CHAPTER III.
A CHRISTIAN MYSTIC.
PAUL, as we have seen, often takes his stand as a mystic upon common theistic ground. He speaks as a religious man; he feels his oneness with all who worship the Father in spirit and in truth, and who take a religious view of God,
of nature, and of the universe. But at other times he enters within the gate of Christian faith, and stands distinctly upon Christian ground. Then he speaks, not as one to whom Christianity is a refined form of theism, but as one whose thought and experience are rooted and grounded in Christ. His theology is positively and uncompromisingly Christocentric. Hence it follows that, while there are many of his mystical utterances which non-Christian readers unhesitatingly accept, there are others which find a responsive echo only in the hearts of Christian believers.To Paul as a Christian mystic the Reality of Realities whom he sought to know was manifested in Christ. Through Christ the personal knowledge of God, for which his spirit craved, was mediated. Christ had to him, as Ritschl has put it, "the religious value of God." The doctrine of the divine immanence was to him simply another form of the doctrine of the Real Presence. By baptizing it into the name of Christ, he gave to it a new significance. Interpreted in the light of his teaching, the declaration, "God is in His world," means, Christ is in His world; for "God in history" we are warranted to read, Christ in history; for "God in nature" we have the right to substitute, Christ in nature. Henceforth to us
"There are no Gentile oaks or pagan pines,
The grass beneath our feet is Christian grass."In Christ is found the key which unlocks the secrets of the universe. As a Christian mystic, Paul held direct communion with the Father through Christ. To adopt the phrase of the English mystic Juliana of Norwich, Christ was "the ground of his beseechings." He was his way of approach to the Father, the medium through which all his intercourse with Heaven was carried on. The unseen world with which he kept in touch was the world which the Christ who came from it had brought to light. All the revelations of the heavenly world which he saw had Christ for their central figure. The good and bad angels which peopled the air 53 were under the control of Christ. To him the good angels paid worship, and upon Him, as the ladder of communication between heaven and earth, they "ascended and descended" on their errands of mercy (John i. i8). The. consummation for which he looked was the triumph of the Messianic Kingdom. At the heart of things he saw a form of energy at work making for reparation. The world upon which he looked was a world within which redeeming power had been lodged, and which was therefore on its long and painful way towards the realisation of its redemption. He plainly states that the eternal purpose of God "which He purposed in him, unto a dispensation of the fulness of times," had as its object "to sum up all things in Christ, the things in the heavens, and the things upon the earth" (Eph. 1. 10). In Christ, the Redeemer of man, the eternal purpose of God was to be consummated.
The mysticism of St. Paul is, in a word, Christian, because it is founded upon a direct and personal relationship with Christ. Like other parts of his Christianity, it grew out of a first- hand experience of Christ. In it experience and theology are inextricably intertwined. It is not so much something thought out as it is something which has entered, as a moral force, into consciousness, through experience.
Among the constituent elements of Christian mysticism as found in Paul, we would note the following:
A VISION OF CHRIST.
With this his new life as a Christian man began. In every instance in which he refers to the great crisis of his life, when his career of persecution was checked, and the entire current of his life was changed, he makes special mention of a vision of the glorified Christ. The time when the vision came to him was when he was on his way to Damascus, on the extermination of the pestiferous Christian sect intent. He was just entering the shady avenue which sloped down the hill at the foot of which Damascus lies; the fiery sun was blazing in the mid-day sky, when suddenly a light above the brightness of the sun shone round about him. Falling prostrate to the ground in amazement and terror, he heard a voice, which was something other than "the echo of his surging thought and feeling," saying to him, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me ?" With that searching, melting question Saul was "apprehended." Christ laid His hand upon him, claiming him as His own, and he yielded himself up at once. When strong natures like his give up, they give up completely. Their surrender is absolute and irreversible.
The absurdity of the theory that Saul was suffering from the effects of a sunstroke and the evidence that his mind was alive are seen in the question, "Who art thou, Lord?" "I am Jesus whom thou persecutest," was the answer; "it is hard for thee to kick against the goad." Conscience was evidently at work in the breast of Saul. He was beginning to have misgivings. Like a refractory ox, kicking against the goad of his driver, he was kicking against conviction. The martyrdom of Stephen had in all probability made a deep impression upon him. The witnesses who stoned Stephen had cast their outer garments at his feet. In Stephen's triumphant death he saw an illustration of the power of Christian faith. A Spanish painter represents him as walking at the martyr's side with a melancholy calmness, having upon his countenance the shadow of his coming repentance. Augustine unhesitatingly declares, "the Church owes Paul to the prayer of Stephen." Stephen's martyrdom was at least one link in the chain of events leading to Saul's conversion. But whatever was working in his mind before this time, it was only now that he really knew Jesus of Nazareth as Messiah and Lord. The moment this truth broke in upon him, trembling and astonished he exclaimed, "Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?" To the heavenly vision he yielded instant and unqualified obedience. He was now ready for any sacrifice; ready to lift up the standard which had fallen from the hands of Stephen; ready to go any- where or do anything that his newly found Lord might command. Henceforth his proudest title was " bond-servant of Jesus Christ."
This vision must not be reduced to an in- ward impression made upon the mind of Paul during a trance. It was a direct revelation of the presence of the risen, living Christ. With Paul the conviction was unshaken that he had actually seen the radiant form of the glorified Redeemer. But whatever the nature of this epiphany, it afforded him indubitable evidence that Jesus of Nazareth was risen from the dead, and was therefore to be accepted as the true Messiah. It was also adduced as affording valid proof to others. After enumerating the in- stances in which Jesus had appeared to those who were specially prepared to receive Him, he adds, "Last of all He was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time" (I Cor. xv. 8). How glad we are to receive the testimony of such a man regarding the resurrection of Christ! Paul was not the sort of man to be deceived; he was not the sort of man to be swept off his feet by the great surging waves of emotion which then rolled over his soul. He maintained his intellectual balance. He knew that the vision which had come to him in that "eternal moment on the Damascus road" was real, and not the effect of an overheated or diseased imagination. The question, "Have not I seen the Lord Jesus?" was to him the end of all argument.
In this experience, as Wernle has said, Paul found "the genesis of his gospel and apostle- ship." 1 He argued that if Christ was not risen he had no gospel to preach, and no apostolic testimony to deliver. When the reality of his conversion and the validity of his apostolic call were questioned by Peter and James, it is said that "Barnabas brought him to the Apostles and related to them how he had seen the Lord in the way, and had spoken with Him" (Acts 1X. 2). That was enough. The Christian experience and apostolic call of one who had seen the Lord and spoken with Him, were not for a moment to be doubted.
1 Beginnings of Christianity, vol. ii. p. 280.
Paul's experience had a miraculous setting. Connected with it were certain outward conditions which can hardly be expected to be repeated in the present day, when Christianity is its own witness. But what was essential in it--the personal revelation of Christ to the soul --is an abiding fact in Christian consciousness. In another form "the heavenly vision" still is given. "Not with our mortal eyes," but with the inseeing eyes of faith, "do we behold our Lord." The same inward illumination by which Paul saw a face which his companions did not see, the same spiritual sensitiveness by which he heard a voice which they did not hear, may still be ours. A cloud of witnesses stand ready to testify that Christ has appeared to them in the way, that they have heard His voice, and have received from His hands substantial benefits. "What they have received assures them that He is alive, that He is within reach, and that He is the Saviour and Lord of men. That they have received those blessings in answer to their faith in Christ, is a matter of personal consciousness. They know it, as they know that fire burns." 1 The validity of this testimony nothing can overturn.
1 The Living Christ and the Four Gospels, R. \V. I)ale, p. `0. 59
AN INWARD REVELATION.
The outward vision of Christ became an inward revelation. The Christ who was revealed to Paul was revealed in him. The veil was taken completely away, and in his inner consciousness he knew Christ not after the flesh, but in the glory of His divine nature. He refers to the effect of this inward revelation in the words, "When it was the good pleasure of God, who separated me, even from my mother's womb, and called me through His grace to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood" (Gal. 1. i6). Paul trusted this inward revelation implicitly, never questioning whither it might lead him. As soon as it came to him he sought to carry out the work to which he had been called by the grace of God, and set apart on the ground of fitness. He took counsel of no man, but went the way the Spirit led, fulfilling with fidelity his destined mission of preaching to a sinful world--to which Christ had made him debtor--the good news of salvation.
By the outward vision he became a Christian, by the inward revelation he was initiated into the apostleship. It was adduced by him as indubitable evidence that he was a divinely- called apostle--that he had received his com- mission directly from God. He was an apostle "not from man, neither through man, but through Jesus Christ, and God the Father who raised Him from the dead" (Gal.1:1). No ordaining hands were laid upon him but those of God. His authority to preach came neither from a human source nor through a human channel. It came direct from heaven through Christ. The proof that he possessed it did not consist in a parchment carried in the hand, but in an experience carried in the heart ; it consisted, in fine, in the engendering of the apostolic spirit and the bestowment of apostolic gifts. In his defence before Agrippa, he represents Jesus as saying to him, when first He crossed his path, "To this end have I appeared unto thee, to appoint thee a minister and a witness in those things wherein thou hast seen Me, and in the things wherein I will appear unto thee" (Acts xxvi. 16, 17). As touching the gospel which he was given to preach, he distinctly affirms, "It is not after man. For neither did I receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came to me through revelation of Jesus Christ" (Gal. i. II, 12). This may mean that his gospel came out of the personal revelation of Christ--that in that revelation he found his message; or it may mean that Christ revealed it to him directly--not necessarily by formal words, but in all likelihood by inward suggestion and illumination; and that in that inner revelation, which consisted in an understanding of the spiritual significance of what he had seen, was found his
message. Whichever view be adopted, the practical result is the same. Paul was convinced that he had a message so personal and so unique that he could speak of it as "my gospel." It bore no ecclesiastical hall-mark. It had upon it
the stamp of heaven. Hence it was clothed with divine authority.It has been suggested that Paul may have had the memory of this inward revelation in view when he penned the words, "It is God that said, Light shall shine out of darkness, who shined in our hearts to give the illumination of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (II Cor. iv. 6). It was from the face of Christ that there came the inshining light which filled every chamber of his soul with the glory of God.
This interior revelation was not given as the reward of ascetic austerities,--which is the Roman Catholic conception of ecstatic vision,--it was given of God's good pleasure, and it was given for a practical end. Its object was to make the way of duty clear, and to incite to its performance. Vision and prevision always go together. A vision of Christ is always accompanied with a vision of duty. The heavenly vision which is given in Christ is a vision of the heavenly life
brought down to earth. No man can get a glimpse of the glory of Christ to whom this life appears as it did before. No man ever saw Christ who did not hear a voice calling him to a higher life. Christ has some distinctive mission upon which He wishes to send every one to whom He manifests Himself. The revelation He gives is never an end in itself. With every revelation is connected a task. We are never allowed to build our tent upon the heights of transfiguration,
but must go down to the unfinished work that awaits us, inspired and strengthened by the mystic vision which we have seen on the holy mount.
IN THE ARABIAN DESERT.
After receiving his divine commission, Paul had a brooding time. Before entering into the work to which he had been called, he was led to go apart for a season of preparation. The reference to this experience is somewhat vague, but it is full of suggestiveness. Instead of going up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before him, Paul himself says, "I went away into Arabia, and again I returned unto Damascus. Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to become acquainted with Cephas" (Gal. 1.17, 18).Touching the place of his retirement, its duration, and object, there has been a great variety of conjectures and opinions. The place was, in all probability, Arabia of the Wanderings--a place of hallowed memories. The duration--
according to the Jewish manner of reckoning, which puts part of a year for the whole--may have been, and probably was, less than two years. Concerning the object, Conybeare and Howson suggest that it could only have been "for the purpose of contemplation and solitary communion with God; to deepen his repentance, and fortify his spirit with prayer." 1 Meyer thinks that the retirement into Arabia is to be looked upon "not as having for its object a general
preparation, but as a first, certainly fervent experiment of extraneous ministry." 2 Stalker says that "after his conversion he naturally wished to retreat into solitude and think over the meaning and issues of that which had befallen him." 3 Dr. Edwin Hatch looks at the matter in this way: "A great mental, no less than a great bodily convulsion naturally calls for a period of rest; and the consequences of his new position had to be drawn out and realised before he could properly enter upon the mission work which lay before him."4 Perhaps all of these considerations must be taken into account fully to understand the significance of this incubation period in the life of Paul. This Arabian experience came, like the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness, immediately before entering upon his public mission. God allured him, and brought him into the wilderness that He might speak comfortably unto him. He needed rest; he needed further light; he needed time to take his bearings, to gather himself together, and to lay out the plan of his life; and, above all, he needed to get nearer to God, and to be filled more completely with His Spirit. Most of his time in Arabia was doubtless spent in long periods of fasting and prayer, although part of it may have been spent in preaching the gospel at Damascus and other places. During these lonely wilderness vigils, what wonderful experiences he must have had! What deep communings with nature and God! what heart-searchings; what seif-emptyings; what scrutinising of motives; what clarifying of vision; what readjustment of values; what outbreathings of holy desire; what inbreathings of divine life; what burning of heart as Christ drew near and opened to him the Scriptures; what kindling of love to Christ; what awakening of compassion towards those who are without; what stirring up of passion for the salvation of a lost world. Out of Arabia he came with a life re-made; and with a fixed and clear purpose of missionary consecration, from which he never swerved.Every great soul has his Arabia--his seasons of solitude--seasons of silent communion and meditation in which he dwells in the presence of the Everlasting. By the influence of these mystic seasons the whole future life is shaped.
Every man has to withdraw from the babblement of the world, and listen to the voice of his own soul, and to the voice of God, before he is prepared for his high calling. The man is to be pitied who is afraid to go into Arabia; or who, going into it, finds it a voiceless desert."God is not dumb, that He should speak no more.
If thou hast wanderings in the wilderness
And find'st not Sinai; 'tis thy soul is poor."
LOWELL.There are some like Paul, who in their desert wanderings find Calvary. There they pitch their tent. And, coming down from its sacred heights, they are transfigured with a greater glory than that which shone from the face of Moses when he came down from the mount where he had communed with God face to face.
1 Life and Episacs of Paul, p. 94.
2 Life of St. Paul, p. 51
3 See note on Gal. 1. 17
4 Art. "Paul" in Encyc. Bibi.
THE MYSTICAL UNION.
The union of the soul with God is the goal of mysticism. The union of the soul with God through Christ is the basic principle of Christian mysticism A further step is taken by the Christian mystic when for union with God through Christ he substitutes union with Christ as God. In the experience of Paul the divine union generally took the latter form. His mystical union with Christ as God was the central fact in his experience as a Christian man. The Christ whose vision filled his soul was the Christ with whom he was "inextricably united" (so Dr. Marcus Dods); the Christ in whom his
personality was embraced, as the personality of a child is embraced in that of his mother, was the manifested God. Personal union with a divine Redeemer was the secret of his life.The pulpit of a few years ago made a great deal more of the mystical union between Christ and the believer than the pulpit of to-day is making. To the old divines the mystical union was a great mystery, which they accepted without
attempting to explain. What they were sure of was that it was real, and that it was the fundamental thing in their religious experience. It was to them a matter of fact even when it might not be a matter of present feeling. Upon the certainty of it they fell back even when not actively conscious of it. In every storm they anchored in the belief that the union between themselves and Christ was one which nothing could ever sever.In recent years certain groups of Christian students and workers, like the Keswick school in England, have made the doctrine of the believer's union with Christ central in their teaching; and while they may not have been always free from exegetical vagaries and from exaggerated representations of truth, they have done not a little to quicken and edify the lives of Christians. To their gatherings many have repaired to find a spiritual uplift which they have failed to find elsewhere. In the region which they explore, and over which they sometimes seem to claim proprietary rights, lie the treasures of truth by which the spiritual life is enriched. Perhaps the main service which they have rendered to the religious thought and life of the times has been the emphasising of the mystical side of the Pauline theology. While
preserving the doctrine of justification by faith in its forensic setting, they have found in it an explanation of the method by which the soul is related to God, and made a partaker of that Divine and enduring life from which all the fruits of holiness spring.The doctrine of the mystical union reaches to the borderland between truth and error, and the step across the unseen boundary-line is easily taken. The error into which many have fallen is that of deducing from the union of man with God the doctrine of "deification." The man in union with God has been regarded as part of God, a spark of His essential life, a particle of His divine essence. "The unity of our spirit in God," says Ruysbrock, "exists in two ways, essentially and actively"; and Eckhart gives this illustration, "As the fire turns all that it touches into itself, so the birth
of the Son of God in the soul turns us into God, so that God no longer knows anything in us but His Son." It is surprising to find such a sober conservative thinker as Dr. Charles Hodge following suit in the remark, "By our
union with Christ we partake of His humanity as well as of His divinity; His theanthropic nature is conveyed to us with all its merits, excellences, and glories." Now, whatever the mystical union may mean, it certainly cannot mean that our nature is in every sense identical with Christ's, or that His is substituted for ours. The divine union is not to be xplained in a pantheistic sense as annihilating the will, by absorbing one life into another so as to obliterate moral personality and responsibility and put man on "the further side of good and evil." This swallowing up of individual life would make man a mere automaton, moving as he is moved. Clement and Origen in their day lifted up their protest against this doctrine, which, according to their phrasing of it, made man "consubstantial with God." They saw whereunto such a doctrine would inevitably lead. They saw that whoever accepted it would, like the initiate of the Greek Mysteries who
was told, "Thou shalt be a god instead of a mortal," walk with prideful feet, and fall into the pit of humiliation, which the humble alone escape. The best of the mystics have been careful to avoid this danger. When Esaias Steifel advanced the proposition, "I am Christ," he was censured by Jacob Boehme, who said, "The believer is, on the contrary, Christ's instrument--a small, humble, and fruitful sprout."1Fully to define or explain the mystical union is impossible. It can be known only in part. "The fact, the experience transcends our analysis," says Bishop Moule, "but it is not beyond our faith, nor beyond our reception and inward
verification." 2 It is as mysterious as life, and is as much in evidence--" the fruits of righteousness" which it produces being patent to all. One thing is clear, it is marked by a moral quality. It is the moral insphering of one life in another;
* the blending of one life with another, so that, while remaining separate and distinct, they have but one heart-beat, one will, one purpose. When Christians are said to be "partakers of the divine nature" (II Pet. ii. 4), this must not
therefore be understood to mean that they partake of the essential nature of the Godhead, but of the divine moral nature. They are not clothed with divine attributes, but are filled with divine impulses, governed by divine principles, and inspired by divine aims.1 Dorner, History of Protestant Theology, vol. ii. p. 181
2 Studies in Philippians, p. 33.Recently the question has been discussed with unnecessary sharpness, as to whether the union of the believer with Christ is "a moral union merely," or whether it has in it a "biological" element.1 "Moral to the core" it undoubtedly is; but to say that does not exhaust its meaning. Entering into the experience of it is a sense of the impact of a life upon a life,--the passing of a life into a life,--a thing which defies analysis, but which is related to moral action as being to doing, or as nature to character. Underlying all ethical observances, and accounting for them, is a spirit, or principle, or vital force, which is as much greater than they as a cause is greater than its effects. This new spirit, or principle, or force, is spoken of as a birth or creation. In all the states of consciousness to which Paul refers as making up Christian
experience, it is ascribed to Christ. From union with Him comes a new moral potentiality. His love is the upflowing sap by which the moral life of the Christian is nourished. He imparts, not new powers, but new tower. The gospel
which makes him known is the dynamic energy of God, working unto salvation in every one who becomes united to Him by faith.1See discussion by Dr. Denney and Professor Peake in The Expositor for Jan. and Feb. 1904.
But while we can never comprehend the mystery of the mystical union, we may in some measure apprehend it. And because of its doctrinal and ethical importance, we cannot turn aside from its study without suffering loss. As we ponder over it, it behooves us, in view of the limitation of our powers, to look to the source of light, and pray:
"Oh teach me, Lord, to know and own
This wonderous mystery:
That Thou with us art truly one,
And we are one in Thee."By the use of the following key-words the doctrine of the mystical union taught by Paul may be still further opened up.
I. INCORPORATI0N.--So close and intimate is the union of Christ and the believer, that Paul likens it to the union of the body with its members. * "Now are ye the body of Christ," he says, "and severally members thereof" (1 Cor. xii. 27).Carrying out this figure still further, he declares that as a man cherishes his own flesh, so Christ cherishes the Church, "because we are members of His body" (Eph. v. 30). Christians are members of His body, not, of course, in a literal, but in a spiritual sense. They are members of His mystical body. They have their life in Him; they are nourished and sustained by Him. His love is the life-blood which circulates in their souls. They are incorporated into Him, so that they form, as Augustine says, una persona, or, as the German mystics were wont to say, unus Christus. The members are many, but the body is one, and the body is Christ. "The members and the head," says Louis de Leon, "are one Christ."
2. UNIFICATION. -- The mystical union was not with Paul such an indefinite thing as "unification with the Infinite." It consisted in unification of the spirit of man with the spirit of Christ. He taught that "he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit" (i Cor. vi. 17). That is, he is one spirit with his Lord. The spirit of Christ, which is the emanation of His consciousness, has entered into him and become his. This new spirit assimilates everything to itself. It takes hold of the disturbing and hurtful things in a human life and brings them into harmony with the rule of Christ. In the struggle between the under and the upper sides of man's nature, it gives victory to the latter. The body is kept under, and the spirit is on the top. There is more than "an ethical harmony of two mutually inclusive wills"; the two wills blend into one; and that point is reached, described by Rabbi Gamaliel, when he exclaims, "0 Lord, grant that I may do Thy will as if it were my will; that Thou mightest do my will as if it were Thy will."
Between Christ and the soul of man there exists a ground of affinity, or this unification would not be possible. The soul was made for Christ, and finds its true life in union with Him. The interfusion of moral personalities, which takes place when Christ and man are mystically united, implies an original oneness of nature. Hearts like metals fuse together when they have qualities in common. A scion can be grafted upon a stock only when it is in alliance-condition with it. That man is capable of coming into union with Christ is his glory. It is also the ground of his responsibility touching his salvation. He cannot save himself, but he can receive the spirit of Christ into his heart that he may be saved. And so essential is this act of reception, that Paul declares, "If any man hath not the spirit of Christ he is none of His" (Rom. viii. 9). The spirit of Christ in the spirit of man is the potent means of the unification of the spirit of man with the spirit of Christ; and the unification of the spirit of man with the spirit of Christ is that which makes man His.
3. IDENTIFICATI0N.ÄThat is, the identification of one life with another, so that there is oneness of thought, of desire, and of deed. When one life is in another they become in a sense identical. This is indicated in Paul's words, "For to me to live is Christ" (Phil. i. 21). What a mystical utterance ! It means that Christ was his life (see Col. iii. 4), the spring of thought and feeling, the source of his outward activities. Apart from Christ he had no motive or aim in life.
This intersphering of one life with another is characterised by Dr. George B. Stevens as "mystical realism "--being mystical in the sense that it is inscrutable, and real in the sense that it represents a real and actual spiritual relation to Him.1 The form in which it is most frequently set forth by Paul is that of being "in Christ." Of this expression Dr. Farrar remarks that "it contains the quintessence of Paul's theology." With this Dr. Pfleiderer agrees, and holds that "the mystical element in Paulinism depends immediately and exclusively upon Paul's notion of faith," and that in the formula " in Christ " is found the centre from which his mystic faith springs. That pregnant "formula" he explains as implying that "the believer gives up himself, his own life, to Christ, and possesses the life of Christ in himself; he is in Christ,. and Christ is in him; he died with Christ, and Christ becomes his life." 2 Being "in Christ" he is so identified
with Him as to be one with Him spiritually and ethically.1 The Pauline Theology, pp. 32, 256.
2 Paulinism, vol. i. p. 199.But what is it to be "in Christ " ? It is to be in the sphere of His influence ; it is to be inside the circle in which His power savingly operates. Into this inner sphere man comes voluntarily. He unites himself with Christ, and He abides in
him, by the exercise of voluntary adhesion. He keeps himself in Christ's love as the soil in which his life is rooted. This he does by faith-- which is the act of personal identification with Christ.4. TRANSFORMATION.--The mystical union is connected with a new ethical experience. " If any man is in Christ he is a new creation" (II Cor. v. 17); life is remade; chaos gives place to cosmos; the character that was without form
and void is transformed and transfigured into the likeness of the divine ideal.The divine union implies on Christ's side the forthputting of moral, suasive influences, which reach the centre of personality, and lead to the production of new choices, and to the progressive transformation of man into the divine
image. It implies on the human side a continual effort to attain conformity to the likeness of Christ. The working of a new creative spirit within leads to that "free imitation of God" which was regarded by Plato as the highest aspiration of man; and which Paul enjoins in the words, "Be ye imitators of God as beloved children" (Eph. v. i). We imitate God by copying "the express image of His person" given in the life and character of the Christ of history. Modifying the words of the dying Plotinus, "I am striving to bring the god which is within me into harmony with the God which is in the universe," every Christian should say, "I am striving to bring the divine ideal within me into harmony ,with the Ideal Life which shines out in the pages of gospel story."5. FELLOWSHIP.--From union comes communion, companionship, friendly intercourse. The German mystics, at whose fire Luther kindled his torch, called themselves "Friends of God," in accord with the saying of Christ, "Hence-
forth I call you not servants, but friends." To this title all Christians can lay claim. They have been called by a faithful God into fellowship with His Son Jesus Christ (i Cor. v. 9). Standing to Him in personal relationship, they enjoy the closest and tenderest intimacies. They go to Him with all their troubles and with all their joys; for they know that whatever concerns them concerns Him. These transactions with Him are the profoundest experiences in their lives. Their fellowship with Him has another side. It is of the nature of a practical partnership. It involves community of interests and aims. They seek the things that He seeks. They are "fellow-workers" with Him; labouring together in the same cause; pulling together in the same yoke; toiling side by side in building up the walls of the same temple. In the future of the kingdom they are mutually bound up. As joint-partners they share in its common gains and losses ; as joint-heirs they share in its certain triumphs and glories.
A MYSTICAL BROTHERHOOD.
Paul represents the union of all believers in Christ as resulting in their union with one another. Those who are united to Christ in a mystical body are united to one another in a mystical brotherhood. They are bound together not by ritual, nor by creed, nor by the iron hoop of external authority, but by the possession of a common life-principle. They are one in Christ. We see in their union, as Dr. Hort remarks, "the action, so to speak, of the Head on the whole body of the Ecclesia; the fitting together and knitting together of the whole, the spreading of life as from a centre, through every joint by which it is supplied." 1 Clement compares this fraternal union to a chain of rings held together by a magnet. His figure was one in which Christian Platonists delighted.2 Paul's figure, which is that of a living organism,
draws deeper. It makes the union a vital thing, and not a thing of outward organization. In his day the Church was just beginning to be organized into a corporate body. Wherever it was planted it took outward shape according to local conditions. Through the organization it became visible; but the real Church, the living organism, was invisible. It was the creative force by which the shell of outward organization was built up.1 The Christian Ecclesia, p. 162.
2 See The Christian Platonists of Alexandria, by Charles Bigg, p. 109.There is thus a Church within a Church,-- an invisible mystical Church, which runs through denominational limes, overleaps all sectarian barriers, and embraces all who are one in spirit, all who have been fused into one in the furnace
heat of a Christ-enkindled---love. There is between the members of this inner mystic circle of initiates a secret bond of union; a touch of nature which makes them kin; a spiritual freemasonry by which they recognise one another when they meet. They illustrate the principle that while outward things often disunite, spiritual things unite. To this inner fellowship, to which has been given the name of the Holy Assembly, belonged "the Brethren of the Common Life,"
an order which arose in the Netherlands, and of which Thomas a Kempis, the author of The Imitation of Christ, was a member. In those days of the Church's decadence such orders were compelled to go outside the pale for fellowship. In Paul's day it was not so. The Church was then a large family. Heathen onlookers were profoundly impressed by its close communion, and tried in vain to discover the bond by which its members were united. They fancied that they must be some occult order bound together by oaths and bloody rites for mutual protection, and for the propagation of their tenets. Little did they dream that they were the representatives of the highest and holiest order this earth has ever seen,--an order of elect souls, founded upon union in spirit, in love, and in a common service to the world by which they were reviled.As an idealist Paul saw the value of this mystic brotherhood. He saw what it was yet to be. He saw in it the nucleus of the larger brotherhood of a redeemed humanity; he saw in it the agency by which Christ's redemptive mission was to be accomplished. The communistic experiment of putting all worldly possessions into a common fund from which
everyone should draw according to need, had been tried, and failed. In such cold wintry skies the consummate flower of Christian communism could not live. The world was not prepared for an ideal so lofty. But the divine impulse which created it could not die; and there are those who still dream that the heaven born spirit of brotherhood, which then effloresced for one glorious moment, shall, in the fulness of the times, come to maturity in a larger and enduring form. Meanwhile this mystic brotherhood "increaseth with the increase of God" (Col. ii. 12), drawing into itself something of
earth's best ; losing its life that it may find it; silently filling the world with its expanding influence, and growing into "the fulness of him who filleth all in all" (Eph. i. 23).
MYSTICAL S0NSHIP.
Those who are mystically united to Christ are brothers in relation to one another, and sons in relation to God. They are members of a mystical family, which Paul calls "the household of faith" (Gal. vi. 10), and also "the household of God" (Eph. ii. 19), -- a household which is the archetype "from which every family in heaven and on earth is named"
(Eph. iii. 15).In his view of sonship Paul differs from John. According to John, sonship begins with birth; according to Paul, it begins with adoption. But Paul does not look upon adoption as a purely legal act implying merely the attainment of a
new standing; it is also a spiritual act implying the possession of a new spirit. He says to the Roman Christians, "Ye received not a spirit of bondage again unto fear; but ye received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father" (Rom. viii. 15). And to the Galatians he says, "Because ye are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father, So that thou art no longer a bondservant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God" (Gal. iv. 6, 7). His contention is that those who are placed in God's family have the spirit of sons,--the spirit of filial love and obedience; and that when they cry "Abba, Father," it is the Spirit of God who is speaking through them.The only instance in Paul's writings where there is a suggestion of sonship through birth, is in the highly mystical utterance, "My little children, of whom I am again in travail until Christ be formed in you" (Gal. iv. 19). Here it is through his own mother-love and through his own travail pains that the divine life already begotten in the heart comes to maturity. He travails for the children of his soul, "begotten by him in the gospel," suffering for them a mother's pangs until the Christ born within them be fully formed, and His image, which is their inward ideal, be clear and distinct. This idea of the birth and growth of Christ in the soul has always been a favourite one with the Christian mystics. The English Platonists affirmed that an infant Christ is born in every believer. Eck- hart was wont to say, "God begets His Son in me," as if he meant that there was a continual begetting in him of the life of Christ. What he ought to have said was, "God has begotten His Son in me; and the embryonic life is gradually coming into full development."
The birth of Christ in the soul is, of course, not a literal thing. It is the birth of the Christ-spirit, the spirit of love. As Christ by birth took upon Him the likeness of man, so by being re-born we take upon ourselves the likeness of God. Sonship implies community of nature between the son and the father. The son derives his nature from his fattier, and consequently he has the same nature as his father. Human parentage does not extend further than the body. God is "the Father of our spirits." Our inner natures were created in His image. "We are His offspring"; and we therefore speak in no figurative sense when we pray, "Our Father." But there is a still higher place in the scale of sonship to which we may rise. We can become God's spiritual children. We can become God- like in character. As we have borne the image of our earthly father, and have thus proclaimed our earthly lineage, so we can bear the image
of the heavenly Father, and thus proclaim our heavenly lineage.This new relation of sonship, into which we are brought when Christ is born in us and we are adopted into the family of God, is a matter of conscious experience. The agency by which the consciousness of this higher relationship is
awakened is the Holy Spirit. It is His function to establish in the heart the fact of our heavenly sonship. "The Spirit Himself beareth witness with our spirit that we are children of God" (Rom. viii. 16). His secret witness, which, according to Calvin, is necessary to the confirmation of faith, is direct and immediate. It is the witness of spirit with spirit. It consists not in a subjective inference, nor in a whisper or dream, nor in any shock of emotion, but in the
upspringing of a new spirit--the spirit of filial love and obedience. The fact to which the Spirit bears inward witness through this experience belongs to the region of mysticism, but we can no more doubt its reality than we can doubt
our own existence.
THE HOLY SPIRIT.What can be more mystical than the doctrine of the Holy Spirit as taught by Paul? The Holy Spirit is literally the holy breath--the out-breathed and inbreathed life of the Almighty. "He is a divine fire kindled in the soul,--a fire which man can keep alive or quench" (I Thess v. 19). He is at once a diffused spiritual activity, viewless as the wind, and a living person consciously present in the heart. In the words of Brownell, which Professor James quotes with approval, "The influence of the Holy Spirit, exquisitely called the Comforter, is a matter of actual experience, as solid as that of animal
magnetism." His influence is both mediate and immediate. He works not only through the word, but also directly upon the heart through the law of suggestion, and through the impact and pressure of His personal presence. The latter mode of influence is assumed in all the New Testament figures, which represent Him as "shed forth," "poured out," or as the element in which the soul is immersed.In the teaching of Paul touching the mystical presence and operation of the Holy Spirit, the believer is represented in the following ways:
(1) As possessed by the Spirit.--The idea of spirit-possession was a very common one in the days of Paul, but it usually took the form of the possession of evil spirits. In the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, Paul lifted the idea of spirit-
possession to a high place. He set the possession by the Holy Spirit over against possession by evil spirits. He made the salvation of man consist of the dispossession from his heart of the spirit of evil as an intruder and usurper; and the
possession of his heart by the Holy Spirit as its rightful owner. By the coming of the Holy Spirit into the heart, the principle of evil, whose name is Legion, is exorcised, and man is taken possession of for God.11 For a thoughtful unfolding of this idea see chap. vii. of The
Crown of Science, by A. Morris Stewart, D.D.To gain possession of man is the end for which He is continually working. He patiently waits until the heart-door is voluntarily opened, and then He enters, bringing blessings rich and satisfying.
(2) Indwelt by the Spirit .--The Holy Spirit takes up His permanent abode within the heart in which He gets a foothold. He keeps house there as Master, holding the key to every chamber, and filling the remotest corner with the glory of His presence. "Know ye not," exclaims Paul, "that ye are a sanctuary of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? the sanctuary of God is holy, and such ye are "(I Cor. iii. i6, 17). Mixing his metaphors, he represents believers in their united capacity as "growing into a holy sanctuary in the Lord," in whom they also "are builded together for a habitation of God in the Spirit" (Eph. ii. 22). This figure of a mystical temple composed of believing hearts in which the Holy Spirit dwells, is fraught with the deepest spiritual significance. The sanctuary of the Spirit must not only be kept clean, it must also be set apart for God's use. Upon this thought is founded the admonition of Ignatius, "Let us therefore do all things as becomes those who have God dwelling in them." 1
1Ep.adEph. 15.
The indwelling of the Holy Spirit is not, however, to be looked upon as a substitute for the indwelling of Christ. The Spirit is the unseen agent by whom the presence of Christ is made real and effective within the soul. There is a sense in which the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost was the descent of Christ. It was "the sequel and consummation of His incarnation." To be indwelt by the Holy Spirit is to be indwelt by Christ. It is in this way that we are to understand the mystical words of Paul, "Christ in you the hope of glory" (Col. 1. 27). This mystery, which was hid from all ages and generations and is now made manifest to the saints, is in substance that God has always been speaking in men's hearts and helping them in their upward struggles. The veil is now lifted, and He is seeking to bring them into the clear consciousness of His indwelling presence as the present and continuous source of their spiritual life; He is seeking by His Spirit to show them that it is Christ who dwells in their inmost being, the hope of glory; He is seeking to make the work of the Spirit effective, by bringing the Christ, whom He reveals, into the centre of consciousness, that He may hold direct intercourse with our spirits, informing them with His life, constraining them by His love, awakening within them the hope of glory by bringing them into conformity with the good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God.
(3) Taught by the Spirit.--The Holy Spirit is the source pf spiritual illumination. "There is a spirit in man, and the breath of the Almighty giveth them understanding" (Job xxxii. 8). Man is open to God; he is the subject of divine communications. The Holy Spirit has every soul under His instruction. His anointing opens blind eyes. As men are able to receive it, He gives unto them "the word of wisdom" and "the word of knowledge" (I Cor. xviii. 8).
When Jesus was about to leave His disciples, He gave them over to the tuition of the Holy Spirit, who was to be to them an inward source of progressive illumination, guiding them into all the truth. The Roman Catholic Church has accepted this doctrine of development, but it has not developed; Protestants have held by a stationary revelation, but they have made progress. And why? Because Roman Catholics have fallen below their creed, while Protestants have risen above their creed. The Holy Spirit is the living teacher of the Church. His course of instruction is never ended. Standing in the midst of ever changing conditions, the Church is to find out the lines along which He is leading her thought. She is, like Paul, to bend a listening ear, and hear what He is now saying unto the Churches.
(4.) Led by the Spirit .--This Paul regarded as an evidence of divine sonship. He emphatically declares that "As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God" (Rom. viii. 14). This leading hand many have felt who have not known their leader's name. The "divine sign" of Socrates, whether an attending daemon or a warning voice, `had in it at least the suggestion of a wisdom not his own, directing and shaping the events of his life. The directing power which Socrates called his "divine sign," and which men generally call Providence, Paul called the Holy Spirit. He felt that he was at all times and in all things led of the Spirit's soft and tender touch. To the Spirit's leadership he surrendered his life with an abandon born of unwavering faith.
At the first missionary conference, when the disciples prayed for guidance, "the Holy Spirit said, Separate me Barnabas and Paul for the work whereto I have called them" (Acts xiii. 2); and it is added that they, "being sent
forth by the Holy Spirit," set out at once on their missionary journey. Some time after, it is recorded that "they went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden of the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia; and when they were come over against Mysia, they assayed to go into Bithynia, and the Spirit of Jesus suffered them not" (Acts xvi. 6, 7). Upon the heels of this double prohibition Paul had a vision, in which a man of Macedonia appeared to him, beseeching him, and saying, "Come over into Macedonia and help us." "And when he had seen the vision," says Luke, "straightway we sought to go forth to Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel unto them" (Acts xvi. 10).From these illustrative incidents we see how the Holy Spirit sometimes held Paul back and at other times urged him on. He did his best to get to certain places, but an arrest was put upon his purpose, and he was led aside from a
path he had marked out into one he had never thought of. When turned from his purpose, he did not bemoan his fate, or beat his wings against the iron bars of the Spirit's restrictive edict. He accepted his disappointment graciously, submitting to the divine will, and turning his face and feet towards Macedonia as eagerly as he had turned them towards Bithynia. To their faith in the Spirit's guidance, mystics of all shades have testified. St. Martin says, "A secret thread holds God and the seeker's soul together, even when the way is loneliest and most perilous. He compares himself to a man fallen into the sea, but with a rope bound round his wrist, connecting him with the vessel." 11 Quoted from Editorial in the British Weekly. 29th June 1905.
How this direction is given we cannot tell. In all probability by inward suggestion or impression. One thing is sure, the Holy Spirit never violently restrains or compels. He gently guides the will so that a reversal of choice is made; and what is done under his influence is done freely. The surrender made is not that blind "abandonment" which Madame Guyon urged. Reason is not suppressed. Our candle is not blown out so that in the dark we may cling to an unseen hand. Inward illumination is received that we may see where to go. We are none the less divinely guided because our path is freely chosen.
(5) Controlled by the Spirit. --The Holy Spirit speaks with authority. Through Him Christ issues His commands within the soul. (See Acts 1. 2.) He speaks in the imperative mood, as one who expects to be obeyed. At a certain juncture in his life Oliver Cromwell said, "I begged that God would not lay this duty upon me." But God would not let him off; and the still small voice which spoke so commandingly, he hastened to obey.
Like Cromwell, Paul was controlled from within. He was sensitive to divine impression. He kept his soul open to the Spirit's influence. He accepted His slightest suggestion. His will was plastic, his heart responsive. He allowed the Spirit to have His own way with him in all things. Not that this control made his acts divine, as many mystics have unwisely imagined. The control being suasive, the distinction between good and evil choice was not rubbed out. To the Spirit's pressure he yielded consciously and freely. The things which the Spirit commanded were the things which he chose. Hence they were never grievous. Duty was a delight. Suffering and sacrifice were joyfully borne. He knew no deeper blessedness than that which came from conformity to the will of the divine Spirit, whose law was written
within the heart.(6) Helped by the Spirit.--Paul was a strong man, but he was not able to stand alone. He needed continual reinforcement of strength. In his defence before Agrippa he lays bare the secret of his life, when he says, "Having obtained help of God, I continue unto this hour" (Acts xxvi. 22). The help which he obtained was opportune, constant, and efficient. It enabled him to overcome difficulty and opposition, and fulfil the whole round of his duty.
It was ministered not at special times only, when great emergencies were to be met, but also in the ordinary course of daily life.The enduement of power from on high, which was Christ's special promise to His people, is always assumed by Paul to be a present possession, even when he does not distinctly speak of it. But he often does speak of it. He emphatically declares that God gave him "the Spirit of power" (2 Tim.1. 7); and that he lived "through the power of God" (II Cor. xiii. 4). He exhorts others to be "strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might" (Eph. vi. 10). He even glories in his own infirmities, that the power of Christ might rest upon him (II Cor. xii. 9). Evidently his life was grounded in dependence upon a higher power. The love of God which had been "shed abroad" in his heart through the Holy Spirit given to him (Rom. v. 5), suffused his nature with a new energy, which made him strong to serve and to suffer in the Master's cause. This mystical pervasive power, which is said to emanate from the Spirit, and to be realised in a Christ-born love, is the source of human help in every upward struggle; it is the vital sap which produces
life's richest ethical fruits ; it is the fountain from which come those chrismatic gifts by which the Church fulfils her ministry to the world. It is something that always can be counted upon; something which can never fail. Those who are helped of the Spirit are "marvellously helped," because they are divinely helped. They are lifted above all fear of failure; for behind them is a reservoir of power which can never be diminished, however much it may be drawn upon.
AN EXALTED CHRISTOLOGY.
After the vision of Christ's transcendent glory came to Paul, his attitude towards Him was changed. This change is expressed in the words, "Though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now we know Him so no more" (2 Cor. vi.i6). He did not know Him any longer as the despised Nazarene who had been put to death, but as the mighty Son of God who had risen from the dead; he did not know Him as a worldly prince who was to meet the carnal Messianic expectations of His fellow-countrymen, but as a spiritual Messiah who was to "save His people from their sins"; he did not know Him as a king whose kingdom was to be established by outward power, but as a king whose kingdom was to be established by the operation of spiritual forces. Consider some of the things which he attributes to Christ as he had come to know Him.(1) He is the Crown of Creation.--Of all the beings that ever came into this world, there is none that is higher than He. He is "the first-born of all creation" (Col.1:15). "In Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily" (Col. ii. 9). He is the head and crown of creation. As creation culminates in man, man reaches his culmination in Christ. Beyond Him
there is nothing.Paul ascribes the pre-eminence of Christ not to His colossal personality, which towers above all others and gives Him historic supremacy, but to the accomplishment of His mediatorial work. "Being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, yea, the death of the cross. Wherefore God highly exalted Him, and gave unto Him the name that is above every name: that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things on earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (Phil. ii. 8Äri). It is by His sacrificial death that He is exalted to the throne of kingly power; so that the name which He bore in His humiliation becomes the highest and most glorious of all earthly names. It is in this name, which stands as the symbol of suffering love, that all men unitedly bow.
(2) The Medium of creative power.--When Paul wrote his Epistle to the Colossians, the seeds of Gnostic philosophy were already sown within the Church. There were those who looked upon matter as essentially evil, and therefore
concluded that it could not have been created by God. Between God and the world there was supposed to be a descending series of intermediary powers through whom the work of creation was carried on. Paul brushes this
heresy aside, and declares that the creator of all things is Christ, " In Him were all things created, whether thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things have been created through Him and unto Him" (Col. 1:16). Creation was "in Him," therefore it had a redemptive origin; it was "through Him," therefore it had a redemptive medium; it was "unto Him," therefore it has a redemptive end. In Christ the secret of creation is disclosed.(3) The post-existent Saviour of men.--In the development of the Christology of Paul the post-existence of Christ came before His preexistence. The Christ whom he first knew was the risen Lord who appeared to him on the way. The fact that He had appeared to him was conclusive evidence that He had survived death. He believed that He was alive, and that His life was inseparably linked with his.
This experience of the living Christ has been continuous throughout the Christian centuries. Many in every age have been ready to testify to the consciousness of it. They claim that Christ has made Himself known to them as truly as He
did to Paul, and that they have had original experience of His grace and power. Take two examples. Samuel Rutherford, a Scotch mystic, who lived in stormy days, when persecution dragged men into fame and pushed them up to heaven, torn away from his quiet parish at Anworth, and debarred from preaching, wrote at the very time he was facing a martyr's death, "I never knew before that His love was in such a measure." "I creep under my Lord's wing
in the great shower, and the waters cannot reach me." "It was good for me to come to Aberdeen to learn a new mystery of Christ, that His presence is to be believed against all appearances." It is such testimonies as these that give to the "Letters" of Rutherford perennial interest, and make them as ointment poured forth. Let the other example be that of the Quaker, Isaac Pennington, who thus testifies: "I have met with my Saviour--I have felt the healings drop into my soul from under His wings."With this mystical experience of Christ, Paul's letters pulsate. In his thought Christ was not a historical person who was fast becoming a fading image and a blessed memory, but a living presence unseen to the eye of sense, but revealed to the eye of faith. " He saw Him spiritually," says President Edwards, "whom the world saw not."
(4) The pre-existent Son of God.--The movement of Paul's thought was from the post existent to the preexistent Christ. It was natural that his mind should run backward, and that he should ask, Whence came He? Does He belong to this earth; or did He come from the upper sphere ? Was His birth into this world the beginning of His existence, or did He exist before He was born? Paul was helped to his answer to these questions not only by his experience of Christ, but also by the current Jewish faith in a pre-existent Messiah. Paul transferred that idea to Jesus the Christ, and said of Him, "He is before all things" (Col 1. 17), --before all things in respect to time as well as to precedence. This is equivalent to the saying of John, "In the beginning was the Word." With Paul the pre-existence of Christ was not ideal, it was as real and concrete as His post-existence.
In a highly mystical text he carries back the mediatorship of Christ to a pre-existent state, by asserting of the Jewish fathers that they "did all eat the same spiritual meat; and did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of a spiritual rock that followed them: and the rock was Christ" (i Cor. x. 3, 4). The manna or "bread from heaven" of which they ate had a spiritual quality. It was "spiritual meat. The water of which they drank was "spiritual water." The smitten rock which ac- companied them was "a spiritual rock." To say that these things prefigured Christ does not sound the depth of the apostle's thought. He says expressly that " the rock was Christ." As the source of the supplies of grace to the Jewish fathers in their desert wanderings, it was a manifestation of His presence in His pre-existent nature. The essential unity of religious experience is thus based upon the essential and universal relation of Christ to
men.In Phil. ii. 7, which has been regarded as the great classic on the subject, the pre-existence of Christ is clearly assumed. Paul there exhorts Christians to imitate the humility of Christ, "who, being in the form of God, counted it not a prize to be on an equality with God, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of man." The statement that Christ was originally in the form of God evidently means that in a former state the glory of His divine nature was openly manifested. This being the case, He did not think that equality with God was a thing to be violently grasped. It belonged to Him by right. In becoming man He emptied Himself, not of His divine nature, but of His divine glory. He submitted to the limitations of human life, coming into it in a lowly way, "taking upon Him the form of a servant." He suffered His divine glory to be obscured. "There was an emptying as to use and manifestation, but not as to possession" (so Prof. Bruce). All the honour and privilege which He might have grasped were relinquished as the result of His being "made in the likeness of man." As He thought it not above Him to be equal with God, He thought it not beneath Him to be equal with men. But the divine glory which was hidden, as the sun is hidden behind a bank of clouds, kept bursting through. Men felt that He was more than He seemed to be. There was a hiding
of power which suggested the background of omnipotence. He was at once "God manifest in flesh" (I Tim. iii. 16), and God concealed in flesh. He was a denizen of earth, and yet a visitant from heaven.(5) He is the sole Mediator between God and man.--Through Him God is known. Because the Gnostic found in the Spirit dwelling in man the source and norm of all knowledge of God, he accepted the revelation of God in Christ only so far as he fancied that it agreed with the revelation in himself. Forsaking the sun for his own farthing tallow dip, the light that was in him became darkness. It is in Christ, "the image of the invisible God" (Col. i. 15), that God is seen. In Him the attributes of the Godhead are embodied. He is the Logos speaking out of the silence, and making known to men the mind and heart of God. In Him alone can God be fully known. "How vain, therefore, to seek to know God along other lines! How needless to approach Him by any sloping stairs of darkness! He is nigh, and may be known directly in Christ." 1
He can also be approached directly through Christ. The worship of angels which Paul condemns (Col. ii. I8) "was founded upon the false humility that man was too vile to approach God directly." There was a measure of truth in this position. Sinful man cannot of himself approach God directly. Mediatorship is a moral necessity. But mediatorship is not a half-way house at which man is to stop, it is the means of reaching a further goal. Paul's doctrine is that "there is one God, one mediator also between God and men, Himself man, Christ Jesus" (i Tim. ii. 5), through whom commerce with heaven can be carried on by sinful men. Speaking of the oneness of privilege enjoyed in the gospel by Jew and Gentile, he says, "Through Him we both have our access in one Spirit unto the Father" (Eph. ii. i8). And again, "In whom we have access and confidence through our faith in Him" (Eph. iii. 12). In Christ the relationship between God and man, which sin had destroyed, is restored. By Him man ascends to God, and God descends to man. Distance is obliterated. The two are brought together. They live within speaking distance, and they live upon speaking terms. They are united in eternal fellowship.
1 The Pauline Epistles, R. D. Shaw, D.D., p. 289.
2 The Epistle to the Colossians, G. w. Garrod, B.A., p.10.
(6) He is the bond 0/ union in the universe.--In Him all things consist " (Col. 1. 18) ; or, as the marginal reading of the Revised Version has it, "In Him all things hold together." He is the cementing power which binds into one all parts of the universe. There are intimations in Paul's writings that the influence of Christ's mediation reaches beyond the limits of earth, and that in some mysterious way, unknown to us, other worlds are affected by it. He speaks of God as "having made known unto us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Him, unto a dispensation of the fulness of times, to sum up all things in Christ, the things in the heavens and the things upon the earth" (Eph. 1. 9, 10). He speaks of the reconciliation which Christ has accomplished through the blood of His cross as affecting "things on earth and things in the heavens" (Col. i. 21). Not only are God and man brought together, heaven and earth are also brought together. The schism of sin is healed, and a connecting link between spirits is established. All parts of God's universe are brought into their original harmony as parts of one stupendous whole. A ladder of communication between earth and heaven is set up. Of that ladder Christ's human nature is the foot which rests on earth, and His divine nature the top which reaches to heaven. In Him heaven and earth are brought into closer relationship. In Him all things in the universe are made one, one with each other and one with God.
(7) He is the conqueror of death.--The strong statement of Paul is that He has "abolished death and brought life and immortality to light" (I Tim.1. 10). Death is not literally destroyed. Men die since Christ came just as they did before; but the power of death has been destroyed: its sting has been taken away. A new conception of it has been given; it is no longer the king of terrors. One of the figures under which Paul represents it is that of a child falling asleep on its mother's breast (I Cor. xv. 18). The doctrine of immortality was "imprinted on the mind in the very original," and was taught by seers and sages throughout all the ages. At best it had been vaguely apprehended, and so dim did it become at times that it was in danger of vanishing altogether. Paul, as Christ's interpreter, brought it to light in his gospel, so as
to make it stand out before the minds of men in all its sublimity and glory.In Himself Christ exemplified His doctrine of immortality by rising from the dead and becoming "the first-fruits of them that slept" (I Cor. xv. 20). His resurrection is at once the pledge and type of ours. Because He rose we shall rise; and in the way in which He rose we shall rise. "As we have borne' the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly" (1 Cor. xv. 49). By the operation of the creative spirit of life which Christ imparts, we shall be transformed and transfigured into the heavenly image which He bore when His disciples saw Him after His resurrection.
Paul's mysticism nowhere has fuller swing than n his treatment of the doctrine of the resurrection. Resurrection was to him more than resuscitation; it was, as the word which he employs suggests, an upstanding. Those who rise from the dead pass through to the other side and stand up clothed in a spiritual body fitted for the new sphere of activity upon which they enter. The nature of this spiritual body is not revealed. To call it an astral body does not convey a clearer idea. Two things are plain --it is a body (I Cor. xv. 44), and it is "like unto the body of Christ's glory "--the glorified body in which He appeared unto Paul on the Damascus road. It differs from the physical body in this, that it is not subject to the law of decay (I Cor. xv. 54). It grows out of the physical body as a flower grows out of a seed; and, being a thing of the Spirit's own making, it is the perfect organ of its expression and action. If it is true now, as the poet Spenser puts it, that
"Of the soule the bodie forme doth take,
For soule is forme, and doth the bodie make,"the same is true of the resurrection body. To this Paul adds a moral quality, thus implying that the manner of spirit any man is of will determine the appearance of his resurrection body. This is obviously the meaning of his words, "If the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwelleth in you, He that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead shall quicken also your mortal bodies through His Spirit that dwelleth in you" (Rom. viii. 11).
When men die they are not naked souls, but stand up clothed in a body for which they are responsible. Referring to the transition from the present life to the future life, Paul says, "We know that if the earthly house of our tabernacle
(or bodily frame) be dissolved, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For verily in this we groan, longing to be clothed upon with our habitation which is from heaven; so that being clothed
Upon we shall not be found naked. For, indeed, we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened; not that we should be unclothed, but that we should be clothed upon, that what is mortal may be swallowed up of life" (II Cor.
v. 1--4). What an enhancement of value to the present life does this view of the future bring! Life is not a fragmentary thing, but a thing of unbroken continuity and of endless progress. The future emerges out of the present like spring out of winter. Mother earth Stakes the body back into her kindly bosom; but the spirit, breaking its encasement, soars upwards, and finds itself mated to a new body, and surrounded by new conditions, which help in the promotion
of its fullest development.(8) He is the Lord of the future.--Paul rested all his hope of the future upon the Christ who had passed out of sight. He believed that He had risen from the dead, that He was still alive, that He had ascended to His native heaven, from which He would speedily return to dwell with His people and establish His kingdom on the earth. In unfolding his doctrine of the Parousia, in which this great hope blazes forth, he writes as a mystic. The second coming of Christ was to be "a revelation," or unveiling of the Christ who is hidden (2 Thess. I. 7); it was to be an "epiphany "--a bursting forth of His glory, which is now concealed (I Tim. vi. 14: Tit. ii. 13). It was not to be the coming of an absent Lord, but the revelation to the world of His presence--the manifestation of His kingly power and glory.
In dealing with the Parousia and the connected subjects of the resurrection, the judgment, and the consummation of all things, Paul writes as a mystic in rabbinical fetters. He borrows his figures from the apocalyptic literature of his time; yet it is overstating the case to say that he shared the current "uncouth" beliefs of his time regarding the wind-up of the world; "wearing them not as Saul's armour, but with the lightness and ease of those who have been made free by greater truths," and that, " later, the outworn ideas drop from the Gospel as the encasing sheath drops from the opening bud." 1 The figures in which he expressed the truth have no doubt lost much of their force, but the truth contained in them survives. The "ideas" are not necessarily dropped out because their form has changed. With more careful discrimination, H. A. A. Kennedy remarks that "it is important to note that the circle of events which St. Paul groups around the Parousia are no mechanical reproduction of current Judaistic ideas, but take all their colour from his own experience of the risen Jesus." 2 This experience, which formed the spiritual crisis in his own life, formed "the energizing and organizing centre" of his theology; so that, as Holtzmann has said, "his entire system of doctrine was the exposition of the content of his conversion, the systematising of the Christophany."1 The Story of St. Paul. a Comparison of Acts and Epistles, by B. W. Bacon, D.D., pp. 246, 247.
2 St. Paul's Conceptions of the Last Things, p. `74.Strictly speaking, the Parousia was not the approach, the arrival or coming, but the presence of Christ. The word can have nO other meaning than that of being present. It is surprising to find such a careful scholar as H. A. A. Kennedy
contending that "in the New Testament Parousia usually seems to have the idea of `arrival' in it, although there are one or two undoubted examples of the simple meaning `presence.' The surprise is heightened when he adds, "the difference of signification is of comparatively little importance, as either would suit the conception." 1 It is safe to say that a more important distinction can hardly be imagined. For surely it is a matter of the utmost importance whether Paul, in common with the Christians of his day, looked for Christ to arrive in a dramatic, miraculous, and physical way, or whether he looked for Him to descend from heaven in the power of His spiritual presence to remain continually at his side, to dwell within His Church, and to lead the hosts of righteousness to victory? With the importance of this distinction in view, Jowett says, "The habitual thought of the first Christians was not so much a `coming' as a `presence,' as the word implies." What they looked for was the presence of the Lord. Without Him they were powerless. His presence would be a guarantee of the ultimate success of the cause in which they had embarked. It was to be signalised by an inbreaking of spiritual power, from which would issue a great spiritual movement that would go on through the centuries with ever-increasing momentum, until the purposes of redeeming grace should be accomplished. The Parousia was the day of Christ's power--the beginning of His world-wide conquest. It was not exhausted in Paul's time, but is a present and a progressively developing fact. The signs which accompanied its inauguration were external, but the Parousia itself was spiritual. The destruction of the Holy City and the passing
away of the ancient Jewish system were the outward signs that what was vital in the Messianic hope was fulfilled in a new way, and that the age of the spirit had come.1 St. Paul's Conceptions of the Last Things, p. 186.
In the new dispensation to which Paul looked longingly forward, the distinctive thing was to be the presence of Christ. If the hope he awakened is now being fulfilled, the Church of to-day, instead of looking for the return of her absent
Lord, ought to live rejoicingly in the consciousness of His presence, and look hopefully for a constantly increasing manifestation of His sovereign power.The Parousia was something which Paul expected to happen in his own day. In this hope he never wavered. It is no sufficient explanation of his hope to say that it was a "prophetic forecast," founded upon the principle that a speedy development of events is characteristic of all extreme eschatological expectation (so Kennedy), or that his prophetic vision, which saw the end in the beginning, compressed great movements within a brief space (so Dr. A. B. Davidson). Paul felt that he stood at the parting of the ways; one age was drawing to its close, another was about to dawn. To him "the end of the age" was the end of the Jewish age then current; and "the age about to come" was the Christian age now current.
Was Paul mistaken and disappointed, and did he afterwards change his mind regarding the Parousia ? Is this implied in his declaration, "I am in a strait between two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ; for it is very far better?" (Phil. 1. 23). No, a thousand times no! To die was to go into the immediate presence of Christ in the unseen world. It was to walk with Him by sight. Paul's early hope of witnessing the Parousia continued unabated; but as the day of life declined, and the presence of the Lord drew near, the two events began to synchronise; and while cherishing the hope that he might live to see the mystic vision of the Son of man coming in His kingdom, he thought it better, even with that prospect in view, to depart and be with Christ in the heavenly glory.
(9) He is King of a mystical kingdom.--When Paul's conception of the Messiahship of Christ was spiritualised, his conception of His kingdom was necessarily spiritualised also. He hence-forth looked for a kingdom which was "not of
this world"; a kingdom which would ultimately become externalised, but which in its earlier stages would be hidden from the eyes of men--a kingdom whose very existence would often be scoffingly denied. Not with outward pomp and show was that kingdom to come, but by the power of spiritual forces working silently and secretly as leaven.It is a narrowing of the truth to say that the fundamental belief of Paul was that Jesus was to fulfil Messianic expectation. This is the view adopted by Paul Wernie. He says, "Christianity is but Judaism with its hopes fulfilled." It is that, of course; but it is more, much more. It is the fulfilment of human hope. The Messianic mould into which Christianity was at first poured gave way with the weight of the larger truth which it contained, and a wider category had to be found. The Messiah of the Jews became the Saviour of the race and the fulfiller of the world's hope. The national idea gave place to the world-idea, and a kingdom which was circumscribed to a kingdom which "ruleth over all."
The position taken by some modern scholars, that in Paul's teaching the kingdom of God is purely eschatological, is utterly untenable. Prof. Shailer Mathews affirms that the kingdom of God is represented in the New Testament as
being "still in the future. Repentance was urged, not as a means of bringing in the kingdom, but as a preparation for membership in it, when in the Father's good pleasure it should appear. The kingdom is a gift of God, destined to come, not as the product of social evolution, but suddenly, as something already prepared before the foundation of the world. It is to be inherited and found rather than constructed." 1 J. Weiss occupies the same ground, yet he is forced to admit that "in Paul the eschatological tension is strongly counterbalanced by his Christ-mysticism. He who through the Spirit is united with Christ and lives in Him, has surmounted time and space." 2 On its formal side Paul's
conception of the kingdom is without doubt prevailingly eschatological, but on its inner side it is a present spiritual reality--something realised in Christian consciousness. It is said to consist of "righteousness and peace, and joy in the
Holy Spirit" (Rom. xiv. 17); it comes "not in word, but in power" (I Cor. iv. 20); it is entered into now--those who believe in Christ being delivered by God "out of the power of darkness, and translated into the kingdom of the Son of His love" (Col.1. 13). Instead of being something which is to come in suddenly in the future in a full-fledged form, it is some- thing which continues to grow by the power of its ever-expanding life.1 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament, by Shailer Mathews, p. 72.
2 Die Predig: Jesu vom Reiche Got/es, p. 61.
There are three spheres in which the sovereignty of Christ is now being realised. It is being realised in the heart of the believer. There His kingdom is set up. There He reigns supreme, and reigns alone.It is being realised in the unseen realm. When He rose from the dead He ascended on high, leading captivity captive (Eph. iv. 8)--not only vanquishing death, but delivering the preChristian righteous dead from Hades, mystically Uniting them with those who had died in the Lord, judging them all according to their works, making them partakers of His resurrection glory, taking them into partnership in the work of redemption, and bringing them into relations of practical helpfulness with the toiling, struggling saints on earth. In that upper sphere the Lordship of Christ is undisputed.
The sovereignty of Christ is also being realised in this world within an ever-widening circle. Whenever men accept His teachings as the law of their lives, they consciously or unconsciously bow before Him as their King; and by taking Him as the Lord of the conscience, whose moral authority is supreme, they admit His right to the world's judgeship. Because of the supremacy of His moral authority He has been "ordained of God to be judge of quick and dead" (Acts x. 42)Äjudging not only the deeds, but "the secrets of men" (Rom. ii. 16). Judgment, as Paul saw it, was a process ending in a crisis,-- it was at once continuous through every age, also a definite act at the end of every age. With his prophetic eye he saw that the Jewish nation was then ripening for judgment. Unfaithful to its high trust, it was about to be rejected. Events were about to culminate in the great and terrible day of the Lord. But his mind goes out much further, and grasps the idea of Christ as the universal King and Judge, before whose bar every soul of man must one day stand. The two ideas of a scenic and a universal judgment are combined in his declaration to the Athenians that "God hath appointed a day, in the which He shall judge the inhabited earth in righteousness by the man whom He hath ordained" (Acts xvii. 31). The decisions of that great day will be final and irreversible so far as the special opportunities of the present are concerned; upon them will hang the destiny of every soul, and his expulsion from or his place in the heavenly kingdom, in the ages to come.
In the eschatology of Paul the plan of God was to be consummated in Christ the unseen King. The allness which belongs to God was to belong to Him. He was to occupy the throne of universal dominion. There was no part of the
Universe over which His authority would not extend. The Alexandrian doctrine of the duality of the universe was alien to Paul's thought. He knew of only one head of the universe, Jesus Christ, "the blessed and only Potentate, the King of them that reign as kings, the Lord of them that rule as lords" (I Tim. vi. 15). Believing that He was able to subdue all things unto Himself, he had no doubt as to the issue of the world conflict. Looking far enough down the future, he saw Christ triumphant over every foe; His kingdom established on earth as it is in heaven; and Israel's hope, and the world's hope --which are essentially and fundamentally one-- fully realised.