2 Timothy 2:13

2Ti_2:13

If we believe not, yet He abideth faithful.

Faithless

If we are faithless--that is, untrue to the vows of our Christian profession, the faithlessness implies more than mere unbelief in any of the fundamental doctrines of the faith, such as the resurrection of the Lord or His divinity. (H. D. M. Spence, M. A.)

The unchangeableness and independence of Christ, proofs of His divinity

If you open any professed treatise on the divinity of Christ, you will find that one series of proofs is deduced from the ascription to our Lord of attributes or properties which can belong only unto God. And the words which we have just read to you from the writings of St. Paul contain, as it would seem, two instances of this kind of evidence. Amongst the characteristics of the Creator, characteristics which can never be transferred to a creature, we justly reckon unchangeableness and independence. You may learn from the context, it is of Christ, the one Mediator between God and men, that St. Paul affirms that He abideth faithful, and that He cannot deny Himself. And first, then, as to unchangeableness. You know that with the Father of lights there is no variableness neither shadow of turning. When it is said of God He cannot change, you should understand the phrase in its largest and most literal acceptation. We are as much borne out by reason as by revelation, in pronouncing it impossible that God should change. To suppose that He could change is to suppose that He could cease to be perfect, and we need not prove to you that an imperfect God would be no God at all. There is no passage in the Bible in which this unchangeableness is more distinctly ascribed to the Father than it is in our text to the Son. He cannot, He is not able to deny Himself. Such language could never have been applicable to Christ had He not been God. There is nothing in the nature of a creature, not even though it come nearest in glory and greatness to that unchangeable Being from whom its existence was derived--there is nothing, I say, in the nature of a creature which renders it impossible that it should deny itself. Now, unchangeableness is not the only attribute of Godhead which is here ascribed to Christ; a little examination will show you that independence is equally ascribed. Sublimely as God is enthroned on His own essential majesty, He depends neither on angel nor on man for one jot of His honour, for one tittle of His happiness. And you are to observe that this independence which is necessarily to be reckoned among the Divine attributes is actually incommunicable; that is, it can belong only to God, and cannot be imparted to what is finite and created. And yet the mode of expression adopted by the apostle in our text appears to me strictly to imply that the being of whom he speaks is independent. If we believe not, what then? will it make any difference to Christ? must His purposes be altered, as though to meet an emergency? must the terms of His gospel be lowered, so as to square better with our prejudice or our infidelity? Nothing of all this. If we believe not, yet He abideth faithful: He cannot deny Himself. Everything will follow the same course; we may turn the willing ear, or the deaf; we may march in the train of the Captain of our salvation, or we may fight under the banner of the apostate. Yet He abideth faithful; or, as the verse is paraphrased by an old prelate of our church, He loveth nothing by it; the misery and the damage is ours; but for Him, He is the same that He was, whatever become of us. Now, we are very anxious that whenever a portion of Holy Writ on which we are meditating contains any indirect testimony to the divinity of Christ, such testimony should be carefully worked out and set before you in its strength and in its simplicity. And there is no doctrine to which there is a greater assemblage of these indirect testimonies than there is to the divinity of Christ. Passages occur in almost every leaf of the New Testament, which do not indeed assert the divinity of Christ, which do not even seem to allude to the divinity of Christ, but which, nevertheless, are stripped of aft force, yea, of all sense, if doubt be thrown on the divinity of Christ. In reading the Epistles we seem reading the writings of men who never thought of the divinity of Christ as of a questionable or debateable thing. They buckle on the armour of controversy when the sir, fatness of the human race is to be demonstrated, and when the method of justification is to be vindicated, and when the errors of Judaising teachers are to be exposed; but, except in one or two instances, there is nothing that looks like controversy in regard to the divinity of Christ. And we attach the greatest possible worth to this indirect kind of evidence, a specimen of which we have found in our text. Certain doctrines there may be, which rest only on certain passages, and which consequently we should find a difficulty in establishing if those passages were removed. But this cannot be affirmed of the main pillar of our faith, the divinity of Christ. The doctrine rests not upon isolated passages; leave us a page of the New Testament, and I think you will have left us proof of Christ being God. And now let us take a different view of the text. It contains much both of what is alarming and what is encouraging. The threatenings and the promises of Christ, each of these, as we may learn from the text, will take equal effect, whether we ourselves believe them or whether we disbelieve them. (H. Melvill, B. D.)

Eternal faithfulness unaffected by human unbelief

I. The sad possibility, and the consoling assurance--If we believe not, yet He abideth faithful. I must take the sad possibility first--if we believe not, and I shall read this expression as though, first of all, it concerned the world in general, for I think it may so be fairly read. If mankind believe not, if the various classes of men believe not--yet He abideth faithful. The rulers believed not, and there are some that make this a very great point. They said concerning Jesus, Have any of the rulers believed on Him? Well, if our greatest men, if our senators and magistrates, princes and potentates, believe not--it does not affect the truth of God in the smallest conceivable degree--yet He abideth faithful. Many, however, think it more important to know on which side the leaders of thought are enlisted, and there are certain persons who are not elected to that particular office by popular vote, who nevertheless take it upon themselves to consider that they are dictators in the republic of opinion. However, we need not care because of these wise men, for if they believe not, but becloud the gospel, yet God abideth faithful. Yes, and I venture to enlarge this thought a little more. If the rulers do not believe, and if the philosophical minds do not believe, and if in addition to this public opinion, so called, rejects it, yet the gospel is still the same eternal truth.

2. Now, having spoken of our text as referring to the world in general, it is, perhaps, a more sorrowful business to look at it as referring to the visible church in particular. The apostle says, Though we believe not, and surely he must mean the visible church of God.

3. Once more I will read the text in a somewhat narrower circle. If we believe not--that is to say, if the choicest teachers and preachers and writers believe not, yet He abideth faithful. Here, then, is the fearful possibility; and side by side with it runs this most blessedly consoling assurance--He abideth faithful. Jesus Christ abideth: there are no shifts and changes in Him. He is a rock, and not a quicksand. He is the Saviour whether the rulers and the philosophers believe in Him or refuse Him, whether the Church dud her ministers are true to Him or desert Him. And as Christ remains the same Saviour, so we have the same gospel. And as the gospel is the same, so does Christ remain faithful to His engagements to His Father.

II. A glorious impossibility with a sweet inference that may be drawn from it. He cannot deny Him self. Three things God cannot do. He cannot die, He cannot lie, and He cannot be deceived. These three impossibilities do not limit His power, but they magnify His majesty; for these would be infirmities, and infirmity can have no place in the infinite and ever blessed God. Here is one of the things impossible with God--He cannot deny Himself. What is meant by that?

1. It is meant that the Lord Jesus Christ cannot change as to His nature and character towards us, the sons of men.

2. His word cannot alter.

3. He cannot withdraw the salvation which He has presented to the sons of men, for that salvation is indeed Himself.

4. And then the atonement is still the same, for that, too, is Himself: He has by Himself purged our sins.

5. And the mercy-seat, the place of prayer, still remains; for if that were altered He would have denied Himself, for what was the mercy-seat, or propitiatory, that golden lid upon the covenant ark? What was it but Christ Him self, who is our propitiatory, the true mercy-seat?

6. And here is another sweet thought: Christs love to His Church, and His purpose towards her cannot change, because He cannot deny Himself, and His Church is Himself.

7. Nor will any one of His offices towards His Church and people ever fail.

8. Now, my last word is about an inference. The text says, If we believe not, yet He abideth faithful: it runs on that supposition. Take the other supposition: Suppose we do believe. Will He not be faithful in that case? And will it not be true that He cannot deny Himself? (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The Divine immutability

Weak as man is, all powerful as God is, there is one thing which weak man can do, and which Almighty God cannot do. Man can pass his word, and almost in the same breath can call it back again. God, on the other hand, cannot promise or denounce a thing without fulfilling it to the very uttermost. This is a doctrine which there are few el us, I fear, who thoroughly believe. Whilst there are many of us who are making light of the threatenings of God, and flattering ourselves with the profane idea that they will never be fulfilled, there are others again who are equally distrustful of Gods promises. If we trust God in spirituals we mistrust Him perhaps in temporals. If we believe Him as the God of grace, we sometimes seem to doubt Him as the God of providence. If we trust Him for eternity, we are half afraid to rely on Him for time. (A. Roberts, M. A.)

Faith in God ennobles reason; unbelief degrades reason

1. Faith in God involves, in its very act, a rational appreciation of evidence. Hence it is distinct from credulity, which is belief without evidence; from scepticism, which is unbelief, though evidence is at hand; and from infidelity, which is the rejection of evidence sufficient to convince. In each of these there is either the neglect or the abuse of the reason, and a consequent injury to the intellectual as well as to the moral powers of the soul. But faith in God, distinct from all these, is belief on sufficient evidence.

2. Faith in God promotes the highest exercise of reason, because also it rests upon the most substantial and durable foundation. If, in the investigation of natural truth, it is philosophical to seek for first principles, it is equally or more so to require them in the reception of revealed truth. Now to have faith in God is to rest on first principles, and to build up knowledge and hope on a sure foundation.

3. Faith takes in the sublimest truths, and the widest circle of thought.

4. If this be our philosophy we shall not stumble at miracles. While faith admits the miracles as facts, reason co-operates with faith by showing that they are wise and good. Moreover, the great first miracle displayed in the worlds creation, which we receive by faith, prepare the mind for all other miracles, however stupendous they may be (Heb_11:1).

5. Guided by the philosophy of faith, we shall not stumble at mysteries. For what are mysteries? Grand truths as yet but palatally revealed; the first syllables of some vast volume to be unrolled hereafter.

6. Nor at alleged contradictions between science and revelation. We are free to admit that there are difficulties, real difficulties, between science and revelation; and there may be even greater still. What then? We are but in the position in which patriarchs and prophets were placed for ages.

7. Supported by the philosophy of faith, we shall not faint under the delay of promised good. One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, etc. (W. Cooke, D. D.)

Faith and the gospel

I. Unbelief is a sin. What more in the holy letters checked, condemned? Does not Christ dissuade from it? His apostles forbid it? and God everywhere commands the contrary? May not arguments be produced, if any doubt of it, to confirm, ratify it?

II. A man may not have faith yet possess the Gospel. To try the truth of thy faith, let these two rules following be well weighed of thee: First, he who hath faith receives Christ, as the wife does her husband. He will have Him and no other from this time forward, for better, for worse; for richer, for poorer; in sickness and in health, according to Gods holy ordinance, till (and after that) death shall them part. In the second place, how does thy faith work? Faith, if true and sound, will embrace Christ, purify the heart, lift up the wing of thy soul and cause thee to soar on high. It will do what God enjoins, though it strip him of reputation, promotion, life and all.

III. In preaching the word ministers are not to exclude themselves.

IV. The Lord is faithful.

V. The Lord is without change. (J. Barlow, D. D.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2 Timothy

A FAITHFUL GOD

2Ti 2:13.

I HAVE chosen this text, not as intending to deal with it only, so much as with the great thought to which it gives such emphatic expression. The faithfulness of God is a familiar enough phrase, but I suspect that the depth and scope of the thought are not as familiar as the words. It is employed in Scripture in many ways, and with many different applications of exhortation and encouragement. Like a prism held at right angles to the light, the thought flashes out different tints according as the rays impinge upon it. It is a favourite with Paul He speaks it in his very first letter, and here, in his last, after a lifetime spent in testing God, he comes back to it. He had proved it in a thousand dangers and struggles, and now, when he has all but done with earth, he’ sets to his seal that God is true. But all the other New Testament writers employ the expression likewise, and I have thought that it may be profitable to gather together the various aspects and applications of this great truth in Scripture, and so to draw out, if we may, some of .the lofty thoughts and treasures of strength and hope which are shrined in it.

I. Let me ask the question what the faithfulness of God means.

Now when we speak of one another as ‘faithful,’ we mean that we adhere to our word; that we keep faith with men, that we discharge the obligations of our office or position, and that so we are trustworthy. We mean just the same things when we speak about the faithful God.

I suppose that the first thought that occurs to most of us when God is called faithful is that it means that He keeps His promise. That, of course, is included in the idea, but it is very noteworthy that this, which to most of us is the only meaning of the expression, is rarely its meaning in the New Testament. Out of all the cases in which the phrase occurs it only twice has reference to God’s fulfilment of His spoken words; and these two instances both occur in the Epistle to the Hebrews, where we read: ‘He is faithful that promised,’ and ‘She judged Him faithful that promised.’ Now it is a great truth that out of the darkness God has spoken; that, like some constitutional monarch, He has declared the principles of His government, and so has bound Himself by articulate expressions to follow out these in His dealings. He is not a despot; He is a King who has laid down the law to which He Himself will adhere. His promises hang out over the troubled stream of life, like boughs from the trees on the bank, for His half-drowned children to grasp at and to hold by.

But great as that thought of our God’s fulfilment of His every word is, it does not go half way down to the depths of meaning in the New Testament use of the expression ‘the faithful God.’ For my text witnesses to a deeper meaning. He cannot deny Himself.’ That is Paul’s notion of the faithfulness of God; that His nature and character constitute for Him, if I may so say, a solemn obligation; that He is His own law; that He is bound by what He is, and that He never can be, in the smallest degree, anything contradictory to, or falling beneath, the level of His own equable, consistent, and uniform Self. As God, He must be true to the character of goodness and wisdom which the very name of God brings with it. We drop below our best selves; contradictory impulses and thoughts fight in our nature; the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh. No man is always himself; God is always Himself. We are like the little brooks that are dried in drought and swelled in spate, are parched in summer and frozen in winter, but this great river is always bank-full, and always clear and always flowing. This ocean is tideless and has no ebb or flood; and you can look down into its deepest depths, and as far as the vision of the eye can go, all is clear and pure, and where vision fails, it is not that the ocean is dark but that the sense is limited. So John says, in his infantile-angelic way, with a simplicity that is sublime, ‘God is Light, and in Him is no darkness at all.’ The sun has spots; it has, as astronomers tell us, a photosphere, an envelope that gives light, but possibly its core is black and dark. But that is not so with the true Light. ‘God is faithful; He cannot deny Himself.’

Then there is another deep thought in the word which is recurrent in the various applications of the expression throughout the New Testament - that God’s faithfulness implies that He is true, not only to His words, not only to Himself, but also to the trend and drift, so to speak, of His past acts. That thought is applied in the New Testament in two different ways. Peter says to the troubled disciples to whom he was writing, ‘Commit the keeping of your souls to Him in well-doing, as unto a faithful Creator.’ The fact of having made creatures binds God to certain obligations in regard to them, and He will discharge them. The other application of the idea of God’s faithfulness is in reference to His past acts bearing on man’s redemption. We find verses like these: ‘Faithful is He that calleth you’; ‘God is faithful by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of His Son; The thought there is that, by the fact of His redeeming work, God has come under certain obligations to the persons who yield to the invitation that is wrapped up in the message and gifts of Christ and of Christ’s Spirit, and that He will faithfully discharge these.

II. Now, then, carry these three simple thoughts with you - faithful to His word, faithful to Himself, faithful to His past-and let us ask, in the second place, what does this faithfulness guarantee?

What does His faithfulness as Creator guarantee to the creature whom He has made?

It guarantees, first, that the faithful Creator will care for His creature’s well-being. Creation is not merely a work of power, nor merely a necessary process, as some people seem to think. It is the outcome of the love of God, and so the wise psalmist says, ‘To Him that made great lights; for His mercy endureth for ever.’ He came forth, and poured Himself, as it were, into beings because His name is Love, and having thus created, He recognises the obligations under which He has thereby come. The smallest microscopic animal, because it has the mysterious gift of life, has a claim on God; and He is bound - I was going to say to do His utmost, but all that He does is His utmost - to care for that creature’s well-being. The birds lay their eggs, and hatch their young, and then let these go as they will Men sometimes forget the duties of parents and the responsibilities that are involved therein; but God the Creator lets us plead His faithfulness with Him, and turn round to Him and say, ‘Thou hast made me; therefore-I bring in ‘my hand Thine own bill, with Thine own name to it. Pay it, O God!’ ‘Commit the keeping of your souls to Him as to a faithful Creator.’

Especially does this conception of His faithfulness to His past in creation guarantee to us that all desires implanted by Him will be satisfied, and all needs created by Him will be supplied. Our wishes, when they are right, are prophecies of our possessions. God has put no craving in a man’s heart which He does not mean to fill. Remember the homely old proverb: ‘He never sends mouths but He sends meat to fill them.’ And if in thy heart there are longings which thou knowest are not sinful, be sure that these are veiled prophets of a divine gift. All these necessities of ours, all these hungry desires, all these sometimes painful thirsts of the soul that we try to slake at muddy and broken cisterns - all these are meant to take us straight to God. They are like the long indentations of the coast on our western shores, openings by which the flashing waters may run far inland and bathe the roots of the everlasting hills. So when God gives us a desire, He binds Himself to fulfil it. The world is a bewildering and unanswerable riddle and mystery, and human life is one long misery, unless we believe and know that because He is the faithful Creator no man need hunger with a ravening desire after food that is not provided, nor need any man thirst with a thirst that there is no water anywhere to slake.

Again, his great thought of the divine faithfulness as Creator guarantees that our tasks shall be proportioned to our strength. So Paul uses the thought in one tender sentence, when he says ‘God is faithful; who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able.’ Or as the psalmist has it in his sweet words, ‘He knoweth our frame; He remembereth that we are dust.’ Nothing above our power will ever be laid upon us. Careless and cruel drivers load their horses beyond their strength, and the patient drudge pulls until it drops. Unwise engineers put too much pressure on their boilers, or try to get too much work out of their engine. But God knows how much pressure the hearts that He makes can stand, and what is the utmost weight of the load that we can lift; and He will not be less merciful and faithful to His creatures than is the merciful man to his Beast. He is the faithful Creator who recognises His obligations to care for the works of His own hands, who will satisfy their desires, and supply the needs that He has made, who will shape their burdens according to the strength of their shoulders.

And if we turn to the other side of the thought, and ask what is guaranteed by God’s calling of us in Christ Jesus, then we get three answers.

The first thing that is guaranteed is forgiveness. The Apostle John, in words that are often misunderstood, grasps the thought of God’s faithfulness in this application when he says, ‘He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.’ Since Christ has come, and has died in order that men might be pardoned and cleansed, God’s faithfulness is implicated in God’s pardoning mercy; and He would neither be faithful to His promises, nor to His past act in Christ’s mission, nor to the invitation and call that He has sounded in our ears, unless, when we obeyed that call, we entered into the full possession of His pardoning grace. So the gentle, tender attribute of Mercy becomes solemn, and stately, and eternal, when it is regarded as the outcome of His faithfulness. In some tropical forests yon will find strong tree-trunks out of which spring the most radiant and ethereal-looking blossoms. So the fair flower of forgiving mercy springs from the steadfast bole of the divine faithfulness. He is ‘Just, and the Justifier of him that believeth in Jesus’

Again, God’s faithfulness guarantees the progressive perfecting of Christian character. That is the application of the thought which is most frequent in Paul’s letters. We find it, for instance, in the passage Where the prayer that the saints in Thessalonica might be ‘preserved, body, soul, and spirit, blameless unto the coming of the Lord Jesus,’ is, by the Apostle, based on the words ‘faithful is He that calleth you, who also will do it.’ And a similar collocation of ideas is found in other passages, which I need not quote to you now. The progressive perfecting of the Christian life is guaranteed by the thought of the faithfulness of God. He does not begin a work and then get disgusted with it, or turn to something else, or find that His resources will not avail to work it out to completion-That is how we do. He never stops till He ends. As the prophet says about another matter, ‘His hands have laid the foundation of the house; His hands shall also finish it. ‘

I remember a place on our coasts where some man,. who had not calculated his resources, nor the strength of the ocean, began to build a breakwater’ and sea-walls, and to-day the blocks of dislodged concrete are lying in wild confusion on the beach, and the victorious waves break over them at every tide, and laugh at the abortive design. None that look on God’s work will ever have the right to say, ‘This man began to build, and was not able to finish.’ There are no half-completed failures in God’s workshop. Only you have to keep yourself under His influences. It is useless to talk about the ‘final perseverance of the saints, ‘ unless you remember that only they who continuously yield themselves to God are continuously the subjects of His cleansing and hallowing grace, If they do, the progressive perfecting of those upon whom He has begun to work is sure. Like some patient artist, He lays touch upon touch on the canvas, or smites piece after piece off the marble, till the ideal is realised, and stands there before Him. Like some patient seamstress, He works needleful after needleful of varying colours of silk on the tapestry, until the whole pattern is accomplished. ‘He is faithful; He also will do it.’

But again, that conception of the divine faithfulness guarantees ultimate blessedness. That thought is always taken in connection with the preceding one, in the various passages to which reference has just been made. Paul

says in another place, basing his assurance on the same thought of the divine faithfulness; ‘He will confirm you unto the day of the Lord Jesus.’ And so we have to think that just because God is faithful, therefore the Christian life here on earth, because it is so much and because it is so little, because of its devotion and because of its selfishness, bears in itself the prophecy of a time when all that is here checked tendency shall become triumphant realisation; and when the plant that here was an exotic, and did put forth buds, though poor and pale compared with what it would give in its natural soil, shall be transplanted into the higher house, and there shall blossom for evermore. God is a liar unless heaven is to complete the experiences of earth. If these poor natures of ours at their best here were all that Christ had won by the travail of His soul, do you think He would be satisfied? Certainly not. We need heaven to vindicate the faithfulness of God.

III. And now one word is all that I can spare on what I meant to make the last point of my sermon, and that is, what attitude in us corresponds to the faithfulness of God?

I need only quote one of the expressions in the Epistle to the Hebrews to give the answer, ‘Hold fast the profession of your faith without wavering, for He is faithful that promised.’ Our faith corresponds with and is the answer to God’s faithfulness. As with two instruments tuned to the same pitch, when a note is struck on the one, the chords of the other vibrate it back again, so God’s faithfulness should awake the music of answering faith in our responsive and vibrating hearts. If He is worth trusting let us trust Him.

But, further, unwavering faith is the only thing that truly corresponds to unchanging faithfulness. Build rock upon rock, and since He is faithful, do not answer his steadfast faithfulness with a tremulous and vacillating confidence. What would you think of a man that had given to him some magnificent site on which to rear a fortress; some impregnable crag which he might crown with a sure defence; if, on the top of it, instead of rearing granite walls that might match their foundation, he should run up some hasty shelter of lath and plaster, or of fluttering canvas, and so think that he had adorned, when he had insulted the rock on which he built. Make your faith to match God’s faithfulness, and ‘commit the keeping of your souls to Him in welldoing, as unto a faithful Creator, leaving all things in His hands, and trusting them absolutely unto Him.

Imitate the faithfulness in such fashion as you may. Paul in one place says, ‘As God is faithful, our word to you was not yea and nay.’ It does not become a man who is trusting to the faithful God to be shifty and unreliable in his own utterances and manifeststions to men.

Let us turn away from the illusions of vain hope, from all doubtful refuges, from all the fleeting defences and treasures that earth can give. Why should we build upon a sandbank when we can build on the Rock of Ages? Why should we trust mere wealth, creatural love, success, to do for us what only the faithful God can do? All these deceive or betray or fail or pass. They are unworthy of trust. ‘God is faithful’; Christ is ‘the faithful and true witness.’ ‘This is the faithful saying... that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.’ If we will join ourselves to the faithful God and accept the faithful saying of His faithful witness, our hearts will be calm, our lives will be steadied, we shall be delivered from the misery of leaning on props which, like rotten branches, break beneath our weight. On earth we shall attain growing completeness, and shall pass thence to that per-letting in the day of the Lord Jesus which the faithful God, by His words, by His great redeeming act, and by His present workings on us, has bound Himself to give us. There we may hope to hear the wondrous welcome, which points to our assimilation to Him in whom we trust: ‘Well done, good and faithful servant.’

Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2:13 he remains faithful: This could mean that (1) he allows those who have stumbled an opportunity for repentance; (2) he faithfully judges unbelievers in accord with his unchanging will; (3) he himself is an example of faithfulness for his people to follow; and/or (4) he will faithfully accomplish his purposes in history, to save those who trust in him through the Good News (1:12; 2:19). See also Rom 3:3-4; 1 Cor 10:13; 1 Jn 1:9.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

2Ti 2:13. Πιστὸς μένει, remains faithful) This expression, by comparing with it, He will deny, most sweetly affects beyond his expectation the faithful (believing) reader,[4] who is not to be denied: He remains faithful to Himself, viz. towards [in relation to] us, who are unlike Him. [It is therefore our own fault, if we fall away.—V. g.] Thus the subsequent axiom corresponds to it, He cannot deny, etc. So in Deu 7:9-10, He is praised as the faithful God, ὁ Θεὸς ὁ πιστὸς, who both rewards the godly and takes vengeance on them that hate Him.—οὐ δύναται, He cannot) This impossibility is worthy of our praise: Jer 44:22.

[4] Comforts him by the implied promise coming in unexpectedly in the midst of threats.—ED.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2Ti 2:13 . εἰ ἀπιοτοῦμεν : It is reasonable to hold that the sense of ἀπιστέω in this place must be determined by the antithesis of πιστὸς μένει . Now πιστός , as applied to God, must mean faithful (Deu 7:9 ); one who “keepeth truth for ever” ( Psa 146:6 ; 2Co 1:18 ; 1Th 5:24 ; 2Th 3:3 ; Heb 10:23 ; Heb 11:11 ). There is the same contrast in Rom 3:3 , “Shall their want of faith ( ἀπιστία ) make of none effect the faithfulness ( πίστιν ) of God?” But while we render ἀπιστοῦμεν , with R.V., are faithless , we must remember that unreliability and disbelief in the truth were closely allied in St. Paul’s conception of them.

ἀρνήσασθαι γὰρ οὐ δύναται : Being essentially the unchangeable Truth, He cannot be false to His own nature, as we, when ἀπιστοῦμεν , are false to our better nature which has affinity with the Eternal. A lie in word, or unfaithfulness in act, is confessedly only an expedient to meet a temporary difficulty; it involves a disregard of the permanent element in our personality. The more a man realises the transitory nature of created things, and his own kinship with the Eternal, the more unnatural and unnecessary does falsity in word or deed appear to him. It is therefore inconceivable that God should lie (Num 23:19 ; 1Sa 15:29 ; Mal 3:6 ; Tit 1:2 ; Heb 6:18 ). The application of the clause here is not that “He will not break faith with us” (Alf.), but that the consideration of our powerlessness to affect the constancy of God our Father should brace us up to exhibit moral courage, as being His “true children”.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

believe not--"If we are unbelievers (literally, 'unfaithful'), He remains faithful" (Deu 7:9-10). The oldest manuscripts read, "For He cannot (it is an impossibility that He should) deny Himself." He cannot be unfaithful to His word that He will deny those who deny Him, though we be not faithful to our profession of faith in Him (Rom 3:3). Three things are impossible to God, to die, to lie, and to be deceived [AUGUSTINE, The Creed, 1.1], (Heb 6:18). This impossibility is not one of infirmity, but of infinite power and majesty. Also, indirectly, comfort is suggested to believers, that He is faithful to His promises to them; at the same time that apostates are shaken out of their self-deceiving fancy, that because they change, Christ similarly may change. A warning to Timothy to be steadfast in the faith.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 13. If we believe not] Should we deny the faith and apostatize, he is the same, as true to his threatenings as to his promises; he cannot deny - act contrary to, himself.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

13 If we are unbelieving, he remaineth faithful The meaning is, that our base desertion takes nothing from the Son of God or from his glory; because, having everything in himself, he stands in no need of our confession. As if he had said, “Let them desert Christ who will, yet they take nothing from him; for when they perish, he remaineth unchanged.”

He cannot deny himself This is a still stronger expression. “Christ is not like us, to swerve from his truth.” Hence it is evident, that all who deny Christ are disowned by him. And thus he drives away from wicked apostates the flatteries with which they soothe themselves; because, being in the habit of changing their hue, according to circumstances, they would willingly imagine that Christ, in like manner, assumes various forms, and is liable to change; which Paul affirms to be impossible. Yet, at the same time, we must firmly believe what I stated briefly on a former passage, that our faith is founded on the eternal and unchangeable truth of Christ, in order that it may not waver through the unsteadfastness or apostasy of men.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(13) If we believe not.—Better rendered, if we are faithless—that is, untrue to the vows of our Christian profession. The faithlessness implies more than mere unbelief in any of the fundamental doctrines of the faith, such as the Resurrection of the Lord or His divinity.

Yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself.—Those who have understood these words as containing soothing, comforting voices for the sinner, for the faithless Christian who has left his first love, are gravely mistaken. The passage is one of distinct severity—may even be termed one of the sternest in the Book of Life; for it tells how it is impossible even for the pitiful Redeemer to forgive in the future life. “He cannot deny Himself”—cannot treat the faithless as though he were faithful—cannot act as though faithfulness and faithlessness were one and the same thing. The Christian teacher, such as Timothy, and the members of his flock likewise, must remember that, sure and certain as are the promises of glory and happiness to those who love the Lord and try to live His life, so surely will fall the chastisement on all who are faithless and untrue.

With the solemn words of this “faithful saying” St. Paul closes this, the second division of his Epistle—fellowship in the sufferings of Christ here, on this side the grave, and fellowship in the glory of Christ there, on the other side the grave—the one side was the sure consequence of the other; the one could not exist without the other.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

13. if we believe not] R.V. if we are faithless giving both the play of words in the contrast ‘he abideth faithful’ and the stronger force required for the climax; as ‘sovereignty’ is better than ‘life,’ so a ‘faithless rejection’ is worse than ‘the denials of our weaker moments,’ a Judas than a Peter. The word ‘seems always in the N.T. to imply not ‘untrueness,’ ‘unfaithfulness,’ but definitely ‘unbelief.’ Ellicott Cf. Mar_16:11; Mar_16:16.

he abideth faithful] To His covenant and promise, cf. Rom_3:3. We should insert with mss. the conjunction, to connect the final clause with this; for he cannot deny himself. The balance of probability is strongly in favour of this clause being part of the quotation, if only from the rhetorical weakness of adding such a tail piece, however true and weighty. The aorist infinitive represents the idea of the verb in itself simply and absolutely, free from any limit or condition of time; ‘for deny Himself—He cannot.’ So in Mar_15:31 ‘save Himself—He cannot.’

We may render the passage thus, to shew its balanced force and rhythm:—

‘If with Him we died,

Life with Him we shall have won;

If we suffer at His side,

We shall share His throne;—

With Him—Yes, here and ever.

If we Him deny,

We shall be by Him denied;

If we leave Him faithlessly,

Faithful doth He bide;—

Deny Himself—No, never.’

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful,.... The Syriac and Ethiopic versions read, "if we believe not him". This may be understood, either of such who are altogether destitute of faith, who do not believe in Christ at all; and particularly do not believe what was just now said concerning his denying such that deny him, but mock and scoff at his coming, and at a future judgment: this unbelief of theirs will not make void his faith or faithfulness; see Rom 3:3, he will abide faithful to his word of threatening; and what he says in Mar 16:16 will be found to be an everlasting truth: or it may be understood of true believers, whose faith sometimes is very low, as to its exercise on Christ, and with reference to their future glory and happiness; but Christ is faithful to all his, covenant engagements for them, to bring them to glory, and to every word of promise concerning their happiness, and to every branch of the faithful saying above mentioned; and he is ever the same in his love to them, and in the efficacy of his blood, righteousness, and sacrifice; and his salvation is an everlasting and unchangeable one; nor do the saints' interest in it, and security by it, depend upon their acts of believing, or their frames, but upon the firmness and unchangeableness of Christ, the object of faith.

He cannot deny himself; he cannot go contrary to his word; that would be to act contrary to his nature and perfections, and would be a denying of himself, which is not possible; wherefore his faithfulness will never fail, even though, the faith of his people does, as to the exercise of it.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

13 If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself.

Ver. 13. If we believe not] {See Trapp on "Rom 3:3"} Some sense it thus: though we prove perfidious, yet he is no loser by us, as having all within himself. Howbeit hereby we show that we have no interest in Christ; for he cannot deny himself, though we can deny him.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful - This cannot mean that, if we live in sin, he will certainly save us, as if he had made any promise to the elect, or formed any purpose that he would save them; whatever might be their conduct; because:

(1) He had just said that if we deny him he will deny us; and,

(2) There is no such promise in the Bible, and no such purpose has been formed. The promise is, that be that is a believer shall be saved, and there is no purpose to save any but such as lead holy lives. The meaning must be, that if we are unbelieving and unfaithful, Christ will remain true to his word, and we cannot hope to be saved. The object of the apostle evidently is, to excite Timothy to fidelity in the performance of duty, and to encourage him to bear trials, by the assurance that we cannot hope to escape if we are not faithful to the cause of the Saviour. This interpretation accords with the design which he had in view.

He cannot deny himself - Implying that it would be a denial of his very nature to save those who are unfaithful. He is holy; and how can he save one who is unholy? His very nature is purity; and how can he save one who has no purity? Let no one, then, suppose that, because he is elected, he is safe, if he lives in sin. The electing purpose of God, indeed, makes salvation sure; but it is only for those who lead righteous lives. Nothing would be mere dishonorable for God than to resolve to save a man that lived habitually in sin; and if that were the doctrine of election, it would deserve all the opprobrium that has ever been heaped upon it.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

If we believe not; i.e. if we refuse to believe in God, or if after having believed, we depart from our faith, the Almighty still continues faithful; he is still what he was. Our believing in him cannot increase his glory, nor can our disbelief in him cause any diminution thereof, since it is already infinite. (Estius) --- The sense may be: when we renounce God, and refuse to believe in him, will he be less powerful to punish us? or, will his menaces be less true or less efficacious? He will effect his world without us, for he will infallibly bring about the salvation of his elect. (Bible de Vence)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful; whether we believe or believe not, or whether we be faithful to our trust or be not, yet God will show himself faithful, either to his promises made to them that believe, or to his threatenings denounced against those that believe not.

He cannot deny himself; for it is impossible that he who is truth titself should be otherwise, that were for him to deny himself.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

13. Abideth faithful—Faithful to what? Not faithful to restore us from our apostasy and still save us. Nor, as Alford, (and, indeed, all the commentators we consult seem to miss here,) faithful to his promise above to deny us if we believe not. But faithful to the very one to whom we are unfaithful and unbelieving—himself. He will be true to his own identity, his own glorious self. That he will be firm to his purpose to deny us for our unfaithfulness is, however, inferentially included.

Cannot deny himself— His own glorious nature will forever unequivocally assert itself, both in being what he is, and doing with absolute perfectness all that becomes his nature. And that nature will take all who are in accordance with it into glorious unity with itself, and reject all that are discordant with it from itself.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Are faithless for believe not. A.V; he for yet he, A.V; for he for he, A.V and T.B. Are faithless (ajpistoumen); meaning the same as the A.V believe not, which is everywhere in the New Testament the sense of ajpistew (Mar_16:11; Luk_24:11; Rom_3:3, etc.) (For the contrast between man"s unbelief and God"s faithfulness, see (Rom_3:3) He cannot deny himself, by coming short of any promise once made by him. (comp. Tit_1:2; Heb_6:18 Heb_10:23, etc.) This and the two preceding couplets in vers. 11 and 12 make up "the faithful saying" spoken of in ver. 11. (see 1Ti_1:15, note)

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

If we believe not - That is, though some believe not, God will make good all his promises to them that do believe. He cannot deny himself - His word cannot fail.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

13. If we believe not. If we prove faithless, he will still be faithful to keep every promise he has made.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

Chapter 32

THE NEED OF A SOLEMN CHARGE AGAINST A CONTROVERSIAL SPIRIT, OF DILIGENCE FREE FROM SHAME, AND OF A HATRED OF THE PROFANITY WHICH WRAPS UP ERROR IN THE LANGUAGE OF TRUTH. - 2Ti_2:14-18

WE here enter upon a new section of the Epistle, which continues down to the end of the chapter. It consists in the main of directions as to Timothys own behavior in the responsible post in which he has been placed. And these are both positive and negative; he is told what to aim at, and what to avoid.

As to the meaning of "these things," of which he is to put his flock in remembrance, it seems most natural to refer the expression to the "faithful saying" with which the previous section closes. He is to remind others (and thereby strengthen his own courage and faith), that to die for Christ is to live with Him, and to suffer for Christ is to reign with Him, while to deny Him is to involve His denying us; for, however faithless we may be, He must abide by what He has promised both of rewards and punishments. The fact that the Apostle uses the, expression "put them in remembrance," implying that they already know it, is some confirmation of the view that the "faithful saying" is a formula that was often recited in the congregation; a view which the rhythmical character of the passage renders somewhat probable.

Having reminded them of what they already know well, Timothy is to "charge them in the sight of the Lord, that they strive not about words." This phrase "charge them in the sight of the Lord" is worthy of notice. The Apostle twice uses it in addressing Timothy himself. "I charge thee in the sight of God, and Christ Jesus, and the elect angels, that thou observe these things without prejudice"; {1Ti_5:21} and "I charge thee in the sight of God and of Christ Jesus, Who shall judge the quick and dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom; preach the word". {2Ti_4:1} The word for "charge" ( διαμαρτιθεσθαι ) indicates the interposition (δια) of two parties, and hence comes to mean to "call heaven and earth to witness"; in other words, to "testify solemnly" or "adjure"; and from this latter meaning it easily becomes employed for a solemn charge or exhortation. In translating, it would be quite legitimate to insert an adverb to express this: "solemnly charging them in the sight of God." In dealing with these pestilent disputes and perilous opinions Timothy, both for his own sake and for that of his hearers, is to remember, and to remind them, in Whose presence he is speaking. Gods eye is upon both preacher and congregation; and in pleading the cause of truth and sobriety the preacher is in fact pleading before the Divine tribunal. This will make the teacher wary in his words, and will lead his hearers to listen to them in a spirit of sobriety.

It has been debated whether St. Paul has in his mind those "faithful men" to whom Timothy is to commit the substance of the Apostles teaching (2Ti_2:2), or whether he is not now taking a wider view and including the whole of the disciples flock. It is impossible to determine this with certainty; and it is not a question of much moment. One thing is clear; viz., that the whole section is applicable to ministers throughout the Church in all ages; and the words under consideration seem to be well worthy of attention at the present time, when so many unworthy topics and so much unworthy language may be heard from the pulpit. One is inclined to think that if ministers always remembered that they were speaking "in the sight of God," they would sometimes find other things to say, and other ways of saying them. We talk glibly enough of another mans words and opinions, when he is not present. We may be entirely free from the smallest wish to misrepresent or exaggerate; but at the same time we speak with great freedom and almost without restraint. What a change comes over us, if, in the midst of our glib recital of his views and sayings, the man himself enters the room! At once we begin to measure our words and to speak with more caution. Our tone becomes less positive, and we have less confidence that we are justified in making sweeping statements on the subject. Ought not something of this circumspection and diffidence to be felt by those who take the responsibility of telling others about the mind of God? And if they remembered constantly that they speak "in the sight of the Lord," this attitude of solemn circumspection would become habitual.

"That they strive not about words." The spirit of controversy is a bad thing in itself; but the evil is intensified when the subject of controversy is a question of words. Controversy is necessary; but it is a necessary evil: and that man has need of searchings of heart who finds that he enjoys it, and sometimes even provokes it, when it might easily have been avoided. But a fondness for strife about words is one of the lowest forms which the malady can take. Principles are things worth striving about, when opposition to what we know to be right and true is unavoidable. But disputatiousness about words is something like proof that love of self has taken the place of love of truth. The word-splitter wrangles, not for the sake of arriving at the truth, but for the sake of a dialectical victory. He cares little as to what is right or wrong, so long as he comes off triumphant in the argument. Hence the Apostle said in the first Epistle that the natural fruit of these disputes about words is "envy, strife, and railings". {1Ti_6:4} They are an exhibition of dexterity in which the object of the disputants is not to investigate, but to baffle, not to enlighten, but to perplex. And here he says that they are worse than worthless. They tend "to no profit": on the contrary they tend "to the subverting of those who listen to them." This subversion or overthrow (καταστροφη) is the exact opposite of what ought to be the result of Christian discussion, viz., edification or building up (οικοδομη). The audience, instead of being built up in faith and principle, find themselves bewildered and lowered. They have a less firm grasp of truth and a less loyal affection for it. It is as if some beautiful object, which they were learning to understand and admire, had been scored all over with marks by those who had been disputing as to the meaning and relation of the details. It has been a favorite device of the heretics and skeptics of all ages to endeavor to provoke a discussion on points about which they hope to place an opponent in a difficulty. Their object is not to settle, but to unsettle; not to clear up doubts, but to create them: and hence we find Bishop Butler in his Durham Charge recommending his clergy to avoid religious discussions in general conversation, because the clever propounder of difficulties will find ready hearers, while the patient answerer of them will not do so. To dispute is to place truth at an unnecessary disadvantage.

"Give diligence to present thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed." In the previous section St. Paul exhorted Timothy to be ready to suffer for Christ: here he charges him to work for Him; and in the language which he uses he indicates that such work is a serious matter; - "Give diligence." The word which he uses (σπουδαζειν) is one which scarcely occurs in the New Testament except in the writings of St. Paul. And the corresponding substance (grovel) is also much more common in his Epistles than it is elsewhere. It indicates that ceaseless, serious, earnest zeal, which was one of his chief characteristics. And certainly if the proposed standard is to be reached, or even seriously aimed at, abundance of this zeal will be required. For the end proposed is not the admiration or affection of the congregation, or of ones superiors, nor yet success in influencing and winning souls; but that of presenting oneself to God in such a way as to secure His approval, without fear of incurring the reproach of being a workman who has shirked or scamped his work. The Apostles charge is a most wholesome one: and if it is acted upon, it secures diligence without fussiness, and enthusiasm without fanaticism. The being "approved" (δοκιμος) implies being tried and proved as precious metals are proved before they are accepted (δεχομαι) as genuine. It is the word used of the "pure gold" with which Solomon overlaid his ivory throne. {2Ch_9:17} In the New Testament it is always used of persons, and with one exception {Jam_1:12} it is used by no one but St. Paul. He uses it of being approved both of men {Rom_14:18} and of God. {2Co_10:18}

The single word which represents "that needeth not to be ashamed" (ανεπαισχυντος) is a rare formation, which occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. Its precise meaning is not quite certain. The more simple and frequent form (αναισχυντος) means "shameless," i.e. , one who does not feel ashamed when he ought to do so. Such a meaning, if taken literally, would be utterly unsuitable here. And we then have choice of two interpretations, either

(1) that which is adopted in both A.V. and R.V., who need not feel shame, because his work will bear examination, or

(2) who does not feel shame, although his work is of a kind which the world holds in contempt. The latter is the interpretation which Chrysostom adopts, and there is much to be said in its favor. Three times already in this letter has the Apostle spoken of not being ashamed of the Gospel. He says "Be not ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me His prisoner." Again, "I suffer these things; yet I am not ashamed." And again of Onesiphorus, "He oft refreshed me, and was not ashamed of my chain" {2Ti_1:8; 2Ti_1:12; 2Ti_1:16}. Does he not, therefore, mean here also, "Present thyself to God as a workman who is not ashamed of being in His service and of doing whatever work may be assigned to him?" This brings us very close to what would be the natural meaning of the word, according to the analogy of the simpler form. "If you are to work for God," says Paul, "you must be in a certain sense shameless. There are some men who set public opinion at defiance, in order that they may follow their own depraved desires. The Christian minister must be prepared sometimes to set public opinion at defiance, in order that he may follow the commands of God." The vox populi, even when taken in its most comprehensive sense, is anything but an infallible guide. Public opinion is nearly always against the worst forms of selfishness, dishonesty, and sensuality; and to set it at defiance in such matters is to be "shameless" in the worst sense. But sometimes public opinion is very decidedly against some of the noblest types of holiness; and to be "shameless" under such circumstances is a necessary qualification for doing ones duty. It is by no means certain that this is not St. Pauls meaning. If we translate, "A workman that feeleth no shame," we shall have a phrase that would cover either interpretation.

"Handling aright the word of truth," or "Rightly dividing the word of truth." There is some doubt here also as to the explanation of the word rendered "handling aright" or "rightly dividing" (ορθοτομειν). Once more we have a word which occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. Its radical meaning is to "cut aright" or "cut straight," especially of driving a straight road through a district, or a straight furrow across a field. In the LXX it is twice used of making straight or directing a persons path.

"In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths"; and "The righteousness of the perfect shall direct his way". {Pro_3:6; Pro_11:5} The idea of rightness seems to be the dominant one; that of cutting quite secondary; so that the Revisers are quite justified in following the example of the Vulgate (recte tractantem), and translating simply "rightly handling." But this right handling may be understood as consisting in seeing that the word of truth moves in the right direction and progresses in the congregation by a legitimate development. The word, therefore, excludes all fanciful and perilous deviations and evasions, such as those in which the false teachers indulged, and all those "strivings about words," which distract mens minds and divert them from the substance of the Gospel. It may be doubted whether the word contains any idea of distribution, as that the word of truth is to be preached according to the capacity of the hearers, -strong meat to the strong, and milk to those who are still but babes in the faith. We may feel sure that the expression has nothing to do with the cutting up of victims in sacrifices, or with cutting straight to the heart of a thing, as if the word of truth had a kernel which must be reached by cleaving it down the middle. Yet both these explanations have been suggested. Clement of Alexandria and Eusebius use the substantive derived from St. Pauls verb ( ορθοτομια ) in the sense of orthodoxy; which seems to imply that they understood the verb in the sense of handling aright ("Strom.," VII 16.; "H.E.," IV 3.).

Once more {1Ti_6:20} the Apostle warns his disciple against "profane babblings." He is (according to St. Pauls graphic word) to make a circuit in order to avoid such things to "give them a wide berth" ( περιιστασο ; comp. Tit_3:9). These empty profanities, with their philosophic pretentiousness, had done much harm already, and would do still more; for the men who propagate them would certainly go still greater lengths in impiety; and they must receive no encouragement. Their teaching is of a kind that will spread rapidly, and it is deadly in its effects. It "will eat as doth a gangrene."

The substitution of "gangrene" for "cancer" is an improvement, as giving the exact word used in the original, which expresses the meaning more forcibly than "cancer." Cancer is sometimes very slow in its ravages, and may go on for years without causing serious harm. Gangrene poisons the whole frame and quickly becomes fatal. The Apostle foresees that doctrines, which really ate out the very heart of Christianity, were likely to become very popular in Ephesus and would do incalculable mischief. The nature of these doctrines we gather from what follows. They are preached by the kind of people (οιτινες) who miss their aim as regards the truth. They profess to be aiming at the truth, but they go very wide of the mark. For instance, some of them say that it is quite a mistake to look forward to a resurrection of the body, or indeed to any resurrection at all. The only real resurrection has taken place already and cannot be repeated. It is that intellectual and spiritual process which is involved in rising from degrading ignorance to a recognition and acceptance of the truth. What is commonly called death, viz., the separation of soul and body, is not really death at all. Death in the true sense of the word means ignorance of God and of Divine things; to be buried is to be buried in error. Consequently the true resurrection is to be reanimated by the truth and to escape from the sepulcher of spiritual darkness; and this process is accomplished once for all in every enlightened soul. We learn from the writings of Irenaeus ("Haer.," II 31:2) and of Tertullian ("De Res. Carn.," 19.) that this form of error was in existence in their day: and Augustine in a letter to Januarius (55:3:4) shows how such false notions might have grown out of St. Pauls own teaching. The Apostle insisted so frequently upon the fact of our being dead with Christ and raised together with Him, that some persons jumped to the conclusion that this was the whole of the Christian doctrine of the resurrection. The resurrection of the body was a great stumbling-block to Greeks and Orientals, with their low notions of the dignity of the human body; and therefore any interpretation of the resurrection which got rid of the difficulty of supposing that in the world to come also men would have bodies, was welcome. It was calamity enough to be burdened with a body in this life: it was appalling to think of such a condition being continued in eternity. Hence the obnoxious doctrine was explained away and resolved into allegory and metaphor.

Of Hymenaeus and Philetus nothing further is known. Hymenaeus is probably the same person as is mentioned in the first Epistle with Alexander, as having made shipwreck of the faith, and been delivered unto Satan by the Apostle, to cure him of his blasphemies. We are told here that much mischief had been done by such teaching: for a number of persons had been seduced from the faith. "Some," in the English phrase "overthrow the faith of some," conveys an impression, which is not contained in the Greek (τινων), that the number of those who were led astray was small. The Greek indicates neither a large nor a small number; but what is told us leads to the conclusion that the number was not small. It is probably to this kind of teaching that St. John alludes, when he writes some twenty or more years later than this, and says, "Even now there have arisen many antichrists". {1Jn_2:18} Teaching of this kind was only too likely to be popular in Ephesus.

It is by no means unknown among ourselves. At the present time also there is a tendency to retain the old Christian terms and to deprive them of all Christian meaning. Not only such words as "miracle," "Church," "catholic," and "sacrament" are evaporated and etherealized, until they lose all definite meaning; but even such fundamental terms as "atonement," "redemption," and "immortality." Nay, it is quite possible to find even the word "God" used to express a Being which is neither personal nor conscious. And thus language, which has been consecrated to the service of religion for a long series of centuries, is degraded to the unworthy purpose of insinuating pantheism and agnosticism. This perversion of well-established phraseology is to be condemned on purely literary grounds: and on moral grounds it may be stigmatized as dishonest. If Hymenaeus and Philetus wish to deny the resurrection, let them also surrender the word which expresses it. They have abundance of words wherewith to express mental and moral enlightenment. Let them not so handle a word of truth as to make it suggest a lie.

William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.

13. γάρ. אcK omit this, as does the rec. text; but the MS. authority is decisive for its retention.

13. εἰ ἀπιστοῦμεν, ἐκεῖνος πιστὸς μένει. If we are faithless, He abideth faithful. The last clause gives a solemn warning; this gives a message of hope. Not every weakness of faith will call down the awful judgement ἀρνήσεται ἡμᾶς; for man’s faith in God is not the measure of God’s faithfulness to man. He is ‘the faithful God’ (Deu 7:9). ἀπιστεῖν here, as always in the N.T., definitely means unbelief, a wavering of faith, not an open act of disloyalty, so much as an inward distrust of God’s promises. We have the same thought in Rom 3:3 (in a different context), εἱ ἠπίστησάν τινες, μὴ ἡ ἀπιστία αὐτῶν τὴν πίστιν τοῦ θεοῦ καταργήσει; μὴ γένοιτο.

It thus appears that clauses 1, 2, 4 of this remarkable hymn are little more than reproductions of phrases from St Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, clause 3 being based on words of Christ. It does not seem an improbable conjecture that the hymn was actually composed at Rome in reference to the earlier persecutions of Christians under Nero, and that it thus became known to St Paul during his second imprisonment in the imperial city. If this be so, he is here, as it were, quoting a popular version of words from his own great Epistle, which had become stereotyped by liturgical use.

ἀρνήσασθαι γὰρ ἑαυτὸν αὐ δύναται, for He cannot deny Himself; ἀδύνατον ψεύσασθαι θεόν (Heb 6:18). The ‘Omnipotence’ of God does not include such acts of self-contradiction; omnipotence for a perfectly moral and holy Being is conditioned by that morality and holiness.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

13. ἐκεῖνος πιστὸς μένει] perhaps, He remains faithful to His promises of mercy, cf. Rom 3:3, Rom 11:29-32 and 1Jn 3:20, ἀπιστοῦμεν being then less strong than ἀρνησόμεθα; but the balance of the rhythm and the following clause almost require a note of warning: He remains faithful; He keeps his word both for reward and for punishment; cf. 4:8 and 1:4, Deu 7:9, Exo 34:6, Exo 34:7.

ἀρνήσασθαι . . . δύναται] prob. a comment by the writer. For the thought, cf. Num 23:19, “God is not a man that he should lie, neither the son of man that he should repent.” Tit 1:2 ὁ ἀψευδὴς θεός. Clem. Rom. 1:37, οὐδὲν γὰρ ἀδύνατον παρὰ τῷ θεῷ, εἰ μὴ τὸ ψεύσασθαι.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

If we believe not [ει απιστουμεν] . Better, are faithless or untrue to him. Comp. Rom 3:3. In Pastorals only here.

Faithful [πιστος] . True to his own nature, righteous character, and requirements, according to which he cannot accept as faithful one who has proved untrue to him. To do this would be to deny himself.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.