, is difficult, for the spiritual intuition of St. John does not lend itself to formally reasoned statements. But that there is an underlying unity of thought, capable of formal expression, throughout the whole of St. John’s First Epistle, will become clear upon patient study of it, the only doubt being, not as to its main features, but as to some of its details. The following main heads will exhibit the general peculiarities of St. John’s doctrine.

1. St. John, of all New Testament writers, most clearly and constantly emphasises the Fatherhood of God. Though frequently using the name “ God,” he seldom does so without closely associating with it Love as the most distinctive of all Divine attributes; and thus he frequently passes on to the name “ the Father “ as identical with the name God. It is true that “ the Father “ is almost always in St. John’s use, in the Epistle, relative to “ the Son.” But two considerations must be borne in mind. Firstly, the names “ the Father “ and “ the Son “ are not merely titular, nor do they express a merely metaphysical relation ship. The Fatherhood and sonship are ideally perfect as well as, nay because, eternal and Divine.

And, secondly, the whole force of St. John’s mysticism goes to show that there is such a relationship between the Son and human nature, that the relationship eternally realised by the Son towards the Father is not for Himself alone, but represents the true life of all mankind. As the Son cannot be considered apart from the human nature He has assumed, so humanity cannot be shut out from the relationship between the Father and the Son; and thus we are driven to universalise the Fatherhood of God from the relationship in which the Son stands to human nature, and therefore to mankind.

2. Hence the true life of men consists in sonship to God.

“ Children of God “ is the designation of all who have entered into this true life (1 John 3:1, 1 John 3:2, 1 John 3:10,1 John 3:5). But the characteristics of the “ children of God “ are spiritual and moral. Sin and unrighteousness are incom patible with sonship (1 John 3:9, 1 John 3:10). Hence men generally are excluded, on account of sin, from that sonship, in which, nevertheless, is their true life. So absolutely is this the case that mankind are divided into “ the children of God “ and “ the children of the devil” (1 John 3:10).

Hence the true life of men is for them a destination, and not a natural experience. And they can only be brought to this destination through the Son, who is “ the Word of Life “ (1 John 1:2), the “Advocate with the Father” (1 John 2:1) the “ Propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the whole world” (1 John 2:2, 1 John 4:10). “Herein,” there fore, “ was the love of God manifested in our case, that God hath sent His only-begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him” (1 John 4:9). The name “the word of life “ and the qualification “ only-begotten “ suggest that, for St. John, even apart from sin, the Son is the eternal and universal ground of sonship for mankind. But, in the Epistle, sin and its consequences so fill the apostle’s mind that this truth is overshadowed by the atoning and redemptive work of Him who “was manifested to take away sins” (1 John 3:5).

Sonship, therefore, is only for those who “ are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ” (1 John 5:20).

3. There follows a twofold statement of the way by which sinful men become “ children of God.” From the standpoint of the Divine Fatherhood, they are “ begotten of God” (1 John 3:9, 1 John 3:4,1 John 3:5, 1 John 3:18). The forth-putting of the paternal grace of God raises them from their natural and sinful condition to the relationship of His children.

But, on the side of man’s spiritual apprehension, sonship is brought about by faith in the name of the Son. “ This is His commandment, that we should believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ “ (1 John 3:23). Belief is the concomitant of being begotten of God: “ whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is begotten of God” (1 John 5:1).

Indeed the apprehension of the Father is only through the Son, and through the revelation in the name of the Son; through an apprehension of the Son so definite as to issue in explicit confession of Him. “ Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father: he that confesseth the Son, hath the Father also “ (1 John 2:23). Only in the Son is the Father apprehended; and the apprehension is not perfected until it becomes, on the theoretic side, dogmatic; and, on the practical side, an act of confession, uttering spiritual allegiance before the world. The Fatherhood of God is no vague generality; it is that which is revealed towards, in, and through the Son. Our faith in the Son is therefore the one means by which we at once apprehend the Fatherhood in itself, and apprehend it as existing towards ourselves.

4. Hence St. John’s emphasis upon the Incarnation. It is the keystone of his whole theology. “ Hereby,” he says, “ know ye the Spirit of God: every spirit which confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God “ (1 John 4:2-3); “ Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God abideth in him, and he in God” (1 John 4:15); “ Who is lie that overconieth the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God? “ (1 John 5:5). In all these passages there is the most careful balance between the Divine and the human, the supernatural and the natural, in the person of our Lord. Stress is carefully laid alike on the Divinity of the sonship, and on the reality of the flesh. Our Lord’s nature is at once transcendent and akin to man. This all-important fact “ concerning the word of life “ is authenticated by the testimony of those who heard and saw with their eyes, beheld and handled (1 John 1:1, 1 John 1:2). To “ confess “ the presence in our Lord of the Divine and human, and the integrity of each in union with the other, is of the highest spiritual import. Theoretically, the confession gives the key to the religious meaning of the world. Spiritually, it brings salvation. And the reason for the importance attached to the fact and to the confession of it is clear. The Incarnation unites God and man, and does so by revealing sonship in terms of human nature, and human nature in terms of sonship. Not only can the Sonship of Christ be fully manifested “ in the flesh,” but the only fully realised human life is the life of the Son of God. Hence the worth of human nature apart from sin; the brotherhood of the Son of God to all men, because He has come in the flesh; the revelation of the spiritual possibilities in all men, realised when, and only when, abiding in the Son. The coming of the Son of God “ in the flesh “brings all men ideally within the sphere of sonship, shows that true human life is filial.

5. Thus, wherever men enter into their true life in Christ, one affection pervades their spirit, and gives them the victory over the world: it is “the love of the Father” (1 John 2:15). All things are tested morally by their being or not being “of the Father” (1 John 2:16).

6. Finally, the Fatherhood of God is antecedent to our sonship, and is the cause by which it is brought about.

“ Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God, and such we are” (1 John 3:1). The bringing this to pass was the end for which “the Father hath sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world” (1 John 4:14). The only salvation is sonship, the only Saviour is He who brings us into the life of sons. And the motive which sent the Son to this end could be nothing else than fatherly. Thus the whole of St. John’s theology is contained under the relationship of Father hood and sonship. True, the sonship of men has been lost by sin. But salvation is the restoration of it. And the life of each man is judged according as he has or has not attained to sonship. And above all is the perfect Fatherhood of God, eternally existing towards the Son, but the only explanation, offered or suggested by St. John, of the relations, the purpose, the redemptive action of God towards all mankind.

III. ST. PAUL

We enter now upon the theology of St. Paul. This is in many respects the most important and difficult part of our inquiry partly because his teaching is the most systematically reasoned of any in the New Testament, partly because the different stages at which his Epistles were written, and the differing controversial and practical necessities which called them forth, caused the apostle to throw his statement of the gospel into superficially different shapes; and not least because some elements of his teaching have been commonly interpreted in a sense not only independent of, but incompatible with, the supremacy and universality of the Fatherhood of God. For our purpose, the Epistles which concern us are those of the great group, comprising Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, and Galatians, and those of the Imprisonment, namely, Ephesians, Colossians, and Philippians. The rest, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, Philemon, and the Pastoral Epistles, deal with special and practical interests, and therefore scarcely exhibit the fundamental conceptions of St. Paul’s theology. Of them it is sufficient to note that 1 Thessalonians once and again speaks of “ our God and Father” (1 Thessalonians 1:3, 1 Thessalonians 1:13), thus giving at the start a suggestion of the supremacy of Fatherhood, and of its union with and qualification by Godhead, which affords a most important clue to the whole of the apostle’s subsequent thought. The Epistles of the Imprisonment

We shall begin by considering the Epistles of the Imprisonment. And this for several important reasons. To begin with, we have here the final statement of St. Paul’s theology. These Epistles may, therefore, primd facie be taken to represent the results of the apostle’s maturest thought and experience, the highest expression of the revelation given to him and of his spiritual insight into its meaning, and therefore the final standard by which his thought, as a whole, must be judged.

Again, the external and internal conditions under which they were written, combined to make them an exposition of the great spiritual presuppositions underlying all St. Paul’s faith and thought. That which is implicit in his teaching elsewhere becomes explicit here. At the same time, these Epistles are not confined to the statement or to the vindication of presuppositions. The whole of the apostle’s doctrine of salvation is restated in them. And thus we gain a statement of the whole range of Christian truth, according to St. Paul’s conception of it, in the full light of the ultimate spiritual conditions upon which it rests, and harmoniously proportioned by them. It was the easier for the apostle to give this complete exposition at this period of his life, because by this time the Judaistic controversy had been settled, so that these Epistles represent the advance made possible by that decisive victory. Hence they give full and absolute expression to St. Paul’s catholicity; little hampered by the statement of it, and not at all by any argumentative necessity to establish it, in terms relative to the Judaistic point of view. Thus, finally, by dealing with these Epistles first, we shall be enabled to set the special difficulties of the earlier Epistles in their proper relations and proportions to the whole trend of St. Paul’s teaching, and to apply to them principles of interpretation, derived not only from the final statement of his theology, but from the main principles of the earlier theology as illuminated by the light of the later. And of the Epistles of the Imprisonment we shall begin with the Epistle to the Colossians, because the heretical tendencies of the Colossians, tending to separate God, man, and the universe from one another, and to place Christ in an external and accidental relationship to all three, forced St. Paul, as on no other occasion, to bring out those mutual relations of God, Christ, mankind, the universe, to one another, which were revealed in the concurrent facts of Christian history and Christian experience. The result, in its unification of the whole by means of eternal spiritual relations, in its insight into creation and redemption as stages of a coherent development, and in its use of the data of Christian experience, as explaining the universe, unfolding its nature, reflecting its beginnings, prophesying its inevitable consummation, may fitly be termed St. Paul’s philosophy of the Christian religion. 1 The Epistle to the Colossians What, then, is the relationship of the Fatherhood of God to the theology of the Epistle to the Colossians?

1 See Chapter VII.

1. In the first place, the opening salutation, “ Grace to you, and peace, from God our Father “ (Colossians 1:2), shows that the end of God’s dealing with us is that w r e may realise all the blessings of His Fatherhood. The highest prayer of the apostle naturally corresponds to the supreme purpose of God. The relationship out of which proceeds the full blessedness of the gospel is that of “our Father.” Where its promise is fulfilled, then men enjoy the unbroken manifestation of His favour, and the answering consciousness of well-being and inmost satisfaction. This truth, that grace and peace are the manifestation of God’s Fatherhood, which is the root-thought of all St. Paul’s doctrine of Christian experience, 1 exercises a profound influence throughout this Epistle, though its presence is not detected by a superficial examination. The Epistle is in a peculiar degree Christocentric. And this of necessity, for the error of the Colossians lay in their inadequate realisation of the glory of Christ, both in His relation to the Father and in His relation to the spiritual life of mankind. Hence the emphasis throughout is upon Christ and upon the pre-eminence of Christ in both His Divine and human relationships. The latter is set forth, as regards the experience of salvation, in the great passage Colossians 3:1-4, under the conception always present to St. Paul, of the reception from Christ of fellowship with His death, resurrection, and ascended life. The relationship of believers to Christ is dwelt upon in its manifold aspects; the relationship to the Father is left in the background undeveloped. But the nature of this latter relationship readily becomes apparent. “Your life is hid,” we are told, “ with Christ in God “ (Colossians 3:3). But seeing that this refers not to proximity and inclusion in space, but to fellowship with Christ in communion with God, the whole is governed, obviously, by Christ’s relationship to God and our participation in it. Therefore as Christ is the Son, and dwells in God by virtue of His Sonship, so our relationship to God, as determined by our resurrection with Christ, is sonship, and the result of our sonship is that we enter into that hidden life which is communion with God, so perfect 1 See the opening salutations of all his Epistles. and all-pervading that He becomes the environment of our spirit, so that we are “ hid in “ Him by reason of His fatherly love and our filial nature. This will become still more apparent when we have studied St. Paul’s doctrine of the relation of the resurrection to sonship. 1 Thus the position of believers, in consequence of their fellowship with Christ, as described in the Epistle, answers to the salutation with which it opens.

Fatherhood and sonship, as vitally experienced, are the deter mining factors of Christian consciousness.

2. The Mediator through whom we come to realise the Fatherhood of God is the “Son of His love” (Colossians 1:13). Of the Son three leading statements are made.

(1) That He is “ the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation” (Colossians 1:15); that “it was the good pleasure of the Father that in Him should all the fulness dwell” (Colossians 1:19).

(2) That in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the God head “bodily (Colossians 2:9).

(3) That “ He is the head of the body, the Church “ (Colossians 1:18). The name “ Son “ must be held to apply to our Lord’s preincarnate relationship to the Father. It is true that the whole description so assumes the Incarnation that it would almost be correct to say that the Son is only complete as incarnate. He is “ the image “ of the invisible God; exists therefore to manifest Him; and while the constitution of nature in Himself is part of His manifestation of God, still it would seem to be imperfect without the Incarnation, which crowns that development of all things which is “ unto Him “ (Colossians 1:16). Moreover, “the fulness” dwells in Him “ bodily.” It seems clear that the thought of the apostle works backward from the incarnate to the preincarnate condition of the Son, and regards the latter in the light of the former. But it is equally clear that St. Paul teaches that our Lord is divinely pre-existent, before His Incarnation, and that His relationship to God gives Him a creative and organic relationship to the universe. And the only name given to Him in this preincarnate condition is “ the Son of 1 See on Php 3:11, p. 73. His love.” It is more natural to suppose that the apostle sees the Incarnationsubspecie ceternitatis, and therefore treats it proleptically, than that He transfers to the preincarnate relationship of our Lord to God a name which has reference only to His incarnate state, leaving the nature of His preincarnate relationship to God unconceived and unnamed. 1 In the Son, then, dwells “ all the fulness “ of the Divine attributes, under filial conditions: these are manifested with out distortion or eclipse in bodily form; and as thus incar nate our Lord becomes “ the Head of the body, the Church “; the Head, that is to say, of all those who, through Him, “call upon God as Father.” That Headship, the Epistle to the Ephesians adds, is so intimate and vital that while Christ “filleth all in all,” the Church, on its part, is “ the fulness,” which in a subordinate sense renders Christ complete (Ephesians 1:23). There is therefore perfect har mony between our Lord’s original Sonship and the attributes belonging to it, His life in the flesh, and His Headship over the Church. But how could this be unless the human nature, which our Lord assumed and over which, in its redeemed condition, He is Head, were originated by “the Father” with an essentially filial constitution? The fulness of any nature can only exist and be manifested in those objective relations which belong to it, and therefore in modes which are so conformable to those relations that it can freely enter into them and naturally express itself through them. In our Lord’s case, the supreme and all-determining relationship is sonship. But the attributes which are characteristic of sonship are fully displayed under the bodily conditions of human life. Hence the goal of true life for all men is sonship, and He who brings them to this goal is the Son, whose incarnation, so far from conflicting with, distorting, or even limiting His eternal Sonship, serves to manifest it in a nature which, being thus congenial and akin to it, must have been constituted in and for this filial relationship. 2 1 For a further discussion see Chapter VII.

2 See Chapter VII.

3. Further, the explanation of how all this comes to pass is given by St. Paul.

“ In Him were all things created, in the heavens and upon the earth, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers; all things have been created through Him, and unto Him; and He is before all things, and in Him all things consist “ (Colossians 1:16, Colossians 1:17).

There is a solidarity between heavenly and earthly beings; between heaven, earth, and man. It is profoundly true that, for man to be what he is, all other things must besubstantially what they are. The universe is organically related to and reflected in man. And man, individually and collectively, spiritually and as a crowning development, is consummated in Christ. But all things are not merely consummated by Christ, who is the Son of God’s love. That this is possible is due to the fact that all things have been created in and through the Son, and are constituted in Him.

Origin, constitution, consummation are necessarily one. And thus the Incarnation is prepared for by the creation may almost be said to be latent in it; and human nature, as created, is constituted with a view to the sonship, which consummates it, in the case of the race, by the incarnate Son, and, in the case of the individual, by adoption. But creation, constitution, and consummation in and through the Son imply that upon all things according to their capacity is the filial impress. This inference is inevitable, and must have been present in substance to the apostle’s mind. And what is involved in the supremacy of the Son over and of the filial impress in creation, preparing it to expect “ the revealing of the sons of God”? (Romans 8:19). Surely the supremacy of the Fatherhood of God, realised in and towards “the Son of His love,” manifested through the mediation of the Son in creation, maintenance, and redemption, in order to secure the answer of sons to His fatherly love.

Thus the world-conception, which is the basis of the whole of St. Paul’s theology, depends ultimately upon a Fatherhood so supreme as to be all -determining and all-embracing, since no created things fall outside the sphere of His Son’s life. 1 1 See chapter VII.

4. It is by the light of this constitution of mankind that their redemption is to be understood. The truly Christian temper, according to the apostle’s unceasing prayer is that of “giving thanks unto the Father, who made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light; who delivered us out of the power of darkness, and translated into the kingdom of the Son of His love “ (Colossians 1:12-13). The Father, therefore, is the source of ourredemption, and this on account of the steadfastness of His fatherly love, and therefore of His fatherly purpose. Our original creation having been in and for the Son of God’s love, the “power of darkness” has alienated us from the true life marked out for us by that fatherly purpose which shaped our nature and implanted its spiritual possibilities.

Sin has alienated us from that true life which the kingdom of the Son consummates. That kingdom is therefore set up, not only as the end of an ordered evolution, but as the sphere of a redemptive love, which consummates through restoration. And He who has delivered us from the destructive power of darkness, and has translated us into the kingdom of the Son, which redeems and perfects us, is the Father, thus manifesting an ever-abiding and universal Father hood, alike in the mercy which restores us, and in the nature and means of our restoration, namely, our translation into a kingdom, whose sway, both in its influence upon us and its results within us, must, by reason of its king, of necessity be filial. The apostle goes on to give another description of redemption. It is “the forgiveness of our sins” (Colossians 1:14). The condition of our restored life is the forgiveness of our sins.” The nature of the act of forgiveness in itself, when conceived as being in itself a complete and spiritual redemption, can only consist in family relations, such as are exhibited in the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Only one forgiveness can so ensphere, penetrate, and transform a whole life as to be its redemption. It is the forgiveness of one who is Father has never ceased to be Father, and triumphantly asserts His Fatherhood in the forgiveness which restores sonship. And if this be so in the nature of things, this interpretation also does fuller justice to the context of this passage than any other.

Redemption, therefore, must be interpreted, according to the apostle, by the light of Fatherhood and sonship.

5. Finally, it is by a filial act that our redemption is wrought out by the Son.

There is no detailed teaching in this Epistle as to the Atonement, on its Godward side. But one passage is deeply significant. We are told of our Lord, that “having put off from Himself the prin cipalities and the powers, He made a show of them openly, triumphing over them” in the cross (Colossians 2:15). The power of darkness which had brought mankind into bondage, alienating us from that fellowship with God, through the Son, which was our true life, assaulted the Son of God, by means of its “principalities and powers.” Their influence was so pervasive as to wrap Him round and cling to Him like a garment. Their object was to seduce Him from His filial life. By the cross, which was the triumph of His filial obedience, He stripped off from Himself these powers, and made a show of them openly. The Son, therefore, redeemed mankind by a death which finally vindicated the integrity of His filial life.

Thus, throughout this Epistle, the Fatherhood of God is the ever-present and final explanation; all the more impressive because, while everywhere underlying and funda mental, it is plainly assumed rather than declared. The Epistle to the Ephesians The thought of the Epistle to the Ephesians is so similar to that of the Colossians that we naturally pass to it next.

It may be dealt with briefly, the agreement of its main lines of thought with those of the Epistle to the Colossians being taken for granted, since no one questions them, and only its peculiarities being considered. The general outlines of the description of redemption in the two Epistles closely correspond, though the Epistle to the Ephesians does not lay bare the foundation of redemption and consummation laid in the creation of all things in and through the Son. But the Epistle to the Ephesians has distinct features of its own.

1. It explains the accomplishment of redemption as the fulfilment of an “eternal purpose” (Ephesians 3:11) of the Father, which was to bestow upon us “ adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto Himself” (Ephesians 1:5). For this reason He “ chose us “ in Christ “ before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blemish before Him in love “ (Ephesians 1:4). This purpose was “ according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in the Beloved, unto a dispensation of the fulness of the times, to sum up all things in Christ, the things in the heavens, and the things upon the earth” (Ephesians 1:9, Ephesians 1:10). Hence St. Paul’s apostolic commission is “ to make all men see what is the dispensation of the mystery, which from all ages hath been hid in God, who created all things “ (Ephesians 3:9; see also Ephesians 1:9 and Ephesians 3:3-6). The mystery of the catholic humanity in Christ, “ that the Gentiles are fellow-heirs and fellow-members of the body, and fellow-partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel” (Ephesians 3:6), is treated, not as gradually unfolded in Christ, but as an eternal reality subsisting in God, which needs not to be brought into existence, but only to be made known (Ephesians 3:5; see also Ephesians 1:9). The similar passage about the “ mystery “ in Colossians 1:25-27 shows that there also the thought of the eternal purpose is present to the apostle’s mind, though not expressly mentioned in the Epistle. Our foreordination is then, according to the eternal purpose of the Father, “ unto adoption as sons.” What is involved in “ adoption “ of precedent filial constitution and possibilities has been already pointed out. 1 Here the corre sponding truth with regard to God is brought to light. The eternal and world-directing purpose of God is to bring men to the adoption of sons, and this to the consciousness of God, who knows neither yesterday nor to-morrow, is an eternallysubsisting reality, which only needs to be made known in the fulness of the times to a race which lives under time conditions. What relationship is conformable to a grace which 1 See pp. 20, 21. has the fellowship of sons in its eternal thought, directing the history of time to its accomplishment and revelation, and adding redemption to creation lest the purpose shouldmiscarry? There can be only one, and that one perfect, eternal, and unchanging Fatherhood. And this is confirmed when we bear in mind that this purpose is that of “ the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,” and that He blessed us “ in Christ/ chose us “ in Him,” foreordained us to adoption as sons “through Jesus Christ,” and freely bestowed His grace upon us “ in the Beloved “ (Ephesians 1:3-6). Though all these expressions contemplate the Son as incarnate, yet we cannot shut out Colossians 1:16 from the interpretation of the passage, nor can we forget that, as was said in regard to that passage so here, the incarnate Son is viewedsubspecie ceternitatis.

Hence God’s relationship to us is determined, according to St. Paul, by His relation to the Son, and the name “the Beloved” is fitly chosen to indicate not only the fatherly love, which abounds towards Him, but its abundant wealth towards those who are eternally constituted and regarded “ in the Beloved.” And if this Fatherhood is supreme and all-determining, presiding over and directing redemption as well as creation, equally is it universal. If we isolated the statement as to “ adoption “ and the reference to those who have entered into its blessedness, we might perhaps be led to suppose that the Fatherhood was limited to those who, by faith in Christ, entered into the fellowship of its love. But the general tenor of the Epistle forbids us so to narrow the range of Fatherhood. The breadth of the Divine purpose “ to sum up all things in Christ,” and the range of the apostolic commission “ to make all men see what is the dispensation of the mystery,” alike show that the purpose of God and its revelation are intrinsically world-wide, and spring therefore out of a Fatherhood, at once supreme and universal, however parti cular men may fail to correspond with it by attaining to the “ adoption as sons “ offered by it.

2. From all this it arises that, when the apostle prays for his readers that they may receive the fulness of those spiritual gifts which belong to the Christian calling, the thought of their sonship possesses him, and the prayer is addressed to the Father, not only as the source of grace, but with special reference to His original and ideal, therefore to His universal, Fatherhood.

St. Paul seeks that “ Christ may dwell in “ his readers “hearts through faith” (Ephesians 3:17). And to this end, namely, that they “ being rooted and grounded in love, may be strong to apprehend with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that “ they “ may be filled unto all the fulness of God” (Ephesians 3:17-19). By being “ rooted and grounded in love “ they are to have the Divine capacity of love, by which alone can they know Christ’s love and be filled, even unto the complete reception of that “ fulness “ of God, which is love. A life, so determined and filled by love, demands an infinite well-spring of love as its source. And therefore He to whom the prayer is addressed is described as “the Father, from whom every Fatherhood in heaven and on earth is named” (Ephesians 3:14). In the apostle’s spiritual experience, the Fatherhood of God is as supreme as in his spiritual thought.

3. The Epistle to the Ephesians dwells with peculiar emphasis on the catholic community of the Church. In setting forth this catholicity many figures are used. The Gentiles are “ fellow-citizens with the saints “; they are “members of the household of God” (Ephesians 2:19). They represent several buildings growing “ into a holy temple in the Lord” (Ephesians 2:21). They belong to “the body” of Christ (Ephesians 3:6, Ephesians 3:4, Ephesians 3:16; see also 1 Corinthians 12:12-31). Several of these are superficially incompatible with the relationship of Fatherhood. So far as this is the case, the consideration of them may be with convenience deferred till we face the kindred, though greater, difficulties of the Epistles to the Galatians and Eomans. But, meanwhile, we may note that St. Paul brings these aspects of the Christian life into direct association with the Father. All of them are treated as conse quences of the governing fact that “ through “ Christ “ we both have our access in one Spirit unto the Father” (Ephesians 2:18). The Epistle to the Philippians We pass now to the Epistle to the Philippians.

Here, except for the customary salutation invoking grace and peace “ from God our Father “ (Php 1:2), and for the statement of the standard of Christian conduct as being “ that ye may be blameless and harmless, children of God, without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation “ (Php 2:15), the bearing of the Fatherhood of God is at most implicit and inferential. The evidence that St. Paul’s thought was determined by it may therefore be variously estimated, though, having regard to what we find elsewhere, it seems certain that this is the case.

There are two main passages in the Epistle: the first, that wherein St. Paul sets forth the supreme example of our Lord (Php 2:1-11); the second, that wherein, in setting himself forth as an example, he utters the inmost secret of his own spiritual aspiration and pursuit (Php 3:4-14). In the former the account of the Humiliation, Obedience, and Exaltation of Christ there is no mention of Fatherhood and sonship, except in the concluding statement that the confession that Jesus Christ is Lord is “ to the glory of God the Father” (Php 2:11). Christ is spoken of as “being in the form of God “ (Php 2:6), and as taking “ the form of a servant “ (Php 2:7). But when we remember the reference “ to the glory of God the Father,” and bear in mind that St. Paul never thought of Christ except as the Son, we shall see that we have here set before us the triumph of the ideally filial spirit in Christ. The joyful assumption of servitude is the highest expression of the spirit of a son, as distinguished from a slave. And this act and temper were in contrast to a possible spirit, which, while having a specious appearance of sonship, would have denied its true inspiration. “ Being in the form of God,” He might have “ counted it “ “ a prize to be on an equality with God “ (Php 2:6). The apostle throws back to the Son’s preincarnate condition the alter native, which was pressed upon Him throughout the great Temptation. The Incarnation resulted from His decision, and thus the life and death which crown human history are a supreme filial response in representative humanity to the fatherly will of God. In the second passage St. Paul describes himself as pressing “ on toward the goal, unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus “ (Php 3:1Php 3:4). Otherwise he expresses his hope as being, “ if by any means I may attain unto the resurrection from the dead” (Php 3:11).

Putting together these three facts, namely, that the apostle’s “ high calling “ is “ in Christ Jesus,” that the “ resur rection from the dead “ represents a general experience, of which there has been the one typical example, our Lord s, and that with St. Paul our Lord’s resurrection stands always in special connexion with His Sonship (see Acts 13:32, Acts 13:33; Romans 1:4), it seems clear that St. Paul’s attainment to the “ resurrection from the dead,” especially as it is “ in Christ Jesus,” represents the final confirmation and completion of his sonship in Christ. Here, therefore, again the determining thought is that of the Fatherhood of God; and this interpretation is confirmed by reference to Luke 20:36, where we are told of those who “ are accounted worthy to attain to that world “ (namely, the perfect order of things in the life to come), that they “ are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection.”

Thus we may pass from our survey of the Epistles of the Imprisonment, with the conclusion that throughout the final statements of St. Paul’s theology, and especially wherever its ultimate presuppositions are laid bare, his thought interprets God’s dealings with mankind, from first to last, by means of His Fatherhood towards the Son and towards the race in Him. The Main Group of Epistles

We are entitled, on every ground, to carry with us the results gained by our study of the Epistles of the Imprisonment for the interpretation of Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, and Galatians. And the first impression made upon us is how entirely the main lines of the theology of these four Epistles corre spond to those of the former, although the eternal and creative relationships, which are finally manifest in redemption, are not as fully expounded as in the Epistles to the Colossians and Ephesians. The Epistle to the Romans The Epistle to the Komans traces the accomplishment of salvation, first in the aspects which concern mankind generally, then in relation to the experience of believers, and thence onward to its world-embracing consequences and its final historical results. The Epistle opens by establishing the universality of the reign of sin and death (Romans 1:18Romans 3:20), passes on to unfold the nature of the propitiation which atones for it (Romans 3:21-31, Romans 5:1-11), and, having pointed out the general effects of that propitiation upon the race, due to our Lord’s organic relationship to it (Romans 5:12-21, and compare 1 Corinthians 15:22, 1 Corinthians 15:45), harmonising by the way the nature of salvation and its general effects with the Divine dealings with Abraham and his descendants (Romans 4:1-25), passes on to give the completest exposition of the characteristic life of salvation (Rom. 4-8) anywhere to be found in St. Paul’s writings. But the prospects of the whole creation are bound up with the perfecting of this individual experience of salvation (Romans 8:18-25). And the temporary rejection of Israel, which is the price paid for the salvation of the Gentiles (Romans 11:28), is in order to a fuller revelation of mercy.

Israel and the Gentiles have changed places for a season, the latter passing from a state of disobedience to an experience of mercy, while the former has become disobedient. But this is not the end. “ God hath shut up all unto disobedience, that He might have mercy upon all” (Romans 11:32). But what is this “ one far-off Divine event to which the whole creation moves,” in which God’s “ mercy upon all “ shall be manifested? It is “ the revealing of the sons of God “ (Romans 8:19, Romans 1:1). And the “first-fruits” of thisrevealing are to be found in the reception of the “ Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father” (Romans 8:14-17, Romans 8:23). Moreover, this adoption, and the realisation of all the results implicitly contained in it, was the supreme object of the foreknowledge and preordination of God. “ For whom He foreknew, He also foreordained to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren: and whom He foreordained, them He also called, and whom He called, them He also justified: and whom He justified, them He also glorified” (Romans 8:29-30). If any one would here dogmatically create and attribute to the apostle an outer darkness of reprobation environing those who are not foreknown and foreordained, let him check him self by remembering St. Paul’s final statement that God’s purpose is to have “ mercy upon all.” While this statement must not be pressed too far, it at least forbids us to suppose that the splendour of foreordination to be conformed to the image of God’s Son was intended by the apostle to cast the black shadow of absolute and eternal reprobation. In our interpretation the sombre passage, Romans 9:19-24, must be qualified not only by the moral elements present, namely, the fact that the “ vessels of wrath “ are “ fitted unto destruction,” and by the declaration that God, though “ willing to show His wrath “towards these, restrained it and treated them “with much long-suffering “; but also by the remembrance that the apostle is, for the moment, restricting his consideration to the absolute right and active lordship of God over His creatures.

It is therefore not intended to be a complete representation of the general disposition of God, least of all to those who have not yet placed themselves in the hopeless position described by the apostle. A special condition of men, and in relation to it a special right and activity of God, are abstracted. But these last are subservient to His wider and final purpose. And before we use this conception as a guide to the general relationship of God to mankind, our under standing of it must be governed by the triumphant insight, reached by St. Paul after he has wrestled with an almost insuperable difficulty, that “ God hath shut up all unto disobedience, that He might have mercy upon all.” Only so much of the awful abstract sovereignty, residing in His Creatorship, is used as may serve by dispensational means to the fuller display of His universal mercy. We have here the final victory of the assurance of Divine love over the specu lative intellect of St. Paul; while the assertion alike of His abstract right, of His ceaseless activity, and of His unfailing mercy, is necessary to a complete doctrine of God.

Hence the revelation of God is a continuous manifestation of mercy, in which the whole creation shares, and by which the darker problems of history shall one day be transformed and solved. And the centre of this manifestation is the adoption of sons; the cause upon which the consummation of the whole depends is the complete revelation of their sonship; and the foreordaining purpose, in which mercy fashions the plan it is to realise, is that believers may be “ conformed to the image of His Son.” How could there be a completer demonstration that the Fatherhood of God is supreme both in the theology of St. Paul, as it is presented to us in this Epistle, and in the Divine realities which the Epistle unfolds? And with this general supremacy the apostle’s reference to the resurrection as “ determining “ the Sonship of our Lord (Romans 1:4), and his definition of the Son’s atoning act as one of obedience (Romans 5:19), and therefore ideally filial, are in accordance. Thus, once more, the filial end, reached through the filial atonement of the Son, implies the fatherly source.

1 and 2 Corinthians The manifold and special practical interests of the two Epistles to the Corinthians unfit them for exhibiting the ultimate elements of St. Paul’s thought. But everywhere it could easily be shown, were there necessity, that the teaching of both Epistles is not only compatible with, but is to be explained by, the fundamental ideas set forth elsewhere.

Take, for example, the passage, “ For all things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; and ye are Christ s; and Christ is God s” (1 Corinthians 3:22, 1 Corinthians 3:23). How can this be interpreted, save by means of Christ’s Sonship, of our predestination to life in and through Him, and of that heirship of God and fellow-hcirship with Christ which results? (see Romans 8:17; Galatians 4:7). So with the Second Epistle. How can we understand the statement, “ But we all, with unveiled face reflecting as a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit “ (2 Corinthians 3:18), apart from the remembrance that the glory of the Lord is the revelation of His Sonship, that we are to be “ conformed to the image of God’s Son, and that the Spirit of His Son is sent into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father “ (Galatians 4:6)? Indeed the climax of the more strictly evan gelistic position of 2 Corinthians is reached in the verse, due perhaps to a reminiscence of Hosea 1:10: “I will be to you a Father, and ye shall be to Me sous and daughters “ (2 Corinthians 6:18). The Epistle to the Galatians The Epistle to the Galatians throughout reveals the in fluence of the Fatherhood of God upon the apostle’s thought. His equipment for his apostolic mission comes from “ the good pleasure of God... to reveal His Son in him “ (Galatians 1:15-16), where the revelation of the person of the Son cannot be taken apart from the truth and life contained in the Son, which made up the sum-total of St. Paul’s Gospel.

Again, the standard by which St. Paul condemns the legalism of the Galatians, and the determining principle by which he shapes his representation of the truly Christian temper and conduct, is, “ For ye are all sons of God, through faith, in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:26). And, once more, the explanation of the history of revelation and religion given in this Epistle is, that it is an ordered process from tutelage to sonship, crowned when “ in the fulness of the time “; “ God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, that He might redeem them which were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons “ (Galatians 4:1-7). Thus the main stress is the same here as in the other Epistles. The Difficulties raised in the Main Group of the Epistles But there are difficulties in regard to our subject in St. Paul’s theology. These are especially prominent in the main group of the Epistles, and can best be dealt with by a separate consideration.

They consist almost entirely in the apostle’s transference to the New Testament of the conception of the Covenant (in Romans 9:1-33. Romans 11:1-36; 2 Corinthians 3:1-18; and specially in Galatians 3:1-29, in connexion with the spiritual fatherhood of Abraham), and in the so-called “ forensic “ elements of his teaching. In what relations do these elements of his doctrine stand to the Fatherhood of God? Can they be deduced from it? Are they compatible with it? The question arising in connexion with the Covenant must be determined by different considerations from that of the “ forensic “ doctrine; and what is put forth in respect of it may be held to apply, without additional treatment, to the similar problem in the Epistle to the Hebrews. The Covenant The principal passage dealing with the Covenant is Galatians 3:4-7; the interpretation of it must of necessity govern any similar passages elsewhere, so that separate discussion of them is needless. In writing to the Galatians, St. Paul treats Christian believers as “Abraham’s seed” (Galatians 3:29). God’s dealings with Abraham were by “blessing” (Galatians 3:8, Galatians 3:9, Galatians 3:14), conveying to him an “inheritance” by “promise” (Galatians 3:18). This blessing Abraham received by faith: “ Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned unto him for righteousness “ (Galatians 3:6). And thus there was instituted with Abraham and his seed a covenant which cannot be disannulled, and into that covenant Gentiles have entered by becoming “ Abraham’s seed, heirs according to the promise” (Galatians 3:15-18, Galatians 3:29).

Now, in itself, the bestowment of a special promise, and still more its embodiment in a covenant, and one so permanent that it governs God’s dealings not only with Israel but with believers in Christ, does not suggest the supremacy of Father hood, but seems rather to proceed from Divine sovereignty, gracious yet authoritative. On the other hand, it must be borne in mind that from no standpoint can the conception of a Divine covenant be regarded as ultimate, either in the actual relations between God and men, or in their theoretic explanation. What are the spiritual conditions, in the nature and relations of God and man, which make the inauguration and maintenance of a covenant between them possible? What were the relation ships existing prior to the Covenant, out of which it took its rise? What are the ends sought by the Covenant? And how does God’s dealing with an elect people under a covenant stand related to His universal dealing with mankind? At least these questions necessarily arise; the problems contained in them carry us much deeper than the Covenant; and the answer to them must be sought beyond the range of anything contained in its conditions or its terms. All these questions must be discussed when we come to consider the doctrine of the Old Testament. 1 Meanwhile we must limit ourselves to investigating what was in St. Paul’s mind in his use of the conception.

Two preliminary observations must be made.

1. St. Paul’s theology must needs connect itself with that of the Old Testament, and it is at this point that the connexion must be made. The discussion of the relations between the New Dispensation and the Old was forced upon the apostle by the Judaism of the Galatians.

But, quite apart from that accidental necessity, it was an urgent problem for one who was “ a Hebrew of Hebrews,” and “ as touching the law, a Pharisee “ (Php 3:5). Both the Old and the New were for him Divine; and thus, from the standpoint of liberty in Christ, he was constrained to find an interpretation, which carried with it at once the abolition of the Old and the perpetuation of its permanent principles. In short, he was under the necessity of finding in the New the fulfilment of the Old. To use Augustine’s saying, the New Testament must be found to be latent in the Old, and the Old Testament must be patent in the New. But while this necessitated a readjustment in the apostle’s mind of the spiritual principles of the Old Testament, revealing in it the presence of evangelical factors which were at once the key 1 See Chapter IV. to its meaning and the explanation of its history, it no less necessitated the carrying over to the New Testament, at least for the special purpose now under consideration, not only of the evangelical principles newly discovered in the Old Testament, but of the personalities in whom, and of the framework of conceptions in which, they were realised. And chief among these were, of course, Abraham, the predominant personality, and the Covenant, the predominant conception. For the sake, therefore, of rooting the final manifestation of God by the gospel in His original manifestation to the Fathers, of providing a reasonable interpretation of the spiritual history of mankind, and of carrying over into the New Dispensation that which was permanent in the now abolished Old, St. Paul was obliged to state the gospel in terms of the spiritual life of Abraham, of the Covenant, and of the world-wide promise made in Abraham (Galatians 3:8; Genesis 12:3). Doubtless, this involves a temporary sinking of some one of the distinctive features of the New Testament, in order to its correlation with the Old. And we should expect to find what we shall see turns out actually to be the case, that the suppressed features of the New Testament break in, from time to time, upon its statement in terms of the Old, until in the end they become the dominant note. And the very fact of all this will show that the terms of the Old Testament are inadequate to, but not incompatible with, the New, and that therefore the use of the Old does not imply that even for a moment the characteristic truths of the New Testament had lost their supremacy in the apostle’s mind.

Moreover, if this be true, it would a priori seem natural that we should find this statement of the gospel in terms of the Covenant to be distinctive of St. Paul’s earlier thought, of the period of his controversy with Judaism, and that the conditions urging him to such a statement relaxed their hold upon him in later life, when the Judaistic controversy had been settled, when the apostle’s environment had become more prevailingly Gentile, and when habitual and long-con tinued abiding in the New had caused the Old to fall into the background. And this is exactly what we do find in contrasting the Epistles of the Main Group with those of the Imprisonment.

2. Not only, however, did St. Paul sink certain distinctive elements of the New Dispensation in order to bring it into connexion with the Old, but he distinctly states that God Himself had done the same in order to the preparation of the world for Christ. The whole argument of Galatians 3:1-29 is directed to show that God, for pedagogic purposes, introduced in the law a method of dealing with “the seed of Abraham,” which did not correspond fully either with His real relationship to them, or with their original nature and its spiritual faculties, or with His original dealing with Abraham, or with His final purpose in Christ. The law “ was added because oftransgressions “ (Galatians 3:19; see also Romans 5:20); it “ hath been our tutor to bring us unto Christ” (Galatians 3:24). But alike before the law (Galatians 3:17), after the law (Galatians 3:25), contrary to the law (Galatians 3:10), and independent of the law (Galatians 3:17), had been “the promise” and “faith.”

Thus God for a temporary purpose namely, to create the consciousness of sin suppressed, for the time being, some thing of what was distinctive in His relationship to men and in their relationship to Him. It was not only the ceremonial portions of the law that effected this; above all, it was its authoritative aspect, separated, both in God’s utterance and in the people’s apprehension, from the love which blesses and is the eternal foundation of the law of life. “ The law is not of faith; but he that doeth them shall live in them “ (Galatians 3:12; Leviticus 18:5). The purely magisterial features of God’s sovereignty, therefore, just the aspects of it difficult to reconcile with His Fatherhood, are, for St. Paul, subordinate and transitory, devised for a special purpose, to pass away when that purpose has been accomplished by them.

But, so much having been premissed, it will be found when we come closely to examine St. Paul’s train of thought

(1) that the whole is in subordination to the relationship of Fatherhood and sonship; (2) that there is a special reason, bearing upon this relationship, for the emphasis on the Covenant; and (3) that the qualification involved in (2) having been introduced, the fundamental thought isuniversal.

1. It is true that St. Paul takes the relationship of God to Abraham as he finds it in the Old Testament, where Abraham appears as the “ friend of God.” This relationship created by the promise of God, as accepted by Abraham’s faith and confirmed by a covenant, is not in itself the relationship of Father and son. But let us trace the development of St. Paul’s thought.

(1) The foundation is laid in the statement that “ Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned unto him for righteousness “ (Galatians 3:6).

(2) It is next laid down that Abraham’s descendants are of the spirit and not of the flesh: “ Know, therefore, that they which be of faith, the same are sons of Abraham” (Galatians 3:7).

(3) And this relationship to Abraham extends to the Gentiles, upon their faith: the purpose of God is “ that upon the Gentiles might come the blessing of Abraham in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:14).

(4) Further, the true seed, which shares in the promise made to Abraham, is Christ: “ He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ “ (Galatians 3:16).

(5) Moreover, “ the law,” which “ was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise hath been made” (Galatians 3:19), “hath been our tutor to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith “ (Galatians 3:24).

(6) Hence “ye are all sons of God, through faith, m Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:26).

(7) Finally, the whole statement is gathered into unity by an express explanation of the equivalents used in it: “ If ye are Christ s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, heirs according to promise” (Galatians 3:29). Thus “they which are of faith” are, in terms of the Old Testament, “ sons of Abraham,” and, in terms of the New, “ Christ’s “; in terms of the Old Testament they are “ heirs according to promise,” in terms of the New they are “ sons of God.” The blessing of Abraham belongs in its fulness to Christ, and to those who are in Christ. Hence we may say, with substantial truth, that Abraham is looked upon by St. Paul as the plant, of which Christ is the life, the root, and the trunk, of which believers are the fruit, and faith the sap. The promise to Abraham culminates in Christ; the faith of Abraham culminates in faith in Christ; the relationship of Abraham to God culminates in the realised sonship of believers who are “ Abraham’s seed,” and their inheritance of the promise comes of heirship “ through God,” following on sonship (Galatians 4:7). Until this development is fully wrought out, “ the heir is a child “ and “ differeth nothing from a bondservant, though he is lord of all; but is under guardians and stewards until the term appointed of the father” (Galatians 4:1, Galatians 4:2). This statement does not appear to be applied by St. Paul to those exceptional men of the Old Testament in whom, as in Abraham, faith was regnant and free. These anticipated, in a peculiar degree, the maturity of sonship. Hence, as this illustration clearly shows, that which becomes explicit at the close, has been implicit in St. Paul’s mind from the beginning. The unfolding andperfecting of the relationship of Abraham and his faithful descendants to God is in realised sonship in Christ. There forethe relationship which was secretly at work from the first, determining the original Covenant and manifesting itself in Christ, has been the Divine Fatherhood, fixing the term in the “ fulness of time “ for its full display in the maturity and redemption of sons.

2. But there is serious advantage in making Abraham and the Covenant the starting-point, apart from the reason given above. By this means St. Paul emphasises the truth, that as it was through his faith that Abraham’s relationship to God was realised, so only through faith do men become sons of God: “ For ye are all sons of God, through faith, in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:26). It is only in Christ Jesus that we are sons: “ For as many as were baptized into Christ did put on Christ” (Galatians 3:27).

3. But, subject to that great condition as to sonship, the Fatherhood of God, which has thus shaped the training and redemption of the race, in and for the Son, is universal, as is revealed proximately by St. Paul’s universal apostolate; principally, on the ground of Christ’s relationship to mankind, as the sphere in which the Fatherhood is manifested, and to which all mankind are bidden to betake themselves; and ultimately, from the historical standpoint, by the promise made to Abraham: “ In thee shall all the nations be blessed “ (Galatians 3:8). It is clear that St. Paul understands by this that the Father constituted His original relationship to Abraham with a view to the sonship of the race in Christ. In keeping with this, there is the clear indication that a universal filial constitution and potentiality is present in mankind which answers to the universal Fatherhood of God.

Abraham and those who are of faith are the typical repre sentatives of the true life of mankind. To be otherwise, whether under the law or under the sway of heathen religion, is to be “ held in bondage under the rudiments of the world “ (Galatians 4:3, Galatians 4:9); a state which, just because it is bondage, shows that the capacity of those who are held in it is sufficient for the higher life offered to faith.

Thus at no point does the connexion of the New Testament with the Old weaken the influence of the Fatherhood of God over the theology of St. Paul. The so-called Forensic Elements of St. Paul’s Teaching Lastly, the so-called forensic elements of St. Paul’s theology call for consideration.

St. Paul speaks much, especially in the Epistle to the Eomans, of the righteousness, judgment, condemnation of God; expounds his doctrine of the justification of theunrighteous, explaining the “ propitiation “ of Christ as “ for the shewing forth “ of God’s “ righteousness... that He might Himself be just, and the justifier of him that hath faith in Jesus” (Romans 3:25, Romans 3:26). He dwells with great weight upon the “ work of the law,” both as revealed to Israel and as written in the hearts of dutiful Gentiles (Romans 2:12-29). And he connects this work of the law with the awful judicial function of God exercised by Jesus Christ: “ In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men, according to my gospel, by Jesus Christ” (Romans 2:16).

Finally, he says much of the wrath and mercy of God; affections which, if not judicial, may be held to suggest sovereignty rather than Fatherhood. In what relation, then, do all these elements of St. Paul’s theology stand to the Fatherhood of God, both intrinsically l and in the apostle’s own mind?

1. In the first place, it should be borne in mind that the dealing with men described in Romans 3:21-31 is a complex whole and sui generis. No analogies of human procedure can be a complete reflexion of it, still less can analogies taken from any one department of human relations. In an act so unique and comprehensive as that of the Atonement, it would not be remarkable if, as has been seen to be the case with regard to “adoption,” 2 there should be elements which abstractly taken are forensic, but which yet are inherent in a whole that is not forensic. This indeed seems to be the case.

2. Moreover, secondly, it should be remembered that there are judicial and kingly aspects of all true fatherhood, even in its human embodiment.

Most, if not all, of the terms enumerated above have a well-recognised place in the economy of family life, and had this, in yet fuller measure, when public law for the most part limited its province to what lay outside the family, leaving the patriot, potestas within the family, but littlerestricted or supervised. In particular, the so-called “ forensic “ problem, how to reconcile righteousness or justice and justification, is often an urgent one in the family, far oftener than in the state; though of course it presents itself in the attenuated form, which is in accordance with a dependent as contrasted with the absolute Fatherhood.

3. Indeed the work of justifying “ the ungodly “ (Romans 4:5) is fatherly rather than forensic or even kingly. Justification is forgiveness, but it is more. It includes reinstate- 1 This subject is discussed theoretically in Chapter VI.

2 See Chapter I. ment. And both the forgiveness and the reinstatement are so issued in a judicial decree of righteousness, and fortified by it, that, apart from a new falling away from faith into ungodliness, what happened before the justification can never be raised again. But such a justifying act, whether performed without respect to considerations of righteousness, or with due regard to them and by the provision of means by which it can be righteously exercised, is certainly not judicial, either in motive, in spirit, or in general procedure. It is conceivable asproceeding from sovereignty; it is still more in keeping with Fatherhood.

Perhaps we might provisionally describe the whole dealing as fatherly in its motive and in the securing of means for the exercise of mercy, sovereign in its authoritative decree, and judicial in the form in which effect is given to the mercy and to the decree.

Still less can the fatherly motive be left out of account when we remember that the justification is not a reinstatement in an external position, still less a mere remission of pains and penalties. It opens up to us the present blessedness and the assured hope of the most intimate fellowship with God.

“ Being therefore justified by faith, let us have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ; through whom also we have had our access by faith into this grace wherein we stand; and let us rejoice in hope of the glory of God” (Romans 5:1, Romans 5:2). It is true that the reference to peace, and the further description of the justified as having been “ enemies,” but now “ reconciled to God through the death of His Son” (Romans 5:10), carries with it thoughts of the Divine sovereignty and our relations to it. These will be separately considered. But, at least, restoration to fellowship has to do with the very heart of God, and lies therefore beyond the range of anything predominantly judicial.

4. Further, it is impossible to leave out of account the close association between justification and the reception of the “Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father” (Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:5-7). “Justification” and “adoption “ may be taken as practically equivalent. The position which becomes ours by faith is that of sons; the way to it is by justification and adoption. The latter has its legal aspects, but belongs above all, as we have seen, 1 to the realm of spirit and life; the former is judicial, but, by reason of its result in the reception of sonship, cannot be separated from its source in Fatherhood.

5. But, finally and principally, the Fatherhood which St. Paul sets forth is that of “ the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 1:3). Godhead is qualified by Father hood, Fatherhood by Godhead. And both have their primary and complete manifestation towards our Lord Jesus Christ and towards us in Him. The combination of the two names, while it sets Godhead in the light of Fatherhood, brings out the absolute character of that Fatherhood, making it entirely unique. And its manifestation to us in and through one who is “ our Lord “ reflects back upon the Father the Lordship which is revealed in the Son. If the Son’s Headship over us is Lordship, equally must the Fatherhood of God towards us be a sovereign Fatherhood.

Moreover, if the limited fatherhood of man has its legis lative, kingly, and judicial aspects and functions, how much more must this be the case with the absolute Fatherhood of God! And both the infinite greatness of the Godhead and the vastness of His dealings through all ages with the universe are such that the most imposing manifestation of human authority and power whether legislative, kingly, or judicial are but faint shadows of those revealed in the dispensations of God towards men. All such aspects and functions of human government in their most august form are of necessity suitable, though inadequate, to express the awful realities of the Divine authority. The application of such aspects and functions of authority to God must needs tend, for the moment, to exhibit such of His ways and works as are governed by them in separation from the Fatherhood which lies behind them. And this temporary separation, which would be a necessity of thought quite apart from history, is still more natural and necessary because of two additional causes. In the first place, 1 See Chapter II. these aspects and functions of government are in the forefront of the Old Testament, and are carried from it into the New. The relationship of the Old Testament doctrine on thissubject to that of the New will be considered in the next chapter.

And, in the second place, the universal fact of sin has brought the sovereign aspects and functions of the Godhead towards mankind into a prominence, both objective, in God’s dealings towards us, and subjective in our apprehension of them, which, but for sin, would have been unnecessary and abnormal. 1

Thus, for example, when St. Paul is dealing with the alienation of the race in its vast multitudes from God and its rebellion against His authority, with its subsequent recon ciliation and peace, it is most natural to speak in terms of kingship (Romans 5:10; 2 Corinthians 5:18-21). But the true test to be applied is whether these aspects and functions, both in themselves and in their operations, are intrinsically, and in the mind of St. Paul, not only compatible with the absolute Fatherhood of God, but embraced under it, serving its ends, and therefore, in the last resort, part of the revelation of it. And this we may fairly claim that our examination of St. Paul’s general teaching has shown to be the case. Isolated figures may undoubtedly be found, where the relationship even of believers of God is represented under forms taken from lower relationships. Such, for example, is the statement made in the Epistle to the Ephesians that Gentile believers are “of the household of God” (Ephesians 2:19). The variety of such figures and their impressiveness are in accordance with the majesty of God, and bid us cultivate as is most needful in our consciousness of the Divine Fatherhood in Christ, the awe and reverence which were awakened by the revelation of the Old Testament, as well as the tenderer and more intimate trustfulness which have been inspired by the New. But all such representations are easily harmonised with, and even seen to be necessary to, the realisation of the supremacy of the Divine Fatherhood when its glory is fitly conceived.

Similar considerations will explain the frequency of references to citizenship, as the privilege of Christians in St. Paul’s 1 See Dr. Simon, Reconciliation by Incarnation, p. 142. writings. For example, he tells the Ephesians that they are “ fellow-citizens with the saints” (Ephesians 2:19); to the Philippians he writes: “ For our citizenship “ [or “ common wealth”] “is in heaven” (Php 3:20); while in the Epistle to the Galatians he says: “ The Jerusalem that is above is free, which is our mother” (Galatians 4:26).

Such figures are, of course, in part taken over from the Old Testament, and we could ill afford to lose the poetry of their associations. But beyond this, the community of God’s family is so vast and catholic, that the analogies of the city are more in keeping with its grandeur than the more homely ones drawn from the narrow sphere of an earthly family.

Thus we may conclude that, great and complicated as is the system of St. Paul’s thought, the one sufficient guide to it is to be found in the supreme relationship of Fatherhood and sonship. A brief notice of the remainder of the New Testament will suffice.

IV. THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS The Epistle to the Hebrews has a special apologetic purpose. It presents to Hebrew readers the realities and facts of the Christian dispensation as the eternal archetypes, and therefore the historical fulfilment, of the Hebrew cere monial law. Hence the atoning death of our Lord is treated as a sacrifice, His mediation as that of the perfect High Priest, while the sphere of His atonement and intercession is the true temple, of which heaven is the “ Holiest of all.”

All the more remarkable, therefore, is the steady and commanding influence of the Fatherhood of God throughout the Epistle. At the outset, the comprehensive completeness and the spiritual directness of the Christian revelation is shown in that God “ hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in His Son “ (Hebrews 1:1, Hebrews 1:2). And the supreme purpose which the Son has revealed and is accomplishing is the “bringing many sons unto glory” (Hebrews 2:10). And if the end purposed by God is the manifestation of His Fatherhood in bringing sons to Himself, the High Priest who accomplishes this is the Son, emphasis being laid through out both on his filial dignity and perfection, and on the filial character of His sacrifice. Christ is faithful “ as a Son over His house “ (Hebrews 3:6). “ The law appointeth men high priests, having infirmity; but the word of the oath, which was after the law, appointeth a Son perfected for evermore” (Hebrews 7:28; see also Hebrews 4:14).

Further, there was in the Son the perfection of the filial spirit. As “ no man taketh the honour “ of priesthood “ unto himself, but when he is called of God, even as was Aaron. So Christ also glorified not Himself to be made a High Priest, but He that spake unto Him, Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee “ (Hebrews 5:4, Hebrews 5:5). And the humility with which the Son received His investiture as High Priest was perfected in the “ godly fear “ in which He, “ though He was a Son, yet learned obedience by the things which He suffered “ (Hebrews 5:7, Hebrews 5:8). Superficially taken, Christ in His humility resembles priests who are not sons, and His learning obedience is put in contrast with His dignity and prerogatives as a Son. But, substantially, humility, submission to discipline, and obedience are the fulfilment of the filial ideal on the side of dependence, loyalty, and self - surrender to training and service. So also the spirit of the Son’s sacrifice is filial, and it derives from this quality its acceptableness. “ Lo, I am come to do Thy will” (Hebrews 10:5-10) is the great profession with which He offers His body once for all. And the fatherly dealing, by which Christ was disciplined to perfection, is the key to all the bitter experiences of Christians. “ God dealeth with you as with sons, for what son is there whom his father chasteneth not? “ (Hebrews 12:7). From all this, it is not surprising that the writer passes on to designate God “ the Father of spirits “ (Hebrews 12:9). At every point the translation of the Hebrew type into the Christian antetype has been moulded by the entrance of considerations drawn from sonship, and therefore from the Fatherhood, which is its correlative. The Saviour is the Son; His life and death are the utterance of His filial obedience, and derive from it their worth; as “ Author of their salvation,” He fulfils the Father’s purpose of “ bringing many sons unto glory,” and, in doing so, conforms Himself to the lot of those whom “ He is not ashamed to call “ His “ brethren “ (Hebrews 2:11).

What is all this but the manifestation of what is involved in God being above all else and towards all “ the Father of spirits “? The Hebrew ceremonial set forth the Divine King ship; but its eternal archetype in the heavens proclaims the Fatherhood of God.

V. ST. PETER Only a few sentences are necessary on 1 Peter. The practical objects of the Epistle, and the temperament of the writer, are alike incompatible with the profounder and more systematic treatment of Christian truth. Moreover, the apostle’s concern for the temper of Christian hope in his readers, and for the moral worth of their conduct in the ordinary relations of life, menaced as each was by severe persecution, led him to insist upon two main considerations, which, while not inconsistent with one another, are left side by side, without any attempt to exhibit their relations. On the one hand, it is “ the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, according to His great mercy, begat us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3), and Christians are described as those who “call on” God “as Father” (1 Peter 1:17). On the other hand, the temper of true Christian dignity and selfrespect is appealed to in the declaration: “ Ye are an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, that ye may show forth the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvellous light: which in time past were no people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy” (1 Peter 2:9, 1 Peter 2:10). We may perhaps sum up St. Peter’s point of view by saying that he regards Christians as a new “ chosen people “ in succession to Israel, but that the distinctive mark of the new elect is that they are conscious of the Fatherhood of God, and order their worship in the filial spirit accordant with it.

VI. THE APOCALYPSE In the Apocalypse the Fatherhood of God is not brought out, except as it relates to our Lord (Revelation 1:6, Revelation 14:1). And the explanation is simple. The great theme of the book is the Kingship of Christ, as “ the Lamb “; His Lordship over the redeemed; His Leadership in their great struggle against “ the kingdom of the world,” and against “ Babylon “ its embodiment; His control of the issues of history, resulting in “ a new heaven and a new earth,” and in the “ holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God “ (Revelation 21:1-2). Naturally, as we shall find to be the case also with Isaiah 1:1-31 the Kingship of Christ has as its background and condition the Kingship of God. Hence God is, above all, set forth as “the Almighty” (Revelation 4:8, Revelation 11:17, Revelation 15:3, Revelation 16:7, Revelation 16:14, Revelation 19:6, Revelation 19:15, Revelation 21:22). The Apocalypse is the translation to the New Testament of the Old Testament conception, glorified in Christ. The Sonship of Christ, which links His Kingship with that of God, may almost be said to be the idealisation of that of the Davidic King (1 Chronicles 22:10), save that the name “the Lamb” points to the fulfilment of Isa. hii, as well as Isa. xi, in our Lord’s dominion. The Apocalypse is therefore the one clear exception to the supremacy of the Divine Fatherhood in the New Testament theology, and the force of the exception is destroyed by the simplicity of the explanation. The remaining books of the New Testament are not of such a nature as to exhibit Christian truth and life in relation to any dominant conception of the relationship between God and man.

We may therefore conclude this inquiry. Its results are easily summed up. The whole of our Lord’s teaching is governed by the one relationship of Fatherhood and sonship; as is also St. John s. The same is the case with St. Paul; his teaching, however, in its “ forensic “ elements enabling us to realise the vast and manifold functions which are included under the Divine Fatherhood. In the Epistle to the Hebrews the whole meaning of expiation and intercession is conceived 1 See Chapter IV. as governed by the same relationship. In 1 Peter, faith in the Fatherhood is influential, being treated as characteristic of Christianity, sonship being the mark of those who, otherwise, are viewed as successors of the old elect people. In the Apoc alypse alone its influence is not felt, and that because the visions which fill the writer’s mind are of conflicting kingdoms and their forces, ranged in secular conflict till the triumphant end.