gloom, +as luminaries+ (_phosteres_), light-bearers, kindled by the
Lord of Light, +in the world+; in which you dwell; not of it, but in
it, walking up and down "before the sons of men" (Ps. xxxi. 19), that
they may see, and seek,

Ver. 16. your blessed Secret; +holding out+ (_epechontes_[3]), as
those who offer a boon for acceptance, +the word of life+, the Gospel,
with its secret of eternal life in Christ; at once telling and
commending His message; +to afford me+, even me (_emoi_), +exultation,
in view of+ (_eis_) +Christ's Day+, in anticipation of what I shall
feel then; +because not in vain did I run, nor in vain did I toil+.[4]
But let me not speak of "toil" as if I sighed over a hard lot, or
wished to suffer less on your behalf.

Ver. 17. +Nay, even if I am being poured out as a drink-offering+
(_spendomai_) +on the sacrifice and ritual+ (_leitourgia_) +of your
faith+--on you, so to speak, as you in faith offer yourselves a living
sacrifice to God[5]--+I rejoice, and I congratulate+ (_sugchairo_) +you
all+, on your faith and holiness, for which it was well worth my while
to die as your helper and example. +And in+

Ver. 18. +the same way+ (_to de auto_) +do you too rejoice, and
congratulate me+,[6] as true partners with me in the martyr-spirit and
its joys.

Here let us pause in our paraphrasing version, and sit down as it were
to gather up and weigh some of the treasures we have found.

i. We have had before us, in the whole passage, that ever-recurring
lesson, Holiness in the Truth, as Truth--"the Truth as it is in
Jesus"--is the living secret of Holiness. We have still in our ears
the celestial music, infinitely sweet and full, of the great paragraph
of the Incarnation, the journey of the Lord of Love from glory to glory
by the way of the awful Cross. May we not now give ourselves awhile
wholly to reverie, and feast upon the divine poetry at our leisure?
Not so; the immediate sequel is--that we are to be holy. We are _to
act_ in the light and wonder of so vast an act of love, in the wealth
and resource of "so great salvation." We are to set spiritually to
work. We are to learn that all-important lesson in religion, the holy
and humble energy and independence which come to the man who "knows
whom he has believed," and is aware that he possesses "all spiritual
blessing" (Eph. i. 3) in Him. We are to rise up and, if need be, walk
alone, alone of human help, in the certainty that Christ has