ot hold Him, and so He rose again from the
tomb triumphant over it. His triumph then becomes potentially the
triumph of humanity--"in Christ shall all be made alive"--if only we
unite ourselves to Him by faith. God will remit the death penalty to
all who are "in Christ" and "justified by faith"; that is, we shall all
rise from the dead as He rose. Apparently Paul's belief was that no
one would ever have died but for the sin of Adam, a taint which has
affected all Adam's descendants. Death in his view was synonymous with
annihilation.

The next thing to be noticed is the juridical nature of Paul's
conception of the relationship of man and God. God is a lawgiver and
man a transgressor, a rebel against his sovereignty. In accordance
with God's law of righteousness sin is punishable by the death of the
whole race. "The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all
ungodliness and unrighteousness of men." But when the eternal Son of
God, the head and representative of the race, submits to this penalty
and in so doing acknowledges the righteousness of God, justice is
satisfied. "If one died for all, therefore all died." Those who claim
by faith the benefits of Messiah's submission to death on behalf of the
race are at peace with God. Henceforth they are not to live to
themselves, but unto Him who died for them and rose again.

Anyone who reads Paul's words without dogmatic prejudice will see that
this is not the present-day doctrine of Atonement. It takes for
granted certain ideas which were current among the Jews of Paul's day,
but which have since sunk into the background of Christian thought or
been abandoned altogether. Paul's use of them in the framing of his
theology is ingenious but not convincing, and was not essential to his
gospel; in fact the juridical and the ethical elements in Paul's
teaching stand in irreconcilable contrast. His theology is saved by
his mysticism, for no sooner has he enunciated these unbelievable
propositions about the death penalty of sin, the judicial sovereignty
of God, justification by faith, the imputed merits of the Redeemer, and
such like, than he proceeds to use them as symbols to illustrate a
subjective change in the sinner and a mystical union between the soul
and Christ. He does this so beautifully that the reader can hardly
discern where Paul quits the region of literalism and takes us into
that of mysticism. Hence he talks about dying with Christ, being
crucif