4. The Gentiles are therefore incapable of righteousness. lxii. 7: 'But regarding the Gentiles it were tedious to tell how they always wrought impiety and wickedness, and never wrought righteousness.' Thus the best hope of the Gentiles is that in the Messianic kingdom they should become servants to Israel. This will be their lot if they have never vexed the holy people; see lxxii. 2-6.
5. The world created on account of Israel, xiv. 18: 'Thou didst say that Thou wouldst make for Thy world man as the administrator of Thy works, that it might be known that he was by no means made on account of the world but the world on account of him. [But "man" is at once interpreted as the Jewish race.] And now I see that as for the world which was made on account of us, lo! it abides, but we on account of whom it was made depart' [i.e. into captivity], xv. 7: 'As regards what thou didst say touching the righteous, that on account of them has this world come into being, nay more, even that world which is to come is on their account.' xxi. 23: 'Reprove therefore the angel of death ... and let the treasuries of souls restore them that are enclosed in them, for there have been many years like those that are desolate, from the days of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and of all those who are like them, who sleep in the earth, on whose account Thou didst say that Thou hadst created the world.' (This idea of the treasury of the souls of the righteous recurs in xxx. 2.) In The Assumption of Moses (i. 12) it is said, 'God hath created the world on behalf of His people. But He was not pleased to manifest this purpose of creation from the foundation of the world, in order that the Gentiles might thereby be convicted [i.e. of ignorance], yea to their own humiliation might by their arguments convict one another.'
The above teaching shows us exactly what it was to which St. Paul opposed his doctrine of Justification by Faith. We see it here on its own ground. Its close association with 'boasting' is apparent even in its better form; and its view of election contrasts, by its selfish narrowness, with the view of election put forward by St. Paul, viz. that God's election of a chosen people or society, together with His apparent reprobation of others left outside, both alike subserve a purpose of infinite width, the ultimate divine purpose to 'have mercy upon all.' See Romans ix-xi, especially xi. 32, and cf. Eph. i. 9-10: 'the secret of His will with a view to the dispensation of the fulness of the times, to bring together all things in the Christ, things in heaven and things in earth.'
The marked contrast between the doctrine of Baruch and the doctrine of St. Paul must of course be admitted in general; but it has been asked whether the doctrine of the Atonement is not a fragment of the abandoned Jewish doctrine of merit, borrowed inconsistently by St. Paul, or inconsistently tolerated by him. To this the reply is surely in the negative. The Jews undoubtedly held that Enoch, Moses, Jeremiah, and others were, on account of their righteousness, the accepted mediators with God on behalf of the chosen people, and propitiators of His wrath (see especially Assumption of Moses, xi, and passages from Baruch cited above). But the doctrine of the Atonement, when it is examined, proves to have one feature which puts it into marked opposition with the Judaic doctrine of human merit.
According to the Christian doctrine of the Atonement, Christ is purely and simply God's gift to man. He is the Son of God, given to man by the Father, in order that, taking our nature upon Him, living the perfect human life, and dying the death of perfect obedience, He might satisfy the divine requirement, which we could not satisfy, and procure for us what we could not procure for ourselves, no, not the best of us. Therefore this doctrine puts all men, the best and worst alike, in the common attitude of simply receiving from God, as an unmerited boon, the gift of forgiveness and reconciliation in Christ. It is in fact the strongest possible negation of the Jewish idea of human merit, personal or vicarious.
In other respects the doctrine of The Apocalypse of Baruch affords at once interesting contrasts and parallels to St. Paul's doctrine. Thus—
(a) In Baruch as in St. Paul, we have a combination of the doctrine of divine predestination with the insistence on human free will and responsibility. lxix. 4: 'Of the good works of the righteous which should be accomplished before Him, He foresaw six kinds' should be compared with Eph. ii. 10: 'Good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.'
(b) The eschatology of the New Testament, including St. Paul's, is of course especially Jewish. It does not however concern us much in the Epistle to the Ephesians; but we notice that in The Apocalypse of Baruch the idea of 'the consummation of the times' (cf. Eph. i. 10, 'the fulness of the times') appears and reappears constantly. See xiii. 3; xxi. 8, 17; xxx. 3; xlii. 6; liv. 21; lvi. 2; lix. 4; lxix. 4, 5; cf. The Assumption of Moses, i. 18: 'The consummation of the end of the days.'
(c) The connexion of St. Paul's doctrine with the Jewish doctrine is also illustrated in The Apocalypse of Baruch on the following points. That the Gentiles had the opportunity of the knowledge of God through His works in nature, but refused it. See Baruch, liv. 18, and cf. Romans, i. 20: The pre-existence of the Messiah. This is suggested but not very clearly stated in xxx. 1, cf. Charles's note and The Assumption of Moses, i. 14, where the pre-existence of Moses seems to be asserted. Again, the Fall of Adam and its effect in introducing death (or premature death) into the world. See xxiii. 4; xlviii. 42; liv. 15; lvi. 6, and Charles's notes. Once more The Resurrection of the Body. See Baruch, l; li. On all these points we see what was the material in existing Jewish thought or, in other words, what were the existing developements of Old Testament belief, which the Christian inspiration had to work upon. The effect of the specifically Christian inspiration is chiefly seen (1) in selection among existing beliefs—taking some and utterly rejecting others; (2) in giving a definite and fixed form to current Messianic and other ideas which were continually shifting and incoherent; and (3) in spiritualizing and moralizing what it appropriated. Of course it is in the Revelation or Apocalypse of St. John that we have the most signal instance of the New Testament use of contemporary Jewish material. But such material holds a very large place in the whole of the New Testament, and there is no more important assistance to the study of the New Testament than is afforded by contemporary Jewish literature, especially that of an Apocalyptic character.