Page:Jesus and the Gospel.djvu/44

24 who have been or are being saved; he is included in the divine causality by which salvation is accomplished. It would never have occurred to Paul to deny that Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified at Jerusalem was true man, but however he may have reconciled this with his faith as a Christian, that faith indubitably put Jesus into the sphere of the divine. The apostolic calling which came to Paul through him was not a calling of man, but of God, and the same holds of all the experiences which the apostle owes to Christ. Another illustration of this may be given. 'What is Apollos? What is Paul?' the apostle asks, rebuking the party spirit at Corinth. 'Ministers through whom ye believed, and each as the Lord gave to him.' The Lord here, as always in Paul, is Christ, and is directly contrasted with His most distinguished servants. It is in the same spirit that the apostle exclaims, 'Was Paul crucified for you? or were you baptized in the name of Paul?' The idea which he here takes for granted is that the name of Jesus is an incomparable, incommensurable name. We can compare Paul and Apollos if we please; we can say that one planted and the other watered, though the apostle does not look on the making of such comparisons as a very profitable employment. But we must not compare Paul and Christ. They are not, like Paul and Apollos, members of one class by the ideal of which they can be judged. They are not teachers of religion, whether in rivalry or in partnership, who can equally be criticised through the idea of what religious teaching ought to be. This view is quite common in modern times even among men who profess to preach the Christian religion, but it is not the view of Paul. The very idea of it shocked him. His own relation to the Church, or that of Apollos, was in no way analogous to that of Christ. No doubt if he and Apollos had refused or renounced Christianity, the