human
Who with which the quotation begins will refer to something in the preceding lines which are not quoted. How natural, then, that St. Paul should leave the
gpt
Who unchanged, although it does not fit on grammatically to his own sentence. But in any case there is no doubt as to the antecedent of the
human
Who.
gpt
The mystery of godliness has for its centre and basis the life of a Divine Person; and the great crisis in the long process by which the mystery was revealed was reached when this Divine Person
human
That in making this statement or quotation the Apostle has in his mind the Gnostics who
gpt
(i. 3), is quite possible, but is by no means certain. The
human
of Christ in the flesh is a favourite topic with him, as with St. John, and is one of the points in which the two Apostles not only teach the same doctrine, but teach it in the same language. The fact that he had used the word
gpt
would be quite enough to make him speak of
human
even if there had been no false teachers who denied or explained away the fact of the Incarnation of the Divine Son. The two words fit into one another exactly.
gpt
Mystery, in Christian theology, implies something which once was concealed but has now been made known;
human
implies making known what had once been concealed. _An historical appearance of One Who had previously existed, but had been kept from_ _the knowledge of the world_, is what is meant by,
gpt
Who was manifested in the flesh.
human
Justified in the spirit. Spirit here cannot mean the Holy Spirit, as the A.V. would lead us to suppose.
gpt
In spirit in this clause is in obvious contrast to
human
in the previous clause. And if
gpt
means the material part of Christ's nature,