Section 47. Liberty And Conscience
SECTION 47. LIBERTY AND CONSCIENCE
The question should be answered in this connection as to how the conscience functions in the life set at liberty by Christ and what significance must be ascribed to it for knowing the will of God.
"Conscience" in general has for Paul the meaning of "knowing one's self," in the sense of moral self-judgment. Thus, for example, in Romans 2:15, where it is first said of the gentiles that "the work [i.e., the requirement]79 of the law is written in their hearts," which is then amplified with the words: "while their conscience also bears witness and their thoughts accuse or else excuse one another among themselves."
The last words are in our view to be understood of the inner man;80 at the same time they give an elucidation of the function of the conscience: to accuse or to acquit. In 1 Corinthians 4:4; Romans 9:1; 2 Corinthians 1:12 the apostle also speaks of his conscience as an agency that exonerates him, and elsewhere in a less characteristic but more conventional sense of a "good" or "pure" conscience (1 Tim. 1:5, 19; 3:9; 2 Tim. 1:3, et al.).
This conscience is such an influential "witness" in man because it makes him understand that the requirement by which he is bound is a transcendent agency. Thus Paul says in Romans 13:5 that we must be subject to the governing authorities "for conscience' sake," which, as appears from the whole context, is motivated by the fact that the authorities represent a divine ordinance. As a result conscience is approximately the consciousness in man that in his moral activity he is bound to a divine standard of judgment standing above him, by which he has to measure himself.
It is clear that the freedom given in Christ, both in its significance as acquitting and as leading to new obedience, also has its reflection in the conscience. Thus Paul speaks in Romans 9:1 of the testimony of his conscience "in the Holy Spirit"; that is to say, in the inner selfjudgment of his conscience he knows himself to be led and governed by the Holy Spirit. And elsewhere he places conscience in close relationship to faith, when in one breath he speaks of "a pure heart, a good conscience, and an unfeigned faith" (1 Tim. 1:5), of waging the good warfare "with faith and a good conscience" (1 Tim. 1:19), and of keeping "the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience" (1 Tim. 3:9). Liberty in Christ by the Spirit thus consists in the liberation of the conscience, in that it takes away the consciousness of guilt and gives the believer the awareness of being led in his speech and actions by the Holy Spirit. The conscience thus liberated then stands as "good" and "pure" over against the "accusing" and "defiled" conscience of those who have not escaped the guilt and power of sin (cf. Tit. 1:15; Rom. 2:15). For this reason the good conscience, just as the entire freedom of the new life in Christ, can occur under the viewpoint of the indicative, the gift of redemption, as well as under that of the imperative, the obligation it implies (cf. 2 Cor. 1:12; 1 Tim. 1:5, 19; 3:9).
Of particular importance for this point is what is said about the conscience in 1 Corinthians, in connection with the objection of some Christians against the eating of sacrificial food, and to a similar effect, if without mention of the word "conscience,"81 in Romans 14. It is declared of these Christians in 1 Corinthians 8:7: "but some, because being hitherto accustomed to the idol,82 eat [the meat] as meat offered to an idol; and their conscience, being weak, is defiled." The same mention of "the weak conscience" or "the conscience of the weak" is repeated in verses 10-12. This "weakness" of the conscience consists in the fact that it is easily "defiled," that is to say, quickly calls forth the consciousness of having sinned. Those who are thus "weak" are in danger of stumbling over all kinds of stones of offense that could be placed in their way.83 It is said, therefore, that the "strong" who by their example incite the weak (v. 10) to do that in which these do not feel themselves at liberty make themselves guilty of becoming a "stumbling block" (v. 9), "wound" the conscience of the weak, and cause them "to stumble" (vv. 12, 13). The consequence could be that the weak "perish" (v. 11), by giving themselves up to that which their conscience condemns as sin (v. 10). The passage concerning the strong and the weak in 1 Corinthians 10:23-33 also starts from these presuppositions.
The train of thought of 1 Corinthians 10:27-30 especially is not entirely transparent. It is clear that Paul does not find it necessary for conscience' sake to inquire after the nature of the meat that one has set before him even though it is an unbeliever who invites him to dinner (v. 27). Likewise, that the matter is different when someone— probably a "weak" brother is intended here84 —says: this is meat offered to idols. Then one will refrain from eating for the sake of the one who informed him and for the sake of conscience (v. 28). Verse 29 gives a clarification: I do not mean your own conscience, but that of the other. It then follows, however: "for why should my liberty be judged by another man's conscience?" Must this question (possibly with that of v. 30?) be taken as an objection of one who is at liberty?85 Others are of the opinion that these words are rather explanatory of the preceding words: "I do not now mean my own conscience."86 The "for" in verse 29 seems to commend this view. Verse 30 is also understood variously: either as the continuation of the question of the objector, or as the continuation of Paul's explanation in verse 29 that he does not intend his own conscience; or also as an answer of Paul to the question of verse 29, taken as an objection (the train of thought is then: why — so someone will say — must I abandon my liberty for another? Paul's counter-question is: why should I give someone else occasion to speak evil of me in a matter that I myself enjoy with thanksgiving?).87 The last conception seems unacceptable to us because in this way justice is not done to the "eating with thanksgiving" expressed with such emphasis. The most probable appears to be that in both verses Paul is continuing to speak in order to make clear that yielding to the "weak" brother does not imply relinquishing one's own liberty. If on the other hand one chooses to take both verses as an objection of a third party, then the concluding verse 31 can follow directly upon them only with difficulty.88 At the same time the interpretation of this train of thought is not decisive for the correct conception of what Paul understands by conscience.
How much this judgment of conscience in the believer is bound up with his new mode of existence as a believer is evident as well from the paraenesis in Romans 14, which is occupied with problems of the same sort. Here "the weak" are expressly termed "the weak in faith" (v. I; cf. v. IS). In this context the apostle also says that everyone must so act that he "is fully convinced in his own mind (nous)." 89 What is denoted in 1 Corinthians 8 and 10 with "conscience" is here called "faith" and "mind" (nous).90 Therefore no one may put a stumbling block in his brother's way (v. 13), even though that to which he would incite him is not in itself wrong (vv. 14, 15). For even the clean is wrong for him who eats "with offense"91 (v. 20). The words "with offense" therefore are as much as to say "with a bad conscience,"92 in the consciousness of "not being blameless before God." And at the conclusion of Romans 14 the expression "faith" is employed once again for this knowing oneself to be free (v. 22).
To this acting with a free conscience Paul finally joins a beatitude. The meaning is not that everyone is blessed who acts only without inner self-accusation and with a conscience that acquits him, but that in such cases as are here under discussion only those may be assured of the favor of God who do not act against their conscience.93 For here too, without the word being employed, the conscience is intended. Accordingly it follows in verse 23 that he who doubts when he eats (ho de diakrinomenos), namely, whether he does indeed do well to eat,94 is (therein already) condemned. For he is not acting from faith, and all that is not of faith is sin (v. 23). Here not-doubting and not-accusingoneself (in other words, the good conscience) is again denoted as faith (cf. vv. 1, 2, 22); this is not to say that "faith" and "conscience" mean the same thing and that all who do not believe act with a bad conscience. The meaning is that for a Christian not a single decision and action can be good which he does not think he can justify on the ground of his Christian conviction and his liberty before God in Christ (cf. 1 Cor. 10:29).95
In summary, freedom in Christ is mirrored in the conscience insofar as the believer knows himself to have been cleansed from sin and in what he does receives the assurance of being blameless before God. This liberty makes him independent of the judgment of men (cf. 1 Cor. 10:29) and consists positively in inner certainty (Rom. 14:5), in not condemning oneself, not doubting, in the faith in which his moral decisions and actions take place (Rom. 14:22, 23). In the "conscience" (respectively "faith") the believer knows himself bound to God, and he shares in the consciousness of the liberty obtained by Christ and given by the Spirit before God. This explains the great emphasis on not defiling one's own or another's conscience. For thereby communion with Christ is threatened, and the salvation of the believer is at stake (Rom. 14:15; 1 Cor. 8:11).
In this paraenesis it is not therefore a matter in the first place of knowing the will of God, but of the consciousness of being blameless before God.96 The scope of Romans 14 and 1 Corinthians 8 is not so much ethical as religious. Paul clearly distinguishes between the requirement of God and the verdict of conscience (Rom. 14:14; 1 Cor. 8:8; 10:26). He who acts against his conscience sins, because in his decision and action he lets go of Christ. But this is not reversible, as though the good conscience were now able morally to sanction the actions of man. It is a question of respecting "the weak conscience" in a pastoral-religious sense, not of legitimating the conscience in an ethical sense. Rather those who are convinced, the "strong" in conscience, are warned not to be mistaken in that which in their view is permitted to them (1 Cor. 6:12ff.; I0:23ff.). The conscience is thus not the instance that enables the believer to know the will of God in his moral decisions, but which in these decisions reminds him of the judgment of God and of the necessity in them of preserving inviolate before the judgment of God the liberty wrought by Christ.
In this context, finally, an observation should be made on 1 Corinthians 4:1-4. Paul there declares that the judgment men pass on the conduct of his ministry affects him very little. Indeed, he does not pass judgment on himself. For even though he is himself conscious of no wrong (ouden emautō synoida), he is not thereby justified. He who judges him is the Lord.
In distinction from the older exegesis in the Reformation tradition, according to which the apostle is said to speak here of the inadequacy of the judgment of conscience, most of the new commentaries hold the view that the point of the argument is somewhat differently directed. It is not one's own pure conscience but the coming judgment of God, not the servant himself but the Lord, who will give judgment and distribute the palm of honor.97
In our view this latter exegesis is correct. Paul does not here speak so much of the inadequacy as indeed of the incompetence of his own conscience to justify him before men as the servant of the Lord. The words "But I am not thereby justified" therefore point away toward the judgment of the Lord as the only authority competent to justify Paul, also before men. One may indeed ask himself whether still another idea is not also involved,98 namely, that the conscience of man, though it is not conscious of any wrong, is never able to be the basis on which one can justify himself before others and himself, because the divine judgment goes much deeper and alone is infallible. In this case it would emerge the more clearly that the judgment of conscience can never be the end of all dispute. The liberty given in Christ therefore is mirrored in the conscience not as liberty from moral decision, but as freedom from guilt before God. That which is characteristic of Christian liberty of conscience does not lie in the sphere of the forming of moral judgments, but in that of the religious relationship to God.
SECTION 48. LOVE
The content of the new obedience, in the epistles of Paul too, finds its most central and fundamental expression in love. Nowhere is it more apparent than here how much Paul is not only the proclaimer of the death and resurrection of Christ, but also the one who continues Jesus' own preaching.99
This central significance of love in Paul's preaching of the new life can be shown in various ways. Just as faith can be called the mode of existence of the new life,100 so also can love. Faith works itself out in love (Gal. 5:6). "To be rooted in Christ" can also be described as "to be rooted in love" (cf. Col. 2:7 and Eph. 3:17). "To belong to the new creation" can also be expressed as "faith working itself out in love" (cf. Gal. 6:15 and 5:6). Love is mentioned together with faith and hope as the real heart and content of the Christian life (1 Cor. 13:13; I Thess. 1:3; Col 1:4; Gal. 5:5ff.; cf. 1 Tim. 6:11; 2 Tim. 3:10; Tit. 2:2). Love is the first fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22; cf. Rom. 15:30; Col. 1:8). Love therefore explains what it means to be in Christ, to be in the Spirit, to be in the faith. In it is realized the freedom from sin, to which believers have been called in Christ (Gal. 5:13); in it the demand of the law is fulfilled, which has become possible by the Spirit (Rom. 13:10; cf. Rom. 8:4); it is the content of the law of Christ (Gal. 6:2). In a word, the new life is realized in love, it is in its way the life of the re-creation, the eschatological mode of existence,101 the pattern of believers in the time of redemption that has appeared with Christ (Rom. 13:10ff.; cf.Gal. 6:10).
In the first place this love derives its central significance from the fact that it is the reflection of the love of God in Jesus Christ. This becomes clear not only in those pronouncements in which, with an appeal to the love of God or of Christ, believers are stirred up to love one another as well (cf., e.g., Phil. 2:1, 2, 5ff.; Eph. 5:2, 25; Rom. 12:1, 9ff.), but also where love serves as the evidence of having been known by God in love. It is in that sense surely that we will have to take the pronouncement of 1 Corinthians 8:3: "If any man loves God, he is known by him."
"Being known by God" refers to the gracious and loving electing act of God; "to be known" by him in this way means the same as to have been chosen by him and loved by him (cf. Gal. 4:9; 1 Cor. 13:12; Eph. 1:6).102 This divine love works itself out in the love of those known by him. Therefore the love of the church is a gift of God (1 Thess. 3:12; 2 Thess. 3:5). Here the link between love and sanctification also becomes visible. As it is the divine love by which he sanctified and appropriated the church to himself in Christ, so love is the sanctification with which the church is to dedicate itself to God, its spiritual service (Rom. 12:1, 9-21). The love of God revealed in Christ's self-surrender and working itself out by the Holy Spirit in the love of the church is the real secret and the clearest expression of its holiness; just as, conversely, in the expression of this love the church exhibits the evidence of having been chosen by God and placed on his side.
In the second place this love constitutes the vital element of the church. It is in love that the body, of which Christ is the Head, is built up (Eph. 4:15, 16), in which believers together are rooted and grounded (Eph. 3:17). For this reason love can be called the bond of perfection (Col. 3:14); indeed in its own way it forms the unity of the church (Col. 2:2). The application of the commandment of love consequently has in Paul the clear effect of stirring up the strong awareness in the church of mutual responsibility, of together forming a unity, and thus of pressing love into the service of the building up of the church. The church is to be a brotherhood and to live out of the consciousness of being a unique fellowship. Here again there is the clear relationship between love and sanctification. As a fellowship sanctified and appropriated by God to himself, the church is bound together and set apart by love. This structure of the Pauline idea of love admits of being demonstrated positively as well as negatively in many ways.
To be sure, we find the description "love of the brethren" (Philadelphia) only a few times in Paul (Rom. 12:10; 1 Thess. 4:9); but when he writes concerning love he appears almost always to allude to this reciprocal, mutually edifying love of believers.103 The liberty in Christ must show itself especially in this, that believers are to be servants one of another through love (Gal. 5:13). They are to owe one another nothing except love (Rom. 13:8). In all things they are to inquire after that which can serve to mutual edification and benefit (1 Cor. 14:26; 1 Thess. 5:11; Rom. 14:19). If any appeal may be made to them in Christ, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, this is to appear in their unanimity, their oneness in demonstration of love, in oneness of soul and oneness of purpose, in not only attending to their own interests, but also to those of others (Phil. 2:1ff.). Faith in Christ must go together with love toward all the saints (Col. 1:4), in being knit together in love (Col. 2:2).
For this reason the apostle time and again takes the field against every form of spiritual individualism; and that not only as this shows itself in coarse and unvarnished egoism, in the animosity and hatred of one man toward another, as, for example, this manifests itself among the gentiles (Rom. 1:29ff.), and which he describes under all kinds of specifications as "the works of the flesh" (Gal. 5:19, 20); he fears the continuation of that, too, in the church (2 Cor. 12:20), and he warns against it repeatedly in the so-called "catalogues of vices" (cf., e.g., Eph. 4:31; Col. 3:5ff.). In particular, however, he points to the more refined forms of individualism and self-direction as these crop up, for example, in certain spiritualistic phenomena in the church. We have some striking illustrations of these especially in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, but also in the Epistle to the Romans.
The first has reference to the individualistic experiencing of Christian liberty. The apostle sets over against this in general the fact that liberty in Christ must manifest itself in mutual Christian service through love (Gal. 5:13). In the familiar passages on "the strong" and "the weak" in 1 Corinthians 8-10 and Romans 14, he now gives an application of that principle which is highly characteristic of his conception of liberty and love. For although he recognizes the freedom of Christians on the one hand, also in the use of meat and drink, etc., with an appeal to love he warns against every individualistic and spiritualistic application of this liberty, namely, whenever this might give the weak in faith an occasion to sin. If in that case "the strong" would not wish to impose restrictions on themselves, they would be sinning against love, that is to say, against that which is to be subservient to the building up, the spiritual unity of the church. Here love stands over against the "knowledge" out of which the strong live:
Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up (I Cor. 8:2).
All things are lawful, but not all things build up. Let no man seek his own, but that which is the other's (1 Cor. 10:23, 24).
For if your brother is grieved by what you eat, you are no longer walking according to the requirement of love (Rom. 14:15).
The second example is in the same line and directs itself likewise against spiritual individualism. It has bearing on the relationship of love and the special charismata revealing themselves in the church. On the one hand there is mention here of what the church has received in its several members by way of spiritual gifts; on the other hand of the danger that the principle of self-direction and individualism is strengthened in this diversity of charismata, Paul now deals firmly with this, especially in 1 Corinthians 12 and 13. Nowhere does love emerge more clearly than here in its character as binding together and involving the church. We have Paul's struggle against spiritual individualism in the Christian church to thank for the celebrated chapters, 1 Corinthians 12 and 13.
In 1 Corinthians 12 he draws his argument from the unity of the body; as its members each for its part and in its own place together form one body, so believers in their various gifts and abilities form the unity of the body of Christ; they also must be conscious of this mutual fellowship and conduct themselves accordingly. This does not take away their individuality, and every one of them may aspire to the highest charismata (v. 31). Yet having reached this point of his admonition, he points beyond all these charismata and shows a way that is still more excellent,104 and leads higher still than the zeal for ail manner of charismata, that is, the way of love (1 Cor. 13).
Against this love even the most excellent charismata count for nothing — not speaking in tongues, not insight into the divine mysteries or gnosis, not faith to do miracles or utterly to abandon all that one has and is. Without love even one who possessed all these gifts would have to say of himself:
. . . I am become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal
. . . I am nothing.
. . . it profits me nothing.
Just because love, even as faith and hope, is the mode of existence of the Christian church, it must reveal itself in this bond to the brethren, in placing itself at the service of this upbuilding; therefore Christian love is not individualistic, proudly separative, but always above everything else concerned with the body and not the individual. For this reason to lack this love means to be nothing, with whatever brilliant charismata one may be endowed. For without love there is no communion with the body, in which alone a share in Christ is to be found.
Finally, it holds for love, in distinction from the charismata, that it never perishes. For it is not in the charismata that the church is rooted and grounded, but in love. And the charismata do not constitute the vital element of the body of Christ, the power that binds it together, but love. The breakthrough of the reality that has dawned in Christ also manifests itself in the charismata, and as such they constitute a possibility of entrance105 to that which will one day be the portion of believers in perfection. However, they are again to be rendered inoperative106 and disappear (vv. 8-10). They represent the period of immaturity, they do not lead to a real and adequate knowledge of what is to come and are as temporary possibilities doomed to pass away (vv. 11ff.). But it is not so with love. With faith and hope it has an abiding107 significance, indeed it is the greatest of these three. For love consists not only in the relationship to the salvation of the Lord (as faith and hope), but in it salvation is already realized108 as the re-creation of human life in the communion of the body of Christ. For this reason love, although not possible without faith and hope, is nevertheless the greatest. And it is that not only in its individual appearance, but, as is evident from the whole context of 1 Corinthians 12 and 13, above all on account of the unity manifesting itself in it of the church appropriated to himself by God, the body of Christ, the temple of the Holy Spirit.
The particularizing of this love constitutes a large part of the content of the Pauline paraenesis. The one love unfolds itself in a great many "forms of love,"109 especially in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 and in Romans 12:9-21, but in a series of separate exhortations as well. In addition to love, Paul speaks, for example, of peace ( eirēnē), steadfastness ( makrothymia), kindness (chrēstotēs), goodness ( agathōsynē), faithfulness ( pistis), gentleness ( prautēs), compassion ( oiktirmos), humility ( tapelnophrosynē), forbearing ( anachesthai), forgiving ( charizesthai), thinking about that which is true ( alēthē), just ( dikaia), honorable ( semna), pure ( hagna), lovely ( prosphilē), sweet-sounding ( euphēma), obligingness ( epieikeia) (cf., e.g., Gal. 5:22, 23; Phil. 4:8; Col. 3:12-15; Phil. 4:5, et al.). Of all these concepts and descriptions some are more, others less "specifically Christian." These virtues, however, even though they occur in the same terms in the non-Christian Greek ethic, in Paul's epistles are always brought under the viewpoint of brotherly communion and the upbuilding of the church, and not, as in the Greek ethic, under that of character formation;110 they are always understood therefore as the fulfillment of the requirement of love and thus approached from the liberty and obedience in Christ.
The concept humility (tapeinophrosynē), for example, has a specifically Christian content (Phil. 2:3; Col. 3:12; cf. Rom. 12:16; 2 Cor. 7:6). This word, which occurs only sporadically outside the New Testament and then in sensu malo,111 has its roots in the Old Testament, but is closely related by Paul to the selfhumiliating love of Christ (cf. Phil. 2:3 and 8), and is further defined as "counting each other better than oneself" (Phil. 2:3), "not reaching out toward high things, but associating with the lowly" (Rom. 12:16), "in honor giving one another precedence"112 (Rom. 12:10). In this humility it is a matter, therefore, not of one's relationship to God (as, for example, in 2 Cor. 7:6),113 but of a certain manifestation, inspired by the example and self-surrender of Christ and therefore specifically Christian, of mutual love in the church. The antithesis is pride (hypsēla phronein; Rom. 11:20), self-conceit (kenodoxia), and selfishness ( eritheia; Phil. 2:3), imagining oneself to be something while he is nothing. Instead one must pay heed to himself and test his own works (Gal. 6:3). ( eritheia; Phil. 2:3), imagining oneself to be something while he is nothing. Instead one must pay heed to himself and test his own works (Gal. 6:3).
Closely connected with humility is meekness. This manifestation of mutual love, too, is related to the example of Christ (2 Cor. 10:1). It is repeatedly mentioned in close association with "humility" (Eph. 4:2; Col. 3:12), as also with "gentleness" (epietketa; 2 Cor. 10:1; Tit. 3:2). Its typical Christian form is found as well in Galatians 6:1ff., where the reclaiming without pride of those who have fallen into sin is termed a proof of a spiritual disposition and of the spirit of meekness. It consists in the bearing of one another's difficulties (in the sense of sins, difficult qualities with which one has to wrestle) and is in this way the fulfilling of the law of Christ. This meekness — the being "poor in spirit" of the Gospels — is not borne by a feeling of superiority in which one is able to bow down, but by the consciousness of being able in no respect whatever to raise oneself above another. It is the meekness of humility and shows therein the Christian character.114
Although a further analysis of Paul's paraenesis to mutual love could produce still more points of view, in our opinion the most distinctive of them have already been pointed out in what has been said above. The willingness to place oneself at the service of another, not raising oneself above him, in all things being mindful of the building up of the church, repeatedly come to the fore. This character of Christian love finds its most eloquent expression in the central section of 1 Corinthians 13:
Love suffers long, it is kind.
Love is not jealous, love does not vaunt itself.
It is not puffed up, it does not behave itself unseemly,
it does not seek its own, it does not become embittered,
it does not take account of evil.
It does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices in the truth.
It covers all things, it believes all things,
it hopes all things, it endures all things....
We have to do here, not with a current or traditional schema, but with an individual, deeply penetrating formulation of the commandment of love by Paul himself. On the one hand a great "humanity" and a matured psychological insight become manifest, whereby the concrete significance of what love is not expressed in lofty generalities, but pointed out in the concrete relationships of man to man. On the other hand, it is clear from this giving of concrete form to the commandment of love that the apostle not only intends and sees before him individual men, but that his canticle of love is inspired by the new reality of the church as the body of Christ and the temple of the Holy Spirit.
With the above the question has in substance already been answered as to the object of the Christian manifestation of love. Paul speaks of it almost always from the viewpoint of relationships within the Christian church and of the building up of this congregational brotherhood as the body of Christ.
Only seldom does he speak explicitly of love for God, although this is not entirely lacking (Rom. 8:28; 1 Cor. 2:9; 8:3; Eph. 6:24 [love for Christ]). In a certain sense this can be called accidental since for Paul, too, love for God was the fundamental principle of true religion (cf. Deut. 6:4, 5; Matt. 22:38; Mark 12:29); and reconciliation to God, the restoration of the relationship of love, the great content of his gospel (Rom. 5:10ff.; 2 Cor. 5:20; cf. Rom. 8:7, 8). Nevertheless, it is remarkable115 that even when he speaks of love as the fulfilling of the law, he only has love for one's neighbor in view (Rom. 13:8-10; Gal. 5:14), and that 1 Corinthians 13, too, seems to have to be understood specifically of love for one's neighbor. The cause will surely have to be sought in that, just as love for one's neighbor springs altogether from the new relationship of love between God and believers in Christ and cannot for a moment be considered as an independent "love of neighbor" or "philanthropy," so also, conversely, love for God shows itself in particular in love for one's neighbor. There is here a double commandment, but no double love. That which in love for God transcends love for one's neighbor, however, finds its expression in a number of other descriptions. In this connection, for example, the numerous doxologies should be pointed out with which the apostle time and again interrupts or concludes his argument (cf., e.g., Rom. 7:25; 9:5; 11:33, et al.), as also the large place he ascribes to prayer, and specifically to thanksgiving in the Christian life.116 That he says comparatively little concerning love for God certainly does not rest on a material disproportion in this respect. At most, one can say that the terminology of love is to be understood in particular of love for one's neighbor.
Of no less importance, finally, is the question as to the manner in which love for one's neighbor is applied specifically to one's non-Christian neighbor ("those who are without" [hoi exo]; 1 Cor. 5:12, 13; Col. 4:5; 1 Thess. 4; 12). Two things are to be pointed out here. In the first place it is evident in various ways that Paul extends the commandment of love as widely as possible and that every suggestion that this commandment holds only for Christians among themselves is entirely foreign to him. In 1 Thessalonians 3:12 he prays that the Lord may make believers "to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men." And in the same epistle he charges them "always to follow after that which is good, one toward another, and toward all" (5:15). By "following after the good" materially nothing other is intended than love (cf. v. 15a; Rom. 13:10; 1 Cor. 14:1). And when twice he speaks of "all," he undoubtedly means by this those who stand outside the church and come into contact with believers in their daily life (cf. Phil. 4:5). Accordingly he exhorts them to repay no one evil for evil (1 Thess. 5:15a), to aim at what is considered honorable by all men, and, insofar as it is possible and depends on them, to be at peace with all men (Rom. 12:17, 18). The whole pericope of Romans 12:9-21, so important for giving concrete form to the commandment of love, is evidence of the extent to which, in harmony with the commandment of Christ, love is not only to be directed toward the brethren but also toward those who are without, even though these are hostile and perpetrate violence and injustice (vv. 14, 17, 19ff.; cf. 1 Cor. 4:12).
This universality of love comes markedly to the fore notably in the Pastoral Epistles, and in more than one place is linked there with the center of the Christian faith in a very fundamental and impressive way. Prayers, intercessions, and thanksgiving must be made (when the church comes together) "for all men" (1 Tim. 2:1). For that is good and acceptable before God our Savior, who would have all men to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth (v. 4; cf. 4:10). Likewise the person and work of Christ is the evidence and pattern of this universal love. For as the man Christ Jesus he was the Mediator between God and men, and he gave himself as a ransom for all (1 Tim. 2:5, 6). Similarly the church in the manifestation of its life "in the present world" is always to be conscious of the fact that "the grace of God bringing salvation has appeared to all men" (Tit. 2:11, 12), and therefore is to be gentle and to show meekness "toward all men" (Tit. 3:2). The church is also to be mindful, moreover, that it was "once" without understanding, disobedient, and malicious, and that it was solely the appearing of the kindness and love of God toward men that saved it (Tit. 3:3-5). Even in this striking terminology,117 which is more associated with the Hellenistic court style than with the usage of the Bible,118 there is expression of what an all-embracing significance the love of God revealed in Christ and the church's demonstration of love determined by it have in the midst of the surrounding world.
In all this the extent to which the basic motives of Paul's gospel govern all of his preaching, even his paraenesis, comes clearly to light. At the same time it is implied, however, that a fundamental distinction exists between the fellowship of believers among themselves and that with unbelievers. 1 Thessalonians 5:15 speaks of "one toward another, and toward all"; Galatians 6:10 of "toward all men, but especially (malista) toward those who are of the household of faith." This distinction does not point to a first and second "rank" of love — for the former less, for the latter more — but to a differentiation in fellowship and therefore also in the character of showing love. Love for one another in the church is the upbuilding and functioning of the body of Christ, the bond that joins the church sanctified to God together as those who belong to the same family (of God). Love for others is denoted as directed toward those "who are without" (Col. 4:5; 1 Thess. 4:12). This distinction is not removed even when for this showing of love the church is addressed on the basis of the love of God toward men.119 And even though the church is thereby reminded of its own "once," the thought is never that the same solidarity exists between believers and unbelievers as between believers and other believers. For the love that is of God cannot attain its end outside fellowship in and love for Christ (1 Cor. 16:22). For this reason the church, even when love of neighbor is demanded of it in its full scope, is always addressed on the ground of what is peculiar to it and not what it has in common with those "who are without"; and for the church the real purpose of the demonstration of wisdom, humanity, love toward others must always be that these may be won for Christ and that the name of God may be praised (cf. 1 Cor. 10:32; 11:1; Phil. 2:15, 16; Col. 4:5, 6; Tit. 2:5, 8, 10).
SECTION 49. LIFE IN THE WORLD
In conjunction with the foregoing those pronouncements of the Pauline paraenesis deserve special attention which have reference in a broader sense to the participation of believers in life in the world. Here again the twofold aspect under which the life of the church is considered in general is of paramount importance. On the one hand, in virtue of their communion with Christ believers belong to the new creation, they have been redeemed from the present aeon and have gone over into the kingdom of Christ (2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 1:4; Col. 1:13); on the other, they are still in the flesh, and consequently with all their present mode of existence they belong to the present world (Gal. 2:20; 1 Cor. 5:10). It goes without saying that this twofold relationship of the church to the world in which it lives must also determine its ethical conduct. The young Christian churches were thereby faced with all kinds of problems, and in his pastoral admonitions the apostle devoted minute attention to this.
Entirely in harmony with what has already been raised for discussion above, we can observe that these questions, too, are on the one hand viewed from the standpoint of the liberty in Christ, which appears to be of great significance likewise with respect to the life of the church in the world; on the other hand from that of sanctification, in the positive sense of the dedication of life to God, as well as in the negative significance of cleansing from all contamination of sin.
For the first the chapters are again of importance in which "the strong" and "the weak" are spoken of (Rom. 14; 1 Cor. 8-10), as also, though in a somewhat different manner, Paul's fight against the legalistic and ascetic tendencies in the church at Colosse (cf. Col. 2:16ff.), and against the false doctrine intended in the Pastoral Epistles (cf. 1 Tim. 4:3ff.).
Characteristic for the standpoint of those who took a free position on the ground of their Christian faith with respect to participating in life in the world and the enjoyment of earthly goods ("the strong") is the expression "all things are permitted me" ( panta moi exestin; 1 Cor. 6:12; 10:23), as well as the word employed in that sense — "liberty" (1 Cor. 8:9 [exousia]; cf. 9:4-6, 12, 18; 10:29 [eleutheria]). Although Paul brings the consciousness of liberty thus expressed under more than one critical point of view (see below), in principle he is in agreement with it: "I know, and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is unclean of itself" (Rom. 14:14).
From these words it can appear how much the liberty described in them is a matter of faith, proceeding from the knowledge of the Lord Jesus. In 1 Corinthians it is related to the knowledge emphatically thrust into the foreground by the Corinthians (cf. 1 Cor. 8: 1ff., 7, 10, 11). However one is to judge of the origin of this terminology,120 Paul recognizes this knowledge as the foundation for liberty, for by virtue of this knowledge we know that there is but one God and that, whatever mention there may still be of "gods" and "lords," for the church there is but one God the Father and but one Lord Jesus Christ, and that there is therefore liberty to eat everything that is sold in the market-halls, for the earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof (1 Cor. 10:23-26).
This same principle of faith, in much sharper language, is opposed to the heresy intended in Colossians, 1 Timothy, and Titus, which led to all sorts of timorousness and superstition in the matter of eating and drinking. In Colosse this heresy was connected with the fear of supernatural "powers" and the "worship of angels," which was then apparently attended with a legalistic-ascetic manner of life. Paul vigorously repudiates these prohibitive regulations and slavish prescriptions. He points to Christ as the head of all powers, even of the angels, outside the area of whose power nothing is situated, not even food and drink. For this reason he qualifies all this scrupulousness and timidity — which easily degenerate into spiritual pride (2:18, 23) — as "worldly" and the invention of men, and he points the church to the death of Christ in which it has been redeemed from this worldly fear and wisdom. It must not "as though still living in the world" (that is to say, as though it had not yet been brought under the dominion of Christ; cf. 1:13) permit all manner of regulations to be imposed on it. And because it no longer lives under this bondage of the world, "handle not and taste not," etc., do not apply to it. The church has been redeemed from this bondage in Christ (2:20, 21).
He brings the same motives to the fore in 1 Timothy 4 and Titus 1, against legalistic-ascetic currents of the same sort. Those who believe and have right knowledge of the truth (cf. 1 Cor. 8:1ff.) look to God as the Creator of what the false teachers forbid use. This holds for eating and drinking and marrying. What in faith and with thanksgiving is received from the hand of God is not to be rejected. It gets its holiness through the Word of God that speaks of the redemption of the whole of life, and through prayer in which it is received believingly (1 Tim. 4:1ff.). A clearer rejection of all ascetic, legalistic, and spiritualistic motives is not possible than on the ground of these central ideas of the gospel. This is consequently to be seen as the background of the word in Titus 1:15 that to the pure all things are pure, that is, that to him who lives by faith in Christ no gift or food is wrong in itself. For Christ is the Lord of the world, and nothing has been withdrawn from his sovereignty (Col. 1:15ff.; 2:9ff.; 1 Cor. 8:6). This Christian liberty finds its most fundamental and impressive interpretation in the words of 1 Corinthians 3:22, 23: "For all things are yours... whether the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come, all are yours; but you are Christ's; and Christ is God's."
The liberty thus defined also occurs in Paul's epistles, however, under other points of view. We have already seen121 that especially in 1 Corinthians 8-10 and Romans 14 all this liberty is placed under the discipline of Christian love as the building up of the church of Christ. Next to this stands yet another no less important consideration, namely, that of the holiness of the church and of the obligation to safeguard oneself in this liberty against the contamination of the world. For not only "the weak," but also "the strong" themselves are able to stumble in this liberty. As licentiousness it can become a new power over them. For this reason Paul can say in 1 Corinthians 6:12: "All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be enslaved by anything."122
One must therefore be careful with this liberty. Paul warns in this connection against extramarital sexual intercourse. Even though it may be true that food and the stomach that ingests the food have no moral significance and only a temporary service, this is not to say that the resultant liberty to eat and to drink is also applicable to the body in general, that is, to surrender it to fornication. Such a conception of liberty, which in essence would mean a new enslavement, is also in conflict with the destiny of the body, namely, both now and in the great future to be for the Lord as a temple of his Spirit (1 Cor. 6:12-20). Elsewhere he says of the eating of (just as of the abstaining from) certain foods that it takes place, as appears from the thanksgiving pronounced in conjunction with it, in the presence and with the acknowledgment of the Lord123 (Rom. 14:6); indeed, that whether one eats, or drinks, or whatever he does, he is to do all to the glory of God (1 Cor. 10:31). Here, as always, liberty is qualified by submission to the Lord, and must show itself as such. The expression "but not all things are profitable" (sympherei; 1 Cor. 6:12) is not therefore to be taken in a narrow, opportunistic sense, but it makes all things conditional on that which it yields to the Lord and his service.
The same thing applies in a still stronger degree when one enters on a terrain where other gods are served. Here, too, one could reason that if an idol is nothing, there is no objection to sitting down to a heathen sacrificial meal, for example, out of social considerations. Paul, however, will have nothing to do with Christian liberty here. He draws a singular distinction between the nothingness of idols and the nevertheless demonic character of the service of idols. Even in general no one is presumptuously to trust to his steadfastness; the example of ancient Israel in the wilderness can serve for a warning (1 Cor. 10:1-11). On this account the ordinary daily association of the church among the heathen must also compel it to caution. Yet this is only a temptation from the side of men, in which believers may rely on the assistance of God (v. 13). It is otherwise, however, if, on the ground of their "knowledge," they participate in the heathen sacrificial meals. For even though an idol is nothing, that does not mean that the demonic powers who incite men to the service of idols may be said to be imaginary. Rather, those who have communion with the worship of idols enter into communion with the demons to whom the heathen sacrifice, whether they know it or not.124 Here one is faced with an ineluctable dilemma: either the table of Lord, or that of demons. Here every man who appeals to his "knowledge" or to the fact that he is "strong" must ask himself whether he thinks he is "stronger" than God himself, that is, by willing and doing what God does not will (v. 22).125
From these examples the fundamental standpoint with respect to the sharing of the church in the gifts and goods of the world becomes clear on two sides. While one is able to say, on the one hand, that all things without exception are the possession of the church, it is no less true that through Christ and his cross the world has been crucified for believers, and they for the world (Gal. 6:14). This does not mean that Paul has become blind and deaf to all the goods and joys of the world; every ascetic element that seeks sin in the natural and created, or which attempts to further the avoidance of sin by the avoidance of the natural use of things, is alien to him. But it does imply that for him the world in its self-sufficiency, likewise in its legalistic self-righteousness, has received its judgment and has been done away in the cross of Christ, and that he himself therefore no longer is or lives for the world, insofar as he must love or accept it outside Christ.
Attention should still be devoted in this context to the association of believers with "those who are without." In discussing the requirement of love we have already seen126 that this requirement extends to unbelievers; at the same time that the line of demarcation between believers and unbelievers has not hereby been obliterated. This last emerges forcefully in the warnings against allying oneself with unbelieving and sinful men (2 Cor. 6:14; Eph. 5:7ff.). This, too, cannot mean that believers in general may have no association with such; for then — according to Paul's own word — one would have to go out of the world (1 Cor. 5:10). They may have no fellowship with their sinful works, however (Eph. 5:11), nor, as it is said in 2 Corinthians 6:14 with a singular figure, permit themselves to be unequally yoked with them.127 The presupposition is that believers and unbelievers bear a different yoke. The figure is also so striking because in Judaism "yoke" is the symbolic expression of moral and religious obligations.128 Because of this fundamentally different approach to life in believers and unbelievers and this different rule of life they cannot go together, cannot form one team. The thought is therefore not only that believers are not to permit themselves — with a repudiation of their own "yoke" — to be brought under one common "yoke" with unbelievers, but also that with the maintaining of their own "yoke" they must not go together with them. In this context Paul, with the quotation of prophetic pronouncements, also speaks of "coming out from among them" and "being separate."129 That this is not intended in an absolute sense is evident from 1 Corinthians 5:9ff., where association130 with people living in sin is not forbidden. It is a matter of such joining together as that by which the "yoke," the life principle and the rule of life of believers and unbelievers, is at stake. Here an uncompromising posture is fitting, not merely in spite of, but just on account of the responsibility the church has in and for the world (cf. Phil. 2:15), and one may not in one way or another endeavor to combine that which is from Christ and that which runs counter to his rule (cf. 2 Cor. 6:14-16).131
In addition to the motive of holiness, finally, the motive of time plays a special part in the Pauline paraenesis with regard to the acceptance of life and intercourse in the world. This comes up for discussion in particular in certain questions on marriage. In that connection Paul writes the radical words of 1 Corinthians 7:29ff., among others:132
I mean this, brethren: the time is short.
Finally,133 let those who have wives live as though they had none;
and those who weep, as though they wept not;
and those who rejoice, as though they rejoiced not;
and those that buy, as though they kept nothing;
and those that make use of the world, as though they used it not.
For the form of this world is passing away
The reservation here regarding all participation in the temporal life, its gifts, vicissitudes, structures, is so full of tension because in the broad context of Paul's paraenesis it does not mean avoidance of or abstinence from the gifts and possibilities of the temporal life, but rather acceptance of them and unavoidable involvement in them ("who weep...," etc.). Moreover, resignation or pessimism has no part here. Everything is rather placed under the viewpoint of the passing away of "this world" toward that which is to come and of the shortness of the time that precedes it. Undoubtedly the question as to how short the time is plays a not unimportant role in this connection, and the consciousness of it in Paul's pronouncements is not always expressed in the same manner and does not always determine his pronouncements with respect to the practical life in the same fashion.134 This distinction is not one of principle, however. For with all the tension that (as in the whole of his preaching) is to be observed in his paraenesis between the "already" and the "not yet," as well as within this "not yet" between the progress and the shortness of time, the expectation of the salvation not yet revealed remains of absolute significance. It is this expectation which on the one hand gives acceptance of the present life its deepest meaning (1 Cor. 15:19) and on the other places it as well under the continuing reservation of the disappearance of the form of this world and of the shortness of the time, though this reservation is felt with varying intensity. The way in which all this takes on concrete form is to be seen still further when, on the basis of several particular pronouncements, we go somewhat more deeply into a few of the facets of life in the world.
SECTION 50. MARRIAGE
The various aspects of Christian liberty and of the life of the Christian in the world are linked in a singular way in Paul's pronouncements on marriage.
Here again the motive of the creation and institution of marriage by God and of the liberty to accept marriage as such in Christ is fundamental. The apostle speaks of the institution of marriage by God and the regulation of marriage given with this institution, for example, in 1 Corinthians 6:16 and in Ephesians 5:31, as well as in 1 Timothy 4:4. He orients himself to this institution when in more than one place he describes the relationship of husband and wife to each other, and ascribes the first place in marriage to the husband (1 Cor. 11:3, 7-9; 1 Tim. 2:11ff.; cf. 1 Cor. 14:34; Eph. 5:22; Col. 3:18; Tit. 2:5). This motive of creation and the ordinance of marriage involved in it he then links most closely with that of Christian liberty and the marriage directives lying in it. This occurs in a very deliberate and explicit manner in the anti-ascetic pronouncements already cited above in 1 Timothy 4:4, 5, where it is said of marriage that, just as everything God has created, it is good and not to be rejected, if it is received with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified by the Word of God and by prayer.
This general motive of sanctification, however, now finds a special application for marriage in other pronouncements. Thus, for example, in 1 Corinthians 7:39, where the demand is made of believers not to marry otherwise than "in the Lord," that is to say, with a believer; but also in 1 Corinthians 7:14, where the continuation of the marriage of a husband and wife, one of whom has become a believer, is motivated by the sanctification of the unbelieving partner in the marriage in or through the believing partner. The Christian motive especially has bearing on the mutual relations of husband and wife. Thus in 1 Corinthians 11 the husband's position of priority in marriage is further defined by the pronouncement that in the Lord the wife is no more without the husband than the husband is without the wife; for as the woman is of the man, so also is the man by the woman; all things, however, are of God (vv. 11, 12). It is not said here that "in the Lord" marriage has received another destiny than it had by virtue of creation;135 it is said, however, that in the Lord the principle of reciprocity, mutual dependence and service to one another in love, applies and comes into effect in a new way. For in Christ the husband does not have an advantage over the wife (Gal. 3:28). The distinction that exists between them by virtue of creation is not abolished, any more than that between Jews and Greeks; to be in Christ does not therefore mean natural equality. But all, both male and female (arsen kai thēly), are one in Christ, that is to say, they together constitute one body (cf. 1 Cor. 12:13). And this must govern natural relationships as well, so that in marriage it is not one's own concern or asserting one's own superiority, but love in Christ, that must determine the relationship. Belonging to Christ and belonging to one another as man and wife in marriage are therefore not separated, but the former is intended to work itself out in the latter. For this reason fornication is incompatible with belonging to Christ (1 Cor. 6:12-20). For the body of the believer belongs to the Lord (v. 13), and it shares in the resurrection. Therefore the bodies of believers as members belong to the body of Christ, and a believing man cannot at the same time be one body and one flesh with a prostitute. The destiny of the body is therefore determined by Christ and by the Holy Spirit. This is also decisive for mutual relationships in marriage.
Nowhere does the apostle give stronger expression to this than in Ephesians 5:22-33, where in his paraenesis concerning the marriage relationship he not only goes out from the fact that every believer belongs to the body of Christ, but looks at the entire relationship of man and wife to each other in the light of the relationship of Christ and the church, which he then describes as a marriage relationship.
For the wife this implies the obligation to recognize the leading place of the husband,136 for the husband the obligation of love. On the one hand the unity of Christ and the church therefore receives its explanation from the mysterious unity of husband and wife in marriage (5:32); conversely, the unity of Christ and the church throws light on the true experience of the unity of marriage.137 Natural relationships serve in 1 Corinthians 6 and in Ephesians 5 as a depiction of the salvation given in Christ. But it is only therein that they, too, are identified in their true sense and requirement. This does not signify a spiritualization of natural marriage; rather a return and restoration of the natural out of Christ and the Holy Spirit. This is accordingly the deep meaning of the statement that what God has created, including marriage in particular, is sanctified by the Word of God and prayer.
The general purport of Paul's pronouncements with respect to marriage is therefore positive and fundamentally anti-ascetic. They comprise a Christian paraenesis in behalf of and not in opposition to marriage. It is this positive view which obliges believers to refrain from fornication and in general every man to acquire his own wife138 in sanctification and honor (1 Thess. 4:4); likewise, in accordance with the commandment of Christ, the wife may not leave her husband, and the husband may not repudiate his wife (1 Cor. 7:10, 11). This commandment also applies to mixed marriages, as long as the unbelieving partner in the marriage does not wish to put an end to the marital union (1 Cor. 7:12ff.); if this last is indeed the case, then the believing partner in the marriage is no longer bound (v. 15).139 This positive appraisal of marriage is also determined by natural considerations. Precisely to prevent fornication every man is to have his own wife, and every woman her own husband (1 Cor. 7:2), and they are not permanently to withhold themselves from marital co-habitation, in order even as married persons not to fall into temptation (vv. 3ff.). For this reason, too, the advice is given to unmarried persons and widows to marry, if they cannot control themselves. For it is better to marry than to burn (vv. 8, 9). And elsewhere it is said to the young widows that, rather than to go about idly and to be reduced to loquacious good-for-nothings, they are to marry, bear children, and be actively at work in their own households (1 Tim. 5:13ff.), as it is said in general of the (believing) married woman that she will be saved "through bearing children," that is to say, will participate in the way of believing and dedicated motherhood140 not only in temporal but also in eternal life (1 Tim. 2:15).
At the same time Paul's epistles present another aspect. We have already dealt with this, or rather with its reverse side, in the advice cited above from 1 Corinthians 7 regarding the contracting of marriage and marital intercourse on the ground of a lack of self-control and of the motive that it is better to marry than to burn. Clearly this is not a motive for marriage that arises from Christian liberty, but rather an "accommodation" (cf. 1 Cor. 7:6) to the natural impulse to sexual relations, which may indeed be acted on, but even so only because a lack of self-control has become evident. The motive for marriage employed here consequently cannot be placed as secondary alongside that of Christian liberty. Rather it occurs in 1 Corinthians 7 as a limitation of the principal advice, namely, not to marry and therefore not to make use of one's liberty. For, thus Paul writes in answer to the questions put to him by the Corinthians: "it is good for a man not to touch a woman." And though marriage remains lawful in view of the danger of fornication and in marriage husband and wife are not to withhold themselves from each other, this is true "by way of concession, not by way of command." For Paul would wish indeed that all men were as he himself, i.e., unmarried. Yet not everyone has received a charisma from God in this respect, in other words, the ability to deny himself marriage (v. 7). For this reason the unmarried and the widows are counseled to remain in their unmarried state, at least if they are able to control themselves. to him by the Corinthians: "it is good for a man not to touch a woman." And though marriage remains lawful in view of the danger of fornication and in marriage husband and wife are not to withhold themselves from each other, this is true "by way of concession, not by way of command." For Paul would wish indeed that all men were as he himself, i.e., unmarried. Yet not everyone has received a charisma from God in this respect, in other words, the ability to deny himself marriage (v. 7). For this reason the unmarried and the widows are counseled to remain in their unmarried state, at least if they are able to control themselves.
Now it is of great importance to distinguish clearly the motives of Paul's preference for the single state in 1 Corinthians 7:1-7. The apostle speaks of that explicitly when in verse 25 he once again deals expressly with "virgins." He has no definite commandment of Christ handed down to him for them, but he gives his "advice,"141 as one who has been permitted by the mercy of the Lord to be faithful (others translate142 by: authorized to this end, qualified; v. 25; cf. v. 40). He does not therefore relativize his apostolic authority over against that of the Lord,143 but he does wish (as appears from the expression "my advice"144) that this authority not be fully asserted here, but only that his opinion be made known by way of counsel.145 He lets it be known, moreover, that his urging people to remain unmarried has its basis in "the present146 distress" (v. 26). What is intended is specifically the distress in which believers find themselves in a world hostile to them, with which Paul himself had had and would yet have such an abundant acquaintance (cf. 2 Cor. 6:4; 12:10; 1 Thess. 3:7). What follows relates this147 with the fact that "the time is short" (v. 29) and "the form of this world is passing away" (v. 31). This alludes to the end of things, which is at hand. The "distress" need not yet be understood therefore in the special sense of the last great tribulation, the "Messianic woes" (cf. Luke 21:23). But suffering in and because of the present world that has not yet been redeemed in its mode of existence, as the counter force of the redemption given in Christ (cf., e.g., Rev. 12:12), is indeed characteristic of the temporal life of believers; and even though they do not always feel this in their own persons it must restrain them from becoming attached to the gifts and pleasure of this world as though their life consisted in them (vv. 29ff.). And because of this distress, Paul fears more "tribulation in the flesh" for those who are married (v. 28) than for the unmarried, whereas he would spare them these anxieties (v. 32). At the same time this involves the religious motive that those who are married become more attached to the present life, are more divided in their attention, and will devote themselves more to their husband or wife and to earthly affairs and less to the cause of the Lord than the unmarried. For this reason he counsels the unmarried not to marry, and that indeed to their own advantage, not to cast a noose on them, not to hamper them in their own liberty, but so that (on the one hand148) what is seemly might be done (pros to euschēmon) and (on the other hand149) they might become entirely attached to the Lord without permitting themselves to be drawn away from him (aperispastōs; v. 35).
This "on the one hand and on the other" the apostle applies yet once more by discussing the question as to what one must do with his marriageable "virgin." Whether what is posed here is the problem of the betrothed and by "any man" the young man is intended,150 or whether it is the problem of a father who has a marriageable daughter,151 may be left undecided as not crucial for our discussion.152 If the pressure for marriage becomes too great and things must take their course, he is to do as he wishes: he does not sin — let them marry. But he who is steadfast in his heart and does not feel this necessity, who has power over his own will and has come to the determination within to keep his virgin untouched, acts well. Thus he who marries (or gives her in marriage) does well, but he who does not marry her (or give her in marriage) does better (v. 38). This also applies, mutatis mutandis, to the widow (vv. 39, 40).
If we summarize, the following can be established with respect to Paul's attitude toward marriage.
First, there is no basis for the opinion that on ascetic-dualistic grounds Paul considered sexual intercourse itself sinful,153 or would have judged marriage on the basis of ascetic-dualistic motives.154 The contrary is rather the case, Paul values marriage as an institution of God, protected by the express commandment of Christ, to be accepted and experienced in Christian liberty. Even in 1 Corinthians 7, the chapter to which appeal is made for an opposite opinion, in our view no ascetic-dualistic motives are to be discovered with reference to marriage.
Second, on the ground of all the data that have been preserved to us, just as little can it be maintained that for Paul marriage was a necessary evil, and that with him there is no question of a higher estimation of marriage.155 In order to reach such an opinion one must not only deny to him such a pronouncement as that in I Timothy 4:4ff., but also leave out of consideration what he says concerning marriage and its relation to the unity between Christ and the church (Eph. 5:22ff; cf. 2 Cor. 11:2), concerning the love with which married persons must give themselves to each other (cf. Col. 3:19), concerning the sanctification of marital relations even in a mixed marriage (1 Cor. 7:14). Likewise when in 1 Corinthians 7 the apostle gives his verdict in general against entering into new marriages, he does not do so on the ground of a fundamentally negative judgment of marriage, but of a special situation (v. 26). For this one can refer to a similar pronouncement of Jesus in Matthew 19:12c. Marriage is not hereby deprived of its intrinsic value, nor degraded to a necessary evil for incontinent, non-charismatic people; as gift and mandate for temporal life it is relativized in the face of the nearness of the coming kingdom and the new estimation of earthly life coupled with it.156 However much Paul primarily values the Christian life in the world on the ground of the salvation that has already dawned in Christ, this does not alter the fact that again and again he speaks with great force of the coming kingdom of God as the end of the mode of existence ("the schema") of the present world. And this of course applies not only to marriage, but to all the facets of temporal life (1 Cor. 7:29-31).
The advice thus understood, however, sets us before the by no means simple question as to its binding significance for the Christian church. Although Paul himself surrounds it with all kinds of restrictive considerations (the danger of fornication, the charismatic character of abstinence from marriage, the continuing marital obligations of those who are married), his preference for the unmarried state in the situation in which he sees the church (see above) remains unmistakable. In our view one will have to take into consideration, moreover, that Paul in 1 Corinthians 7 is addressing himself to a church in which the idea prevailed that the future had already been realized and the resurrection had already taken place.157 Against this, according to the nature of the prophetic-eschatological consciousness,158 he thrusts into the forefront here the relativity of temporal life and the danger that devoting oneself to it involves more distinctly than he does elsewhere, where he places more emphasis on the institution of marriage by God and its sanctification by Christ. This absolute point of view also makes him estimate his own renunciation of marriage and that of others as a charisma.159
On the one hand the apostolic advice to the Corinthians to be explained from this fact signifies for the coming church, too, an abiding stimulus to be conscious of the provisional character of earthly life, in the face of the imperishable gift and the calling arising from it of the coming kingdom, even though this would mean in concreto the giving up of marriage. In this respect the apostolic advice in its pointing away toward the ultimate decisions that apply to man remains of absolute significance, particularly so if the contracting of a marriage would restrain or hinder believers from devoting themselves to that to which they could be called for "the affairs of the Lord" (v. 32). Accordingly, being able to abstain may be estimated as a special divine charisma and the pastoral suggestion of 1 Corinthians 7 against the excessive strain of voluntary celibacy remain in force as well.
On the other hand there is an indication, not only in the continuation of the earthly dispensation, but also in the whole of the apostolic instruction, that marriage — and the entire earthly life — will have to be estimated not only from the special viewpoint of 1 Corinthians 7. For however striking the agreement of 1 Corinthians 7:29-31 with similar pronouncements in the Jewish apocalyptic may be in certain respects, the great distinction lies in the fact that for Paul "eschatology" bears a christological character, that is to say, is determined not only by the consciousness of the speedy end of this world, but by the unity of the salvation that is expected and which has already appeared in Christ, Even now the believer belongs to Christ as his Lord, in life and in death, both in the present world and in the world to come; and that with all that he is and has and does (cf. Rom. 14:8). Therein lies his liberty to eat and to drink, to marry and to be given in marriage, and the fundamental boundary separating him from a contempt for or shunning of earthly life resulting from the expectation of the end of the world. But — and this should be expressly maintained in view of 1 Corinthians 7 — always in such a way that the repeatedly arising distress that has accompanied the church in its course throughout history will have to remain for it the sign that liberty in Christ springs no less from what it has to expect, than in what the church is already permitted to possess in faith; that is also to say, consists no less in abstaining from marriage than in giving oneself to it.
SECTION 51. SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS
Paul's admonitions relating to the life of work and the social relationships it involves are also characteristic of his general attitude with respect to the life of the church in the world.
We meet with admonitions on the subject of work especially in the Epistles to the Thessalonians. Already in 1 Thessalonians 4:11f. the apostle exhorts believers that they consider it an honor to lead a quiet life, to look after their own affairs, and to work with their hands, as he has charged them, so that they conduct themselves becomingly in the presence of those that are without and be dependent on no man's help. And in 1 Thessalonians 5:14 he gives still another special warning that those who live disorderly — among whom we have certainly to understand those who shirk regular work — are to be admonished. In 2 Thessalonians 3:6-12 there is even a separate pericope devoted to this "disorderliness," in which he has people in view who no longer worked, but instead troubled themselves with unnecessary things.160 Just how we are to conceive of this is not altogether clear. Usually spiritualistic or eschatological tendencies are thought of (cf, 2 Thess. 2:1ff.), through which some had been caught up in a certain agitation, had lapsed into a disorderly life, and thereby not only caused their fellow Christians annoyance, but also endangered the good name of the church with those standing on the outside (cf. 1 Thess. 4:12). However one is precisely to view this idleness, Paul lets it be known that in no sense whatever does this square with the content of the gospel. In 1 Thessalonians 4:11 as well as in 2 Thessalonians 3:6 and 10 he appeals to what he taught them previously on this matter. In so doing he points to his own example of industry (2 Thess. 3:7ff.; cf. 1 Thess. 2:9). How reprehensible he considered idleness is certainly evident from the pronouncement in 2 Thessalonians 3:6, where with full apostolic authority he commands believers to withdraw themselves from every member of the church who conducted himself in this way. And he commands these people in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ to keep quietly to their work, and to earn their own bread (2 Thess. 3:12). From all this it is evident that the apostle wished to dissociate himself as sharply and clearly as possible from these practices, as though they had anything whatever to do with the gospel and the expectation given in it. Instead of falling into such an anti-social and agitated condition believers are to find honor precisely in quietness (1 Thess. 4:11; 2 Thess. 3:12), in an orderly and regular civil life, without being dependent on the assistance of others.
No special "Christian" standards for the life of work are to be derived from this paraenesis.161 Paul appeals rather to generally recognized standards of order, tranquillity, and propriety (1 Thess. 4:11), and even summarizes his earlier instructions in the down-to-earth rule: "if any will not work. let him not eat" (2 Thess. 3:10). It appears here with great clarity that faith in Christ on the one hand, and application with diligence and order to one's daily work that one may thus earn his own bread and be an example to others on the other hand, are not two things that have nothing to do with each another or of which the first would even stand in the way of the second, but that it is precisely obedience and faith in Christ that constitute a most powerful and unmistakable incentive for an industrious life. That Paul may be said to renounce every other ordering than that of the coming kingdom, the ordering of love, in which work, too, is a matter of course and workshyness a sin against the will of God,162 seems to us in view of the passages that have been handled here an unproven thesis. Rather, the order163 that is spoken of again and again and which is held before the church with the authority of Christ has reference to the will of God with respect to the natural life, an order that he not only infers from the Christian commandment of love, but without defining or analyzing it further designates as valid for work and which in connection with the authorities he denotes as diatagē tou Theou (Rom. 13:2).164 It is to this effect that Paul also, in rejecting all manner of ascetic and spiritualistic heresy, writes to Timothy that godliness is profitable for all things, having promise for life for the present as well as for the future (1 Tim. 4:8). The revelation of Christ does not abrogate the order of the natural and present life, but makes it recognized and practiced, from the viewpoint of Christ, exactly in its divine significance.
In this sense Paul also speaks of social relationships. Of importance in this respect is 1 Corinthians 7:17-24, where in his paraenesis on questions concerning marriage it is said by way of general elucidation that each man is to remain in the particular situation in which he has come to faith and is to walk therein according to the requirement of God. This, so he writes to the Corinthians, is the rule of conduct he lays down for all the churches. For this reason the wife who in her marriage with an unbelieving husband has come to conversion need not separate from him. For this reason neither circumcision nor uncircumcision stands in anyone's way in serving God. Let everyone, so he repeats in verse 20, remain in the calling in which — when he came to faith — he was called by God. The intention, as appears from what follows, is that one is not to run away from the "situation of his calling."165 Therefore, in view of this calling, no one is to trouble himself if he was called as a slave. This does not stand in the way of his faith and of his service to the Lord. For, so he goes on,166 the slave who was called in the Lord is one who has been ransomed by the Lord and thus bound to him167 (v. 22), just as on the other hand he who was called as a free man is a slave to Christ. Both have been bought and paid for by him, and have only to guard against becoming the slaves of men, namely, by taking notice of their social prejudices as though there were a distinction with respect to Christ in anyone's social position.
One cannot say that in these verses Paul deals with social relationships as such. The intention is rather to throw light on the relative significance of the social position in which one finds himself in view of being a Christian (cf. Gal. 3:28; Col. 3:11). Two things are of great importance, however.
In the first place, the apostle apparently does not wish to see any premature encroachment on the existing social order. The announcement that he thus gives regulations to all the churches also seems to point to this. What he says in 1 Corinthians 7 on remaining in the situation of one's calling is therefore no incidental pronouncement, but a general rule of conduct laid down by him. The gospel does not make its appearance in the form of a new social program, and still less does it overthrow the existing order by force. Rather, it enters into the existing structure of society in order to permeate it with a new spirit, that of Christ. Yet the apostle also recognizes in the social order something more than human arbitrariness or the abuse of the power of one over another. It is rather an order in which a higher divine ordinance is effecting itself, whereby the world is maintained and which requires recognition as such above everything else. Thus and not otherwise the repeatedly recurring admonitions addressed to slaves and masters are to be understood (Eph. 6:5ff.; Col. 3:22ff.; see also below).
This does not imply that Paul identifies the existing social order, especially slavery, with the divine order, or regards it as unalterable. To be sure, nowhere has a pronouncement been preserved in which he criticizes the institution of slavery and declares it to be contrary to the gospel. On the other hand, nowhere does he take it back to a divine ordinance, as, for example, in the case of the subjection of the wife to the husband. The context in which he speaks in 1 Corinthians 7 of remaining in the situation of one's calling is also of importance. Paul here places being a slave and being free on a level with being or not being circumcised. With respect to the latter, too, he desires no instantaneous or revolutionary alterations (vv. 17, 18). Yet he was plainly aware of the revolution that his preaching of the gospel must mean for the whole institution of circumcision.
Essentially — and this is the second thing to be observed with reference to 1 Corinthians 7:20ff. — his motivation for remaining in the situation of one's calling meant a revolution for the institution of slavery. For this does not consist in a spiritualistic or eschatological indifference to social relationships, but in a new appreciation of man out of Christ, whereby a renewal of social relationships must become possible and necessary from within. In 1 Corinthians 7 this last point is not the real focus of the paraenesis. This does not alter the fact that the apostle here too judges slaves and free men together out of their relationship to Christ, and in verse 23 warns them (both!) not to be slaves of men, that is to say, in their consciousness of calling by God not to be guided by human judgment basing itself on their social position. However much his paraenesis again refrains from drawing social conclusions, indeed places the emphasis precisely on the acceptance of the existing social order, it is not to be disputed that just this motivation for remaining in the "situation of one's calling" must be of deep and sweeping significance for mutual human relationships.168 It was certainly not that here the dynamite was placed that must eventually lead the slaves to revolt — the argument rather opposes that — but it was the salt or, if one will, the leaven of the kingdom of God (Matt. 5:13; 13:33), which for those who would not draw back from the force of Paul's words must also be of deep and radical social significance.
The Epistle to Philemon provides a highly illustrative corroboration of all this, and may serve in many respects as the criterion of what can be said on other counts concerning Paul's attitude regarding slavery. To begin with, Paul sends the runaway slave Onesimus back to his master Philemon.169 Furthermore, he acknowledges in the whole epistle the right of the master to his slave (cf. vv. 12, 14, 18). Likewise it is not demonstrable that Paul at this time directly or indirectly asked for the manumission of Onesimus. Even if one holds the view, in company with various interpreters,170 that in verses 13, 14, 20ff. Paul requests the return of Onesimus, this is not to be identified with a formal manumission. The juridical side of the matter is not treated.171 On the other hand, the manner in which Paul now announces Onesimus to his master is such that the old master-slave relationship is entirely broken through, or at least altogether overshadowed by another. He calls Onesimus "formerly a good-for-nothing," but "now of much profit both to you and to me," "him, that is my whole heart" (vv. 11, 12); and he says that perhaps for this reason he was parted from his master for a time, that he should have him back again forever, no longer as a slave, but as much more than a slave: as a beloved brother. He, Onesimus, is altogether that for Paul even now; how much more then for his master, to whom he now belongs both as a slave and as a brother. On this account Paul asks as well that his master, if he feels bound to the apostle, receive Onesimus as he would Paul, etc. (vv. 15-17). Accordingly, whatever Paul may precisely have wished of Philemon, he leaves the decision to him, namely, on the foundation of the wholly new relationship in which he now stands to his slave. And it is this re-forming and re-orientation "from within" which one can qualify as the heart and purport of Paul's "social-ethical" paraenesis.172
Under this twofold point of view, finally, Paul's express admonitions, to slaves and masters in the so-called Haustafeln are to be understood (Eph. 6:5-9; Col. 3:22-4:1; cf. 1 Tim. 6:1, 2; Tit. 2:9, 10). On the one hand a very strong emphasis is there placed on the subjection of slaves to their masters, and serving wholeheartedly in this relationship (not slavery itself!) is pointed out as the will of the Lord (Eph. 6:5-8; Col. 3:22-24). Moreover, especially in the Pastoral Epistles, the motive that Christian doctrine may not be blasphemed through rebellious disturbances plays an important part (1 Tim. 6:1; Tit. 2:10). The slaves are also warned not to conduct themselves in a self-conceited manner toward their believing masters because these are brethren, but rather to be all the better slaves for them (1 Tim. 6:2). It is surely apparent here that Paul did not think of an abolition of slavery as a social institution on Christian grounds. On the other hand, in the Haustafeln, too, the slave-master relationship, and its reverse, is completely elucidated and judged out of the newness of the individual and collective relationship to Christ. What a revolution this meant can be gathered even from the single fact that Paul successively addresses slaves and masters as equal members of the church, and describes their relationships to one another as two sides of the same responsibility. In no way whatever could this be reconciled with the position of the slave in the world of that day, nor with that in Judaism.173 But in addition, slaves are not to serve their masters in the way of eyeservice as men-pleasers (Eph. 6:6; Col. 3:22), but in the fear of the Lord and as bondservants of Christ, a motive that involves not only a rejection of the character-corrupting and inhuman practices of the household slavery of the time, but above all the secret of true independence and of a new self-judgment. Conversely, the same is impressed on masters when they, too, are pointed to their Lord in heaven (Eph. 6:9; Col. 4:1). Paul does not speak — so we can summarize — "concerning slavery," but he speaks to Christian slaves and Christian masters, and he exhorts them to see and experience their position in society out of Christ.174 That at the same time an enormous tension was introduced into slavery as a social system cannot be denied, but even so it must be viewed, as far as we are able to see, more as the consequence than as the deliberate object of Paul's admonitions. However, because he approaches the problem of social relationships in this way, that is, from the religious-ethical side, his admonitions retain for every social relationship, however much modernized, an abiding and unmistakable significance. Accordingly, one can ask himself whether the Christian relationship between masters and servants within the boundaries of slavery sketched by the apostle cannot also Serve as a humiliating example to modern society with so many relationships destitute of all personal ties.175
SECTION 52. SUBJECTION TO CIVIL AUTHORITY
Of particular importance, finally, is what Paul writes on the attitude of Christians toward the civil authorities. In this connection three passages especially come up for discussion — Romans 13:1-7; 1 Timothy 2:1-4; Titus 3:1. Of these Romans 13:1ff. is certainly the most important.
The significance in the whole of Paul's preaching of the positive attitude toward civil authority that is taken here has given occasion to all sorts of speculation. In particular the need has been felt for a more christological approach than is explicitly the case in Romans 13 itself. This leads first of all to the question as to whether the context in which Romans 13:1-7 arises more or less unexpectedly and abruptly is able to yield a further motivation for the content of this paraenesis.
Some are of the opinion that Paul here wishes to prevent the misunderstanding that those liberated by Christ are no longer under the rule of the powers of this aeon; thus he is said to warn against any anticipatory, eschatologicalanarchistic posture in the world.176 Moreover, one can consider whether perhaps such tendencies were cropping up in the church at Rome.177 There is no evidence for this, however. Others accordingly choose to seek the occasion more generally in the circumstance that the question naturally occurred to Christians (especially in Rome!) as to what their relationship must be to the authorities, and that Paul, also in view of the revolutionary attitude of many Jews, set great store by elucidating his loyalty toward the government.178 Some also point to the fact that the occasion for speaking of the authorities can have lain in the immediately preceding passage. In 12:19 Paul rejects personal vengeance, and speaks of the vengeance God himself will execute. In this way he would have come to speak of government as one of the means of God's retribution.179 Others, in view of the foregoing commandment of love and the reference that follows in Romans 13:11ff. to the coming end of things, think that the whole of Romans 13:1-7 must be read from the viewpoint of the "nevertheless." It is certainly no longer self-evident that the Christian must conform in this ordinance, "nevertheless," in view of the provisional character of the present dispensation of redemption, he must still do this.180
One can indeed make a meaningful connection between Romans 13:1-7 and the preceding rejection of the urge to personal retaliation. It is also clear that the position of the church in the world in Romans 13:1-7 is not for a moment detached from its expectation for the future (cf. Rom. 13:11, 12). Yet it is not to be denied that the admonition to the church to be subject to the constituted authorities is based neither on the one nor on the other, but only on the God-ordained character of government and on the protection one enjoys from it if he does that which is good. Consequently one seeks in vain in Romans 13:1-7 for an immediate connection between the basic redemptive-historical, eschatological structure of Paul's preaching and his paraenesis concerning government.181 On the other hand, it may not be forgotten that Romans 13:1-7 forms a subdivision of the paraenetic part of the epistle that begins with 12:1, and is therefore characterized by the qualification given there of the Christian life as "liturgy," the service of God in everyday life. Viewed in this context Paul's intention becomes more transparent: obedience to earthly authorities is also involved in what Romans 12:1ff. calls the spiritual sacrificial service, the placing of oneself at the service of God in virtue of the mercy of God shown to the church.182 This obedience is a submitting of oneself to the order appointed by God.183 Included in the paraenesis beginning and in principle based in Romans 12:1ff., Romans 13:1ff. says therefore that the divine ordinances for the natural life, in particular those which involve the institution of the authority of government, retain their validity for the church, indeed that it is precisely the church, called and destined to God's service by his demonstration of mercy in Christ, that has to respect this ordinance. To this is then added the motive of its welfare, the possibility of being able as church to exist in the world (vv. 3, 4). This last point is also met with very clearly in 1 Timothy 2:2: "that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life, in all godliness and gravity." At the same time the church represents the divine redemptive will with respect to all (sorts of) men (1 Tim. 2:2, 3). By its intercession for the civil authorities and its example (cf. 1 Pet. 2:15) it is also in civil life to subserve the well-being of all and to give evidence of that which the church itself has received in Christ. It is in this way clearly evident that obedience to the authorities is not merely a minor and incidental matter, a temporary conformity of the church to an order that is fundamentally no longer its own, but constitutes an integral part of the new obedience of the church of Christ; this appears also from the choice of words in Titus 3:1: "Remind them to be in subjection to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready unto good work....
The great positiveness and emphasis with which Paul speaks of the divine economy in Romans 13 in connection with the (heathen) government remain striking: " . . . for there is no government184 but of God; and those that be are ordained by God. So that he who resists the government withstands the ordinance of God... for it is in God's service for your good... for they are ministers of God." Therefore dis- obedience to the government exposes one to the (divine) judgment185 (v. 2), as for one who does evil the civil authority in general is an avenger in the service of (divine) wrath186 (v. 4); it is necessary to be subject to him not only because of the wrath of God that one otherwise brings on himself — from fear, thus — but also "for the sake of conscience." In these last words, too, it is implied that in this submission to civil authority it is a question of an obligation appointed by God.187 In addition, there is the surely very positive judgment Paul gives concerning the effect of the power of government: it is not the good, but the evil who have to be afraid of it. "Would you have no fear of him who is in authority? then do what is good, and you will receive his approval" (vv. 3ff.).
In explanation of this certainly very positive attitude some have pointed to the favorable experience of Paul with the Roman government.188 Others have even said that he would not have written these words if he had foreseen the coming persecution under Nero, etc.189 But in the first place such a conception attributes to Paul a naively optimistic evaluation of the existing political order that bears no relationship to what he himself had already experienced and to what since the death of Jesus had repeatedly been the experience of the Christian church. In the second place, it is completely in conflict with the fundamental definition of his position, which is not founded in the first instance on what is to be expected from the civil authorities, but what one owes them for God's sake. That this last is posited with so much force proves rather that Paul does not have a specific government or prevailing order in mind, but that he speaks from a deeply rooted conviction, one that is not assailed by the misdeeds of a specific government. For this one can refer to the Old Testament and the late-Jewish tradition (cf. Prov. 8:14, 16; Deut. 1:17; Ps. 72:1ff.; Ps. 82:1, 6; Wisdom 6:3; Apoc. of Bar. 82:9; Enoch 46:5).190 But more than a conformity with what was the general Jewish conviction or the well-understood self-interest of the Judaism of the Diaspora, there emerges here the faith of the apostle that the world is the creation of God, has not been abandoned by him, and has therefore been placed under his ordinances. That the authorities themselves can abandon entirely the distinction to be maintained by them between good and evil and place themselves at the service of evil (cf. 1 Cor. 2:7, 8) does not prevent him from continuing to elucidate God's purpose with government, nor from giving expression to his faith that God upholds his purpose, continues to establish justice on earth through government, and thus continues to press it into the service191 of the well-being of the world.192 This last point is expressed so generally that from the connection he here makes between civil authority and the punishment and wrath of God one will not be permitted to conclude that only sin explains and justifies the origin and existence of government.193 Even though this general wellbeing is advanced by the fact that government because of the wickedness of men is authorized and obligated to bear the sword —and that not merely as an ornament194 — that is in no respect to say that government is to be accepted and respected by the Christian church only as a necessary evil; rather in its office lies the proof that by its service God maintains and wills to see maintained his justice and his goodness in the world created by him (cf. 1 Tim. 2:2).
That Paul expresses all this with such great emphasis must find its cause in the fact that the church was particularly in need of such a paraenesis with this motivation. We see repeatedly that Paul continues to bind it to the divine ordinances for the natural life. The earnestness with which he does this is difficult to explain otherwise than that because of a wrong notion of the dispensation of redemption that has gone into effect with Christ's advent the church ran the danger of viewing the ordinances that till now had obtained for it as a point of view superseded in Christ. This danger could arise in particular with regard to the significance of government. Was there not in the fact that Christ was the church's Lord the possibility of dissociating itself from every "worldly" bond, the more so as not only good but also evil was frequently to be feared from it? In this danger of anticipation and spiritualism more than in any other consideration the explanation will have to be sought for Paul's very emphatic paraenesis to submission to civil authority. That which with so much stress is put first — "every man..." — one will thus be permitted to paraphrase: "everyone, even the believer in Christ."195 The reassuring "for rulers are not a terror to those who do good, but to him who does evil" points in the same direction. The meaning of the pericope is therefore not to be taken concessively — having to conform to the order of government in spite of its provisionality196 — but positively to preclude every proleptic or spiritualistic understanding.
Although there is no mention here of the political calling of believers as sharers in the task of government, this very deliberate designation of government as the continuing instrument in the hand of God is of great significance for the whole understanding of the life of the church. However much its "life" and its "citizenship" are in heaven (Col. 3:3; Phil. 3:20), its place and calling lie in the ordinances of the present world. And this is the more striking on account of the expectation for the future that emerges so clearly in this context (vv. 1 1ff.). This expectation does not act as a relativizing factor for what concerns life in the order appointed by God, but holds the church just that much more responsible in it. It is of particular importance, moreover, that Paul adduces no other ground for this obedience to the civil authority than that the civil authority is ordained by God. Out of opposition to a "natural theology" some have repeatedly sought for a deeper "christological foundation" of Romans 13:1-7. But Paul evidently has no need of that in this context, because for him there is no antithesis here; his reference to the divine ordinance does not rest on the conception of a natural order standing by itself or to be gathered from experience, but is a consequence of his "Israelitic" faith in God nurtured from the whole Old Testament revelation of God, who just because he is the Creator of the world is also its Redeemer, and who in the work of redemption upholds the order of this world even in its fallen state. Also for this reason it is altogether important to him that the church should not withdraw itself prematurely from this order appointed by God and the shield provided for it in that order, and he is not engaged as much as possible in relativizing this order on the ground of his faith in Christ, but rather in buttressing it as strongly as possible.
All this means — in the nature of the case — not that the church is here summoned to a "blind" obedience to government and that Paul declares every existing governmental power inviolable and sacrosanct. Although in the words he employs there are no further criteria as to how far this obligation to obedience extends and whether in the existing order modifications or revolutions are permissible — questions of which the former certainly was and the latter probably was not relevant for his readers of that day — government, precisely as a divine ordinance, both so far as its own functioning and so far as the duty to obedience are concerned, has not been withdrawn from, but rather subjected to the criticism of those who see in submission to its authority the service of God, Christian "liturgy" in everyday life (Rom. 12:1, 2). Where the boundaries lie cannot be foreseen or determined a priori in every detail. That for Paul "to obey God rather than men" was no less valid than for the other apostles, in keeping with the word of the Lord himself (Acts 4:19; 5:29; cf. Matt. 22:21), may be accepted as incontestable without additional proof. What interests him here, however, is not to point the church to these boundaries on the basis of its being Christian, but to make it clear to the church that it has to give effect to its obedience and service to Christ, not without, but within the boundaries set for it by the civil authorities.197
Over against this appraisal of the authorities in Romans 13:1 stands another, not different in principle, in 1 Corinthians 6:1ff. and 1 Corinthians 2:8. To be sure, in 1 Corinthians 6:1 believers are rebuked that for their trivial disputes they go to law before "the unrighteous, and not before the saints." By this, however, the vitium of "injustice" is not imprinted on the heathen government or administration of justice as such198 — "unrighteous" is as much as to say "heathen," in distinction from the "saints" in Christ — but it is held out to Christians as their duty that they resolve their disputes among themselves. The general effect of this word is therefore not that Christians wherever they are able to bypass the state without thereby threatening it in its existence must do this,199 but rather that the Christian church is to know its own calling. By instituting legal proceedings before the worldly judge —how. ever much this in itself can be an appeal to the justice appointed by God (cf. Luke 18:1ff.) —it gives evidence, and at that in the presence of non-Christians, of having forgotten its high calling and destiny (vv. 3ff.).
And, finally, as concerns 1 Corinthians 2:8, the apostle certainly speaks in a very reprehensible sense of "the rulers of this world" as the earthly, human (and not the demonic!200) authorities who have nailed Jesus to the cross. Nevertheless, there is here in no sense a counterinstance contrary to Romans 13, as though the latter rested on the assumption that the persons in authority are always in the service of the right and never of the wrong. Such a "naive" explanation of Romans 13 we have already rejected above.
No mention has been made above of the interpretation that chooses to think of the "powers" in Romans 13:1ff. as angelic powers. The idea is then that the state is the executive organ of the invisible angelic powers, of which Paul frequently speaks elsewhere. Interpreters then speak indeed of a "demonistic" or — as the advocates of this view prefer! — "christological" conception of the state. For they proceed from the thought often occurring elsewhere in Paul that Christ has subdued the powers and has placed them under his dominion. In this (provisional) binding they would accordingly do service in the divine economy of the life of the state. At the same time the possibility exists, however, that they attempt again to break away from God. Against this background Romans 13 would then have to be understood. Christians are to submit themselves to the civil authorities as a provisional institution willed by God and administered by the "powers." At the same time they are to be mindful, however, of a possible demonizing of this power of the state, etc.201
This conception, which has been the subject of much discussion for a considerable time and still is in part, has nevertheless gained but little approval,202 however ably it has been defended by some. The great objection against it is that Paul nowhere with so much as a single word relates angelic powers and (human) authorities to each other, and that one must rely therefore on the fact that he employs the same word for both — exousiai (and on the connection made in 1 Cor. 2:8, in our view incorrectly — see above — between angelic powers and worldly rulers; as well as on the manner in which angels are introduced in 1 Cor. 6:3). Likewise it is nowhere to be demonstrated from the New Testament that the powers conquered by Christ have been pressed into his service "provisionally," as would then be presupposed in Romans 13:1. However much one attempts with this conception therefore to establish a closer bond between the central christological character of Paul's preaching and his paraenesis concerning civil authority in Romans 13, the grounds that are adduced for this are completely inadequate to justify such a radical reinterpretation of Romans 13.
1. For a defense of both these conceptions in the history of interpretation (on the one side the "ethical, " as, e. g., by Lipsius, on the other the naturhaft, as, e. g., by Wernle, Holtzmann, et al), see Gutbrod, Die Paulinische Anthropologie, pp. 206ff.
2. Cf., e. g., Stauffer, New Testament Theology, p. 181.
3. For Jesus' preaching in the Synoptic Gospels see, e. g., my The Coming of the Kingdom, pp. 241 ff.
4. Cf. Stauffer, New Testament Theology, p. 181.
5. For this use of ei, eige, eiper (the Latin si or siquidem) cf. Bl. -Debr., Par. 372, 7; 439, 2; 454, 2.
6. Thus Bultmann's interpretation of Gal. 5: 25. He calls this pronouncement a paradoxical sentence — "open to misunderstanding so far as it seems to imply that there could be a zen pneumati without a pneumati stoiehein" ( Theology, I, p. 333). Cf. also his article on zaō ( TDNT, II, p. 869): "The zēn pneumati is a stoiehein pneumati, " In this same article he writes that the presence of the new life implies "a presence of remission with all the possibilities thereby given to believers. " Every emphasis must be placed here on "possibilities. " The new life is not an alteration of the inner being of man: "The believer does not have zōē for himself alone in the inwardness of his spiritual life, but stands in the history established by the act of salvation, in which this zōē is for those who obey the will to save. "
7. It appears elsewhere that Bultmann hereby wishes to give a "demythologized" idea of the Holy Spirit and his work. Modern man, so he writes, cannot see how a supernatural entity, the pneuma, would be able to penetrate into the closed unity of his natural capacities and be operative in him. Allegedly Paul also basically intends something other. He does conceive of the "Spirit" as a mysterious entity in man (Rom. 8: 11). "Yet in the last resort he clearly means by 'Spirit' the possibility of a new life which is opened up in faith.... Hence St. Paul's paradoxical injunction: 'If we live by the Spirit, by the Spirit also let us walk' (Gal. 5: 25) Thus the concept 'Spirit' has been emancipated from mythology" ("New Testament and Mythology, " in Kerygma and Myth, pp. 6, 22).
8. Theology, I, p. 335.
9. TDNT, II, pp. 868f.
10. Eleutheroi... tē dikaiosynē; the datives are to be taken as dative of advantage or disadvantage ( dativus commodi vel incommodi). The dative "expresses . . . the possessor" (Bl. -Debr., Par. 188, 2*).
11. Dia with the genitive "idiomatically with urgent questions = 'by' (Attic pros tinos)" (Bl. -Debr., Par. 223, 4).
12. Cf. Quell, TDNT, II, pp. 174ff„ s. v. dike, etc.
13. It is therefore not correct to maintain that the idea of forensic righteousness here passes over into that of righteousness as life-power that overcomes sin, as Schrenk wishes to do ( TDNT, II, p. 213, s. v. dikaiosynē). The idea of righteousness employed here (Rom. 6:12ff. ) as religious-ethical qualification did not proceed from the forensic meaning, but has its own and broader background in the Old Testament sedāqd.
14. Some indeed think that the four ideas of redemption in 1 Cor. 1: 30 were formulated in contrast with the preceding mōra, asthenē, agene, and mē onta (so J. Bohatec, "Inhalt und Reihenfolge der "Schlagworte der Erlosungsreligion' in 1 Kor. 1, 26-31, " TZ, 1948, pp. 252ff. ).
15. Cf. Procksch, TDNT, I, p. 107n„ s. v. hagios.
16. Cf. above, pp. 229ft.
17. Logikos here has the meaning of pneumatikos, in order to denote the difference from the worship consisting in material sacrifices (cf. 1 Pet. 2:5).
18. This holds especially for amōmos — unblemished, in which no fault is to be found (cf. Exod. 29:1; Lev. 1:3, et al.); see also Hauck, TDNT, IV, pp. 835, 836, s. v. mōmos — blame, fault — and amōmos. It is different with amemptos, which also means blameless and occurs in connection with "holy" (1 Thess. 3:13), but does not have this (clear) cultic background.
19. Katharos and derivatives.
20. Cf. Procksch, TDNT, I, p. 109; " . . . the reference of holiness is always to the static morality of innocence rather than to ethical action.... For this reason we should never translate [hagiotēs] or [hagios] as morality or moral, since this is to lose the element of the religiosum." In our view the first part of this pronouncement is too strong (cf., e.g., 1 Thess. 4:3).
21. The only place where hagiotēs occurs; here, too, the reading is not established. Some mss. have hapiotēti instead of hagiotēti. The genitive tou Theou is somewhat strange (cf. Procksch, TDNT, I, p. 114). Yet it can be for just this reason that haplotēti was put in place of hagiotēti. In our opinion en hagiotēti... tou Theou can be understood as: holiness... which is in conformity with God.
22. For the very divergent judgment of these questions see, e.g., the survey in G. de Ru, De kinderdoop en het Nieuwe Testament, 1964, pp. 160ff.
23. Cf. below, pp. 412ff.
24. For the general relationship of hagios, hagnos and hosios, cf. R. C. Trench, Synonyms of the New Testament, 11th ed., 1890, p. 327. He arrives finally at this delimitation that hagios represents the thought of being separated from the world, hosios that of the observance of the precepts given by God in his covenant, and hagnos that of actual purity. That this general delimitation does not hold good for the Pauline usage is apparent from the above. The various aspects of holiness are here (in Paul) in large measure "incorporated" in the usage of hagios. For this idea see further Savo Djukanovic, Heiligkeit und Heiligung bei Paulus, 1939; and my article "De Heiligheid van de gemeente volgens het Nieuwe Testament," Vox Theologica, 1948, pp. 187-194.
25. On this see below, Section 62.
26. See Section 49.
27. For this cf., e.g., Wolfgang Schrage, Die konkreten Einzelgebote in der paulinischen Paränese, 1961, pp. 49f£,
28. Cf. E. Gaugier, Die Heiligung im Zeugnis der Schrift, 1948, p. 39.
29. Hagiasai hymas holoteleis. The adjective is used adverbially and means approximately "totally," "in all respects."
30. Holoklēron hymōn to pneuma .. . amemptōs ... tērēthein. Holoklēros does not differ very much from holotclēs. One will have to connect it with eirēnē as the totality of salvation. It then denotes a condition of perfect integrity. The pronouncement exhibits a certain exuberance and is not easy to translate. Another (in my opinion not in every respect convincing) translation whereby the caesura falls after pneuma has been suggested by P. A. van Stempvoort, "Eine stilistische Lösung einer alten Schwierigkeit in 1 Thess. V. 23," NTS, 1961, pp. 262ff.
31. So H. Windisch, Paulus und Christus, 1934, p. 258; cf. his earlier work, Taufe und Sünde im ältesten Christentum bis auf Origenes, 1908, pp. 98-224, and P. Wernle, Der Christ und die Sünde bei Paulus, 1897.
32. Cf., e.g., P. Althaus, Paulus und Luther über den Menschen, 2nd ed., 1951, pp. 68-74, 77ff., and the older literature cited there; especially T. Schlatter, "Für Gott lebendig in Christi Kraft" and "Tot für die Sünde, lebendig für Gott," two essays in the Jahrbuch der Theol. Schule Bethel, 1930, pp. 116-144; 1932, pp. 19-58.
33. It is remarkable that the proper words for battle, machē and machomai, are not only not employed by Paul — but nowhere else in the New Testament either — in a positive sense for the battle of the Christian life. Cf. Bauernfeind, TDNT, IV, p. 528, s. v.
34. To translate thriambeuō by "to cause to triumph" has little support in the linguistic usage. It is a matter here of being taken along in the triumphal procession of Christ, whereby one can still differ on the question as to whether one is to think here of a captive (so, e.g., Delling, TDNT, III, p. 160, s. v.) or of a sharer in the victory (cf., e.g., Lietzmann-Kümmel, Cor., p. 198).
35. Cf. G. C. Berkouwer, Faith and Sanctification, ET 1952, pp. 47ff.
36. The genitive in hopla adikias and dikaiosynēs is a qualitative genitive: (un)righteous weapons in the service of (un)righteousness.
37. Cf. above, pp. 116, 229.
38. In Hebrew manuscripts recently found in Palestine there is also mention of the battle that "the sons of the light" carry on. This terminology is reminiscent of that of Paul, both with reference to the "battle situation" in which these sons of the light have been placed and with regard to the great part the "armor" plays in it. A single glance at the character of this struggle of the sons of the light, in which national and apocalyptic points of view are sometimes difficult to distinguish, can enable us to see, however, in what a different world of thought we find ourselves here; cf. for the materials, e.g., the article by K. G. Kuhn, "Die in Palästina gefundenen hebräischen Texte und das N.T.," in ZTK, 1950, pp. 202ff.; see also Kuhn in TDNT, V, pp. 295ff., s. v. panoplia.
39. Here too thriambeuō; cf. p. 267, n. 34.
40. For the exposing of oneself to the demons, see 1 Cor. 10:21 (below, pp. 303f.).
41. Cf. R. Bultmann, "Christ the End of the Law," in Essays Philosophical and Theological, pp. 61 f.
42. The question is how one must translate hina in Gal. 5:17, as final or consecutive. The difficulty when it is taken as final is that one cannot designate clearly by whom this purpose is postulated. The sentence construction does not allow us to think only of the Spirit or of the flesh, while it is also not acceptable to conceive of the clause introduced by hina as the object of both. Therefore hina has what amounts to a consecutive significance; cf., e.g., A. Oepke, Gal., pp. 103ff., and my Epistle of Paul to the Churches of Galatia, 1953, pp. 20311. The words ha ean thelēte mean "as often as."
43. Cf. above, p. 127.
44. Cf. Schrage, Die konkreten Einzelgebote in der paulinischen Paränese, p. 194.
45. On this see in particular P. J. Du Plessis, [TELEIOS], The Idea of Perfection in the New Testament, 1959.
46. Cf. ibid., pp. 204ft, 242ft
47. On this see further below, Sections 68ff.
48. So Percy, Probleme, p. 323; cf. Bultmann: "Paul h a d . . . meant by [ teleios] not 'perfection' but 'adulthood' " ( Theology, II, p. 225).
49. On this point of view Gaugler, e.g., places all the emphasis ( Die Heiligung, p. 51).
50. So, e.g., A. Wikenhauser, Die Kirche als der mystische Leib Christi nach dem Apostel Paulus, 1940, p. 182.
51. There is a wide literature on the Pauline "ethic," both of a summarizing and of a more specialized nature. A very extensive list of the older and more recent writings is to be found, for example, in Schrage, Die konkreten Einzelgebote in der paulinischen Paränese, pp. 279-301.
52. For these various conceptions see ibid., pp. 13-48.
53. Cf., e.g., the elaborate study of M. S. Enslin, The Ethics of Paul, 1930; for the occurrence of specific schemata, the investigation of A. Vögtle, Die Tugend und Lasterkataloge im Neuen Testament, 1936; K. Weidinger, Die Haustafeln, Ein Stück urchristliche Paränese, 1928; S. Wibbing, Die Tugend und Lasterkataloge im Neuen Testament, 1959; D. Schroeder, Die Haustafeln des Neuen Testaments, 1959. For the "codification" of the extensive conceptual materials, e.g., Lindsay Dewar, An Outline of New Testament Ethics, pp. 139-155.
54. Cf. above, Section 24.
55. See above, pp. 215ff.
56. Nygren, Commentary on Romans, pp. 275f.
57. Ibid., p. 380.
58. Ibid., p. 319.
59. Ibid., pp. 434f.
60. Theology, I, p. 268.
61. Cf. E. Kühl, Der Brief an de Römer, pp. 258-269, 438-440 (excursus on Rom. 8:1-4; 13:8-10).
62. So Lietzmann, Rom., p. 113.
63. G. Bornkamm, Das Ende des Gesetzes, 1952, p. 135. This interpretation of peplērōtai, however, is difficult to maintain precisely with reference to Gal. 5:14. For here there is mention of the law being fulfilled en heni logō, which points not to the deed, but precisely to the "obvious summarization" of the law, the same as what is called in Rom. 13:9 anakephalaioutai: finds its summary expression; see also my The Epistle of Paul to the Churches of Galatia, p. 201, n. 4.
64. Cf. Bultmann, Theology, I, p. 341: "It is clear that Christ is the end of the law so far as it is claimed to be the way to salvation or was understood by man as the means of establishing his own righteousness, for so far as it contains God's demand, it retains its validity."
65. Cf. H. Berkhof, "Gesetz und Evangelium," in Von Herrengeheimnis der Wahrheit (Vogel festschrift), 1961, pp. 141 ff. He points there to "the tendency of many Lutherans to separate the two aspects of the law terminologically as well, and to circumscribe the usus normativus as 'commandment' or 'paraenesis' and thus to place it over against the 'law.'... That runs contrary to the New Testament proclamation, which covers both aspects with the word nomos."
66. Thus we shall have to understand phronēma in Rom. 8:6.
67. A well-known example is the pronouncement of Lietzmann on Rom. 6:6-23: "It would have been obvious to Paul, particularly because the struggle about circumcision was threatening, to pronounce the ceremonial law alone to be done away with — thus, in essence, the later church has solved it — and that would have eased battle for him. But Paul is no man of halfway measures. Thus he holds immovably to the antinomian point of view: where life moves in the Spirit, no kind of law has a place any longer. God nevermore approaches the one whom he has given his pneuma from outside with the casuistic demands of the law. He who walks in the Spirit does by himself what God's commandment would require, because the Spirit points him on the way. Christian morality is a spontaneous matter of course" (Rom., p. 71).
68. Cf. pp. 147ff.
69. This, in our view, is also valid against the summary view of Brunner with respect to the law in Paul, in which he writes, i.a.: "God's will no longer confronts him as an alien law, for the believer is, as one reconciled to God, united with him; he no longer requires the Law, because God's Spirit has become the leader in him, showing him God's will" (The Letter to the Romans, ET 1959, p. 141).
70. Cf. above, Section 24.
71. Sec also C. H. Dodd, "[ ENNOMOS CHRISTOU]," in Studia. Paulina, 1953, pp. 96-110.
72. See A. J. Bandstra, The Law and the Elements of the World, pp. 90ff.
73. On the significance of sōma in this connection there is some difference of opinion. In our view one will have to think of a simple figure of speech. The contrast is not timeless-metaphysical (Urbild- Abbild, etc.), but redemptive-historical ( skia tōn mellontōn); cf. Schulz, TDNT, VII, p. 398. That by to soma Christ's resurrection body (Benoit) or the church (Masson, Schlatter) is intended here, seems to us difficult to reconcile with the context; see my Col., pp. 190, 191.
74. So Gutbrod, TDNT, IV, p. 1071, s. v. nomos.
75. Cf. above, pp. 106ff.
76. Cf., e.g., E. Percy, Probleme, p. 356.
77. I doubt whether one can express this with the concept "immediate knowledge," as Bandstra wishes to do (The Law and the Elements of the World, p. 187).
78. On this also see Bandstra, ibid., pp. 111-114.
79. Cf. my Rom., p. 61.
80. Others are of the opinion that it is a matter here of the moral judgment of the community; so, e.g., Greijdanus, Rom., I, p. 145; Gutbrod, Die paulinische Anthropologie, p. 56; Schlatter, Gottes Gerechtigkeit, p. 93. Against this view see Zahn, Römer, p. 126; Lietzmann, Rom., p. 41; Bultmann, Theology, I, p. 217. A very special notion is defended by B. Reicke, TZ, 1956, pp. 157-161. One must here think of the arguments Paul adduces in his missionary preaching against the gentiles. One would take the preceding syneidēseōs as "feeling for," and the whole would then run: "what their feeling —even among one another — for the accusing or also for the excusing thoughts confirms" ( ibid., p. 160), in our view (already because of the absolute, not further specified use one must attribute to tōn logismōn and the hereby certainly very strange interpolation: kai metaxu allēlōn) a not very satisfying explanation.
81. For this different usage in Rom. 14 and 1 Cor. 8 see, e.g., J. Dupont, Gnosis. La connaissance religieuse dan les Épitres de Saint Paul, pp. 279ff.
82. The text is not certain. Some read with D and some old Latin and Syriac texts syneidēsei (see also Nestle and the Dutch Bible Society); so, e.g., L. Batelaan, De Sterken en zwakken in de kerk van Korinthe, 1942, pp. 21ff. In our opinion the preference is to be given to the reading synētheia; so most of the more recent scholars; see for the arguments, e.g., Lietzmann-Kümmel, Grosheide, J. Héring, The First Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians, ET 1962, p. 72. For the translation see Arndt-Gingrich-Bauer, p. 797, s.v. synētheia.
83. On the concept "weak" in detail see Dupont, Gnosis, pp. 272-282. He compares the Hellenistic-Greek notion of "weakness" (in connection with conscience) with the biblical, and concludes that Paul's usage must be understood in connection with the latter, "Weak" here has the connotation of sin, otherwise than in Greek thought where it points to a lack of strength of character or philosophical insight.
84. Cf., e.g., Robertson-Plummer, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the First Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians, 2nd ed., 1929, p. 221; Gutbrod, Anthropologie, p. 65; Grosheide, 1 Cor., p. 282. Others understand by it the heathen host (e.g., Bultmann, Theology, I, p. 219), or a heathen partaker of the meal (e.g., Wendland, Cor., p. 161; Lietzmann-Kümmel, Cor., p. 51).
85. So Lietzmann-Kümmel, ibid., p. 52; Wendland, ibid., p. 61.
86. So Grosheide, 1 Cor., pp. 283ff.; Bultmann, Theology, I, p. 219.
87. So Gutbrod, Anthropologie, p. 65.
88. Lietzmann-Kümmel must agree to this: "To the pointed question we expect a searching answer; but it fails to appear..." ( loc. cit.). Has the question then been correctly interpreted, however?
89. Hekastos en tō idiō not plērophoreisthō.
90. For nous see above, pp. 117ff.
91. Dia proskommatos. Dia indicates the attendant circumstance (cf. Bl.-Debr., Par. 223,3). The translation of the RSV (and the Dutch Bible Society): "it is wrong for anyone to make others fall by what he eats," seems to me less correct.
92. Cf. the translation of Lietzmann, Rom., in loc.
93. Others are of the opinion that ho me krinōn heauton does not speak of a good conscience, but, more objectively, of not holding oneself guilty: "he who has nothing to reproach himself for in his decisions" (so, e.g., Michel, with an appeal to Lietzmann, et al.). These words, however, correspond in our view with ho de diakrinomenos; see below.
94. "The diakrinomenos is the one who has no certainty as regards either his judgment or his action, who does with a bad conscience what he cannot refrain from doing, who is inwardly at odds with himself" (Büchsei, TDNT, III, pp. 947f., s.v. diakrinō).
95. Cf. Greijdanus: "faith . . . according to its effect is a firm conviction .. with regard to that which is lawful in God's name..." ( Rom., II, p. 615); also Bultmann, TDNT, VI, pp. 218f., s. v. pisteuo: "in the Christian pisteuein works itself out in knowledge of what he has to do in a given situation Though all believers stand in the one pistis, judgment may differ as to what they should do or not do, since pisteuein has to be worked out in individual life." See also Dupont, Gnosis, p. 370.
96. Bultmann, Theology, I, p. 219, interprets this to mean that it is only in the decision of conscience in the presence of a transcendental power standing over him that man truly becomes man, his ego "constitutes" itself, and he therefore reaches freedom precisely in the conscience. But this is to introduce an existentialistic concept of man and liberty entirely foreign to the text.
97. On the exegesis of this passage cf. in detail P. Althaus, Paulus und Luther über den Menschen, 2nd ed., 1951, pp. 96ff.
98. On this see also the citations from the commentaries of P. Bachmann, Schlatter in Althaus, ibid., pp. 100, 101.
99. Cf., e.g., C. A. A. Scott, New Testament Ethics, 1948, pp. 76ff.
100. See above, Section 40.
101. Cf., e.g., Stauffer, TDNT, I, pp. 50ff., s.v. agapaō; Bultmann, Theology, I, p. 344; G. Bornkamm, Early Christian Experience, p. 188; C. Spicq, "1'Agapè de I Cor. XIII," Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses, p. 368.
102. Cf., e.g., Bultmann, TDNT, I, pp. 709ff„ s. v. ginōskō; G. Bornkamm, Early Christian Experience, pp. 185f.; J. Dupont, Gnosis, p. 53.
103. Cf. Enslin, The Ethics of Paul, pp. 241ff.
104. With most scholars eti kath' hyperbolēn will have to be taken as predicate with hodon and not in apposition to deiknymi, as Schlatter wishes; cf. for the reading and translation of this by no means easy passage Lietzmann-Kümmel, Cor., p. 65 and esp. p. 188; Michaelis, TDNT, V, p. 85, s. v. hodos.
105. Cf. Michaelis, TDNT, V, p. 85, n. 153.
106. Katargeō (four times in 1 Cor. 13:8-11!) by way of indicating what will remain and what will perish with the mode of existence of this aeon; cf. Delling, TDNT, I, p. 453, s. v.
107. See also above, p. 250.
108. Cf. Bultmann, Theology, I, p. 344.
109. Cf. G. Brillenburg Wurth, Gestalten der Liefde, 1953.
110. Cf., e.g., Bultmann, Theology, II, p. 225.
111. Cf. Arndt-Gingrich-Bauer, p. 812, s.v.; Enslin, The Ethics of Paul, p. 259.
112. Tē timē proēgeisthai allēlous. The translation is otherwise not settled; cf. in addition to the commentaries, e.g., Arndt-Gingrich-Bauer, pp. 712f., s.v. proēgeomai; Bi.-Debr.. Par. 150*.
113. Where, however, there is mention not of tapeinophrosynē, but of tapeinos: lowly.
114. On the various virtues see still further Enslin, The Ethics of Paul, pp. 265ff.
115. Cf. Lindsay Dewar, An Outline of New Testament Ethics, pp. 128ff.
116. See also G. Harder, Paulus und das Gebet, 1936.
117. Hē philanthrōpia epephanē tou soteros hērnōn Theou.
118. See the commentaries on Tit. 3:4.
119. Cf. Enslin, The Ethics of Paul, pp. 202ff., 237ff.
120. Cf. above, p. 36.
121. Cf. above, p. 295.
122. The play on the words in the Greek — exestin ... exousiasthēsomai — gives the thought exactly: the liberty can become a new tyranny.
123. The dative Kyriō is not so easy to render precisely; cf. Michel, Rom., p. 302.
124. For the question as to what "to sacrifice to the demons" must mean cf. Batelaan, De Sterken en zwakken in de kerk van Korinthe, p. 77. Whether the "weak" in 8:7 were Jewish-Christians who were seized with a notion taken along from Judaism (cf. Batelaan, ibid., pp. 23ff.) seems to me dubious indeed.
125. Cf. Lietzmann, with an appeal to Severianus: mē thele, ha mē thelei ho Kyrios, hōs ischyroteros autou; see also K. Staab, Pauluskommentare, p. 259.
126. Cf. above, pp. 299ff.
127. Heterozygeō, hapax leg.; cf. Lev. 19:19 (LXX). The thought is of two animals who, because they are unlike, bear unequal yokes.
128. Cf., e.g., Strack-Billerbeck on Matt. 11:29 (I, pp. 608ff.).
129. That expressly or especially the marriage relationship is intended here, as D. van Swigchem holds (Het missionair karakter van de Christelijke gemeente, 1955, pp. 84, 85), appears improbable already in view of these quotations.
130. Synanamignysthai. For its character cf. the expositions of van Swigchem, ibid., pp. 65ff.. 84ff.
131. Cf. F. J. Pop, De tweede brief van Paulus aan de Corinthiërs, 2nd ed., 1962, p. 208: "Though it may be that according to a phenomenological standard the one appears in a great many forms and shapes to correspond with the other, according to the standard of the gospel they are even in their similarities separated by an abyss. The believer must be conscious of that. He may not play down or neutralize the difference. He must see it, recognize it, and permit it to function in his life. He will not enter into a marriage with an unbeliever, and he will also avoid all kinds of forms of real fellowship. The antithesis holds and is effective."
132. See also the extensive article by W. Schrage, "Die Stellung zur Welt bei Paulus, Epiktet und in der Apokalyptik. Ein Beitrag zu Kor. 7,29-31," ZTK, 1964, pp. 125-154.
133. To loipon. The expression here perhaps amounts to "therefore," "consequently"; cf. Kümmel (following Fridrichsen) in Lietzmann, Cor., p. 178. Otherwise Schrage, ibid., p. 132, n. 17.
134. Cf. below, p. 310; in general also Section 74.
135. Cf. the pronouncement from the Talmud quoted by Strack-Billerbeck, III, p. 440: " . . . not a man without a woman and not a woman without a man and not the two of them without the Shekinah" ( = God). Schlatter holds, therefore, that we have to do in v. 11 with a proverb, with which opinion Kümmel associates himself. See Lietzmann-Kümmel, Cor., p. 184.
136. Hypotassesthai speaks primarily o£ the recognition of a specific order. Cf. Schrage, in ZTK, 1964, p. 221.
137. For this passage at length see below, pp. 379ff.
138. To heautou skeuos ktasthai. For a long time past opinions have been divided as to whether skeuos must be taken as wife or as body (cf., e.g., Arndt-Gingrich-Bauer, pp. 761 f., s. v.). The proof passages cited on either side give no definitive answer, although in our view it is difficult to rob of all their force the evidence cited for the conception that skeuos — wife and, e.g., in 1 Pet. 3:7 to take skeuos in the sense of instrument and not as terminus technicus for wife, as, e.g., Dibelius chooses to do ( Th., p. 21). In our opinion heautou (in contrast with the preceding porneia) and ktasthai (originally: "to acquire") argue more for the conception that by skeuos wife is intended; see also the argumentation of J. E. Frame, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistles of St. Paul to the Thessalonians, 2nd ed., 1946, pp. 149, 150.
139. The question then is how one is to understand what follows: (but) "God has called us to peace." Ordinarily this is taken as the motive for not wanting to preserve a marriage with the unwilling unbelieving party, because this leads to discord. And the argument that in the marriage one would be able to lead such a person to conversion rests on an uncertain basis (v. 16: "for how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband?" etc.). Cf. for this train of thought the commentaries of Lietzmann, Héring, Grosheide, et at. On the other hand, Jeremias wishes to view v. 15c as an express limitation of the permission given in 15a and b: "God has called us, however, to peace (with one another)." And this will to peace must be maintained especially in a mixed marriage, for the sake of the missionary obligation that this peace places on Christian husbands and wives. The words ti gar oidas in v. 16 he wants then, with an appeal to similar usage elsewhere, to take as "perhaps," "it may be" ("Die missionarische Aufgabe in der Mischehe," in Neutestamentliche Studien für Rudolf Bultmann, 1954, pp. 258ff.). In our opinion the objection to this interesting conception lies in v. 15c, of which the interpretation given by Jeremias certainly is not evident. The question is also difficult whether ou dedoulōtai in v. 15 means that the wife is entirely free (possibly even to marry another man) or is no longer obligated to seek restoration of the broken relationship with the unbelieving husband, without having the liberty, however, to enter into a new marriage. The expression (ou)dedoulōtai argues for the former, a binding the dissolution of which also means the complete freedom of the wife (Rom. 7:2): cf. the significance of eleuthera in v. 39 (which there denotes the complete freedom of the wife) and which in Rom. 7 forms the opposite of dedetai. Reference is also to be made to v. 10 where a case of chōristhēnai is mentioned, in which the wife, if she has deserted the husband (wilfully), is pointed simply to her obligations to be reconciled or otherwise to remain single. There is nothing of that in v. 15, but there the emphasis is placed on no longer being bound. All this seems to point to the fact that the apostle here gives a supplement to the command of Christ, of which he speaks in v. 10. It would, however, be incorrect on this basis to accept in general so-called wilful desertion as ground for divorce. This is precisely contradicted in the prohibition given by Christ (cf. Matt. 5:32); and the apostle obviously starts from the same train of thought in v. 11 over against a wife who has separated from her husband. In v. 15, however, if our exegesis is correct, we have to do with an exceptional case characteristic of the "missionary situation."
140. Dia tēs teknogonias speaks of motherhood not as a means to salvation, but as the way in which this salvation takes place. The thought is not so strange as could be gathered from the multifarious interpretations that have been given of this expression (see the commentaries). It is determined by what immediately precedes (the reminder of Gen. 3). Hence also the sōthēsetai (in relation to the preceding en parabasei gegonen).
141. Gnōmē. For the usage see, e.g., Bultmann, TDNT, I, pp. 717, 718.
142. Cf. Lietzmann-Kümmel, Cor., p. 33 and the evidence produced there. The translation is attractive.
143. For this frequently discussed question see my The Authority of the New Testament Scriptures, pp. 23f.
144. See also 2 Cor. 8:8, 10, where gnome is explicitly distinguished from speaking kat' epitagen.
145. The following nomizō... kalon hyparchein lies in the same relative sphere of authority; cf. Grosheide, 1 Cor., p. 202. For the question of the element of authority in these pronouncements see also the valuable study by T. Delleman, Het huwelijksvraagstuk in 1 Cor. VII, 1939, pp. 9ff.
146. Enestōs is taken by some as " impending" ( so the Staten Vertaling; the RSV; Lietzmann: "bevorstehende"; Héring: "[ Enestōs] refers to an imminent future which is already in a certain way operative in the present"). Yet there is sufficient ground neither linguistically nor materially for deviating from the prevalent meaning in Paul (cf. Rom. 8:38; 1 Cor. 3:22; Gal. 1:4). It is accordingly taken as "present" by most scholars.
147. Grosheide, 1 Cor., p. 202, denies any connection between "the distress" and the end, and speaks of the distress through sin as long as the world exists (p. 256). This making the distress timeless seems to us not only in conflict with the context (vv. 29, 311), but also with Paul's advice not to marry. This would then apply for all generations and under all circumstances and allow no place for marriage at all other than to prevent fornication. Grundmann, TDNT, I, p. 346, speaks in our opinion more correctly of "afflictions which derive from the tension between the new creation in Christ and the old cosmos" (s. v. anangkē). Cf. Delleman, Het huwelijksvraagstuk, pp. 15ff., and especially Schrage in the article cited on p. 305, n. 132.
148. For this exegesis, cf., e.g., J. Héring, The First Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians, pp. 61 ff.
149. (Pros to) euparedron tō Kyriō. The word occurs only here and means approximately "constant," "persevering."
150. This is argued at length, e.g., by Kümmel, "Verlobung und Heirat bei Paulus," in Neutest. Studien für R. Bultmann, 1954, pp. 275ff. See also the very extensive bibliography there.
151. The traditional conception, which has once again found forceful defense, among others, in A. Oepke, "Irrwege in der neuren Paulusforschung," TLZ, 1952, cols. 449-452.
152. In any case the hypothesis must be rejected that Paul here alludes to the "spiritual betrothals," familiar from a later period ("Syneisaktentum," "virgines subintroductae"), as is assumed among the more recent writers, e.g., by Lietzmann and Héring in their commentaries; Delling, TDNT, V, p. 836; Arndt-Gingrich-Bauer, p. 150, s.v. gamizō; Stauffer, TDNT, I, p. 652, n. 24. See what is in our opinion a conclusive controverting of this conception by Oepke and Kümmel.
153. Cf. G. Delling, Die Stellung des Paulus zu Frau und Ehe, 1931, pp. 62ff.
154. So also Bultmann, Theology, I, p. 202.
155. So Lietzmann-Kümmel, Cor., p. 29, cf. p. 176; see also H. Preisker, Das Ethos des Urchristentums, 2nd ed., 1949, pp. 177ff.; E. Fascher, "Zur Witwerschaft des Paulus und der Auslegung von 1 Cor. 7," ZNW, 1929, pp. 62-69.
156. Cf. Schrage, "Die Stellung zur Welt bei Paulus," ZTK, 1964, p. 152: "Here, too, there is continuity only in discontinuity. Certainly the kainē diathēkē is also a diatheke; certainly the sōma pneumatikon is also a sōma; certainly the kainē ktisis is also a ktisis. But decisive in all these stress-laden formulations is not the connection with the 'old,' not the identity, continuity, or even restitution; but what is decisive is the new, the break, the antithesis, the incommensurability, the totally other."
157. Cf. further below, p. 539.
158. See also the striking (material) parallels of 1 Cor. 7:29-31 in 4 Ezra, cap. 14 (also denoted as 6 Ezra) in Schrage, ZTK, 1964, p. 141.
159. In this joining of the eschatological and charismatic viewpoint I go a somewhat different way from Delleman, It seems to me that he makes the charisma of abstaining too timeless and thereby places the gift of marriage and the gift of abstaining on the same level next to each other, indeed in general even places the unmarried state of those who have the charisma of abstaining higher than the married state (Het huwelijksvraagstuk, pp. 23ff„ and esp. p. 28). In this way of thinking the viewpoint of Gen. 2:18 cannot function fully, and the special character of the apostolic advice comes too much in the shadow.
160. Paul uses a play on words — mēden ergazomenous alla periergazomenous — which also occurs elsewhere and which scholars have attempted in all sorts of ways to convey in translation; cf. J. E. Frame, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistles of St. Paul to the Thessalonians, p. 306.
161. That that orderly work is also "the mark of the person determined by the telos, by the kingdom of God" —which is how H. Preisker, Das Ethos des Urchristentums, 1949, pp. 115, 116, interprets these passages, with a rejection of all kinds of other motives — is in our view not to be derived from the text.
162. So Preisker, ibid., pp. 115, 116.
163. Tous ataktous (1 Thess. 5:14); ataktos peripatein (2 Thess. 3:6, 11); atakteo (2 Thess. 3:7).
164. Cf. 1 Pet. 2:13, where there is mention of pasē anthrōpinē ktisis, to which one is to be subjected for the Lord's sake.
165. Some indeed wish to give the difficult klēsis a social significance: "occupation," "position." But the word does not elsewhere have this meaning. We shall have to understand it in close connection with the religious eklēthē, namely, the condition or situation in which one has been called of God to the faith (cf. v. 24; see also Lietzmann-Kümmel, Cor., pp. 32 and 176; K. L. Schmidt, TDNT, III, p. 491, n. 1).
166. The significance of the intervening verse is uncertain. Paul says here to the one who has been called as a slave: "but if you can become free, mallon chresai." The question is whether one is to take these last words as (1) rather make use (of that freedom) (Schlatter, Robertson-Plummer; Rengstorf, TDNT, II, p. 272), or (2) rather make use (of your position as a slave) (e.g., Lietzmann-Kümmel, Wendland; Liechtenhan, Gottes Gebot im N. T., 1942, p. 104), or also (3) make that much more use (of your calling), that is, as free (Grosheide). It counts against (1) and (3) that Paul here urges precisely remaining in the "calling." V. 22 also seems to connect better when one takes v. 21 according to (2). However, v. 23 would again be able to connect with (1) and (3). The alla with which v. 21b begins counts against (2). If one takes the whole according to (2), then such a contrast ( alla) appears not to be present. In general it is not to be understood why the apostle would rather see anyone remain a slave who in a legitimate way was to become free. In our opinion it is impossible to decide here with any certainty, although we incline to (1) or (3). V. 21 is then to be taken as a concessive intercalation in the argument.
167. With apeleutheros Kyriou one will best be able to think of the condition of the libertus, who was bound to the master that had. set him at liberty as to his patronus; cf. Lietzmann-Kümmel, Cor., p. 178, in dependence on W. Elert.
168. We cannot therefore admit that "in any case nothing can be deduced of permanent significance for Christian ethics from this passage" (Lindsay Dewar, An Outline of New Testament Ethics, 1949, p. 166).
169. At least following the traditional view. J. Knox, in Philemon among the Letters of Paul, 1935, has attempted to make plausible that it was not Philemon, but Archippus, who was the master of Onesimus, and has connected Col. 4:17 with what Paul asks in Philemon of the master of Onesimus. Philemon in Laodicea would then have to appear before Archippus in Colosse as the advocate of Onesimus and our Epistle to Philemon would then be the letter intended in Col. 4:16; cf. Dibelius, Col., pp. 101, 102. A decision on this hypothesis is not necessary for our purpose.
170. Cf., e.g., P. Ewald, Die Brief des Paulus an die Epheser, Kolosser und Philemon, 2nd ed., 1910, p. 278; E. Lohmeyer, Die Briefe an die Philipper, an die Kolosser und an Philemon, 1930, p. 188.
171. Cf. Dibelius-Greeven, Col., p. 107; Liechtenhan, Cottes Gebot im N. T., p. 105.
172. For Paul's whole handling of this case see also the detailed and penetrating essay by P. J. Verdam, "St. Paul et un serf fugitif," in Symbolae van Oven, 1946, pp. 211-230. Verdam treats first the Mosaic, and then the Roman law regarding runaway slaves. He is of the opinion that Paul, without mentioning the Roman law with a single word, permitted himself in the returning of Onesimus practically to be guided by the operative law (pp. 227-230). At the same time, however, by the manner in which he approaches Philemon he is said to undermine the foundation of the Roman law in the matter of slavery (consisting in the absolute right of disposal of the master over his slave), if not in a juridical fashion. Verdam concludes (p. 230): "It is clear that by accepting the juridical order and attacking slavery in an absolute sense, these two characteristics in the attitude of St. Paul and in his letter to Philemon are the same as in the Mosaic code." Essentially this last point is certainly correct. Because Paul, however, derived his motivation from the new relationship in Christ, he attacked not only the absolute right of disposal of the master over his slave, but also the root of slavery as such, even if indirectly and perhaps not deliberately, more deeply than was the case in the mitigating prescriptions of the Mosaic laws.
173. Cf., e.g., Strack-Billerbeck, IV, pp. 719ff.
174. "The issue is not the word 'slavery' but its content" (Verdam, Symbolae van Oven, p. 229).
175. Further see Rengstorf, TDNT, II, pp. 270ff., s. v. doulos; G. Brillenburg Wurth, Het Christelijk leven in de maatschappij, 1951, pp. 187ff.; and for a com parison of this problem with the conceptions of the Stoics: H. Greeven, Das Hauptproblem der Sozialethik in der neueren Stoa und im Urchristentum, 1935; H. D. Wendland, Botschaft an die Soziale Welt, 1959 ( Studien zur Ev. Sozialtheologie und Sozialethik, V), pp. 104-114, cf. pp. 58-64.
176. Cf., e.g., Nygren, Commentary on Romans, pp. 426-431.
177. Cf. Althaus, Rom., p. 112.
178. Cf., e.g., Schlatter, Gottes Gerechtigkeit, p. 350; see also Greijdanus on Rom, 13:1-7 ( Rom., II, p. 563); Sanday and Headlam, Romans, pp. 369ff.
179. Cf. Sanday and Headlam, Romans, p. 366; Lagrange, Saint Paul Épitre aux Romains, 1931, p. 310; see also Michel, Rom., p. 281.
180. Cf. O. Cullmann, The State in the New Testament, 1956, pp. 57f.
181. For the so-called "christological" interpretation of "the powers" see below, pp. 325f.
182. On this see, i.a., the important essay by Käsemann, "Principles of the Interpretation of Romans 13," New Testament Questions of Today, p. 199.
183.Hypotassesthō, tetagmenai (Rom. 13:1); antitassomenos, diatagē (v. 2; cf. v. 5).
184. Exousia seems especially, just as in the corresponding rabbinic usage, to mean "the government" (plural: "the authorities"); cf. Foerster, TDNT, II, p. 562.
185. Krima lēmpsontai: will receive punishment. It is not eternal punishment that is intended, but the punishment of the government executed in God's name (cf. v. 2a).
186. Ekdikos eis orgēn: it executes the vindicatory justice whereby God's wrath (judgment) is realized.
187. Cf. above, p. 288.
188. G. Kittel, "Das Urteil des N.T. über den Staat," ZST, 1937, p. 663.
189. So, e.g., Kühl: "In the latter part of the Neronian dominion such unlimited appreciative judgments about the governing circles could no longer have passed his lips" (Der Brief des Paulus an die Römer, 1913, p. 435).
190. Cf. Strack-Billerbeck, III, pp. 303, 304.
191. Leitourgoi (v. 6) meant originally: to perform a service for the people. The alternation of diakonos (v. 4) and leitourgoi has no particular significance. The latter word is more solemn and has the touch of the official.
192. Soi (which is missing in a few mss.) eis to agathon has a general significance (not only applicable to believers).
193. So, e.g., E. Brunner, The Letter to the Romans, p. 109: "The possessors of political power are instruments of the divine rule of wrath That is the dignity, that is also the limit of the State."
194. Eikē is usually translated "in vain." The expression denotes not only the threat that lies in the sword of government, but also the duty of the government to exercise its power where necessary.
195. Cf. E. Gaugler, Der Brief an die Römer, II, 1952, p. 273.
196. As Cullmann supposes (The State in the New Testament, pp. 57f.).
197. Cf. Käsemann, New Testament Questions of Today, pp. 211f.: "Paul sets himsèlf... passionately against the separation of creation and new age. The new age is not suspended in midair: it takes root on this our earth to which Christ came down. It does not create for itself there an island of the blessed; . . . it creates the possibility of the kind of service which can no longer be universal and alive if it is not carried out in the midst of the old, passing world, thus... preserving the world as divine creation."
198. So Schrenk, TDNT, I, p. 151: "the Gentiles are described in this way because as despisers of the divine law they cannot be expected to do justice."
199. So Cullmann, The State in the New Testament, p. 61, who in our opinion wrongly finds in 1 Cor. 6:1 and 2:8 a point of view opposite to that of Rom. 13. To the same effect Brunner, The Letter to the Romans, p. 110.
200. At present many think here of "spirit-powers" and then connect to this the gnostic myth according to which these spirits are said to have recognized the Redeemer descended from heaven because of his human form and by nailing him to the cross permitted themselves to be taken off guard; cf., e.g., Lietzmann, Kümmel, Cor., pp. 12, 13, 170 and the literature mentioned there; also Bultmann, Theology, I, p. 175. Others hold the view that Paul here speaks both of the human and of the demonic powers that stand behind them and use them as tools (Cullmann, The State in the New Testament, pp. 63, 100). Against this whole conception, however, see the in our view conclusive argumentation of J. Schniewind, "Die Archonten dieses Äons," in Nachgelassene Reden und Aufsätze, 1952, pp. 104ff.
201. In this form this conception has been propounded anew and maintained against criticism by Cullmann, The State in the New Testament, pp. 65ff., 95-114 (the latter first appeared in TZ, 1954, pp. 321-336). In the same or somewhat different form it was defended earlier, i.a., by H. Schlier, "Mächte und Gewalten im N.T.," in Theol. Blätter, 1930, cols. 289ff.; G. Dehn, "Engel und Obrigkeit," in Theol. Aufsätze für K. Barth, 1936, pp. 90ff.; K. L, Schmidt, "Das Gegenüber von Kirche und Staat in der Gemeinde des N.T.," in Theol. Blätter, 1937, cols. 1-16; K. Barth, Church and State, ET 1939; W. Schweitzer, Die Herrschaft Christi und der Staat im N. T. Less clearly also in H. Berkhof, Christ and the Powers, ET 1962, p. 58, n. 5, who recognizes that the connection between the powers and the life of the state is not to be demonstrated from Rom. 13:1, but appeals for this connection to 1 Cor. 2:8 (see above).
202. In particular it has been contested by G. Kittel, Christus und Imperator, 1939, pp. 48ff.; H. von Campenhausen, "Zur Auslegung von Rom 13," in Festschrift für A. Bertholet, 1950, pp. 97ff.; E. Käsemann, "Römer 13, 1-7 in unserer Generation," in ZTK, 1959, pp. 351ff. See also the highly balanced and conclusive refutation in Gaugler, Die Heiligung im Zeugnis der Schrift, II, pp. 275-279, and the summary of all these objections in eleven points in Schrage, Die konkreten Einzelgebote, p. 223. In the commentaries on Romans this conception has almost nowhere found agreement (cf., e.g., Michel, on Rom. 13).