Yes, beyond dispute the mystery of godliness is a great one. The revelation of the Eternal Son, which imposes upon those who accept it a holiness of which His sinlessness must be the model, is something awful and profound. But He, Who along with every temptation which He allows "makes also the way of escape," does not impose a pattern for imitation without at the same time granting the grace necessary for struggling towards it. To reach it is impossible--at any rate in this life. But the consciousness that we cannot reach perfection is no excuse for aiming at imperfection. The sinlessness of Christ is immeasurably beyond us here; and it may be that even in eternity the loss caused by our sins in this life will never be entirely cancelled. But to those who have taken up their cross daily and followed their Master, and who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb, will be granted hereafter to stand sinless "before the throne of God and serve Him day and night in His temple." Having followed Christ on earth, they will follow Him still more in heaven. Having shared His sufferings here, they will share His reward there. They too will be "seen of angels" and "received up in glory." FOOTNOTES: [52] To take the "pillar and ground of the truth" as meaning Timothy makes sense, but not nearly such good sense: moreover, it is almost certain that if St. Paul had meant this, he would have expressed himself differently. There is no intolerable mixture of metaphors in speaking of Christians first as a house and then as a pillar, any more than in speaking of any one as both a pillar and a basis. In vi. 9 we have the covetous falling into a _snare_ and hurtful lusts such as _drown_ men. [53] 1 Cor. ii 1, 7, xv. 51; Eph. i. 9, iii. 3, 9, vi. 19; Col. i. 26, 27, ii. v. 3, comp. Rom. xi. 25, and see Lightfoot on Col. i. 26. [54] Cf. Col. i. 27, which throws much light on this passage; and also Col. ii. 2. In some MSS. and Versions the "Who" has been changed into "which," in order to make the construction less harsh. [55] Carmen Christo quasi deo dicere secum invicem (Plin., _Ep._ x. 97). [56] St. John reclined on our Lord's right; Judas seems to have been on His left. He must have been very close to be able to hear without the others hearing. [57] Cf. the partly parallel passage 1 Pet. iii. 18: "Put to death in the flesh, but quickened in the spirit." But "flesh" and "spirit" have no preposition in the original Greek in 1 Pet. iii. 18: here each has the ἐν. CHAPTER XIII. _THE COMPARATIVE VALUE OF BODILY EXERCISE AND OF GODLINESS._ "Exercise thyself unto godliness: for bodily exercise is profitable for a little; but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life which now is, and of that which is to come"--1 TIM. iv. 7, 8.