+Paul's view of the death of the Saviour and the forgiveness of sins.+--The first important thing to be noted in Paul's thought about sin and salvation is his view that there was a vital connection between the death of the Messiah and God's forgiveness of sins. But we should be mightily mistaken if we were to understand this view to be the same as that of a modern evangelical who talks about the "fountain filled with blood," for it was quite different. The modern evangelical, of so-called orthodox opinions, believes that Jesus died to save all men from hell; but this was not what Paul was thinking about at all. According to Paul, the wages of sin were actually and literally death. But for sin there would have been no death, and to break the power of sin would also be to break the power of death. But in this Paul was wrong, in company with a good many of his contemporaries, and there is no reason why we should not frankly say so, for, as we shall presently see, the great apostle did not confine himself to the literal statement of this view, but gave it also a mystical form in which it becomes indisputably true. In his thought the Messiah of Jewish national expectation was the head and representative of the nation in its relation to God. For ages men had been dying because of sin--"in Adam all die"--and so when the Sinless One came into human conditions and in the likeness of sinful flesh, He also had to pass through death. But there was a difference between His death and all other deaths in that, being sinless, death could not hold Him, and so He rose again from the tomb triumphant over it. His triumph then becomes potentially the triumph of humanity--"in Christ shall all be made alive"--if only we unite ourselves to Him by faith. God will remit the death penalty to all who are "in Christ" and "justified by faith"; that is, we shall all rise from the dead as He rose. Apparently Paul's belief was that no one would ever have died but for the sin of Adam, a taint which has affected all Adam's descendants. Death in his view was synonymous with annihilation. The next thing to be noticed is the juridical nature of Paul's conception of the relationship of man and God. God is a lawgiver and man a transgressor, a rebel against his sovereignty. In accordance with God's law of righteousness sin is punishable by the death of the whole race. "The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men." But when the eternal Son of God, the head and representative of the race, submits to this penalty and in so doing acknowledges the righteousness of God, justice is satisfied. "If one died for all, therefore all died." Those who claim by faith the benefits of Messiah's submission to death on behalf of the race are at peace with God. Henceforth they are not to live to themselves, but unto Him who died for them and rose again.