he first propagation of Christianity which could
give excuse for confusing the Christian belief in the threefold Name
with the worship of many gods. But, from the first, Christ, in St.
Paul's language, is exalted as Lord into a simply divine supremacy, and
associated most intimately with all the most exclusively divine
operations in the world without, and in the heart of man within.
Moreover, St. Paul refuses absolutely to tolerate any association of
other, however exalted, beings with Christ in lordship or mediatorship,
all created beings whatever being simply the work of His hands[8].
There remains, therefore, no room to {53} question that St. Paul
believed Christ to be strictly divine: to be Himself no creature, no
highest archangel, but one who, with the Holy Spirit alone, is truly
proper and essential to the divine being; and it affords us, therefore,
no manner of surprise that from time to time St. Paul actually calls
Christ God, as in the Epistle to the Romans 'who is over all, God
blessed for ever[9],' and probably in the Epistle to Titus 'our great
God and saviour Jesus Christ[10].'

[1] 2 Cor. viii. 23.

[2] 1 Cor. ix. 1.

[3] 1 Cor. xv. 8.

[4] 2 Cor. xii. 11.

[5] Gal. i. 1.

[6] Tertullian, _de An._ 39, rightly interprets 1 Cor. vii. 14, 'now
are they [the children of whose parents one was a Christian] holy,' as
meaning, now are they already consecrated and marked out for baptismal
sanctification by the prerogative of their birth.

[7] Acts ix. 13, 33.

[8] Cf. 1 Cor. viii. 6; Col. i. 16.

[9] Rom. ix. 5.

[10] Tit. ii. 13.

{54}

DIVISION I. CHAPTERS I. 3-IV. 17.

Sec. I. CHAPTER i. 3-14.

_St. Paul's leading thoughts._

[Sidenote: _St. Paul's leading thoughts_]

Before we read the opening paragraph of St. Paul's letter we had better
review the great thoughts which are prominent in his mind as he writes.
My ambition is to make my readers feel that ideas which, because they
have become Christian commonplaces or because they have been blackened
by controversy, have by this time a ring of unreality about them, or of
theological remoteness, or of controversial bitterness, are in fact, if
we will 'consider them anew,' ideas the most important, the most
practical, and the most closely adapted to the moral needs of the plain
man.

i.

St. Paul writes to the Christians as 'in Christ,' 'in the beloved,'
'blessed with all spiritual benediction in the heavenly places in
Chris