Vi The New Life

VI

THE NEW LIFE

SECTION 36. THE GENERAL POINT OF VIEW

In the preceding chapters we have become acquainted with Paul's preaching of the salvation that has appeared in Christ, specifically according to its forensic and "objective" aspects, as the restoration of the right relationship to God in justification, reconciliation, the adoption of sons. It has thereby been evident again and again that the salvation thus described does not consist only in a new relationship, but that a restoration of the whole of life in the most inclusive sense of the word results from it and has been given with it. The righteousness of God that has been revealed in Christ is a "righteousness unto life" (Rom. 5: 18), reconciliation accomplishes peace in the renewing of the world and man, the adoption of sons becomes manifest in the operation of the Spirit in the hearts of believers, etc. It is this taking effect of salvation in the existence of the world and man, this new mode of existence given with Christ's advent and work, to which our attention must now further be directed.

What is involved here, of course, is that which nullifies the operation of sin in man. The new life, the work of the Holy Spirit, faith as the new mode of existence, liberty, all these must come up for discussion here; in short, the entire reverse side of that which could be ascertained in Chapter III with respect to the outworking of sin in the death and bondage of man. It is of decisive importance for the understanding of this part of the Pauline preaching, however, that in accordance with its fundamental structures here also we keep in view the great eschatological, redemptive-historical line. Not only justification from the guilt of sin, but also deliverance from the power of sin, renewal, sanctification, faith, are for Paul above all "eschatological" realities, which demand to be understood as revelation of the new aeon that has appeared with Christ's advent and work. The work of the Holy Spirit, too, stands entirely under this sign. The Spirit as the Spirit of Christ is the Spirit of the new aeon, and all that he renews, re-creates, changes, is new and different because it pertains to this eschatological "newness." Undoubtedly all this works itself out and finds its application in the individual man, and the significance of the new manhood is explained further in all sorts of anthropological concepts and categories. Yet it holds here as well, and perhaps to a still greater degree than in the doctrine of sin, that the great Vorverständnis of all Paul's preaching is not of an anthropological but of a redemptive-historical, eschatological, that is to say, of a christological and pneumatological nature. The anthropological significance of salvation not only has its ground in Christ, but in its various facets has also been designated out of that which has taken place in and with Christ. The result is that in Paul's preaching there is no such thing as a systematic development of the ordo salutis, a detailed doctrine of the anthropological application of salvation. The cause for this is not only that the character of Paul's doctrine is not "systematic" in the scientific sense of the word, but above all that his viewpoint is a different one.

To put it succinctly, Paul's doctrine of the new life does not find its determinative point of departure in the new "creature" but in the new "creation, " as it is expressed in 2 Corinthians 5: 17: "If any man is in Christ, he is [he belongs to the] new creation. The old things have passed away, behold! new things have come. "

As we have already been able to ascertain (Section 10), all this does not speak in the first place of personal, individual regeneration, the individual past and the personal renewal. It is a matter here of redemptive-historical categories of old and new. Undoubtedly this does not mean a de-personalizing of salvation. The new man, as we shall see still further, is not merely a collective or supra-individual quantity. But as in the doctrine of sin, where the individual's inclusion in the great corporate relationship of solidarity in sin was the dominating point of view, so also in the doctrine of renewal, what predominates is the inclusion and participation in the new creation that has taken effect with Christ and is represented by him. What this means for the various facets of the new life and what anthropological implications all this has will have to appear further in the continuation of our inquiry.

SECTION 37. DEATH AND RESURRECTION WITH CHRIST

The extent to which the new life of believers receives its specific character in what "once" took place with Christ is perhaps most clear from the manner in which in the Epistle to the Romans — after first having spoken of the revelation of the righteousness of God in chapters 3-5 Paul, in the opening words of chapter 6, raises the question of the new life and then answers: "Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? By no means! We who died to sin, how shall we any longer live therein?" (Rom. 6:1, 2).

The importance of this pronouncement lies first of all in that it is not an ethical or mystical reality that is denoted by the words "we who have died to [or for] sin." As is apparent from the whole context, it is not a question of dying to sin in a metaphorical sense (conversion or something like it¹), but of the participation of the church in the death and burial of Christ in the one-time, redemptive-historical sense of the word.

That this is the meaning is evident from all that follows. It appears first of all from Paul's appeal to baptism to make his point. appears first of all from Paul's appeal to baptism to make his point. For the pronouncement that the church has died to sin is followed by the words: "Or do you not know that all we who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death....

This is not the place to go at length into the significance of baptism in Paul's doctrine of salvation. With a reference to that which is yet to be said about it,² it may here be already established, however, that the appeal to baptism has its ground in the significance of baptism as the incorporation into and the putting on of Christ (1 Cor. 12: 13; Gal. 3: 27, et al.), and in thus receiving a share in his redemptive work. The corporate idea is dominant here again. By their being baptized into Christ and thus belonging to Christ, that which once took place in him is also valid for his own, indeed it can be said of them that they with him have been buried and have died to sin. This is not only a sacramental occurrence, but denotes the participation of believers (by means of the sacrament of baptism) in the redemptive event at Golgotha and in the garden of the resurrection. Accordingly Paul can say simply (that is, without special reference to baptism) that if one died for all, then all have died (2 Cor. 5:14),³ or similarly, that we "through the body of Christ" (that is to say, in the way of the bodily death of Christ on the cross) have been made dead to the law (Rom. 7: 4). Here the church is directly involved in the redemptive-historical event: when Christ died, they died, and his death was their own. But this redemptivehistorical event is appropriated sacramentally to believers, and Paul can therefore appeal for the former to the latter.

How we are to understand this function of baptism and this fact that Christ's death and resurrection have validity for the church is explained still further in the profound pronouncement of verse 5: "For if we have become incorporated into the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection. "

"Have become incorporated" (symphytoi gegonamen) harks back to baptism, which is herewith expressly termed the incorporation into the life-context represented by Christ as the last Adam. Now, when this last, is defined as "the likeness of his death [and resurrection], "⁴ this is to denote the agreement as well as the distinction between what Christ's death and resurrection signify on the one hand for himself, and on the other for his own. One cannot speak here of an identity. For Christ came (and died) indeed "in the likeness of sinful flesh" (Rom. 8: 3), yet without himself being sinful. His dying to sin is therefore not the same as the church's having died to sin. Similarly his "being raised from the dead through the glory of the Father" is not simply to be equated with the church's "walking in the new state of life" (v. 4). For this reason one can speak of its incorporation into the likeness of his death (and resurrection); it participates suo modo in Christ's death and resurrection.

On the other hand, this likeness is not only a symbolic or noetic conformity, but a redemptive-historical likeness by virtue of its oneness with Christ.⁵ It is of this partnership in Christ's death and resurrection that the church must now be conscious, not only with a view to justification, but also with respect to the dominion that sin is bent on exercising on its life. It has (once with Christ) "died to sin" (Rom. 6: 2), or, as it is expressed in verse 6: the church must know "that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away, so that we should no longer be in bondage to sin. " Here again it is a question of that which has been enacted in Christ's death. Then was "our old man" crucified with him; and "old man" intended here not as the individual past of particular believers in their unconverted state, but as the supra-individual sinful mode of existence (entirely in harmony with the manner in which Paul again and again speaks of sin; cf. Section 15ff). And this can be said in this way because Christ has suffered "in the body" — as human mode of existence — indeed, "in the likeness of sinful flesh" (cf. Rom. 7: 4; 8: 3; Col. 1: 22), and because God thus has judged sin "in the flesh, " namely, of Christ (Rom. 8: 3; Eph. 2: 14). In this way our old man has been crucified, judged, with him, "in order that the body of sin should be rendered powerless."⁶ Likewise, what is intended by this body of sin is, as we have already been able to determine in another context (cf. pp. 124ff), the present human mode of existence ruled by sin. Of this bondage to sin the cross and the death of Christ have made an end. Paul expresses this in a peculiar way, with the aid of the old rule of law: he who has died is according to the law free from sin,⁷ he has paid sin its toll, sin no longer has any claim upon him. This applies in the first place to Christ, as it is put into words yet again in verse 10, by way of conclusion: "For the death that he died, he died for [to] sin once for all; but the life that he lives, he lives to God."

Here again the thought is not that Christ died once "for the sake of" or "for the atonement of" sin (in the sense of justification or of reconciliation), but that he once died to⁸ sin (considered as an authority that exercises power, asserts its claims), freed himself from it and escaped it by his death, just as now by having risen he lives for God, at his command and for his service.

It is in this sense that it can also hold for the church that it has died to sin, namely, because it was crucified and buried with him. And it is the validity of this redemptive-historical and sacramental reality that: in Romans 6 the apostle wishes to set before the church and on the ground of which in the second part of this chapter he stirs it up to serve sin no longer. What he wants to teach it, over against the reality of sin, is beyond anything else a new basis for self-judgment in its belonging to Christ and having died and been raised with him. As he says in 2 Corinthians 5, that henceforth (that is to say, on the ground of the resurrection of Christ) he will know no man "after the flesh, " but will understand him as participating in the new aeon and the new creation, so the church also, if it is truly no longer to live in sin, must learn to understand itself by faith: "So you also must judge⁹ yourselves [in the faith] as dead to sin and as alive to God in Christ Jesus" (v. 11).

In these last words the whole argument of Romans 6: 1-10 is gathered together. Having died once with Christ may, so far as the present is concerned, be understood and laid hold on as being dead¹⁰ to sin (that is, no longer subject to its power), just as being "incorporated in the likeness of his resurrection" may be known and must be experienced as being alive to God and as having-been-brought-underhis-dominion. What has taken place "once" in Christ must thus be actualized in a new way of life. "As¹¹ alive from the dead" believers are no longer to place themselves at the disposal of sin, but of God. They must fight their battle in the certainty that their enemy has been overcome. For they no longer live under the rule of the law, but under that of grace (Rom. 6:12ff.).

In recapitulating we can thus establish on the ground of this "locus classicus" concerning the fact of having died and been raised with Christ that the dying and rising of the church: (1) is comprehended in the redemptive-historical reality of Christ's death and resurrection; (2) is appropriated to believers in baptism as the sacramental incorporation into Christ; (3) forms the content of the church's actual assessment of faith concerning itself; (4) must have its effect in the manifestation of its life as obedient to God.

How characteristic of Paul's doctrine of redemption this view of the significance of Christ's death is, appears from a great number of other pronouncements. This same reality is expressed not only as the church's having died, having been crucified, to sin — but also "to the world, " "to the law, " "to the first principles of the world. " Thus, for example, when it is said of the church in Romans 7: 4ff.: "So that, my brethren, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, in order to be [the possession] of another...; we are discharged from the law,¹² having died to that which held us captive." Here again it is a matter of having once died with Christ, as is certainly very clear from the addition of "through the body of Christ. " The law is here the menacing, fettering power. For that which lends sin its power is the law in its sanctions. As therefore "to be under the law" and "to be under sin" are synonymous denotations¹³ of the state of death and slavery of life outside Christ, so the dying of Christ for the church signifies having died for or to the law, having escaped from its killing power. Paul is able to say elsewhere as well, therefore, that he "through the law died to the law," in order to live for God. For "I have been crucified with Christ" (Gal. 2: 19). Here again "to the law" and "for God" are placed over against each other to indicate to whom it is that one belongs and is subject. The law is again thought of as the power that is hostile to (sinful) man, which brings him under its jurisdiction, which obstructs the way to life. To this law Paul has now died "through the law." The words "through the law" look to the sanctions of the law that fell on Christ when he gave himself up for his own (v. 20), in particular to his death on the cross. But in that dying through the law there took place at the same time the escape from, the dying to the law, for Christ as well as for those who are included in him.

One should also mention the pronouncement of Colossians 2: 20, where the church is asked how, if it has "died with Christ to the first principles of the world,"¹⁴ it can any longer permit all manner of ordinances to be imposed on it as though it were living in the world. The "first principles of the world" are once again legalistic principles, in Galatians 4: 9 called "weak and beggarly rudiments, " because they cannot save man (cf. Rom. 8:3), but are not on this account any less tyrannical and hold man in bondage (Gal. 4: 3). To these, however, believers have now died with Christ, because Christ has prepared another way whereby one can be saved.

Somewhat different, with essentially the same meaning, is the formulation of Galatians 6: 14, where Paul declares that he wants only to boast in the cross of Christ, through which "the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world." The expression "the world" here represents everything in which a man would wish to "boast,"¹⁵ that is to say, on which in a religious sense he would suppose himself able to depend, as, for example, the law and circumcision (cf. v. 13). It is denoted as "world" —just as "first principles of the world" — because it pertains to the life-context of the present aeon, the life before and outside Christ. All this has for Paul once and for all (the perfect is employed here) been crucified through the cross of Christ.¹⁶ When Christ was crucified, all this was seen to be inadequate as a vain ground for boasting, indeed as a power threatening man. On the other hand, Paul is able to say that he has been "crucified to the world." When Christ was crucified his own were also snatched away from the world as a power dominating and fascinating them. "Through" (the cross) here stands in place of "with" or "in" (Christ); the thought is essentially the same, the corporate idea is somewhat less prominent; in the middle is the cross, which once snatched away the church from the world and by which the world has become worthless for the church, indeed entirely reprehensible (cf. Phil. 3: 8).

All these expressions — died (crucified) to sin, the law, the world — denote what is fundamentally the same reality. They are the powers of the old aeon, and it is this old, all-embracing life-context from under whose control the church has been delivered in the death of Christ. A few times Paul also speaks of it in an absolute sense, for example, when in Colossians 3: 3 he says to the church: "for you have died.... " Here again he means, as appears from the whole context of Colossians 3: 1-4, dying with Christ, through which what is on the earth must no longer hold their attention, but what is in heaven. These "earthly things" consist not in the earthly and temporal in general, but in what binds man and keeps him a prisoner in them (cf. v. 5). The appeal to "for you have died" is therefore not an appeal to their conversion or to their ethical or mystical experience, but to their belonging to Christ when he died. Then they escaped from the snare and power of "earthly things."

The reverse side of all this is that just as the church has once died with Christ, it also has been raised with him. Here again the aorists denote the redemptive-historical moment, that of Christ's rising. The thought is thereby that as in Christ's death on the cross the church has died to the powers of sin, world, and law, in the resurrection of Christ it has been set at liberty for Another, in order to live for him, under his government, for Christ himself (Rom. 7: 4; 2 Cor. 5: 15); or for God (Gal. 2: 19). From these passages, too, which speak of having been raised with Christ, it is evident how much the new life of the church not only has been grounded — as something that has taken place for them and outside them — but also has been given and has begun in the resurrection of Christ. This finds clear expression, for example, in Ephesians 2: 4ft: "God... for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ by grace have you been saved — and raised us up together, and made us to sit together in heaven in Christ Jesus.... "

From the final words it appears unmistakably that Paul again thinks christologically and redemptive-historically and not in terms of anthropology and the ordo salutis. When Christ was raised from the dead all his own were in their death-state with him. By this "being dead" one is likewise not only to understand a moral condition, but the whole death-situation of the man outside Christ, also as being under the wrath of God, subject to the curse of the law. And the change that ensued can be called a "being made alive together with him" because, as it is said in the corresponding context of Colossians 2:13-15, God in this great redemptive act¹⁷ with Christ forgave us our sins, nailed the law to the cross, and in him triumphed over the powers.

Finally, so far as resurrection with Christ is concerned, reference should be made as well to Colossians 3:1ff. One can call this passage, together with Romans 6, the locus classicus for the "objective, " redemptivehistorical significance of having died and been raised with Christ. The new life of believers is that which comes forth with Christ out of the grave, has gone to heaven with him, is there hidden ("your life is hid with Christ in God"), and will once more appear from there with the parousia ("when Christ, who is your life, shall appear, then you also will appear with him"). What has taken place and will take place with Christ, from dying to coming (again) in glory, has also happened to the church and will happen to it by virtue of its corporate unity with him.

Likewise the sacramental and existential significance of having died and been raised with Christ, as we met with it in Romans 6, recurs time and again. Closely related to Romans 6, for example, is the train of thought in Colossians 2: 11ff. Here, too, having been buried with Christ "through baptism" forms the ground for the new self-judgment, that is, that the church need not be circumcised anew, but in Christ has already been circumcised, in "the putting off of the body of the flesh." What is meant is again that by being included in baptism in Christ's death and burial the church has escaped from sin's mode of existence.

The words "in the putting off of the body of flesh" state clearly once more what in Romans 6 is called having been incorporated in the likeness of his death. For through Christ's having been buried in the flesh, the church may in baptism know its "body of the flesh" to have been put off, buried, because baptism incorporates it into Christ and his burial. This circumcision, which takes place without hands, can therefore be termed "the circumcision of Christ," not only as a general description, but in view of what was implied in Christ's death and resurrection with respect to the church's old mode of existence.

We are in the same sphere of thought when we come to those pronouncements which found the church's manner of life on the fact that it has put off the old man and put on the new man, which has been created after God (Eph. 4: 24; Col. 3: 9, 10). On the one hand, as appears from the active verbal forms, something other is intended here than what in Romans 6 is called the old man's having been crucified together (with Christ). On the other hand, one is here again not to think in the first place of personal conversion or regeneration. It is having put off the old and having put on the new man in baptism to which the apostle here appeals in order to lend greater force to his moral imperatives. For it is in baptism that the believer has put on Christ (Gal. 3: 27), and thus participates in the nullification in Christ of the old mode of existence and in the new creation of God revealed in him.

The redemptive-historical and the sacramental here, too, are very closely intertwined. This does not mean a sacramentalizing of salvation in the sense of a repetition or contemporizing of the unique redemptive fact in "the mystery" of baptism.¹⁸ For Paul what once took place in Christ has also taken place with the church. The "in Christ" has its validity back into Christ's pre-existence (Eph. 1: 4), and reaches out to his parousia (Col. 3: 4). But so far as the church is concerned, through baptism the "once" becomes a "here and now." Through baptism what took place in him for it and with it is appropriated to it as an actual reality, in terms of which it may judge itself in faith.

For this reason Paul is able to say in Colossians 2:12 that the church has been raised with Christ "through faith in the power of God." Here, too, the redemptive-historical is not relinquished or transposed into an event of faith; what is expressed with these words is that the redemptive-historical occurrence is transmitted and appropriated to the church in the sacrament of baptism by means of faith. Baptism and faith here (and in Rom. 6!) repeatedly go together, for baptism takes place upon faith. Together they form the way or the means by which the redemptive-historical reality becomes an existential reality of faith. The new creation in Christ is communicated in baptism by faith, the new aeon becomes personal regeneration and new life (Tit. 3:5). The sacramental and existential aspects of the new life have their own independent place and significance. But they continue to be determined and qualified by the redemptive-historical, and only from thence can they be understood and comprehended in the overall context of the Pauline doctrine of salvation.

Finally, what Paul means when he says that the new life comes about through the gospel must also be understood from this point of view. So it is said in 2 Timothy 1:10 that Christ has vanquished death and brought life and incorruptibility to light "through the gospel" (cf. Tit. 1: 2). And elsewhere the gospel is spoken of as "the word of life" (Phil. 2: 16), a "fragrance of life unto life" (2 Cor. 2: 16). The new life is communicated through the gospel; the re-creating, authoritative word of God is the shining of the gospel in the hearts of those who are saved (2 Cor. 4: 4-6). Thereby the character of the new life of the church is again described as the appropriation wrought by God of that which once took place in Christ. For this is that of which the gospel speaks, and it is therefore the word of life, because it teaches us to understand what has taken place in Christ as an event that has taken place in him for and with his own.

On the ground of all the foregoing we are able to conclude that the new life of believers is not a matter that can be known or approached out of the inwardness of the spiritual life, but only out of what has taken place in Christ's death and resurrection. Their life is Christ. And forasmuch as they have been included in Christ, they have a share in the life that has been brought to light through him. Baptism as the incorporation into Christ is for them, therefore, the demonstrable line of demarcation between the old and the new, and faith in the gospel means a new self-judgment, that of being dead to sin and alive to God.

On that account this new life is not a self-contained matter that has been given to believers once and for all and by which they are now automatically determined from within. Because Christ is their life, it has also gone with Christ to heaven (Eph. 2: 6; Phil. 3: 20), it is also hidden with Christ in God (Col. 3: 3), and it waits for its revelation at the appearing of Christ from heaven (Col. 3: 4). The church, so far as its life on earth is concerned, is determined, governed, nourished from heaven. The Jerusalem that is above is its mother, just as the earthly Jerusalem, as the point of concentration of life under the law, ruled her children in bondage (Gal. 4: 26). For this reason to be a new creation is on the one hand to live in liberty, no longer to be a slave of sin, to be free for God, but consists on the other hand in a reaching out to the revelation of Christ, which is also the revelation of the children of God (Rom. 8: 19; Col. 3: 4). When he describes the new life in Philippians 3: 10ff., Paul is able to speak of it as a "knowing of the power of his [Christ's] resurrection, " a "fellowship with his sufferings, " "becoming conformed to his death"; on the other hand, he also speaks of it as not yet having become perfect, not yet having obtained, but stretching out toward the future, "if by any means I may attain unto the resurrection of the dead." The new life of believers, just because it consists in participation in Christ's life, has on the one hand the character of having passed over into the world of the new creation; on the other hand, because this life is hidden and awaits its revelation, it has the character of life in the flesh by faith (Gal. 2: 20), or as Paul in a way no less characteristic for the fundamental structure of his doctrine of salvation expresses it, of life in or through the Spirit. To go into the significance of this is now our task.

SECTION 38. LIFE THROUGH THE SPIRIT

As on the one hand Paul relates the new life as closely as possible to Christ's death and resurrection, so on the other the relationship between the new life and the Spirit is no less essential for his view. This finds very clear expression in the transition between these lines of thought in Romans 6-8. What in Romans 6 is called no longer being subservient to sin, on the ground of the resurrection of Christ, is termed in Romans 7: 6 serving in the new state of the Spirit; similarly, being dead to sin and being alive to God in Romans 6 is synonymous with the pronouncement in Romans 8: 9 that believers are no longer in the flesh, but in the Spirit.

We have already pointed out earlier¹⁹ that the pneumatic and the redemptive-historical are not competitive motifs in Paul's doctrine of salvation; much less still do they come into conflict with each other. It is precisely the Spirit who is the great Inaugurator and the gift of the new aeon that has appeared with Christ; and consequently the contrast, so constitutive for Paul's preaching, between Spirit and flesh is not to be taken as a metaphysical or anthropological, but as a redemptive-historical contrast, namely, as the two dominating principles of the two aeons marked off: by the appearance of Christ. Paul's speaking of the Spirit does not follow, therefore, in the footsteps of the Hellenistic "pneumatology, " as though one were obliged to look there, more than in the Old Testament line, for the point of contact for the idea that the: Spirit renews the whole existence of the church and is not only the Author of extraordinary signs, wonders, and powers.²⁰ For throughout the whole of the Old Testament the Spirit is spoken of as the creating and renewing power of God, the gift of the New Covenant, the possession of the coming Messiah, and the life principle of the congregation of the future. It is consequently in harmony with this that Paul links the Spirit with the advent and the person of Christ, and gives expression to the gift of the new life conferred in Christ not only in the categories of redemptive history (death and resurrection with Christ), but also in those of the Pneuma.

Highly illustrative for the redemptive-historical as well as for the pneumatic character of the church's new mode of existence is the manner in which Paul again and again elucidates the latter from the contrast between the Spirit and the law, so characteristic for his preaching, elsewhere qualified as the contrast between the promise and the law or between the Old and the New Covenant.

In our discussion of the inadequacy of the law as means of salvation,²¹ we have already treated at length the negative side of this contrast in the light of the train of thought of the Epistle to the Romans. Man, so we have seen, is entirely dependent on the grace of God revealed in Christ not only for his justification (Rom. 3-5), but also for his deliverance from slavery under the power of sin (Rom. 6-8). The law is of no avail to him, either for the one or for the other. With a view to the latter — slavery under the power of sin — the pronouncement is then given, in Romans 6: 14: "you are no longer under the law, but under grace." In Romans 7: 1-6 Paul returns to this contrast and qualifies it now as (no longer) "serving in the old state of the letter, but in the new state of the Spirit." With that the great redemptive-historical contrast has been brought to its final, pneumatic denominator. The law (letter) and the Spirit thereby stand over against each other in the sense that the Spirit enters in where the law has failed, in joining battle against the power of sin and of the flesh and in vanquishing that power. The impotence of the law to break through the power of the flesh is, as we have seen (Section 23), painted with vivid colors in Romans 7. Thus in Romans 7 the indispensability of the Spirit is demonstrated per negationem, just as in Romans 1: 18-3: 20 per negationem the indispensability of righteousness by faith. And as in Romans 3: 21 the "but now!" of the revelation of the righteousness of God by faith is the redeeming word in man's situation of death under the guilt of sin and the condemning force of the law, so the "now therefore" of Romans 8:1ff. is the word of liberation for man under the power of sin and under the impotent regime of the law which cannot conquer the flesh. The antithesis between the law and the Spirit is thus not situated in the fact that the Spirit places himself over against the content and demand of the law. Rather, the object of the sending of Christ and of the Spirit represented by him is that the just demand of the law should be fulfilled, completed, finished, not only in Christ, but also in us (Rom. 8: 4). But law and Spirit stand over against each other, therefore, as two regimes, on the one hand as a rule of curse and of death, on the other of blessing and of life, because the law with its demand is powerless on account of the flesh and hence exercises a rule of death, while the Spirit overcomes the flesh and thus is the Spirit of life and of liberty.

Elsewhere, in Galatians 3 and 4, we meet with the same line of thought. In Galatians 3: 1ff. Paul poses the question to the Galatians — brought once again under the jurisdiction of the law — as to the manner in which they have received the Spirit. Was it perhaps from the works of the law or — as they could not deny — from the faithful hearing of the gospel? And in what follows in this chapter he sets the Spirit and the law over against each other anew by terming the promise given to Abraham (according to which in Abraham all the families of the earth should be blessed) "the promise of the Spirit" (v. 14), and then placing this promise over against the law, promulgated 430 years later. Here, too, the issue is the thought that the law, although in itself good and not in conflict with God's promises (v. 21), cannot bring salvation because it is powerless (cf. Rom. 8: 2!) to do that which God had promised to Abraham: to make alive (v. 21), to give children to Abraham, to bless all families in him. The law's ability to save is dependent on fulfillment by men. It is "a matter of two parties," while the promise as given by God is his responsibility alone (vv. 19, 20).²² The promise is the life-creating word of God himself that pledges to Abraham his offspring. Therefore — while the law can only lead to bondage — sonship, liberty, and the Spirit are to be found where life is lived from faith and not from the works of the law (3: 21-4: 7). Here again the contrast is between the impotence of the law and the omnipotence of the lifecreating Word of God, the promise, which has its power not in those who receive it, but in him who gives it, not on the ground of works, but by faith.

This train of thought is further illuminated and confirmed in a profound manner by the "allegory" of Hagar and Sarah (Gal. 4: 21-31), in which, by way of a midrash, Paul demonstrates anew from the history of Abraham the contrast between what the law can do and what the Spirit can do. Already in the case of Abraham himself this twofold "principle" of law and Spirit is evident, which is then maintained throughout the whole of history. For it is said of Hagar and Sarah that they represent two covenants, the first that of the law and the bondage resulting from it, the second that of the Spirit and the liberty given by him (cf. 2 Cor. 3: 6). The birth from Hagar represents the principle of the law, because it rested on the flesh, on Abraham's intervention, on human strength. Nor could it on this account produce the promised son, but only the child qualified by the slave woman Hagar. In this way Hagar represents the covenant of the law, Sinai, which is dependent on the power of man and therefore does not produce free men, but slaves. Isaac, however, was "born through the promise," and in that sense is the "child of the promise," that is to say, brought forth by the quickening power of God himself (4: 23). For this reason he can be said to be "born after the Spirit" (v. 29), because it is the Spirit who gives the new, free life. In this way promise (Spirit) and law can here be placed over against each other: what the law was powerless to do ("to make alive"; 3: 21) because it is dependent on the strength of the flesh, that the promise is able to do, because it is realized by the quickening Spirit of God. This is the other, the new covenant, and in it lies the secret of the new life of believers, because they, as Isaac, are children of the promise,²³ brought forth by the Spirit of God (4: 28).

It is on the ground of this new principle of life, this sharing in and living under the power and the government of the Spirit, that Paul is now able in the Epistle to the Galatians to stir up believers to walk after the Spirit. This means on the one hand that they must not abandon again the freedom from the law given in Christ (5: 1-12), and on the other that they must not continue to live in sin. For when they allow themselves to be led by the Spirit, they are not (any longer) under the law (5: 18; cf. 6: 14), that is to say, no longer powerless against sin as they were under the law, and the law likewise no longer turns against them as an accusing and killing power (5: 23; cf. 1 Tim. 1: 8, 9).

No less characteristic for what is intended by this contrast of Spirit and law is finally the terminology frequently employed by Paul: letter and Spirit. We find it in Romans already in 2: 27-29, where a circumcision of two kinds is spoken of, namely, that which takes place in the visibleness of the flesh and that which occurs in the hiddenness of the heart. The first is qualified by the letter, that is to say, rests on that to which the ordinance expressed in letters can compel and lead man in his bodily situation; the second by the Spirit, that is to say, by the work of the Spirit in the heart of man. What a central significance the thought expressed in this terminology has may also appear from Romans 7: 6, where the whole contrast between the old and the new life is expressed by the words "serve in the old state of the letter" and "in the new state of the Spirit." Here, too, it is the case that no disparagement of the content of the law is intended, as though that were an excessively precise and servile conception of the will of God (and in that sense leading to "letter-worship"), over against which the Spirit would then stand, as not binding to a letter, and so forth. Paul knows nothing of such a modern antithesis, and it can only divert us from what in reality is at stake here. What is at issue is once more two different regimes, the "old" and the "new, " of which the first operates only in an external manner, approaches man with that which is couched in letters and therefore restricted in its sphere of operation to commandment, the prescription of "thou shalt" and "thou shalt not." Over against this old regime of the letter stands the government of the Spirit, which, in contrast with the letter which is powerless and therefore leads to slavery, has power over the heart of man and sets him free to serve God truly.

That we are to understand the contrast of letter and Spirit in this way and must take this old and new regime above all as a redemptive-historical antithesis is evident, finally, from the manner in which Paul expresses himself in the same terms, but with much greater fullness of detail, in 2 Corinthians 3, a chapter not easily interpreted²⁴ but very profound.

Against those who level criticism at the boldness and authority with which he asserts himself and in so doing attribute less becoming motives to him (2 Cor. 2: 17; cf. 4: 2), Paul maintains that he preaches the word of God in complete sincerity and without any reservation, because the result of his labor after all bears him out. For this he appeals to the church itself, which he describes as a letter (of recommendation) that has been written not with ink, but with the Spirit, not consisting in tables of stone, but in the tables of flesh in the heart (2 Cor. 3: 1-3). Just as in Romans 2: 29 and 7: 6, all the stress lies on the contrast between the "outwardness" of the law ("ink," "tables of stone," "the visible"; Rom. 2: 29) and the inner working of the Spirit. It is not said hereby that Paul equates the dispensation of the law with an "authority coming from without" and regards this as a "heteronomy" overcome by the Spirit.²⁵ That which makes the letter in its externality insufficient and by which it must give way to the Spirit is its restricted sphere of operation. As a piece of writing and consisting in letters of stone it cannot touch the heart. The Spirit stands over against it as "the Spirit of the living God," who is mighty to give what he demands, because he is capable of writing on the heart. Paul concurs very clearly with the Old Testament prophecy concerning the gift of the Spirit in the New Covenant (Ezek. 11: 19; 36: 26; Jer. 31: 33), and terms himself and his fellow-workers, in close connection with this, " . . . ministers of a New Covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life" (v. 6).

In this contrast between letter and Spirit, between Old and New Covenant, the glory of the new life from the Spirit is now further demonstrated in the continuation of 2 Corinthians 3. Even the Old Covenant, however much it was for sinful Israel an "administration of death, carved in letters of stone" and destined to pass away,²⁶ took place under the revelation of the divine glory: the children of Israel could not so much as bear the glory that shone from Moses' face (cf. Exod. 34: 30). How much more then must the New Covenant, the administration of the Spirit and of righteousness and destined to endure, be revealed in glory!

Here also, just as in Galatians 4: 21-31, Paul elucidates this meaning with an "allegory" (cf. Gal. 4: 24), or with a midrash-like explanation of the datum already mentioned in verse 7, that the children of Israel could not endure the glory that shone from Moses' face. Moses on this account covered his face with a veil. Paul now demonstrates from this the difference between the Old and the New Covenant, that is to say, between Moses' appearance and his own. While Paul may appear without reservation, in complete boldness and without hiding anything, and as a minister of the New Covenant need not mask the glory of God that has now been revealed, Moses felt compelled to cover his face²⁷ and to veil the full glory²⁸ of the Old Covenant, however much this as yet bore only a transitory character. Moses did so (and had to do so) because this shining radiance, mirroring the glory of God, was incompatible with the position of Israel under the law, even though this glory had as yet only a transitory and no abiding significance.

And this situation in which the glory of God has been covered over and hidden continues — thus Paul — to the Israel of the present day. He appeals for this to the fact that "their minds were hardened" (v. 14),²⁹ in which there is also an operation that veils and obscures the truth. That appears to the present day when the Old Testament is read; the same veil that once hid from them the glory of God (in Moses) has remained; it lies now on their hardened heart which wishes to be saved by the law and not by faith, and in the reading of Moses prevents them from sharing in the glory of God. But as Moses when he turned again to God laid aside the veil, so now the covering which at the same time signifies slavery and the lack of freedom is taken away in Christ. And this is owing to the fact that the Lord is the Spirit, and that where the Spirit of the Lord is slavish fear gives way to the freedom and boldness in which one does not keep oneself at a distance from the glory of God as that has been revealed in Christ, but catches sight of and is transformed by it. This is Paul's meaning when he says that not only he himself in his ministry (cf. 4:Iff. ) but "we all, " with unveiled face, that is, in the liberty given by the Spirit, may reflect the redeeming radiance of the glory of God revealed in the gospel,³⁰ in order thus to be transformed according to the same image from (the now already manifested) glory to (the still to be expected) glory, even as that takes place from the Spirit of the Lord (vv. 17, 18).

With this last pronouncement, which explains the freedom of the Spirit from the fact that the Spirit is of the Lord and the Lord the Spirit, we have now returned to our starting point, and the important question arises as to how the communion in which the church stands with the Lord (being "in Christ") relates itself to that in which it stands with the Spirit (being "in the Spirit"). To put it in another way: What is the relationship between "having died and been raised with Christ" (discussed in the preceding section) on the one hand, and "life through the Spirit" or "being in the Spirit" on the other?

It is evident here again that the corporate viewpoint is decisive.³¹ By virtue of having been included in Christ — so we saw — the church has a share in his death and resurrection, and it may in faith know itself as dead to sin and alive to God. But by virtue of this same union with Christ it participates in the Holy Spirit. For the Spirit is the Spirit of the Lord (Phil. 1: 19; Gal. 4: 6; 2 Cor. 3: 18). To be of Christ, to belong to him, means therefore to "have" the Spirit, and if any man does not have the Spirit of Christ, "he is not of him, " does not belong to him (Rom. 8: 9). Being-in-the-Spirit is therefore not in the first place a personal, but an ecclesiological category: "You are in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwells in you," namely, as the temple of God, as the new fellowship, as the body of Christ. Consequently he who is incorporated into Christ by baptism and is baptized into his body, is also baptized into the Spirit as the one who fills the body of Christ (1 Cor. 12: 13). He who is joined to him (Christ) is thus one Spirit with him (1 Cor. 6: 17), for there is one body and one Spirit (Eph. 4: 4), that is to say, to belong to the one body of Christ signifies also to share in the one Spirit.

Here already³² this corporate point of view makes plain the structural sequence of the Lord, the body, and the Spirit, as well as the manner in which the church participates in the Spirit. The thought is not that the Spirit first shows himself to individual believers, brings them together into one whole, and thus constitutes the body of Christ. For in this way participation in Christ would follow upon sharing in the Spirit, whereas the church has been given precisely with Christ as the second Adam. The sequence is accordingly the reverse: those who by virtue of the corporate bond have been united with Christ as the second Adam, have died and been buried with him, may know themselves to be dead to sin and alive to God, may also know themselves to be "in the Spirit." They are, because included in this new life-context, no longer in the flesh, but in the Spirit (Rom. 8: 9).

This last contrast can now enable us to understand what is meant by this peculiar expression, "being in the Spirit." What is denoted is not a subjective state of consciousness, but an "objective" mode of being. The thought is that believers, who were formerly "in the flesh" and in their existence were determined by the flesh as sinful power, are now "in the Spirit, " that is to say, have been brought under the government, the liberating rule of the Spirit, and are no longer liable to the service of the flesh, nor subject to the disposition of the flesh (Rom. 8: 5-12). Or, as it is said in Romans 8: 2: as before they lived under "the law [i. e., the power, the constraint] of sin and of death, " so now they have been set free by "the law [the power, the dominion] of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. " And as "to live in the flesh" signifies that one has been sold under the power of sin, has been made a prisoner of war and brought into slavery (Rom. 7), so "to live in the Spirit" signifies, according to Romans 8, that one has been brought under another, a liberating dominion. The contrast is therefore not approached from the vantage point of the individual, believing subject; it is much more a matter of placing over against each other two "worlds," the mode of being of the old and of the new aeon, of belonging to two spheres of power and influence (cf. Col. 1:13; Gal. 1:4).

For the rest, this expression "to be in the Spirit" occurs but a few times in Paul, and then as the antithesis of "to be in the flesh." Elsewhere the same thing is expressed by "to be after the Spirit" (Rom. 8:5), or "to live by the Spirit." Compare the following:

. . . those who are after the Spirit (hoi kata pneuma [ontes]), mind the things of the Spirit (Rom. 8:5).

. . . you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit (einai en pneumati; Rom. 8:9).

. . . if we live by the Spirit (zēn pneumati), let us also walk by the Spirit (Gal. 5:25).

It is clear, particularly from the distinction between to "live" by the Spirit and to "walk" by the Spirit in Galatians 5:25, that the first describes a specific condition, constituting the presupposition of the second, which signifies a walk, activity, manifestation of life that is commensurate with it. Similarly in Romans 8 a distinction is made between "to be after the Spirit" on the one hand and "to mind the things of the Spirit" on the other (vv. 5ff); and further along this distinction is expressed by "to be in the Spirit" on the one hand and "to be led by the Spirit"³³ on the other (v. 14). In all these varied phrases the same thought is given expression again and again: that believers have been taken up into the new life-context of Christ, in which the Spirit rules, and that their new way of life must answer to its having been brought under this new redeeming sovereignty, a life that consists in being disposed toward, letting oneself be led by, and walking by the Spirit.

What this life by the Spirit involves further in its outworking and realization is expressed in Paul's epistles in a great many ways and in richly shaded terminology. In so doing he by no means restricts himself to the "objective" and supra-individual points of view, but shows us in various ways the nature of the pneumatic in the personal, individual life of believers. Very characteristic here is that the relationship between Christ and the church and between the Spirit and the church is not only described as being in Christ and being in or living by the Spirit, but also, conversely, as the being and dwelling of Christ and of the Spirit in believers. The Spirit is not only the one under whose dominion the church may live, but he also enters into the actual existence of believers. As the Spirit of the living God (2 Cor. 3:3) he makes alive, he gives eternal life (1 Cor. 15: 45; 2 Cor. 3: 6; Rom. 8:11; Gal. 6: 6), he is the Spirit of regeneration and inner renewal (Tit. 3: 5; Rom. 7: 6). By the mediation of the Spirit the love of God that has been evidenced in the dying of Christ works itself out in the hearts of his own (Rom. 5: 5; cf. v. 8;³⁴ cf. Eph. 3: 16). All the expressions of the new life of those who belong to Christ can therefore be attributed to the Spirit. Paul speaks of them as the disposition of the Spirit (Rom. 8: 6), the love of the Spirit (Rom. 15: 30), the desiring of the Spirit (Gal. 5: 17), the joy of the Spirit (1 Thess. 1: 6). He is not the Spirit of slavish fear, but of childlike trust (Rom. 8: 15); his fruit consists in love, peace, joy, etc. (Gal. 5: 22). He is also the principle and power of the new life in the moral sense of the word, the Spirit of sanctification (2 Thess. 2: 13). The requirement of the law can only be fulfilled in those who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit, i. e., in accordance with his operation and intention (Rom. 8: 4ff.; cf. Gal. 5: 16, 25). The Spirit is also the Spirit of knowledge and of revelation (Eph. 1:17), the Intermediary of the revelation of God in Jesus Christ, who cannot be known through human wisdom, the Spirit who searches the deep things of God and who has been given to the church in order to know what has been given it by God (1 Cor. 2). He makes the church to be spiritual men and women so as to be able to discern spiritual things; he is also the author of extraordinary powers and gifts, which equip the church for service (Rom. 12; 1 Cor. 12 and 14).

From all this it is clear how great the span of the work of the Spirit is and how much Paul ascribes the whole of the new life, in its origin as well as in its realization and consummation, to the Spirit, to his operations, powers, and gifts.

SECTION 39. THE NEW MAN

For a right understanding of the renewing work of the Spirit the anthropological categories with which this renewal is defined are likewise highly important. To have died with Christ also means that the old man has been crucified with him, and to be in the Spirit also involves putting on the new man or "the spiritual man" (1 Cor. 2:14ff.).

Now, in our investigation into the fundamental structures of Paul's preaching we have already been able to ascertain³⁵ that the expression: the death of the old and the resurrection of the new man, has a supra-individual significance and in Paul is not employed in the sense of "the two segments" of one's personal conversion. Our old man was once crucified with Christ on Golgotha. And likewise the active "to have put off" the old and "to have put on" the new man (Col. 3: 10; Eph. 4: 24) refers above all to baptism as bidding farewell to the old mode of existence and becoming incorporated into the new being of the church, which Christ has created in himself unto "one new man" (Eph. 2: 15). With "old and new man," too, therefore, the corporate point of view stands in the foreground. For this reason the church, in addition to being called "the new man," can be spoken of as the "perfect man" (anēr teleios; Eph. 4: 13) and as the "one" man³⁶ in Christ Jesus (Gal. 3: 28). This very striking and important idea — which is undoubtedly connected with the fact that Christ himself as "the second man" is placed over against "the first man" (1 Cor. 15: 21ff. ) — remains normative and directive in Paul for insight into the new life.

This does not alter the fact, however — and to this we must now direct all our attention — that this new man is brought about in the individual human existence and that other redemptive-historical and eschatological predicates, too, as for example new creation, regeneration, etc., are applicable to this concrete, historic humanity (cf., e. g., 2 Cor. 5: 16; Gal. 6: 15; Tit. 3: 5). The putting off of the old man and the putting on of the new is therefore not only a choice of faith and a sacramental incorporation in baptism, but is also intended to be carried on as a continuous renewal, a repeated "putting on of the Lord Jesus Christ" in the concrete existence of believers (cf. Col. 3: 10; Rom. 13: 14). The new life consists not only in having once been raised with Christ and in having been placed under a new rule, but also in being renewed from day to day (2 Cor. 4:16).

If one traces the manner in which Paul describes this renewal also as new humanity, then a distinction is again to be made between descriptions that express the totality of this renewal and such as have specific aspects of it in view.

So far as the first is concerned, those expressions especially deserve further attention which describe the new life as new creation and then in particular as being created after the image of God or after the image of Christ and as regeneration.

It is implied in all these qualifications that the new life means a radical transformation, a passing over from a condition of death and slavery into one of life and liberty, which on this account is not to be explained from human effort and moral strength, but only from the creative command of God, no less mighty than the word with which he once called forth light out of darkness (2 Cor. 4: 6). It is in these categories of creation, therefore, that the new man is spoken of again and again (Gal. 6: 15; 2 Cor. 5: 17; Eph. 2: 10, 15; 3: 9; 4: 24; Col. 3: 10; Tit. 3: 5). The meaning of this is not only that the church has in Christ come to belong to the new aeon, the new order of things, and in that sense to the new creation, but likewise that this almighty and re-creating work of the Spirit enters into the existence of believers in a personal and individual way.

This is apparent particularly from those passages which speak of being created or renewed after God's image (Col. 3:10; Eph. 4: 24). The new man is renewed after the image of him who created him, that is, of God (Col. 3: 10). He has been created "after" (in conformity with) God (Eph. 4: 24). Elsewhere Paul speaks of the image of Christ: as we have borne the image of the earthly, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly (1 Cor. 15: 49; cf. Rom. 8: 29: becoming conformed to the image of God's Son; 2 Cor. 3: 18: being transformed after the image of Christ from glory to glory).

The background of both conceptions lies, of course, in Genesis 1:27. At the same time, however, the idea of Christ as the second Adam is predominant.³⁷ As such he is the image of God (2 Cor. 4: 4; Col. 1:15), and, like the first Adam, he transmits his image to those who belong to him (1 Cor. 15: 49), he takes on form in them (Gal. 4: 19), just as it can be said elsewhere that they have been created in him (Eph. 2: 10). The corporate point of view is here again in the forefront. What is called in Colossians 3:10f. having "put on the new man, which is being renewed unto knowledge in conformity with the image of his Creator, whereby Greek and Jew no longer matter..., but Christ is all in all," is called in Galatians 3: 27f. having "put on Christ, whereby Greek and Jew no longer matter..., for you are all one [man] in Christ Jesus." Renewal after the image of God comes about therefore through the fact that the believer in baptism (Gal. 3: 27) puts on Christ and thus the new man. It is the new existence of the body of Christ in which he in this way receives a share, which he henceforth is permitted to be. For this reason to be created after the image of God is the equivalent of bearing, reflecting, being transformed after the image of Christ. For Christ is all things in all those who have become new men in him.³⁸

It is said at the same time that this creation after the image of God does not signify a return to the original image of God. Rather, as the heavenly and life-giving Spirit Christ represents an entirely different order and mode of existence from Adam as the earthly and living soul.³⁹ To be created or transformed into the image of Christ does indeed mean to share anew (just as the original man; 1 Cor. 11: 7) in the glory of God, now described, however, as being transformed from glory to glory (2 Cor. 3: 18). Elsewhere this reflection ⁴⁰ of the glory of the Lord is described as being created after his image in true righteousness and holiness (Eph. 4: 24), or as being renewed unto knowledge (Col. 3: 10), being transformed by the renewing of the understanding (the nous; Rom. 12: 2), or as Christ's taking on form in his own (Gal. 4: 19).⁴¹ Thus it is a matter here of the renewing of the inward man (2 Cor. 4:16), which assumes shape, however, in the renewing of the walk (Rom. 6: 4). For the future, this being created after the image of God or being renewed after the image of Christ signifies the glorification of their whole existence, becoming conformed to "his glorious body" (Phil. 3: 21; 1 Cor. I5: 48ff.).

It is entirely in the same sense as this creation after the image of God that regeneration ( palingenesia) is to be understood, of which there is mention in Titus 3: 5: "He saved us through the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit. " Here, too, just as with the image of God, a close connection is made with baptism as the sacramental incorporation into the body of Christ, the putting on of Christ and of the new man.

It has been argued, to be sure, that the idea of regeneration is incapable of being reconciled with the eschatological background of Paul's conception of the new life and is that much more evidence that the Epistle to Titus is not Pauline. "Regeneration," in the sense of a miraculous, inner transformation of the individual man, is supposed to stem from the Hellenistic mystical world of thought⁴² and not to be in harmony with the dying and rising with Christ of which Paul repeatedly speaks.⁴³ But here again one is not to go by the sound of words. The word regeneration stems, it is true, not from the Jewish, but from the Greek world, even though it is also employed by Jewish writers such as Josephus and Philo in more senses than one. But in the Greek literature it has a very broad spectrum of metaphorical meanings: national renascence, individual, but also cosmic renewal.⁴⁴ That in the mystery religions it was a special "technical" denotation of certain mystical phenomena has in no sense been proved; much less still that the metaphorical use would there have its "Sitz im Leben." One will thus have to understand it against a broader background, and be compelled to interpret it in accordance with the context in which it occurs. Elsewhere in the New Testament it is employed in a future eschatological sense (Matt. 19: 28). And here as well, in the context of Titus 3, it gives expression to the significance of God's coming (epiphany) in Christ (v. 4; cf. 2: 11), which put an end to the "once" of the time before Christ (v. 3). The expression of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in verse 6 is also typical eschatological terminology (cf. Acts 2: 17; Joel 3: 1; Rom. 5: 5). Further, it is not correct that Paul may be said to speak of the new life only in terms of resurrection and not of (new) birth, as Schweitzer contends. In Galatians 4: 21-31 his thoughts move entirely in the latter direction when, referring to the miraculous birth of Isaac, he terms believers children who are "begotten after the Spirit, not after the flesh" and calls the Jerusalem that is above their mother (v. 26). Even though the word does not otherwise occur in Paul, there is thus no obstacle whatever to assuming that what he elsewhere calls new creation he here denotes as new birth, without the eschatological background of his ideas thereby becoming eclipsed by the mystical. The expression "washing of regeneration," as also appears from the wholly Pauline addition and explication "renewing by the Holy Spirit," denotes no other reality than what is elsewhere called the new life effected by the Holy Spirit and appropriated to believers by baptism. And this, then, not only in its commencement or exclusively in its hidden existence, but in its totality as new creation, as total renewal wrought by the power of the Spirit.⁴⁵

Along with this general and all-embracing definition of the new man, there are also the particular ones, whereby all those concepts recur which we have already attempted to analyze in treating the Pauline doctrine of sin (Section 19).

Here again a distinction is drawn between the inward and the outward man. As we have already been able to ascertain earlier, the "inward man" signifies in Paul nothing other than the inner spiritual character of man, as distinguished from the outward, that is to say, man in his bodily mode of existence turned toward the outside. To the former it now applies that with all the temptations, dangers, decay, to which the outward is exposed, he is renewed day by day (2 Cor. 4: 16). What is intended is thus the actual continuous communion with Christ by faith, or as it is said in Ephesians 3: 16: being strengthened with power through the Spirit in the inward man. And furthermore, there is the whole glorious language of faith of 2 Corinthians 4 to elucidate this being "renewed day by day."

In this renewal of the inward man, moreover, the significance of the heart and of the understanding (the nous) comes to the forefront. The conceptual material here, particularly when there is mention of the renewing of the heart, is very rich and varied. Christ "dwells" in the hearts of his own through faith (Eph. 3: 17); God "sends" the Spirit of his Son into their hearts (Gal. 4: 6) as the earnest and seal of their complete redemption (2 Cor. 1: 22). He "pours" his love into their hearts through the Holy Spirit (Rom. 5: 5; cf. Tit. 3: 5); he "writes" his will in their hearts by the Spirit (2 Cor. 3: 3); he "illumines" their hearts with the knowledge of Christ (2 Cor. 4: 6); he enlightens "the eyes of their heart" through the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation (Eph. 1:18). The peace that has been accomplished by Christ "speaks the last word" in their hearts as an arbitrator again and again (Col. 3: 15; cf. 1 Thess. 3: 13), "guards" their hearts against wandering and temptation (Phil. 4: 7), and directs their hearts in the right pathway in order that they may show love and be patient (2 Thess. 3: 5). All this includes the outworking of the hidden work of the Spirit, who as the Spirit of the adoption of sons (and not — as that of the law — as the spirit of bondage) is also the Spirit of prayer and of boldness in speaking to God (Rom. 8: 15; cf. 2 Tim. 1: 7). Indeed, the Spirit is sometimes represented as himself in the hearts of believers praying to God (Rom. 8: 26, 27;⁴⁶ Gal. 4: 6). He unites himself with their prayer, so that their prayer becomes his prayer, and that which they cannot utter is judged by God, who searches the hearts, according to the intention of his Spirit (Rom. 8: 27).

Nowhere does it appear more clearly than in these last pronouncements how intimate and how close the link is between the Spirit and the inward man of believers. Yet here as well the believing subject does not fall away and the human is not lost in the divine. In all these pronouncements we do not have to do with a mystical terminology in the technical sense of the word, but with a depiction and description, varied time and again, of the spiritual revolution that comes about in the heart of man when initially and repeatedly he is brought by the Spirit under the power of the gospel. For "the heart, " as we have seen,⁴⁷ denotes man in his capacity for being addressed by, and in his susceptibility to, the divine revelation, as well as in his self-determination with respect to that revelation. Therefore, the heart is on the one hand the point of impact of the Holy Spirit, and it is there that the great decisions fall; but it is also clear that renewal by the Spirit does not confine itself to the heart of the inward man, but intends from thence to determine his entire humanity as well.

The renewal of the understanding (the nous) is closely bound up with that of the heart. It is effected in rightly knowing, discerning, what the will of God is (Rom. 12: 2). It is described as being renewed "in the spirit of your thinking" (Eph. 4: 23), that is to say, in its nature and definiteness. Elsewhere it is spoken of as "Christ-thinking" (nous Christou; 1 Cor. 2: 16), that is to say, the mode of thinking governed and illumined by Christ in which the pneumatic man is distinguished from the physical; just as, conversely, it is said of those who deny the resurrection that they have "no knowledge of God" (agnōsia Theou; 1 Cor. 15: 34). In all this it is not so much a matter of thinking in an intellectual sense, but of the new moral and religious consciousness, of the new insight into who God is and what his will is according to his revelation in Christ, and of permitting oneself to be determined thereby in the manifestation and circumstances of his life (life "in the body").

Therefore the argument does not hold that what is said in Romans 7 in favor of the inward man and of the nous must apply to the new man.⁴⁸ For in Romans 7 the inward man and the nous are spoken of insofar as these are willing to be led by the law, and it is precisely the renewing operation of the Spirit that is not taken into consideration. And it is this renewal alone in the believer that gives the power of divine love, which is necessary not only to enable him to understand the requirement of the law in all its depth, but even more to carry that into effect "in the body. "

In this connection (with reference to the inward man) those passages are still to be pointed out where the human spirit and soul are mentioned as the seat and mode of manifestation of the new life (cf. Rom. 1: 9; 8: 16; Gal. 6: 18; Eph. 6: 18; Phil. 4: 23; 1 Thess. 5: 23; Eph. 6: 6; Phil. 1: 27, et al.). Insofar as pneuma and psyche do not simply represent the personal pronoun, it holds here, too, that they specifically denote man according to his invisible and inner existence — however, not in the pregnant sense of "heart" and "nous." They are not so sharply delineated and simply form the profuse evidence that the new life is effected in the whole of man.

This renewal and illumination of the heart and of man evidence themselves further in their divine nature and power (and are at the same time distinguished from what is said in Romans 7 in favor of the nous and the inward man) in that they are carried through into the walk, the life-manifestation of believers. Paul speaks of that frequently, as we saw earlier, as "the body" and "the members."

Now so far as "the body" is concerned, a distinction is certainly to be made here. We have already seen that the body, as the concrete mode of existence of sinful man, can sometimes be identified with sin as the "body of sin" (Rom. 6: 6), the "body of flesh" (Col. 2: 11), the "body of death" (Rom. 7: 24). Accordingly, the life from Christ by the Holy Spirit can be typified as a "doing away with the body of sin," "putting off of the body of the flesh," "putting to death of the earthly members," "deliverance from the body of this death" (Rom. 6: 6; Col. 2: 11; 3: 5; Rom. 7: 24). What is involved in all this is of course not the body as material organism, as though the new life could only reveal itself in man when he had laid aside, indeed had independently "put to death, " his present corporeality. All49 these expressions are obviously not intended of the body itself, but of the sinful mode of existence of man. This use of body is an exception, however. Elsewhere "body" (and sometimes "flesh"; see below) has a more neutral sense, namely, as the denotation of man as he appears toward the outside, as he reveals himself visibly. This body is also spoken of in terms of renewal: "Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ..., a temple of the Holy Spirit, who dwells in you?" (1 Cor. 6: 15, 19). It holds for the body as well that it "is for the Lord, and the Lord for the body" (1 Cor. 6: 13). God must therefore be glorified in the body (1 Cor. 6: 20), whether by life or by death (Phil. 1: 20). Similarly, believers must present their bodies a living sacrifice, holy, well-pleasing to God (Rom. 12: 1), they must present their members as weapons of righteousness (Rom. 6: 13), and sin may no longer reign in their mortal bodies (Rom. 6:12). In all these pronouncements it is certainly not the corporeality of man that comes to the fore, nor is it always especially the struggle against sensual sin that is thought of, but what is intended is man as he translates his intentions into acts, as he becomes manifest before the eye of God and men.

Now so far as "the body" is concerned, a distinction is certainly to be made here. We have already seen that the body, as the concrete mode of existence of sinful man, can sometimes be identified with sin as the "body of sin" (Rom. 6: 6), the "body of flesh" (Col. 2: 11), the "body of death" (Rom. 7: 24). Accordingly, the life from Christ by the Holy Spirit can be typified as a "doing away with the body of sin," "putting off of the body of the flesh," "putting to death of the earthly members," "deliverance from the body of this death" (Rom. 6: 6; Col. 2: 11; 3: 5; Rom. 7: 24). What is involved in all this is of course not the body as material organism, as though the new life could only reveal itself in man when he had laid aside, indeed had independently "put to death," his present corporeality. All⁴⁹ these expressions are obviously not intended of the body itself, but of the sinful mode of existence of man. This use of body is an exception, however. Elsewhere "body" (and sometimes "flesh"; see below) has a more neutral sense, namely, as the denotation of man as he appears toward the outside, as he reveals himself visibly. This body is also spoken of in terms of renewal: "Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ..., a temple of the Holy Spirit, who dwells in you?" (1 Cor. 6: 15, 19). It holds for the body as well that it "is for the Lord, and the Lord for the body" (1 Cor. 6: 13). God must therefore be glorified in the body (1 Cor. 6: 20), whether by life or by death (Phil. 1: 20). Similarly, believers must present their bodies a living sacrifice, holy, well-pleasing to God (Rom. 12: 1), they must present their members as weapons of righteousness (Rom. 6: 13), and sin may no longer reign in their mortal bodies (Rom. 6:12). In all these pronouncements it is certainly not the corporeality of man that comes to the fore, nor is it always especially the struggle against sensual sin that is thought of, but what is intended is man as he translates his intentions into acts, as he becomes manifest before the eye of God and men.

Finally, those passages are to be pointed out in which body denotes in particular the frailty and transitoriness of present human existence, just as this same idea can sometimes be described by "flesh. " Of this frail and corruptible "body" or "flesh," too, it is now said that it can be the pattern of the new life. The pronouncements of 2 Corinthians 4: 7, 10, 11, are characteristic:

But we have this treasure in earthen vessels....

. . . Always bearing about in our body the dying of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our body.

For we who live are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh.

According to Schweitzer it would appear particularly from 2 Corinthians 4: 11 that for Paul the new life in Christ is "an actual entity,"⁵⁰ from which it evidently must be inferred that the resurrection life of Christ also communicates itself to the corporeality of the present life of his own. Paul, however, clearly distinguishes between the new life and the flesh. For the flesh is here the human in its weakness and transitoriness. As such, that is, as flesh, it has no share in the new life. It holds for man as flesh that flesh and blood will not inherit the kingdom of God (1Cor.15:50).⁵¹ Accordingly, when the manifestation of the new life in the flesh is spoken of (or as it is called in 2 Cor. 4:10 with the same meaning: in the body), a reality is intended that does not abrogate or in principle nullify the frailty and mortality of the present life, but rather manifests itself in spite of and in the midst of this weakness (cf. 2 Cor. 4: 7ff. ), and is only to be known and experienced by faith (Gal. 2: 20).

With respect to the renewing of man this says two things: first, that the new manhood is realized even now in this present time. The eschatological gift of salvation takes effect not only in Christ, but also in believers in the flesh. In that renewing by the Spirit believers are therefore sealed even now; in it they receive the evidence and the seal of their perfect redemption (2 Cor. 1: 20-22; cf. 5: 5; Eph. 1: 13, 14). In the second place, this manifestation of the new life in the flesh is a proof of its provisional character. For this reason one can speak of the hiddenness as well as the revelation of the new life in this time (Col. 3: 3; cf. Rom. 8: 19; Phil. 3: 21).

These two aspects of life in the flesh also bring about the peculiar tension and polarity in the Christian life on earth to which Paul gives expression time and again in such a stirring manner, and which determine his own attitude toward life in such a distinctive way; at one time in the exalted language of faith, because of the Spirit, then again in deep and painful groanings, because of the flesh (cf. Rom. 5: 3ff.; 8: 22ff.; 2 Cor. 4: 7ff.; 5: 2ff. ). For this reason he is able to describe the new life in this dispensation as knowing Christ and the power of his resurrection, participating in his suffering, and being conformed to his death; and on the other hand, as an eager longing for the resurrection of the dead (Phil. 3: 10, 11). For it is only this resurrection⁵² which will bring to manifestation the life of believers (Col. 3: 4).

SECTION 40. FAITH AS THE MODE OF EXISTENCE OF THE NEW LIFE

Up to this point, with such general qualifications of the new life as "dying and being raised with Christ," "life through the Spirit," "living in the new state of the Spirit and no longer in the old state of the letter," it has been the anthropological descriptions of this new life that have especially received our attention. We come now to stand before the question — which has already received a partial answer in the foregoing — as to the manner in which and the way along which this new life by the Spirit is realized in man and makes him to be that new man in all the facets that thus emerge.

In what has gone before we have already had to do with this, insofar as in the pronouncements concerning dying and being raised with Christ — in addition to the redemptive-historical "once" and the sacramental point of view ("by baptism") — faith has been spoken of repeatedly as the means and mode of the new life. For by faith the church may know itself to be dead ("so you also must consider yourselves," etc.) to sin and alive to God (Rom. 6: 11). By faith the church has in baptism been buried and raised with Christ (Col. 2:12). Closer inspection of the pronouncements that treat of the new life through the Spirit enables us to see that here again it is faith by which (i. e., in the way of which) the Spirit communicates himself to man in all his operations and gifts and thus makes him share in the new life.

Here, too, the indissoluble bond between the Spirit and Christ is of decisive significance. The Spirit does not work as an anonymous, incalculable, miraculous power, but as the Spirit of Christ. The relationship in which the church stands to the Spirit and the manner in which it actually has a share in the Spirit is therefore determined by its relationship to Christ, that is, by faith in him. Paul prays that God may grant that the church "be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inward man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith" (Eph. 3: 16). The manner in which the power of Christ's death and resurrection is effected in the life of his own can thus be said to be that of the Spirit as well as that of faith.

It can appear even from this how little ground there is for the opinion, propounded in the earlier literature, that for Paul faith and "mysticism, " faith and pneumatic communion with Christ, represent two different "lines, " and stem from two different "worlds, " on the one hand from the Jewish, on the other from the Greek (mysticism).⁵³

Especially striking in this connection is Galatians 2: 20, the locus classicus for the "mystical" conception of the new life in Paul: "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ lives in me; and insofar as I now [still] live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me." For more than one reason this pronouncement is of great importance for the right understanding of the new life in Paul. In the first place, the transition from "we with Christ" to "Christ-in-us" is very evident here. Having died once with Christ and knowing oneself dead to sin and alive to God (cf. Section 37) is linked with and grounded on pneumatic fellowship with Christ. But further, this passage affords clear insight into the character of this fellowship. Paul speaks of it as of a certain change of subject. The meaning is that for his life he is no longer cast on his own ego (the "I-myself" of Rom. 7: 25b). For this "I" has been crucified with Christ. In its place Christ lives in him. It has then been said that this means a mystical depersonalization, an absorption of the human "I" of Paul into the pneumatic "I" of Christ. The concluding words say plainly, however, that Paul intends to be understood otherwise, and that "no longer I, but Christ in me" can be expressed thus, that he lives "in faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me."⁵⁴ By this faith — which is directed toward Christ in his loving Selfsurrender — Christ dwells and rules in him and no longer his own, old "I. " That the apostle writes all this in a context in which he vigorously upholds justification by faith (Gal. 2: 16ff. ) can only confirm that the life by faith and the life in communion with Christ through the Spirit do not represent two worlds of thought, but that faith is the manner in which one shares in the one as well as in the other. Here lies the fundamentally anti-spiritualistic and anti-gnostic character of Paul's "Pneumatology."

Other pronouncements are no less clear. In 2 Corinthians 13: 5 Paul demands that the Corinthians prove themselves whether they are indeed in the faith. In order the more to impress on them the seriousness of this question, he follows it with a second question as to whether they (then) do not (any longer) know that Jesus Christ is in them. This paralleling is only understandable when "are in the faith" and "Christ is in you" denote essentially the same thing, and thus the pneumatic fellowship with Christ comes into being in the way of faith and is exercised by faith.

Now what is said explicitly and directly in these passages is no less evident indirectly from the manner in which Paul alternates the expressions "in Christ" and "in the Spirit" with "in the faith" or "by faith." That which at one time is called living, walking, standing in Christ (Rom. 6: 11; Col. 2: 6; Phil. 4: 1; 1 Thess. 3: 8), and elsewhere living, walking, in or by the Spirit (Gal. 5: 25; Rom. 8: 4), can also be called living, walking, standing in or by faith (Gal. 2: 20; 2 Cor. 5: 7; Rom. 11: 20; 1 Cor. 16: 13; 2 Cor. 1: 24). In another place, to walk in Christ signifies the same thing as to be established in the faith (Col. 2: 6, 7); the comfort of the apostle through the faith of the church finds its ground in the fact that they stand in the Lord (1 Thess. 3: 7, 8).⁵⁵ One can conclude nothing other than that faith is the way in which, having died and risen with Christ, life through the Spirit, putting on the new man, being renewed after the image of Christ, regeneration, in short, the new creation of God, is realized and individualized. For this reason what is in one place called "new creation" can elsewhere be termed "faith" (cf. Gal. 5: 6; 6: 15). Faith represents in its manner the fullness of the time (cf. Gal. 3: 23, 25; 4: 4). As the new mode of existence it has a redemptive-historical significance in the same way as death and resurrection with Christ and being in the Spirit.

This leads us naturally into the relationship of faith and the Spirit.

In general Paul first speaks of faith and then of the Spirit. And this cannot be wondered at. Not only does righteousness by faith constitute the foundation for the new life and the work of the Holy Spirit that is therein revealed, but also the gift of the Spirit is itself by or from faith. So it is asked in Galatians 3: 2: "This only would I learn from you: did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?" a question that is clearly answered by Paul himself when he says in verse 14 that we have received the promise of the Spirit (that is to say, the promised Spirit) through faith. In Galatians 4: 6 this is still further elucidated by the statement that because we are sons (through faith; 3: 26) God has poured out the Spirit of his Son into our hearts. To mention still another place: in Ephesians 1: 13 it is said that by having believed we have been sealed with the Holy Spirit, who has been promised us. In this train of thought the Spirit is again and again the gift of the great time of redemption, the content of the ancient promise of redemption. And faith in Christ who has the Spirit at his disposal is the way or means of coming to share in this promise of the Spirit⁵⁶ (cf. also Acts 2: 38).

This is by no means to say, however, that faith, not only as a new "possibility" but also as a human act itself, is not also part of the renewing work of the Spirit, as though it were a decision by which man would have to secure for himself his share in salvation. To be sure, the active character of faith is very much in the foreground. Nor, so far as we are able to see, does the apostle say in so many words that faith is a gift of God⁵⁷ or of the Spirit,⁵⁸ Yet there can be no doubt whatever that faith, however much it bears the character of obedience and submission to the divine redemptive will (see below), nevertheless does not rest on the assent of man himself (that is, man in sin and in the flesh), but on the renewing and re-creating power of divine grace. Were it otherwise, then the gospel would be a new law, and the whole problem of the impotence of the law would recur.

We need not stop with this general consideration, however. The extent to which faith rests on the divine work of redemption in man likewise appears from those pronouncements of the apostle in which he points out the origin of faith as situated in the preaching of the gospel. Thereby on the one hand the character (to be treated still further) of faith as response and obedience to the gospel comes to the fore. On the other hand, it is also apparent, just in this correlation between faith and the preaching of the gospel, how much the latter not only advances faith, but also works faith, and calls this forth by the power of God that reveals itself in the preaching. Faith is "from hearing" and hearing by the word of Christ (Rom. 10: 17; cf. 1 Cor. 15: 11). By the gospel and its ministers the church has come to faith, "and that indeed to each as the Lord gave to him" (1 Cor. 3: 5). They have planted but God has given the increase, they are God's fellow-workers, the church is God's field, God's building (1 Cor. 3: 6, 9). It is in that sense that Paul, especially at the beginning of his epistles, again and again thanks God for the faith of the church (cf. Rom. 1: 8; Phil. 1: 29; Col. 1: 4; 1 Thess. 1: 3; Philem. 5). In that sense also we shall have to understand those pronouncements in which the word of the cross or of the gospel is called a "power of God" (1 Cor. 1: 18, 24; Rom. 1: 16). This expression undoubtedly has broad significance; the gospel is the means that carries on God's work of redemption in Christ, and it does so in all kinds of ways. It exercises that power, however, by working faith in man and makes him live by it (1 Thess. 2:13). Faith does not rest on human wisdom, but on⁵⁹ the power of God (1 Cor. 2: 5), which is the power of his Spirit (1 Thess. 1: 5), just as, conversely, there is mention of the energeia of error that they should believe the lie (2 Thess. 2:11). One finds the same train of thought in the striking pronouncement of 2 Corinthians 4: 4ft, where it is first said of unbelievers that the god of this age has stricken their thoughts with blindness, so that they do not perceive "the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ. " To the church, however, the words apply: "For it is that [same] God who said: Let light shine out of darkness, who has made it to shine in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God.... "

Accordingly, when faith is elsewhere called a matter of the heart (Rom. 10: 9, 10), and it holds for the word of faith (the gospel) that it is in the heart of man (Rom. 10: 8), it is evident that the heart is moved to this faith by the same creative word of God as that by which he caused the light to shine on the darkness of the primeval time. Nothing is therewith detracted from the nature of faith as submission and obedience. It is characterized, however, by the fact that it is an obedience that most profoundly rests on being claimed by the overwhelming power of the word of God; it is bearing witness to the light God has caused to arise in the heart.

In this context something should be said about what Paul time and again terms the divine call and the calling of the church.⁶⁰ This expression is connected with what is already a qualification of the people of God in the Old Testament and which as a terminus technicus⁶¹Paul transfers to the New Testament church, as the "called" or "called saints" (e. g., Rom. 1: 6, 7; 1 Cor. 1: 2; cf. v. 9). He gives this word a pregnant significance, however, by understanding it of the word of divine power by which God calls into being the things that do not exist and by which he works what he commands (Rom. 4: 17; 9: 11, 25; 1 Thess. 5: 24). It is this effectual, efficient divine calling which now takes place through the gospel and by which God has called the church to faith itself as well as to the whole of the new life by faith.

It is also this effectual calling by the gospel through which God's electing⁶² grace is realized, not on the ground of human works or merit, but of his antecedent saving purpose (2 Thess. 2: 13ff.; 2 Tim. 1: 9; Rom. 8: 29ff.; 9: 12). For those who thus have been called according to the divine purpose (Rom. 8: 28), the preaching of Christ the Crucified One is the power of God and the wisdom of God (1 Cor. 1: 24). It is this "faith of God's elect" (Tit. 1: 1) which forms the mode of existence of the new life through the Spirit. but of his antecedent saving purpose (2 Thess. 2: 13ff.; 2 Tim. 1: 9; Rom. 8: 29ff.; 9: 12). For those who thus have been called according to the divine purpose (Rom. 8: 28), the preaching of Christ the Crucified One is the power of God and the wisdom of God (1 Cor. 1: 24). It is this "faith of God's elect" (Tit. 1: 1) which forms the mode of existence of the new life through the Spirit.

This placing of emphasis on the electing and effectual character of calling by the gospel and this connection between calling and the saving purpose of God do not in any respect signify in Paul's preaching a reduction from faith as obedience. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the extensive discussion of Israel's unbelief, whereby he time and again brings God's omnipotence and election into the picture. This appeal does not serve to give an explanation in an anthropological sense of the fact that Israel has hardened itself in unbelief and the gentiles have received Christ in faith, but to throw light on the great soteriological theme of Paul's proclamation: "not upon the ground of works, but of this, that he called" (Rom. 9:11, 16). On the one hand he thereby declares the Jews to be in default, and all those who seek righteousness on the ground of their works (Rom. 9:30ff. ) and who in disobedience and contradictoriness have resisted this gospel-without-theworks-of-the-law (10:19ff. ); on the other hand, in "but upon this ground, that he called" it is implied that faith is not a "work" to which one can appeal or (over against the Jews) in which one can glory (cf. 11: 188ff. ), but the fruit of the effectual, divine call (9: 24ff. ) by the gospel, so that the content of the promise given by God to Abraham is communicated as a life-giving power (Gal. 3:16ff.; 4:23, 28ff. ). The guilty character of unbelief as disobedience to the grace of God is not herewith taken away (Rom. 10: 3). The divine calling does not eliminate man, but demands of him just this, that he obey the gospel. But all this functions in a greater context,⁶³ in which not man but God, as the one who elects and is glorified, is the First and the Last (Rom. 11: 36).

SECTION 41. THE NATURE OF FAITH

The all-embracing significance of faith as the mode of existence of the new man gives us occasion to go further still into the nature of faith.

In general, in Paul as in the whole of the New Testament, faith is the central concept used to denote the human correlate of the eschatological redemptive reality revealed in Christ. In that sense faith itself has become a redemptive-historical concept, as this is voiced particularly in the typical expression of Galatians 3: 23. For the same reason the concepts "faith" and "gospel" define each other reciprocally. For at one time the gospel can be called the "word of faith"⁶⁴ (Rom. 10: 8), then again faith is typified as "faith in the gospel" (Phil. 1: 27), still further as the "hearing of faith," i. e., the believing hearing of the gospel (Gal. 3: 2, 5).⁶⁵

This fundamental involvement of faith with the gospel determines the nature of faith in more than one way. One can thereby start from the content of the gospel as the message of redemption and then typify faith first of all as the surrender and trust of faith, especially in contrast to trusting in the works of the law. One can also, more formally, take his point of departure in the gospel as the message of redemption, whereby faith comes to the fore as the obedience of faith. Both points of view are, of course, very closely connected, and are equally characteristic for Paul's concept of faith. We begin with the latter as the more general and comprehensive.

Faith as obedience is of central significance for Paul's conception and is repeatedly defined as such in his epistles. He says immediately at the beginning of the Epistle to the Romans that he has received his apostleship unto "obedience of faith"⁶⁶ among all the gentiles; at the conclusion of the epistle this is repeated (at least according to many mss.; 16: 26). The same thought is present when the apostle speaks of being "subject to the righteousness of God" (Rom. 10: 3). For this righteousness is the great content of the gospel (Rom. 1: 17). Unbelief means therefore not being obedient, being disobedient to the gospel (Rom. 10: 16; cf. 11: 30; 2 Thess. 1:18). Faith and obedience belong together and can be employed as interchangeable ideas (cf. Rom. 1: 8 and 16: 19; 1 Thess. 1: 8 and Rom. 15: 18), as can unbelief and disobedience (cf. Rom. 2: 8; Eph. 2: 2; 5: 6). From all this the involvement of faith with the gospel as the authoritative communication of salvation is apparent. And the nature of faith is thereby determined in its initial intention.

This structure of faith as obedience is, of course — so we may say — not to be detached for a moment from the content of the gospel. It is no formal obedience that is to prepare the way for faith in the content of the gospel, but it is, in the first instance, just obedience to the content of the gospel itself, "subjecting oneself to the righteousness of God, " being willing to be "subordinate" (hypakoē) to this righteousness as the way of salvation of grace revealed and ordained by God. Faith can (and must!) as such be called obedience, however, because the gospel does not come to man as a communication or offer that leaves him free, but asks of him the decision and the act to enter into that way of salvation ordained of God and to abandon every other means of salvation than that which is proclaimed to him in the gospel. It is the response and obedience to God's grace that is intended here, and faith must be qualified in this way because it cannot otherwise participate in the gift of grace than by responding to and following the gospel.

In close connection with this character of faith as obedience is the aspect of confession mentioned time and again in one breath with faith; so, for example, in Romans 10: 9, 10: "If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe with your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart man believes unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. "

The connection is so close because "confessing" (homologein and hornologia) originally meant "saying the same thing, " "speaking together, " and hence contains the element of letting oneself be engaged for something or someone, being willing to declare oneself for something in the presence of others, considering oneself answerable for something.⁶⁷ On the one hand, that which is typical of "confession" thus lies in the fact that it is the self-accountability of faith toward the outside. In that sense it has a certain forensic significance, whereby "the forum" or "the witnesses" may be thought of as the worldly tribunal or men in general, but also as the church or its representatives, before whom one professes his faith and commits himself to the content of the faith (1 Tim. 6: 12fE. ).⁶⁸ On the other hand, "confession" as hornologia expresses that faith has a norm (in the gospel), and that adhering to this norm and knowing oneself to be responsible for this proceeds from the essence of faith. The spontaneity of faith in expressing itself (2 Cor. 4: 13) and the obedience of faith as assent to the gospel go hand in hand in confession. In that sense "one confesses with the mouth unto salvation," that is, through giving expression to one's belonging to Christ by faith, and Paul speaks of it as the "obedient confession of the gospel of Christ" (2 Cor. 9:13). It is this binding of confession to the gospel by which on the one hand it is safeguarded against all false traditionalism and intellectualism, and on the other against being dissolved in mysticism and idealism.⁶⁹

This determination of faith by the gospel and this structure of faith as obedience to the gospel are able also to give us an insight into the relationship in which faith stands to Christ.

For Paul speaks not only of "faith in the gospel, " but very frequently of "faith in Christ" as well, and he employs various formulations for this.⁷⁰ On the basis of the formula "faith in (en) Christ" some have wanted indeed to make their point of departure a mystical concept of faith in Paul, in the sense of "something which is effected in the vital union with the spiritual Christ."⁷¹

In particular on this point of view the connection with the genitive (pistis Iēsou Christou, etc.) is not to be taken as an objective genitive, but as a genitive of communion or a mystical genitive,⁷² whereby "Christ" is not the object of faith, but qualifies the communion that faith has with Christ: "Christ-faith." ⁷³ It has rightly been urged as an objection against this, however, that one would likewise have to take the combination pisteuein eis Iēsoun Christon in that sense — which Deissmann does — but that with this conception the Pauline usage becomes entirely isolated from that which is followed elsewhere in the New Testament; furthermore, that pistis plus the genitive can mean being directed toward an object and in Paul does in fact mean this (cf. Phil. 1: 27 — pistis tou euangeliou), just as Paul speaks of pistis pros ton Kyrion, whereby there is obviously no question of such a mystical union. ⁷⁴

But the whole manner in which for Paul faith functions as obedience to the gospel points in another direction. That is not to say that faith in Christ does not denote a personal relationship to Christ (cf., e. g., Gal. 2: 20 and Rom. 10: 9, 12, where, in close connection with believing and confessing, calling on Christ is spoken of). But this relationship is defined by faith in the gospel and is in a certain sense identical with it. For as little as faith in the gospel is directed merely toward a thing, a word, a Scripture, but in this word is directed toward the person who is its great content, so little is faith in Christ to be described simply as a personal relationship, but as a relationship to the person of Christ as he is known and comes to us in the gospel. It is faith in that Christ who means for the believer what is announced of him in the gospel; who has come into the world, who has suffered, died, risen, and who lives in heaven. Thus is he proclaimed, and thus have those who believe in him learned to believe (1 Cor. 15: 11). For this reason faith, even when it is termed faith in Christ, is in its essence always defined by this dement of being bound to the gospel in its concrete redemptive content.

This last point can enable us to understand the close connection Paul again and again makes between faith in Christ and the tradition the church has received from him and the doctrine in which it has been instructed. Both concepts play a great role in the Pauline epistles. One will moreover, especially with "tradition, " have to relinquish every thought of a collective, anonymous origin (as that notion is involved in our idea of tradition), as well as the conception that what is alluded to in general by this is the faith of the church as the bearer of this tradition. The idea that Paul employs, as has been convincingly demonstrated in recent years,⁷⁵ is oriented rather to Judaism and denotes the gospel as a clearly delimited authoritative tradition, of which certain qualified persons are the authorized bearers and conveyers. It is in this sense that Paul in particular utilizes the concept of tradition, the content of which is above all the redemptive event that took place in Christ and the bearers of which are the apostles called and authorized by him to this authoritative tradition (cf. 1 Cor. 11: 2, 23; 15: 1, 3; Gal. 1: 12). ⁷⁶ The expressions "to deliver" and "receive" (as tradition), of which Paul makes abundant use (cf. also Gal. 1: 9; Phil. 4: 9; 1 Thess. 2: 13; 4: 1; 2 Thess. 3: 6), are to be understood in this sense, and one can only deplore the fact that in our translations, because of a lack of equivalent concepts, the pregnant significance of these expressions is in many respects lost.

Through the connection with tradition and doctrine understood in this way, faith in the gospel and faith in Christ are further qualified in terms of content and structure, and the obedience of faith is likewise characterized; as, for example, when there is mention in Romans 6: 17 of having "become obedient from the heart to that form of teaching which you have received as [authoritative apostolic] tradition," ⁷⁷ and when faith in Christ is denoted as "having received Christ by tradition" (Col. 2: 6; cf. Eph. 4: 20) and the church is exhorted thus to hold fast to him.

In this manner a close connection is made between the faith of the church and apostolic authority, and the character of faith as obedience is determined by this apostolic authorization.⁷⁸ One need only glance at Paul's epistles to know how he wishes to have this obedience of faith understood. He does not come to the church only with logical argumentation, he does not only appeal to the conscience or to the manner in which the gospel makes provision for human need and lostness, but his words are supported above all by the authorization he has received as apostle of Jesus Christ and with which, when he sees the content of the gospel threatened or falsified in one way or another, he lays down his authoritative word, brooking no contradiction: "I herewith make known unto you (gnōrizō; 1 Cor. 15:1; Gal. 1:11).

Here again the "formal" and the "material" aspects of the authority of the gospel and of the corresponding character of faith as obedience remain inseparably bound together. Paul does not first ask obedient recognition of his authorization and thereafter of the content of his message: his commission and authorization consist in the proclamation of the revelation of the mystery, and the nature of his apostolic authority is to be inferred from that (cf. Eph. 3:2ff.). On the other hand, it lies in the nature of the gospel as tidings of salvation of what God has done in Christ and what has taken place in Christ's death and resurrection, that the authority of the gospel does not rest only on the inner hold it lays on the heart and will of man, but first of all on the reality of that which has once taken place. The gospel therefore can be no gospel, faith no faith, and the obedience of faith to the gospel no obedience, if the tradition of the redemptive event was not trustworthy and faith could not appeal for the latter to the former, and could not submit itself to it (1 Cor. 15:14ff.; cf. vv. 1ff.). For this unity Paul refers ever anew to his calling as an apostle of Jesus Christ, that is to say, to the preaching and tradition of the gospel warranted and authorized by the exalted Christ himself. Consequently faith in this tradition is not grounded ultimately in the trustworthiness of human eyewitnesses and bearers of the tradition, but in the manner in which the living Lord has appointed his apostles as the foundation of the church and demands its obedience to what they proclaim with authority in his name and power (cf. Rom. 15: 18ff.; 2 Cor. 12: 12; 1 Thess. 1: 5; 2: 13; Eph. 2: 20).

From this the calling of the church to safeguard against corruption and error the faith thus directed toward Christ now proceeds of itself. As believers have "received Christ by [apostolic] tradition," so they are to walk in him, to be established in "the faith, as you were taught," and to take heed that the deceitful wisdom after "the tradition of men" and the "first principles of the world" does not make prey of them (Col. 2: 6ff.). For the word that they have received by tradition is in truth God's word, which works in them that believe (1 Thess. 2:13). "To stand fast in the faith" means accordingly to hold fast to the tradition (2 Thess. 2: 14, 15; cf. 3: 6), as also the renewing of life and the putting off of the old man stand in the closest relationship with the knowledge of Christ thus received and must continually be subjected to that norm.

It is accordingly incomprehensible that when the Pastoral Epistles speak of "sound doctrine" and "sound faith" (1 Tim. 1:10; Tit. 1: 13; 2: 3), and time and again emphasis is placed on guarding the deposit⁷⁹ that has been entrusted to the minister of the gospel and to the church (1 Tim. 6: 20; 2 Tim. 1: 4), this is allegedly no longer compatible with the genuine Pauline conception of faith.⁸⁰ However much a (natural!) development is perceptible here, and the antithesis between the Christian faith and human tradition and wisdom has in the process of time assumed a more clearly delimited form, this does not alter the fact that this conformity with the tradition pertains to the essence of the Pauline idea of faith, that this faith therefore from the outset stands over against the wisdom of the heathen (1 Cor. l: 20ff. ), and contains within itself the inner necessity of being guarded and defended against error and corruption (cf. also Rom. 16: 17).

Furthermore, the important place that the element of knowledge occupies in the Pauline idea of faith proceeds of itself from this. Faith cannot be approached from the sphere of feeling, e. g., in the sense of heathen mysticism; neither can it be defined as an act of surrender or Entscheidung, without a clear awareness as to that to which it surrenders itself or for which it decides, but faith presupposes a knowing, on which it rests and from which it ever and anew derives its strength.

To be sure, the relationship of faith and knowledge, pistis and gnosis, just as that of faith and works, is ambivalent. On the one hand knowledge stands in faith's way, that is, when, just as good works for the Jews, it represents the human will to self-redemption. As this antithesis is developed in Galatians and Romans with respect to works, this threat to the Christian faith from the side of gnosis is elucidated especially in 1 Corinthians (cf., e. g., 1 Cor. 1: 26-29). And this danger exists not merely from the side of what Paul calls "the wisdom of this world" (1 Cor. 1: 21), but also from a certain kind of Christian gnosis. Paul does recognize that gnosis in itself: we know that we all have knowledge (1 Cor. 8: 1). But he immediately adds to this: knowledge puffs up, love builds up. What is at issue here is a wrongly employed Christian gnosis, which elevates itself above one's neighbor, the weak; a knowledge that is indeed in the service of one's own individual freedom, but not of the edification of the church. This gnosis only promotes proud individualism and stands over against love. In that sense gnosis, even as works, can come to stand over against love; as such it is injurious and without profit (1 Cor. 13: 2, 3).⁸¹

These are the negative pronouncements on gnosis. But just as faith stands over against "works" as the means to self-redemption and the ground for man's own boasting, but is nevertheless not without works, but brings these along with it, so it is with knowledge and wisdom (sophia). God destroys the wisdom of the world, but Christ has become to us wisdom from God (1 Cor. 1: 30). For this reason faith in Christ, as the fruit of the proclamation of the gospel, is also knowledge and wisdom, and these concepts pistis and gnosis define each other reciprocally in the Pauline conception of faith.⁸²

This integral linking of faith and knowledge in Paul's epistles can be demonstrated on the basis of an abundance of evidence that will not be exhausted here. It is the all-surpassing knowledge of Christ Jesus, which led him to abandon all his earlier attainments and to seek righteousness only on the foundation of faith (Phil. 3: 8ft). In that sense he is able to qualify his proclamation of the gospel, "the word of faith," as the "manifestation of the fragrance of the knowledge of Christ" (2 Cor. 2: 14). This knowledge, of course, has reference above all to the resurrection of Christ as the content and cognitive ground of faith (Rom. 4: 24; 10: 9; 1 Thess. 4: 14; Col. 2: 12), and can be defined in general as the "knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Cor. 4: 6). Yet in addition Paul speaks of knowing in all sorts of ways in close connection with faith, especially in the frequently occurring idiom "for we know that" (Rom. 5: 3; 6: 9; 1 Cor. 15: 58; 2 Cor. 1: 7; 4: 14, et al.).⁸³ Knowledge appears, moreover, as the ground and motive or as the implication of faith, it itself bears the character of faith-knowledge (Rom. 6: 9; 2 Cor. 4: 14), and it qualifies faith as a conscious, directed, and therefore convinced and assured faith.

Just as in faith, there is certainly a distinction to be observed in knowledge in the church. It is also true of both that the church has not immediately come to full maturity in them. Time and again a "growing, " "increase, " "being filled, " "abounding, " in knowledge is spoken of (Phil. 1: 9; Col. 1: 9, 10; 1 Thess. 3: 12; 2 Cor. 8: 7). Frequently faith and knowledge make their appearance in this respect as ideas that complement and reciprocally define one another. It is "the faith and the knowledge" (the faith-knowledge) of the Son of God in which the church is more and more to find its unity (Eph. 4: 13); and elsewhere there is mention of an "abounding in faith, in utterance, in knowledge" (2 Cor. 8:7).

The distinction between initial knowledge and the continuing, developed knowledge of faith is sometimes given expression in a very trenchant manner. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2: 6 that he speaks wisdom (sophia) among those that are perfect, and he complains against the Corinthians who thought so highly of their knowledge that he cannot speak of this wisdom among them because they still conduct themselves so much as children. He calls them therefore "babes in Christ," who because of their carnal disposition cannot tolerate "solid food" (1 Cor. 3:1ff.). It is not said hereby that he distinguishes two groups, the "immature" and the "perfect,"⁸⁴ but that it pertains to the wisdom given in Christ to proceed from immaturity to maturity. The church as a whole must be brought to "all riches of the fulness of insight," "to the knowledge of the mystery of God, Christ, in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden." Then will it no longer be thrown off its stride by specious fallacies and tossed to and fro and carried about by every wind of doctrine in the vain trickery of men (Col. 2: 2ff.; Eph. 4:13ff.). about by every wind of doctrine in the vain trickery of men (Col. 2: 2ff.; Eph. 4:13ff. ).

Moreover, what is thought of as the content of this knowledge (gnosis, epignosis) and wisdom (sophia) is not unclear in view of Paul's own epistles. On the one hand this knowledge has reference to the increasingly better understanding of the will of God in the ethical sense of the word. This is spoken of, for example, in Colossians l: 9ff., where the apostle makes mention of his intercession that the church may be filled with "the knowledge of God's will, in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, to walk worthily of the Lord"; in Philippians 1: 9 he terms this same thing "the insight and the discernment to distinguish the things that really matter, " which is apparently also intended in an ethical sense⁸⁵ (cf. also Philem. 6; Rom. 15: 4).

Yet it is clear that this knowledge of faith and increase in it are not in the first place ethical in nature. In the opening of the Epistle to the Ephesians there is likewise mention of the abundant grace God has shown to the church, "in all wisdom and understanding, making known to us the mystery of his will" (Eph. 1: 8, 9). As appears from the whole context, however, what is to be understood here by the "mystery of God's will" is not in the first instance God's requirement, but his redemptive will, as this has been revealed in the advent and work of Christ. Accordingly the prayer of the apostle is directed toward this, that God may give the church "the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in order to know him aright; enlightened eyes of the heart in order to know what is the hope of his calling and how rich is the glory of his inheritance, " etc. (Eph. 1: 17; cf. 3: 18, 19). Here the content of the knowledge of faith consists in a deeper and more extensive insight into that which God has given and will give in Christ. Elsewhere as well "the knowledge of the mystery of Christ" and "the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, which are hidden in Christ," will have to be understood in this way. Sometimes "the Spirit, who searches all things, even the depths of G o d . . . that we might know what has been given us by God in Christ, " is spoken of in still stronger language (1 Cor. 2: 10ff. ). With all this one is not to think of a certain mysterious doctrine or of esoteric revelations, which would only have been intended for a small group of "perfect ones." Paul, as he says in the same context of 1 Corinthians, knows no other gospel than that of Jesus Christ and him crucified (1 Cor. 2: 2). The "mystery of Christ," the "depths of God," is that which God has purposed to himself in Christ and has brought to revelation in the fullness of time. But the knowledge of this mystery and of these depths consists not only in the handing down of that which has taken place, but also in the all-embracing significance of it. Paul's epistles give an unmistakable picture of that knowledge and wisdom as he, who calls himself the "steward of the mysteries of God" (I Cor. 4:1), unfolds the significance of Christ's death and resurrection on all sides: in his Christocentric interpretation of the Old Testament (Rom. 4; Gal. 3; 4: 21-31; 1 Cor. 10: 1-13; 2 Cor. 3: 7-18, etc. ), in the tremendous redemptive-historical exposition of Romans 9-11 concerning Israel, leading to the adoration of what here again is called "the depths" of God (Rom. 11: 33); further, in his designation of Christ as the second Adam (Rom. 5; 1 Cor. 15) and the light that sheds on the resurrection of the dead (1 Cor. 15: 35-49). This wisdom and knowledge reach still further when, as in his resistance against the false doctrine at Colosse, he extends the significance of Christ to the whole of the created world, the powers that are in heaven and on earth, history, and when he leads the church to understand itself, in the light of the significance of Christ in that world and history, as the body of Christ, filled with all the fullness of him who fills all things (Col. 2; Eph. 1: 23). To trace the course of the revealed mystery in this way, to grasp its implications for the great future and for the manner in which it is to take place (1 Cor. 15: 51; 1 Thess. 4: 15, 17) —all this together discloses something of the treasures of wisdom and knowledge that are hidden in Christ. They may be known by those who "have the nous of Christ, " by the "spiritual man" who does not stick fast halfway along in immaturity but, taught by the Spirit, learns to discern all things and relates together all that which "is of the Spirit" in order thus to know what has been given us by God in grace (1 Cor. 2: 6-16). For not only is Paul himself a dispenser and steward of these mysteries of God and not only in his reiterated prayer that God may grant the church this knowledge (which prayer functions at the same time as the introduction to what he himself is able to communicate to the church of it), but he also wants to make the church itself active therein so that it may build up and establish itself in the faith out of the root from which it lives — Christ —(Col. 2: 7) and with all the saints may know all the dimensions, forward, backward, in the height and in the depth (Eph. 3: 18), as endowed with the Spirit of the knowledge and of the revelation of God in Christ (Eph. 1: 17; Phil. 3: 15).⁸⁶

No doubt this knowledge and wisdom in all their extent and explications do not simply coincide with faith; they are not gifts that, as it were, are ready to hand; they must be discovered, traced, and investigated with all the saints and all generations. For the treasures of wisdom and of knowledge are more than can be comprehended by one man, one church, and — we may add to this — one generation. There is also a difference of gifts, and not every member of the church has a share in every gift in the same measure and in the same sense. Therefore under the diversity of gifts⁸⁷ Paul mentions both "the word of wisdom" and "the word of knowledge." But this does not alter the fact that this knowledge and this wisdom have only been given for the building up of the whole church, and that this knowledge, likewise in the respect in which it is more than the fundamental recognition of the love of God turned toward us in Christ, further qualifies faith according to its nature and in this way pertains to the new mode of existence of the church that has been given it by the Spirit (1 Cor. 2: 15, 16).

If in the above the indissoluble relationship between faith and the message of redemption has become clear and if in its light one may understand that already in the Pauline usage faith can denote not only the fides qua, but also the fides quae creditur,⁸⁸ on the other hand this faith is in its essence defined by the fact that it is faith in salvation, and thus bears the character of trust, surrender, hope. Not for a moment may the idea be allowed to take form that faith, because it is so closely connected to tradition and consists in obedient submission to the apostolic doctrine of salvation, lies only or in the first place in the noetic sphere and does not from the outset affect man in the totality of his existence. Even the fact that Paul describes faith as a matter of the heart (Rom. 10: 9), and repeatedly links knowledge with the nous, is sufficient proof of the contrary, inasmuch as it is precisely these concepts which, as we have seen,⁸⁹ denote the new man in his central self-determination.

To be sure, the element of trust in Paul's epistles (no more than in the whole of the New Testament) is not frequently mentioned explicitly,⁹⁰ much less so, for example, than in the Old Testament Psalms. This is related to the fact that in the New Testament faith has to do above all with the all-embracing eschatological salvation revealed in Christ; whereas, for example, in the Psalms it is much more a matter of the personal lot of the one who prays in his necessity, in view of which the godly man puts his trust in God.⁹¹ But this does not mean that trust is not an essential element in the Pauline conception of faith. Trust makes its appearance in the form of faith in Christ and the gospel, and is taken up in that and itself conversely defines the nature of faith. Negatively Paul is able to characterize the new life through the Spirit as "no longer trusting in the flesh" (Phil. 3: 3ff.). Similarly, when in Romans 4 he posits the faith of Abraham exemplarily, he interprets this faith as trusting in the promise of God and in his power to carry out this promise (Rom. 4: 11, 17-21); just as elsewhere he typifies the issue of faith, in harmony with the Old Testament Scripture, as "not being put to shame" (Rom. 9: 33; 10: 11; cf. Isa. 28: 16), and once again conceives of faith in the sense of trust. In its most characteristic form this trust of faith appears in Paul as the antithesis of the Jewish trust in the law.⁹² In this respect it has both a negative and a positive significance. It consists on the one hand in a relinquishing of every human achievement, it is the exclusion of all "boasting" or moral selfconfidence, leaning on the strength of the law as the means of salvation; on the other hand it is the absolute surrender to God's grace, whereby "in faith" and "in grace" can be parallel expressions (cf. 2 Cor. 13: 5; 1 Cor. 16: 13; 2 Cor. 1: 24). It is the certainty of having received "access to God" (Rom. 5: 2), "boldness and access with trust through faith" (Eph. 8: 12), the opposite of the spirit of bondage again to fear, the consciousness of the sonship of God (Rom. 8:15).

This same element of trust as an entrusting of oneself to divine grace lies at the root of knowledge as well. Knowledge of God is not the result of human initiative, reflection, or inquiry, but of God's concerning himself with man. This is clear from the remarkable manner in which in connection with the knowing of God Paul repeatedly changes the subject and object of knowing, and denotes the knowing of God by man as the reverse side and consequence of the knowing of man by God. So in Galatians 4: 9: "but now we know God, or rather: we are known by him"; and in 1 Corinthians 8: 2: "if any man thinks that he has learned to know anything, then he does not yet know as he ought to know. If any man loves God, however, he is known by him. " Knowledge of God thus presupposes the relationship in which God has willed to place himself to man and which he has willed to enter into with him. For this reason this knowledge is knowledge of salvation, knowledge to which one can abandon himself, depending on God and trusting in him, and faith consists always in the joining of one's own lot and life with that which is "believed."

At the same time the nature of this believing knowledge of God and of the trust that coincides with it is defined by the nature of this being known by God in Christ. Here, too, the redemptive-historical viewpoint is predominant. To be known by God is not in the first place of an individual or mystical nature, and faith is accordingly not a condition of the soul that corresponds with the awareness of becoming known in such an ultra-individualistic sense,⁹³ but it has its ground in the manner in which God has once known, sought, redeemed us in Christ and in which he will carry on this work in him. It consists therefore in the certainty of the refconciliation once accomplished and of having been adopted as children, but it also involves the whole of life in all its facets, joys, needs, anxieties, and expectations in what God has done and will yet do in Christ, and knows itself to be included in it. In that sense Paul can term all that is not of faith, that is to say, is kept outside this all-embracing relationship, "sin, " and in this same context and with the same meaning he is able to say: "for if we live, it is for the Lord, and if we die, it is for the Lord" (Rom. 14: 23, 8). Faith is therefore not a condition in which one can rest when he has once attained it; to stand in the faith (Rom. 11: 20; 14: 4; 1 Cor. 10: 12; 15: 1; cf. 1 Thess. 3: 8) is at the same time an unremitting struggle (Phil. 3: 12-14), in which one can show himself more or less strong, in which it is possible to be weak and to be strong, to increase and to fall behind (Rom. 14: 1; 2 Cor. 10: 15; 1 Thess. 3: 10). But even so, as faith it is not qualified by weakness but by strength, not by stagnation but by progress, because it may share even now in the strength God has revealed in Christ.

This consciousness of being permitted to live and share in the power of God as communion with the living Lord also belongs to the distinctive character of the Pauline concept of faith. Thus he prays in Ephesians 1:19ff. that the church may know how overwhelmingly great the power of God is with respect to those who believe, according to the working of the strength of his might, which he has wrought by raising Christ from the dead and by giving him a place at his right hand in the heavenly places (cf. 1: 20; Col. 1:11). The continual operation of the new life accordingly takes place through faith in the working of God, who raised Christ from the dead (Col. 2: 12). Therefore the gospel of the great works of God is the power of God for everyone who believes (Rom. 1: 16; 1 Cor. 1: 18). And the dwelling of Christ in the hearts of his own by faith is accompanied by being strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inward man (Eph. 3: 16). Therefore the new life consists not only in possessing righteousness by faith in Christ, but also in knowing him and the power of his resurrection (Phil. 3:10), and faith manifests itself in power (2 Thess. 1: 11); the Spirit is also a Spirit of power, and believers have to fulfill their calling according to the power of God (2 Tim. 1: 7, 8). And this certainty of sharing in the power of God is the more striking because it is accompanied with the consciousness of one's own weakness (2 Cor. 4: 17), is made perfect in human weakness, indeed learns to take satisfaction in that, so that the power of Christ may be the more clearly manifest in it (2 Cor. 19: 9ff. ). Indeed, this weakness itself forms a proof of the fact that all of life is bound to Christ. For he too was crucified out of weakness, but he lives out of the power of God (2 Cor. 13: 3ff.). It is this solidarity with Christ in which the believer learns to understand the present life in its deepest significance (2 Cor. 4: 11; 6: 9; Col. 1: 24; 2 Tim. 2: 10), which already in this life makes itself felt as a source of strength and constitutes the evidence of the coming glory.

For this reason hope is indissolubly bound up with faith, not only by virtue of the inner affinity of certain spiritual experiences or conditions, but by virtue of faith's focus on Christ: "If we have died with Christ, so we believe that we shall also live with him" (Rom. 6: 8). Thus Christ himself can be called the hope of glory, and it may be understood that "hope" can signify alternately the act (spes sperans) and the object of hope (spes sperata). In all sorts of ways the apostle speaks of hope, together with faith and with knowledge (e. g., Col. 1: 4ff.; Tit. 1:1ff.; Rom. 15:13), and in particular with faith and love, as giving expression to the whole of the Christian life (1 Cor. 13: 13; 1 Tim. 1: 3; Col. 1: 4, et al.). Thus hope rests on faith (Gal. 5: 5); it is termed the hope of the gospel (Col. 1: 23), the hope of the divine calling (Eph. 1: 18), it stands on a level with the one Spirit, one body, one faith, one baptism as the "one hope of your calling" (Eph. 4: 4), and thus represents the new life given in Christ and wrought by the Spirit.

Furthermore, this hope, so far as its function and operation are concerned, directs itself toward the invisible things of the future which are eternal (cf. Rom. 8: 241f.; 2 Cor. 4: 18; 1 Cor. 15: 9), and derives its strength from them. For as hope it is not a weaker form of believing and knowing, but precisely a source of confidence and strength (2 Cor. 1: 9, 10; 3: 12). It is the earnest expectation of being put to shame in nothing (Phil. 1: 20). In consequence it is able to furnish patience and meekness, so long as that which is hoped for has not yet come (Rom. 8: 25; 1 Thess. 1: 3, et al. ), and in that once again to exhibit the figure of Abraham, who in hope believed against hope (Rom. 4: 18). Hope does not put to shame (Rom. 5: 5), for however much salvation is still a matter of hope, in that way we have (already) been saved (Rom. 8: 24).

From all this it appears with abundant clarity what a power, what a certainty, and what a victory Paul ascribes to the new life as a life by faith and in hope; on the other hand, they both represent no less the provisional revelation of the new life and of the new man, and it is striking how much the apostle alternately places the emphasis on the one and then the other. In this way there enters into the concept of faith the strong tension and emotion that are so characteristic of the manner in which Paul, often in the most personal passages in his epistles, gives expression to his own experience of faith. This provisional character comes to the fore particularly when believing is placed over against "beholding":

. . . for we walk by faith, not by sight (2 Cor. 5: 7).

. . . for we know in part, and we prophesy in part (1 Cor. 13: 9).

. . . for now we see in a mirror,⁹⁴ in a riddle⁹⁵ . . . now I know in part (1 Cor. 13: 12).

The kerygma of Christ's resurrection is foundational and indispensable for preaching (1 Cor. 15: 3-8, 14ff.), and one cannot for this reason seek the essence of the gospel in paradox.⁹⁶ But what has happened and been seen in Christ has not yet taken place in believers. Their life is hid with Christ in God, in heaven, and will only be revealed when Christ is revealed (Col. 3: 3, 4). The salvation that has appeared and been beheld in Christ can therefore as yet be only the object of faith because, as Paul expresses it, "while we have our abode in the body, we are away from the Lord" (2 Cor. 5: 6). Therefore "to be in the faith" means to have a share "already" in the new life as the eschatological existence and gift of salvation; on the other hand, faith as the provisional mode of existence of the new life implies that one "yet" finds himself in the present temporal reality, that he has not yet been made perfect, not yet laid hold upon that which is before (Phil. 3:12ff.).

The pronouncement of 1 Corinthians 13: 13 seems to be in conflict with this description of faith as the provisional mode of existence of the new life: so then abide faith, hope, and love. For this "abide" stands over against that which "shall be done away" (v. 8). It is difficult to understand the pronouncement to the effect that faith also "after the final consummation" is the manner in which one shares in salvation (so, e. g., Lietzmann, Cor., p. 66; cf. the annotation of Kümmel, p. 189, who rejects other conceptions of "abide"; cf. also 2 Cor. 5: 7), especially because it is also said of hope that it abides (cf. on the other hand Rom. 8: 24; 2 Cor. 4: 18). We shall have to take into account the contrast that is made between faith, hope, and love on the one hand and the charismata on the other, and must seek the solution in this, that the former have to do with that which, otherwise than the charismata, does not perish.⁹⁷ Faith and hope constitute the essence of the new life, because in them lies in principle the human accompaniment of the great acts God has done and will yet do in Jesus Christ. It cannot therefore be said of these as of the charismata that they "cease," "are rendered inoperative." In faith and hope the bond with Christ is firmly fixed, which, even though this, too, will receive its modification in "the perfect" pro mensura vitae aeternae, yet remains the same as in the provisional earthly dispensation and does not pass away. All this does not apply to the charismata, which, however much they seem to surpass the "simplicity" of faith, hope, and love and for this reason were more highly valued by the Corinthian enthusiasm, yet have only a provisional and transitory significance and in "the perfect" will be done away.

Others are of the opinion that faith and hope are understood here in a wider sense; so, e. g., Calvin, who conceives faith as the "knowledge of God and His will" or "if you prefer it, faith understood in its fullness, and in its proper sense." Grosheide interprets faith here as the relation in which man stands to God. "He [man] believes that God is as He has revealed Himself.... That is not something of this dispensation" (1 Cor., p. 351), a conception similar to that of Calvin. In our view it is a too general conception of faith, not very likely for Paul. The explanation remains difficult, however.

The faith of Abraham is once again exemplary for this character of faith. Although he observed ⁹⁸ that his own body was as good as dead, because he was about a hundred years old, and that Sarah's womb was dead, he did not doubt the promise of God through unbelief, but against hope believed in hope in the God who gives life to the dead and calls the things that are not into existence (Rom. 4:17ff.). In this way faith became increasingly powerful. He was strongly gifted in faith,⁹⁹ and gave God the glory, in the full certainty that he was able to perform what he had promised (vv. 20, 21).

In this double description of Abraham's faith as "in hope against hope" believing in him who gives life to the dead and as "being fully assured, " the tension-filled character of faith emerges very distinctly indeed; and it is clear that the apostle ascribes to this character of Abraham's faith a no less exemplary significance for the faith of the church than he does to its function in the appropriation of justification as a free gift. On the one hand faith stands over against the not-yetglorified reality of this world-dispensation, and it in no way misjudges or idealizes this reality; it observes the impotence, the death in its own body, in all earthly temptation (Rom. 4: 19; 2 Cor. 5: 6), it believes although there is, viewed from this side, nothing for which to hope ("against hope"; par' elpida). But because faith has to do with that God who gives life to the dead and who calls those things which are not as though they were, it is at the same time certainty (Rom. 4: 21; 8: 38), hope, glorying, approvedness, meekness, strength (Rom. 4: 18; 5: 2ff.; 8: 18; 2 Cor. 12: 9), victory (Rom. 8: 37).

This twofold character of faith, in the whole tension-filled polarity of the "already" and the "not yet," finds expression in Paul's epistles in all sorts of ways. All the assaults in his own life as apostle, in labors, in imprisonment, in stripes, and in dangers of death (2 Cor. 11: 23), have their say in this. But there is at the same time the deep comfort of God who comforts the lowly (2 Cor. 7: 6), the glorying and taking pleasure in weaknesses, necessities, persecutions, distresses for Christ's sake: "for when I am weak, then am I strong" (2 Cor. 12: 10). Or, in the words of 2 Corinthians 4: 7: "But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the exceeding greatness of the power may be of God, and not from ourselves. We are pressed on every side, yet not straitened; perplexed, yet not unto despair; pursued, yet not forsaken; smitten down, yet not destroyed. "

No less clearly does this twofold character of faith find description in the beautiful passage of Philippians 3: 7-14, in which he points out the object of the righteousness on the ground of faith: to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings. The latter is not in conflict with the former, but rather prepares the way for it: ". . . if I, by becoming conformed unto his death, may attain unto the resurrection from the dead" (v. 11).

Thus suffering, too, becomes a token of victory, because it leads one in the footprints of Christ. Via lucis via crucis. But this conjunction of death and life, of suffering and resurrection, is not only a pattern that is to be gathered from Christ's death and resurrection, a program that one could automatically follow; it is, with all the knowledge of Christ, a wrestling, a stretching out with every effort of the soul toward that which has not yet been attained: "Brethren, I count not myself to have laid hold, but one thing I do: forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching forward to the things which are before, I press on toward the goal of the prize of the calling of God, which is from above in Christ Jesus. "

The entire new life is a matter of training oneself in the militia Christi! That applies in particular to the new obedience, concerning which we must speak in the following chapter.

1. Thus, e. g., Greijdanus, who with apethanomen wishes to think of coming to faith in Christ (Rom., I, p. 293).

2. See below, Sections 64, 65.

3. Nygren speaks of 2 Cor. 5: 17 as "the best conceivable commentary on the point under discussion" (Rom. 6: 2-6; Commentary on Romans, p. 235).

4. Hormoiōma tou thanatou (tēs anastaseōs) autou.

5. For this exegesis see, e. g., E. Percy, Der Leib Christi, 1942, p. 27; Greijdanus, Rom., I, pp. 297ff. For the discussion of other opinions (i. a., of those who understand homoiōma tou thanatou autou to mean baptism) see my Rom., pp. 127-129. A clear survey of the divergent views may be found in Schneider, TDNT, V, pp. 192-195, s. v. homoiōma.

6. Katargēthē: render inoperative, make ineffective, an expression frequently occurring in Paul to denote that which has been done away with in Christ's advent; cf. Delling, TDNT, I, pp. 453f.

7. Dedikaiōtai apo tēs hamartias. For this idea that death sets one free from all claims, cf. the rabbinic formulations cited in Strack-Billerbeck, III, pp. 232, 234. Thus it is a matter here of another dikaioun than in the sense of Rom. 3: 21ff.

8. The dative te hamartia apethanen is to be taken as a dativus incommodi: to the detriment o₤.

9. Logizesthai, the typical denotation of the judgment of faith on the ground of the redemptive event in Christ (cf. Rom. 8:18; 14:14; Phil. 3:12; see also Heidland, TDNT, IV, p. 290).

10. Einai nekrous tē hamartia zōntas de tō Theō.

11. Hōsel ek nekrōn zōntas. Some take hōsei as a comparison ("as it were"; so, e. g., Bl. -Debr., Par. 425, 3; Arndt-Gingrich-Bauer, p. 907, s. v.; Zahn, Gal., pp. 313ff. ), others as a motivation ("because you are"; e. g., the commentaries of Kühl, Greijdanus, Dodd; also Bultmann, TDNT, III, p. 19; TDNT, IV, p. 894). Paul certainly does not here speak only comparatively or figuratively. Yet ek nekrōn zōntas is not simply in apposition to heautous. The hōsei speaks again of the judgment of faith.

12. Here again katērgēthēmen (see above).

13. Cf. above, Section 23.

14. Cf. above, pp. I48f.

15. See above, pp. 140ff.

16. See Oepke, Gal., pp. 122ff.: "One ought not to reduce the meaning [of

estaurōtai] to psychological experiences that Paul has had under the impress of the cross. He means what he says first of all objectively. But he embraces joyfully the turning which God gave. "

17. The participles in vv. 14 and 15 indicate the manner in which this quickening from the situation of death took place and the manner in which God once realized it in Christ; cf. Oepke, TDNT, I, pp. 541f.

18. See below, pp. 406ff.

19. Cf. above, Section 14.

20. In this sense, e. g., Schweizer, TDNT, VI, pp. 415, 416. According to this conception the Spirit in the Old Testament, as also in the whole of Judaism, would not be taken as "necessary to salvation but is a power for additional deeds" (p. 415). And on p. 416 he speaks of the Old Testament conception as "additional phenomenon, " in contrast to the Hellenistic, in which the Spirit would much more be regarded as indispensable for everyone for the reception of the true life.

21. Above, Sections 22, 23.

22. For this exegesis in more detail see my The Epistle of Paul to the Churches of Galatia (NICNT), 1953, pp. 138ff.

23. Epangelias tekna, genitive of source. The expression therefore does not mean, as it has often been understood: children who have received the promise, but: children who have been begotten by the (power of the) promise of God, as Isaac. They are hoi kata Pneuma gennēthentes (v. 29). Promise and Spirit are here synonymous.

24. Besides the commentaries, see the detailed discussion of Ingo Hermann, Kyrios und Pneuma, 1961, pp. 26ff.; further the penetrating article by W. C. van Unnik, "With Unveiled Face, " in [CHARIS KAI SOPHIA] (Festschrift für K. H. Rengstorf), 1964, pp. 152-160. For the interpretation of 2 Cor. 3: 13, see especially P. J. Du Plessis, [TELEIOS], The Idea of Perfection in the N. T., 1959, pp. 138-141.

25. Cf. Wendland, Cor., p. 117: "This pair of concepts 'letter/spirit' is often misinterpreted, since the contrast 'outward prescriptions and authority/inner freedom and attitude' or something similar is substituted for it. But such a contrast, which became so important with the Enlightenment and in contemporary philosophy, occupies Paul not in the least. "

26. See also Delling, TDNT, I, p. 454, for the redemptive-historical significance of to katargoumenon, repeatedly (vv. 7, 11, 13, 14) employed in 2 Cor. 3, in contrast with to menon (v. 11; cf. 1 Cor. 13: 13).

27. For the linguistic connection between parrēsia and covering the face or the head, see van Unnik's study in "De semitische achtergrond van [PARRĒSIA] in het N. T.," Mededelingen Kon. Ned. Acad., 1962; as well as his "The Christian's Freedom of Speech in the N. T ." (The Manson Memorial Lecture), 1962.

28. There is mention here of to telos tou katargoumenon. This has frequently been taken as the diminution and disappearance of the shining of Moses' face (so also Delling, TDNT, VIII, p. 56: "The 'cessation'... of [doxa] on the face of Moses"; apparently van Unnik as well —"With Unveiled Face," p. 161). But this hardly makes good sense: Moses covered his face, not so that the Israelites should not observe the diminishing of the glory on his face, but so that they should not see the glory itself! That is the clear sense not only of Exod. 34, but also of the whole argument of Paul. Moreover, to katargoumenon in this whole context signifies the passing glory of the Old Covenant in general, not "the fading away" of the shining on Moses' face. That was rather repeatedly visible. Finally "the end of that which was passing away" is also richly tautological (cf. also Du Plessis, [TELEIOS], p. 141). One will therefore have to understand to katargoumenon in v. 13 of the Old Testament glory in general, just as in this whole context, and one can best take to telos with Du Plessis as "summit," "full height" in much the same sense

as glory (doxa) and not as "end" or "termination" (pp. 138-141). The intention is then clear and entirely in harmony with the purport of the whole pericope: Moses covers his face so that the Israelites should not observe the full splendor even of the passing glory of the Old Covenant (cf. Du Plessis: " Telos as the crown of glory"; p. 138).

29. Alia in v. 14 has, not an adversative, but a progressive significance: it adds a new point of view to the preceding (cf. van Unnik, "With Unveiled Face, " p. 162; Du Plessis, [TELE/OS], p. 139),

30. It is not a matter here of "ein 'pneumatisches'... im Geiste geschehendes Schauen,... eine offene hüllenlose Erkenntnis des himmlischen Glanzes Christi" (so Wendland, Cor., p. 120), but, as appears from the sequel in chapter 4, of the beholding of the radiance that shines forth from "the gospel of the glory of Christ" (2 Cor. 4: 4). The question as to whether katoptrizomenoi in v. 18 must be translated by "reflecting" (Dutch Bible Society, Schlatter, Allo, Van Unnik, et al. ) or by "looking at oneself in a mirror, " "beholding in a mirror" (thus, e. g., Lietzmann, Kümmel, Grosheide), is not to be answered with certainty, although in our view most considerations argue for the former conception.

31. For this cf. E. Percy, Der Leib Christi, 1942, pp. 9ff.; Schweizer, TDNT, VI, pp. 418f. See also above, Section 10.

32. See further below on the body of Christ, Chapter IX. Cf. H. Berkhof, The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit, pp. 42ff.

33. Pneumati agesthai will have to be understood reflexively. It is substituted for the active idea preceding in v. 13: pneumati tas praxeis tou sōmatos thanatoun. In Gal. 5:18, too, this meaning much deserves the preference.

34. Hē agapē tou Theou in v. 5 is to be understood, not as love for God, but as the love of God — otherwise than as the tradition emanating from Augustine conceives it (cf. Nygren on Rom. 5: 5) —but then not merely as disposition, but as the working out of the manner in which God has in fact demonstrated his love in Christ's death (cf. Bultmann, Theology, I, p. 292).

35. Above, Section 10.

36. Pantes gar hymeis heis este en Chr.

37. Cf. above, Sections 9, 12.

38. Cf. F. W. Eltester, Eikon im Neuen Testament, 1958, pp. 158ff.

39. Cf. below, Section 78.

40. Cf. above, p. 220.

41. Here, too, morphē and eikōn have a synonymous meaning (cf. above, p. 74).

42. Cf Dibelius-Conzelmann, A Commentary on the Pastoral Epistles, pp. 148ff.

43. So especially A. Schweitzer, The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle, pp. 13-15; see also Oepke, TDNT, IV, p. 304, s. v. louō.

44. See, e. g., Buchsel, TDNT, I, pp. 686-688, as well as the comprehensive materias in J. Dey, [ PALINGENESIA], Ein Beitrag zur Klärung der religionsgeschichtlicher Bedeutung von Tit. III, 5, 1937.

45. That with regeneration "the renewal in principle of the life of man" is intended, which "begins in regeneration," as C. Bouma avers (De brieven van de apostel Paulus aan Timotheus en Titus, n. d., p, 441), at least cannot be derived from Tit. 3: 5.

46. For this see also in detail E. Gaugler, "Der Geist und das Gebet der Gemeinde, Rōm 8, 26-27," Intern. Kirchl. Zeitschr., 1961, pp. 67-94; and above, pp. 201ff.

47. Above, pp. II9ff.

48. Cf. above, pp. 126f.

49. This applies as well to the exclamation: "Who will deliver me from the body of this death?" (Rom. 7: 24): "The apostle does not mean to die or to be rid of his body.... But the body, so far as it is dominated by s i n , . . . makes him long for deliverance, nevertheless not from the body as such, but insofar as it is the body of sin: it must be purified, renewed, sanctified" (Greijdanus, Rom., I, p. 351). All this of course under the proviso of Rom. 8: 23 where the future redemption of the whole earthly existence is intended by the words apolytrōsis tou sōmatos.

50. The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle, pp. 125ff., cf. pp. 17ff.

51. See further below, p. 549.

52. Furthermore, see below, Section 78.

53. Very representative here, e. g., is the writing of E. Wissmann, Das Verhältnis von [Pistis] und Christusfrömmigkeit bei Paulus, 1926, which as a monograph on this subject is entirely dominated by this idea and with all the valuable material it offers in detail is therefore not to be accepted in its general purport.

54. The mystical interpretation chooses to take the words en pistei zō not as explanation, but as restriction. The first half of the verse would then, for example, according to Wissmann (who here borrows the words of Bousset), reflect "the keynote of Pauline Christianity." Next to that faith would then appear "at the moment the elated mystic realized that here and there he still finds himself in the base domain of sarx." Wissmann concludes: "It cannot be said any better how for Paul the present life in Christ is something completely different from the faith that looks at the facts of salvation of the past" ( ibid., p. 112). But it is precisely faith "looking at the facts of salvation of the past" (cf. v. 20b) that for the present enables him to experience the overwhelming power of Christ and of his love, as he declares in v. 20a; cf. also Mundle, Der Glaubensbegriff des Paulus, 1932, p. 156.

55. Mundle, ibid., p. 159; Bultmann, TDNT, VI, p. 218.

56. Schweizer wrongly seems to want to deny this sequence (cf. TDNT, VI, pp. 425ff.).

57. The passages to which appeal is often made for this, namely, Phil. 1: 29 and Eph. 2: 8, taken by themselves give no decisive answer in this matter. In Phil. 1: 29 it is said: "for to you the grace has been given (echaristhē), for Christ, not only to believe in him (to eis auton pisteuein), but also to suffer for him." Strictly speaking grace is spoken of here in the objective, not in the subjective-internal sense (as gratia interna). Grace consists herein, that the church may believe in Christ because the gospel has been made known to it. This is also evident from the analogy of the final words ("also to suffer for him"). There is likewise mention here of the grace of suffering in an objective sense, namely, as evidence of belonging to Christ, not of the grace of strength or perseverance in suffering (so Calvin, in our opinion incorrectly). That the power to believe as well as to suffer is of God is, of course, not denied, but even so is not said here in so many words (so, e. g., Greijdanus: "It [faith] is the fruit of the operation of God's grace in the heart of His elect, as the apostle here clearly declares"; De brief van den Apostel Paulus aan de gemeente te Philippi, 1937, p. 166). The evidence, too, drawn from the well-known pronouncement in Eph. 2: 8: "for by grace have you been saved, through faith; and that (kai touto) not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not of works, that no man should boast," in our view is not established. The question is whether kai touto refers back to the whole of the preceding pronouncement or only to "through faith." Most choose for the former (so, e. g., Calvin: "Not of yourselves; that... they may acknowledge God alone as the Author of their salvation"; Commentary on Eph. 2: 8). That the text reads kai touto and not kai autē is in itself no conclusive objection against the second conception. What is more important is that ouk ex hymōn, corresponding with ouk ex ergōn, will surely have to refer to the whole preceding sentence. It is also possible, however, not to make ouk ex hymon correspond with ouk ex ergon, but to connect the latter directly with dia pisteōs. The words "and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God" then receive a parenthetical significance, and are indeed to be understood of faith. One who accepted this conception would, in our opinion, have to admit to at least some uncertainty.

58. Schweizer also recognizes that (TDNT, VI, p. 426; cf. Bultmann, TDNT, VI, p. 219). In 1 Cor. 12: 9 "faith, by the same Spirit" is spoken of, but here pistis has the special meaning of charisma, whereby one is capable of extraordinary powers (cf. 1 Cor. 13: 2).

59. For einai en ("rest on") in 1 Cor. 2: 5, see, e. g., Grosheide, 1 Cor., p. 78.

60. Cf. Gutbrod, Die paulinische Anthropologie, pp. 184ff.

61. See below, Section 55.

62. Cf. K. L. Schmidt, TDNT, III, p. 492, s. v. kaleō.

63. On this see further below, Section 57. Bultmann is of the opinion that the passages in which faith is represented as a gift or is even related to the divine purpose, if one chooses to understand them literally, place us before an irresolvable contradiction: "for a faith brought about by God outside of man's decision would obviously not be genuine obedience." He wants to understand these pronouncements in this way, that "the decision of faith does n o t . . . go back to this-worldly motives of any sort whatever, " but that these last "lose all power of motivation in the presence of the encountered proclamation" (Theology, I, p. 330). Paul does not, however, know this problematic. For him election does not mean that faith is worked outside the decision of man, but just that the power of the gospel brings man to the decision of faith. Therefore election cannot be "interpreted" as a lack of "thisworldly motive" in the decision of man, but rather as the lack of such a "this-worldly" motive for the calling of sinful man by God. In this calling and election God takes "reasons from himself. " That in this calling the sovereign power of God is manifested to be gracious and to have mercy on whom he will is attested to by Paul with great force (Rom. 9: 11, 12, 15, 24), but does not make faith and unbelief illusory in their character of (dis)obedience (Rom. 9: 25; 10: 20, 21). There is a deep mystery here which, on account of the heterogeneity of divine and human freedom, does not, however, admit of being reduced causally to one of the two (cf. below, pp. 353ff. ).

64. Rhēma tēs pisteōs, genitive of apposition in the sense of: the word that is intended for faith, is received in faith, or something similar; cf., e. g., Greijdanus, Rom., II, p. 461.

65. Akoē pisteōs. For the explanation of this expression (and the various conceptions) see my. The Epistle of Paul to the Churches of Galatia, 1953, p. 113.

66. Hypakoē pisteōs; the genitive is to be taken as a genitive of apposition or an epexegetical genitive: "obedience consisting of faith," or as a genitive of quality: "faith's obedience" (cf. Greijdanus, Rom., I, pp. 67ff.).

67. Cf. Michel, TDNT, V, pp. 207ff. He defines homologia in Paul as "response to the Gospel of Christ, obedience to its message, acceptance of its claim and expression of commitment" (p. 215).

68. For this passage and the various conceptions of the "many witnesses," see, e. g., C. K. Barrett, The Pastoral Epistles, 1963, p. 86.

69. Cf. Michel, TDNT, V, p. 212.

70. Pistis, pisteuein plus the genitive lēsou Christou, Chrislou Iēsou, etc. (cf. Rom. 3: 22, 26; Gal. 2: 16, 20; 3: 22; Phil. 3: 9; Eph. 3: 12); pistis, pisteuein eis Christon, etc. (cf. Gal. 2: 16; Col. 2: 5); pistis en Christō, etc. (cf. Gal. 3: 26; Col. 1: 4; Eph. 1: 15; 1 Tim. 3: 13; 2 Tim. 3: 15); pisteuein ep' auto (1 Tim. 1: 16); with a single dative (2 Tim. 1: 2); pistis pros ton Kyrion (Philem. 5).

71. So Deissmann, St. Paul, p. 140.

72. Ibid., pp. 140f.

73. So, e. g., also O. Schmitz, Die Christus-Gemeinschaft des Paulus im Lichte seines Genitivgebrauchs, 1924, pp. 21ff., who wishes to understand this genitive "in the sense of a completely general qualification of this faith" as "Christ-faith, " "Christ-Jesus-faith, " "Jesus-faith, " "without finding expressed any trace of a concrete verbal relationship between the two nouns through the genitive as such, be it in the manner of the objective or subjective genitive" (ibid., p. 132).

74. Cf., e. g., Lietzmann, Rom., p. 48.

75. See, e. g., Cullmann, "The Tradition, " in The Early Church, 1956, pp. 63ff.; B. Gerhardsson, Memory and Manuscript, 1961, pp. 288ff., and the literature cited there.

76. See also my The Authority of the New Testament Scriptures, pp. 17ft.

77. Bultmann thinks that in this expression we have to do with an interpolation (TLZ, 1947, pp. 193ff. ). But there are no sufficient grounds for this conception, and it is rather to be assumed, therefore, that the Pauline idea of doctrine and tradition here emerge in a pregnant, if striking, manner; cf. also Michel, Rom., p. 136.

78. Cf. Mundle, Der Glaubensbegriff des Paulus, pp. 32ff.

79. Paratheke. For this idea (closely bound up with paradosis) see C. Spicq, Les Épitres Pastorales, 3rd ed., 1947, pp. 327-335.

80. As, e. g., Kümmel thinks ("Der Glaube im N. T., seine katholische und

reformatorische Deutung, " Theol. Blätter, 1937, col. 217). For the recognition of the original Pauline idea of faith in the Pastoral Epistles see the beautiful pages Schlatter devotes to "faith" in these epistles, which far surpass the assertions of Kümmel (A. Schlatter, Der Glaube im N. T., 4th ed., 1927, pp. 406-418).

81. See below, pp. 295ff.

82. Cf. Bultmann, TDNT, VI, pp. 220ff.

83. Eidotes hoti; cf. Mundle, Glaubensbegriff, pp. 17ff.

84. Against this conception of Reitzēnstein and others who wish to explain the idea teleioi from the Hellenistic mysteries as the denotation of those who had come to "the full gnosis, " see the still valuable writing of K. Deissner, Paulus und die Mystik seiner Zeit, 2nd ed., 1921, pp. 39ff.

85. On this see below, pp. 287f.

86. See also O. Cullmann, "La nécessité de la Théologie pour l'Eglise selon le Nouveau Testament, " in the Bulletin de la Faculté Libre de Théologie protestante de Paris, Dec., 1957.

87. See below, Section 71, p. 447.

88. For this transition in usage see, e. g., Bultmann, TDNT, VI, p. 213.

89. Cf. above, pp. 117, 119, 227ff.

90. On this see also Mundle, Glaubensbegriff, p. 37, and Bultmann, Theology, I, pp. 323f.; the same writer in TDNT, VI, p. 218, s. v. pisteuo, etc.

91. So Bultmann, TDNT, VI, p. 7, s. v. peitho, etc.

92. Cf. above, Section 22.

93. Cf. Bultmann on "The Pauline Concept of Faith in Contrast to Gnosticism, " TDNT, VI, pp. 220ff.

94. Di' esoptrou, by way of indicating indirect seeing; cf. Lietzmann-Kümmel, Cor., p. 189, referring to Behm's essay "Das Bildwort vom Spiegel, " in Reinhold-Seeberg-Festschrift, I, 1929, pp. 314ff.; differently: Kittel, TDNT, I, pp. 178ff., according to whom "to see in a glass" signifies "to see prophetically" and does not point to a lesser degree of clarity and perspicuity. This would only be expressed by en ainigmati — in our view a dubious interpretation.

95. En ainigmati: indistinctly.

96. So, e. g.. Stählin, Skandalon, 1930, pp. 274ff. Paradox in his view pertains to the essence of the Pauline kerygma. He seeks its origin in the "lapping" of the aiovn mellon into aion houtos, in the character of veiled revelation. But in our opinion this is correct only to a certain extent. However much the skandalon lies in the cross of Christ, and the life of believers, on account of the provisional character of the fulfillment, is a life in the "nevertheless, " on the other side the skandalon has been overcome in Christ, namely, in his resurrection. Over against the characterization of the gospel as the skandalon of the cross stands that of the martyria, trustworthy witness concerning the resurrection (cf. also 1 Cor. 9: 1).

97. Cf. G. Bornkamm, "The More Excellent Way (1 Corinthians 13), " in Early Christian Experience, ET 1969, pp. 1851Ï,

98. The reading katenoesen without ou is to be preferred. Thereby the peculiar character of faith comes still more strongly to the fore. This does not consist in the fact that it no longer sees or wishes to see the reality sharply, but has just this thoroughly in view. "Becoming strong" through faith accordingly consists alone in building on God. Because one's own possibilities become less and disappear faith does not become weaker, but stronger (cf. also Nygren, Commentary on Romans, pp. 180f.; Schlatter, Der Glaube im N. T., pp. 345ff.

99. Enedynamothe te pistei, dative of relationship; cf. Greijdanus, Rom., I, p. 247; otherwise Zahn, Rom., p. 237, who sees here an instrumental dative and considers that what is spoken of is a physical empowering through faith, namely, to the conceiving of a son; in our view wrongly.

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Vi The New Life

Vi The New Life

VI THE NEW LIFE

SECTION 36. THE GENERAL POINT OF VIEW

SECTION 37. DEATH AND RESURRECTION WITH CHRIST

SECTION 38. LIFE THROUGH THE SPIRIT

SECTION 39. THE NEW MAN

SECTION 40. FAITH AS THE MODE OF EXISTENCE OF THE NEW LIFE

SECTION 41. THE NATURE OF FAITH

VI

THE NEW LIFE