<- Previous   First   Next ->

communication of the divine (personal) life and of the participation in the divine (social) life, is followed by the fact of individual apprehension of the beauty of the message of God and of the manifestations of the higher life. The Christian life has been realised not only in its essential beginnings but in the fulness of its power. Both the blessings which are now put forward have become the objects of direct experience in their essential completeness
(
geusamevnou" ... rJh'ma ... dunavmei" ).
kai; kalo;n geu". qeou' rJh'ma ] Vulg. gustaverunt nihilominus bonum Dei verbum. The order of the original gives the sense ‘tasted the goodness—beauty—of the Word of GOD.’ For kalovn (Tert. dulce ) compare Heb. 10:24 kala; e[rga note; 1 Pet. 2:12. That of which experience was made was not the whole message of the Gospel ( oJ lovgo" tou' qeou' ), but some special utterance ( qeou' rJh'ma ), such as that which marks the confession of faith, apprehended in its true character as an utterance of God: Rom. 10:8; Eph. 5:26; comp. Heb. 1:3 n.; John 6:68. Philo, de Prof. § 25 (1.566 M.) zhthvsante" kai; tiv to; trevfon ejsti; th;n yuch;n (Ex. 16:15) eu|ron maqovnte" rJh'ma qeou' kai; lovgon qeou', ajfj ou| pa'sai paidei'ai kai; sofivai rJevousin ajevnnaoi . Comp. Leg. Alleg. iii. §§ 59, 61 quoted on Heb. 4:12. dunavmei" mevllonto" aijw'no" ] powers of a future age , powers, so to speak, of another world. The indefinite expression suggests the idea of the manifoldness of the energies of the spiritual order of which each believer feels some one or other (Heb. 2:4). The anarthrous aijw;n mevllwn , which is not found elsewhere, serves also to fix attention on the character of the ‘age’ as one hitherto unrealised, as distinguished from the conception of any particular future order (comp. Eph. 2:7: Heb. 2:5 hJ oijkoumevnh hJ mevllousa ). A strangely similar phrase is quoted from Philo, Leg. Alleg. i. § 12 (1:50 M.), oJ qeo;" ejpevneusen aujtw'/ (Adam) duvnamin ajlhqinh'" zwh'" .

It is significant that in the enumeration of the divine gifts received by those who are conceived as afterwards falling away there is no one which passes out of the individual. All are gifts of power, of personal endowment. There is no gift of love. Under this aspect light falls upon the passage from Matt. 7:22 f.; 1 Cor. 13:1 f.

In this connexion it will be noticed that it was the presence of love among the Hebrews which inspired the Apostle with confidence (Heb. 6:10). Haec est margarita pretiosa caritas, sine qua nihil tibi prodest quodcunque habueris; quam si solam habeas sufficit tibi (Aug. in 1 Joh. Tract. v. § 7).

6. kai; parapesovnta" ] Vulg. et prolapsi sunt (Tert. cum exciderint ). The catalogue of privileges is closed by the statement of apostasy: those who were once for all enlightened... and fell away ... Each part of the picture is presented in its past completeness. Compare 1 John 2:19.

The verb parapivptein does not occur elsewhere in the N. T. though the noun paravptwma is common. The verb and the noun occur together

Ezek. 14:13; 15:8 ( l['m; , H5085).

The idea is that of falling aside from the right path, as the idea of aJmartavnein is that of missing the right mark. pavlin ajnakainivzein eij" metavnoian ] again to renew them to repentance , Vulg. renovari rursum ad paenitentiam (so also Tert., Ambr., Hier.; d e alone iterum renovare ). The use of the active voice limits the strict application of the words to human agency. This is all that comes within the


<- Previous   First   Next ->