10, CROOMS HILL, GREENWICH, JANUARY 10TH, 1901
10, CROOMS HILL, GREENWICH, JANUARY 10TH, 1901
Mr. F. Fentiman.
My Dear Brother, — In answer to your note I send a line to say that the passage you quote from the third chapter of the first of Timothy is a difficult one. The reason is that the reading is contested. Many read instead of “God was manifest in the flesh”, ‘He who has been manifested in the flesh’. I think I incline rather to this last reading, because it seems difficult to speak of God being received up into glory. In any case I am not prepared to adopt the thought to which you refer. The entire passage appears to me to forbid it. I do not enter into the idea of there being a [p. 168] manifestation of God in the church, though the church is here as a witness to God morally. ‘If we love one another God dwelleth in us and His love is perfected in us’, but this is hardly the same thing as a manifestation. And if God has been manifested I do not see that He needs still to be manifested, the manifestation is maintained by the presence of the Holy Spirit. The only thing in the way of manifestation at the present time is, I think, the Lord manifesting Himself to the one who keeps His commandments. What you speak is a new notion, and at present I should not be prepared to endorse it. I trust that your little one is gaining ground, and that you are keeping well, and remain, with love in the Lord,
Your affectionate brother,
F. E. Raven.