delivered from the tyranny of the darkness, and translated into the
Kingdom of the Son of His love.




'THE FORM OF TEACHING'

'... Ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine
which was delivered you.'--ROMANS vi. 17.


There is room for difference of opinion as to what Paul precisely
means by 'form' here. The word so rendered appears in English as
_type_, and has a similar variety of meaning. It signifies
originally a mark made by pressure or impact; and then, by natural
transitions, a _mould_, or more generally a _pattern_ or _example_,
and then the copy of such an example or pattern, or the cast from
such a mould. It has also the other meaning which its English
equivalent has taken on very extensively of late years, such as, for
instance, you find in expressions like 'An English type of face,'
meaning thereby the general outline which preserves the
distinguishing characteristics of a thing. Now we may choose between
these two meanings in our text. If the Apostle means type in the
latter sense of the word, then the rendering 'form' is adequate, and
he is thinking of the Christian teaching which had been given to the
Roman Christians as possessing certain well-defined characteristics
which distinguished it from other kinds of teaching--such, for
instance, as Jewish or heathen.