St Paul assures us that God and the world will be reunited, and that peace will reign through all realms and orders of existence. He does not, and he could not say that none will exclude themselves from the eternal kingdom. Making men free, God has made it possible for them to contradict Him, so long as they have any being. The apostle's words have their note of warning, along with their boundless promise. There is no place in the future order of things for aught that is out of Christ. There is no standing-ground anywhere for the unclean and the unjust, for the irreconcilable rebel against God. "The Son of man shall send forth His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all things that offend and them that do iniquity."
[33] The arrangement above made of the lines of this intricate passage is designed to guide the eye to its elucidation. Our disposition of the verses has not been determined by any preconceived interpretation, but by the parallelism of expression and cadences of phrase. The rhythmical structure of the piece, it seems to us, supplies the key to its explanation, and reduces to order its long-drawn and heaped-up relative and prepositional clauses, which are grammatically so unmanageable.
[34] =Chaire, kecharitômenê.= It is impossible to reproduce in English the beautiful assonance--the _play_ of sound and sense--in Gabriel's greeting, as St Luke renders it.
[35] See Rom. i. 16-18, iii. 19-v. 21, vi. 7, vii. 1-6, viii. 1-4, 31-34, x. 6-9; 1 Cor. xv. 3, 4, 17, 56, 57; 2 Cor. v. 18-21; Gal. ii. 14-iii. 14, vi. 12-14. The latter passages the writer has endeavoured to expound in Chapters X. to XII. and XXVIII. of his Commentary on _Galatians_ in this series.
[36] It is an error to suppose, as one sometimes hears it said, that _trespasses_ or _transgressions_ are a light and comparatively trivial form of sin. Both words denote, in the language of Scripture, definite offences against known law, departures from known duty. Adam's sin was the typical "transgression" and "trespass" (Rom. v. 14, 15, etc.; comp. ii. 23; Gal. iii. 19).
[38] See _The Evangelical Revival, and other Sermons_, pp. 149-170, on "The Forgiveness of Sins."
[39] Bishop Ellicott, who advocates the latter rendering, objects to Meyer's interpretation that it is "doubtful in point of usage." _Pace tanti viri_, we must retort this objection upon the new translation. _To obtain by lot, to have (a thing) allotted to one_, is the meaning regularly given to =klêrousthai= in the classical dictionaries; and in O.T. usage the _lot_ (=klêros=) becomes the _inheritance_ (the thing _allotted_). The verb is repeatedly used by Philo with the meaning _to obtain_, or _receive an inheritance_; whereas there seems to be no real parallel to the other rendering. It is true that =klêrousthai= in the sense of the A.V. requires an object; but that is virtually supplied by =en hô=: "we had our inheritance allotted _in Christ_." Comp. Col. i. 12, "the lot of the saints _in the light_," which signifies not the locality, but the nature and content of the saints' heritage.