chosen by the Apostle to prove that we are delivered from the Law? It is no outward ordinance, no ceremonial observance, but a moral precept, the deep heart-searching principle of moral obedience. "Thou shalt not covet" (Rom. vii. 7, μǹ éπiðvμýσeis). This is the law of which St. Paul says that it wrought in him all manner of concupiscence, and that sin took occasion by it, and slew him. How could these deadly effects result from the moral law which is holy just and good, ordained to life, except from its being perversely regarded as a means of earning justification, which its nature as law forbids?

Lastly, as the best apology for a long discussion, we will quote the weighty words of Bp. Lightfoot, "on a fresh Revision of the New Testament," p. 99. "The distinction between vóμos and à vóμos is very commonly disregarded, and yet it is full of significance. Behind the concrete representation-the Mosaic law itself-St. Paul sees an imperious principle, an overwhelming presence, antagonistic to grace, to liberty, to spirit, and (in some aspects) even to lifeabstract law, which, though the Mosaic ordinances are its most signal and complete embodiment, nevertheless is not exhausted therein, but exerts its crushing power over the conscience in diverse manifestations. The one-the concrete and special-is ó vóμos; the other-the abstract and universal-is νόμος. To the full understanding of such passages as Rom. ii. 12 sq., iii. 19 sq., iv. 13 sq., vii. 1 sq., Gal. iii. 10 sq., and indeed to an adequate conception of the leading idea of St. Paul's doctrine of law and grace, this distinction is indispensable.'

We will only add that "law" assumes this form of an imperious principle opposed to grace and liberty only when it is viewed as the condition of justification, the means of attaining to righteousness before God through the merit of good works. Viewed according to its true idea as the expression of God's will, and the guide of man's obedience, it "is holy, just, and good," "spiritual," and "ordained to life" (vii. 10, 12, 14).

THE FLESH.

The word "flesh" (σápέ) occurs twenty-eight times in Romans, and frequently in St. Paul's other Epistles, especially Galatians: it has various meanings which must be carefully distinguished, if we wish to have a clear understanding of the Apostle's teaching in many important passages. The inquiry has been made more necessary by the efforts of recent writers to show that St. Paul's use of the words "flesh" and "spirit" agrees not so much with the Old Testament as with the dualism of the Greek philosophy of his age.

This view of St. Paul's doctrine of "the Flesh" is adopted with various modifications by Holsten, R. Schmidt, Lüdemann, and Pfleiderer. Their several views are briefly stated and compared by Wendt in a good monograph "Die Begriffe: Fleisch und Geist ;" Pfleiderer's views are contained in his 'Paulinism,' PP. 35-67. We can only notice the chief points of the theory.

The Finite and the Infinite, Man and God, are said to be conceived by St. Paul as "Flesh" and "Spirit." These are contrasted first in a physical sense.

"Flesh" is the earthly, material, living substance of man's body; even the "soul" (vxn) is included in the "flesh," being the vitality or animating force of its earthly matter. The antithesis to "flesh" is "spirit," a higher material but not earthly substance, belonging exclusively to the Divine nature, and having as its essential characteristic a life-giving force. According to one view (Holsten's) the whole man is made up of "flesh": 'spirit" forms no part of his nature, but is simply transcendental and Divine (Wendt, pp. 80, 86).

66

"Flesh," in its physical aspect, is weak, transient and perishable: in the intellectual world it is the principle of error: in the sphere of morals, it is the principle of evil, and here it comes into direct conflict with "spirit," as an opposing force (ib. p. 81).

"Thus from the opposition of physically different substances, as set forth in 1 Cor. xv. results the dualism of antagonistic moral principles" (Pfleiderer, i. p. 54).

"Flesh and Spirit both are to Paul not inert but active substances (Rom. viii. 5 ff). The flesh works as sensual desire, the spirit as non-sensual will" (Holsten, 'Das Evangelium d. Paulus,' p. 127).

This idea of the "flesh" is supposed to pervade St. Paul's system of doctrine: it explains his view of the Law, of Sin, of Christ's Person and work.

(1) Disregarding the ceremonial ordinances as having reference only to the "flesh," he recognises the Moral Law as spiritual and divine.

(2) Sin has its natural source in the "flesh," which is in itself unholy, in opposition to "spirit" which is holy. But the sin thus actually grounded in man's nature (ȧpapría) is at first unconscious and guiltless, and is thus distinguished from conscious transgression (rapáßaris). Indwelling sin is thus a real though unconscious tendency of the "flesh" to strive against the "spirit," and the spiritual law, and thus it inevitably and of necessity produces conscious transgression and the sense of guilt (ib. p. 82).

(3) Christ even in His pre-existent state is regarded as man, the heavenly spiritual man: His "flesh" belongs not to His permanent Being, but only to His earthly life.

Sin (auapría, not aρáßaσis) dwelt in His flesh as in that of other men: and hence the indwelling power of sin was destroyed in the destruction of the earthly substance of His flesh.

The "new life" of believers consists in the gift of the Divine spirit whereby they appropriate and realise in their own persons this effect of Christ's death, by continually subduing the flesh to the spirit, a process which will be perfected only in the end of the world, when matter, in its grosser form, will be wholly overpowered by spirit (ib. p. 83).

It is evident even from this brief and imperfect sketch that in this so-called Pauline doctrine we have quite "another gospel," and not that which St. Paul has been usually supposed to preach. The theory, in all the various forms under which it is presented, is mainly founded upon the assumption that St. Paul regards the "flesh" as essentially sinful. New Test.-VOL. III.

It thus involves the necessary consequence that our Blessed Lord not only bare "the likeness of sinful flesh," but that His flesh itself was sinful: see note on viii. 3.

It will not then be thought a needless labour if we try to ascertain what meaning the Apostle really attached to a word so important in his teaching as "the flesh."

I. In its original and proper meaning σáps denotes the material of the living body, whether of man or of other animals, as in Lev. xvii. II.

In this sense it occurs in ii. 28, "circumcision, which is outward in the flesh": compare Bp. Lightfoot's note on Col. i. 22, "in the body of his flesh." It must be observed that in xiv. 21, "to eat flesh," the Greek word is not σáps but kpeas, which means dead flesh, a distinction rightly observed by the LXX in translating the Hebrew word (a) which means flesh either dead or living.

2. In the common Hebrew phrase "all flesh" (Gen. vi. 12, 13, 19; vii. 21) all earthly living things are included with man, except where the context limits the meaning to mankind (Job xii. 10; Ps. lxv. 2; Joel. ii. 28). În Rom. iii. 20, οὐ δικαιωθήσεται πᾶσα σὰρξ ἐνώπιον avrov, a quotation from Ps. cxliii. 2, St. Paul has substituted "no flesh" for

66

no man living," and the change may have been made on purpose to strengthen the contrast between man, in his imperfect nature, and the God before whom he stands.

3. Flesh" is applied by St. Paul to human kindred, as in ix. 3, “ my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh,” xi. 14,

66

my flesh." This usage, like the preceding, is derived from the Old Testament: see Gen. xxxvii. 27, "he is our brother, and our flesh." We cannot see that it necessarily implies, as Wendt supposes, p. 159, a contrast between the merely human relation, and the relation of man to God, or between "flesh" and "spirit." The nature derived by kinsmen from a common ancestor is simply described by that part of it which is visible and palpable.

In ix. 8, on the other hand, there is an express contrast made between "the

D

children of the flesh" and "the children of the promise," equivalent to the contrast in Gal. iv. 29 between him "that was born after the flesh" and "him that was born after the Spirit."

In iv. 1, where Abraham is called "our forefather according to the flesh," a similar contrast seems to be implied between a merely natural and a spiritual relation.

In neither passage however does the contrast, expressed or implied, involve a judgment upon the moral quality of "the flesh," but it is distinguished from "the Spirit," as that which is merely natural from that which is above nature. In this usage σápέ represents man's purely natural, earthly condition, condition in which he is subject to infirmity, suffering, and death, subject also to the temptations which work through the senses and their appetites, but not originally and essentially sinful.

66

a

It is in this sense that Christ is said in i. 3 to have been "made of the seed of David as to the flesh," and in ix. 5 to have sprung as concerning the flesh," from Israel. In both passages oápέ denotes what was simply and solely natural in his earthly lifc.

4. Though "the flesh" is not essentially sinful, it is essentially weak, and hence the word is used to describe man in his weakness, physical, intellectual, or moral. As connoting mere physical weakness oápέ is found in several passages of St. Paul's Epistles (2 Cor. iv. 11 vii. 5; xii. 7; Gal. ii. 20; iv. 13) but not in Romans. We may remark that such a passage as Gal. ii. 20, "the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God," is decisive against the notion that "flesh" is something essentially sinful.

Yet mere physical weakness of the flesh may be a hindrance to man's spirit, as in Matt. xxvii. 41, "the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak;" and the human spirit thus hampered by the weakness of the flesh is so far unfitted to be the organ of the Spirit of God.

This opposition of "the flesh" to all that is spiritual is more clearly inarked, when "the flesh" is regarded as the

cause of intellectual weakness: this is the case in Rom. vi. 19, “I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh," a passage which should be compared with 1 Cor. ii. 14, iii. 1.

5. Before we proceed to examine the passages in which St. Paul speaks of "the flesh" in its ethical quality as affected by sin (ràpέ åμaprías), it will be desirable to notice how those who would prove that the Apostle regards "the flesh" as essentially sinful endeavour to remove the obstacle presented by Rom. v. 12 to the acceptance of their theory.

It is admitted by Pfleiderer ('Paulinism,' p. 45) that the words sin entered into the world "undoubtedly imply the entrance of something new, which consequently did not previously exist at all," and therefore "it is quite out of place to introduce here the doctrine of the σáp as the natural principle of sin, for this passage expressly exhibits the principle of sin not as natural, but as of historical origin."

But

This evident meaning of Rom. v. 12 is admitted to be inconsistent with the doctrine attributed to St. Paul in Rom. vii., that "the flesh" is originally and by its own nature, prior to the first man's transgression, the principle of sin. instead of regarding this formal contradiction as a reason for doubting his own view of the doctrine in Rom. vii., Pfleiderer finds in it a reason for setting aside what he has already admitted to be the unquestionable meaning of v. 12: "If we are compelled to confess that there is a formal contradiction between Rom. v. 12 f. and Paul's doctrine of the sinful σápέ, we are all the more justified in penetrating through the obvious form of the doctrine in Rom. v. 12 f. to the speculative idea embodied in it, which is so plainly suggested by the actual words of Paul, where he identifies the act of Adam with the common act of all. soon as we grasp the thought that it was not in truth the first man as an individual who was the subject of the fall, but man as man, we see the historical beginning to be merely the form which expresses the universality of the principle which has no beginning; and thus the sub

So

stantial agreement of the passage with the line of thought in Rom. vii. is placed beyond doubt."

Before we can consent thus to set aside the obvious and acknowledged sense of Rom. v. 12 in favour of a "speculative idea" altogether contradictory to "the Jewish theological doctrine" (Pfleiderer, p. 46), we ought to be fully convinced that the proposed interpretation of the Apostle's line of thought in Rom. vii. is at least as obvious and as certain, as his meaning in Rom. v. 12 is acknowledged to be. In other words, it ought to be shown that in Rom. vii. "the flesh" is distinctly declared to be originally and in its own nature sinful, and that no other interpretation is admissible.

We proceed to examine this point. In vii. 5, "when we were in the flesh" St. Paul speaks as one who is "in the flesh" no longer: "the flesh" therefore cannot here mean the material substance of the body per se, nor this earthly bodily state per se, but only as subject to some quality formerly attached to it, namely, as the context shows, a predominant sinful propensity. This quality is therefore accidental and separable, and not of the essence of "the flesh" considered as the material substance of the body and so St. Paul can write "the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God" (Gal. ii. 20), a passage which, as clearly as Rom. vii. 5, refutes the notion that "the flesh," i.e. the material living substance of the body, is essentially sinful.

The next passage in which the word occurs is vii. 18, "For I know that in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing." Here not only is the moral weakness and worthlessness of "the flesh" asserted in the strongest possible terms, but the utter absence of good is alleged as evidence of something worse than weakness, of positive indwelling sin (v. 17).

"The flesh" then is regarded by St. Paul as a dwelling-place, and seat, not necessarily the only seat, of sin: but it is important to observe that his judgment is the result of practical experience (oida), not of any speculative analysis

of the ideas of "flesh" and "sin." He found as a fact sin dwelling in his flesh : we may add that he regarded this as a fact of universal experience (iii. 9—20): but we have no reason to suppose that he regarded sin as inseparable from the very essence of " the flesh"; we are still far from the conclusion that in the Apostle's mind "the flesh is by its nature and from the beginning the principle of sin " (Pfleiderer, p. 62).

We pass on to vii. 25: "So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin."

Here the form of the sentence distinguishes "the flesh" from "the sin" which gives law to it, as clearly as it distinguishes "the mind" from God whose law it serves. Sin in fact appears not as an essential property of the flesh, but as a power which has brought it into bondage.

The flesh thus ruled by sin becomes a chief source of opposition, not only to the better impulses of "the mind," but also to the law of God and to the influence of His Spirit. Hence it naturally becomes personified; and that which was a mere material substance, morally inert, is invested in the Apostle's thought with a spontaneous energy and a living will, with affections and lusts, that war not only against the soul, but against God, so that "the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary the one to the other" (Gal. v. 17).

It is in this sense that "the flesh" is so often mentioned in Rom. viii. as a principle pervading all man's earthly life, and ruling it in opposition to all that is spiritual and Divine: compare the notes on viii. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 12, 13; xii. 14 also see the notes on vii. 14 (σάρκινος) and xv. 27 (σαρκικός).

The preceding references include every passage in the Epistle in which rápέ and its derivatives occur. But one of these passages (viii. 3) requires to be further noticed.

Its true interpretation depends on our holding fast the original meaning of "the flesh" under every modification to which it is subjected in the Apostle's use. When it is said that the law

was weak through the flesh," we see that St. Paul is regarding "the flesh" in that point of view which he has fully explained in vii. 14-25, that is to say, he regards "the flesh" not only as morally worthless, devoid of all good (vii. 18), but as positively opposed to the law which is spiritual (v. 14), and as exercising such dominion over man's whole life that while the mind consents unto the law that it is good (v. 16), the will is not able to give effect to its better impulses, but is forced, as it were, unwillingly to do that which the conscience hates (v. 15). Against this controlling power of "the flesh" the law was weak.

But God sent his own Son in the likeness of this same flesh, which had in all men become "flesh of sin." In our notes on this passage we have fully discussed the meaning of the expression "likeness of flesh of sin," and have, as we believe, proved that it does not by any means imply that Christ's own flesh was sinful. It may be well to state the opposite view in the words of one of its most able and moderate advocates: "By means of the veμa ȧyworms, which constituted His personality (Rom. i. 4), Christ was free from personal sin; not merely from sinful actions, but from any personal inward experience whatsoever of sin as His own: He was one "who knew no sin," 2 Cor. v. 21. Notwithstanding this, He partook according to the flesh, or according to His outward man, of the universal human principle of sin, for He had as the material of His body the same flesh of sin as all other men" (Pfleiderer, Paulinism,' i. 152). This view is further connected, as we might expect, with a theory of Christ's pre-existent nature very different from that which St. Paul is usually supposed to teach. According to Pfleiderer Christ" was essentially and originally a heavenly man" (p. 132). He is the perfect image of God only so far as the Divine essence is " capable of manifestation." "But this being the very image of God is so far from being equal to Him, that on the contrary Christ's Lordship over the community

and the world implies his unconditiona subordination to God" (p. 135).

His being "in the form of God" (Phil. ii. 6) "by no means implies that He Himself was also God (☺eòs ô λóyos) ; on the contrary, the Pauline notion of being in the image of God distinctly includes within itself that of being the pattern of humanity" (p. 138).

In this theory we see one of the necessary results of the writer's misinterpretation of the "likeness of sinful flesh;" if Christ's own flesh is assumed to be sinful, we can escape from the intolerable thought that sin was in the Manhood taken into God, only by denying the Godhead of the Son.

On the contrary hold fast throughout, as the same writer frequently insists, that "the flesh" is everywhere "the material substance of the body" (pp. 48, 49, 57), and be content to combine with this what the same author (p. 52) calls "the common Hebraic notion of σápέ, according to which it signifies material substance which is void indeed of the spirit but not contrary to it, which is certainly weak and perishable, and so far unclean, but not positively evil,"-which in all men except Christ is corrupted and defiled by sin, but is neither sin itself, nor the original source of sin, nor in its essence sinful, and so we can understand how Christ by taking our flesh in its pure essence without sin, and preserving its sinlessness in every stage of our earthly existence through life and unto death, "condemned sin in the flesh," condemned it as having no rightful place or power there, condemned it as an enemy to be by His help conquered and cast out.

The method of interpretation which we have now applied to every passage in which the word σápέ occurs in the Epistle to the Romans is equally applicable to its use in other Epistles, and in the Bible generally. There is not, as we believe, a single passage which contains the doctrine that the flesh is the source of sin and essentially sinful,-a doctrine which dishonours not only man's nature, but the Father who created us, and the Son who for our redemption was made flesh, and dwelt among us.