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| The Same Subject Continued. What Does the Apostle Exclude from the Dead? Certainly Not the Substance of the Flesh.
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Chapter XLIX.—The Same Subject Continued. What Does the
Apostle Exclude from the Dead? Certainly Not the Substance of the
Flesh.
We come now to the very gist7638
| 7638 Ad carnem et sanguinem
revera. | of the whole question: What are the
substances, and of what nature are they, which the apostle has
disinherited of the kingdom of God? The preceding statements give us a
clue to this point also. He says: “The first man is of the
earth, earthy”—that is, made of dust, that is, Adam;
“the second man is from heaven”7639
—that is, the Word of God, which is
Christ, in no other way, however, man (although “from
heaven”), than as being Himself flesh and soul, just as a human
being is, just as Adam was. Indeed, in a previous passage He is called
“the second Adam,”7640
deriving the
identity of His name from His participation in the substance, because
not even Adam was flesh of human seed, in which Christ is also like
Him.7641
| 7641 See De Carne
Christi. ch. xvi. | “As is the earthy, such are they also
that are earthy; and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are
heavenly.”7642
Such (does
he mean), in substance; or first of all in training, and afterwards in
the dignity and worth which that training aimed at acquiring? Not in
substance, however, by any means will the earthy and the heavenly be
separated, designated as they have been by the apostle once for all, as
men. For even if Christ were the only true
“heavenly,” nay, super-celestial Being, He is still man, as
composed of body and soul; and in no respect is He separated from the
quality of “earthiness,” owing to that condition of His
which makes Him a partaker of both substances. In like manner, those
also who after Him are heavenly, are understood to have this celestial
quality predicated of them not from their present nature, but from
their future glory; because in a preceding sentence, which originated
this distinction respecting difference of dignity, there was shown to
be “one glory in celestial bodies, and another in terrestrial
ones,”7643
—“one
glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of
the stars: for even one star differeth from another star in
glory,”7644
although not in
substance. Then, after having thus premised the difference in that
worth or dignity which is even now to be aimed at, and then at last to
be enjoyed, the apostle adds an exhortation, that we should both here
in our training follow the example of Christ, and there attain His
eminence in glory: “As we have borne the image of the
earthy, let us also bear the image of the heavenly.”7645
We have indeed borne the image of the
earthy, by our sharing in his transgression, by our participation in
his death, by our banishment from Paradise. Now, although the image of
Adam is here borne by is in the flesh, yet we are not exhorted to put
off the flesh; but if not the flesh, it is the conversation, in order
that we may then bear the image of the heavenly in ourselves,—no
longer indeed the image of God, and no longer the image
of a Being whose state is in heaven; but after the lineaments of
Christ, by our walking here in holiness, righteousness, and
truth. And so wholly
intent on the inculcation of moral conduct is he throughout this
passage, that he tells us we ought to bear the image of Christ in this
flesh of ours, and in this period of instruction and discipline. For
when he says “let us bear” in the imperative mood,
he suits his words to the present life, in which man exists in no other
substance than as flesh and soul; or if it is another, even the
heavenly, substance to which this faith (of ours) looks forward, yet
the promise is made to that substance to which the injunction is
given to labour earnestly to merit its reward. Since, therefore, he
makes the image both of the earthy and the heavenly consist of moral
conduct—the one to be abjured, and the other to be
pursued—and then consistently adds, “For this I say”
(on account, that is, of what I have already said, because the
conjunction “for” connects what follows with the
preceding words) “that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom
of God,”7646
—he means the
flesh and blood to be understood in no other sense than the
before-mentioned “image of the earthy;” and since this is
reckoned to consist in “the old conversation,”7647
which old conversation receives not the
kingdom of God, therefore flesh and blood, by not receiving the kingdom
of God, are reduced to the life of the old conversation. Of
course, as the apostle has never put the substance for the works of
man, he cannot use such a construction here. Since, however
he has declared of men which are yet alive in the flesh, that they
“are not in the flesh,”7648
meaning that
they are not living in the works of the flesh, you ought not to subvert
its form nor its substance, but only the works done in the substance
(of the flesh), alienating us from the kingdom of God. It is after
displaying to the Galatians these pernicious works that he professes to
warn them beforehand, even as he had “told them in time past,
that they which do such things should not inherit the kingdom of
God,”7649
even because they
bore not the image of the heavenly, as they had borne the image of the
earthy; and so, in consequence of their old conversation, they were to
be regarded as nothing else than flesh and blood. But even if the
apostle had abruptly thrown out the sentence that flesh and blood must
be excluded from the kingdom of God, without any previous intimation of
his meaning, would it not have been equally our duty to interpret these
two substances as the old man abandoned to mere flesh and
blood—in other words, to eating and drinking, one feature of
which would be to speak against the faith of the resurrection:
“Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.”7650
Now, when the apostle parenthetically
inserted this, he censured flesh and blood because of their enjoyment
in eating and drinking.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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