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Criticism on Romans, VIII. 18-23.

Database

Criticism on Romans, VIII. 18-23.

James Dodson

NO. I.

[from The Evangelical Witness, Vol. I., No. I., August, 1822. p. 28-37.]


The salvation of the saints, through union with their spiritual head, is the subject of which this chapter treats. The first verse affirms the adjudication to eternal life of all who are really in Christ; and the concluding verses triumphantly proclaim the impossibility of separating a believer from the love of God. From the beginning to the end, indeed, this is a chapter of theology, in which we have a specimen of a powerful argumentative discussion.

The argument, too, close and conclusive as it is throughout, is vastly comprehensive. The graces, the trials, the promises, the duties, and the experience of the children of God, are aptly and elegantly interwoven with the reasonings of the sacred writer, as motives to our perseverance in godliness, while imparting an assurance that our labours shall not be in vain in the Lord. With a grandeur of conception, which does not detract from its accuracy, the eloquent apostle puts the universe under contribution to his argument. Tribulation, persecution, famine, death, life, angels, things present, things to come: the whole creation furnishes him with illustrations of the truths he inculcates.

The obvious design of that section of the chapter, which has been read, is to set forth the magnificence of the celestial state, preparatory to the demonstration of its certainty which immediately follows, and for encouragement under the sufferings previously acknowledged as a part of our communion with Christ in the present life. If children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ: if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. To raise in our estimation, and present to our hopes, that glory with which the sufferings of life bear no comparison, the inspired writer urges three distinct considerations—the whole creation waits in earnest expectation of witnessing it; the creature itself generally shall have a share in it; and all who have the first fruits of the spirit of God anticipate with eagerness the splendours of their public adoption at the resurrection of the body.

The force of these several considerations will be more clearly perceived after a critical examination of the whole paragraph. Verse 18, reads in our translation, thus, “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.” The version is faithful to the original. The apostle Paul reckons; the subject under calculation, is present suffering in comparison with future glory—even that glory which shall be revealed in us, in all the saints, himself, and the beloved of God, called saints, to whom he addressed his letter, included; and the result is, although the words employ a negative, a positive affirmation, that there is no proportion. Never ending possession of complete felicity beyond comparison transcends temporary and partial pain however acute. This result will not be disputed. For although sinners are unwilling to suffer on account of religion, no man can deny as a speculative truth, that finite pain ought not to be compared with, infinite pleasure, so as to shun- the former it the expense of forfeiting the latter.

Λογίζομαι [I count], is properly rendered, I reckon. The verb conveys the idea of reasoning, or calculating, so as to come to a decision according to truth. For such a calculation as that of which we have the result, no man was ever better qualified than the apostle to the Gentiles. Guided infallibly in judgment, like other inspired writers, he had, moreover, in a greater measure than his fellow labourers, the lights of an extensive and diversified experience. No man ever had endured more various, continued, and intense sufferings for religion than he; and, being caught up to the third heavens, at an early period of his ministry, he had a peculiar vision of the glory of the world to come. He does not, however, in this place, speak of the splendours of the upper palace as a place of residence, of the dignity of its angelic inhabitants, or of the glory of the Godhead, but of that perfection and blessedness of the saints themselves—τὴν μέλλουσαν δόξαν εἰς ἡμᾶς ἀποκαλυφθῆναι [the glory which shall be revealed in us]. With this object in view; the glory of the saints to be revealed at the resurrection of the body—he gives, as an evidence of its magnificence, the assertion.

Verse 19. “The earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.”

The ἡμᾶς [us] of the 18th verse identifies with the υἱῶν [sons] of this, and both with the τέκνα, καὶ κληρονόμοι [children, and heirs] of the 17th verse. All the expressions point out the saints as joint heirs with Christ; and the glory to be revealed in them is, in fact, their manifestation at the resurrection as the sons of God. The Δόξαν ἀποκαλυφθῆναι [Glory to be revealed] is the very ἀποκάλυψιν [revelation] for which the creature waits in expectation. Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God; and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that when he shall appear we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.[1 John 3:1, 2] That we may be glorified together—συνδοξασθῶμεν [we may be glorified together; Rom. 8:17]. For this manifestation of the saints, in conjunction with their Lord, who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, it is, that the creature waiteth—Ἀποκαραδοκία τῆς κτίσεως ἀπεκδέχεται [The earnest expectation of the creature waiteth].

The expression is of the most forcible kind. Ἐκδέχομαι [I expect], itself, is to look out for an expected object, and the preposition octo increases the intensity of the expectation. Ἀποκαραδοκία [Eager expectation] is a stretching out of the muscles and the joints in order to elevate the head in expectation of a desired object. The verb and the noun together give an idea of the highest possible degree of anxious expectation. It is affirmed in this case of the creature in relation to the glory of the saints, τῆς κτίσεως [of the creature]. The same word occurs in the nominative case.

Verse 20. “For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope.” Κτίσις [Creature] is from Κτίζω [I create], which signifies to make or create, and denotes that which is made, constituted, or created, by God or man. The radical idea is fairly given in the translation before us, the creature: leaving the context, as is the case with almost all general terms, to explain the particular sense in which it is used at the time. It is affirmed of this Κτίσις that it is involuntarily subjected to vanity; even the same Κτίσις [Creature] that waiteth with anxiety for the display of future glory in the saints: and the subjection is given as a reason for that expectation—Τῇ γὰρ ματαιότητι ὑπετάγη [For to vanity he was made subject]. It is a subjection to crime, to misery, and to unprofitable pains: a reluctant subjection, effected by compulsion—οὐχ ἑκοῦσα [not willingly]. There is no motive why the creature itself should will subjection to misery; but there is a motive to influence him who hath subjected the same—ἀλλὰ διὰ τὸν ὑποτάξαντα [but by reason of him who hath subjected]. That motive is hope—ἐπʼ ἐλπίδι [in hope]. The suffering is with reluctance, and under it the creature is subdued—ὑπετάγη [subjected]. But he who inflicts the suffering acts voluntarily and in hope—ὑποτάξαντα [who hath subjected].

Ἐπʼ ἐλπίδι [In hope] is, by many commentators, separated from this verse, and rendered the commencement of the succeeding; and the following ὅτι [in order that, or because] instead of being rendered, as in our version, because, is translated that. To this collocation and translation, I confess there is no grammatical impediment; but there certainly is a logical objection to the alteration, and there is no grammatical necessity for its adoption. If, as I have already observed, and as the text affirms, one reason of the creature’s anxiety for the manifestation of the sons of God is its painful and involuntary subjection, I cannot perceive the propriety of making the creature’s future deliverance the motive for effecting that subjection. No tyrant enslaves from the hope that his victim shall be delivered. This criticism, too not only represents God as he who hath subjected the creature precisely for the purpose of delivering that same creature from bondage to liberty; but also ascribes what is not elsewhere to be found in the Bible, the exercise of hope to the governor of the world. Ἐπʼ ἐλπίδι [In hope] is not, I believe, in any instance, affirmed of God. For another reason, also, I prefer the existing, division of texts, and the existing translation. If ἐπʼ ἐλπίδι [in hope] remains in immediate connection with ὑποτάξαντα [who hath subjected], and be applied to man, who subjects the creature to wretchedness, we have, in the following verse, an additional reason for the earnest expectation of the creature itself, that is its certain deliverance. To constitute, indeed, such an earnest looking for a desirable object, there is not only necessary the quality which renders it desirable, but also a reasonable expectation of receiving it. To account fully, therefore, for the ἀποκαραδοκία [eager expectation] of the 19th verse, we have not only the pressure of suffering involuntarily endured in the 20th, but also the assurance of deliverance affirmed in

Verse 21. “Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.”

The τῆς δόξης τέκνων Θεοῦ [the glory of children of God] of this verse identifies with the δόξαν ἀποκαλυφθῆναι [glory which shall be revealed] of the 18th, and with the ἀποκάλυψιν τῶν υἱῶν [the manifestation of the sons] of the 19th verse. The glory to be revealed in us, the manifestation of the sons of God, and the glory of the children, are phrases expressive of the same blessedness of the saints in their celestial state. The ἐλευθερίαν [freedom, or] liberty of this glory is that into which the creature shall be liberated, κτίσις ἐλευθερωθήσεται [creature shall be delivered]; and its liberation is from the bondage of corruption into which it had been involuntarily subjected by compulsory process. Δουλείας [Slavery] opposed to ἐλευθερίαν [freedom], and φθορᾶς [corruption] to δόξης [glory], shews the contrast between the present subjection to vanity termed the bondage of corruption, and the future freedom of glory earnestly expected and certainly to be enjoyed. The present expectation, too, arises from the certainty of future deliverance. Therefore, the ὅτι [in order that, or because]; because the creature shall be delivered from bondage to freedom.

Having given this account of the creature, the apostle appeals for a confirmation of his arguments to an obvious and confessed fact—the terrible differings of all the creatures of God around us, of which no man is entirely ignorant.

Verse 22. “For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.”

Συστενάζει [He groans] groaneth together, and συνωδίνει [he travaileth in pain] undergoing pain, as if in travail together. This is the condition not of creatures partially, but of every creature on earth: πᾶσα ἡ κτίσις [all the creature], the whole creation. And of this condition we are all witnesses: Οἴδαμεν γὰρ [For we know], for we all know the truth of the representation. It is a subject not of conjecture or of doubtful disputation. We see that it is a fact And the consideration of it naturally leads to another truth equally acknowledged by all true believers.

Verse 23. “And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first fruits of the spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.”

We all groan being burdened. All Christians sigh under the pressure of infirmities, transgressions, and sorrows. The whole creation groan in company—συστενάζει [he groans]; and not only they, but we who have the first fruits of the spirit—στενάζομεν [we groan].

Ἀπαρχὴν [First fruits, or First portions], rendered first fruits, usually answers, in the translation of the seventy, for the Hebrew (RASHEET [רֵאשִׁ֗ית; beginning or, chief]) the first of their first ripe fruits, which the Israelites, upon their settlement in the land of promise, were bound to present in a basket before the altar of God. The word is used in the New Testament to signify the first in order or in worth of any set of persons or things that may be classified together in the narrative or discussion. The Ἀπαρχὴν τοῦ πνεύματος [First fruits of the spirit] of this text, are Faith and hope and love and joy in Jesus Christ our Lord: for the fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance. Those who have the first fruits, look for the full harvest; and believers, having the spirit of grace, look for the perfection of their sanctification, and for future glory. Daily do they find, by experience, the bitterness of sin, and the vanity of earthly toils and pleasures; daily do they feel the pressure and temptations and sufferings constraining them to sigh for the land of peace and glory. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is in heaven. The object, for which we look and long and sigh, is the same that is contemplated in the earnest expectation of the creature. The manifestation of the sons of God, the liberty of the glory of the children of God, and the adoption, to wit, the redemption of the body not only synchronize, but are identified—Ἀποκαραδοκία [Eager expectation], ἀποκάλυψιν [revelation], ἀπεκδέχεται καὶ ἡμεῖς υἱοθεσίαν ἀπεκδεχόμενοι [he waiteth eagerly and we are waiting eagerly the adoption].

Adoption, among the Romans, was twofold, private and public. In the private act the right of sonship was granted and accepted by the parties themselves. The stranger, by birth, was admitted to the family, and became entitled to the privileges of children, in the domestic arrangements of the parent who adopted him. In the public act, which frequently followed the private, after a long interval of time, the arrangement was formally made in the Pretorium, before the magistrate and the multitude. The relation to be constituted was publicly proposed and accepted, was recognized by authority, and recorded in the register of the empire. The law recognized the new relation and declared it permanent. The adopted son thus became the acknowledged heir, and the corresponding privileges were secured in perpetuity. Similar formalities obtained among the Greeks and Jews.

The apostle Paul, and the Romans to whom this epistle was addressed, understood the law and the practice. An allusion to it, in illustration of Christian principles and privileges, is, therefore, perfectly appropriate. We have, in this chapter, a reference to the twofold adoption described. Those who have the first fruits of the spirit, expect the full harvest; and those who have received the first adoption into the family of God wait anxiously for their public admission into glory. There is no incongruity, of course, in representing those who have already received Christian adoption as still groaning and waiting to receive the adoption which is yet to come. In the 14th verse we read: For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God; and in the 15th: Ye have received the Spirit of adoption whereby we cry Abba Father; and yet, we who have the spirit, who have received the adoption, who are heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, are described in the 23d verse as waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.

If the fact of our waiting in expectation of a future adoption does not, in the estimation of the reader, determine the time and nature of the event, the last clause of the verse must decide: the redemption of the body—ἀπολύτρωσιν τοῦ σώματος ἡμῶν [the redemption of our body]. This takes place at the end of the world, when believers are adopted as children of the resurrection. Jesus said, they that shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor art given in marriage: neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection. The public recognition, and consequent admission of arisen believers to their heavenly inheritance is the long looked for υἱοθεσίαν [adoption] promised by the true witness. He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment, and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my father, and before his angels: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and my new name.

The bringing back the saints again from the dead to such enjoyments, is very aptly denominated the redemption of the body. Ἀπολύτρωσις [release or, redemption] signifies ransoming captives from bondage by the payment of a stipulated price; and whatever of divine wisdom, and divine power may be employed and displayed in the resurrection of the just, it is indeed the effect of the ransom paid by the Son of God, and acknowledged, by the Father, as the ground of our deliverance—deliver him; for I have found a ransom, says the Almighty. Our deliverance, though certain on account of our redemption by the blood of the covenant, is not at all complete until the last enemy be overcome. While the body remains in the hands of the officer, confined in its dark and silent cell, the triumphs of the cross are incomplete, and we are yet in bondage. It is, however, for an appointed time. He who paid the ransom lives. The first born from the dead, he lives forevermore. At the appointed time he will reappear. Our God shall come and shall not keep silence. Gather my saints together unto me: those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice. I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death: O Death, I will be thy plague; O Grave, I will be thy destruction. And the dead shall be raised incorruptible and we shall be changed; that we may be also glorified together.

A[lexander McLeod].


CRITICISM ON ROMANS, VIII. 18-23.

[from The Evangelical Witness, Vol. I., No. II., September, 1822. p. 49-59.]

(Continued from page 37.)


I will now compress this discussion into a brief paraphrase of my text.

Paraphrase.

18. In relation to all the complicated, extended, and distressing sufferings, to which Christians are subjected in this life, I thus judge; and in my judgment I am guided by a very diversified personal experience, by the light of sound Christian principles divinely revealed in the scriptures, by express revelation afforded to myself respecting all the premises, and by immediate inspiration in forming my conclusion, that these sufferings are not worthy of being mentioned as causes of complaint, when compared with the glory which shall be imparted to us at the resurrection, and manifested in us and upon us in all its pure and perpetual splendour.

19. Such is the magnificence of the glorious condition of the saints at the resurrection, that I cannot give you anything approaching a correct idea of it without using figurative language, and applying, as indeed is common in all composition as occasion indicates, the attributes of mind to matter, and of reasonable creatures to the inferior classes of animated being. Personifying, thus, the surrounding creation of God, they are waiting anxiously, and looking earnestly for that state in which the saints shall appear with glorified bodies to live in unchanging perfection; for it is to contribute to that state by furnishing the materials of which the body is constructed, that these creatures are made and continued in their successive generations. Were they capable of consciousness they would, in fact, expect the high manifestation.

20. For they have been grossly abused by fallen man. Perverted from their obvious and intended use, they are pressed into the service of sin for the purpose of a vain show. They are sacrificed to avarice, to intemperance, to fraud, to theft, to rapine, ambition, revenge, and cruelty, yea to murder and idolatry. They are thus compelled to be the ministers of vice and the subjects of misery, not as a matter of choice on their own part, but on account of the lawless desire for gratification which characterizes man who thus treats them as a tyrant; and who first transgressed in hope of exaltation to equality with God, and who continues his rebellion in the equally vain hope of obtaining happiness from created enjoyments.

21. I, moreover, represent the inferior creatures, however themselves unconscious, as waiting with expectation for the glorious manifestation of the saints, because they shall be delivered from the present base purposes to which they are held in bondage by sinful men, at that happy period, and be introduced into the freedom of glory, by being, in part, admitted as ingredients of those bodies, which are fashioned after the glorious body of Immanuel, and, in part, constituents of the renovated system wherein dwelleth righteousness.

22. This destiny is desirable, and sufficiently justifies the wisdom of God in the creation and sustentation of the several classes of subordinate beings; for we all know, that the whole creation, submitted to our observation, is altogether in a state of abasement from the time that the ground was cursed for the sin of man, and nature through all her works gave signs of wo that all was lost, even until now, and shall so continue while wickedness prevails in the world.

23. And not only do the other creatures of God groan in their sufferings under the curse, but even we ourselves also, my fellow Christians, although we are effectually called to the adoption of children by the Holy Ghost, and have indeed the first fruits of that spirit, groan within ourselves in a state of imperfection. Burdened with sin, and suffering in sorrow, we look forward in hope of relief to the mind at death, and in expectation of immortal glory to the body itself, upon our public admission, as the children of the resurrection, to perpetual vigour and enjoyment, when the Redeemer, who has already paid the price of our ransom, shall have set us free from the dominion of the grave to die no more.

The amount of the paraphrase, and the design of the text is, that present suffering bears no proportion to future glory. It is the expectation of heaven that throws around the saints, while in waiting for their adoption, their chief defense against pain and despondence, and imparts, at the same time, to our unavoidable griefs the quality which converts them into instruments of felicity: For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us afar more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.

The doctrines affirmed correspond with the analogy of nature and of grace, are severally susceptible of proof, and being relevant to the argument, they ought to be given in exposition of the apostle’s meaning, provided, the words of the text are not, in their etymology and common use, or in their grammatical construction, altered or violated.

For reasons, which every scholar will readily comprehend, all these rules are, in every case, indispensable to sound criticism. Language is for men—and in order to be intelligible, it must be used in its acknowledged acceptation. Language is imperfect—and none furnishes so precise and copious a vocabulary as to bestow an unequivocal representative upon every thought. The present connection, and the common use of words are to be considered, or speech must be misunderstood. There is, moreover, a connection of reason as well as of rhetoric between the representatives of our thoughts; and, therefore, some knowledge of the subject is necessary in order to understand an isolated sentence, whether read or heard. A novice in the sciences is unfit to interpret a difficult or disputed passage in any writer on philosophy. However good a linguist, a man ignorant of the subject is totally disqualified for translating or expounding a detached sentence from the works of Euclid or Sir Isaac Newton, Linnæus, or La Place, or even of Homer or of Milton. Mere volubility, although often mistaken for eloquence, must not pass for good sense. Orthodoxy, including knowledge of theology, is as essential as philology to sound biblical criticism.

I have endeavoured to keep this in view in my exposition of the text selected from the writings of Paul the apostle. I am confident that the doctrines affirmed are in themselves true, that they perfectly coincide with analogy, and that they are indicated by the logical and grammatical texture of the reasonings and the words of the sacred writer. As for textual difficulties, they do not often occur to me; and in this passage I am entirely indebted to the ingenuity of others for the discovery that any, even apparently, exists. Really there is none. Heretics who deal in torture, and the orthodox who depend on authorities—the most successful kind of torture—have presented difficulties to which I must, of course, attend. They are all referred to the words, Κτίσις [Creature], ἐπʼ ἐλπίδι ὅτι [in hope because], υἱοθεσία [adoption], and ἀπολύτρωσις [release or, redemption]. The first is decidedly the most important term in determining the meaning of this text.

To the word Κτίσις [Creature] four different senses, and each of them distinct from the idea attached to it in this exercise, have been assigned by different respectable commentators. It has been referred to angels, to all mankind, to the saints particularly, and to the heathen, as distinct from those who have received divine revelation. Different theories, of powerful and extensive application have also been supported by these several commentaries. And it must be acknowledged that there is nothing in the word itself to render it uncapable of any such hypothesis. Its sense must be determined by its use, and its connection. To these we now apply.

Although holy angels are ministering spirits, “waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God,” they have not been subjected to vanity; they neither groan, nor suffer the exquisite anguish, indicated by travailing in pain together. It is not of them, of course, the apostle speaks in this passage. Nor is it of mankind, as such: for in that case, Κτίσις [Creature] must include the sons of God, ourselves, also, who have the spirit; whereas these two classes of being, the Κτίσις [Creature] and the τέκνων τοῦ θεοῦ [children of God] are constantly distinguished from one another. It would be still more contradictory to the whole tenor of the reasoning to identify the creature with those from whom it is expressly distinguished: not only the whole creation but ourselves also groan. The Κτίσις [Creature] cannot denote the saints. The most plausible hypothesis of the four is that which understands by creature the heathen, or the world as distinguished from the church. This is the hypothesis which learned Arminians, who are always inclined, for their own sake, to give the heathen credit for more of religion than they possess, have endeavoured to demonstrate, to which the indolent, and the uninformed who only retail the opinions of others, more industrious than themselves, or they who take pleasure in deprecating all systems, because it is inconvenient to study and to understand them, have given their assent, and which, Universalists, with sufficient discernment to embrace what corresponds with then own mischievous theory, have received and published with earnestness and emphasis. Some of them, indeed, (with perfect Catholicism,) include fallen angels and damned spirits, among the creatures which groan in expectation of deliverance from the bondage of corruption to the glorious liberty of the sons of God. And these, I may add, next to those who receive the true interpretation, are the most consistent expositors of the words of the apostle.

Κτίσις [Creature] occurs in this passage four different times. In all these instances it is translated creature, except once, that is, in the 22d verse. The phrase ἡ πᾶσα κτίσις [the whole creature] is here rendered the whole creation. The translators are indeed blamed, but in my opinion improperly, for altering the phraseology, and not giving the same English word for the same Greek expression, throughout. To such literality, however, no translator of any language may justly be subjected. The idiom of no tongue can bear the restriction. Every important word, and even the particles have a diversity of signification, and there are few perfect synonyms. Creature and creation do not differ more from one another than Κτίσις [Creature], in one place, does from Κτίσις [Creature], in another. It is a superficial criticism, rather than a nice one, which would render Κτίσμα [Product of creative action] uniformly the thing created, and restrict Κτίσις [Creature] to the operation. Κτίσμα [Product of creative action] and Κτίσις [Creature] are interchangeably used in Greek: and so are creation and creature in English. Creation signifies either the action of the Creator, or the thing upon which the action hath terminated, that is, the creature; and Κτίσις [Creature] signifies either the operation of Κτίστης [the Creator] or its result. Κτίσμα [Product of creative action], itself, is not uniformly limited to the thing made, without regard to the maker’s action. For those who doubt this assertion the Lexicon will furnish authorities. In the 19th, the 20th, and the 21st verses, Κτίσις [Creature] is rendered creature; but in the 22d ἡ πᾶσα κτίσις [the whole creature] is translated “the whole creation,” for a plain and sufficient reason. When a whole class of creatures is personified, in any discourse, an individual, as the representative, best fits the argument. All good writers, in their moral discussions, use the term man, as the representative of mankind. But in connection with ἡ πᾶσα [the whole] I would use the word creation in preference to creature. I would prefer the abstract form of expression to the concrete, as in similar circumstances, I would say all mankind, instead of the whole man. Indeed the latter would convey a very different idea from the former expression. I am aware the original might be rendered, without violence to grammar, every creature; but then, the logic of the passage requires that the creatures should be mentioned, not disjunctively, but collectively. Our English version is of course a correct copy of the original. It is easier for criticism to criminate than to amend our translations.

Κτίσις [Creature] is anything which Κτίστης [the Creator] performs, and, from its etymology, is capable of application to the whole or to any part of creation. Greek usage has, moreover, rendered the term susceptible of very general employment. It is used in the New Testament in eighteen instances: in fourteen besides this text. It is used in the Septuagint three times, and in the Apocrypha nine. The translation differs according to the thought. The works of creation, the system created, any distinct creature, the soul regenerated, mankind, cattle, ordinances of man, riches, any substance whatever, are the ideas denoted by this word: and it is so rendered in our English version. And conjuration with πάσῃ [whole] cannot otherwise alter its signification than as the connection requires. Ἡ πάσῃ κτίσις [the whole creation/creature] occurs in the New Testament, besides the 22d verse of this chapter, four times. Mark, xvi. 15. Preach the Gospel to every creature. Col. i. 15. Christ the first born of every creature; and 23. The Gospel is preached to every creature. 1. Peter ii. 13. Submit to every ordinance of man.

In one of these quotations, ἡ πάσῃ κτίσις [the whole creation/creature] denotes the constituted authorities of civil society; in another all creatures in the universe subjected to Messiah as their head, or governor; and in two it denotes sinners without respect of persons, who had in fact become, or might become,, the objects of the evangelical message. The scope of the connection, in every case, determines the sense of the word, for there is no technical application established by usage.

To this passage itself, therefore, we must look for the purpose of ascertaining in what particular application it is here employed; always, however, retaining its radical and true meaning—the creature. Upon this principle it is evident that the word does not signify all rational creatures; because the saints are, throughout, distinguished from Κτίσις [Creature]. It is equally manifest that it does not signify any part of mankind, because the creature, subjected involuntarily, is distinguished from man who forces it into subjection. Ἡ κτίσις ὑπετάγη [The creature in subjection] is one class of beings—ἀλλὰ τὸν ὑποτάξαντα [but the one who hath subjected] is another. Mankind generally, I confess, may be distinguished from Adam, their federal head, in whom all have sinned, and through whose disobedience, misery has entered into the world; but still it cannot be affirmed in truth of sinners that their subjection to vanity is involuntary—οὐχ ἑκοῦσα [not willingly]: for they sin willfully, and love vanity. Besides, the τὸν ὑποτάξαντα [the one who hath subjected] denotes rather the hand inflicting the torture of subjection by force, than the moral cause for which subjection to misery has been introduced into the world. That τὸν ὑποτάξαντα ἐπʼ ἐλπίδι [the one who hath subjected in hope] does not mean God, I have already shewn. It includes Adam and his posterity; but then the Κτίσις ὑπετάγη [Creature in subjection] is that class of suffering beings which have no will, no inclination, to remain under their bondage to vanity. There is another consideration which shews the absurdity of understanding the Κτίσις [Creature], in this case, of any part of the rational family. If the subject of the proposition be rational, the predicates must all be corresponding: and so, rational hopes, and enjoyments, must be literally understood. But, upon this supposition, the affirmations of the apostle are not literally true; therefore the absurdity. There is a figure somewhere, and it is necessary that- it receive a consistent interpretation. If the Κτίσις [Creature] be explained of men, whether heathen or infidels, continuing irreligious, then it follows that these wicked men, or, at least, many of them, are unwillingly addicted to vanity—are really anxious for the manifestation of the saints in glory—shall be eventually delivered from the bondage of corruption, although never sanctified—and shall, in fact, enjoy the glorious liberty of the sons of God, though themselves destitute of any fruits of the spirit, or any share in the adoption of the sons. All this, however, is absurd ; and it is better to charge the absurdity on the commentary than on the sacred text. By admitting that the subject of the several propositions is itself figurative, the metaphor is consistent, and the several predicates are easily understood. The irrational creation is personified, and the affirmations respecting it correspond.

Personification is a figure of speech used in every language, and on all kinds of subjects. We clothe with the attributes of mind every object of interest as occasion requires. The Scripture style abounds in examples. I quote the following specimens:

“Cursed be the ground for thy sake. And the land is defiled: therefore do I visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants. It spued out the nations that were before you. How do the beasts groan! The beasts of the field cry also unto thee. Things creeping innumerable, both small and great—these wait all upon thee. Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled; thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust. The earth mourneth and fadeth away; the world languisheth and fadeth away. The new wine mourneth, the vine languisheth. The earth is moved exceedingly; the earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard. O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord. Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak; hear, O earth, the words of my mouth. Sing, O heavens; and be joyful, O earth; and break forth unto singing, O mountains. The little hills rejoice on every side. The pastures,—the valleys shout for joy: they also sins. And all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. For the stone shall cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it. Praise ye the Lord: sun and moon: all ye stars of light. Praise the Lord from the earth, ye dragons and all deeps: Fire and hail, snow and vapour; mountains and all hills; fruitful trees and all cedars: Beasts and all cattle; creeping things and flying fowl.” [Gen. iii. 17. Lev. viii. 24, 28. Joel i. 16, 20. Ps. cv. 25, 29. Isa. xxiv. 4, 7, 19, 20. Jer. xxii. 29. Deut. xxxii. 1. Isa. xlix. 13. Ps. lxv. 12, 13. Isa. lv. 12. Hab. ii. 11. Ps. cxlviii.]

In these, and other passages of divine revelation, personification is abundantly used. All creatures animate and inanimate, are clothed with rational attributes, and are described and exhorted accordingly. They are made to sympathize in trouble and in joy with man, and are represented as serving the saints, and opposing and punishing the sinner, to the glory of the Creator. In most of these passages the connection is so obvious that the import of the metaphor is immediately perceived by every reader. When the subject is well understood, the language rarely proves perplexing. Inadequate acquaintance with Christian doctrine is the principal cause of logomachy. Had the comprehension of the commentators extended to the doctrine of the 8th of Romans, there would have been less dispute about the meaning of the word Κτίσις [Creature]. It signifies the inferior ranks of creation, animate and inanimate; and these, taken collectively, arc personified by the eloquent apostle.

A[lexander McLeod].

(To be Continued.)


CRITICISM ON ROMANS, VIII. 18-23.

[from The Evangelical Witness, Vol. I., No. III., October, 1822. p. 97-105.]

(Continued from page 59.)


I will not again advert to the words ἐπʼ ἐλπίδι [in hope], ὅτι [because], υἱοθεσία [adoption], and ἀπολύτρωσις [release or, redemption]. Enough has been said already to determine their meaning, and, if Κτίσις [Creature] be well understood, no textual difficulty rests upon any other expression. I proceed rather to state the principal doctrines in the text.

Doctrines.

1. The state of body upon which the saints enter at the resurrection shall be visibly glorious.

2. The principal designs in sustaining the surrounding creatures according to the economy of the present world is to declare the glory of God by the splendours of our celestial condition.

3. The world is now enslaved, and sensitive natures tortured by sinful man.

4. A great part of the matter which now composes the various classes of creatures, shall pass into a permanently glorious condition in the bodies of saints.

5. The resurrection of any irrational animals, being absurd and contradictory, is impossible.

6. There is an established and intimate connection between man and the whole creation; a sympathy of condition and of destiny which shall more fully appear at the end of time.

We might extend the discussions of these several doctrines, but I forbear. To the last assertion I direct my chief attention in the conclusion of this essay.

There is an intimate connection between mankind and the whole creation. In the scale of being, man holds the chief rank, and the inferior ranks were made to provide for him, to whom God has repeatedly granted the right of dominion.

For man the world was formed, and for his sake it is sustained. The earth hath he given to the children of men. It is a place of residence, of trial, and enjoyment. It provides food and raiment as well as exercise. It answers another and a greater purpose. It furnishes the matter of which our bodies consist: the aliment by which they subsist and grow; And is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground: and if we return to the dust we shall arise. Though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God. The dead shall be raised incorruptible and we shall be changed. The ultimate end of the animal economy is the redemption of the body at the resurrection; and that manifestation of the sons of God is the chief end of the whole material world. For unembodied spirits, such a world as this would be, comparatively, if not absolutely, useless. Earth, air, water, light, vegetables, and animals, display in their constitution and arrangement, individually and collectively, the wisdom and power of Jehovah; but their principal use is to make up the bodies of the children of God which are destined to shine with inconceivable lustre after the resurrection.

That great day will itself more fully disclose to our enlarged understandings things of which it is not perhaps proper that we should be at present more minutely informed: and with this hope we may rest contented. We are certain, however, that there are bodies in heaven, and that there will be there an innumerable multitude. Where there is visible body there must be light. This elegant as well as necessary element existed before the sun and shall outlive the king of day. The saints shall shine as the stars in the firmament, and shall, forever, behold the face of the Messiah, raying around him, from his glorious throne, throughout the heavens, a light which surpasses the brightness of a sunbeam. They, too, fashioned in body after his glorious body, have not only clear intellection of truth by the mind’s eye, but also a splendour, a beauty, and an elegance of body, visible to the corporeal eye—a robe of light surpassing the delicacy and grandeur of the morning clouds irradiated by the rising sun. Some such drapery was assumed as a covering by angels when they descended to converse with mortals—some such covering, before art had invented raiment, and before sin exposed to shame and nakedness the inhabitants of Eden, served them in the original state of human nature; and some idea of it is given in the history of the transfiguration by the disciples. Light is one of the ingredients of every known organized body. Metals and rocks possess it in a latent state, and emit it in a sensible form by collision. A specimen of its possible, and even actual existence, independently of second causes, is found in the pillar which guided the ancient Hebrews though the desert, and in the Shekinah between the Cherubim, which ennobled the Tabernacle of the testimony. I doubt not that our immortal bodies shall appear in light, full of glory, when we shall appear with him who is the resurrection and the life. The Holy Ghost has implanted in our renovated minds an unconquerable propensity to look forward with desire and with hope to this final state of body; and this high expectation, when realized, will justify to the intelligent universe, the wisdom and the goodness of God in the formation and sustentation of the creatures around us on earth, in all their transmutations, and in all their connections of pleasure or of pain with one another and with us the disciples of Christ and the children of God.

This consideration precludes the possibility of that brutal idea—the resurrection of birds and of beasts. These creatures have had their day and have served their purpose, and could we suppose they were endowed with consciousness, they could not complain of injustice were they remanded to a state of nonentity, much less, if they, without pain or injury, are, in the ultimate distribution of their component parts, so fixed as permanently to glorify any attribute of the Lord God. The Christian’s paradise differs exceedingly from the habitations of sensual delights created by heathen or Mahometan fancy to beguile the carnally minded. The natural appetites furnished for use in the present economy have in heaven no place. The children of the resurrection are as the angels of God in this respect. Bodies, indeed, they have to distinguish them from the sons of the morning; but these bodies are incorruptible, and, of course, being incapable of decay, are equally so of being recruited by aliment. They neither hunger nor thirst.

There is a contradiction involved in the thought of a future resurrection of the brutal tribes. The number of distinct material elements, however innumerable the forms they are made to assume in the vegetable and animal kingdoms is very small, and the quantity of all the disposable substances on the surface of the globe which furnish the pabulum for the plants and living creatures bears no very great disproportion to the yearly assemblance of animated beings. It is the same actual mass of matter that has been since the creation of the world, growing and decaying, living and dying, passing under the various forms, and supplying the materials of which successive generations were moulded to answer their temporary ends. Probably every twenty years will have, since the creation of the world, employed this, entire mass in living bodies, and certainly every century, at a fair average, has done more than this. The resurrection of the whole creation of animals is, therefore, not only useless but impossible. It is much more probable that, during the standing of the world, every particle of such disposable matter shall have been appropriated to human bodies, and that the entire removal of this vast quantity from the terraqueous globe, at the resurrection, will occasion, according to the purpose and the prediction of the Creator, the general conflagration, and the final dissolution of the solar system, as to its present economy. Certain it is that, even by the laws of gravitation and repulsion, such a consequence, as the entire derangement of the system, must result from the substraction from the earth of the matter of which the bodies of all men have been composed. A subsequent organization, and a corresponding economy, may be safely trusted to the wisdom and power of God, who, in his eternal counsels, made provision for every event. We, according to his promise, look for a new heaven, a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.

We have no reason to conclude that God will really annihilate any substance which he hath called into existence; and it is as impossible to demonstrate the opposite opinion, as it is to deny the destruction of forms and conditions under which substances for a time appear. That there is something which is not matter, in the constitution of the lower animals is ascertained from the fact of their possessing senses, and thought, and volition. Many of them are susceptible of considerable instruction. They possess recollection, and improve by experience. The Scriptures affirm both the immateriality of a portion of their complex constitution, and the mortality of their immaterial part, when the body is disorganized. For that which befalleth the tons of men befalleth beasts; as the one dieth so dieth the other. Who knoweth the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth.

There are, nevertheless, some reasons which render it probable that the matter of the solar system shall not be annihilated at the resurrection. I know that it may, if it be the will of God: and I do not know that he will not order it back into nonentity. His power is not to be disputed. In him everything that exists has its being. Yet he hath assured us that matter will exist to eternity. The bodies of the saints, the body of the Lord Messiah, shall exist in never fading glory. The bodies of the wicked shall endure in the midst of those material flames which the breath of the Almighty, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle to the glory of his justice. We moreover look for a material system organized subsequently to the solution of that which now exists. And we expect it by virtue of a promise which stands when the heavens pass away.

“Both the heavens and the earth, which are now, are kept in store reserved unto fire against the day of judgment.” Great shall be the noise, fervent the heat, and awfully grand the sight, when this change shall be accomplished. The heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, the elements shall melt, the earthy also and the works that are therein, shall be burnt up. But fire is itself a substance, and annihilates nothing. Heat only melts, and separates the parts of other bodies to a greater distance. Their figure and their other qualities change, but the elements exist although melted. Subsequently to the change, new heavens appear, and a new earth is consolidated. Is it impious or unreasonable to conjecture that the renovated system arises from the ashes of this world? Is the supposition of a total annihilation and a subsequent and immediate creation of another mass of matter more consistent with wisdom and with victory? Here, too, upon this mass of matter where we dwell, God felts accomplished his chief work. Here Messiah was born, here he died, and by his death he overcame. Of this earth he took a body; of this earth he made the bodies of his sons and daughters. This, the most interesting province of Jehovah’s empire, teaches angels the manifold perfection of the Godhead. Upon this earth hell has erected her gates and her battlements; the whole population of the province were excited to rebellion against his government who expatiates his goodness over unbounded space. Every eye was turned to this spot in which the battle raged. We, for transgression, are placed under the interdict: but, we must not argue, from our ignorance, that the obedient provinces of the magnificent empire are unconcerned in the event, or are as regardless and ignorant of us as we are of them. Messengers, who move with a celerity surpassing that of the lightning, are going to and fro, and the Head of all things is everywhere present to diffuse knowledge among all intelligent creatures; and shall this province be blotted forever out of existence, or, rather, shall it not be changed and perpetuated.

A change is undoubtedly necessary. Guilty man subjects the earth to vanity. It groans under his crimes; and every sensitive creature is reluctantly compelled to endure the torture. God will assuredly reckon with the rebels, who, having perfected their, right of occupancy and enjoyment, not only appropriate, as robbers, his creatures to their own use, but, moreover, abuse them, and reduce them under the bondage of corruption. The whole creation groans and is in travail. The time of the deliverance will come. The earth vomiteth out her guilty inhabitants. The beasts of the field call for vengeance on their tormentors; and could we suppose that the creation were endued with consciousness, Oh how sanguine would be the expectation of the glory which shall be revealed in us, when admitted to our last home, when new heavens shall arise, and a new earth become the abode of righteousness.

Are we culpable in this anticipation? I hope it is so crime to look forward to the end of this economy. While we are fed and clothed and comforted by the creatures made for our use by the Creator; while the arts and the sciences are subjecting the several parts and classes to profitable . experiments; it cannot be unlawful for us, who love the Lord God, to investigate the moral purposes, and the ultimate end of creation. If it was not unworthy of God to make those things and institute them subjects of his care and government, it cannot be unworthy of our reason or our piety to contemplate their existence and trace with pleasure their relation to us and the common parent of all. The works of the Lord are great sought out of all that take pleasure therein.

Greatly as these considerations enhance our estimate of the celestial bodies of the dead who shall be raised uncorruptible, abundantly as they justify the wisdom and goodness of the Almighty, in the creation, arrangement, and sustentation of surrounding objects, much, too, as they tend to mitigate our uneasiness under suffering, we, who have the first fruits of the spirit, have a still more abundant joy set before us. Although much of the matter of this suffering creation shall pass into a future state in and with the bodies of the saints redeemed from all corruption, and shall be immutably settled in connection with mind, and irradiated with unconceivable glory, it is the perfection of mind itself, in the full enjoyment of God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, that constitutes the chief hope of the heirs of immortality. The change which matter shall undergo is indeed great—greater than the difference between a mass of putrefaction and the meridian sun; corruption shall put on incorruption: but the change which the soul shall experience, excels. To mind peculiarly appertains the blessedness which the company of angels, and the communion with God, afford. Behold what manner of love the Father bath bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God! Beloved, now are we the sons of God; and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that when he shall appear we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. Whom have I in heaven but thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee.

A[lexander McLeod].