τινων: See note on 1 Tim. 1. 3.
Ver. το. ‘* We will not fear. The city of God... shall not be moved” (Ps. xlvi. 2, 4; cf. Heb. xii. 28). The Church of the New Covenant is like the Church of the Old Covenant: it has an ideal integrity unaffected by the defection of some who had seemed to belong to it. ‘““They are not all Israel, which are of Israel. . . . All Israel shall be saved” (Rom. ix. 6, xi. 26). ‘‘They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us”’ (1 John ii. το). The Church, as existing in the Divine Know- ledge, not as apprehended by man’s in- tellect, is the firm foundation of God (R.V.), i.e, that which God has firmly founded. It is called here θεμέλιος τοῦ θεοῦ rather than οἶκος τ. θεοῦ, so as to express the better its immobility, unaf- fected by those who ἀνατρέπουσι, κ.τ.λ.; cf. στύλος καὶ ἑδραίωμα τῆς ἀληθείας (1. Tim. iii. 15). There can hardly be an allusion to the parable with which the Sermon on the Mount closes, Luke vi. 48, 49. With στερεός compare the use of στερεόω, Acts xvi. 5, and of στερέωμα, Col. ii. 5.
ἔχων THY σφραγῖδα: It was noted on
17---20.
167
» > A Xe? , SUS ety I / “- δ δὺς ca oe, β οντας αὐτοῦ, καὶ “᾿Αποστήτω απὸ ἀδικίας πας ὁ ὀνομάξων το ονομα εϑ8εε : Tim.
Κυρίου.
ἀργυρᾶ ἀλλὰ καὶ ® ξύλινα καὶ 3
3 Ἀ a A > A a A ὀστράκινα, καὶ ἃ μὲν εἰς τιμὴν ἃ δὲ
iv. I.
5 , RS >” > , , “ ‘ 4 20. ἐν μεγάλῃ δὲ οἰκίᾳ οὔκ ἐστιν μόνον σκεύη χρυσᾶ καὶ f Acts xix.
13, Rom.