guides, and overrules it and often punishes sin with sin. "Das ist der Fluch der bösen That, dass
sie, fortzeugend, immer Böses muss gebären." (Schiller.)
In this mysterious problem of predestination Paul likewise faithfully carries out the teaching
of his Master. For in the sublime description of the final judgment, Christ says to the "blessed of
my Father:" "Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world" (Matt. 25:34),
but to those on the left hand he says, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into the eternal fire which is
prepared for the devil and his angels" (25:41). The omission of the words "of my Father," after "ye
cursed," and of the words, for you, "and, from the foundation of the world," is very significant, and
implies that while the inheritance of the kingdom is traced to the eternal favor of God, the damnation
is due to the guilt of man.
IV. The doctrine of Justification. This occupies a prominent space in Paul’s system, though
by no means to the disparagement of his doctrine of sanctification, which is treated with the same
fulness even in Romans (comp. Rom. 6–8 and 12–15). Luther, in conflict with Judaizing Rome,
overstated the importance of justification by faith when he called it the articulus stantis vel cadentis
ecclesiae. This can only be said of Christ (comp. Matt. 16:16; 1 Cor. 3:11; 1 John 4:2, 3). It is not
even the theme of the Epistle to the Romans, as often stated (e.g., by Farrar, St. Paul, II. 181); for
it is there subordinated by γάρto the broader idea of salvation (σωτηρία), which is the theme (Rom
1:16, 17). Justification by faith is the way by which salvation can be obtained.
The doctrine of justification may be thus illustrated:
Δικαιοσύνη
( , )
Δικαιοσύνη τοῦ νόμουΔικαιοσύνη τοῦ θεοῦ
ἐξ ἔργωνἐκ θεοῦ
ἰδία.τῆ ς πίστεως
ἐκ τῆ ς πίστεως
διὰ πίστεως Χριστοῦ.
The cognate words are δικαίωσις, δικαίωμα, δίκαιος, δικαιόω. The Pauline idea of
righteousness is derived from the Old Testament, and is inseparable from the conception of the
holy will of God and his revealed law. But the classical usage is quite consistent with it, and
illustrates the biblical usage from a lower plane. The Greek words are derived from jus, right, and
further back from. δίχα, or div", two-fold, in two parts (according to Aristotle, Eth. Nic., v. 2);
hence they indicate a well-proportioned relation between parts or persons where each has his due.
It may then apply to the relation between God and man, or to the relation between man and man,
or to both at once. To the Greeks a righteous man was one who fulfils his obligations to God and
man. It was a Greek proverb: "In righteousness all virtue is contained."
Δικαιοσύνη()קדֶצֶ הקָדָצְ is an attribute of God, and a corresponding moral condition of
man, i.e., man’s conformity to the will of God as expressed in his holy law. It is therefore identical
with true religion, with piety and virtue, as required by God, and insures his favor and blessing.
The word occurs (according to Bruder’s Concord.) sixty times in all the Pauline Epistles, namely:
thirty-six times in Romans, four times in Galatians, seven times in 2 Corinthians, once in 1
Corinthians, four times in Philippians, three times in Ephesians, three times in 2 Timothy, once in
1 Timothy, and once in Titus.A.D. 1-100.