" But if I delay, in order that thou mayest know how one ought to conduct oneself in God's house, which is a living God's assembly".
" Pillar and base of the truth and confessedly great is the mystery of godliness, the which was manifested in flesh, was justified in [the] Spirit, was seen of angels, was preached among Gentiles, was believed on in [the] world, was received up in glory." [The rendering has been made more exact to avoid repetition and discussion, save at the beginning of ver. 16. Ed. B.T.].
It is contended by the adherents to this new rendering that the history of the church has proved that it has not abode in the truth, much less can it be said to be the pillar and base of the truth I and that it is a relief to find that the scripture does not say it is, as has been universally supposed.
Then, that all critics now agree that Ss, " he who," is the correct reading (instead of " God " and that therefore the mystery of godliness, Christ and the church, is the pillar and ground of the truth-not Christ in incarnation. This removes the difficulty that many feel in understanding how Christ personally could be said to have been " justified in [the] Spirit "; and also that it is this mystery which was preached among the nations (Eph. 3:99And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ: (Ephesians 3:9); Rom. 16:25, 2625Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, 26But now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith: (Romans 16:25‑26)) and believed on in the world, which Christ could not be truly said to have been before He was received up in glory.
Th. R.
A.-It is a mistake to consider this clumsy, crooked and wholly unjustifiable form of taking the first clause of ver. 16 as a " new rendering "; for so understood several Protestants, for the most part of dubious faith, as Er. Schmid, Limborch, Le Clerc, Schottgen, Rosenm. (the elder), Heinrich, etc., etc. I do not wonder at Dean Alford's saying " if any one imagines St. Paul... able to have indited such a sentence," it were useless to argue with him. " To say nothing of its abruptness and harshness, beyond all example even in these Epistles, how palpably does it betray the botching of modern conjectural arrangement in the wretched anticlimax... If a sentence like this occurred in the Epistle, I should feel it a weightier argument against its genuineness than any which its opponents have yet adduced."
Only less untenable is the absurdity of understanding Timothy (and behind him Paul and the other apostles) as " pillar and basement of the truth."
There is no real difficulty in referring it to God's church, which is not the truth, but pillar and basement of the truth responsibly on the earth. Christ is the truth engraven as it were on that pillar here below. Where is or was any other before men after Christ's brief appearing and His ascension? If Israel with His law was a witness as His chosen people among the nations, how much more since God's new house was a living God's assembly, witness of grace and truth in Christ But it is the Second Epistle, not the First, which instructs the faithful what to do when disorder and departure from the truth, and sanction of evil and error, gave a false witness.
Still less difficulty is there in applying the mystery of godliness to Christ's concrete person, who was manifested in flesh, justified by the Spirit in resurrection, then seen of angels instead of mankind, preached to Gentiles instead of reigning over Israel in Zion, believed on -in the world instead of ruling the nations with rod of iron, received up in glory on high instead of displaying it over all the earth, as the Prophets had testified for the world-kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ. The last was reserved, it would seem, to contrast with the great declension of mixing Him up with the sordid and earthly character of Christendom, and its delusions. So far is the notion of making the church part of the " mystery of godliness " that it would import wholesale and deadly error. It is " who," not " which " as the church is.