SCRIPTURE MEMORY — WEEK 8

While such a verse requires a commentary longer than shown here, this verse is a wonderful verse in that it contains part of an early church hymn. Its uniformity, its rhythm, its parallelism in the original language indicates this; its six lines form a concise summary of the truth of the gospel. The mystery of Godliness simply looks at Jesus Christ. The mystery that is to say something that was hidden in the Old Testament age and is now revealed in the New Testament. That’s what mystery was used to indicate. Paul talked a lot about this mystery and that mystery and in every case he was saying some great truth hidden in the Old Testament now revealed. The greatest of mysteries was the mystery of God in human flesh, the mystery of Jesus Christ, the glorious reality of the incarnation. That then becomes sort of the theme for this early church hymn. God was manifested in the flesh as a human from a virgin birth. Moving on, the phrase justified by the Spirit simply means not so much the Holy Spirit but that is to say righteous in the inner person. God, virgin born, in human flesh, perfectly righteous, perfectly holy. Then the phrase seen by angels simply means that the angels, both holy angels and fallen angels, acknowledged the incarnate One. The holy angels acknowledged Him; they came and ministered to Him at His temptation after He had fasted for forty days and forty nights. The fallen angels certainly acknowledged Him when He confronted them and they said to Him what have we to do with you the Holy One of God. He was seen and acknowledged by angels. He was preached among the gentiles or better, among the nations. The apostles took the glorious message of Jesus Christ and began to spread that message to the ends of the earth. Believed on in the world, there were many who believed on Him. When He came into Galilee after His resurrection, there were over 500 believers there. When He appeared in the upper room in Judea there were 120 believers there. Then when the church was founded on the day of Pentecost there were many more, 3,000 that believed on Him. Soon there were thousands more and thousands more and as time went on the glory of the gospel has spread across the earth. Lastly, He was received up in glory. He came virgin born, He was righteous in His spirit, angels holy and fallen acknowledged Him, He was preached among the nations. And we can call Him our Lord and Savior.