fore, to the participation of the privileges of the old, external, visible theocracy, nor simply to the pale of the visible Christian church, that the apostle here welcomes his Gentile brethren, but to the spiritual Israel, the communion of saints; to citizenship in that kingdom of which Christ is king, and membership in that body of which he is the head. It is only a change of illustration without any essential change of sense, when the apostle adds, they are no longer πάροικοι but οἰκεῖοι. The family is a much more intimate brother- hood than the State. The relation to a father is much more sacred and tender than that which we bear to a civil ruler; and therefore, there is an advance in this clause beyond what is said in the former. If in the former we are said to be fellow-citizens with the saints, here we are said to be the children of God; whose charac- ter and privileges belong to all those in whom God dwells by his Spirit.
V. 20. As οἶκος means both a family and a house, the apostle passes from the one figure to the other. The Gentiles are members of the family of God, and they are parts of his house. They are built, ἐπὶ τῷ Sewedio τῶν ἀποστόλων Kai προφητῶν, on the founda- tion of the apostles and prophets, Christ himself being . the chief corner-stone.
That the prophets here mentioned are those of the new dispensation, is evident—first from the position of the terms. It would more naturally be prophets and apostles if the Old Testament prophets had been in- tended. As God has set in the church, ‘first apostles,