2 Timothy 2:8

I. To encourage Timothy in suffering, the apostle puts him in mind of the resurrection of Christ (Ti2 2:8): Remember that Jesus Christ, of the seed of David, was raised from the dead, according to my gospel. This is the great proof of his divine mission, and therefore a great confirmation of the truth of the Christian religion; and the consideration of it should make us faithful to our Christian profession, and should particularly encourage us in suffering for it. Let suffering saints remember this. Observe, 1. We are to look to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despised the shame, and has now sat down at the right hand of the throne of God, Heb 12:2. 2. The incarnation and resurrection of Jesus Christ, heartily believed and rightly considered, will support a Christian under all sufferings in the present life.

II. Another thing to encourage him in suffering was that he had Paul for an example. Observe,

1. How the apostle suffered (Ti2 2:9): Wherein I suffer as an evil-doer; and let not Timothy the son expect any better treatment than Paul the father. Paul was a man who did good, and yet suffered as an evil-doer: we must not think it strange if those who do well fare ill in this world, and if the best of men meet with the worst of treatment; but this was his comfort that the word of God was not bound. Persecuting powers may silence ministers and restrain them, but they cannot hinder the operation of the word of God upon men's hearts and consciences; that cannot be bound by any human force. This might encourage Timothy not to be afraid of bonds for the testimony of Jesus; for the word of Christ, which ought to be dearer to him than liberty, or life itself, should in the issue suffer nothing by those bonds. Here we see, (1.) The good apostle's treatment in the world: I suffer trouble; to this he was called and appointed. (2.) The pretence and colour under which he suffered: I suffer as an evil-doer; so the Jews said to Pilate concerning Christ, If he were not a malefactor, we would not have delivered him up to thee, Joh 18:30. (3.) The real and true cause of his suffering trouble as an evil-doer: Wherein; that is, in or for the sake of the gospel. The apostle suffered trouble unto bonds, and afterwards he resisted unto blood, striving against sin, Heb 12:4. Though the preachers of the word are often bound, yet the word is never bound.

2. Why he suffered cheerfully: I endure all things for the elects' sake, Ti2 2:10. Observe, (1.) Good ministers may and should encourage themselves in the hardest services and the hardest sufferings, with this, that God will certainly bring good to his church, and benefit to his elect, out of them. - That they may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus. Next to the salvation of our own souls we should be willing to do and suffer any thing to promote the salvation of the souls of others. (2.) The elect are designed to obtain salvation: God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation, Th1 5:9. (3.) This salvation is in Christ Jesus, in him as the fountain, the purchaser, and the giver of it; and it is accompanied with eternal glory: there is no salvation in Christ Jesus without it. (4.) The sufferings of our apostle were for the elects' sake, for their confirmation and encouragement.

III. Another thing with which he encourages Timothy is the prospect of a future state.

1. Those who faithfully adhere to Christ and to his truths and ways, whatever it cost them, will certainly have the advantage of it in another world: If we be dead with him, we shall live with him, Ti2 2:11. If we be dead with him, we shall live with him, Ti2 2:11. If, in conformity to Christ, we be dead to this world, its pleasures, profits, and honours, we shall go to live with him in a better world, to be for ever with him. Nay, though we be called out to suffer for him, we shall not lose by that. Those who suffer for Christ on earth shall reign with Christ in heaven, Ti2 2:12. Those who suffered with David in his humiliation were preferred with him in his exaltation: so it will be with those who suffer with the Son of David.

2. It is at our peril if we prove unfaithful to him: If we deny him, he also will deny us. If we deny him before man, he will deny us before his Father, Mat 10:33. And that man must needs be for ever miserable whom Christ disowns at last. This will certainly be the issue, whether we believe it or no (Ti2 2:13): If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful; he cannot deny himself. He is faithful to his threatenings, faithful to his promises; neither one nor the other shall fall to the ground, no, not the least, jot nor tittle of them. If we be faithful to Christ, he will certainly be faithful to us. If we be false to him, he will be faithful to his threatenings: he cannot deny himself, cannot recede from any word that he hath spoken, for he is yea, and amen, the faithful witness. Observe, (1.) Our being dead with Christ precedes our living with him, and is connected with it: the one is in order to the other; so our suffering for him is the way to reign with him. You that have followed me in the regeneration, when the Son of man shall sit on the throne of his glory, you also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel Mat 19:28. (2.) This is a faithful saying, and may be depended on and ought to be believed. But, (3.) If we deny him, out of fear, or shame, or for the sake of some temporal advantage, he will deny and disown us, and will not deny himself, but will continue faithful to his word when he threatens as well as when he promises.

Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

8. Remember that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised] The force of the participle and the true order of the phrases require the rendering Remember Jesus Christ risen from the dead, of the seed of David. In the other N.T. places where the accusative follows this verb ‘remember,’ it is of a thing not a person, Mat_16:9; 1Th_2:9; Rev_18:5. And this use is really followed here; it is ‘Jesus risen—a historic fact’ which is set before Timothy. ‘Risen,’ not ‘raised,’ according to the ordinary usage of the passive, as e.g. Mat_11:11, Mar_16:14, and suiting best the idea prominent here of Christ’s own power. The force of the clause ‘of the seed of David’ is seen in the paraphrase above.

according to my gospel] The gospel entrusted to me to teach, as in 1Ti_1:11; ‘a solemn way of speaking, identifying these truths with the preaching which had been the source of Timotheus’s belief.’ Alford.

8–13. A yet higher illustration from God’s own plan of salvation—the Cross before the Crown

Just as in the first chapter St Paul appeals first to Timothy’s sympathies and experiences of an earthly kind to brace him up—his own strong feelings moved even to tears, his mother’s and grandmother’s faith and piety, the touch of the vanished hand in the solemn rite of ordination (2Ti_2:4-7), and then paints for him ‘the power of God,’ ‘the appearing of our Saviour Christ Jesus who abolished death,’ as the chief and strongest motive for keeping up heart and hope, since His must be the winning side, He must be able to keep that which is committed to Him (2Ti_2:8-12): so now, after the appeal to earthly analogies and common human experiences as to the necessity and the reward of pains and perseverance, he rises from the earthly to the heavenly, from the human to the Divine. ‘Remember, God’s plan—even the old, old promise to “the seed of the woman”—came out complete in the fulness of time. Jesus Christ of the seed of David bruised the, old serpent’s head when He rose “victor over the tomb.” True, I, or any one of us His humble servants, may for a time seem trodden under, but ’tis only for a time; the salvation, the eternal glory, is assured in His power; if we endure we shall also reign with Him. This is the motive of motives to play the man; this is indeed being strengthened in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.’

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.

2Ti_2:8

Remember that Jesus Christ, of the seed of David, was raised from the dead.

Bear in mind, the connection seems to be. But, with all its toils and sufferings, the gospel has also its stores of abounding consolation. The remembrance of the risen and victorious Saviour is the comfort and support of His ministers. (Speakers Commentary.)

Remember Jesus Christ

Every Christian who has to endure what seems to him to be hardships will sooner or later fall back upon this remembrance. He is not the first and not the chief sufferer in the world. There is One who has undergone hardships, compared with which those of other men sink into nothingness; and who has expressly told those who wish to be His disciples that they must follow Him along the path of suffering. But merely to remember Jesus Christ as a Master who has suffered and who has made suffering a condition of service will not be a permanently sustaining or comforting thought if it ends there. Therefore St. Paul says to his perplexed and desponding delegate, Remember Jesus Christ as one risen from the dead. Jesus Christ has not only endured every kind of suffering, including its extreme form, death, but He has conquered it all by rising again. Everywhere experience seems to teach us that evil of every kind--physical, intellectual, and moral--holds the field and appears likely to hold it. To allow ones self to be mastered by this thought is to be on the road to doubting Gods moral government of the world. What is the antidote to it? Remember Jesus Christ as one risen from the dead. When has evil ever been so completely triumphant over good as when it succeeded in getting the Prophet of Nazareth nailed to the tree, like some vile and noxious animal? That was the hoar of success for the malignant Jewish hierarchy and for the spiritual powers of darkness. But it was an hour to which very strict limits were placed. Very soon He who had been dismissed to the grave by a cruel and shameful death, defeated, and disgraced, rose again from it triumphant, not over Jewish priests and Roman soldiers, but over death and the cause of death; that is, over every kind of evil--pain and ignorance and sin. But to remember Jesus Christ as one risen from the dead does more than this. It not only shows us that the evil against which we have such a weary struggle in this life, both in others and in ourselves, is not (in spite of depressing appearances) permanently triumphant; it also assures us that there is another and a better life in which the good cause will be supreme, and supreme without the possibility of disaster, or even of contest. What the Son of Man has done, other sons of men can do and will do. The solidarity between the human race and the Second Adam, between the Church and its Head, is such that the victory of the Leader carries with it the victory of the whole band. Once more, to remember Jesus Christ as one risen from the dead is to remember One who claimed to be the promised Saviour of the world and who proved His claim. And this leads St. Paul on to the second point which his downcast disciple is to remember in connection with Jesus Christ. He is to remember Him as of the seed of David. He is not only truly God but truly Man. The Resurrection and the Incarnation--those are the two facts on which a faltering minister of the gospel is to hold fast, in order to comfort his heart and strengthen his steps. This is the meaning of according to my gospel. These are the truths which St. Paul has habitually preached, and of the value of which he can speak from full experience. He knows what he is talking about, when he affirms that these things are worth remembering when one is in trouble. The Resurrection and the Incarnation are facts on which he has ceaselessly insisted, because in the wear, and tear of life he has found out their worth. (A. Plummer, D. D.)

Our Lords resurrection

The high value which the apostle attributes to the bodily resurrection of the Lord, here and in other passages, is, in a remarkable way, in contrast with the spiritualistic and indifferentistic evaporisation of this chief article of the gospel, on the side of the modern speculative rationalism of our days. (Van Oosterzee.)

Remembrance

I. Divine truths are to be remembered. Ii. Remembering is a reflecting of the eye of our mind on that which by the senses or the understanding hath been perceived. In remembrance are four things to be considered.

1. The apprehension of an object by the external or internal senses.

2. A reposing of it in the memory.

3. A retaining of it there.

4. A reflecting of the eye of the understanding on it. This last act is properly called remembrance.

Helps follow.

1. Get a true understanding of things..

2. Meditate much on that thou wouldst remember. Roll the thing to and fro in thy mind, look often at it, mark it well; so shall it, like a bird by struggling in the gin or lime bush, stick faster.

3. Labour for love. Will a maid forget her ornament? a bride her attire? the covetous man his coin, lad long ago in some secret corner? Wherefore, love the Word once, and then forget it if thou canst.

4. Be jealous of thy remembrance. He who carrieth a vessel in his hand may suddenly let it fall; whereas had he feared he would have held it faster. For jealousy, though a bad getter, is an excellent keeper.

5. Use repetition. Have that oft in thy tongue thou wouldst hold in thy mind. For repetition, like a mallet, will cause the piles of Divine truths to stick fast in the soil of mans memory.

6. Study for method. Things in order laid in the head will with the more facility be held. Method (say some) is the mother of memory.

III. The choicest of divine truths are chiefly to be remembered. Have thy senses exercised, through long custom, to discern betwixt things that differ--good and evil. (J. Barlow, D. D.)

An appeal to the pattern

In the words preceding this text the apostle Paul has been speaking of the labour and conflict and endurance involved in a true profession of faith in Christ. And now that he has on hand to prove the necessity of enduring hardness in Christian life, he is ready with example as well as argument. Remember that Jesus Christ, of the seed of David, was raised from the dead, according to my gospel. But there is more in these words than a mere confirmation of what has gone before. They are a fresh battery brought up to the siege, adapted especially for an assault upon that strong citadel, the human will. But we have not yet got to the bottom of the apostles meaning. If we have yielded to the influence of his words they have carried our hearts beyond the subject they were first intended to illustrate. His theme was the endurance of hardship, and his object to brace up the soul of a fellow disciple to this trial; but, in doing so, by the example of the Master Himself, lie has done more; for he has reminded Timothy that Jesus Christ not only suffered, but died; and as elsewhere and often he has taught the necessity of our dying by union with Christ, he surely means no less than to put us face to face with the truth in the present passage. Christianity is the masterpiece of God, the wonderful fabric into which He has woven all Divine and eternal principles; and there is no principle or characteristic of Christianity more plain or more abundantly illustrated than the appointment and use of death for the production of a higher life than that which preceded it. It would be strange, indeed, if man, whose peculiar honour it is to be called into the fellowship of Gods Son, were an exception to this rule of death and life; or if, in his case, it were only to be known by the dissolution of his earthly body. But Scripture teaches otherwise. Christ has not merely given His life a ransom for ours. He has done this, indeed, and this is the great news of the gospel; but He has done more. He has put Himself at the head of an army which must conquer as He conquered when alone--by suffering. And thus only can we understand His words, If any man serve Me let him follow Me! He that taketh not up his cross and followeth not after Me cannot be My disciple; He that loveth his life shall lose it, but he that loseth his life for My sake the same shall find it. (J. F. B. Tinling, B. A.)

Remember Jesus Christ

We know how one recollection, distinct and dominant in the mind, has often been the decisive force at a critical moment; how upon the battlefield, for instance, or under the almost overpowering pressure of temptation, the thought of a mans country, of his home, of his ancestral traditions, has reinforced, as with a fresh tide of strength, his faltering heart, and borne him on to victory, whether by success or death. We may recall the scene in one of our African campaigns, the scene preserved for us by a clever artist, where the thought of a mans old school, and the boyish eagerness anyhow to bring it to the front, was the impulse of a splendid courage. Yes, there are images in most mens minds which, if they rise at the right moment, will do much to make them heroes; a word, a glance, some well-known sight, some old familiar strain of music, may beckon the image out of the recesses of the memory, and if the man has in him the capacity of generous action he will use it then. It is on this characteristic of human nature that St. Paul relies as he writes to Timotheus the words of the text. He would avail himself of this; he would raise it to its highest conceivable employment; he would enlist it as a constant, ready, powerful ally on the side of duty--on the side of God. He may never see Timotheus, never write to him again; well then, he will leave dinted into his mind, by a few incisive words, one commanding and sustaining Image. For it is not, as it appears in our English version, an event of the past, however supreme in its importance, however abiding in its results, that St. Paul here fastens upon the memory of his disciple; it is not the abstract statement of a truth in history or theology, however central to the faith, however vast in its consequences; it is a living Person, whom St. Paul has seen, whose form he would have Timotheus keep ever in his mind, distinct, beloved, unrivalled, sovereign--Bear in remembrance Jesus Christ, raised from the dead. Let us take two thoughts this Easter morning from the counsel which St. Paul thus gives. First, that he is trying to lodge at the heart of Timotheuss life and work that which has been the deepest and most effective force in his own. St. Paul was convinced that he had seen the risen Lord; and the energy, the effect, of that unfading Image throughout his subsequent life might go some way to prove that the conviction was true. Physical weight is sometimes measured by the power of displacement; and in the moral and spiritual sphere we tend, at least, to think that there must be something solid and real to account for a change so unexpected, so unworldly, so thorough, so sustained through every trial, so vast in its practical outcome, as was the conversion of St. Paul. Let St. Pauls conviction be taken in its context; let justice be done to the character it wrought in him; to the coherence and splendour of the work it animated; to the penetrating, sober insight of his practical teaching; to the consistency, not of expression, but of inmost thought and life, which is disclosed to any careful study of his writings; lastly, to the grasp which his words have laid upon the strongest minds in Christendom through all succeeding centuries, the prophetic and undying power which, amidst vast changes of methods and ideas, men widely different have felt and reverenced in these Epistles--let these distinctive notes of St. Pauls work be realised, together with its incalculable outcome in the course of history, and it will seem hard to think that the central, ruling impulse of it all was the obstinate blunder of a disordered mind. This, at least, I think, may be affirmed, that, if there were against belief in Christs resurrection any such difficulty as the indisputable facts of St. Pauls life and work present to disbelief, we should find it treated as of crucial importance, and that, I think, not unjustly. Bear in remembrance Jesus Christ raised from the dead. It is the form which has made him what he is, for life or for death, that St. Paul would with his last words, it may be, leave clenched for ever on the mind and heart of his disciple. The vision of that form may keep him true and steadfast when all is dark, confused, and terrible around him. May not we do well to take the bidding to ourselves? There are signs of trouble and confusion in the air, and some faint hearts begin to fail; and some of us, perhaps, see not our tokens--so clearly as we did. But One we may see, as we lift our eyes this Easter Day; it is He who liveth and was dead; and behold He is alive for evermore; He who cannot fail His Church, or leave even the poorest and least worthy of His servants desolate and bewildered when the darkness gathers, and the cry of need goes up. (F. Paget, D. D.)

The testimony of St. Paul

St. Paul was a man who could have been trusted beyond perhaps any other man of his time to take a calm, clear, and accurate view of any alleged historical fact, and to estimate its practical hearings; and if, after the whole evidence for the Resurrection had been brought to bear upon his mind, he felt himself constrained to believe and proclaim it to the dire extremity of martyrdom--that fact becomes the strongest possible evidence for its truth. The testimony of St. Paul to the truth of the Resurrection has a double value. In the first place there is his personal witness, Last of all He was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time. It is allowed on all hands that Paul at any rate asserted simply what he believed to be the truth. It is, in the judgment of his hostile critics, a case of hallucination, not of wilful perversion of the truth. Well, men are subject to hallucinations, no doubt, especially men of genius. B at the world, the hard rough world, is a great dispeller of hallucinations. No man lives and works through a long and intensely active life as the victim of hallucination: either it vanishes and leaves him in free possession of all his faculties, or it makes him incapable of taking part to any real purpose in the business of his fellow-men. It must be remembered that this statement of Paul does not stand alone. It is in harmony with many appearances of Christ after the Resurrection, which rest on the incontestable evidence of numerous disciples; and it seemed real enough to make a vital change in the character, the beliefs, the aims, the life-work of one of the very ablest, most self.controlled, most masterly men whom we meet with in the records of universal history. But there is a second point of view from which the testimony of St. Paul to the truth of the Resurrection is so deeply important. It is the testimony of one who had mastered the whole argument in its favour, and who believed it to be irresistible. We cannot examine the witnesses, and sift their evidence; all the details are beyond our reach for ever; but we have the proofs sifted for us, weighed and stamped as valid beyond shadow of doubt or question by the regal intellect of St. Paul. His evidence has, however, a value beyond this, to which I must call your attention before I close. St. Paul not only was not a disciple, but he had been the most bitter and uncompromising enemy of the truth. Nor had he been a silent opponent. Though but a youth, by his brilliant powers he had already made for himself a name of renown among his country-men. He was the coming leader of the people, the rising man, on whom the hopes of the elders were set as the future champion of the oppressed nation in the perilous times which were manifestly coming on the world. I have said that the evidence is the evidence of disciples. I have explained how that is its strength and its glory. But one longs sometimes to know what was actually said in the Sanhedrim and in chief-priestly circles against it. We have no contemporary record of this; if any was written, no note of it has reached us, but St. Paul stands forth to supply the want. His is a voice out of the hostile camp, confessing that the opposition was in hopeless collapse. The fact that a man of such keen and eager intellect, who left no objection unanswered, no nook of argument unexplored, never condescends in any of his writings to notice the counter statements of opponents, is proof absolute that there was no validity in them. They evidently had left on his mind not a shadow of question, and brought forward nothing which it was worth his while to trouble himself to refute. Then, having borne his witness lifelong to the Resurrection, he died with the testimony on his lips. (J. B. Brown, B. A.)

The resurrection of our Lord Jesus

I. Let us consider the bearings of the fact that Jesus rose from the dead.

1. It is clear at the outset that the resurrection of our Lord was a tangible proof that there is another life. Have you not quoted a great many times certain lines about That undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveller returns? It is not so. There was once a Traveller who said, I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go away I will come again and receive you unto Myself; that where I am there ye may be also. He said, A little time, and ye shall see Me, and again a little time and ye shall not see Me, because I go to the Father. His return from among the dead is a pledge to us of existence after death, and we rejoice in it. His resurrection is also a pledge that the body will surely live again and rise to a superior condition; for the body of our blessed Master was no phantom after death any more than before.

2. Christs rising from the dead was the seal to all His claims. It was true, then, that He was sent of God, for God raised Him from the dead in confirmation of His mission. The rising of Christ from the dead proved that this man was innocent of every sin. He could not be holden by the bands of death, for there was no sin to make those bands fast. Moreover, Christs rising from the dead proved His claim to Deity. We are told in another place that He was proved to be the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead.

3. The resurrection of our Lord, according to Scripture, was the acceptance of His sacrifice.

4. It was a guarantee of His peoples resurrection.

5. Once more, our Lords rising from the dead is a fair picture of the new life which all believers already enjoy. There is within us already a part of the resurrection accomplished, since it is written, And you hath He quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins. Now, just as Christ led, after His resurrection, a life very different from that before His death, so you and I are called upon to live a high and noble spiritual and heavenly life, seeing that we have been raised from the dead to die no more.

II. Let us consider the bearings of this fact upon the Gospel; for Paul says, Jesus Christ was raised from the dead according to my gospel.

1. The resurrection of Christ is vital, because first it tells us that the gospel is the gospel of a living Saviour. We have not to send poor penitents to the crucifix, the dead intone of a dead man. Notice next that we have a powerful Saviour in connection with the gospel that we preach; for He who had power to raise Himself from the dead has all power now that He is raised.

2. And now notice that we have the gospel of complete justification to preach to you.

3. Once again, the connection of the Resurrection and the gospel is this: it proves the safety of the saints, for if when Christ rose His people rose also, they rose to a life like that of their Lord, and therefore they can never die. I cannot stop to show you how this resurrection touches the gospel at every point, but Paul is always full of it. More than thirty times Paul talks about the resurrection, and occasionally at great length, giving whole chapters to the glorious theme.

III. The bearing of this resurrection upon ourselves. Paul expressly bids us remember it. Now, if you will remember that Jesus Christ of the seed of David rose from the dead, what will follow?

1. You will find that most of your trials will vanish. Are you tried by your sin? Jesus Christ rose again from the dead for your justification. Does Satan accuse? Jesus rose to be your advocate and intercessor. Do infirmities hinder? The living Christ will show Himself strong on your behalf. You have a living Christ, and in Him you have all things. Do you dread death? Jesus, in rising again, has vanquished the last enemy.

2. Next remember Jesus, for then you will see how your present sufferings are as nothing compared with His sufferings, and you will learn to expect victory over your sufferings even as He obtained victory.

3. We see here, in being told to remember Jesus, that there is hope even in our hopelessness. When are things most hopeless in a man? Why, when he is dead. Do you know what it is to come down to that, so far as your inward weakness is concerned? You that are near despair, let this be the strength that nerves your arm and steels your heart, Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised from the dead according to Pauls gospel.

4. Lastly, this proves the futility of all opposition to Christ. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The resurrection of Christ

I. I would first say a few words on the fact of the resurrection. It is a main point in our faith. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is a pledge of ours.

II. I would next direct your attention to the position of the believer in this life. As connected with the risen Saviour, the believer is regarded in the Word of God as risen with Christ. We see, then, that Paul would stir Timothy by our text to remember his privileges. He would, in effect, say to him, Timothy, remember you have the life of Christ now; and it is His risen life which is to animate you to work and to suffer, and to endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.

III. But there is another point to which I would direct your attention, and that is, union. It is most important to observe that this oneness of life between Jesus and the believer is just that which constitutes union. Nothing short of this is union. It is the resurrection life of Jesus that believers are united with; and this is possible only to the new creature, only to the man in Christ. We see, then, a little, I trust, of the force of the text. It is a wonderful text, and we see the power there is in it to comfort the believer and to strengthen him for service; and just as he understands in his own experience these things will he realise his privileges. In Jesus Christ he will see how the doctrine of the resurrection is calculated to make him endure hardness. (J. W. Reeve, M. A.)

The resurrection of Christ

I desire to speak to you on the importance of connecting the fact of the Saviours resurrection with two other facts, namely, first, that Christ was of the seed of David, and secondly, that the resurrection of Christ is so essential a part of the gospel of Christ that the one may be described as according with the other. There can be no dispute that it could not be needful for St. Paul to characterise Jesus as of the seed of David, in order to distinguish Him from any other being whom the name might recall to the mind of Timothy. I deny, therefore, altogether, that there is anything whatsoever of the fanciful or the far-fetched in our ascribing any particular emphasis to this casual introduction of the human lineage of Messiah. I look on the name of Jesus, and its every syllable seems to burn and blaze with divinity. I may explain and interpret it; I may expound it as promising salvation, as eloquent of deliverance to our fallen race; but in exact proportion as I magnify the wonder, I remove, as it were, the being unto whom it belongs from all kindred and companionship with the sinful tenantry of a ruined creation. The title of anointed Saviour, full though it be of magnificent mercy, consisting of attributes and principles bearing the impress of a superhuman greatness; and, however stupendous the truth, that Deity has interposed on behalf of the helpless, still the Saviour of man must be one who could hold communion and fellowship with man; He must not be separated from him by the appalling attributes which mark a Divine Creator. If there must be a celestial nature to afford the succour, there must also be a terrestrial nature to ensure the sympathy. Hence, I think it just to imagine that when the apostle sent to a beloved disciple this short compendium of Christian consolation, which he desired might be carefully borne in mind, he would not fail to interweave into such compendium a distinct reference to the complex nature of the Redeemers person; and, not content himself with referring him to Jesus Christ, he would add some such description as this--of the seed of David, in order to mark His real humanity. There is, however, a distinct allusion to other truths, as well as to the Redeemers humanity, in this accurate specification. It is a wonderful thing to cast ones eye over the prophetic pages and behold how years past and years that are to come do alike burn with the deeds and triumphs of Davids Son, under the name and title of a descendant from the man after Gods own heart. It concerns not my argument to examine into the reasons which might induce the frequent introduction of the name of David whenever the triumphs of Messiah are the subject of discourse. I appeal simply to the fact, and demand of every student of Holy Writ whether there be any title under which prophecy tenders so vast revenue of honour as it does to the seed, or heir, or antitype of David. Truly, the more the mind ponders over the combination of ideas which are gathered into this apparently brief and superfluous message of Paul to Timothy, the more will it be struck with the beauty and consolation it conveys. Now, I have dealt at sufficient length on the first head of discourse; and much that I have advanced in illustration of the importance of the clause, of the seed of David, applies equally to the other, according to my gospel, which I would, in the second place, exhibit to you, as giving strength and emphasis to St. Pauls commemoration of the death and resurrection of our Saviour. You remember the strong terms in which St. Paul, when writing to the Corinthians, states the importance of the resurrection as an article of the Christian faith. He may be said to resolve the whole of our religion, all its truth, all its value, all its beauty, into the one fact that Christ Jesus had been raised from the dead. If Christ be not raised--thus it is he speaks--your faith is in vain; you are yet in your sins: then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. By stating the fact that life and immortality have been brought to light by the gospel, to which I suppose St. Paul to allude when he speaks of Christ Jesus as raised from the dead according to my gospel, I suppose him designing to remind his son Timothy, not so much of the simple truth of the Saviours resurrection as of the colouring and character which this event gave to the whole system of Christianity. (H. Melvill, B. D.)

The place of the resurrection of Jesus in the theology of the New Testament

The resurrection was far more than any mere sign, though so unique and remarkable. Like the miracles of Christ, only in a still profounder measure, it was in itself a display of mercy--an instrument of His mighty and beneficent mediation. When the apostles taught it they not only bore witness, but they preached a gospel; they not only announced a wonderful fact, but they presented that fact to men as in itself at the same time a measure of Divine grace. Apart from the resurrection of Christ you could not construct the faith, impart the solace, urge the appeal, or sway the inspiration of Christianity. It is not simply that there would be no sign, but there would be no power. It is, so to speak, the blood which is the life, the blood that circulates through every vein to every limb and member of the Christian system. This is the fact I want to impress in my present discourse. Perhaps it will surprise you to hear my full belief that, but for the resurrection, you would have had in your hands no such exposition as you now possess of who and what Christ was and did for men. Christ Himself did not write any book about His life; not a line. How, then, came we to know what we do about Him? Right down to the end of His life, to the end of the Gospels, the disciples remained strangely ignorant of the great work their Master came to achieve. Dull, ignorant, confused, bewildered, they were the last men in the world to take up a forlorn cause, redeem it, and carry it to triumph. Contrast with this state of mind the speech and conduct of those self-same men in the stirring scenes with which the Acts acquaint us. You may search all literature, I believe, and you will not find a greater contrast. How did this happen? The only book that gives the history lets us into the secret. I claim, then, on the authority of this only history, to say that but for the resurrection of Jesus we had had no portraiture of Christ, no Gospels, no Acts, no Epistles, setting Him forth to the world for its salvation and joy. No other writers of the age have depicted Him; and these who have all refer their knowledge and appreciation to the illumination of that Spirit whom He sent on His exaltation to heaven. Again. It is the constant representation of the writers of the New Testament that Christ offered Himself in some way as a sacrifice for sin, and that that offering was presented in His death. But what had that sacrifice been without Christs revival from death? With the greatest force does the letter to the Romans teach us, He was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification. Paul does not hesitate to declare that apart from it there is no pardon: If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Another point of our precious faith at which the resurrection of Christ meets us with infinite power and solace is seen at death, when we bury our dead out of sight, or are ourselves laid in the grave. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him. None of the apostles had a higher standard of the Christian life than the Apostle Paul; none more keenly realised its contrast with the former habits of sin, or more acutely felt the struggle, fierce and constant, by which it alone was to be attained and maintained; none more clearly perceived the organic relation of one part of that life to another; and Paul strove by a most beautiful and expressive image to urge the believer to all vigilance and mortification of unworthy impulse and passion in its culture. Christs death and resurrection furnished the image. We are buried with Him by baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life, etc. If Christ be not risen from the dead, the day of judgment, as solemnly delineated in the New Testament, is denuded of many of its most sublime and thrilling features. There is no judgment-seat of Christ; for though Christ has died, He has not risen and revived that He might be Lord both of the dead and the living. Neither, for the same reason, can we look for His appearing, or expect Him from heaven, since He is not gone thither. I should have to quote a vast number of passages from all the great sections of the New Testament Scriptures were I to set forth the claims, according to their teaching, of the Lord Jesus on our worship, His power and readiness to hear our prayers and satisfy our trust. But these are obviously of no authority and service to us if He did not rise from the grave. The writer to the Hebrews has repeatedly described Him as seated at the right hand of God, but of course he is mistaken; Christ is in the grave. He has imputed illimitable efficiency to His intercession. But he is mistaken; Christ is not capable of making any intercession at all. Believers are designated by Paul as those who call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ; but they were all deluded, for Christ was not risen nor ascended. Nor would the example of Christ as an all-perfect pattern of holiness and love in a world governed by infinite holiness and power occasion us less hopeless embarrassment, if He be not risen, than the facts just dismissed. We should, in that case, have the frightful spectacle of a righteousness, truth, goodness, and mercy that never faltered or failed expending themselves to the very uttermost, and this without Divine acknowledgment and vindication. A greater shock to all virtue could not be conceived. And in this instance it would be aggravated by the very measure with which this Great Exemplar had indulged the hope of reward. The resurrection stands to us a pledge and pattern of our own; and while our dust may await its final recovery, our spirits shall be with Him. Nay, He will even be our convoy through the gates of death, and then receive us into the mansions of His Fathers house, that where He is we may be also. (G. B. Johnson.)

My gospel

The apostle is not contrasting his gospel with that of other preachers, as if he would say, Others may teach what they please, but this is the substance of my gospel; and Jerome is certainly mistaken if what is quoted as a remark of his is rightly assigned to him by Fabricius, to the effect that whenever St. Paul says according to my gospel he means the written gospel of his companion St. Luke, who had caught much of his spirit and something of his language. It would be much nearer the truth to say that St. Paul never refers to a written gospel. In every one of the passages in which the phrase occurs the context is quite against any such interpretation (Rom_2:16; Rom_16:25; cf. 1Ti_1:11). In this place the words which follow are conclusive: Wherein I suffer hardship unto bonds, as a malefactor. How could he be said to suffer hardship unto bonds in the Gospel of St. Luke? (A. Plummer, D. D.)

Each man has his own conception of the gospel

We may be sure, then, that the phrase my gospel is not used by St. Paul in the spirit either of the Pharisee or of the bigot. He is not one who refuses to recognise the excellence in those who may not exactly agree with him, or assumes that to him alone is committed a trustworthy form of the faith. Nevertheless, the phrase has a distinct force of its own. It suggests that St. Paul looked at the gospel from his own standpoint, and that the gospel as he represented it had aspects differing somewhat from the same gospel as represented by others. We need not be afraid to admit this. If you look at any great mountain from several points of view, its parts are at once brought into varying relations to each other. Standing here you see clearly great peaks, which from another position would be hidden. Nay, if you look at the same mountain from the same standpoint at different times, it will present different aspects--now dim and mysterious in the grey morning, and now rosy with the after-glow when the sun has set. Yet it is the same mountain, presenting itself in varying guise to different spectators. So with St. Paul. When he speaks of my gospel, it is not another gospel in the sense of being contradictory, or even deficient as compared with the gospel proclaimed by other apostles. It is the same gospel, seen, however, from his own standpoint--the gospel according to Paul. (T. B. Stephenson, D. D.)

The unity underlying the various conceptions of the gospel

The West Indies are a long chain of islands, seeming to be widely and completely separated from each other, each one a lovely jewel resting on the heaving bosom of the sea. But if you look below the surface of the ocean you discover that each of these islands is bound to all the others; that they are, in fact, the topmost points of one long mountain chain which has been submerged. So that whilst each island seems to be separate, all rest upon and are a part of the vast and substantial unity which lies far below. My gospel: each one of the Churches may correctly use the phrase, yet these are not many gospels, but in essence and substance one.

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

2Ti 2:8-10. Remember — So as to be encouraged against, and supported under, any sufferings which thou mayest be called to endure for the truth; that Jesus Christ, of the seed of David — According to the flesh; see on Rom 1:3; Heb 2:16; was raised from the dead — And thereby demonstrated himself to be the true Messiah. So our translators have rendered the clause, understanding the sense to be, Remember and adhere to this important fact, as the great foundation of the gospel. But the original expressions, μνημονευε Ιησουν Χριστον εγηγερμενον εκ νεκρων, are, literally, Remember Jesus Christ raised from the dead, &c. That is, think on him, keep him continually in remembrance, and it will be instead of a thousand arguments to support thee under, and carry thee through, all thy dangers and difficulties, thy labours and sufferings. Wherein — In the service of which gospel; I suffer trouble as an evildoer — A malefactor, deserving some heavy punishment; even unto bonds — Imprisonment and chains. But the word of God is not bound — It will spread itself in spite of all opposition. “This short sentence,” says Macknight, “is a beautiful display of the apostle’s character. The evils which he was suffering for the gospel, though great, he reckoned as nothing, because of the joy which he felt from his persuasion that the honour of Christ and the happiness of mankind would be promoted by his sufferings, and because he knew that all the opposition which infidels were making to the gospel, would not hinder it from being preached and believed. They have bound me in chains, said he, and may put me to death, but the word of God they cannot bind. Not only the strength of the apostle’s reasoning here, but the energy of his expression is admirable.” Therefore — In hope of a glorious reward, to be conferred in due time on them and myself. I endure all things for the elect’s sake — That is, that I may thereby promote the salvation of God’s people. See on 2Th 2:13. Observe the spirit of a real Christian! Who would not wish to be like-minded! That they may obtain salvation — From sin and all its consequences, or deliverance from all evil; with eternal glory — The enjoyment of all good.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES

2Ti_2:9. I suffer trouble.—R.V. “hardship.” As an evil-doer.—He is treated as one would be whose whole aim was to do evil—a constant menace to society. Unto bonds.—“Up to the point of bonds.” The indignity of the imprisonment was keenly felt by St. Paul, as well as bodily discomfort. But the word of God is not bound.—Chrysostom explains, “My hands are bound, but not my tongue.” A better contrast is between the messenger and the message. They have bound the messenger, but the message runs on and defies bondage.

2Ti_2:10. I endure all things.—This does not denote suffering pure and simple, but the willing, steadfast endurance of it (Huther)—a brave bearing up rather than a passive endurance (Ellicott).

2Ti_2:11. It is a faithful saying.—I.e. what follows. “We cannot be certain whether the sentences following are strophes from a Christian hymn or not—probably they are” (Huther). If we be dead.—R.V. “if we died.” Some have thought that St. Paul writes of the actual death of the body in martyrdom. The parallel thought in Rom_6:8 seems to be against this. Others say, “The definite event indicated by the form of the verb takes place in baptism.”

2Ti_2:12. If we deny Him.—If by any possibility through fear of suffering we should deny any relationship to Him.

2Ti_2:13. If we believe not.—R.V. “if we are faithless.” Meyer contends that the word always means to be unbelieving in the New Testament. Ellicott and Alford agree that it is not simply unfaithfulness but definitely unbelief that is meant here.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—2Ti_2:8-13

The Apostolic Gospel—

I. Had for its leading theme the resurrection of Christ from the dead.—“Remember that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised from the dead according to my gospel” (2Ti_2:8). The apostles gave special prominence to the resurrection of Christ. It was the most astounding event of the time, and was an unanswerable evidence of the Divine power of Jesus. The Jews could not deny the fact, for they or their friends were witnesses of it: all their plots against Jesus were baffled; their rage was impotent. The gospel to-day preaches not a dead but a living Christ—Christ incarnate, Christ crucified, Christ risen, Christ regnant and triumphant.

II. Entailed suffering in its proclamation.—“Wherein I suffer trouble.… I endure all things for the elect’s sakes” (2Ti_2:9-10). The enemies of the gospel could not destroy its facts or answer its arguments: they took their revenge on its propagators, whose only fault was that they spoke the truth. They testified of what they had seen and felt—they could not do otherwise; and for this they suffered. It is hard to suffer for telling the truth; but it would be harder still for the true preacher to tell a lie. Suffering for the gospel’s sake has helped its spread. The most savage persecutors have been convinced and conquered.

III. Revealed the greatness of man’s salvation.—“That they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ with eternal glory” (2Ti_2:10). The apostles not only announced the resurrection of Christ as an undeniable fact, but showed how that fact brought hope and salvation to perishing men. The world had never before heard such news; it seemed almost too good to be true. The grandeur of the blessings offered, staggered them. Salvation is not only rescue from present and future misery, but is the affluent bestowment of unutterable and eternal glory; it is an ever-expanding benediction.

IV. Affirmed certain important and suggestive truths (2Ti_2:11-13).—The symmetrical form of “the faithful saying,” and the rhythmical balance of the parallel clauses in these verses, make it probable that they formed part of an ancient Church hymn. The apostolic gospel is here compressed into a short, intelligible, and suggestive formula. To die with Christ is to live with Him; to suffer with Him is to reign with Him; to deny Him is to be denied: if we believe Him not, his faithfulness remains intact. The phrases constitute an epitome of the gospel as to its reception and results. If man changes, Christ cannot change—another argument to remain steadfast in the faith.

Lessons.—

1. The leading theme of the gospel is Christ.

2. The gospel cannot be silenced by persecution.

3. The glory of the gospel is its saving effects.

GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES

2Ti_2:10. Salvation with Eternal Glory.

I. The necessity of salvation.—

1. Sin is the cause of danger and ruin.

2. Salvation cannot be procured by human arts or inventions.

II. The source of salvation.—“In Christ Jesus.”

1. By designation and promise.

2. By qualification.

3. Salvation is dispensed by Him.

III. Salvation on earth is succeeded by eternal glory in heaven.—

1. Freedom from sin and its consequences.

2. Introduction into heaven.

3. The everlasting vision of Deity.—Helps for the Pulpit.

2Ti_2:12-13. Denial of Christ.

I. We may take the part of His enemies, or ignore His supreme claim to allegiance.

II. We may transform Him into a myth, a fairy tale, a subjective principle.

III. Find a substitute in our own life for His grace.

IV. Assume that He is not the ground of our reconciliation, nor the Giver of salvation, nor the sole Head of His Church.—Local Preacher’s Treasury.

The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.

Chapter 31

THE POWER OF A BELIEF IN THE RESURRECTION AND THE INCARNATION-THE GOSPEL OF ST. PAUL. - 2Ti_2:8-10

THESE words are a continuation of the same subject. They are additional thoughts supplied to the Apostles beloved disciple to induce him to take courage and to bear willingly and thankfully whatever difficulties and sufferings the preaching of the gospel in all its fullness may involve. In the three metaphors just preceding, St. Paul has indicated that there is nothing amazing, nothing that ought to cause perplexity or despondency, in the fact that ministers of the word have to encounter much opposition and danger. On the contrary, such things are the very conditions of the situation; they are the very rules of the course. One would have to suspect that there was something seriously amiss, if they did not occur; and without them there would be no chance of reward. Here he goes on to point out that this hardship and suffering is very far from being mere hardship and suffering; it has its bright side and its compensations, even in this life.

Throughout this section it is well worth while to notice the very considerable improvements which the Revisers have made in it. One or two of these have been already noticed; but for convenience some of the principal instances are here collected together.

"Suffer hardship with me," or "Take thy part in suffering hardship," is better than "Thou therefore endure hardship," which, while inserting a spurious "therefore," omits the important intimation that the hardship to which Timothy is invited is one which others are enduring, and which he is called upon, not to bear alone, but to share. "No soldier on service" is better than "No man that warreth," and "if also a man contend in the games" is more definite than the vague "if a man also strive for masteries." The ambiguity of "must be first partaker of the fruits" is avoided in "must be the first to partake of the fruits." But perhaps none of these corrections are so important as those in the passage now before us. "Remember that Jesus Christ of the seed of David, was raised from the dead, according to my gospel," gives quite a wrong turn to St. Pauls language. It puts the clauses in the wrong order, and gives an erroneous impression as to what is to be remembered. Timothy is charged to "remember Jesus Christ"; and in remembering Him he is to think of Him as one Who is "risen from the dead," and Who is also "of the seed of David." These are central facts of the Gospel which St. Paul has always preached; they have been his support in all his sufferings; and they will be the same support to the disciple as they have been to the master.

"Remember Jesus Christ." Every Christian, who has to endure what seem to him to be hardships, will sooner or later fall back upon this remembrance. He is not the first, and not the chief sufferer in the world. There is One Who has undergone hardships, compared with which those of other men sink into nothingness; and Who has expressly told those Who wish to be His disciples, that they must follow Him along the path of suffering. It is specially in this respect that the servant is not above his Lord. And just in proportion as we are true servants will the remembrance of Jesus Christ help us to welcome what He lays upon us as proof that He recognizes and accepts our service.

But merely to remember Jesus Christ as a Master Who has suffered, and Who has made suffering a condition of service, will not be a permanently sustaining or comforting thought, if it ends there. Therefore St. Paul says to his perplexed and desponding delegate, "Remember Jesus Christ as one risen from the dead." Jesus Christ has not only endured every kind of suffering, including its extreme form, death, but He has conquered it all by rising again. He is not only the sinless Sufferer, but also the triumphant Victor over death and hell. He has set us an example of heroic endurance in obedience to the will of God; but He has also secured for us that our endurance in imitation of Him shall be crowned with victory. Had Christs mission ended on Calvary, He would but have given to the world a purified form of Stoicism, a refined "philosophy of suffering"; and His teaching would have failed, as Stoicism failed, because a mere philosophy of suffering is quickly proved by experience to be a "philosophy of despair." Renan remarks with truth that the gospel of Marcus Aurelius fortifies, but does not console: and all teaching is doomed from the outset, which comes to a groaning and travailing humanity without any consolations to bestow. What is the thought which through long centuries has wrung, and is still wringing millions of human hearts with anguish? It is the thought of the existence and not only the existence but the apparent predominance of evil. Everywhere experience seems to teach us that evil of every kind, physical, intellectual, and moral, holds the field and appears likely to hold it. To allow oneself to be mastered by this thought is to be on the road to doubting Gods moral government of the world. What is the antidote to it?

"Remember Jesus Christ as one risen from the dead." When has evil ever been so completely triumphant over good as when it succeeded in getting the Prophet of Nazareth nailed to the tree, like some vile and noxious animal? That was the hour of success for the malignant Jewish hierarchy and for the spiritual powers of darkness. But it was an hour to which very strict limits were placed. Very soon He Who had been dismissed to the grave by a cruel and shameful death, defeated and disgraced, rose again from it triumphant, not only over Jewish priests and Roman soldiers, but over death and the cause of death; that is, over every kind of evil-pain, and ignorance, and sin. It was for that very purpose that He laid down His life, that He might take it again: and it was for that reason that His Father loved Him, because He had received the commandment to lay it down and take it again from His Father. {Joh_10:17-18}

But "to remember Jesus Christ as one risen from the dead" does more than this. It not only shows us that the evil against which we have such a weary struggle in this life, both in others and in ourselves, is not (in spite of depressing appearances) permanently triumphant; it also assures us that there is another and a better life in which the good cause will be supreme, and supreme without the possibility of disaster, or even of contest. We talk in a conventional way of death as the country "from whose bourne, no traveler returns": but we are wrong. We do not mean it so; yet this saying, if pressed, would carry with it a denial of a fact which is better attested than any fact in ancient history. One Traveler has returned; and His return is no extraordinary accident or exceptional and solitary success. It is a representative return and a typical success. What the Son of Man has done, other sons of men can do, and will do. The solidarity between the human race and the Second Adam, between the Church and its Head, is such that the victory of the Leader carries with it the victory of the whole band. The breach made in the gates of death is one through which the whole army of Christs followers may pass out into eternal life, free from deaths power for evermore. This thought is full of comfort and encouragement to those who feel themselves almost overwhelmed by the perplexities, and contradictions, and sorrows of this life. However grievous this life may be, it has this merciful condition attached to it, that it lasts only for a short time; and then the risen Christ leads us into a life which is free from all trouble, and which knows no end. The miseries of this life are lessened by the knowledge that they cannot last long. The blessedness of the life to come is perfected by the fact that it is eternal.

Once more, to "remember Jesus Christ as one risen from the dead," is to remember One Who claimed to be the promised Savior of the world, and Who proved His claim. By its countless needs, by many centuries of yearning, by its consciousness of failure and of guilt, the whole human race had been led to look forward to the coming of some great Deliverer, Who would rescue mankind from its hopeless descent down the path of sin and retribution, as a possibility. By the express promise of Almighty God, made to the first generation of mankind, and renewed again and again to patriarchs and prophets, the chosen people had been taught to look forward to the coming of the Savior as a certainty. And Jesus of Nazareth had claimed to be this longed for and expected Deliverer, the Desire of all nations and the Savior of the world. "I that speak unto thee am He." {Joh_4:26} By His mighty works, and still more by His life-giving words, He had shown that He had Divine credentials in support of His claim: but not until He rose again from the dead was His claim absolutely proved. It was the proof which He Himself volunteered. "Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up". {Joh_2:19} "There shall no sign be given but the sign of Jonah the prophet: for as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth," {Mat_12:39-40} and then return again to the light of day as Jonah did. He had raised others from the dead; but so had Elijah and Elisha done. That proved no more than that He was a prophet as mighty as they. But no one before Jesus had ever raised Himself. If His Messiahship was doubtful before, all doubt vanished on Easter morning.

And this leads St. Paul on to the second point which his downcast disciple is to remember in connection with Jesus Christ. He is to remember Him as "of the seed of David." He is not only truly God, but truly man. He was risen from the dead, and yet He was born of flesh and blood, and born of that royal line of which Timothy, who "from a babe had known the sacred writings," had many times heard and read. The Resurrection and the Incarnation; -those are the two facts on which a faltering minister of the Gospel is to hold fast, in order to comfort his heart and strengthen his steps.

It is worth noting that St. Paul places the Resurrection before the Incarnation, a fact which is quite lost in the transposed order of the A.V. St. Pauls order, which at first sight seems to be illogical, was the usual order of the Apostles preaching. They began, not with the miraculous birth of Christ, but with His resurrection. They proved by abundant testimony that Jesus had risen from the dead, and thence argued that He must have been more than man. They did not preach His birth of a virgin, and thence argue that He was Divine. How was His miraculous birth to be proved, to those who were unwilling to accept His Mothers word for it? But thousands of people had seen Him dead upon the Cross, and hundreds had seen Him alive again afterwards. No matter of fact was more securely established for all those who cared to investigate the evidence. With the Resurrection proved, the foundations of the faith were laid. The Incarnation followed easily after this, especially when combined with the descent from David, a fact which helped to prove His Messiahship. Let Timothy boldly and patiently preach these great truths in all their grand simplicity, and they will bring comfort and strength to him in his distress and difficulty, as they have done to the Apostle.

This is the meaning of "according to my gospel." These are the truths which St. Paul has habitually preached, and of the value of which he can speak from full experience. He knows what he is talking about, when he affirms that these things are worth remembering when one is in trouble. The Resurrection and the Incarnation are facts on which he has ceaselessly insisted, because in the wear and tear of life he has found out their worth.

There is no emphasis on the "my," as the Greek shows. An enclitic cannot be emphatic. The Apostle is not contrasting his Gospel with that of other preachers, as if he would say, "Others may teach what they please, but this is the substance of my Gospel." And Jerome is certainly mistaken, if what is quoted as a remark of his is rightly assigned to him by Fabricius, to the effect that whenever St. Paul says "according to my Gospel" he means the written Gospel of his companion St. Luke, who had caught much of his spirit and something of his language. It would be much nearer the truth to say that St. Paul never refers to a written Gospel. In every one of the passages in which the phrase occurs the context is quite against any such interpretation (Rom_2:16; Rom_16:25; cf. 1Ti_1:11). In this place the words which follow are conclusive: "Wherein I suffer hardship unto bonds, as a malefactor." How could he be said to suffer hardship unto bonds in the Gospel of St. Luke?

A word of protest may be added against the strange and impossible theory that the third Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles were written by St. Paul himself. If there is one thing which is certain with regard to the authorship of the Books of the New Testament, it is that the Acts was written by a companion of St. Paul. Even destructive critics who spare little else, admit this of portions of the Acts; and the Book must be accepted or rejected as a whole. Moreover, it is admitted by both defenders and assailants that the writer of the Acts did not know the Epistle to the Galatians; and it is highly probable that when he wrote he had not seen the Epistles to the Romans and to the Corinthians. How then can he have been St. Paul? And why should the Apostle write sometimes in the third person of what Paul said and did, and sometimes in the first person of what we did? All this is quite natural, if the writer is a companion of the Apostle, who was sometimes with him and sometimes not; it is most extraordinary if the Apostle himself is the writer. And of course if the Acts is not by St. Paul, the third Gospel cannot be; for it is impossible to assign them to different writers. Moreover, not to mention other difficulties, it may be doubted whether, more than two years {Act_28:30} before the death of St. Paul, there would have been time for "many" to "have taken in hand to draw up a narrative concerning those matters which have been fulfilled among us," {Luk_1:1} and then for him to have collected material for the third Gospel and to have written it, and then, after an interval, for him to have written the Acts. All the arguments in favor of the Pauline authorship of the third Gospel and of the Acts are satisfied by the almost universally accepted view, that these two works were written by a companion of the Apostle, who was thoroughly familiar with his modes of thought and expression.

The preaching of this Gospel of the Resurrection and the Incarnation had caused the Apostle (as he here tells us) to suffer much evil, as if he had done much evil, even to the extent of a grievous imprisonment. He is bound as a malefactor; but his Gospel "is not bound," because it is "the word of God." He perhaps changes the expression from "my Gospel" to "the word of God" in order to indicate why it is that, although the preacher is in prison, yet his Gospel is free; - because the word which he preaches is not his own, but Gods.

"The word of God is not bound." The Apostle is imprisoned; but his tongue and his companions pen are free. He can still teach those who come to him; can still dictate letters for others to Luke and the faithful few who visit him. He can still, as in his first Roman imprisonment, see that what has befallen him may "have fallen out rather unto the progress of the gospel; so that his bonds became manifest in Christ throughout the whole praetorian guard, and to all the rest". {Php_1:12-13} He has been able to influence those whom, but for his imprisonment, he would never have had an opportunity of reaching, - Roman soldiers, and warders, and officials, and all who have to take cognizance of his trial before the imperial tribunal.

"The word of God is not bound." While he is in prison, Timothy, and Titus, and scores of other evangelists and preachers, are free. Their action is not hampered because a colleague is shut up. The loss of him might have a depressing and discouraging effect on some; but this ought not to be so, and he hopes will not be so. Those who are left at large ought to labor all the more energetically and enthusiastically, in order to supply whatever is lost by the Apostles want of freedom, and in order to convince the world that this is no contest with a human organization or with human opinion, but with a Divine word and a Divine Person.

"The word of God is not bound," because His word is the truth, and it is the truth that makes men free. How can that of which the very essence is freedom, and of which the attribute is that it confers freedom, be itself kept in bondage? Truth is freer than air and more incompressible than water. And just as men must have air and must have water, and you cannot keep them long from either; so you cannot long keep them from the truth or the truth from them. You may dilute it, or obscure it, or retard it, but you cannot bury it or shut it up. Laws which are of Divine origin will surely and irresistibly assert themselves, and truth and the mind of man will meet.

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.

2:8-13 Paul’s suffering (1:12) reflects the suffering of Jesus Christ and points to the cross and resurrection as the inner meaning of that Good News (see 1:8). Paul’s suffering, like Christ’s, was instrumental in bringing salvation to others. Christ gives his approval to those who suffer and endure with him.

2:8 Jesus Christ, a descendant of King David, was raised from the dead: Cp. Rom 1:3-4. Suffering with Christ should be viewed from the perspective of the resurrection to come.

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

2Ti 2:8. Μνημόνευε) remember, so that thou mayest follow. Paul, as usual, quickens (gives life to) his own example by the example of Christ.—ἐγηγερμένον ἐκ νεκρῶν) An abbreviated expression, i.e. Who died and was raised from the dead; so we [if we are to share His resurrection, must share His death], 2Ti 2:11. Κατὰ, according to, depends on these words.—ἐκ σπέρματος Δαυὶδ, of the seed of David) He wishes Timothy to attend to this one genealogy [as opposed to the other ‘genealogies,’ 1Ti 1:4], which serves as a proof that Jesus is the Christ.

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

2Ti_2:8. Μνημόνευε Ἰησοῦν Χριστόν] μνημονεύειν is usually followed by the genitive; but the accusative is found both here and at 1Th_2:9. Timothy is to remember Jesus Christ, that he may gain the proper strength for discharging his official dutiesto remember especially His resurrection, in which He triumphed over sufferings and death, and in which is contained for the believer the seal of his victory;[25] hence Paul adds: ἘΓΗΓΕΡΜΈΝΟΝ ἘΚ ΝΕΚΡῶΝ, as one who rose from the dead.

The added asyndeton: ἘΚ ΣΠΈΡΜΑΤΟς ΔΑΒΊΔ, does not denote the humiliation, but the Messianic dignity of Christ.[26] The antithetical relation between the two clauses is here the same as in Rom_1:3-4 (ἐκ σπ. Δαβίδ … ἐξ ἀναστάσεως νεκρῶν), where it is distinctly marked by κατὰ σάρκα … κατὰ πνεῦμα. Hofmann incorrectly makes both ἐκ σπέρμ. Δ. and ἐκ νεκρῶν depend on ἐγηγερμένον; in that case the verb would have to be taken in two different senses; besides, ἐκ τ. σπέρμ. is nowhere found in connection with ἐγείρεσθαι. There, is nothing to indicate (Wiesinger) that ἐκ σπἐρμ. Δαβίδ is an antithesis to the docetic error of the heretics (van Oosterzee). Heydenreich rightly rejected the secondary references which many expositors give to these words, such as: that they indicate a similarity between the vicissitudes of Christs life and those of David; or that they are to serve as a proof of the certainty of Christs resurrection (Michaelis); or that they denote the whole state of Christs humiliation (Mosheim), and so on.

The added words: κατὰ τὸ εὐαγγέλιόν μου, may be referred either to μνημόνευε κ.τ.λ. (Hofmann), or to the attributes of Ἰησ. Χριστόν. The latter reference is the more probable one; Paul, as a rule, does not use the formula κατὰ τὸ εὐαγγ. to denote the rule for the believers conduct, but to confirm a truth he has expressed (comp. Rom_2:16; Rom_16:25; 1Ti_1:11). To refer it only to ἐκ σπέρμ. Δ. is arbitrary. Still more arbitrary is Jeromes opinion, that Paul by τὸ εὐαγγ. μου means the gospel of Luke (Baur).

[25] Hofmann wrongly maintains that the remembrance of Jesus Christ was not to be a pledge to Timothy of his victory over all he had to encounter for Christs sake, but only to make him willing to endure. Such willingness could only have come to him from the conviction that the victory of Christ was a pledge of victory to the believer.

[26] Hofmann (Schriftbew. II. 1, pp. 113f.): Timothy being disinclined to suffer for the gospels sake, the apostle reminds him that through death Jesus attained to the heavenly glory, to which He had a right through His descent from the line of David.Van Oosterzee incorrectly assumes that ἐκ σπέρμ. Δ. simply denotes the human origin of Jesus. The apostle clearly goes beyond this in mentioning David by name.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

He confirmeth plainly two principles of our faith, which are always assaulted of heretics, the one whereof (to wit, that Christ is the true Messiah made man of the seed of David) is the ground of our salvation: and the other is the highest part of it, to wit, that he is risen again from the dead.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Rather as Greek, "Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead." Remember Christ risen, so as to follow Him. As He was raised after death, so if thou wouldest share His risen "life," thou must now share His "death" (Ti2 2:11). The Greek perfect passive participle, implies a permanent character acquired by Jesus as the risen Saviour, and our permanent interest in Him as such. Christ's resurrection is put prominently forward as being the truth now assailed (Ti2 2:18), and the one best calculated to stimulate Timothy to steadfastness in sharing Paul's sufferings for the Gospel's sake (see on Ti2 2:3).

of the seed of David--The one and only genealogy (as contrasted with the "endless genealogies," Ti1 1:4) worth thinking of, for it proves Jesus to be the Messiah. The absence of the article in the Greek, and this formula, "of the seed of David" (compare Rom 1:3), imply that the words were probably part of a recognized short oral creed. In His death He assured us of His humanity; by His resurrection, of His divinity. That He was not crucified for His own sin appears from His resurrection; that He was crucified shows that He bore sin, on Him, though not in Him.

my gospel--that which I always taught.

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 8. Remember that Jesus Christ] The apostle seems to say: Whatever tribulations or deaths may befall us, let us remember that Jesus Christ, who was slain by the Jews, rose again from the dead, and his resurrection is the proof and pledge of ours. We also shall rise again to a life of glory and blessedness.

According to my Gospel] The false teaching of Hymeneus and Philetus stated that the resurrection was past already. Paul preached the resurrection from the dead; and founded his doctrine on the resurrection and promise of Christ. This was his Gospel; the other was of a different nature.

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

8 Remember that Jesus Christ, being raised from the dead. He expressly mentions some part of his doctrine, which he wished to go down to posterity, entire and uncorrupted. It is probable that he glances chiefly at that part about which he was most afraid; as will also appear clearly from what follows, when he comes to speak about the error of “Hymenaeus and Philetus,” (2 Timothy 2:17;) for they denied the resurrection, of which we have a sure pledge in this confession, when they falsely said that it was already past.

How necessary this admonition of Paul was, the ancient histories shew; for Satan put forth all his strength, in order to destroy this article of our faith. There being two parts of it, that Christ was born “of the seed of David,” and that he rose from the dead; immediately after the time of the Apostles, arose Marcion, who labored to destroy the truth of the human nature in Christ; and afterwards he was followed by the Manichaeans; and even, in the present day, this plague is still spreading.

So far as relates to the resurrection, how many have been employed, and with what diversified schemes, in laboring to overthrow the hope of it! This attestation, therefore, means as much as if Paul had said, “Let no one corrupt or falsify my gospel by slanders; I have thus taught, I have thus preached, that Christ, who was born a man of the seed of David, rose from the dead.”

According to my gospel He calls it “his gospel,” not that he professes to be the author but the minister of it. Now, in the resurrection of Christ we all have a sure pledge of our own resurrection. Accordingly, he who acknowledges that Christ has risen affirms that the same thing will take place with us also; for Christ did not rise for himself, but for us. The head must not be separated from his members. Besides, in the resurrection of Christ is contained the fulfillment of our redemption and salvation; for it is added, from the dead. Thus Christ, who was dead, arose. Why? and for what purpose? Here we must come to ourselves, and here too is manifested the power and fruit of both, namely, of his resurrection and of his death; for we must always hold by this principle, that Scripture is not wont to speak of these things coldly, and as matters of history, but makes indirect reference to the fruit.

Of the seed of David This clause not only asserts the reality of human nature in Christ, but also claims for him the honor and name of the Messiah. Heretics deny that Christ was a real man, others imagine that his human nature descended from heaven, and others think that there was in him nothing more than the appearance of a man. Paul exclaims, on the contrary, that he was “of the seed of David;” by which he undoubtedly declares that he was a real man, the son of a human being, that is, of Mary. This testimony is so express, that the more heretics labor to get rid of it, the more do they discover their own impudence. The Jews and other enemies of Christ deny that he is the person who was formerly promised; but Paul affirms that he is the son of David, and that he is descended from that family from which the Messiah ought to descend.

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.

(8) Remember that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised from the dead.—More accurately rendered, Remember Jesus Christ . . . as raised (or, as one raised). The words of the Greek original, “of the seed of David,” come after, not before, “was raised from the dead.” The translation should run thus: Remember Jesus Christ as one raised from the dead, born of the seed of David. Timothy was to remember, was ever to bear in mind, two great facts. They were to be the foundation stones of his whole life’s work. Remembering these in the hour of his greatest trouble, he was never to be cast down, but ever to take fresh courage. And the two facts he was to remember were: that Jesus Christ, for whose sake he suffered—like him, Timothy, or like St. Paul—was born of flesh and blood, and yet He had risen from the dead. Surely, in the hour of his weakness, such a thought would be sufficient to inspire him with comfort and courage. Two facts, then, are to be ever in Timothy’s mind: the Resurrection and the Incarnation of his Lord. The thought of the first mentioned, “the Resurrection,” would always be reminding him of his Master’s victory over death and of His present glory. The thought of the second mentioned, “born of the seed of David,” “the Incarnation,” would ever be whispering to him, “Yes, and the risen and glorified One sprang, too, like himself, from mortal flesh and blood.” The reason of the “Incarnation” being expressed in this special manner, “born of the seed of David,” was to include another truth. The “risen One “was not only born of flesh and blood, but belonged to the very race specified in those prophets so revered by Timothy and the chosen people as the race from which should spring the Messiah: “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth . . . and this is His name whereby He shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS” (Jer_23:5-6). To raise the fainting heart of his much-tried disciple in this hour of discouragement, to supply a ground of confidence to yet unborn Christians, who in their day would be tried as Timothy was then, was the Apostle’s first purpose when he pressed these thoughts on his son in the faith; but in the background, no doubt, there lay another purpose. These great comforting truths were to be maintained and taught in the presence of those false teachers who were ever ready to explain away or even to deny, then as now, the beginning and the end of the Son of God’s life and ministry on earth—His Incarnation and His Resurrection.

According to my gospel.—This formula, for so it may be considered, occurs frequently in St. Paul’s Epistles (Rom_2:16, and again Rom_16:25, and in other places), and, with very slight variations, in 1Ti_1:11 and 1Co_15:1. Jerome’s remark, “As often as St. Paul in his Epistles writes ‘according to my Gospel,’ he refers to the volume of Luke,” although received with reserve by many expositors, considering the weighty traditional evidence we possess of St. Luke’s Gospel being in reality written by St. Paul, appears on the whole substantially correct.

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

Remember that Jesus Christ of the seed of David,.... This is said either as an encouragement to suffer hardness in the cause of Christ; since he, who though he was of the seed of David, of the blood royal, and heir to his crown, yet suffered and died; and whereas he rose again from the dead, those who suffer for his sake shall rise also, and live and reign with him for ever: or else as a specimen of the form of sound words, or of the things which Timothy had heard of the apostle; for this, with what follows, is a summary of them: Christ being of the seed of David, according to the flesh, or human nature, is expressive of his incarnation; shows that he was really come in the flesh, and was truly man; and that he assumed human nature with all its frailties and infirmities, excepting sin, and was, like David, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with griefs; and it includes his whole life, and his righteousness, and obedience to the law of works, and points him out as the true Messiah, who was well known to the Jews by the name of the son of David. And now the apostle puts Timothy in mind, that he

was raised from the dead; which implies that he died; and so includes all the doctrines relating to his death; as that he died to make reconciliation, atonement, and satisfaction for the sins of his people, and to procure peace for them, and the full remission of all their iniquities; and to obtain redemption for them, from sin, Satan, the law, and its curses; as well as it expresses his resurrection from the dead, for their justification: and this being his first step to glory, has connected with it his ascension to heaven, session at the right hand of God, intercession for the saints, and his second coming to judgment; and is therefore particularly mentioned, because it is an article so comprehensive, and is a fundamental one, and of the greatest importance to faith, and was what was struck at in those times: the apostle adds,

according to my Gospel; meaning not the Gospel of Luke, in which there is a clear account given of the resurrection of Christ, said to be written by him, at the instigation, and under the direction of the apostle, and published with his approbation, as some think; but the doctrine of the Gospel, and which he calls his, not because he was the author, or the subject of it; for in these respects it is the Gospel of God, and of Christ; but because it was committed to him, and he was intrusted with it, and fully and faithfully preached it; and in distinction from another Gospel, that of the false teachers; and agreeably to this doctrine, which the apostle everywhere taught, Christ was raised from the dead; so the Ethiopic version renders it, "as I have taught".

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

8 Remember that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised from the dead according to my gospel:

Ver. 8. Remember that Jesus] Remember it for thine encouragement; that Christ, for a reward of his sufferings, was both raised and exalted, Php 2:9.

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.

Remember that Jesus Christ, of the seed of David, was raised from the dead - Or rather, perhaps, “Remember Jesus Christ; him who was raised from the dead.” The idea seems not to be, as our translators supposed, that he was to reflect on the fact that he was raised from the dead; but rather that he was to think of the Saviour himself. “Think of the Saviour, now raised up from the dead after all the sorrows of this life, and let this encourage you to bear your trials.” There is nothing better fitted to enable us to endure the labors and trials of this life, than to think of the Saviour. On the phrase “seed of David,” see the notes at Rom 1:3.

According to my gospel - The gospel which I preach; see the notes at 2Th 2:14.

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

According to my gospel. He seems to understand his preaching. (Witham)

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).

The apostle passeth from his former discourse, wherein he had armed Timothy against the afflictions of the gospel, to a discourse about the doctrine of the gospel; and here mentioneth two principal heads of that doctrine, the incarnation of Christ, and his resurrection, which he instanceth in, as more particularly to be remembered and pressed upon Christians, in regard they were those two points of the gospel which were either at that time denied, as that of the incarnation was by the Jews, or he knew would first be opposed; and the latter that which

declared Christ to be the Son of God with power, Rom 1:4, and upon a faith in which Christians’ salvation and consolation much depended, Rom 4:25; 8:34; he therefore calls to him especially to

remember that Jesus Christ was of the seed of David, truly man, and the true Messiah, who was to be the seed of David, (as the Jews themselves confessed): the manhood of Christ, soon after the apostle’s times, was denied by the Marcionites and Manichees, &c. And that he

was raised from the dead deserved Timothy’s remembrance, both because upon that depended the great evidence of Christ’s Divine nature, and the salvation and consolation of believers.

According to my gospel; this, he saith, was suitable to the doctrine of the gospel which he had preached to them: he calls it his gospel, because committed to his trust to publish; so Rom 2:16, and Rom 16:25, which he expoundeth, Gal 1:11, the gospel preached of me: he speaks in the plural number, 1Th 1:5; 2Th 2:14; declaring that the gospel was no more his than others’ also who were ministers of it.

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

8-13. Incitements from the truths of Christ’s incarnation and resurrection.

8. Remember—Not only consider, 2Ti_2:7, but the antithesis of the two foundation truths do you remember.

Seed of David—And so a true-born man.

Raised from the dead—And so exalted to the head of humanity.

My gospel—Note, 2Co_4:3. The gospel by me now most carefully committed to your charge.

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

Jesus Christ, risen from the dead for that Jesus Christ...was raised from the dead, A.V; of the seed of David for Jesus Christ of the seed of David, A.V Remember Jesus Christ. The A.V seems to give the sense more correctly than the R.V The point of the exhortation is to remember that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead, and by that remembrance to be encouraged to face even death courageously. The verb mnhmoneuw, in the New Testament, usually governs the genitive case as Act_20:35; Gal_2:10. But in 1Th_2:9; Mat_16:9; Rev_18:5, it has an accusative, as here, and commonly in classical Greek. There seems to be hardly sufficient ground for the distinction mentioned by Bishop Ellicott, that with a genitive it means simply "remember," with the accusative "keep in remembrance." It is more difficult to determine the exact force and intent of the clause, "of the seed of David." It seems, however, to point to Christ"s human nature, so as to make the example of Christ"s resurrection apposite as an encouragement to Timothy. And this view is much strengthened by Rom_1:3, where the addition, "according to the flesh," as contrasted with "the Son of God according to the Spirit of holiness," marks the clause, "of the seed of David," as specially pointing to the human nature of Christ. The particular form which the reference takes probably arises from the form to which the apostle refers us as "my gospel." In that creed, which was the epitome of the gospel as preached by St. Paul, there was no doubt mention made of Christ"s Davidic descent. Others, as Huther, think the clause points to the Messianic dignity of David. Others that it is inserted in refutation of the Docetae, and to show the reality of the death and resurrection of Christ; or that it is meant to mark especially the fulfilment of prophecy. But the first explanation is quite satisfactory, and the general purpose of the reference to our Lord as intended to encourage Timothy to endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ, is fully borne out by the "faithful saying" in vers. 11 and 12, "If we died with him, we shall also live with him: if we endure, we shall also reign with him.

The contemplation of Christ an incentive to comfort and constancy.

Timothy was to think of Christ"s victory for himself and for us as a ground of encouragement.

I CHRIST THE PERPETUAL OBJECT OF CHRISTIAN REMEMBRANCE. "Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, of the seed of David, according to my gospel." The two great facts that were to be ever present to Timothy"s mind were the Incarnation and the Resurrection the two miracles that stood, respectively, at the beginning and the end of his earthly history. The one would speak of the hopes of the race of man springing from the Saviour"s assumption of our nature in the royal line of David; the other of the completeness of the redemption sealed by the resurrection from the dead. Timothy would be encouraged to bear his trials by the thought of Christ"s victory over death.

II CHRIST THE PERPETUAL THEME OF THE GOSPEL. "According to my gospel.

1. These two facts are fundamental in the gospel. Take them away, there is no hope for man, no atonement, no blessed life hereafter.

2. These two facts needed to be taught in an age when false teachers denied a real incarnation, saying that the Saviour had a phantom body, and a real resurrection, because a bodily resurrection was not to be thought of, as matter, being essentially evil, could not attach to a Divine being. T.C.

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

Of the seed of David - This one genealogy attend to.

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

Ver. 8. Remember Jesus Christ as having been raised from the dead, of the seed of David, according to my gospel. This I take to be the exact rendering of the original—not “remember that Jesus Christ has been raised”—with the Vulg. (Jesum Christum resurrexisse). Authorized Version, and, among others, Alford, who tries to distinguish between the use of an accusative after μνημόνευε, and a genitive, as if in the former case it was a fact that was to be borne in mind, rather than an object or a person. Any one who will compare the following examples, in the two first of which the object of the verb is in the genitive, and the other two in the accusative (Luk 17:32; Joh 16:21; Mat 16:9; 1Th 2:9), may see that the alleged distinction is entirely fanciful. When in the first of those passages our Lord called His disciples to remember Lot’s wife, He surely meant Lot’s wife as embodying a memorable fact, not less than when in the third of them He called His disciples to remember the five loaves of the five thousand; and so with the others. The verb seems to have been indifferently coupled with a genitive or an accusative of the object—in classical writers more frequently with the accusative, in the New Testament more frequently with the genitive; but with whichever case, the import is much the same—namely, to remember or bear in mind the person or object expressed in the noun that follows. So here it is, Remember Jesus Christ, but Jesus Christ in a specific aspect, as “having been raised from the dead,” while still “of the seed of David.” Why should an injunction have been laid on Timothy to keep so specially in remembrance the fact of a risen Saviour, and a Saviour sprung from the seed of David? We are left to conjecture; but it was partly, no doubt—perhaps we should say primarily—by way of encouragement: for, having his eye ever fixed on one so sprung and so glorified, he had in a manner before him the fulfilment of all promise, and the pledge of all just hope and expectation. Why should he therefore faint under his duty of service, or quail before the assaults of the persecutor? He knew that his Redeemer, the destined Head of God’s chosen heritage, lived after having triumphed over sin and death, and was set down at the right hand of the Majesty on High. But in the same great facts, grasped by a childlike and reliant faith, he should have a secure position against the more subtle dangers which had begun to arise from that Gnostic spirit which, in its disparagement of flesh, at once ignored the natural descent of Christ, and made void the truth of His literal resurrection. And this also may have been in the view of the apostle, though there seems no reason for supposing, with some, that it was the only consideration to which he had respect in introducing the subject; nor, looking to the connection, even the more prominent one. The more immediate point is, how to endure hardship, to brave persecution, for the truth of Christ; and, surely, holding fast by Christ’s royal lineage, which was essential to His being the Messiah promised to the fathers, and by His resurrection from the dead, which was equally essential to His right to reign over the house of God, could not but form the best preparation, as it was indeed the indispensable condition, of stedfastness.

Patrick Fairbairn — An Exposition of Ezekiel (1851), Jonah (1849), and The Pastoral Epistles (1874) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

An Admonition to faithfulness in Faith and Christian Conduct.

v. 8. Remember that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised from the dead according to my Gospel;

v. 9. wherein I suffer trouble as an evil-doer, even unto bonds; but the Word of God is not bound.

v. 10. Therefore I endure all things for the elect’s sakes, that they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.

v. 11. It is a faithful saying: for if we be dead with Him, we shall also live with Him;

v. 12. if we suffer, we shall also reign with Him; if we deny Him, he also will deny us;

v. 13. if we believe not, yet he abideth faithful; He cannot deny Himself.

Faithfulness in the ministerial office, indeed, in any office in the Church, depends on the certainty of the Christian faith. For this reason the apostle reminds Timothy: Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, of the seed of David, according to the Gospel as preached by me. The content and summary of the glorious message of the Gospel, as preached by Paul, was Jesus Christ, true man indeed, a descendant of David according to the flesh. See Rom 1:3. This man Jesus Christ completed His work of redemption of the world by His resurrection from the dead. By this miracle, which reason cannot suffer and no man, of his own strength, can believe, as Luther writes, the work of redemption found divine acknowledgment and acceptance. These facts Timothy must keep in remembrance at all times, they were to encourage him to bear with cheerful courage all the trials which his work might bring upon him.

That there is a wonderful strength enclosed in this message of salvation St. Paul has experienced in his own case: in which I suffer evil, even to bonds, like a criminal; but the Word of God is not bound. In the sphere of the Gospel, for the sake of the Gospel, in the service of the Gospel, Paul had freely sacrificed himself. He did not grow weary in enduring evil, hatred, enmity, persecution, if he could but continue to serve the Gospel. Though he was imprisoned like a common criminal, he had the satisfaction of knowing that he had done no wrong, and that he was but following in the footsteps of his Master. At the same time it was a source of great satisfaction to him to know that the course of the Gospel was not bound, and that its course did not depend upon his person. Though his enemies had succeeded in casting the great preacher of righteousness into prison, yet they could not stop the preaching of righteousness through the blood of Christ. Even in the apostle’s case written communication with the other parts of the Christian world had not been cut off. Should the climax be reached and his person be removed, the Lord was able to continue His work through the agency of other men.

His personal attitude the apostle explains still more fully: For that reason I endure all things for the sake of the elect, in order that they also might share in the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. Because Paul knew that the Word of God was not bound, because he was ever mindful of the risen Christ and His glorious victory over all enemies, and because he had entered the ranks of the disciples of the Lord, therefore he willingly endured all these evils, not passively, as one that could not help himself, but actively and even aggressively, as one who intended his attitude to serve a definite purpose. The apostle has in mind chiefly the elect, the believers, Php 1:14; 2Co 1:6; Col 1:24. The fact that the apostle endured all sufferings so steadfastly should serve for the encouragement of the Christians for all times; it should cause them to become so sure of their salvation in Christ Jesus that even the greatest afflictions and persecutions would not cause them to doubt the fact of their being the children of the heavenly Father through Christ. For their salvation is in Christ Jesus; it is earned by Him, it rests in Him, it is grounded in Him. There can be no doubt, therefore, that the believers will obtain that eternal glory which is connected with this salvation. This glory enters into the hearts of the believers even here in time, and in eternity they will be blessed with the fullness of the heavenly glory such as they can but feebly conceive of in this vale of tears and sorrows.

So great is the comfort and consolation which the apostle has on the basis of this thought that he breaks into a song of Christian hope: Trustworthy is the word: If we have died with Him, we shall also live with Him; if we endure, we shall also reign with Him; if we deny, He also will deny us; if we are faithless, He remains faithful, for deny Himself He cannot. The apostle calls attention to the wonderful truths which he here lays before the Christians to encourage them at all times: Truly a trustworthy, a sure word! If we are faithful to the Lord, even unto death, and if we daily cause our old Adam, our sinful flesh, to die with all desires and evil lusts, then we shall also become partakers of the reward of mercy which He has reserved for us in heaven. See Rom 8:18. If we show a steadfast patience in the midst of all afflictions and sufferings, then He will at the last day elevate us to the honor and dignity of coregents with Him. Even here on earth, by virtue of the fellowship of faith with Him, He has made us to be kings and priests before Him. But yonder in eternity He will vest us with the powers of eternal kings and rulers, and we shall reign with Him throughout eternity. On the other hand, St. Paul issues an emphatic warning, telling us that, if we deny Him, He will deny us. Every true follower of Christ must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Him. But he who, in word or deed, is ashamed of Christ will find that the Lord will also be ashamed of him on the great Day of Judgment. See Mat 7:23; Mat 10:33; Mat 25:12. And again: If we are faithless, if we are not true to Him and to our promise given Him in Baptism, if we lose the faith of our hearts by neglecting the Word and the Sacraments, God will be faithful to His threat of punishment, for He cannot be untrue to His essence; He is the Eternal, Immutable. A faithless, unreliable servant the Lord cannot reward but with the reward of unfaithfulness. What a solemn warning to the Christians of all times not to yield to the weakness of the flesh and thus to forfeit the blessings of eternity!

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Our apostle having, in the foregoing verses exhorted Timothy to patience and constancy under suffering, comes now to direct him as to the matter and subject of his preaching, particularly, that he insist upon the incarnation and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ; Remember that Jesus Christ was the promised Messias of the seed of David not of Joseph.

Timothy is here called upon to assert the incarnation of Christ, there being some heretics which did very early deny the truth of his human nature, as the Marcionites and Manichees; as there were others that denied the reality of his divine nature, particularly Ebion and Cerinthus.

Secondly, He calls upon Timothy to preach and press the doctrine of Christ’s resurrection also, both because upon that depended the great evidence of his divinity, that he was really God, (his resurrection by his own power declared him to be God, Rom 1:4) and also because upon that depends the consolation and salvation of all believers.

Remember, and frequently inculcate, that Christ was raised from the dead, according to my gospel; that is, according to the gospel of Christ preached by me. Christ’s incarnation and resurrection, are truths much to be preached and inculcated by ministers, and frequently remembered and thoroughly considered by their people.

It follows, Wherein I suffer trouble as an evil-doer, even unto bonds: but the word of God is not bound: that is, for which gospel, and for preaching which resurrection, I suffer as a criminal and reputed malefactor, yea, I suffer to that degree, that I am bound with chains for preaching Jesus and the resurrection: But the word of God is not bound; though they have restrained me, they cannot restrain that; that is loose and at liberty; when the dispensers of it are in bonds, that has its free course.

Learn, That the preachers of the gospel have, from the beginning, met with great persecutions, they have suffered trouble as evil-doers, even unto bonds.

Learn, 2. That the persecution of preachers doth not hinder the progress and liberty of the word; when ministers are in prison, the word may have free passage, and holy men rejoice at its liberty, under their own confinement: Yea, the providence of God so ordered it, (see Acts the last) Acts 28 that St. Paul, even during his imprisonment, preached the word with all boldness; his confinement had caused the gospel to spread in Rome. Thus God out-shoots Satan in his own bow: He thinks when he has the ministers of God in prison, he has done his work, but God over-rules and causes their imprisonment itself to fall out rather to the furtherance of the gopsel; I suffer bonds, says the apostle, but the word of God is not bound.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

8. Remember. This is spoken for encouragement in suffering. That Jesus Christ of the seed of David. Even as the prophets had predicted that he should be. Was raised from the dead. He suffered, died, but was not holden of death, and was exalted.

My gospel. The gospel I preach everywhere.

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.

Connecting Statement:

Paul gives Timothy instructions on how to live for Christ, how to suffer for Christ, and how to teach others to live for Christ.

from David's seed

This is a metaphor that means Jesus descended from David. AT: "who is a descendant of David" (See: Metaphor)

who was raised from the dead

Here to raise up is an idiom for causing someone who has died to become alive again. This can be stated in active form. AT: "whom God caused to live again" or "whom God raised from the dead" (See: Active or Passive and Idiom)

according to my gospel message

Paul speaks of the gospel message as if it were especially his. He means that this is the gospel message that he proclaims. AT: "according to the gospel message that I preach" (See: Metonymy)

to the point of being bound with chains as a criminal

Here "being chained" represents being a prisoner. This can be stated in active form. AT: "to the point of wearing chains as a criminal in prison" (See: Metonymy and Active or Passive)

the word of God is not bound

Here "bound" speaks of what happens to a prisoner, and the phrase is a metaphor that means no one can stop God's message. This can be translated in active form. AT: "no one can put the word of God in prison" or "no one can stop the word of God" (See: Metaphor)

for those who are chosen

This can be stated in active form. AT: "for the people whom God has chosen" (See: Active or Passive)

may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus

Paul speaks of salvation as if it were an object that could be physically grasped. AT: "will receive salvation from Christ Jesus" (See: Metaphor)

with eternal glory

"and that they will be forever with him in the glorious place where he is"

translationWords

Jesus

David

seed

raise

die

good news

suffer

crime

word of God

endure

chosen one

save

in Christ

eternity

glory

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

8. Bengel’s comment on the verse is, as usual, illuminating. Paulus exemplo Christi suum, ut solet, exemplum animat.

μνημόνευε. Keep in remembrance, have ever in your thoughts. We have μνημονεύειν with the acc. again in 1Th 2:9.

Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν ἐγηγερμένον ἐκ νεκρῶν. Jesus Christ, as risen from the dead. The memory of the Risen Lord will inspire with courage and faithfulness; note that it is the Vision of the Risen One, not the Vision of the Crucified, which Timothy is bidden to keep before him. The power of the risen life of Christ is ever in St Paul’s mind; cp. Rom 6:9; Rom 7:4.

ἐκ σπέρματος Δαυείς, of the seed of David. Cp. Rom 1:3 where these two leading thoughts, the true Messiahship of Jesus on the one hand, and His Divine Sonship on the other, as guaranteed by His Resurrection, are placed in juxtaposition in like manner. ‘Jesus Christ, risen from the dead’; He is the centre of the New Dispensation. ‘Of the seed of David’; here is the pledge that He has fulfilled the hopes of the Old. Hanc unam genealogiam, says Bengel, a Timotheo vult attendi.

κατὰ τὸ εὐαγγέλιόν μου, according to my gospel, i.e. according to the good tidings which I am commissioned to preach. Cp. for the phrase Rom 2:16; Rom 16:25. To limit it to the written gospel of St Luke (as Jerome suggested) is to introduce an idea quite foreign to the Apostle’s thought.

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.

8-13.] This statement and substantiation of two of the leading facts of the gospel, seems, especially as connected with the exhortations which follow on it vv. 14 ff., to be aimed at the false teachers by whose assumption Timotheus was in danger of being daunted. The Incarnation and Resurrection of Christ were two truths especially imperilled, and indeed denied, by their teaching. At the same time these very truths, believed and persisted in, furnished him with the best grounds for stedfastness in his testimony to the Gospel, and attachment to the Apostle himself, suffering for his faithfulness to them: and on his adherence to these truths depended his share in that Saviour in whom they were manifested, and in union with whom, in His eternal and unchangeable truth, our share in blessedness depends. Remember, that Jesus Christ has been raised up from the dead (the accus. after μνημόνευε imports that it is the fact respecting Jesus Christ, not so much He Himself, to which attention is directed (see reff.). Ellic. takes exactly the other view, citing in its favour Winer, § 45. 4, who however implicitly maintains my rendering, by classing even 1Jn 4:2, 2Jn 1:7, with Heb 13:23, γινώσκετε τὸν ἀδ. Τιμόθεον ἀπολελυμένον, which he renders “ihr wisset, dass … emblassen ist.” Ellic. refers to my note on 1Jn 4:2, as if it were inconsistent with the rendering here: but the verb there is ὁμολογεῖν, not μνημονεύειν, which I conceive makes all the difference. According to Ellic.’s rendering, unless we refer ἐν ᾧ to Christ, which he does not, the context becomes very involved and awkward. The gen. is more usual in later Greek (see Luk 17:32: Joh 15:20; Joh 16:4, Joh 16:21: Act 20:35, &c.)—but the accus. in classical, see Palm and Rost sub voce, and cf. Herod. i. 36, Æschyl. Pers. 769 (783 Dindorf), Soph. Ag. 1273, Philoct. 121, Eur. Androm. 1165 (1141 Matthiæ), &c.), (Jesus Christ, who was) of the seed of David (this clause must be taken as = τὸν ἐκ σπέρμ. Δαυίδ, and the unallowable and otherwise unaccountable ellipsis of the article may probably be explained, as De W., by the words being part of a recognized and technical profession of faith. Compare Rom 1:3, which is closely parallel.

Mack’s attempt to join ἐκ σπέρμ. Δ. to ἐγηγερμένον ἐκ νεκρ., ‘that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead in His flesh, as He sprung from David,’ is hardly worth refutation), according to my Gospel (‘the Gospel entrusted to me to teach,’ as in reff. Here the expression may seem to be used with reference to the false teachers,—but as in the other places it has no such reference, I should rather incline to regard it as a solemn way of speaking, identifying these truths with the preaching which had been the source of Timotheus’s belief.

Baur, in spite of ἐν ᾧ &c. following, understands this εὐαγγ. μου of the Gospel of St. Luke, as having been written under the authority of St. Paul. See Prolegg. to St. Luke’s Gospel in Vol. I. § iv. 6, note), in which (‘cujus annuntiandi munere defungens,’ Beza: see reff.) I suffer hardship (see ver. 3) even unto (consult Ellic.’s note and his references on μέχρι) chains (see ch. 1:16) as a malefactor (‘κακοπαθῶ, κακοῦργος—malum passionis, ut si præcessisset malum actionis,’ Bengel), but the word of God is not bound (δεσμοῦνται μὲν αἱ χεῖρες, ἀλλʼ οὐχ ἡ γλῶττα, Chrys.: similarly Thdrt. But we shall better, though this reference to himself is not precluded (cf. ch. 4:17: Act 28:31), enlarge the words to that wider acceptation, in which he rejoices, Php 1:18. As regarded himself, the word of God might be said to be bound, inasmuch as he was prevented from the free proclamation of it: his person was not free, though his tongue and pen were. This more general reference Chrys. himself seems elsewhere to admit (as cited in Heydenr.): ὁ διδάσκαλος ἐδέδετο καὶ ὁ λόγος ἐπέτετο· ἐκεῖνος τὸ δεσμωτήριον ᾤκει, καὶ ἡ διδασκαλία πτερωθεῖσα πανταχόσε τῆς οἰκουμένης ἔτρεχε. The purpose of adding this seems to be, to remind Timotheus, that his sufferings and imprisonment had in no way weakened the power of the Gospel, or loosened the ties by which he (Timotheus) was bound to the service of it: hardly as Chrys.: εἰ ἡμεῖς δεδεμένοι κηρύττομεν, πολλῷ μᾶλλον ὑμᾶς τοὺς λελυμένους τοῦτο ποιεῖν χρή).

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

8. μνημόνευε] so St. Peter is said to have appealed to his wife on her way to martyrdom, μέμνησο, ὦ αὕτη, τοῦ κυρίου, Clem. Alex. Strom. vii. p. 869, § 63 (Wetstein). St. Paul is acting in the spirit of the Eucharist, εἰς τὴν ἐμὴν ἀνάμνησιν, 1Co 11:24.

Ἰησοῦν χρ.] here only in this Ep. (elsewhere Χρ. Ἰησοῦν): with stress on the historic life as the first thought, and Χριστόν perhaps consciously a predicate. “Jesus—as the Messiah”; cf. Rom 1:3, Rom 1:4.

ἐγηγερμένον] not the mere fact of the Resurrection (ἐγηγέρθαι), but keep Him in your mind as a Living Risen Lord who is able to give His life to you; cf. συζήσομεν 11.

ἐκ σπέρματος Δαβίδ] Perhaps a semi-quotation from an early form of a creed: cf. Ign. Eph. 18, Trall. 9, Smyrn. 1, in all which places it emphasizes the reality of the human nature. There may be some such antidocetic thought here (cf. I 2:5 note), and in ἐγηγερμένον a refutation of Hymenæus and Philetus (18); but the context lays stress rather on the power of Christ to help, so that ἐκ σπ. Δ. expands the thought of Χριστόν—a Messiah and a true descendant of David, a King who can share his Kingdom; cf. συμβασιλεύσομεν, v. 12 and Luk 1:32, Luk 1:33.

κατὰ τὸ εὐαγ. μου] cf. Rom 2:16, Rom 16:25—not invented by me but entrusted to me; cf. 1Ti 1:11.

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

Remember that Jesus Christ - was raised, etc. Incorrect. Rend. remember Jesus Christ raised from the dead. Mnhmoneue remember, only here in Pastorals : often in Paul. Egeirein to raise, very often in N. T., but only here in Pastorals. The perfect passive participle [εγηγερμενον] only here. The perfect marks the permanent condition - raised and still living. Of the seed of David. Not referring to Christ 's human descent as a humiliation in contrast with his victory over death [εγηγερμενον] , but only marking his human, visible nature along with his glorified nature, and indicating that in both aspects he is exalted and glorified. See the parallel in Rom 1:3, 4, which the writer probably had in mind, and was perhaps trying to imitate. It is supposed by some that the words Jesus Christ - seed of David were a part of a confessional formula.

According to my gospel. Comp. Rom 2:16; Rom 16:25, and see 1Co 14:1; 2 Gal 11:7; Gal 1:11; Gal 2:2; 1Ti 1:11.

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