The rendering of our ordinary version, "in sincerity" (in the Revised rendering, "uncorruptness"), gives an ethical sense to the word that is scarcely borne out by usage. It is a different, though kindred expression that St Paul employs to express "uncorruptness" in Titus ii. 7.[187]
It appears to us that the term "incorruption," in its ordinary significance, applies fitly to the believer's love for the Lord, when the word is read in accordance with the symbolism of the epistle. This love is the life of the body of Christ. In it lies the Church's immortality. The gates of death prevail not against her, rooted and grounded as she is in love to the risen and immortal Christ. "May that love be maintained," the apostle says, "in its deathless power. Let it be an unspoilt and unwasting love."
Of earthly love we often say with sadness:--
"Space is against thee: it can part! Time is against thee: it can chill!"
Not so with the love of Christ. Neither death nor life parts the soul from Him. Our love to the Lord Jesus Christ seats us with Him in the heavenly places,--above the realm of decay, above this wasting flesh and perishing world.
[176] Col. i. 24--ii. 1; Phil. i. 16.
[177] Ch. ii. 7, iii. 10; Phil. i. 20; 2 Tim. iv. 17.
[178] I Thess. v. 25; 2 Thess. iii. 1; Rom. xv. 30-32; Col. iv. 3, etc.
[179] Out of the instances in which the English Version renders =logos= in St Paul by _utterance_, the Revisers have substituted _word_ for _utterance_ only in Col. iv. 3. One wishes they had done so throughout. For =logos= surely implies the _content_, the _import_ of what is said. This passage reminds us of John xvii. 14: "I have given them Thy word"; and xiv. 24: "The word which ye hear is not mine, but His."
[180] =En parrêsia=: comp. iii. 12; Phil. i. 20; Philem. 8; 2 Cor. vii. 4; 1 Thess. ii. 2, etc.
[181] Phil. i. 25, 26, ii. 23, 24; Philem. 22.
[182] 2 Tim. i. 7-12, ii. 3-10.
[183] Comp. Phil. i. 24-26.
[184] See pp. 13-17.
[185] Ch. i. 14, iv. 30. See Chapter IV., above.
[186] Rom. ii. 7; 1 Cor. xv. 42, 50, 53, 54; 2 Tim. i. 10. See Alford's excellent note on this passage.
[187] =Aphthoria=: =aphtharsia= is deleted in the critical texts.
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