The ambiguity is obvious. The church is both already holy and not yet holy. It has been sanctified, and it is called to sanctity. Moreover, this is so of all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ—their Lord and ours. The addition of these words, writes Professor Anthony Thiselton, ‘reinforces the thought that the church in Corinth is not a self-contained autonomous entity: they are not a self-sufficient community; they are not the only pebble on the beach’.2 On the contrary,
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