1 Timothy 6:13

God, who quickeneth The word which has the sanction of the mss. points to God as Preserver of Life, rather than as Creator; but R.V. leaves quickeneth in the text because - Newevery morning is the love Our wakening and uprising prove."

The word is especially suitable, looking back to the charge to -lay hold strongly of the true heavenly life."

before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession the good confession. The meaning may be either (1) -suffered under(i.e. in the time of) Pontius Pilate," and as the faithful Witness (Revelation 1:5) made that good confession of the Cross, and in it of His Father's love, His own Sacrifice, which has inspired every life of witness and every martyr's death, or (2) - before(i.e. before the tribunal of) Pontius Pilate attested the good confession" as -true King," i.e. -very Lord and Christ;" this it is which the oral Gospel must have taught as the basis on which Matthew 27:11; Mark 15:2; Luke 23:3; John 18:33-37 were founded; this it is which from St Peter's sermon (Acts 2:36) to St John's epistles (1 John 4:14-15) and thence to every Ordination and every Holy Baptism has been confessed by Christendom. Though the whole passage is morethan polemical, the formof -the charge" is affected perhaps by the thought of that teaching which was beginning to assail the old -knowledge" and creed about the person of Christ; and so the second which is the sharper, more defined, interpretation may be preferable. The later phraseology seems to take up and draw out more fully the language here, 1 John 4:14-15; 1 John 3:23.

-Before" of place and -under" of time are equally admissible for the preposition: see note on 1 Timothy 5:19.