the end: it is far spent; the emergency, therefore, demands
be visualized as a day of deliverance, joy and blessedness. There is perhaps no figure more pregnant in its religious associations than the figure of "light." In the sphere of the emotions (no less than in that of the intellect for knowledge) it is made to render service as a physical analogon for spiritual rejoicing. The two main passages inviting to this, as at least a partial interpretation interwoven with the preceding usage, are Rom. 13:11–14 and 1 Thess. 5:1–8. According to the former the world-night is a time of wickedness, characterized, as the night-time in the pagan world usually is, by such things as revelling, drunkenness, chambering, wantonness, strife, jealousy, because the publicity inseparated from daylight holds these and other things under restraint. vs. 13. Moreover, for the wicked as well as the good, the night is the period of sleep, vs. 11. Of this world-night the Apostle further affirms the nearness of the end: it is far spent; the emergency, therefore, demands watchfulness ("waking out of sleep") and abstinence from all forms of pagan immorality, through the consciousness of the imminence of the crisis: it is high time; salvation, eschatological salvation, is relatively at hand. Believers must put on the "armor of light," vs. 12. Besides the usual warning attached to the thought of the approaching moment of the judgment, there is here an allusion to the ushering in of the future state as a state of light, and salvation, a day in the literal (not merely chronological) sense; the day has become a qualitative conception, by reason of its association with light; the word has received ethico-religious import bono sensu, it is a day and not a night. And, through its contrast with "the night which is far spent," it has also ceased to be the mere marking of a point in the eschatological process; this day so quickly to ensue is quantitatively stretched out to a period of extended duration. As the night had a course of which a "being far spent" could be predicated, so the day has its extension and means more, to speak in terms of the same figure, than the break of day, or the morning.
In 1 Thess. 5:1–8 the contrast is in the first place one between the ominous surprise which the arrival of the day of the Lord involves for the wicked when it arrives as a thief in the night, or as travail
comes upon a woman with child. Up to the third verse, it will be observed, the contrast of light-darkness is still absent. In vss. 4–8, however, this element enters. On the whole it is utilized to stress the contrast between the sobriety of the day and wantonness of the night; likewise between the heedlessness of the wicked and the watchful preparedness of believers. Still the statement in vs. 5: "Ye are all sons of the light and sons of the day" reminds of the same allusion observable in Rom. 13. Throughout the terminology of the two passages is strikingly the same. The occurrence of "light" as a soteric term in other connections likewise adds force to the understanding here; cp. Eph. 5:8, 9, 13; Col. 1:12. Even in the O.T. there are points of contact, for the association of darkness, on the one hand, and light, on the other hand, with judgment and salvation. If one were to follow this lead, the proper paraphrase for "day of Jehovah" in the passages cited would be "the light-reign (day) of Jehovah" as well as "the dawn introducing it."
A remarkable feature about these several terms is their detachment from the precedents, attendants and subsequents of the crisis they describe. They mark the mere event to come; of further eschatological speculation they are void. The Apostle handles the theme in a large, one might almost say abstract, manner. Yet this is not due to the terms themselves, which are fully capable of a rich filling-up with solid concrete material. The cause will have to be sought in the constructive, history-building rôle eschatology had come to play in the mind of Paul. In view of the outstanding summit the detailed and scattered features on the slopes of the mountain have, while not entirely effaced, at least lost their sharpness of contour. While this may less satisfy the interest of eschatological curiosity, it for this very reason greatly contributes to the outstanding of the chief structural elevations. The transparency of the atmosphere secures for the latter a clear vision of their unique importance.
It would be a mistake, however, to infer from this that for the Apostle the eschatological crisis bears no fixed organic relation to
the preceding historical process. The very scheme of the two successive worlds renders it unthinkable that at any arbitrarily chosen point the world to come should supersede the world that is. The phrase πλήρωμα τοῦ χρόνου, Gal. 4:4, implies an orderly unrolling of the preceding stages of world-history towards a fixed end. It is true, this statement refers to what we call "the first coming" of Christ, but we must not forget that the whole drama enclosed between the two "comings" is so much a unit for Paul, that orderly progression towards the close being characteristic of the former coming, a similar approach could not possibly be absent from the climacteric termination of the whole. But also in certain concrete ways the Apostle has set definite limits to the continuance of the present aeon on its course, and thereby at the same time fixed the point of arrival for the world to come. In Rom. 8:19–23 the final stage appears as a painful birth-process: "The whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now." A clear analogy to this is furnished by the Jewish theology, where it speaks of the "chebleihammashiah," "the birth-woes of the Messiah." While this explicitly refers only to the arrival of the Messiah himself, it undoubtedly carries with it the idea of great changes and new conditions to be ushered in by his momentous appearance. Still, a difference exists in this regard, that Paul has divested the idea of its limited form of expression, and made it expressive of the entire foregoing worldprocess as characterized by the universal prevalence of sin: "The creature was made subject to vanity"; it suffers from the bondage of corruption in an all-inclusive sense; it waits in eager expectation for the liberating end. That the κτίσις "the creature" is meant here in distinction from man, the context clearly shows; particularly the words "itself" and "ourselves also" (vss. 21, 23) preclude all doubt concerning this. How this grandiose conception was filled out in detail, and whether it involves the belief of a progressive, and in course of time accelerated, corruption of nature cannot with certainty be determined, although this idea would fit well into the general scheme of Paul's thought. It should be noticed, however, that the representation reflects a genuinely sympathetic feeling towards the lot of subhuman nature. Paul is sometimes charged (in
distinction from Jesus) with a lack of sensibility towards the natural, subhuman world, but here at least with a certain tenderness he sympathizes with the pitiable lot of the lower creation. Whether there lies back of this mere personification, or whether perhaps, as some would believe, it betrays the ascription of a degree of consciousness to the animal and vegetable, or even the astral, world, is a question at least worth considering. The terms used certainly are strong: the creature manifests an ἀποκαραδοκία for the manifestation of the sons of God. The contrast between willingness and unwillingness is introduced to describe the tenor of the creature's subjection. The creation follows in this not its own natural bent but finds itself implicated in the woeful destinies of mankind. In this fact lies, on the other hand, also the reason for its ultimate deliverance, which on account of such origin must coincide with the removal of the bondage of man to corruption and his endowment with the glorious liberty of the coming age. One almost gets the impression, as though this remarkable piece of the philosophy of nature were introduced as a foil to the wilfully wicked self-surrender of man to his enslavement by sin. It is scarcely subject to doubt that the participle ὑποτάξας does refer to man, not to God. The strain of pessimism in Paul with regard to the world in its sub-redemptive state is plainly traceable here. It is, however, no more absolute pessimism than is the Apostle's estimate of the ethico-religious condition of unredeemed mankind. The gloom of the one, no less than that of the other, is in anticipation dispersed by the assurance of the glorious deliverance at the end. The redemptive optimism lies deeper and by far outweighs the pessimism of the sense of sin and corruption, cp. Rom. 8:18.
More particularly relating to social conditions in the circle of believers is the ἐνεστῶσα ἀναγκή spoken of in 1 Cor. 7:26, in view of which the Apostle inclines towards dissuading such as are single from entrance upon the state of marriage. The phrase in itself has no eschatological color; nevertheless, in view of the context evidently requires to be understood in that light. The average troubles connected with married life as such can scarcely be
referred to. Nor is justice done to the language by thinking of marital troubles made more complex and burdensome for Christians through impending persecution. A quite particular aggravation of the distress referred to must have stood before the Apostle's mind according to the closing words of vs. 28: "Nevertheless such shall have trouble in the flesh, and I would spare you." In the decisiveness of these words "shall have trouble" the eschatological note clearly makes itself heard. A quite special tribulation is imminent. Explicitly this is affirmed by the opening clause of vs. 29: "The time is short." The manner in which this statement is introduced by: "This I say, brethren," shows that the expectation of the nearness of the end carries the emphasis. But the words "the time is short" certainly cannot have the rather banal sense, that it is no longer worth while to marry. The shortness or rather "contractedness" of the time serves simply as a reminder of the belief that the parousia may not be far distant, and that from the parousia all sorts of worldly distress are inseparable. Thus understood the idea of the present "anangke" and the statement "the time is short" fit perfectly into each other. But there appears in the context still a third motive pointing to the same conclusion. The counsel takes in view other relationships and occupations, vss. 30, 31: they that weep should be as though they wept not, and they that rejoice as though they rejoiced not, and they that buy as though they possessed not, and they that use this world, as not abusing it. And the reason for all this is given in vs. 31: "the fashion of this world passes away." But here again the readers are immediately reminded of the fact that the relevancy of the advice, so far from resting on a purely chronological opinion as to the nearness of the event, derives its main force from the state of mind in which the Christian ought to contemplate the end and make ready for it. The underlying idea is none other than that the times preceding the parousia require a unique concentration of the minds of believers upon the Lord and the manner in which they may best please Him. The last days are to be days of undivided and most assiduous interest in the Lord and the unparalleled mode in which He may soon come to reveal Himself: "He that is unmarried cares for the
things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord; but he that is married cares for the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife." There is difference also in regard to this between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman cares for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit: but she that is married cares for the things of the world, how she may please her husband" vss. 32–34.
A further datum making the time of the parousia dependent on certain future developments is furnished by Rom. 9:11–15; 25–32. Here Paul outlines in broad strokes the course determined for the extension of the Gospel to those to be saved through its effect. This outline has the peculiarity that it names not only the bare facts, but to some extent adds a psychological and soteric explanation, so that one might call it a philosophy of the history of the church in the widest sense. The close connection between it and eschatology lies in two statements: vs. 15, where the result of the "πρόσλημψις" i.e., the receiving back of the unbelieving majority of the Jews into favor brings with itself what is called "life from the dead." The climacteric nature of the event to be expected as the issue of the unfolding ways of God forbids to tone down this phrase to the purely-metaphorical, making it fall within the terms of mere spiritual revival. "Life from the dead" must refer to the resurrection specifically so named, and so understood it presupposes the beginning of the closing act of the eschatological drama. The second statement, leading to the same conclusion, is found in vss. 25 and 26: "blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness (πλήρωμα) of the Gentiles be come in and so (οὕτως) all Israel shall be saved, as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn ungodliness away from Jacob." In this last statement, it is true, the immediate supervention of the eschatological crisis upon the preceding events is not directly affirmed, but it is clearly enough implied in this that the twofold great purpose of the Gospelpreaching will have at that point been attained, the bringing in of the fulness of both Gentiles and Jews. The motive effecting this stupendous reversal in the attitude towards the Gospel on the part