Paul claims that what the law could not do, and what we could not do by observing the moral law, God himself does for us: 'sending his son in the likeness of sinful flesh and to deal with sin, he has condemned sin in the flesh, so that the justification of the law might be fulfilled in us, walking not in conformity with the flesh, but in conformity with the spirit.' Human beings cannot achieve this result by their own efforts. The central Christian rituals of Baptism and the Eucharist express this conviction that the fulfilment of human moral aims and aspirations depends on God's action rather than on the actions of the moral agents themselves. The work of Christ is to 'redeem' or release human beings from their own sin by suffering on their behalf; human beings are acquitted 'as a free gift, by God's grace, through redemption in Christ Jesus, whom God predetermined to be an expiation through faith in his blood'.

These metaphors--financial ('redeem'), legal ('justify'), and sacrificial ('expiation')--do not present a clear or morally attractive picture of the actions of Christ. If God offers Jesus to placate or deceive the Devil, or if Jesus offers himself as an innocent victim to placate or deceive God, it does not seem to reflect well on God's moral character, and it is not clear why it should be much help to human agents. Christian doctrine, however, seeks to make the crucifixion seem morally intelligible.

The death of Christ is supposed to be at least exemplary. It displays the integrity of a morally perfect person struggling with the evil in the world, but not corrupted by it: 'he was tested in every way similarly to us, without sinning', and 'in so far as he has undergone it himself, by being tested, he is able to come to the help of those who are being tested'. Christ shows that the ideal demands of morality are achievable; he observes them, no matter what the cost, and his integrity shows what we are capable of.

But while such an example might inspire us to greater effort, Paul assures us that the effort will fail. The extreme of self-sacrifice represented by Christ may simply increase our own self-assertive tendencies, and encourage us to rebel more strongly against the demands of the law. Christ's action should also make us able to approach his perfection more closely. Paul claims that when someone is 'in Christ', there is a new creation, and that human beings are in Christ to the extent that Christ is also present in them, when they are born again of the Holy Spirit: 'you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if the Spirit of God dwells in you'. God gives us the capacity as well as the desire to pursue perfection effectively. God acts within us, inspiring both the will and the action.

Attempts to understand the effective side of the work of Christ have produced radically opposed conceptions of the Christian outlook. From one point of view, it seems to reject human initiative and autonomy. Paul claims that pride and boasting are excluded, because genuine human goodness is not really a human achievement. We are saved by the grace of God and justified by faith, not by any action or merit of our own. God himself gives us the will to accept his grace and to approach the perfection that we vainly sought to achieve for ourselves.

Such an attitude might seem to turn human agents into passive recipients, lucky enough to be favoured by the grace they have done nothing to deserve. Christianity seems to abolish rational agents' control over their own lives--the sort of control that the Greek philosophers unanimously welcome and advocate. Moreover, if God freely forgives sin, human agents seem to lose their reason to avoid sin and to seek moral perfection. Why should they not agree with Paul's claim that Christ has liberated us from the law, and then infer that he has liberated us from following the requirements of the moral law?

This is not the interpretation that Paul intends. Christ demands perfection, and Paul aims at it. Once we understand what Christian perfection requires, we expect to fail. But failure need not produce despair, as it would for those who try to follow morality without Christ, the people who are 'without hope and without God'. Christians who realize that they are not left to their own resources have better reasons to use their own resources fully-just as in other cases the assurance of co-operation makes it reasonable to undertake tasks that would otherwise be unrealistic. Paul takes the moral law to require complete love of one's neighbour, not simply respect for his interests. If a Christian had to rely only on himself, he would be foolish to accept Paul's interpretation of the law; it is a reasonable aim only in so far as he relies on God.

Christian history shows that it is easy to think of salvation as a free gift that produces psychological security in believers, but makes no particular difference to what they do. Paul's moral advice is sometimes very general and idealistic, prescribing unconditional love for one's neighbour, but sometimes very specific, prescribing submission to the ruling authorities and to the prevailing institutions of marriage and slavery. His ideals might well seem too general and too idealistic to perform any clear critical function; and it is not surprising if Christian believers follow Paul in assuming that they require conformity to prevailing institutions.

In Paul's view, the objections to his position rest on a misunderstanding of it, and do not identify any real faults in it. He argues that the Christian view of the work of Christ does not remove moral initiative from human agents, and that it does not support moral passivity. Christian moral demands, he agrees, are severe; but he denies that they are unrealistically severe for Christians who recognize that they are not left to their own resources. The ideals are rather general, but it does not follow that they are empty; and if it is not always easy to say what they require in practice, the same is true of many other reasonable moral principles. If we accept this answer, we should not accept uncritically Paul's claims about the practical implications of Christian moral principles. . .

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