The positive and negative aspects of faith: “Videndum est ut ruinam errorum sequatur aedificium fidei” (Calvin). ἀληθινῷ = “real” as opposed to false in the sense of “counterfeit”. ζῶντι, as opposed to dead idols (see above, p. 5) impotent to help their worshippers. Elsewhere the phrase (cf. 1 Timothy 3:15; Hebrews 3:12) “implies a contrast with the true God made practically a dead deity by a lifeless and rigid form of religion” (Hort, Christian Ecclesia, 173). Nothing brings home the reality of God (i.e., as Father, 1 Thessalonians 1:1-3) to the Christian at first so much as the experience of forgiveness.

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Old Testament