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p174 [F G Patterson] MY DEAR, BROTHER, - I reject entirely its ["fellowship with one another"] being with God in 1 John 1:7 - not merely think the other right: ἀλλήλων is mere mutuality, and God would have as, much communion with us as a companion, as we have with Him, which is to be utterly rejected as irreverent and wrong. Scripture never speak so of God - God's having communion with us as between two equals; and ἀλλήλων is thorough mutuality. it is a kind of a fochair a ceile,* which cannot be entertained for a moment.

{*[Irish idiom, for companionship on equal terms.]}

As regard δικαίωσις ( Rom. 4:25) - διά is translated "for" as giving the sense best in English, The point is, not there, but in δικαίωσις. Διά with an accusative is just "on account of"; but δικαίωσις is not the thing done but the doing of it; and it is this, on which it turns. If it had been "on account of our having been justified," it would have been διὰ τὸ δικαιωθῆναι ἡμᾶς. And this is not the case till faith comes in; hence (chap. 5:1) δικαιωθέυτες ἐκ πίστεως. The Greek rule is that words derived from the perfect passive are the thing done, doing it, and the doer - κρίμα the judgment, κρίσις the judging, κριτές the judge - though all three are not always there. We have δικαίωμα, δικαίωσις; I am not aware of δικαίωτης.

As to Job 19:25 I believe in Job's mind it was a confident trust that God would then deliver him. But I cannot help thinking that, the Spirit of God so ordered it as to imply a brighter and better hope, as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob did, in the Lord's hands, beyond the mind of the Jews. You may see by the italics that the passage is very obscure. I find I have translated in German as the Italian Diodati does - And I know my Redeemer lives, and he will stand at the end upon the earth and if after my skin this shall be destroyed (Italian, 'consumed'), yet I shall out of (or 'with') my flesh look upon God," etc. The difference is not very material, "worms" and "body" being both in italics. In Hebrew it is simply "they have destroyed." Verse 24 desires that his confidence in God was engraven on a rock, and the result would prove that it was right. The Redeemer is the common word for next of kin, on whom the right of redemption and avenging injuries devolved. God would be his goel (Hebrew). People have thought Job's faith could not have reached this: perhaps not, habitually. But here his soul rises up to God, and he puts life in God in contrast with the present consumption of skin and flesh, and that the power of deliverance (and will) from its perishing condition was there. He lives, he stands up above all that is dust, and while possibly looking to deliverance I doubt not the Spirit looks to a better resurrection.

As to "likeness,"* the reference is to baptism; but ὁμοιώματι is not merely likeness as comparison. Christ "was made in the likeness of men," according to this pattern. It is not the thing itself, but in the case of Christ's humanity, clearly not the denial of it. If I have taken my place with Christ, I have taken it with Him dead, and consequently if it be His death it involves according to the same pattern resurrection. He takes the reality of the thing, but takes it as expressed and patterned in baptism. In Romans we are not risen with Him in baptism.

Affectionately yours in the Lord.

[1872

{*[What is meant by "the likeness of His death"?]}

[52105E]

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