According to the system which connects itself with the simpler, broader conception of the flesh, sin springs from the freedom of the will; the law is assumed to be inherently possible of fulfilment; redemption consists in a judgment of acquittal pronounced by God which has its ground solely in His mercy; righteousness is imputed; the act which brings redemption consists in faith. This circle of ideas, which forms a self-consistent whole, is described by Lüdemann as the “Jewish-religious,” the “juridical-subjective,” doctrine of redemption. It has its source in reflection on the death of Jesus. The other system of ideas is defined as the “ethico-dualistic.” In contradistinction to the former it makes use of an “objectively real” conception of redemption. It presupposes the more precise, narrower conception of “the flesh,” and regards sin as proceeding from it by a natural necessity. The law is the ferment of sin; death the natural outcome of the flesh. Redemption can therefore only consist in the abolition of the flesh. It is based on the communication of the Spirit, which produces in the man a new creature and a real righteousness. The redemptive act takes place in baptism. The ideas of this second system are based on the Lord’s resurrection. The coexistence of a juridical and an ethical system of thought in Paul had been held by others before Lüdemann. What he did, however, was to follow out each separately into its details, and to endeavour to prove that all the contradictions and obscurities which are to be observed [pg 030] in the conceptions and statements of the Pauline theology find their ultimate explanation in the coexistence of two different doctrines of man’s nature and two different doctrines of redemption. Hitherto the doctrine of redemption which appears alongside of the juridical had been described as “ethical.” He remarks that it is conceived not merely ethically, but actually physically, and therefore defines it as ethico-physical. Further, he is of opinion that the two theories are not co-equal in importance. He holds that in the ethico-physical “the real view of the Apostle” is set forth, which only tolerates the other alongside of it, and more and more tends to push it aside wherever in the discussion Paul can count upon a thorough understanding of the real essence of the matter. In the Epistles the development, he thinks, takes the following course. The Letter to the Galatians knows only the primitive Jewish system of thought with reference to Christ’s vicarious suffering and righteousness by faith; it does not advance to the bolder realistic doctrine of righteousness.