against these superhuman and supermundane powers (Eph. vi. 12), in which the devil summons every means of cunning (ver. 11) and power (ver. 16) to bring about the fall of believers (ver. 13). When one allows any sin whatever to master him, he gives way again to the devil (Eph. iv. 27). In conformity with the victory gotten in principle already, this contest must end in the final victory of Christ, who is able finally to subdue all things to Himself (Phil. iii. 21; comp. 1 Cor. xv. 24).8 (c) That Christ has brought about the reconciliation of sinful men with God, our Epistles teach in full agreement with the earlier (§ 100, c); but the steady use of the compound double άжоκаTaλλáσσew (Col. i. 21; Eph. ii. 16) seems to point directly to the thought, that this reconciliation has but restored the original relation of humanity to God (comp. Col. i. 20). Even the closer relation into which God entered with Israel by the setting up of the theocracy is regarded as guilt. Then only are Christians, according to i. 13, delivered from the power of darkness (comp. Acts xxvi. 18), so far as they are transplanted into the kingdom of Christ, in which they have deliverance from guilt (ver. 14), for which reason also, according to 1 Cor. v. 5, impenitent sinners are delivered over again to Satan. Ritschl, ii. p. 250, thinks here of the angel of the law. If, moreover, xahársvosv aixpaλwoíav (Eph. iv. 8) were also referred to this victory, these words from the Psalm would then be misapplied-if it were in any way indicated. Comp. Schmidt, p. 203. Even in the earlier Epistles, a fact which Pfleiderer, p. 458 [E. T. ii. 190], overlooks, Satan is the opposer of Christ and His saving work (2 Cor. vi. 15 : εἰς συμφώνησις Χριστῷ πρὸς Βελίαρ). It is he who hinders the activity of the apostles (1 Thess. ii. 18), who blinds the minds of unbelievers (2 Cor. iv. 4), who tempts believers (1 Cor. vii. 5; comp. 1 Thess. iii. 5), and distresses them with cunning buffetings (2 Cor. ii. 11), and especially who tries (Rom. xvi. 20) by false teachers to destroy the efficacy of the gospel, while he clothes himself as an angel of light (2 Cor. xi. 14), and inspires false teachers with his spirit (2 Thess. ii. 2), on which account, on the appearance of those inspired by him, there is a constant need of the διάκρισις πνευμάτων (comp. § 92, 6), and who finally will equip the last personification of the God-defying principle with his greatest power (2 Thess. ii. 9; comp. § 63, c). * But this subjection, as little here as § 99, c, is regarded as a final conversion or annihilation of the kingdom of evil; for Eph. i. 10, Col. i. 20, according to note a, is spoken only of the heavenly powers in the narrowest sense, i.e. of the angels, since evil spirits and unbelievers, being incapable of final union to Christ, are, it is self-evident, left out of account (comp. footnote 3). But καταχθόνιοι (Phil. ii. 10) are not daemons, but the inhabitants of Hades. fate of those spirits, which according to 1 Cor. vi. 3 will be judged by believers, Paul has thrown as little light here as in his earlier Epistles. Enough that they by their subjection to Christ are stripped of any power which can hurt the absolute dominion of Christ. As to the final 9 one from which the heathen got separated only by their Godopposing development (Eph. ii. 12); but it was originally intended for them. With this it would agree that God, iii. 15, from whom every wаτρiá in heaven and earth is named, is regarded as standing originally in paternal relationship to all men and angels; and this is but restored by the adoption of Christians (§ 100, d). On the other hand, men originally have shared in the divine life; for the religious darkening of heathenism, the result of their own guilt, has not only, as in the earlier Epistles, occasioned a deep moral degradation, but also a separation from the divine life (originally possessed) (iv. 18 : ἀπηλλοτριωμένοι τῆς ζωῆς τοῦ Θεοῦ). But the newness of life recovered in Christianity, which in the earlier Epistles is a creation of God's (comp. § 84, d), appears here also, concretely considered, as a new man created by God (ô Kaivòs äv0ρwπos: Eph. ii. 15), in contrast to the old (iv. 22; Col. iii. 9; comp. yet Rom. vi. 6); but it is peculiar to our Epistles that the ideal realized in this renewal is designated the image of God (iv. 10: κατ' εἰκόνα τοῦ κτίσαντος; comp. Eph. iv. 24: κατὰ Θεὸν κτισθείς). 10 In reality, nothing else is hereby meant but the divine life lost by sinful depravity (ver. 18), so that the work of salvation here also restores only the originally God-related nature of man. (d) With the restoration of the original relation to God is "The correlation of light and life seems to be different in the passage Phil. ii. 15, 16, where the wń is eternal life (§ 101, c; 102, c). The earlier Epistles also acknowledge the designation of the sinful life as a state of death (Rom. vii. 10, 24, and therewith § 72, b); but here the moral condition of heathenism is expressly designated a being dead through sin (Eph. ii. 1, 5; comp. v. 4) or in sin (Col. ii. 13). Closely connected with this, by a peculiar turn of the image, the idea of a resurrection with Christ is opposed not to a dying with Christ, but to this former state of death (Col. ii. 12, 13, iii. 1; Eph. ii. 5, 6). 10 We can only be doubtful whether one is thereby explicitly to think of the innate divine image (Gen. i. 27), as Baur, p. 271, supposes, since this, at least in the earlier Epistles, refers only to the lordly dignity of man (1 Cor. xi. 7; comp. § 94, c). But the old man must, according to a figure very frequent with Paul, be put off as a garment that the new man may be put on (ivdúsetas: 1 Thess. v. 8; Gal. iii. 27; 1 Cor. xv. 53, 54; Rom. xiii. 12, 14; Col. ii. 11, iii. 12; Eph. vi. 11, 14). Without a figure, it is meant that the new man, which has thus just taken the place of the old, as the old nature ever intrudes again into the new nature, which has been introduced in principle at least to disturb it, is constantly being renewed, i.e. in its new qualities, which it as the νέος ἄνθρωπος bears, and must be restored (Col. iii. 10 : ένδυσάμενοι τὸν νέον τὸν ávanýμsvov; comp. 2 Cor. iv. 16; Rom. xii. 2). removed also the separation which sin had occasioned between men and God. This representation of the doctrine of the atonement is, to be sure, familiar in the earlier Epistles; but it has in our Epistles, for the first time, the peculiar form, that we have access to God through Christ (Eph. ii. 18, iii. 12; comp. § 100, d). The removal thereby of the opposition that had arisen between the heavenly and the earthly worlds is no doubt in our Epistles specially emphasized; while the representation of a fellowship of life with Christ, as He sits at the right hand of God in heaven (ev toîs èπovpavíois: Col. iii. 1; Eph. i. 20), is followed out even to the bold expression, that God has made those made alive in Christ to sit with Him (συνεκάθισεν) in heaven, so far as they are ἐν Χριστῷ (Eph. ii. 6). But not only are the good things presently given him with Christ there, but those also certain to him in hope (Col. i. 5 : ἡ ἐλπὶς ἡ ἀποκειμένη ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς),—above all, the life looked for in the future world, the life which, as appointed for him by God, but yet, no doubt, hid in God, is even now really existing there, as also the glorified body which Christ has already obtained, and which is now only hid for us to become manifest at the Parousia at the same time with what has been appointed for us (iii. 3, 4; comp., moreover, 2 Cor. v. 1). If the inheritance also (λĥpos; comp. Acts xxvi. 18) appointed for the saints is in the kingdom of light (ev pwτí; comp. 2 Cor. xi. 14: ǎyyeλos pwrós), that future world, so are they being prepared by God for their portion therein (μepís; comp. 2 Cor. vi. 15); so that they, also on that account, may certainly ideally be regarded as 11 But there is by no means laid "less stress on the transcendence of the final consummation, and more on the immanence of the present Christian consciousness of salvation," going beyond the Epistles to the Philippians and Colossians (Pfleiderer, p. 451 [E. T. ii. 183]). For, according even to Col. i. 13, those delivered from the power of darkness are transplanted into the kingdom of Christ, as He sits at the right hand of God (iii. 1); their citizenship (≈oλít:vμα) is in heaven, where Christ their Lord is (Phil. iii. 20). He who is dead with Christ is no more one (v iv xóoμy (Col. ii. 20), he is in general one dead to this earth (iii. 3); all his efforts and thoughts are directed to rà äva (vv. 1, 2), not to rà iaiyua (Phil. iii. 19). Only what is yet sinful in him belongs to the earth; and hence, Col. iii. 5, the sinful inclinations still clinging to him are designated his earthly members (rà μíàn vμãv rà ixì rñs yñs), while that part of his being which is directed to heavenly things is regarded as in heaven with Christ. And hence the Christian life is here throughout characterized as a heavenly life. citizens of that kingdom of light. We have here only a higher degree of that intermingling of the present and the future we have already met with, § 96, b, in the earlier Epistles. § 105. The Realization of Salvation in the Church. Through the very intimate union of the Church with Christ as her Head, the Church is led on to her consummation-with that consummation the goal of the world is reached (a). But this realization of salvation becomes actual in the Church when thereby the rent between Gentiles and Jews is removed, and the former share in this salvation promised them in Christ (b). The partition-wall, in particular, which the law had set up between them, is broken down; while by this removal an entirely new rule for life and worship is set up for both parties through Christ (c). Yet the law, according to its real meaning, is fulfilled in Christianity, because, inasmuch as it must yield to this new law, it typically pointed to it (d). (a) The ultimate end of the world appointed by God, which is to be reached by the execution of the eternal purpose of redemption, has begun to be realized in the Church, in so far as Christ has been given her by God as Head (Eph. i. 22). His position as supreme head (vπèρ πáντа) has been not only thereby indicated, but the idea already hinted at, 1 Cor. xii. 27, of an organic oneness of the Church united with Christ has here become a favourite expression for the nature of the Church herself, so far as the relation to Christ aimed at in the plan of the world and of salvation is realized in her. Christ is the head (Eph. iv. 15), the Church is His body (ver. 12; Col. i. 24); both are, as the head and the body, inseparably united (ver. 18). And not only does the Church, as the body, stand 1 In our Epistles ixxanaía occurs most frequently for the whole community, i.e. the Church; but it is also used for local churches (Col. iv. 16; Phil. iv. 15), and for single meetings within these (Col. iv. 15; Philem. 2), quite as § 92, a, footnote 1. The individual members of the Church stand, moreover, in a fellowship of life with Christ, in virtue of which He is in them and they in Him (§ 101, a); and thus, on that account, all things begin to be gathered together in Christ in the Church, and the end of the world to be realized, according to Eph. i. 10. 2 Now, inasmuch as, according to § 94, c, the man is the woman's head (to be sure, as her lord chiefly), marriage is presented as the earthly type of this relation (Eph. v. 23),-in it the woman is subject to the man (ver. 24). At the in need of Christ, as the head (ii. 19; Eph. iv. 15, 16), but the apostle ventures the bold expression, that Christ also needs the Church, as the body, as that which belongs to His completeness, makes His being just quite complete (i. 23: τὸ πλήρωμα αὐτοῦ). For although the apostle no doubt expressly adds that it is He who fills the whole universe with His universal Lordship, yet He can do this only by this union with the Church, to which He had been appointed in the world's plan (§ 103, 6). As the body of Christ, the Church must increase. This increase, wrought by God (aŭžnσis Toû Oeoû), proceeds organically from the head, and is mediated by the various joints and bands which connect the body with the head, and convey to us the vital powers of the head (Col. ii. 19), i.e. by the different helpful agencies of Christ, by which He, according to the activity corresponding to the measure of the gifts of grace each member has received, promotes the increase of the Church (Eph. iv. 16), that she may increasingly become in all parts what she ought to be as the body corresponding to the head (ver. 15), that she may reach the stature of a mature man, may become an avǹp Téλelos (ver. 13). This manhood (ἡλικία τοῦ πληρώματος τοῦ Χριστοῦ) is that state in which, through the perfecting her relation to Christ, who now communicates Himself entirely to her, the Church is herself filled with the whole fulness of Christ; and because in Him dwells all the fulness of Godhead, she is herself filled up to the measure of all the fulness of God (iii. 19; comp. § 103, d). But thereby, at the same time, is perfected her same time the relation of the Church to Christ is a relation of love (vi. 24; comp. 1 Cor. xvi. 22). But as the man lives in the wife, who is but a part of his very self (vv. 28, 29), so Christ lives in the Church, the members of His own body, which, ver. 30, are perhaps so designated as having grown out from Him (comp. 1 Cor. xi. 12). Marriage thus comes to be a prophecy full of mystery (comp. § 73, d) of the relation of Christ to His body, inasmuch as He, like as the man left father and mother to be joined to his wife (Gen. ii. 24), once left heaven in order perfectly to realize His marriage union with the Church (vv. 31, 32), which He is even now preparing for Himself as His bride, while He seeks to lead her on to ever spotless holiness (ver. 27; comp. 2 Cor. xi. 2). So little does there lie in ver. 31 ff. any reference to the coming of Christ into the world, as little can one, with Pfleiderer, p. 490 [E. T. ii. 222], seek a polemic against Docetism, which he drags in only by an impossible interpretation, p. 432 [E. T. ii. 163], in iv. 20 ff. (comp. on the other hand, § 102, d). 3 It is certainly a mistake when Gess, p. 270, thinks that in λxía roũ wanpáμs the reference is to the manhood of Christ Himself, so that the indwelling VOL. II. H |