10. The Corroboration Of The Epistles Of Paul
THE CORROBORATION OF THE EPISTLES OF PAUL
R elative Early Date of Paul's Letters In passing from the book of Acts to Paul's Epistles, we are not advancing to a new period, in order that we may observe how Jesus had come to be thought of at a somewhat later date, in the developing thought of Christians. In point of fact, none of Paul's letters are of a later date than the Acts, and the earlier of them come from a time which antedates the composition of that book by ten or fifteen years. What we are passing to is merely a new form of literature,—didactic literature as distinguished from narrative. And what we are to observe is not a later development of the Christian conception of Jesus, but only more directly and precisely how the Christians of the first age thought of Jesus.
The Value of their Testimony The book of Acts does indeed tell us not only how Paul and his companions thought and spoke of Jesus as they presented Him to the faith
of men; but also how Peter and his fellow-evangelists of the first days of the Gospel proclamation thought and spoke of Him: and to this extent the information derived from it reflects an earlier usage. But neither in Acts nor in Paul's Epistles is there any hint that Peter and Paul stand related to one another in their thought of Christ as representatives of a less and a more developed conception. On the contrary in Acts the conception of the two, though clothed in different forms of speech, is notably the same: and in Paul's Epistles, though differences are noted between the other Apostles and himself in other matters, there is none signalized on this central point. And it is distinctly to be borne in mind that these Epistles were written not merely in the lifetime of the original apostles of Christ, but also in full view of their teaching, and with an express claim to harmony with it. Their testimony is accordingly not to Paul's distinctive doctrine with regard to the person of Jesus, but to the common doctrine of the Churches of the first age, when the Churches included in their membership the original followers of Jesus. They, therefore, do not present us a different usage from that reflected in Acts and the Synoptic Gospels, but the same usage from a different point of sight. As didactic writings addressed by a Christian leader to Christian readers they enable us to observe, as the historical books do not, how Christians of the sixth and seventh decades of the first century were accustomed to speak of the Lord to one another; and accordingly what their thought of Jesus was as they sought to quicken in themselves Christian faith and hope and to bring their lives into conformity with their professions. Not merely in point of date, therefore, but also in point of intimacy of revelation, the Epistles of Paul present to us the most direct and determining evidence of the conception of Jesus prevalent in the primitive
Church.
Constant Use of 'Lord'
It belongs to their character as didactic rather than narrative writings, for example, that in Paul's Epistles the designation of our Lord by the simple
'Jesus' falls strikingly into the background, while the designation of Him as 'Lord' comes strikingly forward. This phenomenon we already observed in Acts: it is much more marked in Paul. The simple 'Jesus' occurs in all these
Epistles only some seventeen times, while the simple 'Lord' occurs some 144 or 146 times, to which may be added 95 to 97 more instances of the use of 'Lord' in conjunction with the proper name.6 And this constant application of the term 'Lord' to Jesus must not be imagined merely a formal mark of respect. It is the definite ascription to Him of universal absolute dominion not only over men, but over the whole universe of created beings (Phil 2:11, Rom 10:12).
Ground of Jesus' Lordship It is, of course, true that Paul has the exalted Jesus in mind in thus speaking of Him. It was only on His exaltation that Jesus entered upon His dominion. But it by no means follows that he conceived Jesus to have acquired His 'Lordship,' in the sense of His inherent right to reign, by His exaltation. On the contrary, to Paul it was the 'Lord of Glory' who was crucified (1 Cor 2:8). That is to say, even in the days of His flesh, Jesus was to him intrinsically "the Lord to whom glory belongs as His native right."
That Paul usually has the exalted Christ in mind when speaking of Him as Lord is only thus a portion of the broader fact that, writing when he wrote, and as he wrote, he necessarily had the exalted Christ in mind in the generality of his speech of Him. He was not engaged in writing a historical retrospect of the life of the man Jesus on earth, but in proclaiming Jesus as the all-sufficient Saviour of men. That he recognized that this Jesus had
entered upon the actual exercise of His universal dominion only on His resurrection and ascension, and in this sense had received it as a reward for His work on earth (Phil 2:9, Rom 14:9) merely means that, no less than to our Lord Himself, the earthly manifestation of Jesus was to Paul an estate of humiliation upon which the glory followed. But the glory which thus followed the humiliation was to Paul, too, a glory which belonged of right to Jesus, to whom His lowly life on earth, not His subsequent exaltation, was a strange experience. It was one who was rich, he tells us, who in Jesus became poor that we might through His poverty become rich (2 Cor 8:9); it was one who was in the form of God who abjured clinging to His essential equality with God and made Himself of no reputation by taking the form of a servant, and stooping even to the death of the cross (Phil 2:6 seq.). When
Paul speaks of Jesus, therefore, as 'Lord' it is not especially of His exaltation that he is thinking, but rather "the whole majesty of Christ lies in this predicate" for him, and the recognition that Jesus is 'Lord' expresses for him accordingly the essence of Christianity (Rom 10:9, 2 Cor 4:5, 1 Cor
12:3, Phil 2:11). The proclamation of the Gospel is summed up for him therefore in this formula (2 Cor 4:5); the confession of Jesus as Lord is salvation (Rom 10:9), and it is the mark of a Christian that he serves the Lord Christ (Col 3:24); for no one can say that Jesus is Lord except in the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 12:3).
'Lord' a Proper Name of Jesus Obviously the significance of the title 'Lord' as applied to Jesus by Paul is not uninfluenced by its constant employment of God in the Greek Old
Testament, and especially in those Old Testament passages which Paul applies to Jesus, in which 'Lord' is the divine name (e. g., 2 Thess 1:9, 1 Cor
1:31, 10:9, 26, 2 Cor 3:16, 10:17, Rom 10:13, Eph 6:4, 2 Tim 2:19, 4:14:
Isaiah 45:23 is cited with reference to God in Rom 14:11, and with reference to Jesus in Phil 2:10). Under the influence of these passages the title 'Lord' becomes in Paul's hands almost a proper name, the specific designation for Jesus conceived as a divine person in distinction from God the Father. It is therefore employed of Jesus not merely constantly but almost exclusively. It is doubtful whether it is ever once employed of God the Father, outside of a few citations from the Old Testament: and in any case such employment of it is very exceptional. It is accordingly in point of fact the determinate title for Jesus as distinguished from God the Father. As such 'the Lord Jesus Christ' is coupled with 'God our Father' (or 'the Father') as the co-source of that grace and peace which Paul is accustomed to invoke on his readers in the addresses to his Epistles (1 Thess 1:1, 2 Thess 1:1, 2, 1
Cor 1:3, 2 Cor 1:2, Gal 1:3, Rom 1:7, Eph 1:2, Phil 1:2, 1 Tim 1:2, 2 Tim 1:2, Titus 1:4, cf. Eph 6:23, 1 Thess 3:11, 2 Thess 1:12). And throughout the Epistles Jesus as 'the Lord' and the Father as 'God' are set over against each other as distinct and yet conjoined objects of the reverence of Christians, and distinct and yet conjoined sources of the blessings of which Christians are the recipients.
Jesus Embraced in the One Godhead No doubt by this elevation of Jesus as 'Lord' to the side of God certain peculiarities of expression are produced which are on a surface view sufficiently puzzling. Thus, for example, in declaring the nonentity of the objects of heathen worship, Paul asserts roundly that "none is God except
One," and proceeds to explicate this assertion by remarking that, although there may exist so-called gods whether in heaven or earth, as there are— obviously among the heathen—many gods and many lords, "yet to us there is one God, namely, the Father, from whom are all things and we unto Him"
(1 Cor 8:4–6). But he does not stop there, but adds at once, "And one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and we through Him" (1 Cor 8:6).
This addition might seem to a superficial reading to stultify his whole monotheistic argument: "There is no God but one; … for to us there is one
God … and one Lord." There is but one possible solution. Obviously the one God whom Christians worship is conceived as, in some way not fully explained, without prejudice to His unity subsistent in both the 'one God,' viz., the Father and the 'one Lord,' viz., Jesus Christ. Otherwise there would be a flat contradiction between the emphatic assertion that "none is God but one" and the proof of this assertion offered in the explanation that to Christians there is but "one God, viz., the Father" and "one Lord, viz., Jesus
Christ." And it is clear that Paul can count upon his readers understanding that the "one Lord, Jesus Christ" bears such a relation to the "one God, the Father" that these two may together be subsumed under the category of the one God who alone exists. We shall not say that there are the beginnings of the doctrine of the Trinity here. It seems truer to say that there is the clear presupposition of some such doctrine as that of the Trinity here.
Trinitarian Background There is lacking, indeed, only the conjunction of "the Spirit" with "God the Father" and "Jesus the Lord" to compel us to perceive that underlying
Paul's mode of speech concerning God there is a clearly conceived and firmly held conviction that these three together constitute the one God of Christian worship. And other passages enough supply this lack. For example, later on in this same Epistle the Apostle, speaking of those gifts of the Spirit with which the Apostolic Church was blessed, remarks in the most natural way in the world: "Now there are diversities of gifts but the same Spirit. And there are diversities of ministrations, and the same Lord.
And there are diversities of workings, but the same God" (1 Cor 12:4–6).
"Now I beseech you, brethren," he says again towards the end of the Epistle to the Romans, "by our Lord Jesus Christ, and by the love of the Spirit, that ye strive together with me in your prayers to God for me" (Rom 15:30).
"There is one body and one Spirit, even as also ye were called in one hope of your calling," says he again, in a later Epistle (Eph 4:4 seq.), "one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all." Or, perhaps, most explicitly of all, in those closing words of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians which have become the established form of benediction in the Churches: "The grace of the Lord
Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all" (2 Cor 13:14). From passages like these it is perfectly clear that the Christian doctrine of God as apprehended by Paul, and as currently implied in his natural modes of speech concerning Him, as he wrote in simplicity of heart and with no misgivings as to the understanding of his language by the Christian readers whom he addressed, embraced, in conjunction with the utmost stress upon the unity of God, the recognition at the same time of distinctions in the Divine Being by virtue of which the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit were esteemed God along with the Father.
'Lord' the Trinitarian Name of Jesus But what we require to note particularly at this point is that to Paul, the divine name—perhaps we may even be permitted to say, "the Trinitarian name"—of Jesus is apparently 'the Lord.' God, the Lord, the Spirit,—this is his triad, and when he speaks of Jesus as 'Lord' it must be supposed that this triad is in his mind. In other words, 'Lord' to him is not a general term of respect which he naturally applies to Jesus because he recognized Jesus as
supreme, and was glad to acknowledge Him as his Master (Eph 6:9, Col 4:1), or even in the great words of Col 2:19 as the 'Head' of the body which is His Church (cf. Eph 4:15). It is to him the specific title of divinity by which he indicates to himself the relation in which Jesus stands to Deity.
Jesus is not 'Lord' to him because He has been given dominion over all creation; He has been given this universal dominion because he is 'Lord,' who with the Father and the Spirit is to be served and worshipped, and from whom all that the Christian longs for is to be expected. In His own nature the 'Lord of glory' (1 Cor 2:8), He has died and lived again that He might enter upon His dominion as 'Lord' of both the dead and the living (Rom
14:9), and being thus 'Lord of all' (Rom 10:12) might be rich unto all that call upon Him and so fulfill the saying that whosoever "shall call upon the name of the Lord" shall be saved (Rom 10:13). He does not become 'Lord,' but only comes to His rights as 'Lord,' by and through His resurrection and ascension, which are the culminating and completing acts of His saving work. He is 'Lord' because He is in His own person the Jehovah who was to visit His people and save them from their sins.
Appearance of Subordination No doubt a different representation is sometimes given. We are even told that there is in these very passages a distinction drawn between 'God' and 'the Lord,' by which the status of 'the Lord' is made definitely inferior to that of 'God,' to whom He is subject and whose will He executes. It is God the Father who is the source and end of all things; the 'Lord Jesus Christ' is the mediator through whom He works (I Cor 8:6‚ cf. 1 Tim 2:5 and such passages—διά with the genitive—as the following, Rom 2:16, 3:22, 5:1‚ 11,
17, 21, Eph 1:5, 1 Th 5:9, Tit 3:6). The term 'Lord' as applied to Jesus, therefore, although ascribing a certain divinity to Him, appears to fall short
of attributing deity to Him in its full sense. It is the appropriate designation of a sort of secondary divinity, a middle being standing in some sense between man and God. Accordingly we read that while "the head of every man is Christ," "the head of Christ is God" (1 Cor 11:3), and that "if we are
Christ's," so "Christ is God's" (1 Cor 3:23). The whole redemptive work of Christ is represented as the working of God through Christ, as terminating ultimately on God, and as redounding specifically to His glory (Rom 3:25,
5:10, 8:3, 2 Cor 5:18, Eph 1:6, 12, 14, 19, 3:19, Col 1:19, etc.). When, then, the redemptive work is completed the 'Lordship' which has been conferred upon Christ ceases also, so that His very sovereignty appears as a derived sovereignty delegated for a purpose (1 Cor 15:27, 28). God is appropriately spoken of therefore distinctly as the "God of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Eph
1:17, cf. Rom 15:6, 2 Cor 1:3, 11:31, Eph 1:3), a locution which, while intimating that the relation subsisting between Him and Jesus is peculiarly close, yet equally clearly intimates that it is not a relation of equality but of the nature of divine master and subject servant.
Its Impossibility with Paul That a problem is raised by the passages of this class is obvious enough.
But it is equally obvious that this problem cannot be solved by the attribution of a certain secondary divinity to Christ, and much less by supposing that He has merely a sort of divinity communicated to Him quoad nos, while in His essential nature only a creature. The strict and strongly asseverated monotheism of Paul forbids the former assumption: his definite ascription to Jesus of an eternal divine form of existence antecedent to His earthly career excludes the latter. Nothing could exceed the clearness and emphasis of Paul's monotheism. "None is God," says he, "but one" (1
Cor 8:4); and he says it, as we have seen, in immediate connection with his
recognition of "one God, the Father" and "one Lord, Jesus Christ" (cf. Rom 3:30, 16:27, Gal 3:20, Eph 4:6, 1 Tim 2:5). How, then, could he mean to set by the side of this "one God the Father" the "one Lord Jesus Christ" as a second, although somewhat inferior, God? And nothing could exceed the clearness and emphasis with which Paul represents Jesus' divine majesty not as an attainment but as an aboriginal possession. He does not say that Jesus Christ became rich that by His riches we might be enriched, as he must have said if he had conceived of Jesus as a man to whom divine powers and dignity were communicated that He might save us. What he says is that our Lord Jesus Christ was rich, and became poor only for our sakes, that "through His poverty we might become rich" (2 Cor 8:9). That is to say, that, as he expresses it in another place, it was to make no account of Himself for Him to take the "form of a servant" (Phil 2:7). Nor does he leave us in doubt as to the quality of the riches He left when He thus made
Himself of no reputation by taking "the form of a servant." No heavenly humanity suffices here: not even angelic grandeur: it was "in the form of God" that He was by nature (ὑπάρχων): it was "equality with God" which He did not graspingly cling to. And to be "in the form of God" means nothing less than to have and hold in possession all those characterizing attributes which make God God: having which He could not but be equal with God, because He was just God. No wonder then that Paul tells us that though He was crucified by man yet was He 'the Lord of glory' (1 Cor 2:8), that in Him dwelt "all the fulness of the Godhead bodily" (Col 2:9), that Israelite as He was "according to the flesh" He was something much more than what He was according to the flesh—nothing less indeed than "God over all, blessed forever" (Rom 9:5).
Implication of Term 'Lord'
He certainly does not mean then to contrast Jesus as 'Lord' with God the Father as an inferior God or as possessing a merely delegated divinity. Nor, indeed, does the term 'Lord' lend itself readily to such a contrast. On the pages of Paul's Bible—the Greek version of the Hebrew Scriptures—it stood side by side with 'God' as the most personal and intimate name of Deity: and thence he took it as we have seen and applied it to Jesus. And if it thus could not have been lower in its connotation to him than 'Jehovah' itself, it was charged likewise to the apprehension of his Gentile readers with suggestions in no way inferior to those of 'God' itself. For him to say
'Lord' of Jesus as His most appropriate title was therefore to say and to be understood as saying all that he could say by the designation of 'God' itself.
And if nevertheless there was to him and to his readers but one God, then there is nothing for it but that we should recognize that for Paul and his readers two might be God and yet there be but one God; and that is as much as to say that their thinking of God was already ruled by a Trinitarian consciousness.
Subordination is Humiliation As for the expressions in which, despite his clear intimation of the proper deity of Jesus, he yet speaks of Him as in some sense inferior or, to be more precise, subordinate, to God the Father, it is quite clear that they must find their explanation in Paul's intimation of the humiliation to which this divine
Person subjected Himself for the purposes of redemption. When He who was rich became poor; when He who was and ever remains "in the form of God" made Himself of no reputation "by taking the form of a servant": then and thus He became so far inferior to and subject to that God the Father on an equality with whom He might have remained in His riches had He so chosen. In and for the purposes of this redemptive work He is the Mediator
of God the Father, whose He is, and who is His Head and His God; whose will He performs and whose purposes of grace He executes; and to whom, when the redemptive work is fully accomplished and its fruits garnered, He shall restore the Kingdom, that God may be all in all. In a word, there underlies Paul's statements not merely the conceptions which have found expression in the doctrine of the Trinity and the Incarnation, but those also which have found expression in the doctrine of the Covenant of Redemption in accordance with which the Persons of the Godhead carry on each His own part of the work of redemption: and he who will not recognize these conceptions in the Pauline statements must ever find those statements a confused puzzle of contradictions, which can be reduced to apparent harmony only by doing manifest violence to one or another series of them. Only on the presupposition of these conceptions can it be understood how the Apostle can speak of our Lord now as "in the form of God," "on an equality with God," nay, as "God over all," and now as subject to God as His Head and His God with reference to whom He performs all
His work: and how He can speak of "God the Father" and "Jesus Christ our Lord" as each "God over all," and yet declare that there is but one Being who is God.
Designations Compounded with 'Lord'
With this high meaning of 'Lord' as attributed to Jesus in our mind it is interesting to observe the various forms of designation into which this epithet enters. These run through nearly all the possible combinations with the names of Jesus. 'The (or our) Lord Jesus,' which, were the title 'Lord' a mere honorific, would be the simplest of them all, but which, since that title is an express declaration of deity, is now the most paradoxical, occurs some twenty-four to twenty-six times, chiefly in the earlier Epistles; and its
duplicate, 'Jesus our Lord,' twice more. 'The (or our) Lord Christ' is less frequent, occurring only twice (Rom 16:18, Col 3:24). But the full formula,
'the (or our) Lord Jesus Christ,' is the most common of all, occurring some forty-nine times, pretty evenly scattered through all the Epistles. 'The (or our) Lord Christ Jesus' does not occur: but in the reverse order of the titles,
'Christ Jesus, the (or our, or my) Lord,' this combination occurs ten times and by its side, "Jesus Christ, our Lord" four times. In all these combinations the names, whether the simple 'Jesus,' the simple 'Christ,' or the combinations 'Jesus Christ' or 'Christ Jesus,' appear to be used as proper names, though, no doubt, the appellative 'Christ' does not in any of them become a mere proper name. Certainly in the phrase, "Ye serve the Lord
Christ," the term 'Christ' is a title of dignity which is still further enhanced by the adjunction of the term 'Lord': and something of the same intention to enhance an already lofty ascription appears traceable in the instances where the fuller phrase 'Christ Jesus, our Lord' occurs (1 Cor 15:31, [2 Cor 4:5],
Rom 6:23, 8:39, [Col 2:6], Eph 3:11, [Phil 3:8]). But this obvious use of 'Christ' as a name of dignity by no means implies that it is not employed practically as a proper name. Its implications of Messiahship remain present and suggestive, but it has become the peculiar property of Jesus who is thought of as so indisputably the Messiah that the title 'Messiah' has become
His proper name.
'Christ' Paul's Favorite Designation It is worthy of remark moreover that not only is 'Christ' a proper name of our Lord with Paul, but it is his favorite designation for Him. For, full and rich as Paul's employment of the term 'Lord' is, it is not nearly so frequently employed by him as 'Christ.' This designation (more commonly with than without the article)25 occurs in his Epistles no fewer than 210 or 211 times
in its simplicity, and many more times in combination with other designations. It is most dominantly Paul's favorite name for our Lord in the great central Epistles—Romans, Corinthians and Galatians,—in which it occurs some 138 to 140 times; but it is also very frequent in the Epistles of the first imprisonment (67 times in Eph., Col., Phil., Philemon), and is unusual only in the Thessalonian letters (4 times only) and in the Pastorals
(once only). It surprises us somewhat to observe that next to the simple 'Christ' (and 'Lord'), Paul's favorite designation for our Lord is the compound 'Christ Jesus.'
'Christ Jesus'
This form, as we have seen, seems to occur occasionally in Acts, not only as a Pauline (24:24) but also as a primitive Christian (3:20) and a Lucan formula (5:42). But in Paul's Epistles it occurs not less than 82 (84) times, regularly anarthrously (except Eph 3:1, cf. 3:11, Col 2:6), and pretty evenly distributed, though with a tendency to increased frequency in the progress of time (Thess. only 2; Gal., Cor., Rom. 29; first imprisonment, 29;
Pastorals 24). It is possible that the prepositing of the 'Christ' may throw greater emphasis upon the Messianic dignity of Jesus than was currently felt in the opposite compound 'Jesus Christ,' which is much less frequent in Paul
(only 23 times; and not at all in Thess., Col., Philemon). But in any case, both formulas are employed as practically proper names of our Lord, and it is difficult to trace any difference in the implications of their use. Along with these simple compounds Paul also employs the more elaborate formulas, 'the (or our) Lord Jesus Christ,' 'Jesus Christ our Lord,' 'Christ
Jesus, the (or our, or my) Lord.' The first of these meets us most frequently, occurring indeed no fewer than 49 times, pretty evenly distributed through the Epistles. The second occurs only four times (Romans 3 and 1 Cor 1):
and the last only ten times (two central groups of Epistles only). In these sonorous formulas the Apostle expresses his deep sense of reverence to the person of Jesus, and he tends to fall into one or the other of them whenever he is speaking of his Master with solemnity and exalted feeling. It is noticeable that they are apt to be employed in the formal solemn opening and closing sections of his Epistles, and whenever Jesus is named in direct connection with God.
Jesus the 'Saviour'
'The Great God'
In the Pastoral Epistles the compound names 'Jesus Christ' and 'Christ Jesus' occur also in composition with the epithet 'Saviour': 'Christ Jesus our
Saviour' (Titus 1:4), 'Jesus Christ our Saviour' (Titus 3:6), 'our Saviour Christ Jesus' (2 Tim 1:10), 'our Saviour Jesus Christ' (Titus 2:13). In the earlier Epistles, Jesus is indeed not only treated as our 'Saviour,' but the epithet is given Him as a title of honor, it being a mark of Christians that they look for a 'Saviour' from heaven, even 'the Lord Jesus Christ' (Phil
3:20, cf. Eph 5:20). But the precise forms of expression occurring in the Pastorals are not found in these. The significance of the epithet 'Saviour' thus applied to Jesus may perhaps be suggested by the circumstance that it is in the same Epistles a standing epithet of God. Paul describes himself as an apostle of Jesus Christ "according to the command of God our Saviour and Christ Jesus our hope" (1 Tim 1:1, cf. Titus 1:3), and wishes Timothy to live so as to be acceptable "in the sight of God our Saviour" (2:3, cf. Titus
2:10) whose glory it is to be 'the Saviour' of man (4:10), in accordance with His love to men as our 'Saviour' (Titus 3:4). The ascription of this epithet thus interchangeably to God and to Jesus assimilates Jesus to God and leaves us in less doubt how we are to take the passage in Titus 2:13 which
in contrast with Christ's first coming in grace speaks of the impending "appearing of the glory of"—shall we say "the great God and our Saviour
Jesus Christ"?—or shall we not rather say "our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ"? If the latter construction is followed, as it seems it should be, it provides us with one of the most solemn ascriptions of proper deity to Jesus
Christ discoverable in the whole compass of the New Testament.
'The Beloved'
Perhaps something similar is implied in the designation of Him in Eph 1:6 as the 'Beloved,' the epithet appearing in its simple majesty without qualification: "His grace which He"—that is God—"freely bestowed on us in the Beloved." We have already had occasion to point out the significance of this phrase on its appearing in the Gospels as a designation of Jesus (Mt
3:17, 12:18, 17:5, Mk 1:11, 9:7, Lk 3:22). Here the same epithet meets us without the defining accompaniments: Jesus Christ is in full simplicity set forth as by way of eminence 'the Beloved,' in and through whom God has communicated His grace to men. This designation of Christ "makes us feel," we are told, "the greatness of the divine grace." But it does this only by making us feel the greatness of the Mediator of this grace. It is only at the cost of the blood of the 'Beloved' that God has redeemed us. The epithet of 'Saviour' is a designation of our Lord from the point of view of men: this epithet of 'Beloved' tells us what He is from the point of view of God—He is God's own unique One, the object of His supreme choice, who stands related to Him in the intimacy of appropriating love. In the parallel passage in the sister Epistle (Col 1:13), Paul calls our Lord "the Son of God's love."
This seems a combination of the two titles, the 'Son of God,' and the 'Beloved'; and bears witness to their close affinity,—which indeed is inherent in their significance. We will recall that in the evangelical use of
'the Beloved' it stands in the closest relation with 'Son': "This is my Son, the Beloved, in whom I am well pleased." It is only in connection with the idea of 'Son,' thus, that 'Beloved' comes to its rights.
Jesus the 'Man'
On the other side, the compound names, 'Jesus Christ' and 'Christ Jesus,' appear in Paul's Epistles also in combination with designations which emphasize rather the human aspect of our Lord's person. We read of "the man Jesus Christ" (Rom 5:15), of "the man Christ Jesus" (1 Tim 2:5), and somewhat more frequently we are, apart from such a combination with His personal name, directed to contemplate our Lord as a "Man" (ἄνθρωπος). In very few of these instances, it is true, is the emphasis primarily upon the fact of humanity. Most commonly it is thrown upon some point of likeness or contrast between Jesus and that other man, Adam (Rom 5:15, [19], 1 Cor
15:21, 47, [48, 49], cf. 15:45, "last Adam"), and it is the singleness or the superiority of this 'Man' which is in question. But in a passage like 1 Tim
2:5, "There is one God, one mediator also between God and man, Himself man, Christ Jesus," it is clear that the humanity of Christ itself is insisted upon: and there is a necessary if somewhat unemphasized suggestion of humanity underlying all these passages. The lesson we must first of all draw from this series of passages seems, then, to be that neither 'Jesus Christ' nor 'Christ Jesus' is a designation of such supreme dignity that it could not suggest itself as an appropriate name for Jesus when the mind of the writer was intent on precisely His humanity, as indeed no designation could be in the case of a being who was not purely divine, not even 'the Lord of Glory'
(1 Cor 2:8) or 'God' itself (Acts 20:28). Beyond that, we learn, therefore, that clear and strong as was Paul's conception of the proper deity of Christ,
it in no wise precluded him from also recognizing with equal clarity and expounding with equal force His essential humanity.
But not Merely Man When He who was in the form of God took the form of a servant He was made in the likeness of men and was formed in fashion as a man (Phil 2:7,
8); and Paul found no difficulty in so understanding, even though he also understood that the "taking the form of a servant" was not a supercession of "the form of God" but an addition to it: and that therefore though now made in the likeness of men and formed in fashion as a man, Jesus remained nevertheless unbrokenly "in the form of God" (ὑπάρχων, verse 6, observe the tense) and able at will to lay hold again of His essential equality with God. Accordingly, therefore, the Apostle, if he represented Jesus as of the seed of David, represented Him as this only on one side of His being,—that side which he calls "according to the flesh" (Rom 1:3, 4): if he saw in Him, to the glory of the covenant people, an Israelite, he saw this also in Him only "according to the flesh" (Rom 9:5). It cannot be denied that there underlies this whole mode of conception the idea of "the two natures" of Christ, on the basis of which alone can this duplex method of speaking of Him be defended or even comprehended.
The Two Sides of Christ's Being In the opening verses of the greatest of his Epistles the Apostle brings the two sides of our Lord's being sharply to our apprehension. Reduced to its lowest terms, what he tells us here is that on one side of His being our Lord was the 'Son of David' and on the other side the 'Son of God.' These two sides of being he speaks of respectively as "according to the flesh" and "according to the Spirit of holiness," which may be briefly paraphrased respectively as the human and the divine sides. But he does not leave us to
infer that these two sides of our Lord's being were equally original to Him.
On the contrary, he tells us that the human side had a historical beginning, while the divine side knew only an historical establishment: our Lord was made—came to be (γενόμενος)—of the seed of David according to the flesh; He was 'designated'—marked out as (ὁρισθέντος)—the 'Son of God' by the resurrection of the dead. Becoming man, He brought life and immortality to light, and thus showed Himself more than man,—nothing less than 'the Son of God.' The highest human exaltation is the Messiahship: but His Messiahship was the lower side of His majesty. That He might be the Messiah He stooped from His prior estate of divine glory. Thus clearly the Apostle presents our Lord as essentially the 'Son of God,' and this
Sonship to God as essentially consubstantiality with God.34 After precisely the same fashion, at a later point of the same Epistle, having occasion to mention Christ as sprung from the seed of Israel, he at once pauses as if to guard himself from the imputation of insufficient reverence, to add the limitation, "according to the flesh." He was not wishing to speak of Christ even incidentally as merely man. And so greatly did his reverence for His person swell in his heart, that, in adjoining a designation of His higher nature, he is content with nothing lower than the highest conceivable.
"From whom is Christ, as according to the flesh,"—that Christ "who is in His essential being (ὁ ὢν) none other than God over all blessed for ever"
(9:5). On the side in which He was not "according to the flesh," He was the Supreme God ruling over all things.
'Son of God'
It is, however, significant rather than copious use which the Apostle makes of the category of the 'Son of God' in his presentation of the personality of Jesus to his readers. It is doubtless at least in part due to his
predilection for the term 'Lord' as the Trinitarian name of Jesus that Paul speaks of Him only some seventeen times as 'the Son.'36 In a number of these instances there is naturally little indication of the particular implication of deity which it nevertheless always carries with it in Paul's usage.38 In others, however, the whole point of the employment of the term hangs on the uniqueness of the relation to God which it intimates. This is the case, for instance, when this uniqueness of relation is emphasized by the added term "own": God, we are told for example (Rom 8:3), sent "His own
Son" (τὸν ἑαυτοῦ υἱόν) "in the likeness of sinful flesh" "to condemn sin in the flesh": and again God spared not "His own Son" (τοῦ ἰδίου υἱοῦ) but "delivered Him up for us all" (Rom 8:32). Obviously we are expected to estimate the greatness of the gift by the closeness of the relation indicated: it is because it was His own Son whom He gave that the love of God to us was so splendidly manifested in the gift of Jesus, who, we are further told, was for this gift "sent forth from" Himself (Gal 4:4, ἐξαπέστειλεν). This closeness of relation, amounting really to identity, is somewhat oddly suggested by the argument in Rom 5:8–10. Here we are told that scarcely for a righteous man would one die: but God commends His love to us—or as it is strengtheningly put, His own love to us—by dying for us while we were yet sinners? No,—by Christ's dying for us while we were sinners! But how does God commend His own love for us—by someone else's dying for us? Obviously the relation between Christ and God is thought of as so intimate that Christ's dying is equivalent to God Himself dying. And so, we read further that this Christ is God's Son (v. 10) and His dying for us is to such an extent the pledge of God's love that it carries with it the promise and potency of all good things (vv. 10, 11).
God 'the Father'
With this emphasis on the Sonship of Christ and its high significance it is a little strange that the correlative Fatherhood of God is brought so little into immediate connection with it. The explanation is doubtless again that Paul prefers the title 'Lord' to express our Lord's Trinitarian relations. The Fatherhood of God is in any event not very frequently adverted to by Paul, and is very seldom brought into immediate relation with Jesus. Indeed God is expressly called the Father of Jesus Christ only in those few passages in which He is spoken of as "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ"
(Rom 15:6, 2 Cor 1:3, 11:31, Eph 1:3 [Col 1:3]). In a number of other passages in which God is called 'the Father' the Trinitarian relation seems in mind (Rom 6:4, 1 Cor 8:6, 15:24, Gal 1:3, Eph 2:18, 6:23, 1 Thess 1:1, 2
Thess 1:2, 1 Tim 1:2, 2 Tim 1:2, Titus 1:4). In the other instances of the application of the name of Father to God the reference is rather to His relation to us (Rom 1:7; [8:15], 1 Cor 1:3, Gal 1:4 [4:6], Eph 1:2, Eph 4:6,
Phil 1:2, 2:11, 4:20, Col 1:2, 1 Thess 1:3, 3:11, 13, 2 Thess 1:1; [2 var. lec.]
2:16, Philem 3, cf. 2 Cor 1:3, Eph 1:17, 3:14, 5:20, Col 1:12, 3:17). In only three passages are the correlatives 'Son' and 'Father' brought together (1 Cor
15:28, Gal 4:4–6, Col 1:13), and in no one of these instances is it clear that the term 'Father' is employed in sole reference to Jesus, the unique 'Son.' In one of them we are told that the Father has delivered us out of the power of darkness and translated us into the Kingdom of 'the Son of His love' (Col
1:13), where there seems certainly a reference to God's Fatherly relation not only to Jesus 'the Son of His love' but also to us who are by His grace introduced into a similar relation to God with Christ's own. So, in another, we are told that because we are sons God has sent forth the Spirit of His
Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father (Gal 4:6)—where it is quite clear that 'Father' has relation to us, too, as the brethren of Christ. Even in the
remaining instance, where we are told that at the end Christ shall deliver up the Kingdom to God even the Father, and even 'the Son' Himself shall be subjected to Him, that God may be all in all (1 Cor 15:28), it is by no means obvious that the term Father may not again embrace with Christ all those who have been brought by Christ into the Kingdom. We may see in all three instances that the peculiar relation of the 'Father' and 'Son' lies at the basis of the thought: but this peculiar relation does not in any of them absorb the whole thought. It seems to be treated by Paul as a matter too well understood to require particular insistence upon. He could count on his readers, when he spoke of Jesus as 'the Son of God,' understanding without further elucidation that he was thereby attributing to Him a unique relation, including proper deity along with the Father, while our co-sonship was to be realized only in and through Him.
Christ All that God Is Another method employed by Paul to indicate the relation of Jesus to God is the presentation of Him as the 'image of God' (2 Cor 4:4, Col 1:15). He is the image of God, we are told, and the light of the knowledge of the glory of God shines in His face (2 Cor 4:4). And, again, He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation (Col 1:15). The meaning is that we may see in Christ what God is: all God's glory is reflected in Him; and when we see Him we see the Father also. Perhaps the mere term falls short of expressly asserting proper deity, though it would certainly gain force and significance if proper deity were understood to be asserted. In that case it would suggest that Jesus Christ is just the invisible God made visible. And that this is its actual significance with Paul can scarcely be doubted when we recall that he does not hesitate to ascribe proper deity to Jesus, not only by means of the designations 'Lord' and 'Son of God,' but by the direct
application to Him of the name 'God' itself and that in its most enhanced form—'God over all' (Rom 9:5), the 'Great God' (Titus 2:13). That Jesus
Christ is intended in both instances by these great designations, seems, despite sustained efforts to deny them to Him, beyond legitimate question.
The natural interpretation of the passages themselves compels it: and no surprise can be felt that Paul, who everywhere thinks and speaks of Christ as very God, should occasionally call Him by the appropriate designation.
These passages in effect supply only the to-be-expected expression in plain language of Paul's most intimate thought of Jesus. He is always and everywhere to his thought just 'our Great God and Saviour,' 'God over all, blessed for ever.'
Paul's Jesus the Primitive Jesus It was thus, then, that Jesus was thought of, and familiarly spoken of, in the Christian communities throughout the epoch in which the Synoptic
Gospels were composed or, if we choose to use such misleading language, were compounded. The testimony of Paul's letters comes from the sixth and seventh decades of the century; and assures us that at that time Jesus was to His followers a man indeed and the chosen Messiah who had come to redeem God's people, but in His essential Being just the great God Himself.
In the light of this testimony it is impossible to believe there ever was a different conception of Jesus prevalent in the Church: the mark of Christians from the beginning was obviously that they looked to Jesus as their 'Lord' and 'called on His name' in their worship. The general significance of the testimony of Paul, we may say, is universally recognized. Bousset, for example, when engaged in repelling the crudities of Kalthoff points it out with great distinctness. In Paul, he tells us, we have
"a witness of indubitable value from the bosom of the Christian community
for the existence and the significance of the Person of Jesus." "His conversion, according to the tradition, goes back very nearly to the death of Jesus. His chief activity falls in any case in the forties and fifties. From his letters the historical existence of Jesus stands out before us in all clearness.
And not merely does Paul presuppose this, as we perceive from these letters: he had intercourse with the first generation of Christians, who had themselves seen the Lord Jesus." "Whoever would question the existence of Jesus must erase also the existence of Paul, as he meets us in his letters."
"With the person of Paul the person of Jesus, too, stands established." Nor is it merely the existence of a Jesus which Paul thus substantiates for us: he ratifies also the fact that the person of Jesus had for the faith of the first
Christian community "no indeterminate but a perfectly determinate significance." In the presence of Paul's letters, therefore, it is impossible to deny that there underlies the whole Christian movement the great personality of Jesus, or that the primitive Christian community looked to Him as its founder and Lord. Is it not equally impossible to deny in the presence of these letters that the primitive Christian community looked upon this Jesus as their divine founder and divine Lord?Strange to say,
Bousset draws back at this point. Paul's testimony to the existence of the historical Jesus and to His significance to the primitive Church is decisive.
But Paul's testimony to the estimate placed upon the personality of this historical Jesus is not trustworthy. It is, indeed, impossible to doubt in the light of his testimony, that "the earthly Jesus worked in the souls of His disciples with inexpressible power" (p. 26): and that they had come to believe that He had risen from the dead. But it does not follow that they who had companied with Him in His life shared Paul's idea that He was
"essentially a heavenly being" (p. 26). The inconsequence here is flagrant.
Paul is not writing a generation or two later, when the faith of the first disciples was a matter only of memory, perhaps of fading memory; and when it was possible for him to represent it as other than it was. He is writing out of the very bosom of this primitive community and under its very eye. His witness to the kind of Jesus this community believed in is just as valid and just as compelling, therefore, as his testimony that it believed in Jesus at all. In and through him the voice of the primitive community itself speaks, proclaiming its assured faith in its divine Lord. This would be true quite apart from the consentient witness of the Acts and the Gospels. In the presence of this consentient witness it is impossible to contend that Paul has misrepresented or misconceived the faith of Christians. The same divine
Jesus which Paul presents as the universal and aboriginal object of Christian faith, Luke sets before us in Acts from the mouth of the primitive disciples
—Peter and John and James and the rest—as from the beginning believed on in the Church; and the same Luke with his companion evangelists represents as Himself asserting His divine dignity. The testimony of Paul merely adds to this witness a new and thoroughly trustworthy voice; and renders it so much the more impossible to doubt that from the very beginning the entire Christian community was firmly convinced of the deity of its Lord.
Inaccessibility to Critical Doubts Nor can the force of this testimony be broken or even weakened by suggesting doubts as to the genuineness of more or fewer of Paul's letters, or raising question of a development of the doctrine of the person of our
Lord through their course. We have treated them all as genuine products of Paul's mind and pen and as all of a piece: because, shortly, the facts warrant such a treatment of them. But the conclusion to be drawn from them in the
matter in hand does not depend on so taking them. The conception of Jesus embedded in these letters is the same in them all: if they are not all Paul's they are all Pauline. You may discard any number of them you choose, therefore, as not Paul's personal product: the conception of Jesus in those that remain is not altered thereby. Take the extremest hypothesis which has ever even temporarily commanded the assent of any considerable number of scholars,—the old Tübingen theory which allowed to Paul only the four great Epistles, Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians and Galatians. In these Epistles may be found Paul's entire witness to the deity of Christ. It is from them that we learn that Jesus Christ, while on the side of His flesh of the seed of David, had another side to His being, on which He was the Son of God
(Rom 1:3, 4); that as God's own Son He was rich before He became poor by becoming of the seed of David (2 Cor 8:9); and that in His real nature He is not merely God's Son but Himself God over all, blessed for ever (Rom 9:5).
When we add to these four great Epistles one after another of the others— such as Philippians, and 1 Thessalonians and Colossians, as practically all living critics do—and even Ephesians and Second Timothy, as many are willing to do—we merely add to the mass of the testimony, and in no respect alter its character or effect. These letters one and all only repeat, and in repeating more or less clarify, the teaching of the four chief Epistles as to the dignity of our Lord's person.
No Substantial Development For this same reason nothing is gained for our present purpose by treating the Epistles not all together, but in small chronologically arranged groups.
Slight differences may be observed, it is true, from group to group in modes of expression and relatively favorite forms of statement. But no differences can be traced in the conceptions which are brought to expression in these
varying forms of statements. For example, the ruling designation of Christ in the Thessalonians is 'the Lord' (22), with 'the Lord Jesus Christ' (14) a somewhat close second, and 'the Lord Jesus' (10) third, while the simple
'Christ' occurs only four times. In Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, on the other hand, it is the simple 'Christ' which becomes the favorite designation, with 'Lord' a good second: and the same is true of the Epistles of the first imprisonment. In the Pastorals, on the other hand, while 'Lord' is still common, 'Christ,' as in Thessalonians, falls into the background, and 'Christ
Jesus' becomes the favorite designation. Variations like these, it is obvious, are rather interesting to those who are engaged in studying the literary form of the Epistles than important in estimating their witness to the deity of our
Lord. Through all such variations, the product of circumstance, the essential teaching of all these Epistles upon the person of Christ remains the same. In them all alike He is the divine 'Lord,' whose right it is to rule: the 'Son of God,' consubstantial with the Father: the 'great God and Saviour' of sinners:
'God over all, blessed forever.' And in their consentient testimony to the deity of Christ they make it clear to us that upon this point, at least, the whole primitive Church was of one unvarying mind.