The remaining triplet is more simple: the meaning of each one of its clauses is clear. The same Christ, who was seen of angels, was also preached among the nations of the earth and believed on in the world: yet He Himself was taken up from the earth and received once more in glory. The propagation of the faith in an ascended Christ is here plainly and even enthusiastically stated. To all the nations, to the whole world, this glorified Saviour belongs. All this adds emphasis to the question “how men ought to behave themselves in the house of God” in which such truths are taught and upheld.
It is remarkable how many arrangements of these six clauses are possible, all making excellent sense. We may make them into two triplets of independent lines: or we may couple the two first lines of each triplet together and then make the third lines correspond to one another. In either case each group begins with earth and ends with heaven. Or again, we may make the six lines into three couplets. In the first couplet flesh and spirit are contrasted and combined; in the second, angels and men; in the third, earth and heaven.
Yes, beyond dispute the mystery of godliness is a great one. The revelation of the Eternal Son, which imposes upon those who accept it a holiness of which His sinlessness must be the model, is something awful and profound. But He, Who along with every temptation which He allows “makes also the way of escape,” does not impose a pattern for imitation without at the same time granting the grace necessary for struggling towards it. To reach it is impossible—at any rate in this life. But the consciousness that we cannot reach perfection is no excuse for aiming at imperfection. The sinlessness of Christ is immeasurably beyond us here; and it may be that even in eternity the loss caused by our sins in this life will never be entirely cancelled. But to those who have taken up their cross daily and followed their Master, and who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb, will be granted hereafter to stand sinless “before the throne of God and serve Him day and night in His temple.” Having followed Christ on earth, they will follow Him still more in heaven. Having shared His sufferings here, they will share His reward there. They too will be “seen of angels” and “received up in glory.”
FOOTNOTES:
[52] To take the “pillar and ground of the truth” as meaning Timothy makes sense, but not nearly such good sense: moreover, it is almost certain that if St. Paul had meant this, he would have expressed himself differently. There is no intolerable mixture of metaphors in speaking of Christians first as a house and then as a pillar, any more than in speaking of any one as both a pillar and a basis. In vi. 9 we have the covetous falling into a snare and hurtful lusts such as drown men.
[53] 1 Cor. ii 1, 7, xv. 51; Eph. i. 9, iii. 3, 9, vi. 19; Col. i. 26, 27, ii. v. 3, comp. Rom. xi. 25, and see Lightfoot on Col. i. 26.
[54] Cf. Col. i. 27, which throws much light on this passage; and also Col. ii. 2. In some MSS. and Versions the “Who” has been changed into “which,” in order to make the construction less harsh.
[55] Carmen Christo quasi deo dicere secum invicem (Plin., Ep. x. 97).
[56] St. John reclined on our Lord’s right; Judas seems to have been on His left. He must have been very close to be able to hear without the others hearing.
[57] Cf. the partly parallel passage 1 Pet. iii. 18: “Put to death in the flesh, but quickened in the spirit.” But “flesh” and “spirit” have no preposition in the original Greek in 1 Pet. iii. 18: here each has the ἐν.