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inexplicable on any otlier hypothesis (see also the next paragraph).

4. The Atonement. — 'As in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made aUve.' ' The last Adam became a life-giving spirit' (1 Co 15i«- «; cf. Ro 5"-"). Our Lord is the 'second' or 'last' Adam, thus re-establish-ing what the first Adam destroyed. It has been thought that ' the second Adam ' was a common Rabbinic title for the Messiah, but this seems doubtful. The term 'first Adam' is found, but is used in contradistinction to other men ('Adam' ='man'), not as opposed to Messiah (Thackeray, op. cit. p. 41). Others have thought that St. Paul got his contrast between Adam and Christ from Philo and the Alexandrian Jewish school. However this may be, St. Paul teaches that our Lord came to be the Second Adam 'from heaven' (1 Co 16"), to restore all things, to be the representative man, and to recapitulate or sum up the human species in Himself (cf. Eph 1"), to show to fallen humanity what God meant man to be.

This restoration was to be by the death of Jesus, by a sacrifice. Christ was set forth by God to be a propitiation, or (as we shotild perhaps translate) to be propitiatory (Ro 3^; cf. 1 Jn 2' 4i»). The word is used in LXX as a substantive meaning 'the place of propitiation' or 'the mercy seat,' the top of the arlc, so called because it was sprinkled with the blood of the sacrifices; but this can hardly be the meaning in Rom., as the metaphor would be confused, Christ being at once the priest, victim, and place of sprinkling; and the second translation is therefore preferable (so Sanday-Headlam, Romans, p. 87 f.). But to understand the meaning we must notice (a) that here as elsewhere (Ro 5», Eph 1' 213, Col 1»- 2») the blood of our Lord, shed for the forgiveness of sins, is emphasized; and (6) that in Ro S" Jesus' death is said to be a ' reconcilia-tion' or 'atonement.' Man is reconciled to, made 'at one' with, God; his attitude to God is changed (cf. 2 Co 5"). God is not here said to be reconciled to man, because it is man, not God, who must change if there is to be reconciliation, as is said in Col 1=' (where see Lightfoot's note). Yet there is another side of the same truth, alluded to in the Anglican Article ii. ('to reconcile his Father to us'). The word 'propitiatory' of Ro 3^ can only mean that by Christ's death, God is propitiated, that is, God's just anger is taken away from us. [In 2 Mac 1' 7=" 8^' God is said ' to be rec-onciled' to man.]

This reconciliation is effected by a vicarious sacrifice. In ordinary life vicarious suffering is common, and is usually involuntary. But Christ freely offered Him-self (Gal 2">, 1 Ti 2\ Tit 2"), the sinless for the guilty. He was 'made sin in our behalf' (2 Co S^'; cf. 1 Co 6' 15', Gal 3").

This sacrifice was for all men (2 Co 5"'-). And here we notice that St. Paul does not attempt to reconcile the Divine sovereignty with man's choice, God's pre-destination with human freewill. He sometimes states the former (.e.g. Ro 9), sometimes the latter (.e.g. Ro 10), looking sometimes at one side of the truth, sometimes at the other. On the one hand, God is the potter with power over the clay (Ro 9^'), foreordaining and calling before the foundation of the world (Ro 8'"- 9^'-, Eph 1"), purposing that all men shall be saved (Ro ll'^, 1 Ti 2* 4'"), sending His Son to the world not only to save mankind generally, as a body, but to save each in-dividual (cf. Gal 2™). On the other hand, man can exercise his free will to thwart God's purpose, as all Israel except a remnant did (Ro 9^^' 11'- '), and the call does not necessitate salvation (1 Co 9^'). The election is therefore to 'privilege,' as it is called; God has chosen certain men to receive privileges in this world, as Jews in the Old Covenant, Christians in the New. Yet there Is also an election to life; the 'glory' of Ro 92"- is not of this world only. Here St. Paul leaves the question, and we may do well to avoid theorizing

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on it, whether in the direction of the Arminian view (named from van Harraen, a.d. 1660-1609), which was that God knows who will and who will not respond to His call, and therefore predestinates the former to life; or of the Calvinist or ultra-Augustinian view, which is that predestination is arbitrary, and that Christ died only for those predestined to life ('particular redemp-tion'). The paradox is insoluble with our present knowledge, and we must patiently wait for its solution in the fuller light of the world to come. It may be remarked that St. Paul, while dwelling on both the goodness and the severity of God (Ro 2* 11^2), never speaks of predestination to condemnation.

By another metaphor the atoning work of our Lord is called by St. Paul a 'ransom' or 'redemption.' We are 'bought with a price' (1 Co 6™ 7"; cf. Gal 3" 45, Tit 2" etc., and 2 P 2'). In his charge to the presby-ters of Ephesus, St. Paul speaks of ' the church of God which he purchased with his own blood' (Ac 20^'). Without stopping to discuss the other difficulties of this verse (for we cannot be sure that we have St. Paul's ipsissima verba), we may remark that the metaphor of purchase or ransom must not be pressed too far. There need be no question of the person to whom the price is paid, whether it be God the Father, or Satan, who is supposed by some to have acquired a right to man by the Fall. The force of the metaphor lies, not in the person recompensed, but in the price paid. It is the immensity of the sacrifice that is emphasized, and the figure must not be carried further than this.

6. Resurrection and Ascension of our Lord. — The former event is made by St. Paul the great foundation of his teaching. In 1 Co 15'" he explains the gospel which he preached as he had received it, that Christ died, was buried, and was raised on the third day (the 'scriptures' referred to seem to be Is 53'''-, Ps le**-); the historical fact of the resurrection was, he says, witnessed by Cephas, 'the twelve,' the 500 brethren [in Galilee?] of whom most still survived, James [not in Gospels or Acts], 'all the apostles' [at the Ascension?], and lastly by himself as 'one born out of due time.' The appearance of Christ at his conversion he took to be as real and as little a hallucination as the appear-ances before the Ascension. So far from the fact of the appearance to St. Paul and those to the rest being put on a par showing that in St. Paul's view the latter were pure hallucinations, it shows that he was convinced of the reality of both alike (cf. esp. 1 Co 9'). The criterion of Apostleship was that a man had seen Jesus, not merely dreamt that he had seen Him. In a word, if Christ's resurrection be false, Paul's preaching is vain, our faith is vain (1 Co 15"; cf. 1 Th 1'" 4", 2 Ti 2' etc.). The historical fact is treated as fundamental in the sermons at Pisidian Antioch (Ac 133i'9-), at Athens (17"), and before Agrippa (2623); and the salient point of Paul's teaching seized on by Festus was that he affirmed Jesus, who was dead ['had died'], to be alive (25"). It is this fact that is the great power of the Christian life (Ph S").

The Ascension and Future Return of our Lord are often alluded to by St. Paul (see also 10 below). It is explicitly stated in Eph 4» that Jesus ascended to give 'gifts unto men,' and Ps 68" is quoted. Jesus is exalted in glory (Ph 2«, 1 Ti 3"), or, in the symbolic language found also elsewhere in N'T, expressing the same fact, is seated on the right hand of God (Ro S>*, Eph 1™, Col 3', from Ps llO'); so the believer is made to sit in heavenly places (Eph 2'). Jesus is expected to return 'from heaven' (1 Th l" 4"', Ph 3'"), to judge the world (2 Co 5'», 2 Ti 4*, Ac 17='; cf. Jn 5=2. «).— It is said, however, by Prof. Harnack that the Ascension had no separate place in primitive Christian tradition, and that the Resurrection and Session were thought of as one act. As regards St. Paul, his silence in 1 Co IS'"-, Ro 8" as to the Ascension is alleged. In the former place reference to the Ascension would have no

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