Briefly glance at the teaching of St. Paul
Briefly glance at the teaching of St. Paul(TOC)
Next we must briefly glance at the teaching of St. Paul so far as it bears on our subject. It is universally acknowledged that in his doctrine of the believer's gracious relation to God the apostle makes the principle of the divine love absolutely supreme. But it is contended by many modern writers that Paul does not consistently adhere to this, because he continues to construe the pre-Christian natural and Jewish legal religious status of man on a meritorious basis, determined by the principle not of love but of righteousness; and in his theory of atonement and justification even permits this discarded principle to reassert itself in the specifically Christian sphere. So far as this professes to be a dogmatic or philosophical criticism of the apostle's position, we have nothing to do with it here. From a biblico-theological point of view, however, the question may be raised whether Paul failed to think out the ultimate consequences of his system in this respect, or whether perhaps he had in his own mind and to his own satisfaction so adjusted the attributes of love and righteousness to one another that they did not appear to him mutually exclusive.
We believe that the latter view is the correct one. In the act of atonement at least Paul finds the harmonious embodiment and revelation of both love and righteousness as coexistent and equally fundamental attributes of God. And, this being so, there is no reason to deny that the apostle so conceived of the scheme under which eternal life might hypothetically be secured, by fulfillment of the law, as to allow a place in it also for the manifestation of the divine love. We must not overlook that Paul hardly ever speaks of this scheme in the abstract, as it would operate under ideal conditions, but nearly always in concreto, as it operates under the actual conditions of the reign of sin. Where he does approach it from the former point of view, there is nothing to indicate that, after the extreme Jewish fashion he eliminates from it the principle of love as well as of grace. Paul nowhere condemns the law method of securing life as unworthy of God and irreligious in itself; on the contrary, the fact that he transfers it bodily to the relation to God which Christ assumed in our place proves that it appeared to him ideal from a religious point of view. On Christ as the substitute of sinners the love and righteousness of God terminated in perfect harmony, both so far as God and the Savior's own religious appreciation were concerned.
In the Pauline epistles, if anywhere, we might expect a deduction of the catholicity of the gospel from the principle of the universal love of God, if such a deduction could be logically made. For it goes without saying that to Paul as the great universalizer of the gospel, a principle of this import would have possessed immense practical value, not to speak of the theoretical interest his mind would naturally bring to its elucidation. The roots of Paul's universalism may be traced along the whole line of his doctrinal thinking. Here, however, we have not only to inquire in how far this universalism can be said organically to proceed from the apostle's theology in the narrower sense, from his doctrine of the nature and attributes of God. Confining ourselves to this, we find the principle of monotheism used as an argument in the plea for extension of the gospel to the Gentiles: "is he the God of the Jews only? Not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also: seeing it is one God, which shall justify the circumcision by faith, and the uncircumcision through faith" (Romans 3:29, 30). At another time it is the apostle's conception of the spirituality and righteousness of the divine character which leads him to the conclusion that if the uncircumcised Gentile were to keep the law, while the circumcised Jew transgressed the law, the former would be justified and the latter condemned. But this, of course, is spoken from the purely hypothetical standpoint of what we would call the covenant of works, and does not necessarily involve the application of the same principle to an order of grace. Nevertheless, in another passage Paul actually argues from the universal lordship of God over the world to the catholicity of the gospel: "There is no difference between the Jew and the Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him" (Romans 10:12). Still, it will be observed that the richness of grace stands here not in the premise, but in the conclusion. The fact remains, and it ought to teach us caution, that Paul has nowhere based even the denationalization of the gospel on some such syllogism as this: God is essentially love, therefore He must embrace in His saving purpose both Jews and Gentiles. On the contrary, so deeply was the apostle impressed with the sovereign character of the universalism of grace, even in this national sense, that he celebrates the reception of the Gentiles into the covenant as the great musthrion of Christ which for ages had been hid in God, because it sprang from an eternal purpose which He purposed in the Redeemer.
As a positive fact, on the other hand, Paul distinctly recognizes the universal character which the manifestation of the divine love in its various aspects has assumed. The benevolence pertaining to the sphere of common grace has received its classical description in the words that God has not left Himself without witness, in that He does good and gives from heaven rain and fruitful seasons, filling the hearts of all men with food and gladness (Acts 14:17). There is a general goodness of God adapted to lead men to repentance. Great prominence is given to the cosmical scope of the plan of redemption. Christ has been made by God not the Savior of separated individuals, but the head of a new humanity, the second Adam. The whole organism of creation, including its irrational part, will be raised to the liberty of the glory of the children of God. Some of the passages falling under this head have such a wide sweep that they are easily misunderstood, as if the apostle meant to affirm in them a reference of God's saving purpose to every individual, and not merely to the world collectively. A careful examination, however, shows that this is nowhere intended. Thus in the well- known passage of Romans (5:12-21), where a parallel is drawn between the first and second Adam and the spread of sin and righteousness in the world through the transgression of the one and the obedience of the other, Paul speaks of the operation not merely of the former principle, but also of the latter as extending to all. But if this were to be interpreted in a distributive sense, as applying to every man individually, then plainly not the loving desire of God to save all, but the actual salvation of all would be affirmed, for the apostle expressly declares that by the righteousness of the one the free gift has come upon all men unto justification of life. We are thus forced to assume that the "all" covers the totality of those who belong to the new human race which springs from the second Adam. To find in the word "many" alternating with "all" in the context a reminder of the particularism of grace would be surely unwarranted, for this "many" is also used where the consequences of Adam's sin are spoken of; but it would be equally unwarranted to conclude, as others have done, from the use of "all" that Paul advocated a doctrine of absolute universalism. Another instructive example of the manner in which the apostle's wide outlook upon the cosmical reach of the grace of God influences his mode of expression is found in Romans 11:32, where, speaking of Jews and Gentiles in their mutual relation to the gospel, he declares: "God has concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all." On the same principle we must also interpret the statement in the first epistle to the Corinthians (15:22) that "as all die in Adam, so in Christ shall all be made alive."
Room for difference of opinion exists in regard to such passages as bring the principle of universalism in connection with the atonement. The apostle declares that in the death of Christ God was reconciling the world to Himself (2 Corinthians 5:19); and by the side of this Pauline utterance may be placed that of John the Baptist concerning the Lamb of God taking away the sins of the world (John 1:29), and that of John the Evangelist affirming Christ to be a propitiation not merely for our sins, but also for the whole world (1 John 2:2); as well as the passage in Hebrews (2:9) in which Christ is said to have tasted death for everyone. Two possibilities here suggest themselves. We may have to take the term "world," or the other universalistic expressions used, in the collective organic sense, as in the instances already discussed. Or, we may have to interpret them as teaching a certain reference of the atoning work of Christ to all men individually. Some of the passages quoted clearly require the former exegesis. In the mouth of the Baptist the word "cosmos" seems intended to cover the two divisions of the human race, Jews and Gentiles, because the saying alludes by way of contrast to the representation of the servant of Jehovah in Isaiah bearing the sins of Israel alone. To 1 John 2:2 the old distinction between the sufficiency and the intended efficacy of the expiatory sacrifice of Christ properly applies: the writer's purpose is not to enlighten his readers about the extent to which the atonement is actually operative, but to assure them of its inexhaustible richness so far as their own sins are concerned. For Hebrews 2:9 the context, which speaks of "many sons" and of "the brethren" of the Savior, requires a reference of pantoj to the partakers of that new humanity of which Jesus had been just set forth as the ideal representative. As regards more particularly the Pauline passage, the absence of the article before kosmoj should be carefully noted: God was in Christ reconciling a kosmoj to Himself. God's grace embraces a whole cosmos in its organic capacity, including the Gentiles; not one branch, but the whole tree of the human race is the object of His reconciling act. The exegesis which would find here a reference to benefits which flow from the atonement to every man as such, is open to two objections. On the one hand, not some lesser benefit, but actual justification is specified as the main effect of the atonement: God was in Christ reconciling a cosmos unto Himself, not imputing unto them their trespasses . On the other hand, in the immediate context the words "one died for all" have their correlate in "all are dead," which latter statement refers, if not exclusively, at least in part, to the believer's ethical death to sin. It appears, therefore, that Paul's thought was dwelling here upon the efficacy of the Savior's death which extends to believers only. But believers are, according to Paul, involved in the sin and guilt of the race, and consequently the reconciliation which disposes of their sin and guilt must from the nature of the case bear also a racial, cosmical aspect.
It must be granted, however, that, altogether apart from the exegesis of these passages, some sort of reference of the atonement to every man may be affirmed; and inasmuch as this reference is a beneficial one, we are led to posit back of it a form of love equally comprehensive and effective, which will have to be coordinated with the three other forms of universal love previously distinguished. The Bible gives us no right to say that Christ in His atoning work acted as the legal substitute of every individual human being. But certainly neither does it require us to assert that for the non-elect the atonement is void of all benefit or significance. Every man is indebted for great privileges to the cross of Christ. The continued existence of the race in spite of sin, but for it, would have been impossible. The atonement by its universal sufficiency renders the gospel a message which can be preached to every human being, and the offer of the gospel illumines the entire earthly existence of every one to whom it comes by the hope that he may find himself through faith one of the actual heirs of redemption. It makes an immense difference whether our present life be spent in the consciousness of this hope or without it. This may be best realized by making clear to ourselves what a tremendous change the withdrawal of the offer of the gospel would produce in the entire outlook upon life, even for those who do not accept its terms. On the other hand, the love from which these universal benefits of the atonement flow should never be so defined as to obscure the fact that it falls short of the intention to bestow efficacious grace. We must also remember that as it embodies itself in the offer of the gospel it can be called universal in a qualified sense only, since its field is circumscribed by the actual spread of the gospel at any given time.
So far, then, there is in Paul nothing to lead us beyond the general statement that the redemptive love of God transcends all national bounds, that it aims at the reconstruction of a new humanity out of the chaos into which sin has plunged the present human race. All the great epistles are at one on this point, the only difference being that in Ephesians and Colossians the circle of reconciling love is drawn with a still wider radius so as to encompass things both in heaven and on earth, a representation admirably adapted to throw light on the collective cosmical trend of Paul's thought, and to teach us caution in the matter of individualizing such utterances. In the Pastoral Epistles, however, a more pronounced form of universalism seems to find expression. Here we read not only that Christ gave Himself a ransom for all (1 Timothy 2:6), but also that God quickens all things (or keeps alive all things, 1 Timothy 6:13), that God will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:4), that the living God is the Savior of all men especially of those that believe (1 Timothy 4:10), that in Christ the kindness (crhstothj) and filanqrwpia of God our Savior toward men appeared (Titus 3:4). In the case of these passages the context clearly indicates that a reference of God's saving grace or Christ's saving work to all classes of men rather than to all men numerically considered, is meant to be affirmed. When the apostle first exhorts that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, then specializes this as including kings and all that are in authority, and finally assigns as the ground for this duty the fact that God will have all men to be saved, it is not only allowed but demanded by the principles of sound exegesis to interpret the second "all men" in the same sense as the first. This also applies to the passage in Titus 2:11, 12, where in succession the classes of old men, old women, young women, young men, and servants are named and the manner of life appropriate to each described, whereupon the apostle adduces as the most forcible and comprehensive motive for obedience to this exhortation the fact that the grace of God which brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lust, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world. Similarly in another passage of the same epistle (3:4) the appeal to the xrhstothj and filanqrwpia of God follows immediately upon the instruction to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, to speak evil of no man, to show all meekness unto all men.
In these cases, therefore, the context supplies an adequate reason, such as would be always and everywhere in force, for urging the principle in question. Nevertheless, the emphasis and frequency with which this principle is brought forward render it probable that something more specific in the historical situation to which the epistles address themselves was in the apostle's mind and determined the mode of statement even in the passages already quoted. Of a polemic against Judaizing particularistic tendencies in the ordinary sense, we cannot think in this connection, for there is no further trace of such in the Pastoral Epistles. In so far only as the pronounced nationalism of certain Jewish Christians may have betrayed them into taking the ground that it was unlawful to pray for the Gentile magistrates, can the exhortation to include in the common petitions of the church kings and all that are in authority be explained as a protest against error of a Judaizing type. There is absolutely no reason to ascribe to the writer any intention to weaken or neutralize by these universalistic passages Paul's doctrine of predestination. Besides involving denial of the Pauline origin of the epistles, this would leave unexplained why, in other passages, the principle of predestination is enunciated with all desirable distinctness. The only possibility that remains, therefore, is to find in the passages under review a warning against the dualistic trend of that incipient Gnosticism, to whose early presence in the apostolic period also the epistles of the first captivity bear witness. In a twofold sense it might become of importance to vindicate over against this heresy the universalism of saving grace. On the one hand, in so far as Gnosticism on principle excluded from salvation those who lacked the pneumatic character which predisposes for the reception of the truth; and, on the other hand, in so far as those belonging to the pneumatic part of the human race might be considered to carry the power of salvation by nature in themselves, and consequently to stand in no absolute need of the objective saving grace of God revealed in Christ. In other words, it might become necessary to emphasize that God saves all men, in so far as no man is by his subjective condition either sunk beneath the possibility or raised above the necessity of redemption. Reading again with this theory in mind the passages already quoted, we cannot but be struck with the light it throws upon their general meaning and even upon the concrete forms of expression. God will have all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of that truth which the Gnostics reserve for the pneumatici. The living God is the Savior not of one class of men, but of all men, especially of those that believe, for believers do not stand in less need of His grace than others: on the contrary, they are those in whom it most fully manifests itself. It is God's kindness and love toward men as such—His filanqrwpia—which the gospel reveals, not His preference for any aristocracy of the Spirit. God quickens all things and does not exclude the sphere of matter from the influence of the regenerating power. If this should be really the key to a correct understanding of the statements in question, it needs no lengthy argument to show that they were never intended either to affirm or deny the absolute universalism of redemptive love with reference to individuals. All they can be fairly construed to teach is that no subjective spiritual characteristics divide the human race for God into two generations. God extends His grace to man as man; whether to all men without exception in the same manner, or to all in one sense, to some in a special sense, there are questions the answer to which would lie entirely outside the scope of the writer's intention.
But, whether this interpretation be adopted or not, in either case it will have to be acknowledged that the Pastoral Epistles do not identify this general love with the specific affection whose sole objects are the elect. In the midst of an apostasy which had carried away prominent members of the church, and might well make others doubt their own power of perseverance, Paul appeals for the encouragement of believers to the sovereign principle: "The Lord knoweth them that are his" (2 Timothy 2:19). And what is true of the Pastoral Epistles is true of the Pauline epistles in general. Nowhere in the New Testament does it appear more clearly than in Paul that the love associated with fatherhood and sonship is the Christian's exclusive privilege. Religious sonship begins with justification, for justification is in its very conception an adoptive act. And the objective side of the relation, the divine fatherhood, also is realized only in the sphere of Christianity. In the salutations of nearly all the epistles grace and peace are invoked upon believers from God our Father . The phrase, "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ," serves as a constant reminder that only to those who are in Christ is God a Father-God. The saints are addressed as the beloved of God. The love of God is shed abroad in their hearts through the Holy Spirit given unto them. It is put on a line with the peace which not merely subjectively, but objectively also, is an exclusively Christian possession. Nor does the apostle represent this unique love which rests upon believers as something first originated at the moment of their introduction into the Christian state. On the contrary, with the greatest possible distinctness, and in entire harmony with our Lord's Johannine teaching, he prolongs it backward to a point where it enters the region of the absolute eternal life of God. With the several forms of His general benevolence it may be intertwined as strands into a cord, but it never becomes identical with any of these. It is a principle not merely rendering the salvation of all the elect certain, but also rendering their salvation the supreme concern around which God's all-comprehensive decree makes the history of the world revolve. The apostle ascribes to it such a character that it would cease to be what it is were it to leave one single step in the ordo salutis subject to uncertainty. Most clearly this finds expression in Paul's doctrine of foreknowledge, predestination, election. By whichever of these terms the ethical choice of God may be designated, it is to the mind of the apostle, in its origin, essence, and purpose, in its entire compass, a choice of love. For this reason it is impossible to maintain that the decree of predestination has no bearing whatever on the question of the love of God, as if from the totality of mankind He selected certain persons to be saved with a choice resting on ground unknown, but into which a loving preference of these persons did not enter as a motive. The word foreknowledge is employed where the deepest source of the act of election comes under consideration, that beyond which nothing has been revealed to us or can be understood by us. But at this very earliest moment, when the mysterious decree of God passes within the ken of mortal eye, it bears already the signature of love, for this word "foreknowledge" expresses nothing else than that God by an act of condescension draws a person into the circle of His special notice and interest. And that this love has an absoluteness which will not let it be satisfied with less than the totality of what it can do for its object is taught by the other conception, that of predestination, and by the manner in which Paul connects it with that of foreknowledge. When saying, in the well-known passage of Romans (8:29), that those whom God foreknew He also predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son, the apostle means to ascribe by this to the foreknowledge an intensity of love, such as in predetermining the destiny of believers made God seize upon the highest conceivable ideal of power and glory and blessedness, the image of God's Son—i. e., the mediatorial glory of the exalted Christ. Finally, the idea of election involves the same truth, since it designates an act whereby God chooses for Himself, or unto holiness, with the definite purpose that those chosen shall stand in a relationship of the closest appurtenance and most intimate love to Himself. How fundamental a principle this precedence of love over every other element in shaping God's eternal purpose was to Paul, may be seen from the fact that He places it back even of that mercy which to our human conception would naturally seem the first sentiment to be stirred up in the heart of God by the sight of fallen man. To the Ephesians (2:4) he writes that God was rich in mercy, owing to the great love wherewith He loved us. The implication is that the sense of mercy, while naturally present in God toward such as are in misery, assumes toward the elect a richer and more tender character, and this on account of the love which antecedently He cherishes for them. Accordingly, the divine redemptive love bears with Paul throughout a pronounced personal character, more so than would be the case if it were identical with that general feeling of compassion which takes little account of individuality, but responds, as it were, to suffering human nature in the abstract. The words "who loved me and gave Himself for me " (Galatians 2:20) undoubtedly express what is true for every single believer. Nor must we regard this carrying back of the most individualized form of love into the very origin of the purpose of redemption a subordinate or accidental feature of the Pauline system. It is the natural expression of that absolutism which characterizes the apostle's view of the bond between the believer and God. Religion, which by its very nature seeks to eternalize its possession of God, feels the need of doing so not merely with reference to the future, but also with reference to the past. In his consciousness of election the believer carries within himself the sublime assurance that in the eternal life of God Himself there has never been a moment in which even the idea of his personality was indifferent to God.