Life and death are for him physical conceptions. Spiritual death and spiritual life in the modern religious sense are unknown to him. Even where, as in Rom. vi., he speaks of a dying and rising again which are not accompanied by any change in the outward and visible existence of the individual, he does not mean a spiritual dying and rising again but, inconceivable as it may [pg 059] appear, a physical occurrence. Everything spiritual goes back to something corporeal. That is true also as regards the ethics. It is not from the consciousness of the “ideal possession of eternal life” that he infers the duty of walking in newness of life, but from the fact that one who shares the death of Christ must also share His resurrection. Both events have reference to the present. It is “a simple logical consequence” that we should walk in accordance with this physical newness of life in order to show that the fleshly, _sarkic,_ body has been put off. The new life of which Paul speaks as a present spirit is therefore based on the “repetition” of Christ’s bodily resurrection, which is rendered possible by the _unio mystica_ with him. It guarantees to the individual his indestructibility even though the corruptible world, to which his fleshly corporeity belongs, falls a prey to destruction. The believer will then have a part in the new world-substance. Paul’s soul is therefore thrilled with the eager desire for life, shaken with the dread of destruction. His faith, hope, and fear all revolve about one centre—the abolition of corruption and the bestowal of incorruption. His religion is a “will-to-live” in a large elemental sense. He yearns for redemption from the creaturehood which is under the sway of Satan and his powers, and from the body which they hold in thrall. The moment in which the relative positions of the world of spirits and the world of men are to be reversed, and a great final renewal of all things is to be brought in—that moment cannot come quickly enough for him. Therefore he seeks in some way to antedate it. The future condition of existence is that of “glory.” It is anticipated in the present life by the possession of the “Spirit” which belongs essentially to the heavenly light substance. Thus Kabisch endeavours to explain the Pauline doctrine of the Spirit purely on the ground of the Late-Jewish metaphysic. A super-earthly substance enters [pg 060] into the corporeity of those who in virtue of the _unio mystica_ with Christ have entered into the experience of His death and resurrection. It produces in them a new being, and gives them a claim to the future perfected glory, and this while their fleshly existence still continues to the outward eye unaltered.