39. οὐκ ἐσμὲν ὑποστολῆς κ.τ.λ. “But we are not of defection unto perdition, but of faith unto gaining of the soul.” (The genitives are genitives which imply a property, as in 1Co 14:33, οὐ γάρ ἐστιν ἀκαταστασίας ὁ θεός.) “Faith,” says Delitzsch, “saves the soul by linking it to God … The unbelieving man loses his soul; for not being God’s neither is he his own.” He does not possess himself. The word περιποίησις is also found in Eph 1:14. In these words the writer shews that in his awful warnings against apostasy he is only putting a hypothetical case. “His readers,” he says, “though some of them may have gone towards the verge, have not yet passed over the fatal line.” The word Faith is here introduced with the writer’s usual skill to prepare for the next great section of the Epistle.