The Apostle Paul; A Sketch of His Doctrine (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1903 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER III. THE CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE IN THE SPHERE OF SOCIETY AND HISTORY. The Religious Philosophy of History. I. The Person Of Chr1st, The Vital Pr1nciple Of The Church. HITHERTO the Christian principle has been confined within the sphere of the individual life. But it tends by its very nature towards a universal realization. All that Christ is for one member of humanity, He is and must become for all; and the result of this new development of the Christian principle is the Church. The unity of the Church rests upon the sense, common to all its members, of a living communion with Christ. To set forth this essential unity of the Church, Paul several times compares it to the organization of the human body (1 Cor. xii. 12, ff.; Rom. xii. 4): "As in one body we have many members, which have not all the same office, so we are all one body in Christ; and we are towards each other what the members of one body are among themselves." This body is called a&fia Xpiarov (1 Cor. xii. 27)--that is, a body having the principle of its being and the basis of its life in Christ. Christ is not only its Head, but its very soul; He manifests in and through it all His hidden virtues (Eph. iv. 16; Col. ii. 19). Thus regarded, the Church becomes the bodv of Christ (to awfia rov Xptarov); it serves as the external and visible manifestation, the material realization of all that Christ Himself is invisibly. Into this body Christ pours His plenitude of life, so that the Church, filled with the virtues of its Head, becomes in turn the ifKrjptofia Tov Xpiarov (Eph. i. 23). The Church can'only realize the full virtue of its vital principle through a laborious process of evolution. But all development implies variety; and hence the apostle perceives and acknowledges...