hall all be made alive." But the genuine explanation of
this sentence, we are constrained to believe, is as follows: "As,
following after the example of Adam, all souls descend below, so,
following after Christ, all shall be raised up," that is, at the
judgment, after which event some may be taken to heaven, others
banished again into Hades. "We trust in the living God, who is the
Savior of all men, especially of them that believe." This means
that all men have been saved now from the unconditional sentence
to Hades brought on them by the first sin, but not all know the
glad tidings: those who receive them into believing hearts are
already exulting over their deliverance and their hopes of heaven.
All are objectively saved from the unavoidable and universal
necessity of Hadean imprisonment; the obedient believers are also
subjectively saved from the contingent and personal risk of
incurring that doom. "God hath shut them all up together in
unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all." "All" here means
both Jews and Gentiles; and the reference is to the universal
annulment of the universal fatality, and the impartial offer of
heaven to every one who sanctifies the truth in his heart. In some
cases the word "all" is used with rhetorical looseness, not with
logical rigidness, and denotes merely all Christians. Ruckert
shows this well in his commentary on the fifteenth chapter of
First Corinthians. In other instances the universality, which is
indeed plainly there, applies to the removal from the race of the
inherited doom; while a conditionality is unquestionably implied
as to the actual salvation of each person. We say Paul does
constantly represent personal salvation as depending on
conditions, as beset by perils and to be earnestly striven for.
"Lest that by any means I myself should be a castaway." "Deliver
such an one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the
spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus." "Wherefore we
labor, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of the
lord." "To them that are saved we are a savor of life unto life;
to them that perish, a savor of death unto death." "Charge them
that are rich that they be humble and do good, laying up in store
a good foundation, that they may lay hold on eternal life." It is
clear, from these and many similar passages of Paul, that he did
not believe in the unconditional salvation, the positive
mechanical salvation, of all individuals, bu