ny spiritual insight to guide it. A real zeal for God!
of that St. Paul's own experience qualified him to testify. But in
what sense without insight? In the sense that with Jesus of Nazareth
there appeared a divine righteousness, which God was communicating to
men[3]; but the Jews, {46} preoccupied with maintaining a standard of
righteousness which they had taken for their own--which had become
identified, that is to say, with their own self-satisfaction and pride
of privilege and independence of interference--failed to perceive the
divine purpose, and, in fact, refused to submit themselves to it. For
that principle of law which the Jews had come to regard as God's final
word, He really intended only as a temporary discipline to be brought
to an end by the coming of the Christ, and by the disclosure of the
real righteousness which, in Christ, God should offer and man should
simply accept in faith. Law and faith are in sharp and intelligible
contrast. Under the law of works a man, as Moses says[4], stands to
preserve his life (or save his soul) according as he performs the
specified requirements (as if man were an independent being who could
thus stand over against God on his merits). But faith, attributing
nothing to itself, simply accepts the offer of God, the divine message
of compassion brought near to it. Moses of old told the Israelites[5]
that the commandment was not {47} too hard for them, neither was it far
off. _It was not in heaven, that they should say, who shall go up for
us to heaven, and bring_ it unto us, and make us to hear it, that we
may do it? Neither was it beyond the sea, that they should say, _who
shall go_ over the sea for us, _and bring_ it unto us, and make us to
hear it that we may do it? But _the word was very nigh unto them, in
their mouth and in their heart_, that they might do it. These words
really describe the character of the Christian message of faith, of
which the apostles are the heralds. Truly there is no need for the
believer in Jesus to seek some one to scale heaven to reach a remote
God, for Christ is come down. Or to descend into the abyss to seek a
Christ dead and lost, for Christ is risen. The great deliverance is
offered to us on very easy terms. A man has only openly to confess
that the human Jesus is really the divine Lord, and heartily to believe
that God raised Him from the dead. Let him heartily accept that
message, and the fellowship in the divine righteou