second exclusion (vv. 20-22), so little does the deliverance of all Israel exclude the idea that individual members may remain unconverted, and fall under condemnation (note b). But it will then be no longer the case, as at present, that a small remnant of delivered ones shall stand opposed to Israel in its majority rejected (ver. 7), but Israel as a people, according to the promise, will be converted and delivered.8

CHAPTER IX.

THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH.

§ 92. The Church and the Gifts of Grace.

Of the Jews and Gentiles that have been called, there is formed a new community, the Church of God, in which God dwells by His Spirit, and which, in virtue of its really living fellowship with Christ, forms His body (a). With a view to the further upbuilding of the Church, her organism is furnished with a manifold variety of members, by means of the different gifts of grace, among which prophecy is the most. important for this end (b). Along with this Paul mentions the gift of teaching in its various forms, simple exhortation, speaking with tongues, along with the gift of interpretation

* Paul praises the wonderful ways of the divine wisdom (Rom. xi. 33–36), which has made it possible that the sins of men, which seem to thwart the plan of their salvation, must help directly to realize it in a yet more comprehensive way, while the calling of the Gentiles has even now been incorporated with it. The temporary hardening of Israel has brought it about, that salvation has even already come from the Jews to the Gentiles; and this must finally only serve this end, that salvation will come back from the Gentiles to the Jews, and thus the promise of the elect nation will be perfectly fulfilled. Yea, finally, this method of fulfilment must contribute to the making known more gloriously the divine mercy. Had Israel presently become believing, then had they received the salvation, as God was bound by His faithfulness to fulfil the promise to them (xv. 8). But now by their disobedience they have put themselves on an equality with the former Gentiles, and forfeited the fulfilment of the promise; on the other hand, His simple mercy remains for them, the mercy whieh has realized salvation to the Jew as to the Gentile in spite of their disobedience (xi. 30-32; comp. ix. 23, 24),— -even He Himself exercises it on the ground of fidelity to His promise (vv. 28, 29).

and the gift of miracle-working faith (c). If Paul mentions also the gift of service and of government, that does not exclude the idea that the possessors of these gifts were commissioned to use them officially; the conduct of the apostle, however, in reference to the organization of the churches, does not seem to have been quite uniform throughout (d).

(a) The distinctions of the pre-Christian religious fellowships are removed by living fellowship with Christ (§ 90, a), and thus over against those fellowships a new fellowship is formed of Christians; and this is expressly designated, 1 Cor. x. 32, as the ẻккλησíα тоû eoû, consisting of Jews and Greeks. This fellowship therefore belongs in a special sense to God; for it has come into existence through the fact that God chose each individual; and by the power to work faith which He has given to the preaching of the word among them, He called each, i.e. gave him entrance into the fellowship, and it consists clearly of such as have been consecrated (§ 84, d) by the participation of the Spirit in baptism, or as have become aytol. But while the Spirit of God dwells in all the members of the Church, and with Him God Himself, He consecrates not only the body of each individual (1 Cor.

ἅγιοι.

1 Although in the LXX. the national community of Israel is designated as the ixxancía simply (Acts vii. 38), and in conformity with this in the words of Jesus, the particular fellowship of His disciples (§ 31, b), with Paul this name scarcely corresponds with the idea that he saw in the Christian Church the true Israel (§ 90, c). With him the expression ixxλncía does not designate primarily the collective community, but, conformably with classical usage, it is used for the national assembly (Acts xix. 32, 39, 41), the assembly of Church members (1 Cor. xi. 18, xiv. 28, 35), as these are to be met with in any definite place ( xar' oixov ixxλnoía: 1 Cor. xvi. 19; Rom. xvi. 5; comp. Col. iv. 15; Philem. 2). Then a single congregation is called ixxλnoíz, as Jas. v. 14, i.e. the collective body of Christians in any definite city ( ixxλncía ǹ ovou iv Kopive 1 Cor. i. 2; 2 Cor. i. 1; Rom. xvi. 1; comp. ǹ ixxλnoía Osorahovinśwv: 1 Thess. i. 1; 2 Thess. i. 1; Col. iv. 16), or in a country (ai ixxλnoíaı rüs raλarías: Gal. i. 2; 1 Cor. xvi. 1; comp. Gal. i. 22; 1 Cor. xvi. 19; 2 Cor. viii. 1; 1 Thess. ii. 14: iv rỹ 'Iovdaía). Yet the expression already occurs to denote the collective community of Christians (1 Cor. xii. 28). There is implied in the expression ixxλnría nothing to designate the Christian fellowship as such. This takes place only by the addition of roũ eis,—an addition which characterizes at times the single community (1 Cor. i. 2, xi. 16, 22; 2 Cor. i. 1; comp. 1 Thess. ii. 14; 2 Thess. i. 4), sometimes the collective community (Gal. i. 13; 1 Cor. x. 32, xv. 9), as a community belonging to God.

2 Hence Paul naturally looks upon all the members of the Church as elected and called; and, according to § 88, d, that by no means excludes the idea that

vi. 19), but also the Church herself (iii. 16; comp. Eph. ii. 21, 22) to be His temple, which, as such, is holy (ver. 17).3 By participation in the Spirit all the individual members of the Church are, according to § 84, b, put into a real living fellowship with Christ (1 Cor. i. 2: ǹ èккλŋσía Toû OeOû, ἁγιασμένοι ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ), and it depends on this directly, according to Gal. iii. 28, that all who have put on Christ in baptism (ver. 27) have put off all the distinctive marks of pre-Christian religious fellowships, and are become one (comp. vi. 15). By this living fellowship especially all are equally connected with a living centre, and so have become one organism (owμa), in which each member stands in living fellowship with every other, each member is serviceable to the whole, and so also to each individual (Rom. xii. 5: oi πολλοὶ ἓν σῶμά ἐσμεν ἐν Χριστῷ ὁ δὲ καθ' εἰς ἀλλήλων μéλŋ).* But while Christ by this living fellowship rules each individual by His Spirit, and thus makes use of their owμara for the performance of His own ends, they also may be designated, 1 Cor. vi. 15, His members. As, now, the natural body is a unity, and yet has many members, but all the individual members, although they are many, yet form a single body; so

they may yet fall away. Were a member of the Church to become guilty of gross sins, or of persistent disobedience to the apostolic commands, then every blessed fellowship with him is broken off (1 Cor. v. 11; comp. 2 Thess. iii. 14), without there being at the same time any giving up of anxious efforts to bring Him to repentance (2 Thess. iii. 15). Hence especially the rule meant by Paul to have a disciplinary effect on the incestuous person (1 Cor. v. 5). That person was eventually formally thrust out of the Church (vv. 2, 13) till he repented (2 Cor. ii. 6-8).

3 For Paul also as for Peter (§ 45 a) the prophecy of God's dwelling in the midst of His people (comp. Lev. xxvi. 11, 12) is perfectly fulfilled only in the Christian Church (2 Cor. vi. 16); but Paul has explicitly realized for himself this early apostolic idea by reflection on the possession of the Spirit by the Christian, and he has thus set it in closer connection with his doctrine of salvation.

* By baptism, which transplants into this living fellowship, are all, Jews and Gentiles, baptized into one body (1 Cor. xii. 13). In another way the organic unity of the many is effected by the bread in the Lord's Supper, which transplants into fellowship with Christ (more exactly with the body of Christ broken for us) (x. 17; comp. § 85, c, footnote 5); and from this side one may say that Paul sees in the Lord's Supper, as he does also in baptism, a constitutive moment for the true nature of the Church. But this way of looking at it is nowhere else carried farther by the apostle, and therefore it is not fit to connect the doctrine of the sacraments with the doctrine of the Church (comp. § 85, a, footnote 1).

is it with Christ (xii. 12). He also has many members, but these many members form but one body; and thus far the organic unity of the Church may be designated as the body of Christ, whose members individual Christians are (ver. 27).5

(b) It is implied in the nature of the Christian Church, that it must continually be extending externally more and more, and that in each individual member of it the new life quickened on his reception, i.e. at his baptism, must be even more perfectly being realized on all sides. In this respect

it is a field belonging to God, in which Paul and his fellowlabourers work uninterruptedly, a building belonging to Him on which they have continually to build (1 Cor. iii. 9). The foundation-stone of this building has been laid once for all by God (ver. 11), in that He has made Jesus to be the Messiah, and therefore the corner-stone of the perfected theocracy (comp. already § 38 c; 50, a); but by the preaching of Christ, which works faith and founds churches, it is being ever afresh laid as the foundation of each individual church (ver. 10; Rom. xv. 20; comp. Eph. ii. 20). Every advance of the Church in its extension, or in the development of her life, is, following out this idea, an upbuilding (oixodoμý: 1 Cor. xiv. 12, 26; 2 Cor. x. 8, xiii. 10: oikosoμeîv: 1 Cor. xiv. 4). As, now, the founding of the Church is brought about only in this way, that God by His Spirit works in the apostles the gifts of grace needed for the preaching of the gospel which works faith (§ 89, c), so its upbuilding also can be brought about only by a similar working of God, and this similarly

In our Epistles Christ is not yet expressly designated the head of this body; for when, in 1 Cor. xi. 3, He is spoken of as the head of the man, that designates only His lordship generally as our "Head." And this is the result of that xupons, which He has won by His death (§ 76 a; 81, b). But this is not explicitly applied to the Church herself as such. But that, in opposition to the later Epistles, Christ is here presented as the Spirit animating the body, as has been often asserted of late (yet comp. Pfleiderer, p. 374 [E. T. ii. 103]), cannot certainly be proven. On the other hand, the idea is already indicated (2 Cor. xi. 2) that the Church is Christ's bride, and it is the task of the apostle to present her to Him as a chaste virgin (with a view to the marriage union with her at His coming) (comp. Rom. vii. 4: sis rò ysvíola. iμãs irípw, scil. ἀνδρι).

6 This biblical expression has become so common to the apostle, that, without thinking of its origin, he transfers it to the advancement of the Christian life in the individual (1 Cor. viii. 10, xiv. 4, 17; 2 Cor. xii. 19; Rom. xiv. 19, xv. 2; Eph. iv. 29; comp. § 86, d).

comes from the Spirit, which the individual member of the Church has; and He is manifested in this, that He gives to each individual a gift for the benefit of the Church (xii. 7). These gifts of grace (xapíoμara: vii. 7; Rom. xii. 6; comp. Eph. iv. 7), i.e. capabilities, which the one Spirit gives (1 Cor. xii. 4, 11), or in which the one gracious gift of the Spirit is specialized according to the various positions of the individual, will be very manifold, corresponding to the nature of the organism (owμa). For it is of the nature of an organism to have not only a uniform connection with a living centre (note a), but a vigorous diversity of members (vv. 14, 19, 20), each of which has its special activity (Rom. xii. 4). But the single object of all these gifts, with the exception of the apostleship (1 Cor. xii. 28), is the upbuilding of the Church by means of them: πάντα πρὸς οἰκοδομὴν γενέσθω (xiv. 26). In particular is this the object of προφητεία (xiv. 3, 4), which appears (xii. 28 and Rom. xii. 6) to be the highest of all the gifts next to the apostleship (comp. 1 Thess. v. 20). The gift of trying the spirits seems to have been as a rule connected with the gift of prophecy (1 Cor. xiv. 29); and it, too, stands forth as a special gift (xii. 10), and (1 Thess. v. 21) is in a certain sense required of the whole Church. It had to do with determining whether the higher inspiration. which filled the prophets was of divine or of daemonic origin (2 Thess. ii. 2, and therewith § 62, d).8

(c) Near to the prophets stood the teachers (1 Cor. xii. 28),

7 The ultimate author of these gifts is naturally God Himself, who has given to each (1 Cor. iii. 5), and ever according to the measure of faith (Rom. xii. 3), and now works the various powers effectual in each (1 Cor. xii. 6: ivspyńμara), by which service is done to Christ as the one Lord (ver. 5: diamovía), whose dearest interest is the upbuilding of the Church. But because they are communicated by His Spirit (Gal. iii. 5: ὁ ἐπιχορηγῶν ὑμῖν τὸ πνεῦμα καὶ ἐνεργῶν dováμsis in vpïv), these gifts are called patiná (1 Cor. xii. 1, xiv. 1, 37; comp. § 84, a, footnote 3). There is hereby no distinction between natural gifts and gifts of miracles in the narrower sense. All these gifts are simply gifts of a higher source, even though in their distribution to individuals regard is had in general to their natural aptitudes and susceptibility.

* The content of the prophetic word may be for reproof (1 Cor. xiv. 24, 25), exhortation, comfort (ver. 3), and instruction (ver. 31); the essential point about it is that it results from an impulse of the Spirit (ver. 30: iv äλ20 ȧrexaλup). The prophet nevertheless has his spiritual life, when quickened by the Spirit of God, so far under his own control, that he can cease speaking when another begins to prophesy (vv. 30-32), and this the apostle explicitly VOL. II.