recipients of direct revelations. They are here called holy in the sense of sacred, consecrated. They were men set apart for the peculiar service of God. In the same sense the prophets of the old economy are called holy. Luke 1, 70. 2 Peter 1,21. The pronoun és in connection with apostles may refer to God as the author of the revelation spoken of, or to Christ whose messen- gers the apostles were. ‘My knowledge of the mystery of Christ, which, in former ages, was not made known, as it is now revealed to Ais apostles, ἄρ. By the Spirit, i. 6. revealed by the Spirit. Πνεύματι, though without the article, refers to the Holy Spirit, the im- mediate author of these divine communications. It follows from the scriptural doctrine of the Trinity, which teaches the identity as to substance of the Fa- ther, Son, and Spirit, that the act of the one is the act of the others. Paul, therefore, refers the revelations which he received sometimes to God, as in verse 3; sometimes to Christ as in Gal. 1, 12; sometimes to the Spirit.
V.6. The mystery made known to the apostles and prophets of the new dispensation, was εἶναι τὰ ἔθνη συγκληρονόμα, κτλ. i. e. that the Gentiles ae, in point of right and fact, fellow-heirs, of the same body, and partakers of this promise. The form in which the calling of the Gentiles was predicted in the Old Testa- ment led to the general impression that they were to partake of the blessings of the Messiah’s reign by becoming Jews, by being as proselytes merged into the old theocracy, which was to remain in all its