our Lord Jesus Christ; through whom also we have had our access by
faith into this grace wherein we stand; and let us rejoice in hope of
the glory of God. And not only so, but let us also rejoice in our
tribulations: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience,
probation; and probation, hope: and hope putteth not to shame; because
the love of God hath been shed abroad in our hearts through the Holy
Ghost which was given unto us. For while we were yet weak, in due
season Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man
will one die: for peradventure for the good man some one would even
dare to die. But God commendeth his own love toward us, in that, while
we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now
justified by his blood, shall we be saved from the wrath _of God_
through him. For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God
through the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, shall we be
saved by his life; and not only so, but we also rejoice in God through
our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the
reconciliation.
1. We feel in this passage, and in those which follow, that a great
transition is being accomplished, or has been accomplished, in the
argument, we hardly know how: the transition from the thought of our
preliminary justification or acceptance with God for Christ's sake, to
that of our sanctification, or the life consecrated in Christ: the
transition from the thought of Christ's work _for us_ to that of
Christ's work _in us_: from {181} the gift of acquittal to the gift of
the Spirit (ver. 5), and the life of the baptized (vi. 3). St. Paul is
not conscious of the transition, as modern theologians or Christians
acquainted with theological controversy cannot but be, because the two
stages are to his mind absolutely inseparable. Those to whom he wrote
had like himself come, with whatever of struggle, to believe in Christ;
believing, they had been baptized into Christ, and had received by the
laying on of hands the gift of the Holy Ghost. This fellowship in
Christ's life, this possession of the Spirit, constituted Christianity.
To enjoy these things was to be a Christian. The idea of a
Christianity which stopped short of incorporation into Christ, or which
claimed this incorporation outside His body which is the Church, and
apart from the visible sacramental means of union, did not occur to St.
Paul. A Christianity which did not own allegiance to the Church was
not in question. But his entire present aim is to convince the heart
and reason of Christians that the whole privilege of their new 'state
of grace' belongs to them simply in virtue of faith. As he asks the
Galatians: 'Received ye the Spirit,' i.e. did ye become Christians, 'by
the works of the law or by the hearing of faith?' That is his point.
{182} They were not made Christians because they had done anything to
deserve it. They were simply helpless sinners, and it was the
gratuitous mercy of God which looked upon them and provided a means of
forgiveness for them, and justified them or set them upon a new basis
of acceptance, without any consideration of what they were or had done,
purely and simply because He loved them and meant that the mere
spectacle of His unmerited love and bounty should inspire their
gratitude and win their hearts. Therefore he lays such emphasis on
their initial need of forgiveness: on their helplessness to get rid of
their own sins: on their dependence for forgiveness on a sacrifice to
which they could contribute nothing: on their being justified by simply
receiving in trust the offer of God. But the offer when it is listened
to is found to consist in forgiveness indeed--but forgiveness as a step
toward new life in the body of Christ. Thus what Christ won for man,
what becomes available for each man in virtue of believing the message,
is here described as 'our introduction' (rather than 'access') 'into
this grace wherein we stand'--an introduction into a spiritual region
where God's favour is the prevailing atmosphere, or, to use a later
phrase, into 'a state of grace'; a {183} district of security out of
which, however, men may fall again by deliberate unfaithfulness, as St.
Paul warns the Galatians[2]: 'Ye are severed from Christ, ye who would
be justified by the law; ye are fallen away from grace.'
And St. Paul's language does not let us suppose that the whole of what
he means by our 'salvation' is included in our preliminary
acceptance[3]. That is simply our first introduction into a permanent
state. Our 'salvation' is here, as elsewhere, spoken of as equivalent
to deliverance from wrath in the day of judgement, which means that our
whole moral being has become such as can bear the scrutiny of the
divine righteousness and the fellowship of the divine glory.
2. Where the Revised Version above[4] reads 'rejoice,' it is important
to remember that the word is that used for the illegitimate 'glorying'
or 'boasting' of iii. 27 and iv. 2. Christians have something to boast
of, but it is not their own; it is God's gift. Therefore they are
especially delighted when God's strength is shown in their weakness,
and they will more particularly 'boast of their weaknesses' (cf. 2 Cor.
xi. 30).
{184}
3. St. Paul's argument that the Christian hope is fundamentally
trustworthy is based, we may notice, on a twofold appeal. First (ver.
5), he appeals to the gift of the Spirit which at a definite time[5]
each Christian received, doubtless by the laying on of hands. This
gift is in itself an outpouring of the divine love and an 'earnest' of
future glory (2 Cor. i. 22, v. 5). No doubt almost all the Christians
had more or less intensely _felt_ the reality of the divine love in the
indwelling Spirit. But St. Paul lays stress rather on the fact than on
the feeling. Secondly (vers. 6 ff.), he appeals to the great
redemptive act of God. God had gone out of His way to make a great
sacrifice in order to reconcile us when we were enemies, and therefore
may be trusted to carry out the preliminary reconciliation into full
spiritual deliverance or salvation by Christ's life. The greater
effort carries with it the less.
[1] Isa. xxviii. 16: 'He that believeth shall not be put to shame'
(Greek version).
[2] Gal. v. 4.
[3] Cf. also p. 310.
[4] verses 2, 3, 11.
[5] The tense is an aorist, 'the Holy Ghost which was given' at a
definite past moment; not as in the unrevised Bible 'is given.'
{185}
DIVISION III. Sec. 2. CHAPTER V. 12-21.
_The Second Adam._
St. Paul had spoken, at the end of the passage we have just been
reading, of our being 'saved by (or 'in') Christ's life.' And this
brings him to what is truly the central point of his theology--the life
in Christ by the Spirit: the thought that the glorified Man, with all
the power of the divine life at work in Him, though He is hidden from
sight, is still perpetuating His life by His Spirit in that society
which He has established to be His body. It stands to reason that if
real fellowship in the life of Christ is the privilege of the
Christian, this must be a greater thing by far than any preparatory
gift of acquittal or justification, which indeed has its value simply
in virtue of that to which it admits us. St. Paul then loves to
contrast the new {186} manhood of believers in Christ, the life in
Christ, in all its moral characteristics, with the old manhood,
enslaved to sin, as it existed substantially identical in its bondage
under the outwardly differing conditions of Gentile and Jewish society.
And as that old life of our race had a unity which St. Paul believed
was due to a common origin in the first man Adam, so he thought of
Christ as a second Adam--the 'last Adam'--a spiritual progenitor from
whom was to be derived another human race by spiritual generation with
a better unity of its own; or rather a new spiritual progenitor from
whom the whole of the old race might gradually derive, by spiritual
regeneration, a new life, which should penetrate and spread, and oust
the corruption of the old manhood, till the whole was redeemed and
ushered into the glory for which it had been originally destined.
And here, in the passage we are now to read, St. Paul develops the
thought of the influence of Adam and his sin upon the human race, and
draws from it an argument for the deeper and greater influence of the
New Man upon the same race, reconstituted under a new head.
Adam's sin--the disobedience of the one man--had a disastrous effect
upon his race as a {187} whole. It introduced sin, and through sin its
penalty, death; and it passed to all mankind--the penalty, because also
the sin. All men sinned in fact, and all died. This can be stated
without exception. It is quite true that where there is no special law
to instruct men, they may sin ignorantly, and therefore without its
being imputed to them as guilt; yet the sin is there all the same, and
its presence, before the Mosaic law was given to enlighten men, was
marked by the reign of death, even in the case of persons innocent of
any actual sin like Adam's. Sin then, as marked by death, exists
universally, apart from any knowledge of it or even any actual offence,
as the effect of Adam's transgression upon his whole race. But to Adam
corresponds in the divine purpose Christ. He is the new head of the
race--to transmit the free gift of life, as Adam transmitted the
penalty of death. His life was one summary obedience: one perfectly
acceptable object to the eyes of God. And there flows from it an
abundant river of the good favour of God--which is also the good favour
of the man Jesus Christ--and of the gift by which that good favour
shows itself, the gift of righteousness extending on into an eternal
life. Therefore we may argue {188} _a fortiori_[1] from the influence
of Adam to the influence of Christ--[_a fortiori_, because, though God
has been, so to speak, constrained to punish us, His whole desire is to
do us good; and the method of diffusion which He has allowed to operate
for evil, we can be much more sure He will set to work for good][2].
We see the trespass of the one generating universal death, and we are
sure that the counter influence of Christ is as universally diffusive
and incomparably more powerful. We see the one man's offence appealing
to God for judgement and producing a condemned race; but we see, on the
other hand, a multitude of sins appealing to the divine compassion to
let loose the free gift which shall make for acquittal. If the
consequence of the transgression was inevitable, and a reign of death
followed, so much more certainly must the divine gift, abundant as it
is, bring about the triumph of eternal life. If the one fault diffused
itself in universal condemnation, so the one act which meets the divine
approval must diffuse itself to produce {189} universally an accepted
life. One disobedience made the whole race sinners: one obedience
shall make the whole race righteous. The law came in parenthetically
to the world of sin and death to let actual sin, like Adam's, have its
full and fatal scope. But the greatness of the sin only magnifies
still more the greatness of the remedy which divine goodness supplies,
that the sovereignty of sin in a world of death might be swallowed up
in the sovereignty of divine goodwill working through righteousness
unto life eternal through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Therefore, as through one man sin entered into the world, and death
through sin; and so death passed unto all men, for that all
sinned:--for until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed
when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until
Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the likeness of Adam's
transgression, who is a figure of him that was to come. But not as the
trespass, so also _is_ the free gift. For if by the trespass of the
one the many died, much more did the grace of God, and the gift by the
grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abound unto the many. And not as
through one that sinned, _so_ is the gift: for the judgement _came_ of
one unto condemnation, but the free gift _came_ of many trespasses unto
justification. For if, by the trespass of the one, death reigned
through the one; much more shall they that receive the abundance of
grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one,
_even_ Jesus Christ. So then as through one trespass _the judgement
came_ unto all men to {190} condemnation; even so through one act of
righteousness _the free gift came_ unto all men to justification of
life. For as through the one man's disobedience the many were made
sinners, even so through the obedience of the one shall the many be
made righteous. And the law came in beside, that the trespass might
abound; but where sin abounded, grace did abound more exceedingly:
that, as sin reigned in death, even so might grace reign through
righteousness unto eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
1. St. Paul in this section, as also in part in his speech at Athens,
teaches, as matter which can be assumed and need not be emphasized,
that God made 'of one' (Adam) 'every nation of men[3]'; that Adam, by
actual transgression of a divine commandment, introduced sin, and with
sin death which is its punishment, into the world of man; and that as a
result all men sinned. This universal sin he would, no doubt--as in
chapter i, so here--ascribe in part to men's own wills. In this very
chapter he asserts that what finally 'abounded' was actual
'transgression' like Adam's[4]. But this is not the whole account of
the matter. Prior to all question of actual sins; prior to all
question of knowledge or consequent responsibility, death was
universal, and death marked the inward reign {191} of sin. Men in the
mass were, through Adam's sin, constituted sinners[5].
St. Paul then, assuming here as elsewhere[6] the narrative of Gen. iii
as true in substance if not in form, teaches (1) the unity of our race
as derived from Adam; (2) the original transgression of Adam, as being
partly the example of subsequent sins and partly the source of a moral
corruption, which since his fall has been inherent in our race
independently of any actual sins; and (3) the introduction of death
_into the human race_ as the punishment of sin.
On the other hand, the common idea of an imputation of Adam's guilt to
his descendants he expressly does not teach. Sin is not imputed or
reckoned as guilt to the individual apart from the knowledge necessary
to constitute responsibility[7]. It is extraordinary how the idea of
imputed _guilt_ can have come to be ascribed to St. Paul when he
expressly guards against it. What the descendants of Adam inherit is
an actual inherent weakness or sinfulness. Again, St. Paul does not
attempt to analyze the actual sin of the world so as to discriminate
between the factors of inherited {192} weakness on the one hand and
reiterated acts of rebellion on the other; but he recognizes both. His
language indeed here, and in chapter vii, would be satisfied by a very
moderate doctrine of the effects of original sin, that is, of the
transmitted effect of sin, considered apart from its repetition. There
is no warrant whatever in St. Paul for the idea that one man's sin
resulted in the total depravity of human nature. Once more he is
content, as usual, to teach generally and without exactness. Thus he
does not consider the exceptions to the universal law of death recorded
in the Old Testament--Enoch and Elijah--though he, no doubt, recognized
them. That in spite of these exceptions he still states the law with
such universality: 'Death reigned from Adam to Moses even over them
that had not sinned[8]' is a warning not to understand St. Paul's
universal propositions with an exactness only applicable to those of a
schoolman or a modern man of science.
2. So much for the substance of St. Paul's teaching; and now what is
to be said as to its sources? St. Paul states his doctrine of original
sin as if it were a commonplace which he could {193} assume and argue
from. Now the Book of Genesis certainly spoke of a primaeval
disobedience in our first parents, and of the infliction on them, as a
penalty for their disobedience, of conditions of strife and pain and
death. But the idea of the transmission of _sinfulness_ does not seem
to be suggested. Moreover, this narrative made remarkably little
impression on the Old Testament literature as a whole[9]. The
doctrine, however, of the introduction of _death_ through the
temptation and sin of Adam and Eve is found again in the apocryphal
literature: thus, 'God created man for incorruption, ... but by the
envy of the devil death entered into the world[10].' From a woman was
the beginning of sin; and because of her we all die[11].' Unto Adam
thou gavest thy one commandment, which he transgressed, and immediately
thou appointedst death for him and in his generations; and there were
born of him nations and tribes, peoples {194} and kindreds, out of
number[12].' 'Adam sinned, and death was decreed against those who
should be born[13].' This was also the prevalent doctrine of the
Rabbis represented in the Talmud. The idea of an inheritance of
_moral_ corruption--but not specially associated with Adam's fall--may
be found in the cry of the Psalmist, 'In sin hath my mother conceived
me!' perhaps also in other passages of the Old Testament, and in our
Lord's teaching, as recorded both by the Synoptists and in St. John's
Gospel[14]; but as connected with Adam's sin it does not, so far as can
be ascertained, appear for certain in Jewish literature till we get to
the Second Book of Esdras, a Jewish Apocalypse later than St. Paul.
There it is taught that there was originally a seed of evil, 'a wicked
heart,' in Adam as he was created, side by side with the good in him,
and that he by his sin gave it preponderance in the race[15]--a form of
teaching not by any means identical with St. Paul's. On the whole,
then, it remains a matter of some doubt what exactly was the source
{195} whence St. Paul got the certainty and completeness of his
doctrine of 'the fault and corruption of the nature of every man that
naturally is ingendered of the offspring of Adam.'
3. The more important question for us, however, is not whence St. Paul
derived the materials for his teaching, but whether it is true--whether
it can hold in the light of modern anthropology. And to this question
only a partial answer--the answer that appears to be most
necessary--will be attempted here[16].
We are in our generation rightly anxious if we are asked to accept any
professedly historical statement for which we feel the evidence is
doubtful. We know that from the point of view of history the origin of
our human species is lost in dense obscurity and uncertainty. And it
relieves many consciences to realize that, if St. Paul states his
argument in a form which implies the historical character of the
narrative in Genesis iii, all that is necessary for his argument is to
assume (1) that the human race is organically one, and can be dealt
with as one; (2) that sin is universal in our race; (3) that at least
the sting or curse or bondage of death is due to sin. If we realize
that this is all that {196} need be allowed in order to give us full
fellowship in St. Paul's religious teaching, we shall be able to
investigate the further truth of his teaching, from a scientific and
historical point of view, with a free mind.
And the three propositions stated above are not reasonably open to
doubt, (1) That our race is one species, and derived from one source,
is the conclusion of the modern ethnologist as much as of St. Paul[17].
The general theory of evolution has effectively counteracted the
previous tendency to postulate the existence of various independent
races of men.
(2) There are many professors of psychology who deny the existence of
moral freedom and consequently of sin in St. Paul's sense at all. As I
have already pointed out, this is the real battle-ground between
theology and science. But granted the reality of moral freedom and of
{197} sin, i.e. of something which need not and ought not to have been
committed, it is impossible to deny that, below the innumerable sins of
which human history is full, there exists deep in our nature an
'ineradicable taint'--a morbid tendency to do wrong--a bias or
propensity to evil--which is the heritage of our race; which indeed men
may become unconscious of by acquiescing in sin, but of which they
become painfully conscious again as soon as they are awakened to a
moral ideal. The late Dr. Mozley collected a remarkable series of
passages from what he calls 'worldly philosophers and poets'--notably
Byron and Shelley--testifying to the belief in universal sin[18]. This
of course we may say is only the inheritance of animal tendencies from
an animal ancestry; but if so, it is exactly what our higher spiritual
nature might and ought to have subdued long ago and brought into
subjection. Its presence with us and in us now is the result of sins
innumerable--innumerable wilful preferences of the lower to the higher
nature, which have let it loose and given it force. It is, in the
strictest sense, the inheritance of sin in the race.
(3) The New Testament frequently reiterates {198} the assertion that
Christ has robbed death of its sting or delivered men from its bondage.
And this is also expressed (both by St. Paul and by our Lord Himself,
as reported by St. John) by saying that Christ has 'abolished
death[19]' or that the believer shall never die[20]. But if Christ has
abolished death, then there is at least a certain sense in which sin
has been the cause of death. The essence of death, according to this
use of the word, lies not in the physical transition from one state of
existence to another, which is no more death than it is birth. Death
means destruction, ruin and collapse. And what is called death--the
death of the present body--has only gathered about it such terrible
associations because men have become corrupt, and godless and therefore
short-sighted in their estimate of life. In the moral sense then in
which Christ abolished death, sin certainly introduced it for man.
Now there is, I think, reason to believe more exactly with St. Paul
than is involved in these three positions[21]. But I feel sure that
any one who accepts these three positions--no one of which any believer
in God and morality can well {199} reject--may find himself in complete
practical fellowship with St. Paul's religious thought and with the
whole argument of this epistle.
Humanity, in spite of all its racial differences, is a great unity: it
is, if not 'of one' individual, yet 'of one blood,' and it is as a
whole infected with sin; this is in effect the doctrine of the 'old
Adam.' And because it is one, and universally tainted, therefore
Christ can deal with it as one, in order to accomplish its restoration.
And all St. Paul's argument holds good. God has made humanity one, and
so one that what each does tends to affect all. Thus it has come about
that the force of sin--the wilful refusal of the higher life and choice
of the lower--has passed in its effects into the moral fibre of our
race, and weakened and corrupted the whole. God tolerates this, for
man must be, and must be dealt with as being, one and free. But God
desires the well-being of man. He hates sin. It has all but baffled
His purpose for man. Therefore, if He has tolerated the use which sin
has made of the organic unity of the human race, He can much more be
trusted to use that same unity for the purpose of good. As man is one
in sin, so we can be one in righteousness: as the old Adam has been
{200} universal, so can the new. As sin has been propagated
physically, so Christ can spiritually propagate the new manhood. The
forces of recovery shall spread and permeate more radically than the
forces of evil, and shall finally triumph.
Of course, in view of all the deep racial differences between, for
instance, Europeans, Chinamen, and the races of India, to believe in
the unity of humanity in any real sense at all is a great act of faith.
But it is an act of faith in which science encourages us, and not least
the comparative study of religions. Our religious instincts and
faculties are found in very different degrees of development, but they
are fundamentally the same. And it is an act of faith to which Christ
and Christianity fundamentally commit us, though it is probably true to
say that since New Testament times the brotherhood of men has been
practically found to be the most difficult of Christian dogmas.