ter of public
confession in the Christian church: to make profession that 'Jesus is
Lord' qualified for 'the salvation'[15]: and in this lay hid all that
is essential to the Christian creed. Already then in the earliest
church subjective faith involved a certain objective and public
creed[16] which came very soon to be called 'the faith.' In this
passage also, as in xiv. 9 and in St. Peter's epistle, we recognize, as
an element in the common tradition, the belief in the Descent into
Hades (the abyss).

3. St. Paul incidentally shows us his {56} instinctive feeling that to
be a trustworthy ambassador for God one needs 'apostolate.' 'How shall
they preach except they be _sent_?' And this apostolate, as he uses
it, means not only an inward sense of mission, but an external sending
by Christ Himself; and in pursuance of the same principle, when once
the Church has been established, it would mean a sending by those
authorized to send in His name. This is the root principle of the
Christian 'stewardship.' As the subapostolic Clement expresses it,
'Christ (was sent) from God, and the apostles from Christ. Each came
in due order from the will of God. Therefore, having received the
words of command, and having been fully convinced by the resurrection
of our Lord Jesus Christ, and been assured in the message of God with
conviction of the Holy Ghost, they came forth, preaching the gospel
that the kingdom of God was to come. Therefore as they preached in
country and towns they established their first-fruits, when they had
put them to the proof, to be bishops (i.e. presbyters), and deacons of
those who were to come to the faith.' And afterwards, in view of
disputes over the presbyteral office, which divine inspiration enabled
them to anticipate, they made provision for a due succession {57} in
the 'episcopate' on the death of those first appointed[17].

4. St. Paul's singularly free, but deeply inspired, manner of applying
texts from the Old Testament is especially illustrated in this passage.

Thus the passages quoted from Isaiah about the Stone, which St. Paul
applies to Christ, refer originally to Jehovah simply in one case (Isa.
viii. 14), and probably to His will and covenant as the foundation of
Israel's polity in the other (Isa. xxviii. 16). Jewish tradition had
possibly already referred them to the Christ[18]; and certainly our
Lord's use of Ps. cxviii. 22--'The stone which the builders
rejected'--as applying