In 2 Timothy 2:11-13 the “faithful saying” has been interpreted to be a similar quotation from one of these ancient hymns:
“For if we are dead together, We shall live together; If we serve together, We shall reign together; If we should deny Him, He will deny us too; If we should be faithless, He is faithful still.”
It does not, of course, absolutely follow that these are really such fragments of hymns as scholars have supposed. The late Dr. Lyman Coleman—a man of great practical good judgment—comments upon these citations thus:
“The argument is not conclusive; and all the learned criticism, the talent, and the taste, that have been employed on this point, leave us little else than uncertain conjecture on which to build an hypothesis.” (_Primitive Church_, p. 366.) Yet the latest scholarship tends so strongly in this direction, and the internal evidence is so good and fair, that it may be regarded as pretty well affirmed and accepted. No one, for example, would think of comparing such passages as these with the antithetic prose of Romans 3:21-23; or with the magnificent unrhythmic utterance in Romans 8:38, 39; or with the careful particularity of 2 Corinthians 6:4-10. They are seen and felt to be different both in tone and in form.
In the Apocalypse, where the language is naturally exalted and poetic, several such instances have been noted. They are: Revelation 1:4-8; 5:9, 10, 12-14; 11:15, 17, 18; 15:3, 4; 21:10-14, and 22:17. Of one of these—the “Song of Moses and of the Lamb”—we may be reasonably certain:
“Great are Thy works and strange, Lord God, Thou Ruler of all! And just are Thy ways, and true, Thou King of the nations of earth. For who shall not fear Thee, Lord, And give to Thy name the praise, For holy art Thou alone!— To Thee shall the nations come And worship before Thy face; For all of Thy righteous acts Shall then be openly known!”
In the same manner may be written the stanza from Revelation 22:17:
“And the Spirit and the Bride— Are saying, ‘Come!’ And he that heareth— Let him say, ‘Come!’ And he that thirsteth— Let him come! And he that willeth— Let him receive, Freely, the water of life!”
We have also a positive acquaintance with the order of religious worship in the early Church, dating back one hardly knows how far, but definitely leading us into the custom of the first three centuries. Public services began, and were continued, as follows: