1 Timothy 2:6

a ransom The word is a compound naturally formed, as time passed, to represent Christ's own teaching, antilutronthus recalling the lutron antiof Matthew 20:28; Mark 10:45. On this last verse Maclear distinguishes, from Trench's Syn., p. 276, the three great circles of images in Scripture used to represent the purport of Christ's death:

(a) sin offering or propitiation, 1 John 2:2; 1 John 4:10.

(b) atonement, i.e. at-one-ment, reconciliation with an offended friend, Romans 5:11; Romans 11:15; 2 Corinthians 5:18-19.

(c) ransom, or the price paid for the redemption of a captive from slavery, Romans 3:24; Ephesians 1:7.

This third image, which is St Paul's latest love, occurs again, Titus 2:14, -that he might redeem us from all iniquity," and is chosen by St Peter, 1 Peter 1:18, and the writer to the Hebrews, Hebrews 9:12.

Our Article II. like this creed, and unlike the Apostles", Nicene and Athanasian Creeds, adds a statement of the purport of Christ's death to its statement of the fact; but takes the first and second of these images to express it; "who truly suffered, was crucified, dead and buried, to reconcileHis Father to us, and to be a sacrificenot only for original guilt but also for all actual sins of men." Cf. Art. XV.: -He came to be the Lamb without spot, who by sacrifice of Himself once made should take away the sins of the world."

to be testified in due time R.V. the testimony to be borne in its proper seasons; the neuter substantive having its proper sense, -that which was to be testified of." The word may well have come into this creed from the familiarity of the Jewish Christians with its use (as Wordsworth suggests) in the Pentateuch, where it occurs 30 times in connexion with the Holy of Holies, the Tables of the law, the Tabernacle and the Ark. Cf. Acts 7:44, -Our fathers had the tabernacle of the testimonyin the wilderness." -The redemption made by the Blood of Christ was the True Testimony which was reserved for its full revelation in its own appointed season," Ephesians 1:10, -a dispensation of the fulness of the seasons to sum up all things in Christ."

The reading is not doubtful, though from the apparent abruptness (sufficiently accounted for if part of a brief creed) the scribes in the mss. seem to have stumbled at the clause, each giving some variety for smoothness. See note on 1 Timothy 2:5 for the connexion; which makes the force and relevance of the familiar phrases strong and clear.