Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

Hebrews 3:14

Hebrews 3:14. We are made partaken; rather, ‘we are become,' i.e we are now what we were not originally. The words describe a present character and an acquired character.

If, that is, we hold fast the beginning of our confidence the confidence we have begun to exercise

firm unto the end; not our former confidence (1 Timothy 5:12), not the principle of our confidence, the essence of it, but the beginning of it... to the end. On this condition we are partakers of Christ, united with Him (John 15:4; John 17:23), ‘even as He is united with us' (chap. Hebrews 2:14). This use of the word translated ‘confidence' is found only in 2 Corinthians 9:4; 2 Corinthians 11:17, and in this place. The Fathers generally regard it as meaning the beginning of what is our subsistence, our life, or even the beginning of what is the subsistence of Christ in us. The word is found, however, in Hellenistic writers and is now well known in the sense of confidence.

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Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

Hebrews 3:14

Old Testament

New Testament