termining his after-life. (2) In this conviction he knew himself
to be a new creature, and so vivid was this knowledge that he was
constrained to become a Jew to the Jews, and a Greek to the Greeks in
order to gain them. (3) The crucified and risen Christ became the
central point of his theology, and not only the central point, but the
one source and ruling principle. The Christ was not in his estimation
Jesus of Nazareth now exalted, but the mighty personal spiritual being
in divine form who had for a time humbled himself, and who as Spirit has
broken up the world of law, sin, and death, and continues to overcome
them in believers. (4) Theology therefore was to him, looking forwards,
the doctrine of the liberating power of the Spirit (of Christ) in all
the concrete relations of human life and need. The Christ who has
already overcome law, sin and death, lives as Spirit, and through his
Spirit lives in believers, who for that very reason know him not after
the flesh. He is a creative power of life to those who receive him in
faith in his redeeming death upon the cross, that is to say, to those
who are justified. The life in the Spirit, which results from union with
Christ, will at last reveal itself also in the body (not in the flesh).
(5) Looking backwards, theology was to Paul a doctrine of the law and of
its abrogation; or more accurately, a description of the old system
before Christ in the light of the Gospel, and the proof that it was
destroyed by Christ. The scriptural proof, even here, is only a
superadded support to inner considerations which move entirely within
the thought that that which is abrogated has already had its due, by
having its whole strength made manifest that it might then be
annulled,--the law, the flesh of sin, death: by the law the law is
destroyed, sin is abolished in sinful flesh, death is destroyed by
death. (6) The historical view which followed from this begins, as
regards Christ, with Adam and Abraham; as regards the law, with Moses.
It closes, as regards Christ, with the prospect of a time when he shall
have put all enemies beneath his feet, when God will be all in all; as
regards Moses and the promises given to the Jewish nation, with the
prospect of a time when all Israel will be saved. (7) Paul's doctrine of
Christ starts from the final confession of the primitive Church, that
Christ is with the Father as a heavenly being and as Lord of the living
and the dead. Though Paul must have a