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3.9 - A History of Christianity in the Apostolic Age
The Christianity of Paul
Eternal Life
It is instructive to notice in this connection that Paul found no difficulty in believing that, being thus released from the flesh, he would himself enjoy eternal life. It is plain that this was not because he had not himself sinned, for the seventh chapter of Romans makes it very clear, not simply that his flesh was sinful, but that he had himself been overpowered by his flesh, and had broken the law of God. If death, then, was conceived by him under the aspect of a penalty, inflicted upon all the guilty, it would seem that he ought to suffer the penalty, unless in some way he were to make expiation for his guilt, or be forgiven for it. But of such expiation there is no trace in Paul, and, as already remarked, he was ethically too rigorous to entertain the idea of the removal of penalty by mere forgiveness.
That he could believe, therefore, that he would enjoy eternal life, though he had been a sinner, was evidently due to the fact that he regarded death not primarily as a penalty, inflicted by way of punishment upon a guilty person, but as the inevitable consequence of corruption; that he conceived of it, in other words, chiefly under the aspect of physical death, or the extinction of an evil nature. [Cf. Gal. 6:8]
Being freed from that nature, and becoming partaker of a spiritual, holy, and divine nature, the Christian escapes the death of his old sarx and enters upon the life of his new pnuema, and that without regard to his past. It is not so much forgiveness, as a new life; not so much pardon for the old, as release from it that is needed, and that is secured, according to Paul, when a man dies with Christ unto the flesh, and rises with him in the Spirit.
But having already died with Christ unto the flesh, and risen with him in the Spirit, by virtue of his real union with Christ, a man who is united to Christ does not die again. The new life in the Spirit, upon which he has already entered, is not temporary merely, but eternal. [Cf. e.g. Rom.6:8-11, 23]
The death of the body, then, which is universal, and which ultimately ensues in the case of the believer as well as of the unbeliever, is the death not of the man himself, but simply of his flesh. He has already been freed from the control of the flesh and has become a partaker of the divine nature, and so he lives on in spite of the death of his flesh.
That death is not a misfortune or a curse to him, as it would be if he were still living in the flesh, when he would be dragged to destruction with it; but, on the contrary, it is a blessing to him, but by it he is released from contact with the flesh, and from the constant temptations to yield to its evil solicitations, and by it he is liberated from the present evil world, to which he is bound so long as he is in his earthly body, and is enabled to ascend into the heavenly sphere where he truly belongs because he partakes of the Divine Spirit.
When this finial release from all contact with the flesh has taken place, and not until then, is a man's salvation complete. [Cf. Rom. 8:11] And so Paul longs for the redemption of his body, for the replacement of this body of sinful flesh by a new spiritual body in which resides no evil. [Rom. 8:23; 1 Cor. 15:54 sq.]
Used by permission of the publisher.
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