Timothy to Hebrews - The Preterist Archive

First Timothy IV. 1. 99
really fulfilled. On [leTdXrjxIjig (only here), comp. the use of nera-
XafilidveLv. Acts ii. 46, xsvii. 33 ; on tTrey., what is said at Phil. i. 9
on e-niyvojacg. ToXg moToXg is simply the dative of destination.
Ver. 4.—The words, to be received with thanksgiving, are now,
in vers. 4 and 5, farther confirmed. It is not, however, the natural
cleanness of the meats as what God hath created, to which the
apostle here attaches importance ; he rather represents the being
good, as dependent on the being received with thankfulness.
What
the apostle here maintains, in confirmation of the preceding, is the
perfectly equal fitness and lawfulness of every creature of God in
respect of enjoyment, under the condition of thanksgiving in the
enjoyment ; for (ver. 5), it is sanctified through the word of God
and prayer. In regard to the Old Testament, it is the same truth
which is here recognized as that which was disclosed to Peter
through the vision, Acts x. 11-16 ;
but it does not stand here in
definite opposition to the Old Testament. Nor does it need any
proof—for it is universally admitted—that the apostle would oppose
this Judaism in a different manner ; not to speak oi i\iQ forbidding
to marry, in connexion with abstaining from meats, ver. 8, a feature
which does not admit of being associated with the common pharisaical
Judaism. But we have already hinted how little vers. 4 and
5 are suited to refute the Gnostic dislike to the creation. How
should nothing more have been said in this case, than that not in
the abstinence from, but in the thankful enjoyment of meats, is the
purpose of the Creator fulfilled, seeing that the point in dispute
must have been, whether God is the Cxeator ? It would, at least,
have been something to the purpose if he had even said, what he
says at 1 Cor. x. 26, the earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof.
Such a sentiment would have had far more of an anti-Gnostic cast
than the every creature is good in our passage, with the condition
which is attached to it, if it be received with thanksgiving , and the
for it is sanctified, etc. What is there in these expressions more
anti-Gnostic than in the words, nothing is unclean of itself, etc.,
Kom. xiv. 14, or all things are pure, Rom. xiv. 20 ? And what opposition
to the Gnostic dualism is implied in making the good to be
dependent on the thanksgiving ? Finally, Dr. Baur's critical notices,
drawn from the period of the Gnosis, p. 24, seq., serve well
the purpose of letting us see the later form of these errors.—The
apostle has still to justify his assertion that meats are intended to
be enjoyed with thanksgiving. He does this in the verse before us,
by placing in opposition to the arbitrary distinctions made by the
heretics in meats, the maxim that every creature is good, and not
to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving. He does not say
Kadapov, as at Rom, xiv. 20, or kolvov, as xiv. 14 ; for he here speaks
in opposition to the opinion of the heretics, who, in regard to the