Stability is in the person of Christ, first, for eternal life, and also for the ways of God on earth. If the church was spued out of His mouth, He was the faithful witness, the beginning of the creation of God. This is the theme of John. For Paul, the church belonged to heaven, though built for God's habitation in the spirit on earth. John had neither Peter's place nor Paul's, but was linked with the one, and carried on the testimony among the gentiles where the other had been a master-builder.