s, and to establish them in the free grace of
Christianity, which justifies them from all past sin and seals
them for heaven. What could be a more explicit declaration of this
than the following? "When the fulness of the time was come, God
sent forth his Son to redeem them that were under the law." Herein
is the explanation of that perilous combat which Paul waged so
many years, and in which he proved victorious, the great battle
between the Gentile Christians and the Judaizing Christians; a
subject of altogether singular importance, without a minute
acquaintance with which a large part of the New Testament cannot
be understood. "Christ gave himself for our sins, that he might
deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of
God." Now, the Hebrew terms corresponding with the English terms
"present world" and "future world" were used by the Jews to denote
the Mosaic and the Messianic dispensations. We believe with
Schoettgen and other good authorities that such is the sense of
the phrase "present world" in the instance before us. Not only is
that interpretation sustained by the usus loquendi, it is also the
only defensible meaning; for the effect of the establishment of
the gospel was not to deliver men from the present world, though
it did deliver them from the hopeless bondage of Judaism, wherein
salvation was by Christians considered impossible. And that is
precisely the argument of the Epistle to the Galatians, in which
the text occurs. In a succeeding chapter, while speaking expressly
of the external forms of the Jewish law, Paul says, "By the cross
of Christ the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world;"
and he instantly adds, by way of explanation, "for in Christ Jesus
neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision."
Undeniably, "world" here means "Judaism;" as Rosenmuller phrases
it, Judaica vanitas. In another epistle, while expostulating with
his readers on the folly of subjecting themselves to observances
"in meat and drink, and new moons and sabbaths," after "the
handwriting of ordinances that was against them had been blotted
out, taken away, nailed to the cross," Paul remonstrates with them
in these words: "Wherefore, if ye be dead with Christ from the
rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye
subject to ordinances?" We should suppose that no intelligent
person could question that this means, "Now that by the gospel of
Christ ye are emancipated