Anyone who reads Paul's words without dogmatic prejudice will see that this is not the present-day doctrine of Atonement. It takes for granted certain ideas which were current among the Jews of Paul's day, but which have since sunk into the background of Christian thought or been abandoned altogether. Paul's use of them in the framing of his theology is ingenious but not convincing, and was not essential to his gospel; in fact the juridical and the ethical elements in Paul's teaching stand in irreconcilable contrast. His theology is saved by his mysticism, for no sooner has he enunciated these unbelievable propositions about the death penalty of sin, the judicial sovereignty of God, justification by faith, the imputed merits of the Redeemer, and such like, than he proceeds to use them as symbols to illustrate a subjective change in the sinner and a mystical union between the soul and Christ. He does this so beautifully that the reader can hardly discern where Paul quits the region of literalism and takes us into that of mysticism. Hence he talks about dying with Christ, being crucified with Christ, dying to sin, and so on, evidently meaning that the whole redeeming process has to take place within the soul of the sinner who seeks God. Even the conception of the resurrection ceases to be literal and becomes the uprising of the divine man within the human soul by faith in the risen Lord. "If any man be in Christ there is a new creation; old things are passed away; behold all things are become new." "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit." We see from these expressions that in practice Paul transfers the whole drama of redemption from without to within the individual soul. What a pity it is that his interpreters in Christian history have so seldom thought of doing the same!