a name above every name, that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue
confess that he is Lord.^786
Formerly the cross of Christ had been to the carnal Messianic expectations and
self-righteousness of Paul, as well as of other Jews, the greatest stumbling-block, as it was the
height of folly to the worldly wisdom of the heathen mind.^787 But the heavenly vision of the glory
of Jesus at Damascus unlocked the key for the understanding of this mystery, and it was confirmed
by the primitive apostolic tradition,^788 and by his personal experience of the failure of the law and
the power of the gospel to give peace to his troubled conscience. The death of Christ appeared to
him now as the divinely appointed means for procuring righteousness. It is the device of infinite
wisdom and love to reconcile the conflicting claims of justice and mercy whereby God could justify
the sinner and yet remain just himself.^789 Christ, who knew no sin, became sin for us that we might
become righteousness of God in him. He died in the place and for the benefit (ὑπέρ, περί) of sinners
and enemies, so that his death has a universal significance. If one died for all, they all died.^790 He
offered his spotless and holy life as a ransom (λύτρον) or price (τιμή) for our sins, and thus effected
our redemption (ἀπολύτρωσις), as prisoners of war are redeemed by the payment of an equivalent.
His death, therefore, is a vicarious sacrifice, an atonement, an expiation or propitiation ἱλασμός,
ἱλαστήριον, sacrificium expiatorium) for the sins of the whole world, and secured full and final
remission (ἄφεσις) and reconciliation between God and man (καταλλαγή). This the Mosaic law
and sacrifices could not accomplish. They could only keep alive and deepen the sense of the necessity
of an atonement. If righteousness came by the law, Christ’s death would be needless and fruitless.
His death removes not only the guilt of sin, but it destroyed also its power and dominion. Hence
the great stress Paul laid on the preaching of the cross (ὁ λόγος τοῦ σταυροῦ) in which alone he
would glory.^791
This rich doctrine of the atonement which pervades the Pauline Epistles is only a legitimate
expansion of the word of Christ that he would give his life as a ransom for sinners and shed his
blood for the remission of sins.
(3.) While Christ accomplished the salvation, the Holy Spirit appropriates it to the believer.
The Spirit is the religious and moral principle of the new life. Emanating from God, he dwells in
the Christian as a renewing, sanctifying, comforting energy, as the higher conscience, as a divine
guide and monitor. He mediates between Christ and the church as Christ mediates between God(^786) Rom. 8:3, 32; Phil. 2:6-11; 2 Cor. 8:9. On the Christology of Paul, see the Notes at the end of this section.
(^787) Gal. 5:11; 6:12. 1 Cor. 1:23.
(^788) 1 Cor. 15:3: "I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the
Scriptures."
(^789) Rom. 3:26: εἰς τὸ εἶναι αὐτὸν δίκαιον καὶ δικαιοῦντα τὸν ἐκ Χριστοῦ. Bengel calls this "summum paradoxon evangelicum."
(^790) 2 Cor. 5:15: ὅτι εἶς ὐπέρ πάντων ἀπέθανεν, ἄρα οἱ πάντες απέθανον. Mark the aorist. The prepositions ὑπέρ (used of
persons) and περί (of things, but also of persons) express the idea of benefit, but often in close connection with the idea of
vicariousness (ἀντί). Comp. Gal. 1:4; 3:13; Rom. 4:25; 5:6, etc
(^791) Rom. 3:21-26; 5:6-10; 8:32; 1 Cor. 1:17, 18; 2:2; 6:20; 7:23; 11:24; 15:3; 2 Cor. 5:15, 18, 19, 21; Gal. 1:4; 2:11 sqq.; 3:13;
6:14, etc. Comp. Weiss, p. 302; Pfleiderer, p. 7; Baur (N. T. Theol., p. 156). Holsten and Pfleiderer (in his able introduction)
regard the atoning death of Christ as the kernel of Paul’s theology, and Holsten promises to develop the whole system from thus
idea in his new work, Das Evangelium des Paulus, of which the first part appeared in 1880. But they deny the objective character
of the revelation at Damascus, and resolve it into a subjective moral struggle and a dialectical process of reflection and reasoning.
Luther passed through a similar moral conflict and reached the same conclusion, but on the basis of the Scriptures and with the
aid of the divine Spirit.
A.D. 1-100.