Timothy to Hebrews - The Preterist Archive

Second Timothy II 20. 215
first expression is taken from the LXX (Numb. xvi. 5), who take
9T] for SI'''). The inexact citations found elsewhere with Paul prevent
this from occasioning any suspicion regarding its authorship by
him : comp. e. g. De Wette at Kom. iii, 4. The citation involves
no falsehood, as the fundamental thought is in both cases clearly
the same. Its import is here made perfectly clear by its historical
relation : as there the Lord presides over his church and makes
known who are his own, so also with the New Testament church :
he knows his own, and distinguishes them in fact from those who do
not belong to him. In the church, therefore, of which the Lord is
the head, error can never establish itself in the place of truth, and
succeed in overthrowing the divinely laid foundation. But again
the inscription states the requisition made of those who will
be the
Lord's. To depart from iniquity is an indispensable prerequisite to
being recognized as his own. The words preserve, doubtless, as remarked
by interpreters, the historical relation involved in the tyvw
Kvpcog, comp. Numb. xvi. 26 ( Is. Iii. 11). That eyv(o marks not an
abstract knowing, but an acknowledgment which manifests itself, is
clear alike from the historical relation of the passage, and from its
use elsewhere : comp. 1 Cor. viii. 3; Gal. iv. 8; and Winer's Comm.
on the passage : agniti a Deo ut qui Dei sint {nam Deus, inquit
Pelagius, non novit iniquos) sc. datis bonis spiritualihus. 'Adtda
opposed to moral rectitude, involves^ but not exclusively, false doctrine,
comp. ver. 22. " Every one who nameth the name of the
Lord" is not = n; Duja sn;? " to call on the name," etc. (ver. 22) : to
name here = to profess.
Ver. 20.—Having declared that they only belong to the divine
foundation who belong truly to the Lord, the apostle turns to the
church in its actual manifestation
;
(comp. on the change to oMa at
deixeXiog, ver. 19). As this in its composition from various and even
adverse elements, seems to contradict his view, he proceeds to shew
on the one hand that this circumstance, as being virtually involved
in a great house which the church, in fact, appears, is relatively necessary;
and on the other, to connect with it the admonition to purify
onesself from all that which in the house of Grod can make one a
vessel of dishonor. MfyaA^/, great, is to be carefully noticed; it expresses
the sfime thought as the parable of the net (Matth. xiii. 4'').
As this, when thrown into the sea, cannot but enclose fish of all
kinds, so the church as a large house, cannot but contain vessels of
various value and use. And that this juxtaposition of various
and discordant elements is not in conflict with the divine purpose is
clear from our passage and still more from Matth. xiii. 24, seq. It
needs no proof that oinia here is not, as understood by Chrysostom,
Thedoret, etc., the world; but (with Cyprian, Augustiu, etc., comp.
in De Wette) the church in its temporal condition : neque enim de