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3.11 - A History of Christianity in the Apostolic Age
The Christianity of Paul
Saved from Asceticism
In his effort to guard the Christian disciples whom he addresses in his epistles, from renewed subjection to the dominion of sin, Paul urges upon them a twofold treatment of the flesh; exhorting them on the one hand to break its power by bruising it, or by destroying and putting it to death; [Rom. 8:13; 1 Cor. 5:5, 9:27; 2 Cor. 4:10,11; Col. 3:5]* on the other hand, to take from under its control the bodily members which it has employed as instruments of sin and use them as instruments of righteousness. [Rom.6: 13,19; 1 Cor. 6:15-20]
The former method, which is ascetic in its tendency, is entirely in line with Paul's view of the flesh, and we might therefore naturally expect him to make much of it and find in asceticism the surest way to life. But the truth is that there is very little asceticism, in the ordinary sense, in Paul's epistles, [traces of it are to be found in 1 Cor. 7:1,8; and the passages referenced above *] while there is much that makes in the opposite direction. [Cf. Rom 14; 1 Cor. 6:12 sq., 10:23 sq]
Paul was perhaps saved from the natural result of his view of the flesh by his belief in the speedy consummation. "The time is shortened," he says, and "the fashion of this world passeth away." [1 Cor. 7:29,31] The danger to be apprehended, therefore, from the continued existence and presence of the flesh, did not seem as serious as it might otherwise, and a feeling of indifference and contempt for the flesh itself and for the earthly relations and environment which excited its lust, could take the place, at least at times, of the bitter hostility which it naturally aroused.
To this consideration is to be added the fact that Paul's dualism was at bottom religious and not cosmical, and that he could, therefore, in true Hebrew fashion, look upon "the earth and the fullness thereof: as the Lord's, [1 Cor. 10:26] could regard all things as belonging to him who is Christ's, [1 Cor. 3:23] and could esteem everything clean in itself, [Rom. 14:14,20] and lawful to the spiritual man. [1 Cor. 10:23]
But more than all, Paul was saved from asceticism by his conception of the Christian life as divine, and by his confidence in the power of the Spirit of God, whose indwelling alone makes that life possible.
Though at time, observing as he did in others, and feeling in himself the continued strength and vitality of the old flesh, he urged the trampling of the body under foot, as a rule, and when he was truest to himself, he was so vividly conscious of the power of the Spirit within him, that he felt himself complete master of the flesh, and could use it as his servant, employing all his members as instruments of righteousness. In fact, to admit that his body could not be so used, and that his only safety lay in its destruction, was really to impugn the power of Christ, as Paul himself evidently felt when he wrote such passages as Rom. 8:16, 17, 38; 1 Cor. 10:13; Gal. 4:6,7; Phil. 1:6.
But in accordance with his conception of the controlling power in the Christian life, Paul's exhortations to his Christian readers have reference commonly not to the Christian's attitude toward his fleshly nature, but to his relation to Christ or to the Divine Spirit within him. He is continually expressing the hope that those whom he addresses may keep their minds set on spiritual things, that they may put on Christ, that Christ may dwell in them richly, that they may be not their own, but Christ's, that they may live in the Spirit and walk in the Spirit, that they may not lose their hold on Christ, but that his Spirit may fill them and abound; [Rom. 8:14, 15:13; 1Cor. 6:19, 7:22; Gal. 5:16, 25; Eph. 5:18] and he is confident that if they do thus keep their hold on Christ, and if he does thus dwell in them, as he must if they are his, the flesh will have no power over them, even though they are not yet released from contact with it.
But even such exhortations as these fail to express the essence of the Christian life as Paul experienced it; and even such confidence is not the supreme confidence that sustains him and that gives him his wonderful religious power. It is Christ's hold upon the Christian that he trusts, not the Christian's hold upon Christ.
The Christian's life is not his own life, but Christ's life; and it is not in exhortations to Christians, therefore, whatever those exhortations may be, but in hymns of praise to God, that Paul's Gospel finds its truest expressions [Rom. 8:38 sq.]
Used by permission of the publisher.
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