Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 2 Timothy 1:12
For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.
12. For the which cause I also suffer these things ] R.V. places ‘also’ after ‘suffer’ that the emphasis may belong as much to ‘these things’ as to ‘suffer’ according to the order of the Greek; and substitutes yet for ‘nevertheless,’ which is too emphatic for the Greek word.
am not ashamed ] The reference to 2Ti 1:8 is obvious, as ‘these things’ are the chains and dungeon of ‘the Lord’s prisoner.’ Cf. Rom 1:16.
I know whom I have believed ] Rather with R.V. him whom, because it is the relative not the interrogative pronoun that is used.
to keep that which I have committed unto him ] R.V. places in the margin the alternative sense, according to its rule when the balance of authority is nearly even, ‘that which he hath committed unto me’; and gives the literal Greek ‘my deposit.’ The genitive of the personal pronoun rendered ‘my’ may be either subjective here or objective; hence the uncertainty, which the context does not clear up entirely. On the whole, looking to the speciality of the phrase and its use in 1Ti 6:20, and below 2Ti 1:14 of Timothy’s guarding of the sound doctrine handed on to him, and here only besides, it seems most probable that St Paul is adopting, to describe God’s commission to him, the same words in which he describes the same commission to Timothy. And by a change very characteristic of St Paul, when we might have expected the phrase to run ‘am persuaded that I shall be enabled to guard’ it is made to run ‘am persuaded that he is able to guard.’ Cf. ‘ yet not I, but Christ liveth in me ’ Gal 2:20. The guarding, thus, is exactly the same, viz. God’s, in the 14th verse, ‘guard through the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us.’ Compare Rom 7:24-25 with Rom 8:9. See note on 1Ti 6:20, for a fuller account of the ‘deposit’ itself, as the commission to hand on sound doctrine. If at the end of the first epistle this had become the Apostle’s chief absorbing anxiety, much more is it so now, in the very hour of his departure.
against that day ] With a view to, in readiness for, that day; cf. Judges 6, ‘angels he hath kept unto the judgment of the great day.’
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
For the which cause I also suffer these things – That is, I suffer on account of my purpose to carry the gospel to the Gentiles; see the notes at Col 1:24.
Nevertheless I am not ashamed – compare the notes at Rom 1:16.
For I know whom I have believed – Margin, trusted. The idea is, that he understood the character of that Redeemer to whom he had committed his eternal interests, and knew that he had no reason to be ashamed of confiding in him. He was able to keep all that he had intrusted to his care, and would not suffer him to be lost; see Isa 28:16.
And am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him – That is, the soul, with all its immortal interests. A man has nothing of higher value to intrust to another than the interests of his soul, and there is no other act of confidence like that in which he intrusts the keeping of that soul to the Son of God. Hence, learn:
(1) That religion consists in committing the soul to the care of the Lord Jesus; because:
- We feel that we cannot secure the souls salvation ourselves.
- The soul is by nature in danger.
- If not saved by him, the soul will not be saved at all.
(2) That the soul is a great and invaluable treasure which is committed to him.
- No higher treasure can be committed to another;
- In connection with that the whole question of our happiness on earth and in heaven is entrusted to him, and all depends on his fidelity.
(3) It is done by the true Christian with the most entire confidence, so that the mind is at rest. The grounds of this confidence are:
(a)What is said of the mighty power of the Saviour;
(b)His promises that he will keep all who confide in him (compare the notes at Joh 10:27-29;
(c)Experience – the fact that those who have trusted in him have found that he is able to keep them.
(4) This act of committing the soul, with all its interests, to the Saviour, is the true source of peace in the trials of life. This is so because:
(a)Having done this, we feel that our great interests are secure. If the soul is safe, why need we be disturbed by the loss of health, or property, or other temporal comforts? Those are secondary things. A man who is shipwrecked, and who sees his son or daughter safe with him on the shore, will be little concerned that a casket of jewels fell overboard – however valuable it might be:
- All those trials will soon pass away, and he will be safe in heaven.
- These very things may further the great object – the salvation of the soul. A mans great interests may be more safe when in a prison than when in a palace; on a pallet of straw than on a bed of down; when constrained to say, Give us this day our daily bread, than when encompassed with the wealth of Croesus.
Against that day – The day of judgment – called that day, without anything further to designate it, because it is the great day; the day for which all others days were made. It seems to have been so much the object of thought and conversation among the early Christians, that the apostle supposed that he would be understood by merely referring to it as that day; that is, the day which they were always preaching about, and talking about, and thinking about.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
2Ti 1:12
I also suffer these things.
Pride in the profane causeth good men to suffer for well-doing
The Pharisees were zealous for the law and ceremonies, and Paul preached the gospel, called them beggarly and impotent rudiments; told that if they were circumcised Christ profited them nothing. Why, this so took down the pride of man, that he should not be justified by his own works, but by anothers, that Paul was persecuted, and hardly intreated of his own countrymen. If a skilful tailor take measure of a crooked and misshapen person, and fit the garment proportionable to the pattern, a proud piece of flesh will pout, swell, and wrangle with the workmen; so let the ministers and men of God do good, divide the Word aright, high and lofty spirits will be muttering, for they cannot endure the light, or to be told of their deformities. Thus Paul was reputed aa enemy for telling them the truth. A counterfeit and false glass is the fittest for old, withered, and wrinkled curtizans to view themselves in; for if it should show them their right shapes, all things to nothing, they split it against the walls. (Jr. Barlow, D. D.)
For I know whom I have believed.
The foundation of the Christians hope
I. One ground of the apostles assurance was a persuasion that Christ is able to keep the souls committed unto him.
1. It is implied that Christ is able to bring the soul into a state of salvation.
2. This persuasion of the apostle implied that Christ is able also to preserve the soul in a state of salvation. He added, as the other ground of his assurance–
II. A consciousness that he had himself committed unto Christ his own soul. However firmly he might be persuaded of Christs ability to save the souls committed to Him, he yet could not be assured that He would save his soul unless he felt conscious of the fact, that it was really committed unto Him. Let us now see what things this consciousness also implied.
1. It implied that he had knowingly given up all thoughts and hopes of saving himself by his own merits and doings.
2. It was further implied in it, that he now knowingly placed all his hopes and dependence on the sacrifice and mediation of Jesus Christ alone.
3. But it was also implied in it that, from the time in which he had thus renounced his own righteousness, and by faith had hoped in the righteousness of Christ, he had lived and acted consistently with such a faith and hope. (E. Cooper.)
The Christians confidence in Christ
The faith of the Christian is here seen.
I. In its object I know whom I have believed.
II. In its character. It is seen in many noble qualities and bearings, inseparably connected with each other in the triumphant profession made by the apostle.
1. Knowledge is here the foundation of faith I know whom I have believed. Yes, he knew by irresistible demonstration–such as extracted the venom of his heart against Jesus of Nazareth, and filled it with inextinguishable love and fervent devotedness to Him.
2. As knowledge is the foundation of faith, so faith is the reposing of an absolute trust–I am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed to Him.
III. In its consummation–against that day. There is to be a consummation–when we shall receive the end of our faith, even the salvation of our soul. The province of faith is but for a season, and it shall give place to the vision and fruition of God. (W. B. Collyer, D. D.)
The internal evidence of experience
The evidences for revelation have been commonly divided under two heads, external and internal. Under the head of external evidence, we may class all those proofs, which, though relating to what is found in the Scriptures, are nevertheless exterior to the Word of God; such, for instance, as the authenticity of the Books of Scripture, and the genuineness of their authorship, the miracles by which the truths that the apostles delivered were attested, and the sufferings and persecution which they underwent. But then the internal evidence is not less important. We might, first, take the internal evidence of Scripture which we gather from the Word of God itself–the harmony of one portion of it with another, and the circumstance that in our investigation of its bright and blessed pages, they seem at once to commend themselves, as what we might expect to come from the God of truth. And then there is the internal evidence, which may be gathered from the Christians own experience–the attestation, so to speak, of a Christians own experience to the truths which he finds revealed in the Scriptures of God. Now we believe that it is to evidence partaking of this character that the apostle alludes in our text. There was no confounding of his principles; there was no putting down of the truth which he maintained; nothing was able to terrify him out of what he had embraced as the truth of God. For I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day. Now this class of evidence, we believe, will, more or less, be the evidence of every believer in the Lord Jesus.
I. The first point which is presented for our consideration is that the apostle believed the gospel. This is the first act of the sinner with respect to Jesus.
II. But the believer goes further. He does not rest with dependence upon the promise, that the Lord will be with him unto the end of the world; but he is assured of this, because he finds that so far as he had trusted the promise, God has actually been with him. He has found Him true to His word by positive experience.
III. The confidence which Paul had in the future gathered from his experience of the past. (H. W. McGrath, M. A.)
The believers confidence in the prospect of eternity
I. The awful period. It is not mentioned by name; but the apostle only calls it that day. What day? The day of death, when the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns unto God who gave it? Or the day of judgment? Doubtless the day of judgment. This is often in the Scripture called that day, in order to show us that it is a very important, a very remarkable, a very distinguished day.
II. What the apostle did in the prospect of this period. He deposited something in the Redeemers hands; that which I have committed unto Him against that day. What, now, was this deposit? You evidently see it was something personal, in which he acted as a believer. And it is not necessary, as far as I know, to exclude anything from the transaction; but principally we are to understand the eternal concerns of his soul. And if this required any confirmation, it may be derived from the example of poor Stephen, who, when he was dying, said, Lord Jesus receive my spirit–and from the experience of David, who in an hour of danger said, Into Thy hand I commit my spirit; Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God of truth! It means, therefore, simply believing. The apostles representation of faith here will remind us of several things.
1. The committing our eternal all into His bands implies conviction. The man before was deluded by error and blinded by ignorance; but now the eyes of his understanding are opened.
(1) Now he is convinced of the value of his soul.
(2) He is now convinced of the danger of the soul.
(3) And now, too, he is convinced of his inability to save his soul.
2. And this act implies also a concern for its security and welfare.
3. The act of committing the soul to Christ also implies application to the Redeemer for the purpose of salvation.
4. It implies submission,
III. The satisfaction felt in the review of the transaction.
1. You see what the satisfaction is derived from: and, generally considered, you observe that it takes in the apostles acquaintance with the great Depository himself–I know whom I have believed.
2. You have seen the satisfaction generally expressed; but here is a particular reference with regard to it. And I am persuaded, says he, that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day. (W. Jay.)
Acquaintance with Christ the Christians strength
Since the same source from whence Paul had all his high attainments is as open in all its fulness to each of us, as it was to him, let us consider the way in which that inexhaustible fountain was made available to him to draw supplies according to all his need, whether for support under the discouragement of his trials, or for direction under the perplexity of his difficulties. One word of the text will open the whole of this to us: I know;–I know whom I have believed, says he. Knowledge was the substance of his power. Nay, then, says the unlearned Christian, it is too difficult for me. Such knowledge is too wonderful and excellent. It is high, I cannot attain unto it. It is not for me. How discouraging! will the poor and busy man say. I have neither the leisure nor the means and opportunity of gaining it. How heartless the attempt, then, will the weak-minded and humble Christian say, conscious of his weakness. How can I ever hope to reach even a measure of that, when I feel my weakness and inability every step I take. But to the most unlearned, to the busiest, to the most feebleminded, I say, that this knowledge and all the power it contains is for you. Mark the text. The apostle does not say, I know the support I shall receive, or the direction that will be given me, for I am wise and experienced, but, I know whom I have believed. His knowledge was not of things, but of a person, and that but one.
I. Here is mentioned his knowledge of the trustee. Let us consider some particulars of the more obvious but important kind, wherein the apostle knew, and we should know Him.
1. He knew that He was faithful, therefore he believed Him.
2. He knew Him to be able.
3. He knew Him to be willing.
4. He knew Him to be all-wise, both to see his trouble, and the best way to get him out of it.
5. Nay, though clouds and darkness surrounded him, Paul staggered not at this, for he knew the ways of the Lord, that this is His method of dealing with His children. In a word he knew Him to be the sum of all happiness, the source of all strength, the pledge and faithfulness of all the promises, the depository of all power, the ruler of all events, the head over all things to His people, the Saviour both of soul and body.
II. What was it that the apostle committed to him? What was that deposit (as it is in the original), he was persuaded He was able to keep? I answer in one word, his treasure. But that would assume many forms under different circumstances.
1. When the guilt of sin would come upon his conscience, it would be the salvation of his soul.
2. When the power of temptation would come over him, it would be his integrity in serving God.
3. When personal dangers surrounded him, and left him no way of escape, it would be his self-preservation.
4. When assailed by the malicious insinuations of false apostles, and attacks upon his motives, as at Corinth, it would be his character.
5. When he heard of the entering in of grievous wolves into the flock he had fed so carefully, it would be the care of all the churches. Whatever it was, in short, that at the moment most occupied his thoughts and attention, that was what he had deposited for safe-keeping in the hands of Christ, and which he was persuaded He was able to keep against all assaults until that day, when the secrets of all hearts shall be revealed, and every man shall have his praise of God. (G. Jeans, M. A.)
Grounds of confidence in the Saviours ability
We have here a strong expression of his confidence in the Saviour: let us consider, first, the nature, and then the ground of this confidence.
I. Its nature. Some suppose the deposit, which the apostle mentions as committed to him, to denote the gospel trust in general: and this view is favoured by the similar expression in the context, that good thing, which was committed to thee, keep–hold fast the form of sound words. But it seems more probable that he refers in the text to the interest of his salvation, the trust of his whole being, his body, soul, and spirit, which he had confidently committed to Christ, as Him who had abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light. In the near view of martyrdom, dissolution, and eternity, his confidence remained unshaken. This is a trust unfit to be reposed in any created arm. No potentate can hold back his own spirit, much less anothers, a moment from death no angel could under take such a trust; he would abjure it. Some portion of our interests we commit to others, but never think of committing our whole spirit to a creature. Hence we infer that Jesus Christ is truly God: else it were highly improper, and indeed accursed, thus to trust Him.
II. The grounds on which the apostle trusts the Saviour. He saw that in His character which warranted such confidence, and he had a conviction of His ability. There was some peculiarity in Pauls case, to which we may advert, but which we need not anxiously separate from the general case of Christians.
1. The first ground, peculiar to Paul, is his vision of Christ at Damascus: this penetrated him with reverence and attachment for the glorious person then revealed: his heart was melted like wax, and he cried, Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?
2. He was confirmed in his trust by his subsequent experience of the favour and power of Christ. His eyes were opened by Ananias at Christs command. Miraculous powers of great variety were conferred on himself; so that he did perhaps even greater wonders than Christ had done. He was inspired to preach with power and boldness: the power of Christ rested on him. In his soul such a renovation took place, as only Divine power could have effected: he was purified with humility and enlarged with love; his prospects were extended far beyond time: and all this was the effect of Christs ascension, and His gift of the Holy Spirit.
3. Jesus Christ had wrought the great salvation, and reconciled it with all the attributes of God.
4. The rank which Jesus Christ holds in heaven assures us that He is able to keep that which is committed to Him.
5. As Jesus Christ is the appointed Judge of all, so eternal life is at His disposal in His judicial character. (R. Hall, M. A.)
A funeral sermon
I. The sacred deposit which the apostle had made. All that concerned his soul, his hopes and his desires, his deliverance from guilt, and the enjoyment of the eternal favour of his God, comprised the whole amount of that deposit he had committed to the custody of his Redeemer. Now this transaction intimates–
1. The perfect consciousness of a separate and immortal existence.
2. A deep sense of the supreme value of the soul.
3. A powerful conviction of the awful nature of death.
II. The high satisfaction he felt with regard to its safety.
1. He knew Him in the power of His arm.
2. He knew Him in His sacred relation to the Church, as Prophet, Priest, and King.
3. He knew Him, in all the promises of His Word.
4. This persuasion was founded upon the certain return of the Saviour as the Judge of all. Hence he speaks of his soul being kept in safety against that day. (J. E. Good.)
The confidence of St. Paul
I. His knowledge expressed–he knew whom he believed. It was not in himself he trusted, nor on his own foundation that he built; he staked nothing on his own reason or imagination or self-begotten opinions; nor had he any reliance on his own merits, or a high notion of the worth of his exertions, even for the cause of his fellow-creatures, or for the glory of God. It was not the world or the worlds opinion that he trusted or followed, or any human judgment or conclusion that he rested upon, as apart from Gods revelation.
1. He knew Him as the revealed Saviour spoken of and promised from age to age.
2. He knew Him as the Almighty Saviour, the eternal Son of the Father, fully sufficient for the wants of fallen man, and entirely adapted to the very work of redemption which He came from heaven to fulfil.
3. And he knew and believed this on the personal experience of that power in his own heart; the presence of the Spirit of Christ in his own soul, having already revived and quickened him from the death of his former corrupt and blinded state.
II. The trust he reposed in the object of his faith–I am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed to Him against that day. There was a persuasion, or, as the original describes it, a full reliance and settled repose in his mind on the object of his faith–the Saviour whom he believed. It is perhaps here a question, whether the apostle meant to say in these words, that Christ could and would keep that which he had committed to Christ; or, that which Christ had committed to him. Doubtless there is an interchange, as it were, an intercommunion between Christ and the soul of the believer; so that something is committed from Christ to the soul of His servant, and something also committed from the soul to Christ; and both are kept by the power of Christ alone. Christ committed His truth, His word, His gospel to the apostle, to be received in the heart and proclaimed throughout the world; and the apostle committed himself, his all, to Christ. By His grace alone could the purity and perpetuity of Divine truth be upheld in the world; and by His Spirit alone could the apostle be himself upheld amidst the shocks of temptation and the inroads of time and the world, and conducted surely forward unto that day. It was in the former sense perhaps that, in a following verse, the apostle said to Timothy–That good thing which was committed to thee, keep by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us. But take the text rather in the view given to us by our own translation, and we shall find that apostle had been persuaded, and not in vain, to entrust to Christ and His grace, his credit, his peace, his soul for ever.
1. His credit. He had to go forth truly, to Jew and Gentile, to preach what might seem a new religion–the one truth of God, hidden from ages and generations, and new made manifest by the gospel; and he had to pledge himself that it was true, and worthy their acceptance. He was persuaded Christ could keep the word he had given, and fulfil the promises he had made,
2. He committed to Christ his peace. Peace, such as the world valued and sought after, the apostle was not very likely ever to ensure: he had to meet danger and want, to face enemies and bear insult. Happiness under such circumstances must have been very different from what the world calls happiness: but it was not the less so for that, nor could he the less confidently trust his inward peace and even outward circumstances to Him who judged and maintained his cause, and who had said Peace I leave with you; not as the world giveth give I unto you.
3. To Him, in fine, the apostle committed, doubtless, his soul, his all, for time and eternity. He acted here in the full spirit of his fellow-apostle St. Peter (1Pe 4:19). (C. J. Hoore, M. A.)
Faith illustrated
I. The grandest action of the Christians life. The apostle says, he committed himself into the hands of Christ. I saw the other day a remarkable picture, which I shall use as an illustration of the way of salvation by faith in Jesus. An offender had committed a crime for which he must die, but it was in the olden time when churches were considered to be sanctuaries in which criminals might hide themselves and so escape. See the transgressor–he rushes towards the church, the guards pursue him with their drawn swords, all athirst for his blood, they pursue him even to the church door. He rushes up the steps, and just as they are about to overtake him and hew him in pieces on the threshold of the church, out comes the bishop, and holding up the crucifix he cries, Back, back! stain not the precincts of Gods house with blood! stand back! and the guards at once respect the emblem and stand back, while the poor fugitive hides himself behind the robes of the priest. It is even so with Christ. The guilty sinner flies to the cross–flies straight away to Jesus, and though Justice pursues him, Christ lifts up His wounded hands and cries to Justice, Stand back! stand back! I shelter this sinner; in the secret place of My tabernacle do I hide him; I will not suffer him to perish, for he puts his trust in Me. The apostle meant that he did make a full and free surrender of himself to Christ, to be Christs property, and Christs servant for ever. I must add, however, that this act of faith must not be performed once only, but it must be continued as long as you live. As long as you live you must have no other confidence but Jesus only. You may take Him now to-day, to have and to hold through life and in death, in tempest and in sunshine, in poverty and in wealth, never to part or sunder from Him. You must take Him to be your only prop, your only pillar from this day forth and for ever.
II. The justification of this grand act of trust. Confidence is sometimes folly; trusting in man is always so. When I exhort you, then, to put your entire confidence in Christ, am I justified in so doing? I have not trusted to an unknown and untried pretender. I have not relied upon one whose character I could suspect. I have confidence in one whose power, whose willingness, whose love, whose truthfulness I know. I know whom I have believed. Paul not only knew these things by faith, but he knew much of them by experience. Our knowledge of Christ is somewhat like climbing one of our Welsh mountains. When you are at the base you see but little; the mountain itself appears to be but one half as high as it really is. Confined in a little valley you discover scarcely anything but the rippling brooks as they descend into the stream at the base of the mountain. Climb the first rising knoll, and the valley lengthens and widens beneath your feet. Go up higher, and higher still, till you stand upon the summit of one of the great roots that start out as spurs from the sides of the mountain, you see the country for sonic four or five miles round, and you are delighted with the widening prospect. But go onward, and onward, and onward, and how the scene enlarges, till at last, when you are on the summit, and look east, west, north, and south, you see almost all England lying before you. Yonder is a forest in some distant country, perhaps two hundred miles away, and yonder the sea, and there a shining river and the smoking chimneys of a manufacturing town, or there the masts of the ships in some well-known port. All these things please and delight you, and you say, I could not have imagined that so much could be seen at this elevation. Now, the Christian life is of the same order. When we first believe in Christ we see but little of Him. The higher we climb the more we discover of His excellencies and His beauties. But who has ever gained the summit? Paul now grown old, sitting, grey haird, shivering in a dungeon in Rome–he could say, with greater power than we can, I know whom I have believed!–for each experience had been like the climbing of a hill, each trial had been like the ascending to another summit, and his death seemed like the gaining of the very top of the mountain from which he could see the whole of the faithfulness and the love of Him to whom he had committed his soul.
III. The apostles confidence. I am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed to Him. See this man. He is sure he shall be saved. But why? Paul! art thou sure that thou canst keep thyself? No, says he, I have nothing to do with that: and yet thou art sure of thy salvation! Yes, saith he, I am! How is it, then? Why, I am persuaded that He is able to keep me. Christ, to whom I commit myself, I know hath power enough to hold me to the end. Martin Luther was bold enough to exclaim, Let Him that died for my soul, see to the salvation of it. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Assurance
I. THE OBJECT OF FAITH–I know whom I have believed. Well, now, whom have you believed? Have you believed Juggernaut? Have you believed the Hindoo Brahmins? The glorious covenant Head of His Church–I have believed Him. He that believeth on the Son of God hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not hath not life. Where there is no believing of a saving description upon the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ, there is no salvation. It is in vain to tell me of all the excellencies of the creature, of all the attainments of moral philosophy, and of all the pride of superstition, it only just makes a pious road to hell for those who pretend to pursue it. There is no such thing as salvation, no such thing as safety, for time or for eternity, but by believing on the Son of God. I know. I beseech you to mark the positive nature of the assertion. It is not, I hope, or trust; it is not, I can, or shall, or may, believe in Him; but, I know whom I have believed. I do not like anything less than I know, even in things temporal. If I were to ask my servant whether such and such a matter is safe, or right, or done properly, and I were to receive for an answer, I think so, or Probably it may be so; Do not tell me that, I should say, perhaps somewhat angrily; Do you know it? is it really so? Surely, then, if I should require this in temporal matters, what should I look for in things spiritual You tell me God is merciful, and I shall do as well as others in the end. I know whom I have believed. The question might be put to the persons who make such an assertion, What do you know of Him? Well, I will tell you. I know very well that He is truly, properly, essentially, eternally God. I know enough of Him to be quite sure that He is truly, and properly, and sinlessly man. I know for certain of Him, that He is, in His complex character, as God and man, Mediator, Surety, Daysman for His Church, in official standing. Do you know all this? Do you know Him personally? Can you say, I know that in His office He has accomplished all that is requisite for the salvation of His Church. Look at the word believe before we quit this part of our subject. I know whom I have believed. What is believing? In the margin of our Bible we read trusted. Well, believing is trusting, and trusting is believing.
II. The nature of faiths actings–that which I have committed to Him. There is something about this which enters at once into the daily experience of a child of God, and I think if it were more extensively practised in our experience, we should be happier Christians–the committing of everything to Him. I have committed to Him my souls concerns; I have committed to Him the affairs of time; and I committed to Him His visible Church, which neither legislators nor monarchs care anything about, but to distract and to destroy. Look at these things for a few moments. I have committed to Him my souls concerns. And these are of two descriptions; my souls concerns for security, salvation, eternal life; and my souls concerns in regard to spiritual existence, and spiritual prosperity, in my way to glory. I commit both to Him. Now the nature of faiths actings is to commit all to Jesus, in both these respects. If the filthy effluvia of human natures risings annoy me, I shall cry, Lord, subdue all my iniquity. I commit them all to Him; cannot do anything without Him, and I am sure it is no good talking about it. Lord, conquer my depravity. Lord, fulfil Thy promises, that sin shall not have dominion. Then go on to mark, that it is faiths province to commit the affairs of this life to Him. They are not too little, they are not too mean for Him to notice, nor for Him to manage, and it may be viewed as the peculiar privilege of the Christian to carry to the throne of grace, and commit to Christ, every arrangement He may make, every bargain into which He may enter, every association He may form, and every companion He may choose. So with all His successes–to commit them all to Him, remembering that it is He who giveth power to get wealth. So, again, with regard to losses and crosses, painful events.
III. The expectation of faith. He is able to keep it; and that is the point which fixes upon my attention. Blessings on His name, that He is as willing as He is able! He is interested in it. But this statement implies great danger or difficulty, or the Divine keeping would not be necessary. It implies that our beloved Zion is surrounded with every description of enemies and dangers, or it would not be said that it needs Divine keeping. Moreover, there seems in this expectation of faith enough to nourish assurance itself. He is able to keep that which I have committed to Him. Well, then, assurance may lift up its head, and say, If it be the souls concerns, I have nothing to doubt–I trust it all in His hands. If it be the affairs of my family, or my business, I have nothing to harass me concerning them. One word more. Against that day. We might mention the day of the termination of that trouble, the day of the accomplishment of that desire, the day of the consummation of a certain purpose or scheme in Gods providence, relative to our spiritual or temporal affairs; but I must hasten to that day the apostle had immediately in view, that day when Christ shall claim His own; that day when all the election of grace shall appear before Him, and be presented to the Father a perfect Church, without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing. (J. Irons.)
The grounds of the believers confidence
What a noble picture have we here! Elsewhere we are told that the apostle was in presence weak, and in speech contemptible; but he does not appear so now. We see in him a courage and calmness more than human. What though my departure from this world be marked by infamy, and violence, and scorn–what though friends forsake, and the world revile, and foes pursue me with unresting hatred, I have one treasure of which they cannot rob me, one refuge to which I can always fly, one Friend who having loved me, will love me unto the end.
I. The terms in which the apostle makes this noble declaration of his confidence. The apostle does not say, what I have believed, as if his hope stood in his creed, which might be very exact–or in his Church, which might be Very true–or in his labours, which were incessant and self-denying–or in his life, which was without reproach and blameless; but he says, The proper object of my confidence is a Person; my religion consists in having found a Friend–A Friend with whom all my interests for time and for eternity may be entrusted. I cleave to a living, infallible, Divine Protector. I know whom I have believed. The expression, as you perceive, is in true keeping with the entire spirit of New Testament theology. When a sinner awakes to the first sight of his danger, the first words to be addressed to him are, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. This is a principle of the Divine procedure which would commend itself were it only for its beautiful and pure simplicity. When pressed with the terrors of a guilty conscience, when despair and fear seem to be coming in upon me like a flood, I want something to fly to at once; I want to he directed immediately to an altar of safety. Tell me not of things to be believed, or learned, or sought for, or done, but tell me of one simple act which shall bring me within reach of mercy. Do not lose time in considering how life and immortality are to be brought to light–take Him as the life. A convinced sinner cannot do better than embrace a theology of one article–I know whom I bare believed. Again, let us look at the word believed. In the writings of St. Paul the expression stands for the highest form of moral persuasion. It implies the strength of an all-pervading practical conviction–the reposing of a loving, perfect, and confiding trust. The advance of this upon a mere intellectual faith you will perceive–for not only is it believed that Christ came for mans salvation, but that this salvation has become individually applied to ourselves. I know whom I have believed. My faith rests upon my knowledge, just as my knowledge reacts upon my faith. I am not making a plunge into eternity in the dark. I have looked to the soundness of my Rock to see whether it will bear me; I have tasted that the Lord is gracious, and therefore am confident of this very thing, that He that hath begun a good work in me, will perform it unto the day of Christ. The word points out to us the danger of taking our religion on trust; the duty of subjecting our opinions to a diligent and inquiring search. An uninvestigated faith can never be a happy faith. Christs work for us must be believed, but Christs work in us must be proved. Let us take the next words, showing to us the nature of the Christians deposit–I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day. To the trust here spoken of we can place no limit. How great the privilege of having this treasure locked up in safe Custody, feeling that whatever else is taken from us, our souls are enclosed in the sanctuary of heaven–that our Jesus puts His hand upon these and says, These souls are Mine–Mine to be kept, Mine to be watched over, Mine to be purged from all dross and defilement, and to be rendered back each to his own, at that day! And the apostle mentions this day, in preference to the day of his death, because although the earlier period would abundantly vindicate the Saviours faithfulness, yet the other is the day when Christ shall formally give up His great trust–when, in the presence of all the intelligences of heaven, He shall show how carefully He has watched over souls, through the conflicts of life, through the terrors of death, through the tong repose of the grave, now to hold them up as His jewels, and reward, and crown at that day.
II. The grounds on which the apostle rests his confidence. These, as we should suppose, must consist in the personal qualifications of Him who was the subject of such trust, in the attributes of His holy nature, in the efficacy of His atoning work, in the virtue of His meritorious obedience, in the continued exertions of His resumed Divinity now that He is seated at the right hand of God. Thus, let us look at the attributes of His nature–at His power, for example; does He not say, All things are delivered into My hand; all power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth; I open, and no man shutteth; I shut, and no man openeth! Who, then, can harm us, if we have secured such a Friend as this? But, further, we know Paul would have a ground of persuasion in the work of Christ, in the sufficiency of His obedience, in the infinite reach of His atonement. The apostle was one who felt painfully the greatness of his own deficiencies. His language ever was In the Lord Jehovah have I righteousness and strength My only trust is that I may be found in Him. But once more, the apostle would find a comforting ground of persuasion in the thought that the Saviour in whom he believed, lived for ever. It is a sad reflection with regard to our earthly friends, that however cherished or however tried, death will soon take them away. (D. Moore, M. A.)
A safe deposit
We sometimes believe in men whom we do not know. We think we know them; but we are mistaken. We may inquire; we may observe; we may ask for testimony and receive it: we may even put men to severe test: still we are sometimes mistaken and deceived, and we have to confess, I did not know the man whom I trusted. The case presented by the text is the opposite of that. In this instance we have trust leading to increased and enlarged knowledge–knowledge strengthening trust, and both producing the expression of full assurance. You observe that the language of the text is somewhat metaphorical. We have certain facts in the Christian life put before us here under the figure of a deposit–A depositor–A depositary, and the confidence of the depositor.
I. What is this deposit? Was it the soul of the writer? Was it the well-being of Paul in his persecution, the getting good out of his sorrow (1Pe 4:19). Was it the work of his salvation–that work to which he himself refers, when, addressing some of his converts, he says, He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it? Was it his future crown–the crown of righteousness? Was it his converts, for whom he was perpetually praying? Was it his apostolate? Was it the welfare of the Churches? Was it the truth, and the proclamation of the truth? The great care of a man on a dying bed is himself, and this should be our great care in life; yet to take charge of himself no man is capable. Whatever capacity a man may have had, or human nature may have had before the fall, the loss of capacity which sinfulness and transgression have occasioned is immense; and there is a fearful loss of position. The soul is guilty, and needs pardon, righteousness, and restoration. The spirit is polluted, and it is dark, dim, dull, and deathly, through its pollution–it wants light and life. A physician is needed to whom this soul, conscious of its guilt and of the disease of sin, may commit itself. A priest is needed, who can undertake the work of atonement; and an advocate, who can make intercession. Such an advocate, such a priest, such a physician, Paul had found in Jesus Christ; and to Him, who unites in His own person all that a sinner needs to find in a Saviour, Paul had given up himself.
II. The depositor. This is Saul of Tarsus. Did Gamaliel teach him this? Some of Gamaliels strongest and most prominent lessons were self-reliance. The tendency of his teaching was to lead the young Saul to depend upon himself, and he had, as we know, from the story of his life, an immense amount of self-confidence. There is nothing committed to God to keep–the man only talks of his own virtues and good deeds, comparing himself with another. This is not Saul the Pharisee, it is Saul the Christian. It is Saul, but it is Saul born again, it is Saul born from above, it is Saul a new creation, old things have passed away, behold all things have become new! New, this confidence in another; old, that self-confidence. I can take care of myself, would have been his language a few years ago; my prayers and alms-giving, and good works will save me, he would then have said; now, he is entirely changed, and he represents the state of his heart in writing, I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day. Saul of Tarsus took charge of himself, but Saul the Christian committed himself to another. And who is that other?
III. The depositary. Does Paul here refer to God, whose name he mentions in the eighth verse, or to our Saviour, Jesus Christ, whom he introduces to us in the tenth verse? We think he refers to our Saviour, Jesus Christ–not, of course, that we can separate God and our Saviour, Jesus Christ–because God is in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself. The depositary, mark, is Christ; the anointed Keeper of souls; one upon whom the unction of the Holy Ghost was poured out without measure, that He might take charge of souls; Christ–observe, Jesus Christ, the divine and devoted Keeper of souls. Now, to Jesus Christ, our Saviour, who hath abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light; to the Word made flesh, God manifest in flesh, God over all blessed for evermore, to Him did Paul commit himself. It is in vain that you try to mingle these things–taking the responsibility of life upon your shoulders and committing yourself to another. You cannot do this; you must either madly and vainly try to bear the burden alone, or you must commit the whole to your Saviour, and all then that you are responsible for is, doing what He tells you, and not doing that which He forbids you. But, as to the charge, the charge is His; and as to the responsibility, the responsibility is His; and as to the care, all the care is His. Is there any danger of your abusing these truths? Is it possible that any of you can say, Well, if this be the case, I have certainly asked Christ to take the charge of my soul, and I may be as careless as I please. When you put yourself into the hands of a physician, you feel that you are accountable for obedience to his instructions, and that his resources are made available to you just as you are submissive to his treatment. Just so with our Saviour Jesus Christ.
IV. The confidence of the depositor. I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day. The confidence of Paul relates to four objects:–
1. The general character of the depositary. I know what He is, and what He can do; I see and I appreciate all the attributes of His nature; I know that He has an eye that never slumbers nor sleeps, an arm that is never weary, a working hand that is stretched out still, a heart of love–the extent and energy of which surpass knowledge.
2. Then it rests in the ability of the depositary with respect to this particular trust. He is able to keep–able to keep. Few men had so seen the dangers of this world as Paul. God keeps some souls in a blissful, childish ignorance of their dangers, and they go through life with an amount of simplicity which is extraordinary, and which we cannot account for except upon the principle that God does literally hide them as in His pavilion. But there are others whose spiritual senses are so quickened, that they see almost every thing relating to their religious life–at least the many of the spiritual and evil influences to which they are exposed.
3. This confidence relates to the continuousness of the present assurance. He is able to keep that which I have committed to Him against that day. The fires of that day shall burn the wood, hay, stubble, and shall develop in grand contrast the gold, and the silver, and the precious stones. Against that day. He is able to keep that which I have committed to Him. He knows what the test of that day will be, and against that day He is able to guard my trust, and nothing that I have committed to His hands, shall even in that day be lost.
4. Further, you observe, the apostle rests very much in the accuracy, and in the soundness of his own experience. I know, he says, whom I have believed. And how did he know? Did he know through having received the testimony of the prophets, who all bore witness to the Saviour? Did he know simply through having listened to Christian teaching, or to the teaching of such an one as Ananias? No; from these sources he did derive information, but he knew through following Christ, that He was able to keep that which he had committed to Him–he knew through taking advantage of Christ, that He was able–just as you know what a physician can do, by his attendance at your sick bed, or as you may know what a legal adviser is able to do, by the counsel he gives you in some time of temporal perplexity, or just as you may know a friend by his aid in the hour of adversity. He had, again and again, put Jesus Christ to the proof, and the proof had shown that not even Gods words had fully described the Saviour. (S. Martin.)
Christian confidence
Let us look, first of all, at this persuasion, which I want you to be the subject of; and then we will see the ground on which it rested; and then the consequences of which it was productive.
1. I am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day. You see, it amounts to a perfect persuasion of security here; here is absolute safety, and the experience of it. The word persuaded is as strong as possible. It was the deep inwrought conviction of his soul; it was not liable to be disturbed; it was a settled fact, as you dispose of a thing, and say, That is done, it is settled. It was the persuasion of his mind, that all was safe for eternity. Observe the remarkable use in this text of the word that by the apostle, which is very instructive. He says, I am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day. He uses the word, you see, twice, with no antecedent in either case exactly, and no specific object mentioned to which it refers. There is something very striking about that. He takes for granted, that all will understand it; that no mistake can possibly exist about it; that no man will read the verse, and not at once interpret to what the word that refers in both instances. Keep that! Why, no child here doubts what he means. My soul. Against that day! No child can doubt what day–the great day of His own coming. They are the two things in comparison with which everything else sinks into absolute, utter insignificance. The beauty of this passage, I think, is in that word commit. As expressive and explanatory of the meaning of the word faith, I do not know any more beautiful term. People seem at a less to understand what is meant at last by faith. The best interpretation, I think, is to be found in the idea which that word commit conveys. You commit your goods to a person you can trust; you commit your body, your life, all you have got, exactly in proportion as you have grounds for trusting a man–your welfare, your character, your reputation, your honour. You say, I can leave my honour in your hands. That is exactly the meaning of the word here: I have committed. There is something very beautiful in it, and it seems practically to be this. I have put the matter out of my hands into His. Now, I wish you would quietly enter into that idea, and thoroughly understand it. I do not know anything that could positively give real comfort to a man, like the certainty that he has put his souls interests out of his own hands into safe keeping. I think this word commit implies not only the apostles sense of the value of the soul, but a mans practical inability to keep his own soul. Why do you commit your property to some one to keep? Because you feel that you cannot keep it yourself, for some reason–never mind what. Why do you commit your health into the hands of a physician? Because you feel that you cannot cure yourself. And so on with regard to anything else. You commit your child to an instructor, because you feel that you have more confidence in the instructor. So that the fact of committing anything to another supposes some inability on our part to do the thing. Just so with the soul. I dwell on that with unspeakable comfort. There is a relief to my soul in this idea, that with its tremendous responsibilities, with the awful destinies before it, I can hand it over into Jesus Christs keeping, and that He will keep that which I commit unto Him.
2. But on what ground did the apostle arrive at this supposition–because there must be some ground for it? For instance: if I were to say to you to-morrow, Go and commit your property and your interests into the hands of some man, you would say, Why that man? On what grounds? I know nothing about that man. But if I were to say, That man that you know thoroughly well, and you were thoroughly alive to his capability and power, what would you say? You would say, Yes, I know whom you call upon me to believe; I am persuaded that he is able to keep that, if I do commit it to him. You see, it would altogether depend upon the knowledge you have of the man. So Paul says here: I know whom I believe; therefore I am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day. Now, then, what do we know about Him? What kind of knowledge is it that would warrant Paul, or that will warrant you and me, that we can commit all to Jesus Christ? There might be, of course, endless particulars specified. This is the reason why I call upon you so much to study the whole work and character of Christ. It is, depend upon it, being thoroughly acquainted with the work of Jesus Christ, it is having an intelligent understanding of all that He has done, that gives this kind of unqualified assurance and happy confidence. Therefore we read, This is eternal life, to know Thee. It is not just a sort of glimpse; it is not merely saying, I believed Christ died; but it is understanding and knowing these things. I often tell you, and I am persuaded of it, that throughout eternity our study will be the cross of Christ. Against that day–that is, right on from the present moment till that day comes. You will observe, that implies the state after death, as well as our present state. I have nothing to suffer in the intermediate state–no purgatory–no difficulties of any kind. He has kept me through life; He will keep me afterwards, for He will keep that which I have committed unto Him to that day. It runs on from the moment a man commits his soul to Christ. The expression is very striking here. It seems to teach us, and to prove by implication, that after that day there is no danger. Then security will not be a matter merely of promise, but of circumstances. When I am perfected in body and soul, where will be my danger? When I am in mansions where there is a gulf betwixt the mansions and hell where Satan is, and he cannot ferry it, all will be perfectly safe. Therefore we are to be as pillars in the temple of God, and to go no more out for ever.
3. Now, then, what was the consequence of it? I am not ashamed. Why was he not ashamed? Because he was the subject of that glorious persuasion that all was safe. And I want you to believe, that there is the closest connection between boldness in a Christians career and assurance in a Christians heart; that no man will take the walk of a Christian, and occupy the path as he ought to do, boldly and consistently and in a straightforward way, unless he feels that all is safe with regard to his everlasting state. He says, For which cause I suffer. For what cause? Because I am appointed a preacher, and an apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles; for the which cause I suffer. When Paul was first brought to God, what did the Lord say about him? He said, I will show him how great things he must suffer for My names sake. It is very remarkable, He did not say, I will show him what great things he shall do, but what great things he shall suffer. If we are consistent followers of God, we must be sufferers. Having alluded to his sufferings, he says, I suffer; but he adds, I am not ashamed. I stand manfully forward and confess Him. Now, what is the ground? I have already mentioned it. It is because of that persuasion. That is the antidote. (C. Molyneux, B. A.)
The use and abuse of dogma
A good man at the present day, writing a letter, with death staring him in the face, to an intimate friend, would be likely to write, not, I know whom I have believed, but, I know what I have believed. It comes more natural to us to express our religious convictions so–to think more of the what than of the whom–to cling rather to the creed, or doctrinal system, than to the Living Person, to whom system and creed bear witness. Of course, the doctrinal system implies the Living Person; but the system is nearer to our thoughts than the Person. With St. Paul it was otherwise. To him the Living Person–God our Father, Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour–was everything, was all in all; the system was nothing–nay, we may say, had no existence. Therefore it is, that, in view of death and judgment, and all that is most trying to human faith and courage, he writes, Nevertheless I am not ashamed–I feel no fear for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed to Him against that day. Now this is a matter which both requires and deserves the most careful elucidation. It has a very important hearing upon present difficulties and pressing questions of the day. St. Paul was trained up, as a boy and a young man, m an elaborate religious system, of which the Scribes were the expositors, and the Pharisees the devoted adherents. He was at one time, as he tells us, an enthusiastic votary of finis system himself. But the moment came at last when he found himself compelled to renounce this system utterly, to cast himself at the foot of the cross, and to consecrate his whole life to the love and the service of Jesus Christ. From that moment Christ was everything to him. Strictly speaking, he no longer had anything that could be called a religious system. All was Christ. Take one or two of his most expressive phrases, and you will feel how true this is: To me to live is Christ. I am crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me. We, too, have been trained up, more or less carefully, in an elaborate religious system. Must we break with this system, as St. Paul broke with the religious system in which he had been educated, in order to find, as he found Christ? Must we learn to say with him, in the sense in which he said it, What things were gain to me, these I counted loss for Christ? Or is it given to us to travel by a road which was denied to him–to preserve unbroken the continuity of religious thought. Here we are in fact touching what I have called one of the most pressing questions of the day, the use and abuse of dogma. And here we find ourselves in presence of two conflicting tendencies–two tendencies which run absolutely counter, the one to the other; one, an impatience, a fierce intolerance of dogma; the other, an equally fierce insistance upon dogma, as almost the one thing needful for these latter days, and the sole antidote for their disorders. You know the battle-cries of the two contending parties; one, demanding definite, distinctive, dogmatic, Church teaching; the other, demanding not dogma, but religion. Observe, then, first of all, that it is impossible for us to put ourselves exactly in St. Pauls position, or to get at his result precisely in his way. Eighteen centuries lie between us and him–eighteen centuries of controversy, of division, of development. Dogma is an inevitable growth of time, as every one may learn from his own experience. The opinions of any person who thinks at all, and in proportion as he thinks, pass with lapse of time out of a semi-fluid state into one that is fixed and solid. Such conclusions are to the individual thinker what dogmas are to the Christian Church. St. Paul had never formulated to himself the dogma of the Trinity in Unity: but in the lapse of centuries that dogma became a necessity of Christian thought. But then, this development of dogma–necessary as it is, beneficial as it may be–must never be confounded with the reality of spiritual worship–the worship of the Father in spirit and in truth. It moves along a lower level altogether–the level of the understanding, not of the spirit or of the soul. Herein lies the peril of that vehement insistance upon dogmatic teaching, which is so common in these days. Unless it be most carefully guarded, it leads straight to the conclusion that to hold the right dogmas is to be in the way of life. The light of life, the light which quickens, the light which is life, can be ours only on condition that we follow Christ. Dogmatic developments, then, are one thing; the religious or spiritual life of the soul is another thing. And the former may, certainly, be so handled and used, as to give no help to the latter. Yet there is, undoubtedly, a relation between the two; and the former may be made to minister to the latter, it we will. And the question is, What is this relation? and, How may the dogmatic development be made subservient to the spiritual life? Christ says, I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. Life, eternal life, salvation, redemption, righteousness: such words as these express the first and the last thought of the gospel of Christ, the aim of which is ever to touch and quicken and heal the souls of men. First in the historical order, and first in the order of thought, comes the spiritual reality, the word of life; afterwards the dogmatic form and framework. The latter is, as it were, the body, of which the former is the soul. The words of Jesus are, as we should expect they would be, the purest conceivable expression of spiritual truth, with the slightest possible admixture of anything extraneous and unessential. For this very reason it is often exceedingly difficult to grasp their import–always quite impossible to exhaust their fulness. When we pass from the words of Jesus to the words of His apostles, we trace the first beginnings of that inevitable action of the human intellect upon spiritual truth, of which the growth of dogma is the result. It could not be other wise. The disciple could not be altogether as the Master. But though we may thus trace in the Epistles of the New Testament the development of the first organic filaments, out of which in time would be constructed the full-grown body of Christian dogma–the shooting of the little spikes of ice across the waters of life and salvation, which would eventually lead on to the fixity and rigidity of the whole;–yet are they so full of light, from proximity to the Fountain of all light, that the spiritual always predominates over the intellectual, and the spiritual elements of their teaching are visible on the surface, or scarcely below the surface, of the words in which it is couched. But, as time went on, the intellectual form began more and more to predominate over the spiritual substance; until, at last, it has come to be often no slight task to disentangle the one from the other, and so to get at that which is spiritual; and which, being spiritual, can be made food and refreshment and life to the soul. So far we have been dealing with the questions: What is the relation of dogma to religion? and How may the dogmatic development be made to minister to the religious life? And our answer to these questions may be summed up thus: Christs own words, first and before all, go straight to the springs of the religious life, that is, the life of faith and hope and love, of aspiration and endeavour; and, after these, the words of His apostles. Christian dogma grows out of the unavoidable action of the human intellect upon these words, and upon the thoughts which they express. In order to minister to the souls true life, such dogma must be translated back, by the aid of the Holy Scriptures, into the spiritual elements out of which it has sprung. When it becomes the question of the truth or falsehood of any particular dogmatic develop ment, the testing process with reference to it will take two forms. We shall ascertain whether, or no, it can be resolved or translated back into any spiritual elements–into any rays of that light, of which it is said, I am the light of the world. And, again, we shall ascertain, if possible, what are its direct effects upon human conduct and character. Does it tend, or not, to produce that new life, of which Jesus Christ is the pattern? If it does; then, unquestionably, there are in it rays of the true light, though mixed, it may be, with much error, and crossed by many bands of darkness. It must be our endeavour to disengage the rays of light from the darkness which accompanies them. Each generation of Christendom in turn has seen something of those riches, which was hidden from others. No one generation has yet seen the whole. Now, that this should be so, has many lessons for us; one or two of which we will set down, and so bring our subject to a conclusion. First of all, it devolves upon each generation in turn a grave responsibility; for each in turn may be put to the necessity of revising the work of its predecessors–such revision being rendered necessary by the peculiar circumstances of the generation in and for which the work is done. And whilst saying this, and claiming this our lawful liberty, we can also do full justice to the generations which have preceded us, and recognise the immense debt of gratitude which we owe to them. They have registered, for their own benefit and for ours, that aspect of the unsearchable riches, which it was given to them to see. Every succeeding generation is bound to take full and reverent account of the labours of its predecessors, on pain of forfeiting something–some aspect of truth–which it would be most perilous and damaging to lose. And this, last of all, teaches us a much-needed lesson of humility, charity, and tolerance. (D. J. Vaughan, M. A.)
Faith
In analysing those words I find three distinct ideas:–The faith of St. Paul expressed by the words, I have believed; the object of his faith which he recalls by saying whom he has believed; the certainty of his faith marked with so much strength and serenity by this expression, I know whom I have believed.
I. What is faith? Consult, on this subject the most widely spread opinion of this time and country. You will be told that faith is an act of intellectual submission by which man accepts as certain the teachings of religious authority. Faith would thus be to the intellectual sphere what obedience is to the practical. This idea early appears in the Church with the decline of Christian spirituality. Faith being thus understood, it resulted that the more numerous were the articles of faith which the believer admitted the stronger seemed his faith, and that the more difficult those articles were to admit it was the more meritorious. According to this way of seeing, he would be pre-eminently the man of faith who, refusing to know anything, to wish anything, to judge anything of himself, could say, I believe what the Church believes, and he would have no other rule but absolute submission, without reserve, to the authority speaking by the voice of his spiritual director. I ask you if you there recognise the teaching of Scripture, if that is the idea which it gives us of faith? You have read those admirable pages in which the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews passes in review all the believers of the ancient covenant, all those men of whom the world was not worthy. Now, in all those examples, is faith ever presented to you as an abdication of the intelligence, as the passive acceptation of a certain number of truths? Never. I know, however, and God preserve me from forgetting, that there is an element of submission and of obedience in faith, but at the same time I affirm that all of faith is not included therein. Faith, according to Scripture, is the impulse of the soul grasping the invisible God, and, in its highest sense, the faith which saves is the impulse of the trusting soul apprehending in Jesus Christ the Saviour and the Son of God. Why talk to us of abdication? In the impulse of faith there is all the soul–the soul that loves and thinks, the soul with all its spiritual energies. It is said to us, one must be weak in order to believe. Are you quite sure? Take, if you will, one of the most elementary acts of faith, such as every honest man has performed in his life. Before you is easy enjoyment, but selfish and guilty; it is the pleasure which attracts you–go on, it is yours. But, just on the point of yielding, the cry of your conscience rouses you, you recover yourself and you assert your duty What are you doing then? An act of faith, for you assert the invisible; for duty neither is weighed nor is touched, for, to him who denies it, there is no demonstration that can prove it. Well! is that always an easy victory? Is it promised to the feeble? Is it necessary to abdicate to obtain it? In this example faith is not raised above moral evidence; but do you penetrate beyond, into the sphere of spiritual realities? Imagine a life entirely filled with the thoughts of God, entirely illuminated with His light, wholly inspired with His love, in one word, the life of St. Paul; when you contemplate it, are you not struck by the heroism it contains? Is there in the faith which is the moving spring of it only a passive submission, an intellectual belief in a certain number of truths? No; in this assertion of the invisible world there is a force and a greatness which lays hold on you; never, perhaps, does the human soul wrest from you a sincerer admiration than when you see it taking flight into the unknown, with no other support than its faith in the living God. In showing what it is we also answer those who say, Of what good is faith?
II. Whom shalt i believe? To this question I reply with St. Paul, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ? and why? To believe, I have said, is to trust. The question is to know to where I shall trust the destinies of my soul. It is my whole future which I am to suspend on the word of a man; it is the inmost life of my heart, it is my eternal hopes. And if I am deceived, if it is found that I have built on the sand, if one day all this inward edifice of my life should fall to pieces! We must see clearly here. No illusion, no over-exciting of the imagination, no effervescence. Why? I will try and say it again in a few words. I will repeat what those millions of adorers, for eighteen centuries, have confessed, who have been able to say with St. Paul, I know whom I have believed. Whom shall I believe? I have said it in the depth of my darkness, and have seen rising up before me the Son of Man. Alone amongst all He said, I know whence I come, and I know whither I go. Alone, without hesitation, with sovereign authority, He showed the way which leads to God. He spoke of heaven as one who descended from it. Everywhere and always He gave Himself out to be the Sent of the Father, His only Son, the Master of souls. I have listened to His voice, it had a strange accent which recalled no other human voice; beautiful with a simplicity which nothing approaches, it exercised a power to which nothing can be compared. What gave it that power? It was not reasoning, nor human eloquence, but the radiance of truth penetrating the heart and conscience; in listening to it, I felt my heart taken possession of; I yielded to that authority so strong and sweet; in proportion as He spoke it seemed as if heaven opened and displayed itself to my eyes; I beheld God as He is, I saw man as he ought to be. An irresistible adhesion to that teaching rose from my heart to my lips, and with Simon Peter I cried To whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. Was it only my soul which vibrated at that speech? I looked, and, around me, hanging on the lips of Christ, I saw an ever-growing multitude assembled from all places, coming out from all conditions on the earth; there were poor and rich, ignorant and wise, children and old men, pure spirits and defiled spirits, and, like me, all were impressed with that word, all found, as I did, light, certainty, and peace. Can I let my whole destiny depend on a word of man, and have I not the right to ask Him who thus leads me on in His steps what entitles Him to my confidence, and how He can prove to me that He comes from God? O Thou who callest Thyself the witness of God, Thou who speakest of heaven as if it had been Thy dwelling-place, Thou who enlightenest the mystery of death to our gaze, Thou who pardonest sin, show us that Thou art He who should come. Jesus Christ has replied to this demand of our soul. We ask Him if He comes from God, and He has done before us the works of God; I do not speak of His miracles, although they are still unexplained in their simple grandeur, in their sublime spirituality, in that indescribable truth which marks them with an inimitable seal. Jesus has done more than miracles, He has revealed God in His person; He has given the proof of His Divine mission in His life. It is holiness before which conscience perceives itself accused and judged. The more I contemplate it, the more I experience a feeling of adoration and of deep humiliation; and when at last men come and try to explain this life, and to show me in it an invention of mankind, I protest, I feel that the explanations are miserable, I feel that the reality breaks all that framework. Then, by an irresistible logic, I feel that if Christ is holy, He must have spoken truly, and ought to be believed. Is that all? Yes, if I only needed light and certainty; but there is a still deeper, more ardent, more irresistible instinct in my soul: I feel myself guilty, I thirst for pardon and for salvation. St. Paul felt himself a sinner, condemned by his conscience; he sought salvation in his works, he was exhausted in that sorrowful strife; he found salvation only on the cross. There he saw, according to his own words, the Just One offering Himself for the unjust; the Holy One bearing the curse of the sinner. In that redeeming sacrifice, St. Paul found assuagement for his conscience; the love of God as he recognised it in Jesus Christ penetrated his heart and life; is it not that which overflows in all his epistles, in all his apostolate? Is it not that which inspires, which inflames all his life? Is it not that which dictated to him these words, I know whom I have believed? It is also that which makes the foundation of Christian faith; it is that which millions of souls, led, like Paul, to the foot of the cross by their feeling of misery, have found in Jesus Christ; it is that which has transformed them, taken them out of themselves, conquered for ever by Jesus Christ.
III. The certainty of faith! Do not these words rouse a painful sentiment in you? No one will contradict me if I affirm, that there is in our epoch a kind of instinctive neglect of all that is firm and exact in points of belief and Christian life. Let us examine it. We are passing through a time of grave crisis where all the elements of our religious faith are submitted to the most penetrating analysis, and whatever may be our degree of culture we cannot escape from it. So, something analogous to the artistic sentiment is made for the religious sentiment. In music, for example, no one, assuredly, preoccupies himself with truth. The most varied, the most opposed styles are allowed, provided that some inspiration and some genius are felt in them. One day, people will applaud a sombre and dreamy symphony; others will prefer a composition brilliant with force and brightness; others, again, the softened charm of a melody full of grace: as many various tastes as art can satisfy. Now, it is just so that to-day it is claimed religion should be treated. It is wished that man should be religious; it is said that he who is not so is destitute of one sense, as he to whom painting or music is a matter of indifference; but this religious sense should, it is said, seek its satisfaction there where it finds it. To some a stately worship is necessary, to others an austere worship; to some the gentleness of an indulgent God, to others the holiness of the God of the Bible; to some an entirely moral religion, to others dogmas and curious mysteries. Do I need to ask, what becomes with that manner of looking, of the certainty of faith and religious truth? Hence that sad sight of souls always seeking and never reaching to the possession of truth, always in quest of religious emotions, but incapable of affirming their faith, and, above all, of changing their life. Nothing is more contrary to St. Pauls certitude, to that firm assurance which makes him say, I know whom I have believed. Can we be astonished that such a religion should be without real force and without real action? It could not be otherwise. It might be able, I acknowledge, to produce fleeting movements, vivid emotions, and sincere outbursts, but lasting effects never. I affirm, first, that it will convert nobody. And why? Because conversion is the most deep-seated Change in the affections and life of man, and he will never exchange the known for the unknown, real life with its passions, its pleasures, however senseless they appear, for the pale and cola abstractions of a belief with no precise object and for the worship of a vague and problematic God. To fight against passions and lusts and refuse the compensation of satisfied pride, to bend the will, to conquer the flesh, and to submit life to the austere discipline of obedience, that is a work which a vague, indecisive religion will never accomplish. Without religious certainty there is no holiness and, I add also, no consolation. Let us also add that a religion without a certainty is a religion without action, without progressive force. How can it advance? Will it lay the foundations of lasting works, will it know how to conquer, will it send its missionaries afar? Missionaries, and why? Is it with vague reveries and floating opinions that they set out, like the apostles, to conquer the world? The life of St. Paul is the best explanation of his faith. Supported by his example, and by the experience of all Christians, I would say to you, Do you wish to possess that strong immovable faith which alone can sustain and console? Fulfil the works of faith. Serve the truth, and the truth shall illuminate you; follow Jesus Christ, and you will believe in Christ. There is no royal road to science, said an ancient philosopher to a prince who was irritated at finding study so difficult; so in my turn I would say, There is no demonstration of Christianity, no apology which dispenses with obeying the truth, and with passing through humiliation and inward renunciation, without which faith is only a vain theory. The best proof of the truth of Christianity will always be a proof of experience; nothing will outvalue that irrefutable argument of St. Paul. (E. Bersier, D. D.)
Assured security in Christ
In the style of these apostolic words there is a positiveness most refreshing in this age of doubt. I know, says he. And that is not enough–I am persuaded. He speaks like one who cannot tolerate a doubt. There is no question about whether he has believed or not. I know whom I have believed. There is no question as to whether he was right in so believing. I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed to Him. There is no suspicion as to the future; he is as positive for years to come as he is for this present moment. He is able to keep that which I have committed to Him against that day. Where positiveness is the result of knowledge and of meditation, it becomes sublime, as it was in the apostles case; and being sublime it becomes influential; in this case, it certainly must have been influential over the heart of Timothy, and over the minds of the tens of thousands who have during these nineteen centuries perused this epistle. It encourages the timid when they see others preserved; it confirms the wavering when they see others steadfast. The apostles confidence was that Christ was an able guardian.
1. So he meant that Jesus is able to keep the soul from falling into damning sin.
2. But the apostle did not merely trust Christ thus to keep him from sin, he relied upon the same arm to preserve him from despair.
3. Doubtless the apostle meant, too, that Christ was able to keep him from the power of death.
4. The apostle is also certain that Christ is able to preserve his soul in another world.
5. Paul believed, lastly, that Christ was able to preserve his body. I cannot talk like that, saith one; I cannot say, I know and I am persuaded, I am very thankful that I can say, I hope, I trust, I think.
In order to help you to advance, we will notice how the apostle Paul attained to such assurance.
1. One main help to him was his habit, as seen in this text, of always making faith the most prominent point of consideration. Faith is twice mentioned in the few lines before us. I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed to Him. Paul knew what faith was, namely, a committal of his precious things into the custody of Christ. He does not say, I have served Christ. No; he does not say, I am growing like Christ, therefore I am persuaded I shall be kept. No; he makes most prominent in his thought the fact that he believed, and so had committed himself to Christ.
2. The next help to assurance, as I gather from the text, is this; the apostle maintained most clearly his view of a personal Christ. Observe how three times he mentioned his Lord. I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed to Him. He does not say, I know the doctrines I believe. Surely he did, but this was not the main point. No mere doctrines can ever be the stay of the soul. What can a dogma do? These are like medicines, but you need a hand to give you them; you want the physician to administer them to you; otherwise you may die with all these precious medicines close at hand. We want a person to trust to.
3. The apostle attained this full assurance through growing knowledge. He did not say I am persuaded that Christ will save me, apart from anything I know about Him; but he begins by saying, I know. Let no Christian among us neglect the means provided for obtaining a fuller knowledge of the gospel of Christ. I would that this age produced more thoughtful and studious Christians.
4. Once, again, the apostle, it appears from the text, gained his assurance from close consideration as well as from knowledge. I know and am persuaded. As I have already said, persuasion is the result of argument. The apostle had turned this matter over in his mind; he had meditated on the pros and cons; he had carefully weighed each difficulty, and he felt the preponderating force of truth which swept each difficulty nut of the way. How many Christians are like the miser who never feels sure about the safety of his money, even though he has locked up the iron safe, and secured the room in which he keeps it, and locked up the house, and bolted and barred every door! In the dead of night he thinks he hears a footstep, and tremblingly he goes down to inspect his strong-room. Having searched the room, and tested all the iron bars in the window, and discovered no thief, he fears that the robber may have come and gone, and stolen his precious charge. So he opens the door of his iron safe, he looks and pries, he finds his bag of gold all safe and those deeds, those bonds, they are safe too. He puts them away, shuts the door, locks it, bolts and bars the room in which is the safe and all its contents; but even as he goes to bed, he fancies that a thief has just now broken in. So he scarcely ever enjoys sound, refreshing sleep. The safety of the Christians treasure is of quite another sort. His soul, not under bolt and bar, or under lock and key of his own securing, but he has transferred his all to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, our Saviour–and such is his security that he enjoys the sleep of the beloved, calmly resting, for all is welt. Now to close, what is the influence of this assurance when it penetrates the mind? It enables us to bear all the obloquy which we may incur in serving the Lord. They said Paul was a fool. Well, replied the apostle, I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed; I am willing to be thought a fool. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Assurance
It surely is evident that while justification is all that is necessary for safety, an assured knowledge of our justification on our own part must be necessary to give us the comfort and the joy of safety. Further, it is clear that the character of all our subsequent experiences must very largely depend upon such an assured knowledge; for I cannot feel, or speak, or act as a justified man unless I not only am justified, but know that I am justified. Nor can I claim my proper privileges, and enjoy the blessed results of my new relationship with God, unless I know certainly that this relationship exists. For our position is, that, though it be possible that you may be safe in Gods sight, and yet not be safe in your own, you cannot lead the life that God intends you to lead unless you know of this your safety. First, you cannot draw near to Him with the filial confidence which should characterise all true Christian experience, and enter into the closest relations of true and trustful love. Next, you cannot learn from the happy results of this first act of faith the great life-lesson of faith. Then again you lose those mighty motives of grateful, joyous love which should be the incentives to a truly spiritual life, and instead of these there is certain to be an element of servile bondage even in your very devotion, and you must forfeit the glorious liberty of the child of God; and last, but not least, there can be no power in your testimony; for how can you induce others to accept a benefit of the personal effects of which you yourself know nothing? If your religion leaves you only in a state of uncertainty, how is it ever likely that you will have weight with others in inducing them to turn their backs upon those pleasures of sin for a season which, although they may be fleeting and unsatisfactory, are nevertheless a certainty while they do last. On the other side, let me point out that this knowledge of salvation is the effect and not the condition of justification. It would be absurd to teach that men are justified by knowing that they are justified. Of course they can only know it when it has happened, and to make such knowledge the condition of justification would involve a palpable contradiction. Indeed it would be equivalent to saying you must believe what is false in order to make it true. Look at these words of St. Paul; they sound bold and strong; yet just reflect for a moment. Would anything less than such a confidence as is indicated here have been sufficient to enable him to lead the life that he did? Would he ever have been fit for his lifes work if his assurance of his own personal relations with God through Christ had been more dubious, and his standing more precarious? Would anything less than this settled conviction have enabled him fearlessly to face all the odds that were against him, and have borne him on through many a shock of battle towards the victors crown? But now let us look more closely into this pregnant saying, and endeavour to analyse its meaning. On looking carefully at the words you will find that in stating one thing St. Paul really states three. First, he tells us that he has assumed a distinct moral attitude, an attitude of trust towards a particular person. Next, that the assumption and maintenance of this attitude is with him a matter of personal consciousness; and next, that he is acquainted with and thoroughly satisfied with the character of the person thus trusted. Let us consider each of these statements severally; and turning to the first, we notice that St. Paul represents his confidence as being reposed not in a doctrine, or a fact, but a person. I know whom I have believed. Many go wrong here. I have heard some speak as if we were to be justified by believing in the doctrine of justification by faith. Let me say to such what common-sense should have let them to conclude without its being necessary to say it, that we are no more justified by believing in the doctrine of justification by faith than we are carried from London to Edinburgh by believing in the expansive force of steam. Knowledge of the laws of the expansion of vapour may induce me to enter a railway train, and similarly, knowledge of the doctrine of justification may induce me to trust myself to Him who justifies; but I am no more justified by believing this doctrine than I am transported from place to place by believing in the laws of dynamics. Others seem to believe that our faith is to be reposed upon the doctrine of the Atonement, and not a few upon certain particular theories which are supposed to attach to that doctrine. But surely it is clear that our views of doctrine may be never so orthodox and correct, and yet our hearts may not have found rest in Him to whom the doctrine witnesses. Once again, some seem to regard our salvation as dependent upon belief in a fact; but surely it is possible to accept the fact, and yet come no nearer to Him who was the principal actor in that fact. Faith rests on a person, not a doctrine, or a fact; but when we believe in the person, this undoubtedly involves faith in the doctrine (so far as it is necessary for us to understand it) and in the fact. For if I believe in Jesus Christ, I believe in Him as Gods express provision to meet the case of fallen humanity, and this involves the doctrine. Once again, if I believe in Christ, I believe in Him as having accomplished all that was necessary to meet the case of fallen humanity, and this involves the fact. The doctrine and the fact both meet in Him; but apart from Him neither is of any real spiritual value to me. Nay, I will go so far as to say that my apprehension of the doctrine, and even of the fact, may be very inadequate and incomplete, yet if with all my heart I rest upon the person, my confidence can never be disappointed. Now let us consider this statement that St. Paul makes as to his moral attitude towards Christ. He tells us that he knows whom he has believed. The phrase is especially deserving of attention, and yet, curiously enough, it is generally misquoted. How commonly do we hear it quoted as if the words were, I know in whom I have believed. I fear that the frequency of the misquotation arises from the fact that men do not clearly discern the point to which the words of the apostle as they stand were specially designed to bear witness. The phrase, as St. Paul wrote it, points to a distinctly personal relation, and the words might, with strict accuracy, be rendered, I know whom I have trusted. The words, as they are misquoted, may be destitute of this clement of personal relation altogether. If I were to affirm of some distinguished commercial house in this city that I believed in it, that would not necessarily mean that I had left all my money in its hands. If I were to say that I believed in a well-known physician, that would not lead you to conclude that he had cured, or even that I had applied to him to cure, any disease from which I might be suffering. But if I stated that I had trusted that firm or that physician, then you would know that a certain actual personal relation was established between me and the man or the company of men of whom I thus spoke. How many there are who believe in Christ just as we believe in a bank where we have no account, or a physician whose skill we have never proved, and our belief does us as much good in the one case as in the other. But perhaps the true character of trust is, if possible, still more strikingly brought out by the word which St. Paul here employs in the original Greek. It is the word that would be used by any Greek to indicate the sum of money deposited, in trust, in the hands of a commercial agent, or, as we should say, a banker; in fact, the words used here simply mean my deposit. If you carry about a largo sum of money on your person, or if you keep it in your house, you run a certain risk of losing it. In order to ensure the safety of your property you make it over into the hands of a banker; and if you have perfect confidence in the firm to which you commit it, you no longer have an anxious thought about it. There it is safe in the bank. Even so there had come a time when St. Pauls eyes were opened to find that he was in danger of losing that beside which all worldly wealth is a mere trifle–his own soul; for what indeed is a man profited, if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Nay, it was not only that his soul was in danger amongst the robbers, it was actually forfeited to the destroyer, and then it was that, in his helpless despair, he made it over into anothers hands–that other who had a right to preserve it and keep it alive, because He had ransomed it from the destroyer, and from that time forward there he had left it safe and secure, because He to whom he had entrusted it was trustworthy. Now have you done the same? Have you not only believed in Jesus, but have you trusted Him? Then this must lead us to the second of the three things that we saw St. Paul here affirms. Evidently St. Paul knew, and was perfectly sure, of his own moral attitude towards God; and here he explicitly asserts that his faith was a matter of distinct moral consciousness, for I know whom I have believed certainly contains within itself I know that I have believed. Now turn this over in your mind. Surely it is reasonable enough when we come to think of it; for if we have something weighing on our minds that seems a thing of great importance, surely if we make it over into the hands of another, and leave it with him, we can hardly fail to be conscious of having done so. The question sometimes may be asked–and indeed it often is asked–How am I to know that I have believed? I confess that it is not easy to answer such an inquiry; but there are a good many similar questions which it would be equally hard to answer if people ever asked them, which, however, as a matter of fact, they never do. If I were to ask you to-night, How do you know that you hear me speaking to you? the only answer you could return would be–one that may sound very unphilosophical, but for all that one that is perfectly sufficient–Because I do. If you answer, Ah! but then that is a matter of sense, I reply, Yes, but is it otherwise with matters that dont belong to the region of sense-perception at all? If I were to ask you, How do you know that you remember, or that you imagine, or that you think, or that you perform any mental process? your answer must still be, Because I do. You do not feel either able or desirous to give any further proof of these experiences; it is enough that they are experiences–matters of direct consciousness. But we need not in order to illustrate this point go beyond this question that we are at present considering. You ask, How may I know that I believe? This question sounds to you reasonable when you are speaking of Christ as the object of faith. Does it sound equally reasonable when you speak in the same terms of your fellow-man? How do you know, my dear child, that you believe in your own mother? How do you know, you, my brother, who are engaged in commerce, that you believe in your own banker? You can only answer in each case, Because I do; but surely that answer is sufficient, and you do not feel seriously exercised about the reality of your confidence, because you have no other proof of it excepting an appeal to your own personal consciousness. Let us now notice, further, that he knew well, and was perfectly satisfied with, the character of the person whom he did believe. Herein lay the secret of his calm, the full assurance of his faith. You may have your money invested in a concern which, on the whole, you regard as a safe and satis factory one, yet when panics are prevailing in the city, and well-known houses are failing, you may be conscious of some little anxiety, some passing misgiving. You have faith in the firm, but perhaps not full assurance of faith. It is otherwise with the money that you have invested in the funds of the nation; that must be safe as long as Great Britain holds her place amongst the nations of the world. Clearly our sense of comfort in trusting, our full assurance of confidence lies in our knowledge of, and is developed by, our contemplation of the object upon which our trust is reposed–if indeed that object be worthy of it–and feelings of peace and calm will necessarily flow from this. (W. Hay Aitken, M. A.)
I know whom I have believed
Whom Paul says. Quite another thing from what. I know what I have believed; that is good. I know whom I have believed; that is better–best. Such believing has easily its advantages, several of them. When the thing we believe is a person, our believing, creed, becomes simple and coherent; the lines of our thinking all gather at a point, our creed is made one, like grapes growing in one cluster from one stem. I am interested on occasion to ask Christian people what their Christian belief is. It is instructive to note the wide divergence of answer. One believes one thing, another, another thing. I know whom I have believed. To be a Christian is to believe in Christ. And what is it to believe in Christ? We reach too high for our answers; necessary truth grows on low branches. The boy says–I believe in my father. All is told that needs to be told. Another thing about this creed with a person in it is, that it gives something for all our faculties to do. I know what I believe. Such a creed is only intellectual; it is an affair of thinking, reasoning, inference. Theological thought and discussion works so far only on the same lines as scientific. Mind only works; no heart, nothing volitional. A creed that gathers directly about person yields keen thinking, but yields much beside. It starts feeling, sets the affections in play, draws out the will and puts it to work. We each of us have one or more men that we believe in, with all our mind, heart and strength–men that are so far forth our creed; and they stir and stimulate us in every way, clearing our ideas, to be sure, but firing our hearts and making our resolutions sinewy and nervy. Christ made Paul a man of profound thinking, but a man of fervid passion and giant purpose–gave every faculty in him something to do. He was great all over. A third and consequent advantage in a personal creed is that it is the only kind that can produce effects, and work within us substantial alteration. I am not criticising creeds. It is an excellent thing to know what we believe, and to be able with conciseness and effect to state it. Paul does not say 1 know what I believe, but I know whom I believe, which goes wider and higher. Such a creed is not one that Paul holds, but one that holds Paul, and can do something with him therefore. No quantity of correct idea about the sun can take the place of standing and living where the sun shines; and standing and living where the sun shines will save from fatal results a vast amount of incorrect ideas about the sun. Belief in person works back upon me as an energy, alters me, builds me up or tears me down–at any rate never leaves me alone; it works as gravity does among the stars; keeps everything on the move. Such belief is not mental attitude, but moral appropriation; it is the bee clinging to the clover-blossom and sucking out the sweet. It is regulative and constructive. We are determined by thee person we believe in. Belief makes him my possession. Belief breaks down his walls and widens him out till he contains me. His thoughts reappear as my thoughts; his ways, manners, feelings, hopes, impulses, motives, become mine. I know whom I have believed. We make our ordinary creeds, and revise and amend and repeal them. Personal creeds make us, and revise, amend and repeal us. No picture of a friend can be accurate enough to begin to take the friends place or do the friends work. No idea of a person can ever be enough like the person to serve as substitute. Knowing what God is to perfection would never become the equivalent of knowing God. If we bring this to the level of common life, its workings are simple and manifest. It is in the home. The mother is the childs first creed. He believes in her before he believes what she says, and it is by his belief in her that he grows and ripens. If we cannot tell it all out in words what this believing in a mother or father means, we feel the meaning of it, and the deep sense is worth more than the wordy paragraph, any time. Education is an affair of person–person meeting person. Pupils do not become wise by being told things. Wisdom is not the accumulation of specific cognitions. It is men that educate. Person is the true schoolmaster. Even an encyclopaedia does not become an educator by being dressed in gentlemens clothes. What best helps a boy to become a man is to have somebody to look up to; which is like our text–I know whom I have believed. And out on the broader fields of social and national life we encounter the same principle over again. The present wealth of a people depends largely upon its commerce and productive industries. The stability of a people and its promise for the future, depends quite as much upon the quality of the men upon whom the masses allow their regards to fix and their loyalty to fasten. I know whom I have believed. And believing in Christ in this way to begin with, issued in Pauls believing a host of particular facts in regard to Christ, and Pauls theology is his blossomed piety. No amount of faith in Christs words will add up into faith in Him. You must have noticed bow full all Christs teachings are of the personal pronoun I. Pauls Christianity began on the road to Damascus. The only man that can truly inform me is the man that can form himself in me; that is what information means–immensely personal again, you see, as everything of much account is. And it is so everywhere. Religious matters, in this respect, step in the same ranks with other matters. The grandest convictions that we receive from other people are not constructed in us by their logic, but created in us by their personal inspiration. The gospel is not the Divine book, but the Divine Man, and a great many miniature copies of that gospel are around us, working still effects along personal lines. We make Christianity hard by crumbling it up into impersonal propositions. It is no part of our genius to like a truth apart from its flesh and blood incarnation in some live man. It is a hard and awkward thing for me to believe in the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, for instance. I do not like the doctrine; my intellect abhors it. No logic could persuade me of its truth, and I should never think of trying to syllogise anybody else into a possession of it. But my father is immortal and I know it. Your mother is immortal, and you cannot start in your mind a suspicion to the contrary. From all this we gather that a man who gets called an unbeliever, and even calls himself such, may believe a great deal more than he suspects. Unconscious orthodoxy is a factor of the times that needs to be taken into earnest account. There are quantities of unutilised and unsuspected faith. You do not believe in immortality. Did you ever see anybody that you had some little idea had about him something or other that death could not touch? Let alone the abstract and come close to the concrete and personal, and let it work. You reject the doctrine of a change of heart; and it is a doctrine repugnant to our natures and a conundrum to our intelligence. Did you ever see anybody who stopped being what he had been and commenced being what he had not been? If you find it hard work to square your opinions with the catechism, see whether you do not draw into a little closer coincidence with men and women whose lives transparently embody the gospel, and then draw your inference. To another class of uncertain hearers I want to add, Do not try to get your religious ideas all arranged and your doctrinal notions balanced. There is a great deal of that kind that is best taken care of when it is left to take care of itself. There is no advantage in borrowing some ones else opinion and no use in hurrying your own opinion. Begin with what is personal, as he did–I know whom I have believed. Try to know the Lord. Draw nigh to God and He will draw nigh to you. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. There is no other way of beginning to be a Christian but the old way–Come unto Me. And you and I, fellow Christians, owe it to these unsettled people among us and about us to help them to strong anchorage upon Christ; and our qualifications for the work will be our own thorough rest in and establishment upon Christ and an ineffable commixture of love and tact, and fact considered not as a natural talent, but as a heavenly grace. In our relations to these people, there is another thing fur us to remember of a more positive character, which is, as we have seen, that there is nothing that tells upon men and their convictions like life. Men believe in the personal. Truth pure and simple goes but a little way, except as it is lived. Abstractions are not current outside of the schools. The best preaching of a change of heart is a heart that is changed. These people are not going to he touched by anything that has not breath and a pulse. Living is the best teaching. So that if you and I are going to help these people to be conscious and pronounced Christians, we are not going to accomplish it by merely telling them about Christ and compounding before them feeble dilutions of Divine biography, but by being ourselves so personally charged with the personal Spirit of God in Christ that in our words they shall hear Him, in our love they shall feel Him, in our behaviour they shall be witnesses of Him, and in this way He become to them the Way, Truth and Life, all-invigorating power, all-comprehensive creed. (C. H. Parkhurst.)
Nothing to hold by
An infidel was dying, and his infidelity beginning to give way, was rallied by his friends, who surrounded his dying bed. Hold out, they all cried, dont give way. Ah! said the dying man, I would hold out if I had anything to hold by, but what have I? (Anon.)
Confidence in Christ
I. The Christian has in his possession a treasure.
1. It is his greatest treasure.
2. At his own disposal.
3. Involves his whole welfare for ever.
II. The Christian has entrusted his treasure to the protection of Christ.
1. It is in danger of being lost.
2. Man cannot secure its safety himself.
3. Christ is the only Preserver.
III. The Christian has entrusted his treasure to Christ with unbounded confidence. Because of his faith in Christs–
1. Power.
2. Promises.
3. Prestige.
IV. The Christians consciousness of the safety of his treasure in Christ, is a source of great peace in the troubles of life.
1. Because the greatest interest is secured.
2. Because trials will farther this interest.
3. Because trials will soon end. (B. D. Johns.)
Knowledge conducive of assurance
This must move us all to get knowledge of God, if we would have faith in Him, yea, the best must grow herein; for the better we know Him the more confidently shall we believe in Him. For it is so in all other things. When I know the firmness of the land I will the better rest my foot on it; the strength of my staff, the rather lean my whole body upon it, and the faithfulness of a friend, put and repose my confidence in him. And we must know God. First, in His power, how that He is able to do whatsoever He will. This confirmed Abrahams faith, and moved him to offer his son. Secondly, we must know Him in His truth and justice. Thirdly, we are to know God in His stability. How that time changeth not His nature, neither altereth His purpose. Fourthly, we are to understand that God is Sovereign Lord, that there is none higher than He; for if we should trust in an inferior we might be deceived. Fifthly, We must know God in Christ. (J. Barlow, D. D.)
Its all real
A Bible class convert, who subsequently became a teacher, accidentally injured himself through lifting a heavy weight, and his sufferings in consequence were very severe. Yet, notwithstanding his pain and poverty, he was extremely happy, and clung to Christ with a triumphant faith. This poor fellows dying testimony was very striking, and one of his last desires has never been forgotten. When just about crossing the river of death, he broke out into this expression, Oh, Mr. Orsman, I would like to get well again, if only for one day, just to go round to my old companions, and tell them its all real. (Sword and Trowel.)
The love of Christ stronger than the terrors of death
At the conclusion of an evening service in a fishing village, a young man stood up, and with great earnestness began to address his fellows. He said, You all remember Johnnie Greengrass? There was a murmur of assent all over the gathering. You know that he was drowned last year. I was his comrade on board our boat. As we were changing the vessels course one night, off the Old Head of Kinsale, he was struck by the lower part of the mainsail and swept overboard. He was a good swimmer, but had been so disabled by the blow that he could only struggle in the water. We made all haste to try and save him. Before we got seated in the punt, we heard Johnnies voice, over the waves beyond the stern, singing the last line of his favourite hymn, If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, tis now. We made every effort to find him, but in vain. He was drowned; but the last words which we had heard from his lips assured us that the love of Christ had proved stronger than the terrors of death. He knew that neither death nor life could separate him from the love of Christ, and so he sank beneath the waves, singing, If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, tis now. (T.Brown, M. A.)
Venturing on Christ
The Rev. Dr. Simpson was for many years tutor in the college at Hoxton, and while he stood very low in his own esteem, he ranked high in that of others. After a long life spent in the service of Christ, he approached his latter end with holy joy. Among other ex pressions which indicated his love to the Redeemer, and his interest in the favour of God, he spoke with disapprobation of a phrase often used by some pious people, Venturing on Christ. When, said he, I consider the infinite dignity and all-sufficiency of Christ, I am ashamed to talk of venturing on Him. Oh, had I ten thousand souls, I would, at this moment, cast them all into His hands with the utmost confidence. A few hours before his dissolution, he addressed himself to the last enemy, in a strain like that of the apostle, when he exclaimed, O death, where is thy sting? Displaying his characteristic fervour, as though he saw the tyrant approaching, he said, What art thou? I am not afraid of thee. Thou art a vanquished enemy through the blood of the Cross.
Trusting Christ entirely
I have sometimes used the following experience as an illustration of salvation. For fifteen years I lived by the seaside, and was a frequent bather, and yet never learned to swim. I would persist in keeping one foot upon the bottom, for then I felt safe. But one day, in a rough sea, a great wave fairly picked me off my feet, and I struck out for dear life. I awoke to the fact that I could swim, that the waves would bear me up if I trusted them entirely, and I no longer clung to my own way of self-help. Even so does Christ save. How often the trying to help ones self keeps from peace and rest! and when the soul first abandons all to Christ, ventures wholly on Him, that soul finds, to its own astonishment, that Christ indeed bears up and saves him. (H. W. Childs.)
Jesus sufficient
An old lady who lately died in Melbourne said to her minister, Do you think my faith will hold out? Well, I dont know much about that, replied the man of God, but I am sure that Jesus Christ will hold out, and that is enough for you. Looking, not to our faith, but unto Jesus. (T. Spurgeon.)
The safety of believers
I. The grounds upon which this comfortable persuasion is built.
II. The manner in which this pebsuasion is produced and promoted in the souls of true believers.
1. The knowledge of Christ, which is necessary to produce and promote the comfortable persuasion expressed in the text, is partly derived from testimony.
(1) God the Father has in all ages borne witness to the power and faithfulness of His own beloved Son, our blessed Saviour. This He did of old time by visions and voices, by prophecies and typical ordinances.
(2) Christ Himself likewise thus testifies concerning His own power and readiness to save (Mat 11:28).
(3) Nor must the testimony of the Holy Spirit be forgotten. It is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth.
(4) All the saints who lived in former times, the whole company of the faithful, all the patriarchs and prophets, the apostles and martyrs, bear testimony to this interesting fact. They all died in the faith of its comforting truth.
(5) Our fellow-Christians, likewise, in the present day, may be produced as witnesses to the power and faithfulness of the Redeemer. They live in different and distant places; their cases are various, and their attainments unequal; but they all will unite in declaring that ever since they were enabled to commit their souls to Christ, they have found a peace and joy to which they were strangers before, and that not one word of all that He hath spoken hath failed to be accomplished.
2. That this knowledge is likewise in part derived from the believers own experience (see Joh 4:42).
Concluding reflections:
1. How much are they to be pitied, who have no interest in the Saviour, who have never been thoroughly convinced of their wretched condition as sinners, and who, consequently, have not committed the momentous concerns of their souls into the hands of Christ.
2. That we may abound more and more in this hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost, let us study to grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
3. Have we committed our immortal interests into the hands of Christ, and shall we not trust Him with all our lesser concerns?
4. Let us look forward with believing expectation to the day when it will appear with Divine evidence, how faithfully Jesus has kept all that has been committed unto Him. (D. Black.)
Nothing between the soul and its Saviour
When Dr. Alexander, one of the professors of theology in Princeton University, was dying, he was visited by a former student. After briefly exchanging two or three questions as to health, the dying divine requested his old disciple to recite a verse of the Bible to be a comfort to him in his death struggles. After a moments reflection the student repeated from memory that verse–I know in whom I have believed, and that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him unto that day. No, no, replied the dying saint, that is not the verse: it is not I know in whom I have believed. but I know whom I have believed. I cannot allow the little word in to intervene between me and my Saviour to-day, I cannot allow the smallest word in the English language to go between me and my Saviour in the floods of Jordan.
The folly of not trusting Christ
I was busy at work during the deep, still hush of a hot July noon, when my attention was suddenly drawn to a fluttering sound in the room where I was sitting. A little bird from the neighbouring woods had entered by the open window, and was dashing wildly to and fro in its frantic efforts to escape again. I did not move at first, unwilling to increase its alarm, and hoping it would soon find its way out. But when after a little I again looked up, I saw that the little creature was circling round and round in desperate alarm; and, moreover, that the low, whitewashed ceiling was being streaked all over with blood from its poor head, which it grazed incessantly in its endeavours to get farther away from me. I thought it was time for me now to come to its help, but all my endeavours only made matters worse. The more I tried to aid its escape, the more blindly and swiftly did it dash itself against the walls and ceiling. I could but sit down and wait till it fell helpless and exhausted at my feet. The water stood in my eyes as I took it up and laid it in a safe place, from which, when recovered, it could fly safely away. Poor foolish thing, I said, how much alarm and suffering you would have been spared could you only have trusted me, and suffered me to set you at liberty long ago. But you have been to me a lively picture of the way in which we sinners of mankind treat a loving and compassionate Saviour.
God a good Keeper
God hath all the properties of a good keeper. First, He is wise. Secondly, powerful. Thirdly, watchful. Fourthly, faithful. He hath given laws to be faithful, and then shall not He?
The certainty of salvation
When the soul is settled that person will be resolute in every good course. A faint-hearted soldier, were he resolved beforehand that he should escape death and danger, conquer his foes, and win the field, would he not put on his armour, gird his sword upon his thigh, and march furiously against his adversaries? And shall not then the Christian soldier, who is persuaded of victory, to have the spoil, and possess a crown of righteousness and glory, go on with an undaunted courage in the face of the devil, death, and hell? This doctrine reproveth those that for the most part never mind this duty. We see many who settle their houses on a good foundation, establish their trees that the wind shake them not, and by a staff to underprop their feeble bodies that they catch not a fall, the which we in its kind commend. But how few spend any time to have their souls settled in the certainty of salvation. (J. Barlow, D. D.)
Faith and feeling
Dr. Archibald Alexander, eminent for learning and for consecration, when asked by one of his students at Princeton whether he always had full assurance of faith, replied, Yes, except when the wind blows from the east. (T. de Witt Talmage.)
Christian faith
Christian faith is the faith of a transaction; it is not the committing of ones thought in assent to a preposition, but it is the trusting of ones being to another Being, there to be rested, kept, guided, moulded, governed, and possessed for ever. (H. Bushnell.)
Christian faith
is a grand cathedral with divinely-pictured windows. Standing without, you see no glory, nor can possibly imagine any. Nothing is visible but the merest outline of dusky shapes. Standing within, all is clear and defined, every ray of light reveals an array of unspeakable splendours. (J. Ruskin.)
Faith a personal relation to Christ
If the object of faith were certain truths, the assent of the understanding would be enough. If the object of faith were unseen things, the confident persuasion of them would be sufficient. If the object of faith were promises of future good, the hope rising to certainty of the possession of these would be sufficient. But if the object be more than truths, more than unseen realities, more than promises; if the object be a living Person, then there follows inseparably this, that faith is not merely the assent of the understanding, that faith is not merely the persuasion of the reality of unseen things, that faith is not merely the confident expectation of future good; but that faith is the personal relation of him that believes to the living Person its object, the relation which is expressed not more clearly, but perhaps a little more forcibly to us by substituting another word, and saying, Faith is trust. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Trust in Christ supported by cumulative evidence
I do not pretend to have a scientific knowledge of Divine things, or to rest my convictions upon a scientific demonstration; but I can venture to say that I know whom I have believed. Such a belief will be supported by collateral evidence, acquiring from age to age a cumulative and converging force; but its essential virtue will in all ages be derived from the vital sources of personal love and trust. (H. Wace, D. D.)
Character entrusted to God
When John Wesley was going over all the country proclaiming a crucified Saviour for sinners, the magazines and papers of the day slandered him as those of our day do Gods servants still, in one paper there was an article so abusive and slanderous that a friend determined to contradict it. He laid the article and its reply before Wesley, who said, When I gave my soul to Jesus, I gave Him my character to keep as well. I have to do my work and have no time to attend to it. Christians who are doing the Lords work should go on with it, leaving themselves and their character in His hands.
The soul entrusted to Christ
St. Paul says, that which I have committed unto Him. This meant his soul. Suppose you have a precious jewel worth fifty or a hundred thousand dollars. It is so valuable that you are afraid you may lose it, or that some one may steal it from you. And suppose you have a friend who has a safe that is fire-proof and robber-proof. You take your jewel to this friend, and say to him: Please take charge of this jewel, and keep it for me in your fire-proof. He takes it and locks it up there. And now you feel comfortable about that jewel. You know your friend is faithful, and your jewel is safe. Yen do not worry about it any more. You are ready to say about your jewel what St. Paul said about his soul, because you feel sure that it is safe. (Richard Newton.)
Knowing Christ
There are two ways in which we are used to know persons. Sometimes it means to know them through some other person. Sometimes it means to know them ourselves. There is evidently a world-wide difference between the two. Let me illustrate it thus: We all know our Sovereign, her character, her state, her prerogative, her powers. But very few know the Queen. Yet it is very evident that those who have been admitted to her presence, and who have actually spoken and conversed in friendship with her, will have very different feelings towards her, and repose in her, and that their whole hearts will go out to her immensely more than those who know her only at a distance, and through the ordinary public channels. It is so with Christ. Some of you know Christ by the education of your childhood; some by the testimony of others; some by the reading of your Bible. Others have felt His presence. They have communed with Him. They have presented petitions, and they have had their answers from Himself. They have laid burdens at His feet, and He has taken them up. He has accepted their little gifts and smiled at their small services. They have proved Him. Isnt He another Being, isnt He another Christ to that man? They know Him. And what do they know of Thee, O blessed Jesus? They know Thee as the most loving and the loveliest of all–all grace, full of tenderness and sympathy, stooping to the meanest, and kind to the very worst. Our Brother, our Light, our Life, our Joy–who has taken away all our sins and carried all our load. That knowledge can never begin but in one way–by a certain inner life, by a walk of holiness, by the teaching of sorrow, in the school of discipline, from heavy leanings, by acts of self-abandonment, by goings down into the dust, by the grand influence of the Spirit, by Jesus revealing Himself. But once known–and from that moment it will be as hard not to trust as it is now difficult to do; as impossible for the heart to doubt as it is to that poor, prone heart now to question everything. If you really know, you cannot help believing. If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give Me to drink, thou wouldest have asked of Him, and He would have given thee living water. But there is a truth in St. Pauls words which I am very anxious to press upon you. See where the great apostle, the aged believer, the ripe saint, found all his argument and all his stand, as it were. Not–and if any man might he might–not in anything which had been worked by him; not in anything in him; not in his acts; not in his feelings; not in his faith; not in his conversion, however remarkable; not in his sanctification, however complete; but simply and absolutely and only in God. I know–as if he cared to know nothing else, all other knowledge being unsatisfactory or worse–I know Him whom I have trusted. It may seem a strange thing to say, but it is really easier to know God than it is to know ourselves. It is remarkable that the Bible tells us a great deal more about God than it does about our own hearts. The great end of reading the Bible is to know God. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)
Confidence and concern
I. First, observe what Paul had done.
1. He had trusted a person–I know whom I have believed.
2. Paul had gone farther, and had practically carried out his confidence, for he had deposited everything with this person. A poor idiot, who had been instructed by an earnest Christian man, somewhat alarmed him by a strange remark, for he feared that all his teaching had been in vain. He said to this poor creature, You know that you have a soul, John? No, said he, I have no soul. No soul! thought the teacher, this is dreadful ignorance. All his fears were rolled away when his half-witted pupil added, I had a soul once, and I lost it, and Jesus found it; and so I have let Him keep it.
II. The next thing is, what did Paul know? He tells us plainly, I know whom I have believed.
1. We are to understand by this that Paul looked steadily at the object of his confidence, and knew that he relied upon God in Christ Jesus. He did not rest in a vague hope that he would be saved; nor in an indefinite reliance upon the Christian religion; nor in a sanguine expectation that all things would, somehow, turn out right at the end. He did not hold the theory of our modern divines, that our Lord Jesus Christ did something or other, which, in one way or another, is more or less remotely connected with the forgiveness of sin; but he knew the Lord Jesus Christ as a person, and he deliberately placed himself in His keeping, knowing Him to be the Saviour.
2. Paul also knew the character of Jesus whom he trusted. His perfect character abundantly justified the apostles implicit trust. Paul could have said, I know that I trust in One who is no mere man, but very God of very God. I have not put my soul into the keeping of a priest, like unto the sons of Aaron, who must die; but I have rested myself in One whose priesthood is according to the law of an endless life–A Priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek. He upon whom I confide is He without whom was not anything made that was made, who sustaineth all things by the Word of His power, and who at His coming shall shake both the heavens and the earth, for all fulness of Divine energy dwells in Him.
3. But how did Paul come to know Christ? Every page of Scripture, as the apostle perused it, revealed Jesus to him. This book is a royal pavilion, within which the Prince of peace is to be met with by believers who look for Him. In this celestial mirror Jesus is reflected. Paul also knew Jesus in another way than this. He had personal acquaintance with Him; he knew Him as the Lord Jesus, who appeared unto him in the way. He knew the Lord also by practical experience and trial of Him. Paul had tested Jesus amidst furious mobs, when stones fell about him, and in prison, when the death-damp chilled him to the bone. He had known Christ far out at sea, when Euroclydon drove him up and down in the Adriatic; and he had known Christ when the rough blasts of unbrotherly suspicion had beaten upon him on the land. All that he knew increased his confidence. He knew the Lord Jesus because He had delivered him out of the mouth of the lion.
III. Thirdly, let us inquire–what was the apostle persuaded of?
1. Implicitly Paul declares his faith in our Lords willingness and faithfulness.
2. But the point which the apostle expressly mentions is the power of Christ–I am persuaded that He is able. He that goes on board a great Atlantic liner does not say, I venture the weight of my body upon this vessel. I trust it to bear my ponderous frame. Yet your body is more of a load to the vessel than your soul is to the Lord Jesus. Did you ever hear of the gnat on the horn of the ex which feared that it might be an inconvenience to the huge creature? Oh, friend! you are but a gnat in comparison with the Lord Jesus, nay, you are not so heavy to the ascended Saviour as the gnat to the ox. You were a weight to Him once, but having borne that load once for all, your salvation is no burden to Him now. Well may you say, I am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him.
3. What was this which Paul had committed to Christ? He committed to Him everything that he had for time and for eternity; his body, his soul, his spirit; all fears, cares, dangers, sins, doubts, hopes, joys: he just made a clean removal of his all from himself to his Lord. Those of you who are acquainted with the original will follow me while I forge a link between my third division and my fourth. If I were to read the text thus it would be quite correct–I am persuaded that He is able to keep my deposit against that day. Here we have a glimpse of a second meaning. If you have the Revised Version, you will find in the margin that which He has committed to me; and the original allows us to read the verse whichever way we choose–He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him–or that which He has committed unto me. This last expression, though I could not endorse it as giving the full sense of the text, does seem to me to be a part of its meaning. It is noteworthy that, in the fourteenth verse, the original has the same phrase as in this verse. It runs thus–That good deposit guard by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us. Inasmuch as the words are the same–the apostle speaking of my deposit in the twelfth verse, and in the fourteenth verse speaking of that good deposit–I cannot help thinking that one thought dominated his mind. His soul and the gospel were so united as to be in his thought but one deposit; and this he believed that Jesus was able to keep. He seemed to say, I have preached the gospel which was committed to my trust; and now, for having preached it, I am put in prison, and am likely to die; but the gospel is safe in better hands than mine. The demon of distrust might have whispered to him, Paul, you are now silenced, and your gospel will be silenced with you; the Church will die out; truth will become extinct. No, no, saith Paul, I am not ashamed; for I know that He is able to guard my deposit against that day.
IV. This leads me on to this fourth point–what the apostle was concerned about. The matter about which he was concerned was this deposit of his–this everlasting gospel of the blessed God. He expresses his concern in the following words–Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus. That good thing which was committed unto thee keep by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us.
1. He is concerned for the steadfastness of Timothy, and as I think for that of all young Christians, and especially of all young preachers. What does he say? Hold fast the form of sound words. I hear an objector murmur, There is not much in words, surely. Sometimes there is very much in words. Vital truth may hinge upon a single word. The whole Church of Christ once fought a tremendous battle over a syllable; but it was necessary to fight it for the conservation of the truth. When people rail at creeds as having no vitality, I suppose that I hear one say that there is no life in egg-shells. Just so; there is no life in egg-shells, they are just so much lime, void of sensation. Pray, my dear sir, do not put yourself out to defend a mere shell. Truly, good friend, I am no trifler, nor so litigious as to fight for a mere shell. But hearken! I have discovered that when you break egg-shells you spoil eggs; and I have learned that eggs do not hatch and produce life when shells are cracked.
2. The apostle was anxious, not only that the men should stand, but that the everlasting gospel itself should be guarded. That good thing which was committed unto thee keep by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us. It were better for us that the sun were quenched than that the gospel were gone. I believe that the moralities, the liberties, and peradventure the very existence of a nation depend upon the proclamation of the gospel in its midst. How are we to keep the faith? There is only one way. It is of little use trying to guard the gospel by writing it down in a trust-deed; it is of small service to ask men to subscribe to a creed: we must go to work in a more effectual way. How is the gospel to be guarded? By the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us. If the Holy Spirit dwells in you, and you obey His monitions, and are moulded by His influences, and exhibit the result of His work in the holiness of your lives, then the faith will be kept. A holy people are the true body-guard of the gospel. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 12. I am not ashamed.] Though I suffer for the Gospel, I am not ashamed of the Gospel; nor am I confounded in my expectation; his grace being at all times sufficient for me.
For I know whom I have believed] I am well acquainted with the goodness, mercy, and power of Christ; and know that I cannot confide in him in vain.
That which I have committed unto him] This is variously understood. Some think he means his life, which he had put, as it were, into the hands of Christ, in order that he might receive it again, in the resurrection, at the great day. Others think he means his soul. This he had also given into the hands of his faithful Creator, knowing that although wicked men might be permitted to take away his life, yet they could not destroy his soul, nor disturb its peace. Others think that he is speaking of the Gospel, which he knows will be carefully preserved by the great Head of the Church; for, though he shall be soon called to seal the truth with his blood, yet he knows that God will take care that the same truth shall be proclaimed to the world by others, whom God shall raise up for that very purpose.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
For the which cause I also suffer these things; for the preaching and publishing of which gospel, or for the teaching of the Gentiles, I suffer these things, being accused by the Jews as a seditious person stirring up the people, and by them delivered to the Romans, and by them imprisoned.
Nevertheless I am not ashamed; yet I am not ashamed of my chains.
For I know whom I have believed, I have committed myself to God,
and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day; and I am out of doubt concerning Gods ability to keep until the day of judgment my soul, or my whole concerns both for this life and another, which I have by faith committed to him. Some, by that which I have committed unto him, in this text, understand the church or body of believers; others understand the fruit and reward of his labours and suffering. Mr. Calvin would have life eternal here meant; our eternal salvation is in Christs keeping. I rather incline to the first notion; so it agreeth with 1Pe 4:19. God commits his gospel to our trust who are ministers, 1Ti 6:20; we, according to the phrase of Scripture, are said to commit our souls to him, Luk 23:46; Act 7:59. I am, saith Paul, unconcerned as to my sufferings, I have intrusted God with all my coucerns in order to this life and that which is to come, and I know he is able to secure them.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
12. For the which causeForthe Gospel cause of which I was appointed a preacher (2Ti 1:10;2Ti 1:11).
I also sufferbesidesmy active work as a missionary. ELLICOTTtranslates, “I suffer even these things”; the sufferingsattendant on my being a prisoner (2Ti 1:8;2Ti 1:15).
I am not ashamedneitherbe thou (2Ti 1:8).
forConfidence as tothe future drives away shame [BENGEL].
I knowthough the worldknows Him not (Joh 10:14;Joh 17:25).
whomI know what afaithful, promise-keeping God He is (2Ti2:13). It is not, I know how I have believed, but, I knowWHOM I have believed; afeeble faith may clasp a strong Saviour.
believedrather,”trusted”; carrying out the metaphor of a depositordepositing his pledge with one whom he trusts.
am persuaded (Ro8:38).
he is ablein spite ofso many foes around me.
that which I have committedunto himGreek, “my deposit”; the body, soul,and spirit, which I have deposited in God’s safe keeping (1Th 5:23;1Pe 4:19). So Christ Himself indying (Lu 23:46). “Goddeposits with us His word; we deposit with God our spirit”[GROTIUS]. There is onedeposit (His revelation) committed by God to us, which we ought tokeep (2Ti 1:13; 2Ti 1:14)and transmit to others (2Ti 2:2);there is another committed by God to us, which we should commit toHis keeping, namely, ourselves and our heavenly portion.
that daythe day of Hisappearing (2Ti 1:18; 2Ti 4:8).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
For the which cause I also suffer these things,…. The present imprisonment and bonds in which he now was; these, with all the indignities, reproaches, distresses, and persecutions, came upon him, for the sake of his being a preacher of the Gospel; and particularly for his being a teacher of the Gentiles: the Jews hated him, and persecuted him, because he preached the Gospel, and the more because he preached it to the Gentiles, that they might be saved; and the unbelieving Gentiles were stirred up against him, for introducing a new religion among them, to the destruction of their idolatry and superstition; and the sufferings which he endured were many; and he was appointed to them, as well as to the Gospel, which he preached.
Nevertheless I am not ashamed; neither of the Gospel, and the truths and ordinances of it, for which he suffered; but he continued to own and confess it constantly, and to preach it boldly; none of these things moved him from it: nor of the sufferings he endured, for the sake of it; since they were not for murder, or theft, or sedition, or any enormity whatever, but in a good cause; wherefore he was so far from being ashamed of them, that he took pleasure in them, and gloried of them. Nor was he ashamed of Christ, whose Gospel he preached, and for whom he suffered; nor of his faith and hope in him. For it follows,
for I know whom I have believed. A spiritual knowledge of Christ is necessary to faith in him: an unknown Christ cannot be the object of faith, though an unseen Christ, as to bodily sight, may be, and is. Knowledge and faith go together: they that truly know Christ, believe in him, and the more they know him, the more strongly do they believe in him: such who spiritually and savingly know Christ, have seen the glories of his person, and the fulness of his grace; and they approve of him, as their Saviour, being every way suitable to them, and disapprove of all others; they love him above all others, and with all their hearts; and they put their trust in him, and trust him with all they have; and they know whom they trust, what an able, willing, suitable, and complete Saviour he is. This knowledge which they have of him, is not from themselves, but from the Father, who reveals him to them, and in them; and from himself, who gives them an understanding that they may know him; and from the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him: and be it more or less, it is practical, and leads to the discharge of duty, from a principle of love to Christ; and is of a soul humbling nature, and appropriates Christ to a man’s self; and has always some degree of certainty in it; and though it is imperfect, it is progressive; and the least measure of it is saving, and has eternal life connected with it: and that faith which accompanies it, and terminates on the object known, is the grace, by which a man sees Christ in the riches of his grace; goes to him in a sense of need of him; lays hold upon him as a Saviour; receives and embraces him; commits its all unto him; trusts him with all; leans and lives upon him, and walks on in him till it receives the end of faith, even eternal salvation.
And I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day. By that which he had committed to him is meant, not the great treasure of his labours and sufferings for Christ, as if he had deposited these in Christ’s hands, in order to be brought forth at the great day of account to his advantage; for though his labours and sufferings were many, yet he always ascribed the strength by which he endured them to the grace of God; and he knew they were not worthy to be compared, nor made mention of, with the glory that was to be revealed in him. Rather this may be understood of the souls of those he had been instrumental in the converting of, whom he had commended to Christ, hoping to meet them as his joy and crown of rejoicing another day; though it seems best of all to interpret it either of his natural life, the care of which he had committed to Christ, and which he knew he was able to preserve, and would preserve for usefulness until the day appointed for his death; or rather his precious and immortal soul, and the eternal welfare and salvation of it: and the act of committing it to Christ, designs his giving himself to him, leaving himself with him, trusting in him for eternal life and salvation, believing he was able to save him to the uttermost; even unto the day of death, when he hoped to be with him, which is far better than to be in this world; and unto the day of the resurrection, when both soul and body will be glorified with him; and to the day of judgment, when the crown of righteousness will be received from his hands. And what might induce the apostle, and so any other believer, to conclude the ability of Christ to keep the souls of those that are committed to him, are, his proper deity, he having all the fulness of the Godhead, or the perfections of deity dwelling in him; his being the Creator and upholder of all things; his having accomplished the great work of redemption and salvation, by his own arm; his mediatorial fulness of grace and power; and his being trusted by his Father with all the persons, grace, and glory of the elect, to whom he has been faithful. And now the consideration of all this, as it was a support to the apostle, under all his afflictions, and sufferings for the Gospel, and in a view of death itself, so it may be, as it often has been, a relief to believers, under all the sorrows of this life, and in a prospect of death and eternity. Philo the Jew b speaks in like manner as the apostle here of , “the depositum of the soul”: though he knew not where to commit it for safety, as the apostle did, and every true believer does.
b Quis rer. Divin. Haeres. p. 498, 499.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
These things (). His imprisonment in Rome.
Yet I am not ashamed (‘ ). Plain reference to the exhortation to Timothy in verse 8.
Him whom I have believed ( ). Dative case of the relative () with the perfect active of , the antecedent to the relative not expressed. It is not an indirect question. Paul knows Jesus Christ whom he has trusted.
I am persuaded (). See verse 5.
To guard (). First aorist active infinitive of , the very word used in 1Ti 6:20 with as here, to guard against robbery or any loss.
That which I have committed unto him ( ). Literally, “my deposit,” as in a bank, the bank of heaven which no burglar can break (Mt 6:19f.). See this word also in verse 14. Some MSS. have the more common (a sort of double deposit, , beside, down, ).
Against that day ( ). The day of Christ’s second coming. See also 2Tim 1:18; 2Tim 4:8; 2Thess 1:10, and often in the Gospels. Elsewhere, the day of the Lord (1Thess 5:2; 2Thess 2:2; 1Cor 1:8; 2Cor 1:14), the day of Christ or Jesus Christ (Phil 1:6; Phil 1:10; Phil 2:16), the day (1Thess 5:4; 1Cor 3:13; Rom 13:12), the day of redemption (Eph 4:20), the day of judgment (Rom 2:5; Rom 2:16).
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
I am not ashamed. Comp. verse 8, and Rom 1:16.
Whom I have believed [ ] . Or, in whom I have put my trust. See on Joh 1:12; Joh 2:22; Rom 4:5.
Able [] . Often used with a stronger meaning, as 1Co 1:26, mighty; Act 25:5, oiJdunatoi the chief men : as a designation of God, oJ dunatov the mighty one, Luk 1:49; of preeminent ability or power in something, as of Jesus, dunatov ejn ergw kai logw mighty in deed and word, 50 24 19 of spiritual agencies, “The weapons of our warfare are dunata mighty,” etc., 2Co 10:4. Very often in LXX That which I have committed [ ] . More correctly, that which has been committed unto me : my sacred trust. The meaning of the passage is that Paul is convinced that God is strong to enable him to be faithful to his apostolic calling, in spite of the sufferings which attend it, until the day when he shall be summoned to render his final account. The paraqhkh or thing committed to him was the same as that which he had committed to Timothy that; he might teach others (1Ti 6:20). It was the form of sound words (verse 13); that which Timothy had heard from Paul (chapter 2Ti 2:2); that fair deposit verse 14). It was the gospel to which Paul had been appointed verse 11); which had been intrusted to him (1Ti 1:11; Tit 1:3; comp. 1Co 9:17; Gal 2:7; 1Th 2:4). The verb paratiqenai to commit to one’s charge is a favorite with Luke. See Luk 12:48; Act 20:32. Sums deposited with a Bishop for the use of the church were called paraqhkai thv ejkklhsiav trust – funds of the church. In the Epistle of the pseudo – Ignatius to Hero (7) we read : “Keep my deposit [] which I and Christ have committed [] to you. I commit [] to you the church of the Antiochenes.”
That day (ejkeinhn thn hJmeran). The day of Christ ‘s second appearing. See on 1Th 5:2. In this sense the phrase occurs in the N. T. Epistles only chapter 2Ti 1:18; 2Ti 4:8; 2Th 1:10; but often in the Gospels, as Mt 7:22; Mt 26:29; Mr 13:32, etc. The day of the Lord ‘s appearing is designated by Paul as hJ hJmera, absolutely, the day, Rom 13:12; 1Co 3:13; 1Th 5:4 : hJmera tou kuriou the day of the Lord, 1Co 1:8; 2Co 1:14; 1Th 5:2; 2Th 2:2 : the day of Jesus Christ or Christ, Phi 1:6, 10; Phi 2:16 : the day when God shall judge, Rom 2:16 : the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, Rom 2:5 : the day of redemption, Eph 4:30.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “For the which cause I also suffer these things” (dia hen aitia n kai tauta pasho) “On account of which cause I also suffer these (kind of) things,” 2Ti 2:9-10. NOTE: the preaching of the resurrection was the occasion for most of Paul’s persecution. See also Act 24:14-15.
2) “Nevertheless I am not ashamed” (alla ouk epaischunomai) “But I am not ashamed;” Paul was not blushing, disappointed, or regretful; neither should any Christian be ashamed of Him or His profession; Rom 1:16; Rom 5:5; 2Co 7:14; Rom 10:11; 1Pe 4:16.
3) “For I know whom I have believed” (oida gar ho pepisteuka) “For I know, comprehend, or perceive whom I have trusted;” Act 16:31.
4) “And am persuaded that he is able to keep” (kai pepeismai hoti *dunatos estin phulaksai) “And I have been persuaded that he is able to guard, safeguard, or protect;” as expressed in Rom 8:38-39.
5) “That which I have committed unto him against that day.” (ten paratheken mou eis ekeinen ten hemeran) “The deposit of me (my soul) with relationship to that day,” 1Co 3:13-15; 2Co 5:10-12.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
12 For which cause also I suffer these things It is well known that the rage of the Jews was kindled against Paul, for this reason more than any other, that he made the gospel common to the Gentiles. Yet the phrase for which cause relates to the whole verse, and therefore must not be limited to the last clause about “the Gentiles.”
But I am not ashamed That the prison in which he was bound might not in any degree lessen his authority, he contends, on the contrary, by two arguments. First, he shows that the cause, far from being disgraceful, was even honorable to him; for he was a prisoner, not on account of any evil deed, but because he obeyed God who called him. It is an inconceivable consolation, when we are able to bring a good conscience in opposition to the unjust judgments of men. Secondly, from the hope of a prosperous issue he argues that there is nothing disgraceful in his imprisonment. He who shall avail himself of this defense will be able to overcome any temptations, however great they may be. And when he says, that he “is not ashamed,” he stimulates others, by his example, to have the same courage.
For I know whom I have believed This is the only place of refuge, to which all believers ought to resort, whenever the world reckons them to be condemned and ruined men; namely, to reckon it enough that God approves of them; for what would be the result, if they depended on men? And hence we ought to infer how widely faith differs from opinion; because, when Paul says, “I know whom I have believed,” he means that it is not enough if you believe, unless you have the testimony of God, and unless you have full certainty of it. Faith, therefore, neither leans on the authority of men, nor rests on God, in such a manner as to hesitate, but must be joined with knowledge; otherwise it would not be sufficiently strong against the innumerable assaults of Satan. He who with Paul enjoys this knowledge, will know, by experience, that, on good grounds, our faith is called
“
the victory that overcometh the world,” (1Jo 5:4)
and that on good grounds, it was said by Christ,
“
The gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” (Mat 16:18.)
Amidst every storm and tempest, that man will enjoy undisturbed repose, who has a settled conviction that God,
“
who cannot lie,” (Tit 1:2)
or deceive, hath spoken, and will undoubtedly perform what he hath promised. On the other hand, he who has not this truth sealed on his heart, will be continually shaken hither and thither like a reed.
This passage is highly worthy of attention; because it expresses admirably the power of faith, when it shows that, even in desperate affairs, we ought to give to God such glory as not to doubt that he will be true and faithful; and when it likewise shows that we ought to rely on the word as fully as if God had manifested himself to us from heaven; for he who has not this conviction understands nothing. Let us always remember that Paul does not pursue philosophical speculations in the shade, but, having the reality before his eyes, solemnly declares, how highly valuable is a confident hope of eternal life.
And am persuaded that he is able Because the power and greatness of dangers often fill us with dismay, or at least tempt our hearts to distrust, for this reason we must defend ourselves with this shield, that there is sufficient protection in the power of God. In like manner Christ, when he bids us cherish confident hope, employs this argument,
“
The Father, who gave you to me, is greater than all,” (Joh 10:29)
by which he means, that we are out of danger, seeing that the Lord, who hath taken us under his protection, is abundantly powerful to put down all opposition. True, Satan does not venture to suggest this thought in a direct form, that God cannot fulfill, or is prevented from fulfilling, what he has promised, (for our senses are shocked by so gross a blasphemy against God,) but, by preoccupying our eyes and understandings, he takes away from us all sense of the power of God. The heart must therefore be well purified, in order that it may not only taste that power, but may retain the taste of it amidst temptations of every kind.
Now, whenever Paul speaks of the power of God, understand by it what may be called his actual or ( ἐνεργουμένμν) “effectual” power, as he calls it elsewhere. (Col 1:29) Faith always connects the power of God with the word, which it does not imagine to be at a distance, but, having inwardly conceived it, possesses and retains it. Thus it is said of Abraham:
“
He did not hesitate or dispute, but gave glory to God, being fully convinced that what he had promised he was able also to perform,” (Rom 4:20.)
What I have intrusted to him Observe that he employs this phrase to denote eternal life; for hence we conclude, that our salvation is in the hand of God, in the same manner as there are in the hand of a depository those things which we deliver to him to keep, relying on his fidelity. If our salvation depended on ourselves, (147) to how many dangers would it be continually exposed? But now it is well that, having been committed to such a guardian, it is out of all danger.
(147) “ Si nostre salut dependoit de nous, et qu’il fust en nostre garde.” — “If our salvation depended on us, and were under our protection.”
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
I AM AFRAID I CANNOT HOLD OUT
2Ti 1:12.
I AM afraid I cannot hold out is an expression which often passes the lips of men who are convicted of sin and convinced of the duty of confessing and accepting Christ.
Of the excuses of which we have often spoken, I doubt if any one of them is more honestly offered than this.
People of most modest self-estimate, thinking upon the high requirements of the Christian life and considering also their own fallibility and weakness, fall into the fear expressed by this excuse, I believe there are very many people who would at once publicly confess Christ and join themselves to His Church could they only be persuaded that they need not fall and bring reproach to the profession made.
I trust, therefore, to make this text the medium of such persuasion, that the Spirit may bring many of these hesitating ones to say with Paul, I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day.
Dr. Louis Banks tells of an infidel who was present in a highly literary circle when a lady of national reputation for literary ability expressed her firm belief in the Bible. Instantly the infidel turned to her with an air of astonishment and said, You believe the Bible?
Most certainly I do, was the reply.
Why do you believe it? he asked.
Because I am acquainted with the Author.
Her personal acquaintance with God made faith in His Word an easy thing. And if only I can bring you to a better acquaintance with Jesus Christ, the Author of salvation, assurance touching your ability to stand in Him will certainly be the result.
Now this text suggests some things!
CHRIST IS ABLE TO HOLD YOU UP
Such is Christs claim! In that wonderful tenth chapter of John where He pretends to other abilities He says,
My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me:
And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand.
My Father, which gave them Me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of My Fathers hand.
I and My Father are one.
If Jesus Christ is Divine, if all the powers which belong to God are His possession as well, why should they, whose salvation He has undertaken, be afraid?
I have much admired the idea of that small boy who said to his father, Papa, is Satan bigger than I am? to which his father replied, Yes, my child, Satan is bigger than you.
Is he bigger than you are, papa?
Yes, my child, Satan is larger than I am. Well then, is he stronger than Jesus Christ? No, my child, Christ is abundantly able to conquer him.
Then, said the small boy, Ill not be afraid of him.
He realized what I want you to see, that Christ was not only his Friend but was willing to undertake his defense against the eternal enemy, and able to accomplish it.
He has demonstrated His pretentions of power. When He says, Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest, it is no idle invitation.
Every civilized land is full of creditable witnesses of the power of Christ to save. His redeemed are a host, and He keeps millions of them from falling, in spite of the combined effort of the world, the flesh, and the devil to effect their misstep and accomplish their destruction.
It was because the Apostle Paul had found Him sufficient for these things that he said, I know whom I have believed. And Paul had put His keeping power to a test and had proven it.
The same power in which Paul was kept is proffered to every man, for Christ is no more a respecter of persons in His saving work, than He is in His keeping work. He both saves and sustains all them that put their trust in Him. I wish I could bring every unconverted person here to believe that. The old man, seeing that truth, might yet accept the Son of God; the strong man, the woman of middle age might be persuaded to start now on the straight and narrow way that leadeth unto life; and, the child, naturally timid in his own powers, might see all that was proffered to salvation and preservation.
Mr. A. W. Hawkes tells the story of a certain picture which used to hang on the wall in a hospital ward. It was not a great work of merit, nor was it highly prized by the people of the institution, but it had its lesson and made its own impression.
To the background of the picture was a rough stone wall. The sky in the picture was leaden. In the foreground a pale, sad-eyed, weary looking girl had fallen on a stone bench and in her arms she had a sick boy, around whose forehead and above whose sunken eyes was a white band. Just in front of these two, stood Christ, the patient, long-suffering, loving Son of God. His hands were not yet pierced and one of them rested on the head of the sick boy, and His eyes were full of unspeakable tenderness as He looked into the upturned eyes of the sick child; and it seemed as you looked at the picture as if the little fellow were drinking in the Saviours love, and was being revived by the consciousness of it.
One day they brought to the bed hard by the wall a boy who was tossing in fever and wildly delirious, a little fellow carried in from the slums. He had never known anything but drunken parents, curses and hardships, and was about to end his life on a pallet of straw in a damp cellar when a policeman discovered him. At the hospital they kindly nursed him until he began to improve and the doctor said he would live. One morning a sweet nurse came in and, running up the blind, letting the sun fall on his face said, Shall I not read to you? No, dont read, but tell me about that picture! Who is the kind Man standing there? And the young woman said, He is the Christ, and then lifting her heart to God in prayer she continued to explain who Christ was, and how He was able to save. Do you believe in Him? asked the boy.
Yes, said the nurse, I do. I have had a great many trials in life, but since I trusted Him He has kept me calm and brought me blessing.
Does He love boys? he inquired.
Yes, He loves everybody.
Loves poor boys like me?
Yes, everybody.
Some days after that when the nurse was talking upon this theme, to which he was always calling her back, the boy said, I believe on Him, and the two faces were bathed in tears of joy as they looked on the picture that had preached the sermon and brought the salvation.
And the Christ who saved him sustained him. And what He did for that poor fellow, whose birth was without blessing, and all of whose days had been spent in an atmosphere of sin, He is able to do for you, and He proffers you all His power. Say with the Apostle, He is able.
CHRIST HAS PROMISED TO HOLD YOU UP
I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand.
His Word is your sufficient warrant. Oh, for the faith that fixes itself not in feeling, but in what Jesus said. A great many times Christ did things at which other people marveled, being astonished. But there was one man who said something that astonished Jesus Christ, and made Him marvel, and that was the centurion who came to Christ, when He was in Capernaum and said, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented, and Jesus answered, I will come and heal him. But the centurion answered, Lord, I am not worthy that Thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed. When Jesus heard it, He marveled, and said to them which followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.
Would that we could take the Word of Christ as sufficient when that Word is suited to our need. That centurion had the sort of faith that effected speedy blessing, and also the sort that will sustain one in the time of storm. And Jesus Christ has said to every man who trusts Him, There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it. Wherefore should we fear? His Word voices His good will.
We have sung at times, He is able! He is able! but we have also added, He is willing, doubt no more!
If there is one hymn, the sentiment of which is a joy to me, it is this:
I hear Thy welcome voice,That calls me, Lord, to Thee,For cleansing in Thy precious Blood,That flowed on Calvary.
Though coming weak and vile,Thou dost my strength assure;Thou dost my vileness fully cleanse,Till spotless all, and pure.
Tis Jesus calls me onTo perfect faith and love,To perfect hope and peace and trust,For earth and Heaven above.
All hail! atoning Blood!All hail! redeeming Grace!All hail! the gift of Christ, our Lord,Our Strength and Righteousness.
I am coming, Lord!Coming now to Thee!Wash me, cleanse me in Thy Blood That flowed on Calvary!
Christ does call. Christ does stand ready to save, and Christ is the strength in which we shall stand.
His promises are proof against danger. The time has come in warfare when there are no breastworks that will withstand shot and shell; before the modern gun rocky fortresses give way, wood structures splinter, and even the very mud is removed out of its place by the passing ball, or the bursting shell. But the man who takes refuge behind the promise of God has a sure defense and so long as he remains there, he cannot be hurt.
It is reported that during the battle of Manasses, an officer passing over the field saw, crouching behind a haystack, a man shaking with fear. Coming up to the spot, he asked, What sort of a place is that for you, sir? when he was greeted with the eager answer, Why, do you really think the bullets can come through?
Surely they will come through, but the man who has put himself behind the promises of the everlasting God is beyond the reach and power of the enemy. No matter how many others are slain, he is secure so long as he stands there, for when the heavens and the earth pass away not one jot or tittle of Gods Word shall fail.
It is said there used to be an old battered safe standing on Broadway, New York, on which was this sign, It stood the test. The contents were all saved. It had passed through one of the hottest fires New York City had ever seen, but the old safe had kept its treasure in spite of the flames, and delivered every scrap of paper to its rightful owner unharmed.
And so, beloved, Jesus Christ is such a safe to all the souls that put their trust in Him. No matter what the flames are, whether of temptation, peril or persecution, if you trust in Him and shield yourself behind His Word, all must be well.
TURN FROM SELF-WEAKNESS TO A SAVIOURS STRENGTH
Think less on yourself. Introspection most often results in despair. The great trouble with people who listen to the Gospel, from time to time, is that they never look beyond themselves. They are convicted of sin and that conviction instead of being a step toward salvation is used of Satan to take them away from the same. He says to them, See what a sinner you are, how absolutely leprous. If Jesus should accept you, you are so weak, you could never walk alone and there is not any likelihood that He will accept you in the face of your known sins!
A man to whom Mr. Moody was once talking said, I want to be a Christian, but I cannot believe.
Believe what? said Mr. Moody.
Well, I cannot believe.
Believe Whom?
Well, I cannot believe in myself.
Thank the Lord, said Mr. Moody, for if you did, it would not save you.
Why not let Satan have out his heart in this matter? Why not let him tell us that we are sinners? But let us answer, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Why not stand submissively by, when he charges us with moral leprosy and admit it all? But God invites us to come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins he as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they he red like crimson, they shall he as wool.
That Methodist minister who led Charles Spurgeon to Jesus Christ was Scriptural when he said, Young man, look and live. But he did not mean to look within his heart, to look around about him, but to look up and off to that God who said, Look unto Me, and he ye saved, all the ends of the earth.
We can trust nothing from the flesh in this matter. The man who says he is afraid he cannot hold out is right. The man who starts upon the Christian profession purposing to keep himself by will-power is playing a fool.
You recall how Professor Drummond tells a story of a coachman employed by a lady who entertained Drummond. The poor fellow had been given to drink, but had signed a pledge and had fallen from it. The lady said to the Professor, Now this man will drive you to the station. Say a word to him, if you can. He is a good sort of a fellow and really wants to reform, but he is weak. On the way to the train the Professor was trying to adroitly introduce the subject, when suddenly the horses were frightened and tried to run away. The carriage swayed about and it looked as if an accident might be the result, but eventually the man got the team into hand and quieting them proceeded to the station. When the Professor stepped out, the coachman said, That was a close shave. Our trap might have been smashed into matchwood and you would not have given any more addresses.
Well, how was it that it did not happen? Only because I knew how to manage the horses, was the coachmans reply.
But, suppose you couldnt have managed them, and there had been a stronger man sitting at your side, what would you have done?
Why, said the coachman, I should have put the lines into his hands.
Wise reply, said Professor Drummond, and now, as I understand that your appetite for drink often gets away with you, I recommend that you turn over the reins of your life into the hands of Christ who is abundantly able to bring all your passions under, and make them obey His will. He went his way but the words accomplished their work and the coachman was a sober man. Turn from self-weakness to a Saviours strength.
Commit every interest to Jesus Christ. If you can trust Him for your salvation, you ought to trust Him for your sustenance. His upholding arm is not weakened that it cannot save. The right hand of His power is sufficient for every time of temptation, and every place of danger.
I never hear given this excuse, I cannot hold out, without remembering Mr. Moodys illustration. He tells how in Chicago one night, when a rain was falling upon the street and turning instantly into ice, he was on his way to church, and Emma, then a little girl, was walking beside him. He said to her, Emma, let me hold your hand. No, papa, I will walk alone. But presently her feet went from beneath her and she fell to the sidewalk. When Mr. Moody had lifted her up, he said, Now, Emma, let me hold your hand, to which she replied, No, papa, I will take hold of your finger. Mr. Moody, seeing that the argument did not suffice, put out his little finger upon which Emma laid hold. But when her feet slipped again, her tiny fingers were not sufficient for the strain and she fell a second time. When she arose, Moody said, Now, Emma, let me take your hand, to which she answered, No papa, I will take hold of your whole hand this time and then I can stand. Moody put out his hand and Emma attempted to take hold of it, but could accomplish only a part. Presently she was down on the street again, and quite severely hurt. When Mr. Moody lifted her to her feet she said, between her sobs, Now, papa, you take my hand, and Moody said, We went merrily on our way and when Emmas feet slipped, I sustained her and she never fell again. And I want to tell you to-night that if you attempt to walk to Heaven alone, there are downfalls before you. If you think to lay hold upon His hand, that will not suffice. Let Him hold you and you are safe.
Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley
b.
Paul 2Ti. 1:12-14
Text 1:1214
12 For which cause I suffer also these things: yet I am not ashamed; for I know him whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that he is able to guard that which I have committed unto him against that day. 13 Hold the pattern of sound words which thou hast heard from me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus. 14 That good thing which was committed unto thee, guard through the Holy Spirit which dwelleth in us.
Thought Questions 1:1214
36.
For what cause did Paul suffer? Specify some of his sufferings.
37.
There must have been a genuine danger of being ashamed, or it would not have been mentioned so often. Please offer some particular possibilities for being ashamed.
38.
Because he knew Christ, Paul was not embarrassed or confused. Explain how such a knowledge relates to being ashamed or embarrassed.
39.
In what particular sense would you say Paul knew Christ?
40.
What was it Paul committed to Christ?
41.
What was it Christ committed to Paul?
42.
How will Christ guard the deposit? Please be specific and personal.
43.
What is the day against which the commitment is made?
44.
How is the word, pattern, used in 2Ti. 1:13?
45.
For whom, and against whom, was the pattern of sound words to be held?
46.
Is Paul asking Timothy to hold to the healthy words in the spirit of faith and love, or because of his faith and love?
47.
What was the deposit committed to Timothy?
48.
Explain in your own words, with your present knowledge, just how the Holy Spirit would aid in guarding the deposit.
49.
In what sense does the Holy Spirit dwell in us?
Paraphrase 1:1214
12 For publishing the promise of eternal life through Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, I suffer even such things as have now befallen me. Nevertheless, I am not ashamed either of my doctrine or of my sufferings. For I know in whom I have believed, that he is the Son of God; and I am persuaded He is able to guard the doctrine of the Gospel which is committed in trust to me, against infidels and false teachers, till the end of the world.
13 The form of wholesome words in which thou hast heard from me the doctrines of the Gospel, hold fast with that fidelity to Christ, and that love to those who err, which become a minister of Christ,
14 Also, the good deposit of the Gospel doctrine itself, guard by the assistance of the Holy Ghost, who dwelleth in us,
Comment 1:1214
2Ti. 1:12. Because I am a preacher, apostle and teacher, I am suffering. Pauls sufferings are minimized by the use of the phrase. these things, but Timothy knew well to what Paul alluded, In immediate context, they refer to all he is suffering in Rome. Fora larger reference, we should read his account in 2Co. 11:23-28. The thought of Jobs friends is back of all references to being ashamed, i.e., if you are doing Gods will, why are you suffering? Pauls answer is the same as Jobs. It is found in a person. not in a dogma, I know Christ and Christ knows me; I am perfectly willing to commit my case to Him, I do not understand or enjoy this chain, but I am not embarrassed or discouraged by it. My life is under the direction of my Lord. He is able to work something good out of every circumstance.
There is no small discussion among commentators as to what is committed to whom. Has Paul committed something to God, or has God committed something to Paul? In either case, the emphasis is upon Pauls dependence upon Christ.
If Paul has committed something to God, what is it? His soul, his work, or what? Are not all of these true?
If God has committed something to Paul (and we know from other references that He has), we know what it ishis Apostle-ship and the Gospel.
We much prefer the thought that God is guarding that which He has committed to Paul. This interpretation fits the context. Paul is suffering now, but the work will yet be carried on. What Paul has kept will be passed on to others and to yet others. How good to know we have living proof of Gods power to guard and keep, in the Gospel which we proclaim. When Paul is called upon to give an account of his stewardship, he will be able to show a grand profit for the owner. Will we be able to say as much?
2Ti. 1:13. What is the meaning of the word, pattern, as here used? The word means outline or sketch. Paul has given the outline; Timothy is to fill it in. Let us not minimize the force of this expression. To go beyond the pattern would be to produce another Gospel, and surfer the condemnation of God (Cf. Gal. 1:7-9). Timothy knew what Paul taught, and what he did not teach, on the matters that pertained to salvation and edification. Such teaching from the words of Paul was healthy and life-giving. Any deviation from such teaching was diseased and deadly.
The attitude in holding the faith is almost as important as the thing held. However orthodox we might be, our orthodoxy will be odious to God and man if not held in faith and love. Please read again I Corinthians, chapter thirteen, to keep the balance between sound doctrine and the essential element. This faith and love for man and God is held in Christ Jesus; i.e., it is the outworking of Christ in us.
2Ti. 1:14. We have no hesitancy in saying that the deposit Timothy is to guard is the Gospel committed to him. It is easy to detect the concern of Paul for the continuance of the work after his death. How true this has been for every sincere preacher since his day.
Paul had kept the faith, so he wanted Timothy to keep intact the sacred message committed unto him. Timothy was to see to it that no change by way of addition, substitution or subtraction, should occur. Such a task is too great for man by himself. Satan is too cleverevil is too neartemptation too strong. We must have supernatural aid. This we have through the Holy Spirit which indwells each Christian (Cf. Rom. 8:11). This is a subjective matter which almost defies explanation, Perhaps we are to claim the power without asking for an explanation of His method of operation. I am sure we are.
Fact Questions 1:1214
29.
How did Paul minimize his sufferings?
30.
How does Pauls answer to the problem of suffering compare with the answer of Job?
31.
Why is the thought that God is guarding what He has committed to Paul, preferred above the other view?
32.
In what sense did Paul deliver a sketch to Timothy?
33.
In what way is the attitude in holding the faith important?
34.
How can we detect Pauls concern for the continuance of the Gospel, even after his death?
35.
In what particulars was Timothy to guard the Gospel?
36.
Explain how the Holy Spirit helps us to guard the deposit.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(12) For the which cause I also suffer these things.Because he had been the teacher and apostle, had all these sufferingsthe prison, the chains, the solitude, the hate of so manycome upon him. There was no need to refer to them more particularly. Timothy knew well what he was then undergoing. The reason of the Apostles touching at all upon himself and his fortunes will appear in the next clause, when, from the depths, as it would seem, of human misfortune, he triumphantly rehearses his sure grounds of confidence. Timothy was dispirited, cast down, sorrowful. He need not be. When tempted to despair, let him think of his old master and friend, Paul the Apostle, who rejoiced in the midst of the greatest sufferings, knowing that these were the sure earthly guerdon of the most devoted work, but that there was One, in whom he believed, able and, at the same time, willing to save him for yet higher and grander things.
Nevertheless I am not ashamed.Not ashamed of the suffering I am now enduring for the cause of the Lord. He then, by showing the grounds of his joyful hope, proceeds to show how men can rise to the same lofty heights of independence to which he had risen, whence they can look down with indifference on all human opinion and human reward and regard.
For I know whom I have believed.Better rendered, whom I have trusted; yea, and still trust. Whom here refers to God the Father.
That which I have committed unto him.More exactly, my deposit. Considerable diversity of opinion has existed among commentators of all ages as to the exact meaning which should be assigned to the words my deposit. Let us glance back at what has gone before. St. Paul, the forsaken prisoner, looking for death, has been bidding his younger comrade never to let his heart sink or his spirit grow faint when oncoming dangers threaten to crush him; for, he says, you know me and my seemingly ruined fortunes and blasted hopes. Friendless and alone, you know, I am awaiting death (2Ti. 4:6); and yet, in spite of all this crushing weight of sorrow, which has come on me because I am a Christian, yet am I not ashamed, for I know whom I have trustedI know His sovereign power to whom I have committed my deposit. He, I know, can keep it safe against that day. St. Paul had intrusted his deathless soul to the keeping of his Heavenly Father, and having done this, serene and joyful he waited for the end. His disciple Timothy must do the same.
That which I have committed unto Him, my deposit, signified a most precious treasure committed by St. Paul to his God. The language and imagery was probably taken by the Apostle from one of those Hebrew Psalms he knew so well (Psa. 31:5)Into thy hand I commend my spirit, rendered in the LXX. version (Psa. 30:5), I will commit (parathsomai). In Josephus, a writer of the same age, the soul is especially termed a parakatathekedeposit. The passage is one in which he is speaking against suicide (B. J. iii. 8, 5). Philo, also, who may almost be termed a contemporary of St. Paul, uses the very same expression, and also calls the soul a deposit (p. 499, ed. Richter). Both passages are quoted at length by Alford, who, however, comes to a slightly different conclusion.
Against that day.The day of the coming of Christthat day when I (the Lord of Hosts) make up my jewels. He will keep my soulmy depositsafe against that day when the crown of life will be given to all that love His appearing.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
12. For the which cause For this divine and eternal purpose and salvation of 2Ti 1:9-11.
Suffer not ashamed As he had charged Timothy, 2Ti 1:8, to be not ashamed either of the cause or its apostle. For this suffer had a terrible garb of ignominy about it. The chain, the base soldier, the surrounding crowd of malefactors, the scorn of the Roman world, and the withdrawal of even professing Christians, were almost overwhelming loads of shame. Hence our apostle is obliged to say even to his beloved son Timothy, be not ashamed, for I am not ashamed.
For To give the solid reason for his not ashamed.
I know There was a moveless basis in this I know. So many proofs he had had that he rested on the eternal rock.
Whom That rock was Christ.
That which I have committed In Greek, a single word, the deposit. What was the said deposit? Himself; his own entire being, temporal and eternal, devoted by faith, believed, committed to Christ.
That day The day on which all Christian thought was then resting, the judgment advent of Christ.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘For which cause I suffer also these things. Yet I am not ashamed, for I know him whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that he is able to guard that which I have committed to him (‘my deposit’) against that day.’
And it was for this reason that he was going through what he was at present suffering. But he was not ashamed or in doubt or troubled at heart, for he knew in Whom he had believed and had absolute confidence in Him. He was absolutely sure, without a vestige of doubt, that He was able to keep under careful guard ‘the deposit’ that Paul had committed to him ‘against that Day’. Rome might be guarding Paul’s body, but Christ Jesus was guarding his soul. And his life and his future were safely in His hands in readiness for the great Day when all is put right.
‘The deposit.’ Some see this deposit as referring to the Gospel (1Ti 6:20), but in the light of his expectancy of death it is more likely that it means himself. It is unlikely that he sees himself as committing his message to God for Him to guard. It would rather be the other way round. Rather he has entrusted himself to Christ, so that Christ Himself might confirm him and bring him safely through to that great Day when all who are His enter into eternal life in its fullest extent. He knows that he will not be disappointed. Although, of course, having said that, the commitment of his life would included the commitment of his life work to Christ as well.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
2Ti 1:12. That which I have committed unto him “As to that momentous trust and treasure, inclusive of your spiritual gifts, and of the doctrine of the gospel, and your office as a minister to preach it, which is excellent in itself, and good for the use of edifying your own and others’ souls, to the glory of God and their salvation, and was committed by the Lord Jesus Christ to you at your solemn ordination; see that you be faithful in maintaining it against all the efforts of your enemies, and in preserving it pure and uncorrupted, with religious care and diligence, by the assistance of the Holy Spirit, who permanently resides with peculiar relation and influence, and by his gifts and graces, in you and me, as he ever does, according to the measure of the gift of Christ, (Eph 4:7.) in all true believers and faithful ministers, (Joh 14:16-17.) to enable us to fulfil the duties of our stations, in the face of all opposition and danger.”
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
2Ti 1:12 . (see on 2Ti 1:6 ) refers to what immediately precedes: “therefore, because I am appointed apostle.”
] goes back to 2Ti 1:8 . expresses the relation corresponding to what was said in 2Ti 1:11 .
] viz. of the sufferings; said in reference to in 2Ti 1:8 . Imprisonment is to me not a disgrace, but a ; comp. Rom 5:3 ; Col 1:24 . The apostle thereby declares that his suffering does not prevent him from preaching the (2Ti 1:8 ) as a . . . The reason is given in the next words: . Heydenreich inaccurately: “I know Him on whom I have trusted;” de Wette rightly: “I know on whom I have set my trust.”
This is defined more precisely by: , . . ., which words are closely connected with those previous, in the sense: I know, that He in whom I trust is mighty, etc.
The confidence that God can keep His , is the reason of his . With , comp. Rom 14:14 ; with on . , comp. Rom 11:23 ; Rom 14:4 ; 2Co 9:8 .
On the meaning of ( Rec. ) , expositors have spoken very arbitrarily. Theodoret says: , , , , .
The same substantive occurs again at 2Ti 1:13 ; so, too, at 1Ti 6:20 .
It is hardly possible to imagine that Paul in 2Ti 1:14 should have meant something else by than he means here; all the less that he connects the same verb with it in both passages. Though here we have , and God is the subject, still the supposition is not thereby justified. [16] The genitive may either be subjective or objective. In the former case, . is something which Paul has entrusted or commended to God; in the latter, something which God has entrusted to Paul, or laid aside for him (a deposit destined for him). With the former view Hofmann understands by the apostle’s soul which he has commended to God; but there is nothing in the context to indicate this. Hofmann appeals to Psa 31:6 ; but against this it is to be observed that nothing can justify him in supplying the idea of “ soul ” with the simple word .
With the latter view of the genitive, Wiesinger understands by it the (2Ti 4:8 : ) already mentioned; so, too, Plitt; van Oosterzee, too, agrees with this view, though he, without good grounds, explains as a subjective genitive. Against this interpretation there is the fact that with the sentence the apostle’s thought has already turned from the to his . The following interpretation suits best with the context: for what other reason could there be for the apostle’s than the confidence that God would keep the in which, or for whose sake, he had to suffer, would keep it so that it would not be injured by his suffering.
It is less suitable to understand by the the gospel, because the , pointing to something entrusted to the apostle personally, does not agree with this. By adding , the apostle sets forth that the is not only kept “ till that day” (Heydenreich, Wiesinger, Otto [17] ), but “ for that day,” i.e. that it may be then manifested in its uninjured splendour. The phrase is equivalent to , “the day of Christ’s second coming”; it is found also in 2Ti 1:18 ; 2Ti 4:8 , 2Th 1:10 , and more frequently in the Gospels. On the meaning of the preposition , comp. Meyer on Phi 1:10 .
[16] Wiesinger adduces three counter-reasons (1) in ver. 14 is represented as Timothy’s business, here as God’s; (2) in ver. 14 refers to the doctrine, here it is represented as a personal possession; (3) in ver. 14 he is discussing the right behaviour for Timothy, here the confidence in the right behaviour. But against the first reason, it is to be observed that of every gift of grace is the business both of God and of the man to whom it is entrusted; in ver. 11 it is expressly said, . Against the second reason, it may be urged that to interpret of doctrine in ver. 14 is at least doubtful; but even if it were correct, still the gospel, too, might be regarded as something given personally to the apostle; comp. 1Ti 1:11 : ; Rom 2:16 : to . Against the third reason, it may be said that no one can really keep the blessing entrusted to him without having confidence that God keeps it for him, and no one can have this confidence without himself preserving the blessing ( . ).
[17] Otto wrongly uses this passage to support his assertion that in this epistle “there is no trace to be found of forebodings and expectations of death.” He says: “If Paul has confidence in the Lord, that he can maintain for him the till the , he must also have hoped that his official work would not be interrupted by his bodily death, since the apostle in it does not in any way express the hope that God would maintain for him his official work till the day of Christ.” The “ for him ” is arbitrarily imported, and does not mean “ maintain .”
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
DISCOURSE: 2243
CONFIDENCE IN GOD A SOURCE OF CONSOLATION
2Ti 1:12. I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.
MAN is born to trouble: and it is of the greatest importance to him that he should know where to turn his eyes in the day of adversity. The Gospel directs us to a reconciled God in Christ Jesus, who has engaged to be our support and comfort under every distress. The Christian has many trials peculiar to himself: but the Gospel is fully adequate to his necessities. Its power to support him may be seen in the passage before us. St. Paul is exhorting Timothy to steadfastness in the cause of Christ [Note: ver. 8.]: and, for his encouragement, he tells him what was the ground of his own consolations under the heavy afflictions which he was now enduring for the sake of Christ. He tells him, that, notwithstanding he was immured in a dungeon, and in daily expectation of a violent and cruel death, he was neither ashamed nor afraid: for that he had a firm persuasion of Gods ability to keep him; and that persuasion afforded him ample support.
To illustrate the text, we may observe,
I.
The Christian commits his soul to God
The Apostle doubtless committed unto God the concerns of the Church: but it is rather of his soul that he is speaking in the words before us, because it was that which alone could be in danger at the day of judgment. In like manner,
Every Christian commits his soul to God
[We know what it is to commit a large sum of money to the care of a banker: and from thence we may attain a just notion of the Christians conduct. He has a soul which is of more value than the whole world: and he feels great anxiety that it should be preserved safely against that day, when God shall judge the world. But to whom shall he entrust it? He knows of none but God that can keep it; and therefore he goes to God, and solemnly commits it into his hands, entreating him to order all its concerns, and, in whatever way he shall see best, to fit it for glory.]
To this he is prompted by manifold considerations
[He reflects on the fall of man in Paradise, and says, Did Adam, when perfect, and possessed of all that he could wish, become a prey to the tempter, when the happiness of all his posterity, as well as his own, depended on his steadfastness; and can such a corrupt creature as I, surrounded as I am by innumerable temptations, hope to maintain my ground against my great adversary? O my God, let me not be for one moment left to myself; but take thou the charge of me; and let my life be hid with Christ in God: then, and then only, can I hope, that at the last coming of my Lord I shall appear with him in glory [Note: Col 3:3-4.].
He bears in mind also his own weakness and ignorance. He is conscious that he has not in himself a sufficiency even to think a good thought; and that it is not in him to direct his way aright. Hence he desires to avail himself of the wisdom and power of God; and cries, Lead me in the right way, because of mine enemies: Hold thou me up, and I shall be safe.
But more especially he considers the gracious commands of God. God has not only permitted, but enjoined, this surrender of our souls to him [Note: 1Pe 4:19 and Isa 26:20.]. O what a privilege does the Christian account it to obey this divine injunction! How thankful is he that God will condescend to accept this deposit, and to take care of this charge! Hence he avails himself of this privilege, and says, Hide me under the shadow of thy wings! O save me for thy mercys sake!]
Whilst he acts in this manner,
II.
He is persuaded of Gods ability to keep him
He does not merely presume upon Gods sufficiency: he is well persuaded of it,
1.
From the report of others
[He is informed by the inspired writers, that God created the world out of nothing; and that he upholds and orders every thing in it; insomuch that not a sparrow falls to the ground without his express permission. Hence then he argues; Did God create my soul, and can he not uphold it? Did he form my enemies also, and can he not restrain them [Note: See this argument suggested by God himself, Isa 54:15-17. q. d. Your enemies are forming weapons; but I formed them; and whatever skill they exercise, I will defeat their attempts.]? Has he numbered even the hairs of my head, and will he overlook the concerns of my soul?
He is told that God is ever seeking opportunities, not only to exert, but also to magnify, his power in his peoples cause [Note: 2Ch 16:9. This is meant by shewing himself strong.]. Shall all that vigilance, then, be exercised in vain? or shall any be able to prevail against him?
He is assured also that God never yet lost one whom he had undertaken to keep: he never suffered one of his little ones to perish [Note: Mat 18:14.]. None was ever plucked out of his hand [Note: Joh 10:28-29.]: not the smallest grain of wheat, however agitated in the sieve, was ever permitted to fall upon the earth [Note: Amo 9:9.]. The gates of hell have never been able to prevail against his Church. Then, says the Christian, I will trust, and not be afraid. My Saviour, in the days of his flesh, lost none that had been given him [Note: Joh 18:9.]: Whom he loved, he loved to the end [Note: Joh 13:1.]; and therefore I am persuaded he will perfect that which concerneth me [Note: Psa 138:8.], and complete in me the good work he has begun [Note: Php 1:6.].]
2.
From his own experience
[The Christian well remembers what he was by nature; and knows by daily experience what he should yet be, if Omnipotence were not exerted in his support. And hence he argues thus; Has God created me anew, and by an invisible, but almighty, influence turned the tide of my affections, so that they now flow upward to the fountain from whence they sprang; and can he not keep me from going back? Has he kept me for many years, like the burning bush, encompassed, as it were, with the flame of my corruptions, yet not consumed by it; and can any thing be too hard for him?
These arguments are indeed of no weight for the conviction of others; but to the Christian himself they are a source of the strongest conviction, and of the richest consolation: yea, from these, more than from any others, lie is enabled to say, I know whom I have believed.]
Moreover,
III.
This persuasion is a strong support to him under all his trials
Many are the difficulties of the Christians warfare: but a persuasion of Gods ability to keep him,
1.
Encourages him to duty
[The path of duty is sometimes exceeding difficult: and too many have fainted in it, or been diverted from it. But we may see in the Hebrew Youths what a persuasion of Gods power will effect. They braved the furnace itself, from the consideration that God could deliver them from it, or support them in the midst of it [Note: Dan 3:17-18.]. And thus will every Christian encourage himself in God, and be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might.]
2.
Strengthens him for conflict
[Under temptations of Satan, or the hidings of Gods face, the most exalted Christian would sink, if he were not supported by this hope: I had fainted, says David, unless I had believed verily to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. But the thought that the grace of Christ is sufficient for him, will turn all his sorrows into joy [Note: 2Co 12:9 and Rom 7:24.]: he will chide his dejected spirit [Note: Psa 42:11.], and return again to the charge, knowing that at last he shall be more than conqueror through Him that loved him [Note: Rom 8:37.].]
3.
Enables him to endure sufferings
[Many and great were the sufferings of St. Paul; yet says he, None of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself. Thus every Christian must go through much tribulation in the way to the kingdom: but he learns, not only to bear, but to glory in tribulation, because it gives him a more enlarged experience of Gods power and grace, and thereby confirms his hope, which shall never make him ashamed [Note: Rom 5:3-5.].]
4.
Assures him of final victory
[Those who have not just views of God are left in painful suspense: but they who know whom they have believed, are as much assured of victory, as if all their enemies were lying dead at their feet [Note: Compare Isa 50:7-9. with Rom 8:33-39.].]
We shall further improve the subject,
1.
For conviction
[All persons are ready to think that they are possessed of true and saving faith. But faith is not a mere assent to the truths of the Gospel, or even an approbation of them. It includes three things; a committing of the soul to Christ; a persuasion of his ability to save us; and a determination to go forward in dependence upon him, doing and suffering whatever we are called to in the path of duty.
Have we this faith? ]
2.
For consolation [Note: If this were the subject of a Funeral Sermon, the excellencies of the deceased might here be enumerated, and the survivors be comforted by the consideration that their Keeper lives for ever.] [If there be any amongst us weak and dejected, let them turn their eyes to God as their Almighty Friend. Let them know that He is able to make them stand [Note: Rom 14:4.]: he is able to make all grace abound towards them, that they, having always all-sufficiency in all things, may abound unto every good work [Note: 2Co 9:8.]. It is God himself who suggests to the fainting soul these very considerations; and he requires nothing, but that we wait on him in order that we may experience their truth and efficacy [Note: Isa 40:27-31.]
Now unto Him that is able to keep us from falling, and to present us faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, to Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen [Note: Jude, ver. 24, 25.].]
Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)
12 For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.
Ver. 12. I know whom I have trusted ] Here was not a faint hope, or a conjectural confidence, but a plerophory of faith. The reason whereof is rendered by a Father, Quia in charitate nimia adoptavit me, quia verax in promissione, et potens in exhibitione, Because God, who of his free grace hath adopted me, is both able and faithful to fulfil his promises. (Bernard.) That was a notable speech of Luther (apud Jo. Manlium), Ipse viderit ubi anima men mansura sit, qui pro ea sic sollicitus fuit, ut vitam pro ea posuerit. Let him that died for my soul, see to the salvation of it.
That which I have committed ] A child that hath any precious thing given him cannot better secure it than by putting it into his father’s hands to keep; so neither can we better provide for our souls’ safety than by committing them to God. Tutiores autem vivimus, si totum Deo damus, non autem nos illi ex parte et nobis ex parte committimus: We shall be sure to be safest, if we commit ourselves wholly to God, and seek not to part stakes with him therein. (Aug. de Bono Persev. cap. 6.) The ship that is part in the water and part in the mud is soon beaten in pieces.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
2Ti 1:12 . : i.e. , because I am a preacher of the Gospel. Cf. Gal 5:11 .
: Non confundor. I am not disappointed of my hope , as in ref.
: The perfects have their usual force. For see Rom 8:38 and note on 2Ti 1:5 .
is best taken as that which I have deposited for safe keeping . Cf. the story of St. John and the robber from Clem. Alex. Quis Dives , 42, quoted by Eus. H. E . iii. 23, . Here it means “my soul” or “myself,” cf. Psa 30 (31):6, , Luk 23:46 , 1Pe 4:19 , 1Th 5:23 . This explanation of harmonises best with , , and . The whole verse has a purely personal reference. Nothing but a desire to give the same meaning wherever it occurs (1Ti 6:20 , q.v .; 2Ti 1:14 ) could have made Chrys. explain it here as “the faith, the preaching of the Gospel”. So R.V.m., that which he hath committed unto me . “Paulus, decessui proximus, duo deposita habebat: alterum Domino, alterum Timotheo committendum,” Bengel. This exegesis compels us to refer to God the Father.
: The day of judgment and award, 1Co 3:13 .
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
2 Timothy
A QUIET HEART
THERE is some ambiguity in the original words of this text, lying in that clause which is translated in our Bibles – both Authorised and Revised – ‘that which I have committed unto Him.’ The margin of the Revised Version gives as an alternative reading, ‘that which He hath committed unto me.’ To a mere English reader it may be a puzzle how any words whatever could be susceptible of these two different interpretations. But the mystery is solved by the additional note which the same Revised Version gives, which tells us that the Greek is ‘ my deposit,’ or I might add another synonymous word, ‘my trust.’
Now you can see that ‘my trust’ may mean either something with which I trust another, or something with which another trusts me. So the possibility of either rendering arises. It is somewhat difficult to decide between the two. I do not purpose to trouble you with reasons for my preference here. Suffice it to say that, whilst there are strong arguments in favour of the reading ‘that which He has committed unto me,’ I am inclined to think that the congruity of the whole representation, and especially the thought that this ‘trust,’ whatever it is, is something which God has to keep, rather than which Paul has to keep, shuts us up to the adoption of the rendering which stands in our Bibles.
Adopting it, therefore, though with some hesitation, the next question arises, What is it that Paul committed to God? The answer to that is, himself, in all his complex being, with all his fears and anxieties, during the whole duration of his existence. He has done what another Apostle exhorts us to do, ‘committed the keeping of his soul to Him in well-doing, as unto a faithful Creator.’ Now that was a long past act at the time when Paul wrote this letter. And here he looks back upon life, and sees that all the experiences through which he has passed have but confirmed the faith which he rested in God before the experiences, and that, with the axe and the block almost in sight, he is neither ashamed of his faith, nor dissatisfied with what it has brought him.
I. Notice, then, in the first place, ‘the deposit’ of faith.
You observe that the two clauses of my text refer to the same act, which in the one is described as ‘In whom I have trusted’; and in the other as ‘committing something to Him.’ The metaphor is a plain enough one. A man has some rich treasure. He is afraid of losing it, he is doubtful of his own power to keep it; he looks about for some reliable person and trusted hands, and he deposits it there. That is about as good a description of what the New Testament means by ‘ faith’ as you will get anywhere.
You and I have one treasure, whatever else we may have or not have; and that is ourselves. The most precious of our possessions is our own individual being.
We cannot ‘keep’ that. There are dangers all round us. We are like men travelling in a land full of pickpockets and highwaymen, laden with gold and precious stones. On every side there are enemies that seek to rob us of that which is our true treasure – our own souls. We cannot keep ourselves. Slippery paths and weak feet go ill together. The tow in our hearts, and the fiery sparks of temptation that are flying all round about us, are sure to come together and make a blaze. We shall certainly come to ruin if we seek to get through life, to do its work, to face its difficulties, to cope with its struggles, to master its temptations, in our own poor, puny strength. So we must look for trusty hands and lodge our treasure there, where it is safe.
And how am I to do that? By humble dependence upon God revealed, for our faith’s feeble fingers to grasp, in the person and work of His dear Son, who has died on the Cross for us all; by constant realisation of His divine presence and implicit reliance on the realities of His sustaining hand in all our difficulties, and His shielding protection in all our struggles, and His sanctifying spirit in all our conflicts with evil. And not only by the realisation of His presence and of our dependence upon Him, nor only by the consciousness of our own insufficiency, and the departing from all self-reliance, but as an essential part of our committing ourselves to God, by bringing our wills into harmony with His will. To commit includes to submit.
‘And, oh, brother! if thus knowing your weakness, you will turn to Him for strength, if the language of your hearts be
‘Myself I cannot save, Myself I cannot keep, But strength in Thee I surely have, Whose eyelids never sleep.’
And if thus, hanging upon Him, you believe that when you fling yourself into necessary temptations, and cope with appointed heavy tasks, and receive on your hearts the full blow of sent sorrows, He will strengthen you and hold you up; and if with all your hearts you bow, and you say,’ Lord! keeping me is Thy business far more than mine; into Thy hands I commit my spirit,’ be sure that your trust will not be disappointed.
Notice, further, about this deposit of faith, how Paul has no doubt that he has made it, and is not at all afraid to say that he has. Ay! there are plenty of you professing Christians who have never got the length which all Christian people should arrive at, of a calm certainty in the reality of your own faith. Do you feel, my brother, that there is no doubt about it, that you are trusting upon Jesus Christ? If you do, well; if the life confirms the confidence. But whilst the deepened certitude of professing Christians as to the reality of their own faith is much to be desired, there is also much to be dreaded the easy-going assurance which a great many people who call themselves Christians have of the reality of their trust, though it neither bows their wills to God’s purposes, nor makes them calm and happy in the assurance of His presence. The question for us all is, have we the right to say ‘I have committed myself to Him’? If you have not, you have missed the blessedness of life, and will never carry your treasure safely through the hordes of robbers that lurk upon the road, but some day you will be found there, lying beggared, bleeding, bruised. May it be that you are found there before the end, by the merciful Samaritan who alone can bind up and lead to safety.
II. Now note, secondly, the serenity of faith.
What a grand picture of a peaceful heart comes out of this letter, and its companion one to the same friend, written a little before, but under substantially the same circumstances! They are both full of autobiographical details, on which some critics look with suspicion, but which seem to me to bear upon their very front the token of their own genuineness. And what a picture it is that they give! He is ‘Paul the aged’; old, if not in years – and he probably was not an old man by years – yet old in thought and care and hardships and toils. He is a prisoner, and the compulsory cessation of activity, when so much was to be done, might well have fretted a less eager spirit than that which burned in his puny frame. He is alone, but for one faithful friend; and the bitterness of his solitude is increased by the apostasy of some and the negligence of many. He is poor and thinly clad; and he wants his one cloak ‘before winter.’ He has been before the emperor once, and though he ‘was delivered from the mouth of the lion’ then, he knows that he cannot expect to put his head into the lion’s mouth a second time with impunity, and that his course is run. He has made but a poor thing of life; he has disappointed all the hopes that were formed of the brilliant young disciple of Gamaliel, who was bidding fair to be the hammer of these heretical Christians. And yet there is no tremor nor despondency in this, his swan-song. It goes up in a clear burst of joyful music. It is the same spirit as that of the Psalmist: ‘There be many that say, Who will show us any good? Lord, lift Thou up the light of Thy countenance upon us.’ And serenely he sits there, in the midst of dangers, disappointments, difficulties, and struggles, with a life behind him stuffed full of thorns and hard work and many a care, and close before him the martyr’s death, yet he says, with a flash of legitimate pride, ‘I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have trusted, and that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day.’
My brother, you must have Paul’s faith if you are to have Paul’s serenity. A quiet committal of yourself to God, in all the ways in which I have already described that committal as carried out, is the only thing which will give us quiet hearts, amidst the dangers and disappointments and difficulties and conflicts which we have all to encounter in this world. That trust in Him will bring, in the measure of its own depth and constancy, a proportionately deep and constant calm in our hearts. For even though my faith brought me nothing from God, the very fact that I have rolled my care off my shoulders on to His, though I had made a mistake in doing it, would bring me tranquillity, as long as I believed that the burden was on His shoulders and not on mine. Trust is always quiet. When I can say, ‘I am not the master of the caravan, and it is no part of my business to settle the route, I have no responsibility for providing food, or watching, or anything else. All my business is to obey orders, and to take the step nearest me and wait for the light,’ then I can be very quiet whatever comes. And if I have cast my burden upon the Lord, I am not delivered from responsibility, but I am delivered from harassment. I have still tasks and duties, but they are all different when I think of them as His appointing. I have still difficulties and dangers, but I can meet them all with a new peacefulness if I say, ‘God is Master here, and I am in His hands, and He will do what He likes with me.’ That is not the abnegation of will, it is the vitalising of will And no man is ever so strong as the man who feels ‘it is God’s business to take care of me; it is my business to do what He tells me.’
That, dear friends, is the only armour that will resist the cuts and blows that are sure to be aimed at you. What sort of armour do you wear? Is it of pasteboard painted to look like steel, like the breastplates and helmets of actors upon the stage in a theatre? A great deal of our armour is. Do you get rid of all that make-believe, and put on the breastplate of righteousness, and for a helmet the hope of salvation, and, above all, take the shield of faith; and trust in the Lord whate’er betide, and you will stand against all assaults. Paul’s faith is the only recipe for securing Paul’s serenity.
And then, further, note how this same quiet committal of himself into the loving hands of his Father – whom he had learned to know because he had learned to trust His Son – is not only the armour against all the dangers and difficulties in life, but is also the secret of serene gazing into the eyes of close death. Paul knew that his days were nearly at an end; he was under no illusions as to that, for you remember the grand burst of confidence, even grander than this of my text, in this same letter, with which he seems to greet the coming of the end, and exclaims, with a kind of Hallelujah! in his tone, ‘I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. And there is nothing left for me now, now when the struggles are over and the heat and dust of the arena are behind me, but, panting and victorious, to receive the crown.’ He knows that death is sure and near; and yet in this same letter he says, ‘I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion, and the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and save me into His everlasting kingdom.’ Did he, then, expect to escape from the headsman’s block? Was he beginning to falter in his belief that martyrdom was certain? By no means. The martyrdom was the deliverance. The striking off of his head by the sharp axe was the ‘saving of him into the everlasting kingdom.’ His faith, grasping Jesus Christ, who abolished death, changes the whole aspect of death to him; and instead of ,a terror it becomes God’s angel that will come to the prisoner and touch him, and say, ‘Arise!’ and the fetters will fall from off his feet, and the angel will lead him through ‘the gate that opens of its own accord,’ and presently he will find himself in the city. That is to say, true confidence in God revealed in Jesus Christ is the armour, not only against the ills of life, but against the inevitable ill of death. It changes the whole aspect of the ‘shadow feared of man’
Now I know that there is a danger in urging the reception of the gospel of Jesus Christ on the ground of its preparing us for death. And I know that the main reasons for being Christians would continue in full force if there were no death; but I know also that we are all of us far too apt to ignore that grim certainty that lies gaping for us, somewhere on the road. And if we have certainly to go down into the common darkness, and to tread with our feet the path that all but two of God’s favourites have trod, it is as well to look the fact in the face, and be ready. I do not want to frighten any man into being a Christian, but I do beseech each of you, brethren, to lay to heart that you will have to grapple with that last enemy, and I ask you, as you love your own souls, to make honest work of this question, Am I ready for that summons when it comes, because I have committed my soul, body, and spirit into His hands, and I can quietly say, ‘ Thou wilt not leave my soul in the grave, nor wilt Thou suffer Thy servant to see corruption’?
Paul’s faith made him serene in life and victorious over death; and it will do the same for you.
III. So note, further, the experience of faith.
In the first clause of our text the Apostle says: – ‘I know whom I have trusted.’ And it is because he knows Him that therefore he is persuaded that ‘He is able to keep.’
How did Paul know Him? By experience. By the experience of his daily life. By all these years of trial and yet of blessedness through which he had passed; by all the revelations that had been made to his waiting heart as the consequence and as the reward of the humble faith that rested upon God. And so the whole past had confirmed to him the initial confidence which knit him to Jesus Christ.
If you want to know the worth of Christian faith, exercise it. We must trust, to begin with, before experience. But the faith that is built upon a lifetime is a far stronger thing than the tremulous faith that, out of darkness, stretches a groping hand, and for the first time lays hold upon God’s outstretched hand. We hope then, we tremblingly trust, we believe on the authority of His word. But after years have passed, we can say, ‘We have heard Him ourselves, and we know that this is the Christ, the Saviour of the world.’
Further, none who truly commit themselves to God ever regret it. Is there anything else of which you can say that? Is there any other sort of life that never turns out a disappointment and bitterness and ashes in the mouth of the man that feeds upon it? And is it not something of an evidence of the reality of, the Christian’s faith that millions of men are able to stand up and say,’ Lo! we have put our confidence in Him and we are not ashamed?’ ‘This poor man cried and the Lord heard him, and delivered him out of all his troubles. They looked unto God and were lightened, and their faces were not ashamed.’ You cannot share in the conviction, the issue of experience which a Christian man has, if you are not a Christian. My inward evidence of the reality of the Gospel truth, which I have won because I trusted Him when I had not the experience, cannot be shared with anybody besides. You must ‘taste’ before you ‘see that the Lord is good’ But the fact that there is such a conviction, and the fact that there is nothing on the other side of the sheet to contradict it, ought to weigh something in the scale. Try Him and trust Him, and your experience will be, as that of all who have trusted Him has been, ‘that this hope maketh not ashamed.’
IV. Lastly, note here the goal of faith.
‘Against that day.’ The Apostle has many allusions to that day in this final letter. It was evidently, as was natural under the circumstances, much in his mind. And the tone of the allusions is remarkable. Remember what Paul believed that day was – a day when he ‘and all men would stand before the judgment’ bar of an omniscient and all-righteous, Divine Judge, to receive ‘the deeds done in the body.’ A solemn thought and a firm conviction, and a profound impression as to that day, were in his mind. And in the face of all this, he says, ‘I know that He will keep this poor soul of mine against that day.’
Ah, my brother! it is easy for you to shuffle out of your thoughts the judgment-seat before which we must all stand, and so to be quiet. It is easy for you to question, in a so-called intellectual scepticism, the New Testament revelations as to the future, and so to be quiet. It is easy for you to persuade yourselves of the application there of another standard of judgment than that which Scripture reveals, and to say, ‘If I have done my best God will not be hard upon me,’ and so to be quiet. But, supposing that that certain tribunal blazed upon you; supposing that you could not get rid of the thought that you were to stand there, and supposing that you realised, further, the rigidity of that judgment, and how it penetrates to the discerning of the thoughts and intents of the heart, would you be quiet then? Should you be quiet then?
This man was. How? Why? Because, in patient trust, he had put his soul into God’s hands, and a lifetime had taught him that his trust was not in vain.
If you want like peace in life, like victory in death, like boldness in the Day of Judgment, oh, dear friend! – friend though unknown – let me plead with you to seek it where Paul found it, and where you will find it, in simple faith on God manifest in His Son.
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
For the which cause, Same as “wherefore”, 2Ti 1:6.
also, &c = I suffer these things also.
know. App-132.
believed, App-150.
keep = guard, as in 1Ti 6:20.
that which I have committed unto Him = my deposit. Greek paratheke. Seo 1Ti 6:20. against = unto. Greek. e is.
that day. The day of His appearing. Compare 2Ti 4:8.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
2Ti 1:12. , I suffer these things) These adversities happen to me.-, for) Confidence as to the future drives away shame.-) He says , not . I know Him, in whom I have placed my faith, although the world knows Him not.-) I have believed, and committed to Him my deposit. Here the faithfulness of God is intended; comp. ch. 2Ti 2:13 : His power also is presently afterwards mentioned [He is able],-, I am persuaded) Rom 8:38.-, able) against so many enemies.- , my deposit) There is one deposit which, committed to us by God, we ought to keep, 2Ti 1:13; comp. ch. 2Ti 2:2, , commit: there is another which, committed to God by us, and mentioned in this verse, He keeps; and this is indeed our soul, 1Pe 4:19; comp. Luk 23:46, that is, ourselves and our heavenly portion. Paul, with death immediately before him, had two deposits, one to be committed to the Lord, and another to Timothy.-, to keep) even in death.-, that) 2Ti 1:18, ch. 2Ti 4:8.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
2Ti 1:12
For which cause I suffer also these things;-Because he was chosen of God as his apostle and a teacher of the Gentiles, he suffered these things. When the Lord sent him, he said: He is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles and kings, and the children of Israel: for I will show him how many things he must suffer for my names sake. (Act 9:15-16.) Paul said to the Ephesian elders: And now, behold, I go bound in the spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there: save that the Holy Spirit testifieth unto me in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide me. (Act 20:22-23.) When he wrote this Epistle he was a prisoner at Rome, anticipating, if not then lying under sentence of, death. The sufferings to which he refers are set forth more specifically in the following words: I say again, Let no man think me foolish; but if ye do, yet as foolish receive me, that I also may glory a little. . . . Seeing that many glory after the flesh, I will glory also. For ye bear with the foolish gladly, being wise yourselves. For ye bear with a man, if he bringeth you into bondage, if he devoureth you, if he taketh you captive, if he exalteth himself, if he smiteth you on the face. I speak by way of disparagement, as though we had been weak. Yet whereinsoever any is bold (I speak in foolishness), I am bold also. Are they Hebrews? so am I. Are they Israelites? so am I. Are they the seed of Abraham? so am I. Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as one beside himself) I more; in labors more abundantly, in prisons more abundantly, in stripes above measure, in deaths oft. Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day have I been in the deep; in journeyings often, in perils of rivers, in perils of robbers, in perils from my countrymen, in perils from the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in labor and travail, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. Besides those things that are without, there is that which presseth upon me daily, anxiety for all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? who is caused to stumble, and I burn not? If I must needs glory, I will glory of the things that concern my weakness. The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, he who is blessed for evermore knoweth that I lie not. (2Co 11:16-31.)
yet I am not ashamed;-Notwithstanding all these humiliating afflictions brought upon him, he was not ashamed because he suffered them for the sake of Jesus Christ. He, like Peter and John, felt so honored that he rejoiced that he was counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the Name. (Act 5:41.)
for I know him whom I have believed,-Notwithstanding all the humiliating punishments brought on him, Paul was not ashamed of it all. The ground of his confidence, even in the hour of extreme peril, was his perfect trust in the faithfulness of the Lord Jesus Christ.
and I am persuaded that he is able to guard that which I have committed unto him-Paul had committed his soul, his eternal well-being, unto God.
against that day.-Paul was well persuaded that God could keep his soul until that day when everyone would receive according to the deeds done in the body.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Hold the Pattern of Sound Words
2Ti 1:12-18
How striking Pauls reference to the double committal, as if there had been an agreed exchange between his Master and himself! Paul had handed over to Christ as a sacred deposit all that concerned his well-being in time and eternity, and Christ had handed over to him the interests of His Kingdom, which, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, he was required to maintain inviolate. It is a mutual exchange of which we all ought to know something. Give all to Christ and Christ becomes all to you. The proportion of your self-giving is the measure of your discovery of what Jesus will be to you.
Some of Pauls former friends shrank from identifying themselves with a suspect-the inmate of the condemned cell. It was no light matter to visit the bearer of a name which the world of that day detested, one who belonged to a sect accused of burning Rome. Demas, 2Ti 4:11, and others forsook him, but the good Ephesian, Onesiphorus, set about seeking him through all the prisons of Rome, and was not ashamed of his chain nor content with a single visit. He oft refreshed his friend. Paul sends a grateful message to his family, 2Ti 4:19. Perhaps there is here a gentle hint to Timothy. Compare 2Ti 1:8 and 2Ti 1:16. Never shrink from taking your place beside Christs prisoners!
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
suffer
The believer’s resources in a day of general declension and apostasy are:
(1) Faith 2Ti 1:5.
(2) the Spirit 2Ti 1:6; 2Ti 1:7.
(3) the word of God 2Ti 1:13; 2Ti 3:1-17; 2Ti 4:3; 2Ti 4:4.
(4) the grace of Christ 2Ti 2:1.
(5) separation from vessels unto dishonour 2Ti 2:4; 2Ti 2:20; 2Ti 2:21.
(6) the Lord’s sure reward 2Ti 4:7; 2Ti 4:8.
(7) the Lord’s faithfulness and power 2Ti 2:13; 2Ti 2:19.
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
The Practice of Assurance
I know him whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that he is able to guard that which I have committed unto him against that day.2Ti 1:12.
1. These words are a splendid declaration of St. Pauls unflinching confidence in the Redeemer. They were spoken in full view of his approaching end. Earth, with its manifold openings of an eternal purposefulness, with its trials and temptations, its long courses of anxiety and sorrow, of suffering and pain, was already a closed book to the Apostle. The fight for Christ and holiness had been fought, the end had come, the course was finished, the faith had been kept. And now he is ready to be poured out a libation on Gods altar in agonies and energies for his fellow-men. The flash of the gleaming axe would be the signal for his manumission from the bondage of corruption into the longed-for presence of his Beloved Lord. Suffering for such a man, aged, weak, solitary, was no doubt exquisite and acute, but it was also ecstatic. Through it all, and in spite of all, his soul was stayed by the solace of his Lord. His venture of faith had not been miscalculated. I know him whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that he is able to guard that which I have committed unto him against that day.
2. Of some thingsApostle though he was, Divinely inspired man though he wasSt. Paul frankly confesses himself ignorant. For we know in part, he writes in that incomparable 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians, and we prophesy in part. And a little farther on he repeats his confession of ignorance in slightly different words, saying, Now we see in a glass darkly. But it was not all ignorance with him. It was not all doubt, and perplexity, and mystery with him. There were certain things of which he was absolutely sure, of which he was as certain as he was of his own existence. And it was these certainties of the soul that made him the preacher he was. St. Paul never would have travelled as he did; he would never have toiled as he did; he would never have submitted to persecutions as he did, if all he had to give to men had been doubts, and criticisms and negations. There is nothing in negations to beget enthusiasm. Agnosticism breeds no missionaries or martyrs. St. Paul was impelled to preach, to travel from land to land to preach, to face any and every hardship in preaching, because he knew certain positive truths which it was of vital concern that all men should know. The I knows of St. Paul make up a glorious list, and the I know of this text is one of the most glorious.
Archdeacon Farrar, it is said, once asked Robert Browning whether there were any lines in all the wide range of his poetry which most completely expressed what was fundamental in his thought and life. Yes, replied the poet, and they are these:
He at least believed in soul,
Was very sure of God.
My father also was very sure of God, and was convinced that every man might enjoy a similar certainty if he really wanted to, and if he would tread the common road, beaten by the feet of generations of the pilgrims of faith, by which it may be reached.
This religious certainty, which I do not think was ever disturbed by intellectual doubt, was of course of inexpressible value to him in his ministry of the Gospel. Confirmed as it was by his own daily experience of the Grace and Power of God in Christ Jesus, it naturally imparted to his utterances that flaming intensity of conviction which so deeply impressed his hearers everywhere, and which was assuredly one great element in his evangelistic success. Here is a man, they felt, who thoroughly believes every word he says. To him at least, the things he is speaking of are things that mattermatter supremely, matter infinitely. No other things compare with them for their practical importance. It is life and salvation to receive them; it is death and destruction to reject them. There was never any hesitancy, or misgiving, or reserve, or qualification in his delivery of the momentous message given him to proclaim. He spoke as one entirely sure that he was telling men the absolute truth.1 [Note: Henry Varleys Life-Story, 242.]
Not ours, say some, the thought of Death to dread;
Asking no Heaven, we fear no fabled Hell:
Life is a feast, and we have banqueted,
Shall not the worms as well?
Ah, but the Apparitionthe dumb sign
The beckoning finger bidding me forego
The fellowship, the converse, and the wine,
The songs, the festal glow!
And ah, to know not, while with friends I sit,
And while the purple joy is passed about,
Whether tis ampler day divinelier lit
Or homeless night without:
And whether, stepping forth, my soul shall see
New prospects, or fall sheera blinded thing!
There is, O grave, thy hourly victory,
And there, O death, thy sting.1 [Note: William Watson, Collected Poems, 81.]
3. The very ordering of the phrasing of the text is suggestive of the truth it contains. The text breaks up into three distinctive and primary parts: I know him whom I have believed and I am persuaded that he is able to guard that which I have committed unto him against that day. The middle term is explanatory of the two extremes; say rather that the middle term is the cause, of which the two extremes are the effects; that the middle is the germ, of which the extremes are the fruits. We begin with belief, and we pass to knowledge and persuasion: we begin with faith, and we advance to experience and assurance. I know him is a fruit: I am persuaded is a fruit: whom I have believed is the seed from which they have their birth.
I
St. Pauls Faith
Him whom I have believed.
1. The Object of St. Pauls faith was not a thing, but a Person. It was a belief, not in a religion, but in a Redeemer; a faith, not in Christianity, but in Christ; a trust, not in a plan of salvation, but in a Saviour; not in a creed, but in a Christ; and not a Christ only, but the Christ, the Christ of actual fact, the Christ of Scripture, the God Man, as set forth in the gospel, incarnate, atoning, risen, ascended, glorified. It was faith in Christ as a person; a trust of himself as a being to Christ as a Being. And hence he does not here say, I know what I have believed, but he says, I know him whom I have believed. And he does not even say as he might, in whom, but directly whom.
You may tear out the person of Mahomet from Mahometanism; and even from Buddhismin spite of the great extent to which Buddhists have deified the masteryou may tear out the person of the Buddha, and the religion remains intact; here the teaching is everything, the person of the teacher nothing, or next to nothing. But tear out the person of Christ from Christianity, and what have you left? Certainly nothing that we can recognize as Christianity. Christianity is not, like its rivals, a mere body of doctrine about God and human duty, which would be just the same whoever had first preached it, or if nothing were known as to the way in which it came into the world. Christian faith is the personal knowledge of a personal Saviour.1 [Note: N. E. Swann, New Lights on the Old Faith, 60.]
An anecdote I have heard of Bengels last hours, illustrating his microscopic way of observing the very words of his Greek Testament, makes one almost smile. When he was dying, he quoted those well-known words of the apostle, in the immediate prospect of his death by Nero, I know whom I have believed, etc., and then said to the bystanders, The apostle (you see) wouldnt let even a preposition come in between himself and his Lord; for he doesnt say, I know upon whom ( ), but I know whom I have believed ( )the eye of his faith resting on the glorious object to whom he had ever trusted his all.2 [Note: W. G. Blaikie, David Brown, D.D., LL.D., 147.]
I remember a simple story that twined its clinging tendril fingers about my heart. It was of a woman whose years had ripened her hair, and sapped her strength. She was a true saint in her long life of devotion to God. She knew the Bible by heart, and would repeat long passages from memory. But as the years came the strength went, and with it the memory gradually went too, to her grief. She seemed to have lost almost wholly the power to recall at will what had been stored away. But one precious bit still stayed. She would sit by the big sunny window of the sitting-room in her home, repeating over that one bit, as though chewing a delicious titbit, I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day. By and by part of that seemed to slip its hold, and she would quietly be repeating, that which I have committed to him. The last few weeks, as the ripened old saint hovered about the borderland between this and the spirit world, her feebleness increased. Her loved ones would notice her lips moving, and thinking she might be needing some creature comfort, they would go over and bend down to listen for her request. And time and again they found the old saint repeating over to herself one word, over and over again, the same one word, HimHimHim. She had lost the whole Bible but one word. But she had the whole Bible in that one word.1 [Note: S. D. Gordon, Quiet Talks on Service, 78.]
2. Him whom I have believed, says St. Paul. What is belief? What is it to believe Him? Christ Jesus makes certain claims. He claims to bring the secret key to every life. He claims that every life discovers itself in Him, and finds its completeness in Him. He claims that He supplies to every man the requisite light and atmosphere for the individual task. He claims that He reveals the face of the Eternal. He claims that He incarnates the love and goodness of the Godhead. He claims that by the love revealed in His humiliation He redeems from guilt and sin and moral impotence, and that He endows life with the strength and quietness of an immortal hope. These are the Masters claims. What, then, is belief? Belief is just the willingness to receive the claims as a great hypothesis, and to subject them to the proof of actual life. Faith in religion is somewhat equivalent to experiment in science. Faith is not the heedless and thoughtless swallowing of dogma, but the reverent testing of a profession. Faith is not the blinding of the judgment, it is rather the application of the judgment to the superlative work of proving the bona fides of the Lord. Faith is not the laying of the powers to sleep; it is rather the arousing of the powers to the greatest task to which they can ever be addressed. Faith is not credulity; it is experiment. Prove me now, saith the Lord.
Hall Caine tells us that Rossetti was not an atheist, but simply one with a suspended judgment; in face of death his attitude was one of waiting, he did not know. Now the great work of Jesus Christ touching the doctrine of immortality was to convert it from a speculation into a certainty. The evidence for His resurrection, which carries with it the doctrine of our incorruptibility and immortality, is overwhelming; as one has said, it is the best authenticated fact in history. The Christian is one who knows. The Spirit of God has so opened up to our consciousness the truth of Christs teaching, the fact of His resurrection, that we are as satisfied of our continued and permanent existence as we are that we exist at all. The nearer we live to Christ, the more deeply we drink into His Spirit, the more the assurance of eternal life grows upon us.1 [Note: W. L. Watkinson.]
II
St. Pauls Experience
I know him whom I have believed.
1. St. Paul has made and is making the experiment. He has confided, ventured, believed, and he has staked his all upon the test, Whom I have believed. And with what result? I know him! There emerges a certain experience. I know him! It is a wealthy word, I know! It implies, in the first place, a faint perception of the outlines of things; men as trees walking. The impenetrable mist begins to yield something, and we discern outlines, and movements, little glimpses of road, a suggestion of sky-line, and some sense of gracious law and order. I have believed. I know. Now I know in part. Ah, but it is much more than dim perception of outline, it is the recognition of a Person. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. That is it. The experiment which begins in trembling tests issues in a warm and loving companionship. Let the experiment be continued, and the recognition ripens into intimacy, into a holy and familiar friendship that nothing can dissolve.
Our knowledge of Christ is somewhat like climbing one of our Welsh mountains. When you are at the base you see but little; the mountain itself appears to be but one half as high as it really is. Confined in a little valley you discover scarcely anything but the rippling brooks as they descend into the stream at the base of the mountain. Climb the first rising knoll, and the valley lengthens and widens beneath your feet. Go up higher, and higher still, till you stand upon the summit of one of the great roots that start out as spurs from the sides of the mountain, you see the county, perhaps very many miles around, and you are delighted with the widening prospect. But go onward, and onward, and how the scene enlarges till at last when you are on the summit, and look east, west, north, and south, you see almost all England lying before you. Now, the Christian life is of the same order. When we first believe in Christ we see but little of Him. The higher we climb, the more we discover of His excellencies and His beauties.1 [Note: C. H. Spurgeon.]
2. Thus the ultimate ground of Christian certainty lies in the positive facts of Christian experience. We all know the value and authority of experience in other directions. No certainty is so absolute as that which comes in this way. The sights I have seen with my own eyes; the words I have heard with my own ears; the thoughts which have passed through my own brain; the pains and pleasures, the joys and sorrows which I have felt in my own heartthese facts to me are certain, as no other facts can be. And, in the realm of religion, experience brings with it the same certainty as it brings in any other sphere. There are some persons who try to disparage the value of experience in religious matters. They admit its importance in the ordinary regions of science, for ever since the days of Lord Bacon experiment has been the acknowledged test of truth. But, unlike Lord Bacon himself, they appear to think that it has no value, and no authority when we come to speak of spiritual things. And so, when a Christian appeals to his own experience, they smile at his childishness, as if he ought to know that experience really has nothing to do with the matter. But surely that is a very unscientific way of dealing with that great body of human experience which is furnished by the history of Christianity. The expert in chemistry or biology will not allow an outsider to criticize facts of which personally he knows nothing; and in like manner the man who knows nothing by experience of Jesus Christ and Christianity is really out of courthe has no proper claim to pronounce an opinion as to the facts. In the one case, as in the other, the principle holds good, Experto crede: Listen to the experts; let those speak who have had the experience. We claim, then, that Christian experience is an authentic fact; and that it is upon the solid ground of Christian experience that Christian certainty is built. How does a man know whom he has believed? How is he fully persuaded of Christs power to save him and to keep him? He knows, we answer, and is persuaded, by the experiences of his own heart and life.
The lesson of these uncertainties seems to be that Christ denies Himself to the man who seeks Him with the intellect only, but to those who search for Him with submissive wills and open hearts He grants spiritual illumination, and in the New Testament reveals Himself as the Saviour they need. Committing themselves to Him in utter obedience and trust, they find rest and peace, and in a bright experience have a clearer and more abiding evidence of the Risen Christ than the best attested document could give. Even so, Father, etc. Experience in the face of assaults from geology, biology, psychology, evolutionexperience is and always will be the convincing evidence of Christianity. Amid the things that are shaken this remains.1 [Note: John Brash: Memorials and Correspondence, 261.]
Lift up thine eyes to seek the invisible:
Stir up thy heart to choose the still unseen:
Strain up thy hope in glad perpetual green
To scale the exceeding height where all saints dwell.
Saints, is it well with you?Yea, it is well.
Where they have reaped, by faith kneel thou to glean:
Because they stooped so low to reap, they lean
Now over golden harps unspeakable.
But thou purblind and deafened, knowest thou
Those glorious beauties unexperienced
By ear or eye or by heart hitherto?
I know Whom I have trusted: wherefore now
All amiable, accessible tho fenced,
Golden Jerusalem floats full in view.2 [Note: Christina G. Rossetti, Verses, 158.]
III
St. Pauls Persuasion
I am persuaded that he is able to guard that which I have committed unto him against that day.
1. What has St. Paul committed to God? The Greek word means my depositI am persuaded that he is able to guard my deposit. The figure is, of course, obviousa deposit put into the hands of a depositary with what appears to be sufficient security, a trust placed with an absolutely trustworthy trustee. What has been committed which he is sure will be carefully and safely kept? Some give elaborate reasons why it should be interpreted to mean his soul, or faith in immortality, or salvation, or the care of the Churches, or his converts who were a burden of love on his heart, and suchlike particular precious things for which St. Paul trusts God. But it does not mean any of those things, though it includes them all. The phrase is vague, and it is meant to be vague. My depositit means that St. Paul had committed to Him everything, and was persuaded that He was able to keep it all. The emphasis is not on what the deposit was, but on the fact that the deposit is safe. If you want one word for the deposit, the one word is himself. The deposit includes all that St. Paul had trusted God for. He trusts God for his soul, but no more than he trusts Him for his body. He trusts God for salvation hereafter, but no more than he trusts Him for his life here. He trusts Him for the converts and Churches, as he trusts Him for all personal cares. The word has no definite limits, and was not meant to have limitsmy deposit, that which I have committed unto Him. The force of the sentence is in the fact that the deposit is safe where it is. It is in the right hands, and he need be neither afraid nor ashamed. It is the Guarantor he is thinking of, not the special things that have been guaranteed; the Trustee, not the different items of the trust.
You and I have one treasure, whatever else we may have or not have; and that is ourselves. The most precious of our possessions is our own individual being. We cannot keep that. There are dangers all round us. We are like men laden with gold and precious stones, travelling in a land full of pickpockets and highwaymen. On every side there are enemies that seek to rob us of that which is our true treasureour own souls. We cannot keep ourselves. Slippery paths and weak feet go ill together. The tow in our hearts and the fiery sparks of temptation that are flying all round about us are sure to come together and make a blaze. We shall certainly come to ruin if we seek to get through life, to do its work, to face its difficulties, to cope with its struggles, to master its temptations, in our own poor, puny strength. So we must look for trusty hands and lodge our treasure there, where it is safe.1 [Note: A. Maclaren.]
I had been thinking, Brownlow North says, probably for hours, about the plainly revealed but unexplained mysteries of God, and was no wiser; they still remained unrevealed and still unexplained, and all the fruit of my thinking seemed a headache. After a time he began to think again, and said aloud to himself, Brownlow North, do you think by your own reason or deep thinking you can find out God or know Christ better than the Bible can teach you to know Him? If you do not, why are you perplexing your brains with worse than useless speculations? Why are you not learning and holding on by what you learn from the Scriptures? You are shut up to one of two things, you must either make a god and a religion for yourself, and stand or fall eternally by it, or you must take the religion of Jesus Christ as revealed to you in His Word. You cannot receive a little of Gods teaching and a little of your own, you cannot believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and the wisdom of your own heart at the same time. Choose, then, now and for ever, by which you stand or fall. He then struck his hand forcibly upon his open Bible, and said, God helping me, I will stand or fall by the Lord Jesus Christ. I will put my trust in His truth, and in His teaching as I find it in the written Word of God; and doing that, so sure as the Lord Jesus Christ is the truth, I must be forgiven and saved. After that he tells us he ceased to try to reconcile apparently opposing doctrines of Scripture, or those that were above his reason, submitting his intellect like a little child to the teaching of Gods Word and Spirit.2 [Note: Moody Stuart, Brownlow North, 36.]
2. Now such a committal involves a definite act. Everything is handed over to the Lord. The body is presented to Him as a living sacrifice. Henceforth to live is Christ and to die is gain. All the keys of the life are handed over to Him; every room of the personality is at His disposal. A new sense of proprietorship is awakened. I am not my own, I am bought with a price; I am His poemHis workmanship; all my faculties, feelings, passions, powers, opportunities are not really mine; they are His, although entrusted to my care.
We canwithin certain limits, at any rateanswer each one of us for himself the question, What shall I do with my life? And the many answers which are given to that question resolve themselves, in principle, into three. The first is something to this effect: I will do nothing in particular with it. I will let matters drift. I have no distinct object; and all effort is unwelcome. If nothing is done, all may, after all, come right. A second answer runs thus: While I have it I will make the best of it. It gives me many opportunities of present enjoyment; I will turn them to account. I will extract from the moments as they pass as many pleasurable sensations as they can be made to yield. There will be an end to this, I know; pleasure soon palls, and time passes with relentless speed. But I will do as the old pagan bids; I will snatch joyfully the gifts which the present hour offers me, and will leave stern questions about the future to take care of themselves. A third answer to the question, What shall I do with my life? is this: I will give it to God. This is the investment which a Christian makes. St. Paul made it at his conversion. St. Pauls question, What wilt thou have me to do? addressed to our Lord Jesus Christ, marks the first step in this great change; and when St. Paul had begun, it was not the way of an intense and thorough character like his to do things by halves; he gave himself to Gods guidance and disposal without reserve. He felt that he was not his own; he was bought with a price. He felt that Christ had died for all, with this purpose among others, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them.1 [Note: H. P. Liddon, Sermons on Some Words of St. Paul, 279.]
3. The first act of committal in the hour of awakened faith is only the blessed beginning of a still more blessed lifelong habit of never-failing trust. The truly believing soul goes on believing and committing, until that day when the final settlement takes place. And then, when that day has come, and every man receives his own at the hand of the Righteous Judge, it is that it may be laid again, with all the increase it has gained, at the feet of Jesus, to be kept by Him, and used by Him, and be His only and whollyto whom all is duefor all eternity.
Madame Guyon, the author of A Short and Easy Method of Prayer, died in 1717, at the age of sixty-nine. Her long life had been one of unceasing trust and communion with God, through many vicissitudes and persecutions in the dark age of Louis xiv. In one of her poems she wrote
Yield to the Lord with simple heart
All that thou hast, and all thou art;
Renounce all strength but strength Divine;
And peace shall be for ever thine;
Behold the path which I have trod
My path till I go home to God.
A short time before her death she wrote a will, from which the following passage is an extract. It is an affecting evidence of the depth of her piety, and that she relied on Jesus Christ alone:
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
This is my last will and testament, which I request my executors, who are named within, to see executed.
It is to Thee, O Lord God, that I owe all things; and it is to Thee, that I now surrender up all that I am. Do with me, O my God, whatsoever Thou pleasest. To Thee, in an act of irrevocable donation, I give up both my body and my soul to be disposed of according to Thy will. Thou seest my nakedness and misery without Thee. Thou knowest that there is nothing in heaven, or in earth, that I desire but Thee alone. Within Thy hands, O God, I leave my soul, not relying for my salvation on any good that is in me, but solely on Thy mercies, and the merits and sufferings of my Lord Jesus Christ.1 [Note: T. C. Upham, Life of Madame Guyon, 498.]
4. A quiet committal of ourselves to God is the only thing that will give us quiet hearts amidst the dangers and disappointments and difficulties and conflicts which we have all to encounter in this world. That trust in Him will bring, in the measure of its own depth and constancy, a proportionately deep and constant calm in our hearts.
We boarded a liner at Liverpool and were soon in the midst of a throng of strangers. We were travelling steerage and our bunks and belongings were open to all below, and this gave us some anxiety as we had no safe place to keep what little money we hadwhen we came on deck we were continually worried thinking that it might be stolen. The wide open sea and the pleasures of the deck we could not enjoy, and every now and again one of us would be going down below to see that all was safe. This anxiety continued for four days, and then we heard that the purser took care of valuables left with him, so we decided to ask him to take charge of our money. He told us we were late, and that people usually came to him at the start of the voyage. We said we were sorry to be late, but we thought better now than not at all. So he took our money and locked it in the great safe, telling us to come to him and get it again before we landed. He spoke kindly and sent us away with light hearts. The rest of the voyage we were able to enjoy to the full, entering into everything with never a care or worry. Life was altogether different, its joy had returned again, and all because we had confidence in the purser. We knew whom we had trusted, and were persuaded that he was able to keep that which we had committed unto him against the day of our landing in the new country at the port of Quebec.1 [Note: James Whillans.]
5. I am persuaded. The original word is stronger than persuaded has come to be with us. It implies an irrefragable conviction. I am absolutely certain that He is able to keep my depositwhat I have put into His handsand to keep it against that day. I am persuaded! The experiment has succeeded, and the initial trembling has passed into final calm. The loose uncertainty has consolidated into firm assurance, and the Apostle now quietly confronts the massed and mighty antagonists of the night with unflinching courage and cheer. Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. I am persuaded! The quiet, fruitful, glorious confidence of it! The Apostle had risked his all upon the venture; he had committed everything to the proof! I am persuaded that he is able to guard my deposit, that which I have committed unto him against that day.
Her soul was enveloped in thick darkness, and her temptations against Faith, ever conquered but ever returning, were there to rob her of all feeling of happiness at the thought of her approaching death. Were it not for this trial, which is impossible to understand, she would say, I think I should die of joy at the prospect of soon leaving this earth. By this trial the Divine Master wished to put the finishing touches to her purification, and thus enable her not only to walk with rapid steps, but to run in her little way of confidence and abandonment. Her words repeatedly proved this. I desire neither death, nor life. Were Our Lord to offer me my choice, I would not choose. I only will what He wills; it is what He does that I love. I do not fear the last struggle, nor any painshowever greatmy illness may bring. God has always been my help. He has led me by the hand from my earliest childhood, and on Him I rely. My agony may reach the furthest limits, but I am convinced He will never forsake me.1 [Note: Sur Thrse of Lisieux, 204.]
6. And of what is he persuaded? That he is able to guard (A.V. keep) that which I have committed unto him against that day. The word rendered in the A.V. to keep is often used for guarding as armed men do. God, as it were, mounts guard on what we put into His hands. He comes to us in no mere metaphor, but in the deepest reality of the spiritual life, to guard us, to deliver us from our own evil and from outward evils, to be a wall of fire around us, and to keep us against that day, with all its mysteries and terrors. Our hearts and anticipations go beyond the dark end of life; and we think of all the mysteries which, though they be magnificences, strike a chill of strangeness into our hearts, and we wonder what is to befall us out yonder in the darkness where we have never been before and about which we know little except that the throne is to be set, and the books opened. St. Paul says to us, He is able to keep against that day. So guarded in life, shielded from all real evil, preserved from temptation and from snares, brought unharmed through the hurtling of the pitiless storm of death, and shepherded in the fold beyond the flood, the soul that is committed to Him is safe. In that act of giving ourselves utterly up to God, lie the secret of blessedness and the guarantee of immortality. He is not going to lose the treasures committed to His charge. He prizes them too much. His hand will not let the deposit entrusted to Him slip, and He will say at the last what Christ said in the Upper Room, only with a diverse application, That which thou hast given me I have kept, and none of it is lost, and our souls will be safe in His hands.
What was it that Duncan Mathieson once proposed that they should write upon his tombstone when he died? It was the one word Kept. When the grey hairs came on him, and he looked backward over the road he had trod, it was not his prayers, his tears, his toils, that shone conspicuous, though all were there; it was the keeping power of God. There had been fears within and fightings without; there had been war unceasing with principalities and powers; dark foes unseen had thronged him and had tempted him, and had sought his overthrow. But he was more than conqueror in Christ who loved him. When a young man he had given himself to Christ. Right onward from that hour he had been kept.1 [Note: G. H. Morrison, The Oldest Trade in the World, 56.]
Now wilt me take for Jesus sake,
Nor cast me out at all;
I shall not fear the foe awake,
Saved by Thy City wall;
But in the night with no affright
Shall hear him steal without,
Who may not scale Thy wall of might,
Thy Bastion, nor redoubt.
Full well I know that to the foe
Wilt yield me not for aye,
Unless mine own hand should undo
The gates that are my stay;
My folly and pride should open wide
Thy doors and set me free
Mid tigers striped and panthers pied
Far from Thy liberty.
Unless by debt myself I set
Outside Thy loving ken,
And yield myself by weight of debt
Unto my fellow-men.
Deal with my guilt Thou as Thou wilt,
And hold I shall not cry,
So I be Thine in storm and shine,
Thine only till I die.2 [Note: Katharine Tynan.]
The Practice of Assurance
Literature
Baker (F. A.), Sermons, 418.
Black (H.), Christs Service of Love, 75.
Boyd (A. K. H.), Changed Aspects of Unchanged Truths, 216.
Britton (J. N.), in The Weekly Pulpit, i. 225.
Butcher (C. H.), Sermons Preached in the East, 51.
Fleming (S. H.), Fifteen-Minute Sermons for the People, 194.
Gotwald (L. A.), Joy in the Divine Government, 168.
Greenhough (J. G.), The Cross in Modern Life, 178.
Hoare (E.), Fruitful or Fruitless, 91.
Home (C. S.), in Sermons and Addresses, 133.
Jenkins (E. E.), Addresses and Sermons, 84.
Jones (J. D.), Elims of Life, 220.
Lambert (J. C.), The Omnipotent Cross, 79.
Liddon (H. P.), Sermons on Some Words of St. Paul, 276.
Maclaren (A.), Expositions: 2 Timothy, etc., 16.
Maclaren (A.), Leaves from the Tree of Life, 50.
Morgan (G. H.), Modern Knights-Errant, 60.
Morrison (G. H.), The Oldest Trade in the World, 54.
Moule (H. C. G.), The Second Epistle to Timothy, 53.
Newman (J. H.), Sermons Bearing on Subjects of the Day, 324.
Parkhurst (C. H.), Three Gates on a Side, 113.
Purves (P. C.), The Divine Cure for Heart Trouble, 247.
Riddle (T. W.), The Pathway of Victory, 22.
Swann (N. E.), New Lights on the Old Faith, 58.
Thomson (E. A.), Memorials of a Ministry, 283.
Watson (J.), The Inspiration of our Faith, 214.
Wilkinson (G. H.), The Invisible Glory, 243.
Cambridge Review, xx. No. 515 (W. H. M. H. Aitken).
Christian Age, xl. 386 (L. Abbott).
Christian World Pulpit, xxxviii. 263 (J. F. Hurst); xlii. 212 (J. G. Rogers); lvi. 171 (J. Stalker); lix. 299 (J. Watson); lxv. 156 (R. Thomas); lxvi. 193 (J. D. Jones); lxx. 328 (A. W. Hutton); lxxiii. 394 (E. J. Padfield); lxxv. 371 (A. E. Garvie).
Church of England Pulpit, lxii. 5 (A. W. Hutton).
Churchmans Pulpit: General Advent Season, i. 209 (J. Stalker).
Examiner, May 18, 1905 (J. H. Jowett).
Homiletic Review, xxxvii. 134 (C. W. Townsend); lxiii. 156 (H. W. O. Millington).
Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible
the which: 2Ti 1:8, 2Ti 2:9, 2Ti 3:10-12, 2Ti 4:16, 2Ti 4:17, Act 9:16, Act 13:46, Act 13:50, Act 14:5, Act 14:6, Act 21:27-31, Act 22:21-24, Eph 3:1-8, 1Th 2:16
I am: 2Ti 1:8, Psa 25:2, Isa 50:7, Isa 54:4, Act 21:13, Rom 1:16, Rom 5:4, Rom 5:5, Rom 9:33, Phi 1:20, Heb 12:2, 1Pe 4:16
for I: Psa 9:10, Psa 56:9, Phi 3:8, Phi 3:10, 1Pe 4:19
believed: or, trusted, Isa 12:2, Nah 1:7, Mat 12:21, Rom 15:12, Rom 15:13, Eph 1:12, Eph 1:13, 1Pe 1:20, 1Pe 1:21
am persuaded: 2Ti 1:5
he is: Joh 10:28-30, Phi 3:21, Heb 2:18, Heb 7:25
keep: Joh 6:39, Joh 6:40, Joh 6:44, Joh 17:11, Joh 17:12, Joh 17:15, 1Ti 6:20, 1Pe 1:5, Jud 1:24
which I: Psa 31:5, Luk 23:46, Act 7:59, 1Pe 4:19
against: 2Ti 1:18, 2Ti 4:8, Mat 7:22, Mat 24:36, Luk 10:12, 1Th 5:4
Reciprocal: Exo 22:10 – General Job 5:8 – unto God Psa 10:14 – the poor Psa 16:1 – for Psa 71:9 – Cast Pro 27:17 – so Ecc 9:1 – that the Jer 20:18 – with Dan 6:20 – able Dan 11:33 – yet Hos 2:20 – and Mar 8:38 – ashamed Luk 9:26 – whosoever Luk 14:27 – cannot Joh 5:23 – all men Joh 10:14 – am Act 14:23 – they commended Act 20:24 – none Act 27:25 – I believe Act 27:35 – in Rom 4:21 – fully Rom 8:35 – shall tribulation Rom 8:38 – For I Rom 11:13 – the apostle 1Co 9:26 – not 1Co 15:19 – hope 2Co 5:1 – we know 2Co 10:8 – I should not Phi 1:17 – that Phi 2:19 – But Col 1:23 – whereof 1Th 2:2 – shamefully 2Th 1:10 – in that 2Ti 4:18 – and will 1Pe 2:19 – for conscience 1Pe 2:23 – but 1Jo 3:19 – assure 1Jo 5:19 – we know
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
DOCTRINE AND LIFE
I know Whom I have believed.
2Ti 1:12
In these words I find indicated the necessity, in the life of faith, of doctrinal clearness and decision, and the necessity, if that clearness and decision are not to be purely abortive, cause without effect, means without end, of a living acquaintance with a Divine Person and a living manifestation of that acquaintance, in action and suffering.
I. A solemn suggestion of the necessity of doctrinal clearness and decision.It may seem, for the moment, that this inference from these particular words is not obvious. Are thoughts of dogmatic firmness, of the precision of creeds, articles, and definitions, really in place here? Is it not the first and most obvious fact of the passage, as Christians have so often remarked, that the writer does not say, I know what I have believed, but I know Whom? It might be said with even a sort of indignation that the passage positively excludes the idea of the dry bones of doctrine in favour of a warm intercourse of the soul with Jesus, in which cold and complicated statements shall be forgotten in the felt pulses of His heart. Such a protest would have undoubtedly thus much of truth in itthat most sacred lessons are conveyed by the presence of the word Whom and the absence of what. The dying Apostle does indeed go, direct and by a spiritual necessity, to his Lords Person, to his personal Lord, to the close embrace of his Eternal Friend, the lover of his soul. Nothing else will do in view of his extremity and desolations, all men forsaking him, and eternity about to close over him.
II. Let us look a little further into the words and into the thing.When I speak, or think, of going direct to my Lord and Saviour, of finding rest in His love and faithfulness, of safety in His arms and on His breast, how am I sure of the reality and solidity of the terms, so warm and tender, which I thus employ? I may perhaps reply that my certainty is by the Holy Spirit, Who teaches, Who illuminates, Who sheds abroad Divine love in my heart and glorifies Christ to my inner man. But the reply again is obvious, that, in the first place, the special works, and the very being, of the Blessed Spirit are matters of pure revelation, of revealed doctrine; and that, in the second place, His holy work of enlightenment and sanctification, most certainly as to its overwhelming rule, presupposes always some definite doctrine, some positive Divine information, about the Saviours work and person. Whether directly from the Holy Scriptures, or by sure conclusions from them, whether in doctrinal words read or doctrinal words spoken, somehow or other, information about Him the man must have, if the Spirit is to unfold before the soul His glory. There must be some, and, in the very simplest stages of enlightened and living faith, that some is not little in its significance. No sooner have I pronounced the words Saviour, Redeemer, Son of God, Lamb of God, Priest, King, Brother, no sooner have I thought with comfort of the precious blood-shedding, or dwelt with bright anticipation on the prospect of my presence with my eternal Friend at death and in eternity, than I am in the very midst of the doctrine of Christ; for every one of these ideas is due to Divine instruction about Him. In this, through this, the Holy Spirit works on me and in me. Through the doctrine He shows me Christ, and the way to Him, and my part and lot in Him, and my treasures in Him, and my coming heaven with Him.
Bishop H. C. G. Moule.
Illustration
Observe how the soul of St. Paul, full of the Holy Ghost, and now about to enter eternity, turns with an extraordinary emphasis to the fact of the Divine inspiration and Divine authority of every Scripture (2Ti 3:16). Hear him as he appeals to the sensitive heart of the younger disciple to continue in the things he has learned, and has been assured of, on grounds not merely of subjective impression but of objective authority. Hear him as he repudiates the rationalism, which doubtless claimed to be spiritual and mystic, but was rationalism none the less, of those who said that the resurrection was past already (2Ti 2:18). Remark his solemn summing up of the reason why Timothy should be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus, a reason which in its brevity combines the threefold cord of supernatural prophecy, supernatural event, and supernatural teachingJesus Christ, of the seed of David, was raised from the dead, according to my Gospel (2Ti 2:8). And then see how for himself, on the verge of that supreme experience of our mortal life, the act of dying, collecting himself for the last submission and the last victory, the Apostle grasps for his own peace no mere generalities of belief, but the deepest and highest truths of the whole revelationHe hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began; but is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, Who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel (2Ti 1:9-10). All this powerfully illustrates the principle that there is a connection of the strongest and most vital kind between Christian life, whether in action or suffering, and Christian doctrinethe certainties of revealed truth and their right expression.
(SECOND OUTLINE)
FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE
Some persons professed knowledge of Christ amounts to little more than knowledge of His name. But
I. St. Paul knew Christ as the one Being Whose influence had surpassed all other influences in his life.Christ had changed his character and the course of his life.
II. He knew Christ as the patient, tender, helpful Friend through many years past of that new life and career. In trouble and weakness and fear and perils St. Paul had not sought the relief of subterfuges, but had sought and found the relief of Jesus.
III. St. Paul knew Christ very practically as his Master.Christ was a Master Who had given him very much to do, very much to bear (see 2Co 11:16-31), but had always given him the needful help and strength, and His own co-operation and company. Practical service wonderfully drives home theoretical knowledge, and without the former the latter is little worth.
IV. St. Paul knew Christ as the only one ground of hope for the immortal self, for the eternal future.This aspect of Christ was the more remarkable to St. Paul, as he had been brought up to believe in self, in merit, in a righteousness of his own works. But now, not does an infant more implicitly and unconsciously rely on its mother than St. Paul relied consciously, gratefully, exclusively on Christ for salvation and the safety of the all untried, dimly known future.
(THIRD OUTLINE)
FAITH AND ITS OBJECT
In analysing these words we find they contain three ideas:
I. The faith of St. Paul, expressed in these words: I have believed.
II. The object of his faith, which he recalls when he says: In Whom I have believed.
III. The certainty of his faith, indicated with so much force and serenity by this expression: I know.
Such is the natural division of the subject.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
2Ti 1:12. For the which cause I also suffer. It might seem strange that a man would be persecuted for preaching the good news of salvation. The mere fact of offering salvation was not what brought persecution to Paul, but it was because he claimed that it was obtained through Christ. The Jews were the ones who caused the persecutions, because they had rejected Christ and disliked all men who professed faith in Him. In Act 4:2 the Jews did not all object to the preaching of a resurrection (some of them professed to believe in it themselves), but it was because it was being preached “through Jesus.” I am not ashamed. Paul’s confidence amidst persecutions is because of the knowledge he has of Christ in whom he believes. Paul had committed his entire interests of soul and body into the care and keeping of Christ, and he firmly believes that it is all in good hands. Against (or until) that day means the day of judgment. It is often referred to In such indefinite language because of the unequalled importance of it, for which reason it needs no other specification.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
2Ti 1:12. I also suffer these things. He assumes that the things of which he speaks are known to Timothy. They are at least sufficiently implied in the word prisoner.
I am not ashamed. The same word as in 2Ti 1:8. He is not ashamed of his work. Why should Timothy be ashamed of him?
Whom I have believed. Better, perhaps, in whom I have placed my trust.
To keep that which I have committed to him. The Greek ( ); literally, my deposit) is ambiguous, and may be rendered either as in the English Version, or as a possessive genitive, that which has been committed to me. In the latter construction, it would have approximately the same meaning as in 2Ti 1:14the life, natural or spiritual; the truth; the doctrine; the work, with which the apostle had been entrusted. God would guard His own work. The analogy of the word keep, however, as applied to God, is in favour of the former construction; and then the deposit may be thought of as including all that was most precious in the apostles eyes, his work, his own salvation, or, as an echo of the words spoken on the cross (Luk 23:46), the spirit which ne commended to his Father.
Against that day. As in 2Ti 1:18, 2Ti 4:8,2Th 1:10, the great day of the Lord, the final Advent of the Christ.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
For which cause, that is, “For the sake of the gospel, and not as an evil doer, I suffer patiently all afflictive evils, without either fear or shame, well knowing in whom I repose my faith and hope, my trust and confidence; and firmly believing that he is able to keep that which I have committed to him, my temporary life, yea, my eternal life, the life of my soul, my reward in heaven; I have committed all unto, and deposited all in God’s hand, and I am sure he is both able and willing, he both can and will keep in safety, that which I have thus committed to him.”
Note here, 1. That the knowledge of God must precede, or go before faith in God. I know in whom I have believed: Faith sees not him, in whom it believeth, but it knows him in whom it believeth.
Note, 2. There is no such way to secure the soul, as to commit it into God’s hand; the way to make the soul safe, is to commit it to him to keep, and that in the way of well-doing.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
(b) 2Ti 1:12-14. An Appeal to Pauls own Example.The second ground of Pauls appeal is his own example. He too, being an apostle, suffers hardship. But he is not ashamed (cf. 2Ti 1:8). For the safeguarding of the truth committed to him he relies on Gods power. Timothy must do the same. He has in Pauls own words a pattern of sound teaching. Let him guard his trust, relying, like Paul, not on his own strength, but on the indwelling spirit.
2Ti 1:12. that which, etc.: rather as mg.i.e. the true doctrine (1Ti 1:10*), the antidote to error.
2Ti 1:13. sound: 1Ti 1:10*.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
Verse 12
These things; the hardships of his imprisonment.
Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament
1:12 “For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.”
Because of his calling and because of the gospel he is in suffering – yet he is not ashamed. If and when suffering comes to American Christians we ought not be ashamed – we do it for the proper cause – our Lord Jesus Christ and His work on the cross for others.
“…for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.”
He knew his work was for Christ, he knew that Christ was able to do all that He had told him he would do, and he knew Christ could keep his work secure until that day.
Okay, folks, that is one for you. He – Christ can keep the results of your work – you don’t have to – you don’t have to struggle to keep those new converts on track – He can. Yes, do what you can to assist those you minister to, but allow Christ to keep them – He will do a much better job than you will.
Paul committed his efforts to Christ for safe keeping. Not your worry, not your responsibility, not your load to carry.
I have often felt for pastors that have struggled to get a work moving and then be called away to another ministry only to see some new jerk come in and run the work into the ground. Not the pastors load – Christ will care for it. It is His plan that He is working on.
We should commit ourselves and our labors to Him for His safekeeping – I think he will do a much better job of it than we.
“that day” seems to indicate a particular day – a particular twenty-four hour period. The term translated day is normally used for a twenty-four hour period rather than a period of time as in the last days.
It would make sense that Paul was thinking about the day in which the Lord will judge our works. That day is the one that all of us should look forward to. We will see sorted out before us some of the things that God has been able to accomplish through us. Unfortunately we will most likely see what He wasn’t able to accomplish through us because we were not tuned into Him at all times.
Fuente: Mr. D’s Notes on Selected New Testament Books by Stanley Derickson
1:12 {6} For the which cause I also suffer these things: {7} nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.
(6) He confirms his apostleship by a strange argument, that is, because the world could not abide it, and therefore it persecuted him that preached it.
(7) By setting his own example before us, he shows us how it may be, that we will not be ashamed of the cross of Christ, that is, if we are sure that God both can and will keep the salvation which he has as it were laid up in store by himself for us against that day.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Paul suffered imprisonment and the discomforts associated with it because he preached the gospel. Nevertheless, he was not ashamed of the gospel or of himself (cf. Rom 1:16). His confidence lay in the person of God. He believed that God is faithful. God would protect something that Paul had placed with God for His protection and preserve that until the day he would see Christ face to face at the Rapture or death (cf. 2Ti 1:18; 1Co 3:13; 2Co 5:9-10). The "deposit" (2Ti 1:14) in view may refer to the truth of the gospel (cf. 2Ti 1:14; 2Ti 2:2; 1Ti 6:20). [Note: Guthrie, p. 132.] Probably it refers to Paul’s life, including his work. [Note: Fee, p. 232.] Another less likely view is that it refers to the faith entrusted to Paul that he would figuratively hand back to God when he saw Him. [Note: Kelly, p. 166.] Paul used the "deposit" in this last sense in 2Ti 1:14 and in 1Ti 6:20.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Chapter 5
THE LORDS COMPASSION IN ENABLING A BLASPHEMER AND A PERSECUTOR TO BECOME A SERVANT OF CHRIST JESUS AND A PREACHER OF THE GOSPEL.- 1Ti 1:12-14
In the concluding sentence of the preceding paragraph (1Ti 1:3; 1Ti 1:11) the Apostle points out that what he has been saying respecting the erroneous teaching and practice of the heterodox innovators is entirely in harmony with the spirit of the Gospel which had been committed to his trust. This mention of his own high commission to preach “the Gospel of the glory of the blessed God” suggests at once to him some thoughts both of thankfulness and humility, to which he now gives expression. His own experience of the Gospel, especially in connection with his conversion from being a persecutor to becoming a preacher, offer further points of contrast between Gnosticism and Christianity.
The false teachers wasted thought and attention upon barren speculations, which, even if they could under any conceivable circumstances be proved true, would have supplied no guidance to mankind in regulating conduct. And whenever Gnostic teaching became practical, it frittered away morality in servile observances, based on capricious interpretations of the Mosaic Law. Of true morality there was an utter disregard, and frequently an open violation. Of the one thing for which the self-accusing conscience was yearning-the forgiveness of sin-it knew nothing, because it had no appreciation of the reality of sin. Sin was only part of the evil which was inherent in the material universe, and therefore in the human body. A system which had no place for the forgiveness of sin had also no place for the Divine compassion, which it is the purpose of the Gospel to reveal. How very real this compassion and forgiveness are, and how much human beings stand in need of them, St. Paul testifies from his own experience, the remembrance of which makes him burst out into thanksgiving.
The Apostle offers thanks to Jesus Christ, the source of all his strength, for having confidence in him as a person worthy of trust. This confidence He proved by “appointing Paul to His service”; a confidence all the more marvelous and worthy of gratitude because Paul had before been “a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious.” He had been a blasphemer, for he had thought that he “ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth”; and he had been a persecutor, for he had punished believers “oftentimes in all the synagogues,” and “strove to make them blaspheme.” That is ever the persecutors aim; -to make those who differ from him speak evil of what they reverence but he abhors; to say they renounce what in their heart of hearts they believe. There is, therefore, thus far an ascending scale in the iniquity which the Apostle confesses. He not only blasphemed the Divine Name himself, but he endeavored to compel others to do the same. The third word, although the English Version obscures the fact, continues the ascending scale of self-condemnation. “Injurious” does scant justice to the force of the Greek word used by the Apostle (), although it is not easy to suggest a better rendering. The word is very common in classical authors, but in the New Testament occurs only here and in Rom 1:30, where the A.V translates it “despiteful” and the R.V “insolent.” It is frequent in the Septuagint. It indicates one who takes an insolent and wanton delight in violence, one whose pleasure lies in outraging the feelings of others. The most conspicuous instance of it in the New Testament, and perhaps anywhere, would be the Roman Soldiers mocking and torturing Jesus Christ with the crown of thorns and the royal robe. Of such conduct St. Paul himself since his conversion had been the victim, and he here confesses that before his conversion he had been guilty of it himself. In his misguided zeal he had punished innocent people, and he had inflicted punishment, not with pitying reluctance, but with arrogant delight.
It is worth pointing out that in this third charge against himself, as well as in the first, St. Paul goes beyond what he states in the similar passages in the Epistles to the Corinthians, Philippians, and Galatians. There he simply draws attention to the fact that he had been a persecutor who had made havoc of the Church. He says nothing about blaspheming or taking an insolent satisfaction in the pain which he inflicted. This has some bearing on the genuineness of this Epistle.
(1) It shows that St. Paul was in the habit of alluding to the fact that he had been a persecutor. It was part of his preaching, for it proved that his conversion was directly and immediately God s work. He did not owe the Gospel which he preached to any persuasion on the part of man. It is, therefore, quite in harmony with St. Pauls practice to insist on his former misconduct. But it may be urged that a forger might notice this and imitate it. That of course is true. But if these Epistles are a forgery, they are certainly not forged with any intention of injuring St. Pauls memory. Is it likely, then, that a forger, in imitating the self-accusation of the Apostle, would use stronger language than the Apostle himself uses in those Epistles which are indisputably his? Would he go out of his way to use such strong language as “blasphemer,” and “insolent oppressor?” But, if St: Paul wrote these Epistles, this exceptionally strong, language is thoroughly natural in a passage in which the Apostle wishes to place in as strong a light as may be the greatness of the Divine compassion in forgiving sins, as manifested in his own case. He had been foremost as a bitter and arrogant opponent of the Gospel; and yet God had singled him out to be foremost in preaching it. Here was a proof that no sinner need despair. What comfort for a fallen race could the false teachers offer in comparison with this?
Like St. Peters sin in denying his Lord, St. Pauls sin in persecuting Him was overruled for good. The Divine process of bringing good out of evil was strongly exemplified in it. The Gnostic teachers had tried to show how, by a gradual degradation, evil might proceed from the Supreme Good. There is nothing Divine in such a process as that. The fall from good to evil is rather a devilish one, as when an angel of light became the Evil One and involved mankind in his own fall. Divinity is shown in the converse process of making what is evil work towards what is good. Under Divine guidance St. Pauls self-righteous confidence and arrogant intolerance were turned into a blessing to himself and others. The recollection of his sin kept him humble, intensified his gratitude, and gave him a strong additional motive to devote himself to the work of bringing others to the Master who had been so gracious to himself. St. Chrysostom in commenting on this passage in his Homilies on the Pastoral Epistles points out how it illustrates St. Pauls humility, a virtue which is more often praised than practiced. “This quality was so cultivated by the blessed Paul, that he is ever looking out for inducements to be humble. They who are conscious to themselves of great merits must struggle much with themselves if they would be humble. And he too was one likely to be under violent temptations, his own good conscience swelling him up like a gathering tumor. Being filled, therefore, with high thoughts, and having used magnificent expressions, he at once depresses himself, and engages others also to do the like. Having said, then, that the Gospel was committed to his trust, lest this should seem to be said with pride, he checks himself at once, adding by way of correction, I thank Him that enabled me, Christ Jesus our Lord, for that He counted me faithful, appointing me to His service. Thus everywhere, we see, he conceals his own merit and ascribes everything to God, yet so far only as not to take away free will.”
These concluding words are an important qualification. The Apostle constantly insists on his conversion as the result of a special revelation of Jesus Christ to himself, in other words a miracle: he nowhere hints that his conversion in itself was miraculous. No psychological miracle was wrought, forcing him to accept Christ against his will. God converts no one by magic. It is a free and reasonable service that He asks for from beings whom He has created free and reasonable. Men were made moral beings, and He who made them such does not treat them as machines. In his defense at Caesarea St. Paul tells Herod Agrippa that he “was not disobedient to the heavenly vision.” He might have been. He might, like Judas, have resisted all the miraculous power displayed before him and have continued to persecute Christ. If he had no choice whatever in the matter, it was an abuse of language to affirm that he “was not disobedient.” And in that case we should need some other metaphor than “kicking against the goads.” It is impossible to kick against the goads if one has no control over ones own limbs. The limbs and the strength to use them were Gods gifts, without which he could have done nothing. But with these gifts it was open to him either to obey the Divine commands or “even to fight against God”-a senseless and wicked thing, no doubt, but still possible. In this passage the Divine and the human sides are plainly indicated. On the one hand, Christ enabled him and showed confidence in him: on the other, Paul accepted the service and was faithful. He might have refused the service; or, having accepted it, he might have shown himself unfaithful to his trust.
“Howbeit, I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief.” These words are sometimes misunderstood. They are not intended as an excuse, any more than St. Johns designation of himself as “the disciple whom Jesus loved” are intended as a boast. St. John had been the recipient, of very exceptional favors. Along with only St. Peter and St. James he had been present at the raising of Jairuss daughter, at the Transfiguration, and at the Agony in Gethsemane. From even these chosen three he had been singled out to be told who was the traitor; to have the lifelong charge of providing for the Mother of the Lord; to be the first to recognize the risen Lord at the sea of Tiberias. What was the explanation of all these honors? The recipient of them had only one to give. He had no merits, no claim to anything of the kind; but Jesus loved him.
So also with St. Paul. There were multitudes of Jews who, like himself, had had, as he tells the Romans, “a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.” There were many who, like himself, had opposed the truth and persecuted the Christ. Why did any of them obtain mercy? Why did he receive such marked favor and honor? Not because of any merit on their part or his: but because they had sinned ignorantly (i.e., without knowing the enormity of their sin,) and because “the grace of the Lord abounded exceedingly.” The Apostle is not endeavoring to extenuate his own culpability, but to justify and magnify the Divine compassion. Of the whole Jewish nation it was true that “they knew not what they did” in crucifying Jesus of Nazareth; but it was true in very various degrees. “Even of the rulers many believed on Him; but because of the Pharisees they did not confess, lest they should be put out of the synagogue: for they loved the glory of men more than the glory of God.” It was because St: Paul did not in this way sin against light that he found mercy, not merely in being forgiven the sin of persecuting Christ, but in being enabled to accept and be faithful in the service of Him whom he had persecuted.
Two of the changes made by the Revisers in this passage seem to call for notice: they both occur in the same phrase and have a similar tendency. Instead of “putting me into the ministry” the R.V gives us “appointing me to His service.” A similar change has been made in 1Ti 2:7 of the next chapter, where “I was appointed a preacher” takes the place of “I am ordained a preacher,” and in Joh 15:16 where “I chose you and appointed you” has been substituted for “I have chosen you and ordained you.” In these alterations the Revisers are only following the example set by the A.V itself in other passages. In 2Ti 1:2, as in Luk 10:10, and 1Th 5:9, both versions have “appointed.” The alterations are manifest improvements. In the passage before us it is possible that the Greek has the special signification of “putting me into the ministry,” but it is by no means certain, and perhaps not even probable, that it does so. Therefore the more comprehensive and general translation, “appointing me to His service,” is to be preferred. The wider rendering includes and covers the other; and this is a further advantage. To translate the Greek words used in these passages (, k.t..) by such a very definite word as “ordain” leads the reader to suppose these texts refer to the ecclesiastical act of ordination; of which there is no evidence. The idea conveyed by the Greek in this passage, as in Joh 15:16, is that of placing a man at a particular post, and would be as applicable to civil as to ministerial duties. We are not, therefore, justified in translating it by a phrase which has distinct ecclesiastical associations.
The question is not one of mere linguistic accuracy. There are larger issues involved than those of correct translation from Greek to English. If we adopt the wider rendering, then it is evident that the blessing for which St. Paul expresses heartfelt gratitude; and which he cites as evidence of Divine compassion and forgiveness, is not the call to be an Apostle, in which none of us can share, nor exclusively the call to be a minister of the Gospel, in which only a limited number of us can share; but also the being appointed to any service in Christs kingdom, which is an honor to which all Christians are called. Every earnest Christian knows from personal experience this evidence of the Divine character of the Gospel. It is full of compassion for those who have sinned; not because, like the Gnostic teachers, it glosses over the malignity and culpability of sin, but because, unlike Gnosticism, it recognizes the preciousness of each human soul, and the difficulties which beset it. Every Christian knows that he has inherited an evil nature:-so far he and the Gnostic are agreed. But he also knows that to the sin which he has inherited he has added sin for which he is personally responsible, and which his conscience does not excuse as if it were something which is a misfortune and not a fault. Yet he is not left without remedy under the burden of these self-accusations. He knows that, if he seeks for it, he can find forgiveness, and forgiveness of a singularly generous kind. He is not only forgiven, but restored to favor and treated with respect. He is at once placed in a position of trust. In spite of the past, it is assumed that he will be a faithful servant, and he is allowed to minister to his Master and his Masters followers. To him also “the grace of our Lord” has “abounded exceedingly with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.” The generous compassion shown to St. Paul is not unique or exceptional; it is typical. And it is a type, not to the few, but to many; not to clergy only, but to all. “For this cause I obtained mercy, that in me as chief might Jesus Christ show forth all His long-suffering, for an ensample of them which should hereafter believe on Him unto eternal life.”