Vv. 9,10. WE MUST REMEMBER THE JUDGMENT TO COME.—Ver. 9. διὸ καὶ φιλοτιμούμεθα κ.τ.λ.; wherefore also we make it our ambition (see reff.), whether at home or away from home, sc., whether at His coming He finds us ‘‘ in the body ”’ or * out of the body,” to be well pleasing to Him; cf. Rom. xiv. 8, Phil. i. 20, 1 Thess. v. το,
Ver. το. τοὺς γὰρ πάντας κ.τ.λ.: for (explanatory of the reason of our desire to be “well-pleasing’’ to Him) we all (τοὺς πάντας is emphatic, not only Paul who has been speaking of himself as ἡμεῖς, but “all of us” quick as well as
68
γ.
τι "μι 11. εἰδότες οὖν τὸν " φόβον τοῦ ἢ" Κυρίου, ἀνθρώπους πείθομεν, Θεῷ
XXXV. 5; chap. vii. 1 and
πεφανερῶσθαι.
21. ς Reff. i. 12. d Reff. iii. 1.
δὲ πεφανερώμεθα: ἐλπίζω δὲ καὶ ἐν ταῖς “σσυνειδήσεσιν ὑμῶν 12. οὐ yap! πάλιν “ ἑαυτοὺς " συνιστάνομεν ὑμῖν, ἀλλὰ " ἀφορμὴν διδόντες ἡμῖν 2 καυχήματος ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν, ἵνα ἔχητε
e Rom. vii. 8, 11; chap. xi. 12; Gal. v. 13; 1 Tim. v. 14 only; Prov. ix. 9; 3 Macc. iii. 4.
1 DcEKL support yap; om. all vss. and RBCD*G. 2 B*, ἆ, e support διδοντες ηµιν; better υμιν with all other authorities. 5 9B 17 have (wrongly) vpwv ; ἡμῶν all other authorities.
dead) must be made manifest. The A.V. ‘‘appear” weakens the force of the word; the Day of Judgment is to be a day when men’s characters shall be made patent to the world, and to themselves, as they have always been to God; οἵ, Mark iv. 22, Rom. ii. 16, xiv. 1ο, 1 Cor. iv. 5, Rev. xx. 12.--ἔμπροσθεν τοῦ βήμ. κ.τ.λ.: before the judgment-seat ο
Christ. In the N.T. (see reff.) βῆμα is always used (except in the quotation Acts vii. 5) of the official seat of a judge, although twice in the LXX (Neh. viii. 4, 2 Macc. xiii. 26), as generally in classical Greek, it stands for the pulpit from which a formal speech is made.—tva κομίσηται ἕκαστος κ.τ.λ.: that each one may re- ceive, i.e., obtain the es of (see reff.), the things done rraetionn ἡ the medium of the body (cf. Plato's phrase αἰσθήσεις αἱ διὰ τοῦ σώματος, cited by Meyer; there is no need to identify διὰ τοῦ σώματος with ἐν τῷ σώματι of ver. 6 as the A.V. and R.V. do) according to what he did, sc., in this present life (note the aorist and cf. Luke xii. 47), whether it be good or bad (cf., for this constr. of «ire... εἴτε, Eph. vi. 8, Phil. i. 18). Similar expressions are used of a future judg- ment, at, ¢.g., Ps. lxi. 13, Prov. xxiv. 12, Jer. xvii. το, xxxii. 19 (cf. Job xxxiv. 11 2) in the O.T., and in the N.T. at Rom. ii. 6, xiv. 12, 1 Pet. i. 17, in all of which passages the power of judgment is as- cribed to the Eternal Father. But He ‘hath given all judgment unto the Son” (John v. 22), and thus Christ is repeatedly spoken of as the future Judge of men, e.g., Matt. xvi. 27, Acts xvii. 31, Rev. ii. 23, xxii. 12, and esp. Matt. xxv. 31-46. Ο/. Luke xxi. 36, σταθῆναι ἔμπροσθεν τοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ ἀνθρώπον. And so (from the present verse) the variant Χριστοῦ has crept into the parallel passage, Rom. xiv. 1Ο,πάντες γὰρ παραστησόμεθα τῷ βήματι τοῦ Θεοῦ. A reference to the O.T. parallels makes it tolerably plain that the statement that men will be judged
according to their works is a broad and general one, and that to find a difficulty, as the Fathers did, in the case of the death of infants (whether baptised or unbaptised), who are incapable of self- conscious and voluntary actions, is quite perverse,