V. ACCORDANCE WITH THE GOSPEL. "According to the gospel of the glory of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust." The gospel may be presented either in relation to man, or in relation to God. In relation to man, the gospel is manifold. It is a gospel of peace; it quiets the guilty conscience. It is a gospel of purity; it purifies the heart. It is a gospel of comfort; it imparts to us a strong consolation under all the ills of this life. It is a gospel of hope; it opens up to us beyond this bounded life the boundless prospect of the life everlasting. In relation to God, too, the gospel is manifold. It is the gospel of a righteous God; it is a satisfaction of Divine justice. It is the gospel of a gracious God; it is an overflow of Divine mercy and compassion. It is the gospel of a wise God; it is the application of Divine intelligence to a very difficult problem. It is the gospel of an almighty God; it is an agency charged with Divine power. It is here the gospel, not of a righteous God, not of a gracious God, not of a wise God, not of an almighty God, but of a blessed God. And in this connection it is put forward as embodying the glory of the blessed God. "The gospel of the glory of the blessed God." Such are the words of Paul, the great gospel preacher, to his pupil Timothy. Consider, in the first place, how it belongs to the blessed God to communicate his blessedness; and, in the second place, how the gospel is a communication of the glory of the blessedness of God. First, then, how it belongs to the blessed God to communicate his blessedness. The "blessed God" is an uncommon conception in Scripture. We indeed find—"Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?" "The Creator, who is blessed forever.... God blessed for ever." But "blessed" there is adorable, worthy to be praised; literally, "worthy to be well spoken of." It is the word which conveys an acknowledgment of God's claim to undivided worship. Whereas "blessed" here is equivalent to "happy" as applied to us. God is said to be blessed, as we are said to be happy. And seeing "blessed' is used in a totally different sense in Scripture, the "happy God" would best convey the sense here. And we see no reason why we should not say that God is happy, when in the original the word which is applied to God is the same which is applied to man. There is only one other place in Scripture where God is said to be thus blessed; and, noticeably, it is in this same Epistle: "The blessed and only Potentate;" literally, "the happy and only Potentate." It is as if the inspired writer consciously supplied a want. it had never been said that God was happy. So twice he introduces this conception into this late Epistle. And it is to be regretted that in the Revised Version "happy" has not been substituted for "blessed" in the two places. The blessedness of God is not different in kind from ours. If there is any deep calm in our minds, that is the same with the calm of God. If any true thrill of joy passes through our hearts, that is the same which passes through the heart of God. But blessedness is God's in a way that it is not ours. We are only blessed in him who gave us being, and for whom we have being. And ours is a blessedness that can be added to. We are finite, and there will always be, in the fact of our finitude, a desire to be more blessed. But God is self-blessed. We think of this by means of the conception of God existing far away in a past eternity, when there was yet no other intelligence, not even the faintest reflection of his glory in any created object, and as happy then as now when he has peopled a universe. Such a thought is not bearable by us, and God has not asked us to dwell upon it; and we would say that, while we may be forced thus to think of Godhead as self-poised, or resting in self, we may at the same time be allowed to dwell upon the far more pleasing thought of the Three Persons of the Godhead as resting in one another. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are happy in one another's society and fellowship. It will be felt that that thought, which is denied to the Unitarian, greatly relieves the thought of a God isolated, in his blessedness, away before and out of time. Still the fact remains, that as the one God is infinitely blessed, so also he is blessed in himself. As there is in his boundless being no void of blessedness to fill up, no jarring note to correct, so there can be no desire to make himself more blessed. But it perfectly consists with that that he should desire to make others blessed. This is in keeping with what we find among men. It is true of the miserable man that he is selfish. It is there that he is wrong, at the very commencement. In the very act of enclosing himself, or in the habit of keeping himself enclosed within his own shell, he shuts himself out from blessedness. He does not go out to God. At every approach and overture of God, he draws back further within himself. His sin is that he will keep within himself, and will not go out in confession and desire and faith toward God. And so God does not bless him. He does not go out in love to God's creatures, and so these do not bless him. And thus, shutting himself out from blessedness, his tendency is to grudge blessedness to others. He has a secret joy in misfortune, tie could see a funeral pall drawn over all that is fair in nature, He would have the smile to vanish from our countenance. He would have sweet voices hushed. He would have all things brought down to his own dull level. And, worst outcome of all—yet we would say a necessary outcome—he grudges even God his blessedness. His feeling is that, being miserable himself, he could see God less happy than he is. The happy man, on the other hand, is unselfish. It is by being open that he comes to be happy. He goes out to God in meek abnegation of self, and so God blesses him. He goes out to God's creatures in delight and gratitude and mercy, and so he receives contributions to his happiness on every side.
Now, just as the miserable man would have a miserable world around him, so the happy man would have a happy world around him. He would distribute happiness most lavishly. He would admit all to a share of it. He would have all to be happy as he is happy. "I would to God," said Paul to Agrippa, "that not only thou, but also all that hear me this day, were both almost and altogether such as I am, except these bonds." The happy man is magnanimous; he wishes ill to no one; he invokes blessing even upon his enemies. Out of his own heart of blessedness there seems to rise the desire to make others blessed. And so, although God can have no desire to make himself more blessed, yet, being full of blessedness himself, he desires to make others blessed. Creation may be taken as an expression of that desire on the part of God. Creation is just God flowing out in blessedness. It is God saying, "Let me not keep my blessedness to myself; let others be blessed with me." What purpose in creation can we conceive into which that does not enter? It is true that we are created to give praise to God; but that is more from our side. Front God's side, it is perhaps better to say that he created us, not so much that he might receive our praise, as that we might receive his blessedness. God, we may suppose, would not have created for the mere purpose of creating, however pleasurable that is to him. Neither would he have created merely to have a sphere for the exercise of his power. What to him were empty worlds in which to store up his power, through which at will to roll the thunder of his power? N-either would he have created for the mere pleasure of working according to a plan, or of having the marvels of his wisdom set forth before him. What to hint were the clothing matter with plants and trees, touching each minutest part with his plastic hand, and varying every form? The blessed God created, not to have pleasure himself, but to give pleasure. It was that, we think, that moved him to create. And therefore he made living creatures—creatures capable of receiving pleasure. And he cared for having nothing in the world which was not to bless them. From the tiniest insect that dances out its lifetime in a summer sun, through all the orders of living beings up to man himself, invested with lordship, he has only one design—to make existence pleasurable to iris creatures. True, there is evil in the world, reaching down from man to the other creatures which necessarily share with him his earthly lot. But there is reason for the evil; and the evil, it is to be observed, is not in the creation. It has been induced on an all-good creation. In no case does God as a final end make a being to inflict pain on it. And even as it is, with the evil introduced into our world, who will say that God intends our destruction? It would have been a very different world if there had been the shadowing forth of any such intention. It is of things as they are that Paul says, taking a broad retrospective view of God's dealings in providence, "He left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness." He would not continue to make provision for our support, did he mean our destruction. And not only does he make provision for our support, but he gives us all things richly to enjoy. He gives us food, and the other necessaries of life in abundance. And not only so, but he gives us many things for the mere pleasure of them. He arranges objects in nature with a regard to beauty. He richly colors them; he floods them with a kindly light, He gives us flowers; he gives us the song of birds, He gives us rainbows and sunsets, and clouds of many a form. And he curtains the earth, that he may show us the glory of the starry heavens. And all these things he gives us chiefly as luxuries. We say, then, that even in nature God testifies to his desire, to his intention to make us happy. Even in nature, which has been spoken of as "red in tooth and claw with fawn," God gives us the promise of the coming gospel. Consider, in the second place, how the gospel is a communication of the glory of the blessedness of God. We remark
1 Timothy 1:12-17.—Personal digression.
I. THANKFULNESS FOR BEING APPOINTED BY CHRIST TO HIS SERVICE. "I thank him that enabled me, even Christ Jesus our Lord, for that he counted me faithful, appointing me to his service." At the close of the eleventh verse Paul brings in his relation to the gospel of the glory of the happy God. It was a trust committed to him, i.e. it was made his great business to convey the message of happiness to his fellow-men. And as He was made responsible, so also He was empowered. He was not sent a warfare on his own charges. He was supplied with all that was necessary for the discharge of the duties connected with the trust. And so he cannot refrain from turning aside for a little, to pour forth his soul in gratitude to him who empowered him as he also gave him the trust, even Christ Jesus our Lord, the great Head of the Church, from whom proceed all ministerial appointments and all ministerial qualifications. What called forth his gratitude was, that Christ reposed confidence in him in appointing him to his service. He saw that he was one who could be used and trusted for the furtherance of the gospel; and so he gave him the appointment and the qualifications. To be assured of this as Paul was is great joy. How thankful ministers should be, if they have some evidence, in their own earnestness and in the fruits of their ministry, that they have not mistaken their calling!
II. THE CONSIDERATION OF HIS PREVIOUS LIFE. "Though I was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious: howbeit I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief." The gratitude of the apostle was enhanced by the consideration of his persecuting career. He was before a blasphemer, his evil speaking being directed against the Name of Jesus of Nazareth. He was also a persecutor even in this respect, that he compelled others to blaspheme. And he rose to the full conception of a persecutor in the tyrannical way in which he went about the work of' persecution. At this stage of his life he was far removed from being the minister of Christ. But though he showed no mercy, he obtained mercy. There was this to be said for him, that what he did against Christ he did ignorantly. He acted under an erroneous impression. It was not that he knew Christ to be the Son of God, and hated him for his Divine credentials, especially because he manifested the Divine goodness. But he was carried away by zeal for the Jewish religion, which, he thought, was greatly endangered by the triumphs of Christianity. He was thus not in the most direct, most deliberate way, against Christ. And, so far as he was not throwing away the most sacred convictions, he was within the pale of mercy. He was within the scope of the Savior's intercession from the throne, if we are to regard it as conformed to his intercession from the cross, which was in these words: "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do"—words which are echoed by Peter in his address to the Jews, "And now, brethren, I wet that through ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers." It was in a state of unbelief that he was ignorant. This implied that he had not followed his lights as others had followed theirs, not greater than his. He had been directed away from Christianity by confidence in his own righteousness. And be had given way to the disposition, so natural to the depraved heart, to make a tyrannical use of power. He was, therefore, most culpable, standing in need of repentance and forgiveness, as Peter went on to impress on the Jews in the address just referred to: "Repent ye, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out."
III. GRACE ABOUNDING EXCEEDINGLY. "And the grace of our Lord abounded exceedingly with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus." In Romans 5:1-21. Paul says of sin that it abounded; here the same word is used of grace, with an addition to it which gives it the force of a superlative. He labors to express the stretch of grace which our Lord had to make toward him when he, a guilty persecutor, was saved. His salvation was accompanied by the two graces, faith and love. From being a disbeliever in Christianity he became a humble believer in it, even preaching the faith of which formerly he made havoc. From having the spirit of the persecutor he came to have the spirit of the Christian, forgiving those who persecuted him, and seeking to subdue men, not by force, but by the power of Christian truth and example. It is said of this love that it is in Christ Jesus—subsisting in him, and determined in its outgoings by him. We can understand that his own experience of salvation had to do with his eminence as a minister of Christ. It filled him with deep personal gratitude to his Savior. It urged him to labor, so as to take revenge on himself for the evil he had done. It fitted him for sympathizing with others in such condition as that in which he had been. And it enabled him the better to understand the sweet gentle spirit of the religion of Christ, that he could contrast it with his own unlovely persecuting zeal.
IV. THE GOSPEL THROUGH WHICH GRACE OPERATED.
1. Reliableness of the gospel. "Faithful is the saying, and worthy of all acceptation." When our Epistle was written, this was one of the sayings that passed as proverbs in Christian circles. This profatory formula is peculiar to the pastoral Epistles. The first clause, which occurs five times, points to the certitude of the gospel. The would-be teachers of the Law—apparently Essenes—dealt in fables for which there was no ground of certainty, and in genealogies or namings of intermediate agencies, which only ministered disputings as to the names. The apostle regards the gospel as the embodiment of certainty. Venturing our immortal souls upon the truth of this saying, it will not prove a myth, but a glorious reality. The second clause, which occurs twice, points to the saying as worthy of a universal welcome. Let all men lay hold upon it as an essentially good saying—good for the whole nature; it is only the reception it deserves.
2. Particular form in which the gospel is presented. "That Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." This is the gospel in all simplicity, to which the aged apostle cleaves. The Anointed of God for salvation said of himself, "I came out from the Father, and am come into the world." The world is to be understood in the physical sense; it is the earth, however, not in the purity of the conception, but the earth as it has become the congenial abode for sinners. It could not be said of Christ when he was here, that this was his original or congenial abode. He came into the world, he came from a pure world, from the Father, and that meant a world of highest purity. And what drew him to this world, with all its uncongeniality? Jesus, the Name which he has made his own, the Name which is above every name, points to his nature as love. It is of the nature of love to find a congenial outlet in saving. But whom on this earth did Christ come to save? Men who were wronged, upon whom superhuman powers were causelessly inflicting tortures? Did he come to assert their innocence against their strong oppressors? No; men who were in the wrong themselves, who were wrongers of God, and were the causes of their own misery. It was sinners that drew the Savior down to earth. He longed to save them from their misery, from themselves as the guilty causes of their misery, from their sinful habits and associations, and to make them pure as the heaven from which he came. In saving sinners, he had to suffer from sinners, in his purity coming into contact with their impurity, and exposing him to their hate. He had especially to suffer in the room of sinners, in all the loneliness of a pure, perfect life, treading the wine-press of the Divine wrath against sin.
3. Individualization of the gospel. "Of whom I am chief." He was not at the head of sinners in this sense, that at one time he had reached a point beyond which sinning could not go in heinousness. He had not committed the sin against the Holy Ghost. He had not sinned like Judas, in close neighborhood to Christ and in clear impression of his Divinity. He had never been, in sinning, beyond the pale of mercy. Neither was he in the position to compare himself with all who had obtained mercy, and to say infallibly that he was the greatest of them all. But he was at the head of sinners in his sense of his own utter unworthiness apart from Christ. That unworthiness he viewed chiefly, we may say, in the lurid light of his persecuting career. It was so complete a self-revelation, that he could not keep it from coming up before his imagination when he thought of sell. But this self-revelation was not all before his conversion. He knew how self was ever seeking to mingle with all he did. In the whole discovery, then, of what he was apart from Christ, as one for whom the gospel was intended, he could say in all truthfulness of feeling, and with no decrease of truthfulness as he advanced in the Christian life, but rather an increase, that he was at the head of the class of sinners.
V. ENCOURAGEMENT TO SINNERS. "Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me as chief might Jesus Christ show forth all his long-suffering, for an ensample of them which should hereafter believe on him unto eternal life." There was a fitness in Paul as chief in obtaining mercy also coming at an early period in the history of the Christian Church, for the sake of future generations. He was a typical illustration in what happened in his case of the fullness of the long-suffering of Christ. For the first thirty years of his life he was going in the wrong direction altogether. As he drew near the end of that period he seemed far enough away from believing, in the active violent part he took against Christ. But Christ did not, as he could have done, make his hostility to recoil upon his own head. But he treated him magnanimously, as one who is conscious of pure intention and forgiving love can do his foe. He treated him without haste, giving him space for experience, for thinking about the Divine dealing, and for seeing his error. And, in the end, Paul was subdued into believing, to the praise of the long-suffering of Christ. Whoever thinks he is far enough away from believing, in resistance to the Divine leadings, in hostility offered to Christ, Paul would have him to be encouraged by his example to believe on Christ, the certain end, of this believing being eternal life, or possession, up to our capacity, of the blessedness of the Divine life.
VI. DOXOLOGY. "Now unto the King eternal, incorruptible, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen." The apostle concludes his personal digression with a doxology which is unique in its character, and, we may be sure, appropriate. God is styled, as he is nowhere else in the Scriptures, literally "King of the ages," i.e. Sovereign Controller of the vast periods under which centuries and millenniums are included. Outside of them himself in his absolute eternity, he sways all that takes place in them. He can be long-suffering as he is in Christ; he does not need to be in haste, having the ages in which to work out his purposes. He is also styled "incorruptible," as he is also in Romans 1:23; and "invisible," as he is in Colossians 1:15 and Hebrews 2:1-18:27. There is great difficulty in all religions in rising above gross notions of God. As a pure Spirit there is denied of him the corruptibility and visibility which pertain to our corporeal nature. There is not, therefore, permitted a corporeal representation, or any image of him, as tending to degrade our conception of him. He is further styled "the only God," as in 1 Timothy 6:15 he is styled "the only Potentate." This seems to be chiefly directed against the Essene religion, which invested their intermediate agents with Divine powers of creation. To God, as thus exalted, is ascribed, with a fullness of expression, honor and glory (as in Revelation 5:13) to the ages of ages over which the Divine existence extends.—R.F.
1 Timothy 1:18-20.—Recurrence to Timothy.
1. The charge. "This charge I commit unto thee, my child Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before on thee, that by them thou mayest war the good warfare; holding faith and a good conscience." The reference seems back to 1 Timothy 1:3, which, though distant, is the only charge which has been defined, viz. the charge laid on Timothy, that he should charge certain men not to teach a different doctrine, neither to give heed to fables and endless genealogies. This involved his coming into contact with these men, and so there is naturally introduced the idea of warfare, He was to embrace his opportunity in Ephesus of warring the good warfare. "Knighthood" is Luther's word, the suggestion being the whole service in war that is required of a good Christian knight, such as he would wish the youthful Timothy to be. It is the good warfare; for it is not mere romance, but a warfare against all forms of sin—a warfare in the Name of the Savior and with his gospel, and a warfare which has the promise of success. To call forth the knightly qualities in Timothy, Paul calls up the prophecies which went before on him. These were founded on the good hopes which he awakened in good men, when first he began to show his qualities; he must not disappoint these good hopes. As prophecies, or uttered under the inspiration of the Spirit prior to or at his introduction into office, they were to be taken as a Divine indication that he was being put to his proper work. They would also, we may believe, point to the hard work which, as a good knight, he would not fear to face. Thus using the prophecies, they would be a Divine assistance to him; they would be as amour in which he was clad. Especially, however, with a view to what is to follow, would the apostle impress on him the importance of holding faith and a good conscience. Prophecies, expressions of good opinion, are only useful in so far as they help us to lay hold by faith upon the great Source of strength, in whom alone we can show all knightly activity and endurance. They are also useful, only if we do not allow them to seduce us to part with a good conscience, our better self—that inward monitor that from moment to moment points to us our duty, and in whose approval we can feel that we have the approval of God.
2. Warning. "Which some having thrust from them made shipwreck concerning the faith: of whom is Hymenaeus and Alexander; whom I delivered unto Satan, that they might be taught not to blaspheme." For Timothy's warning, Paul points to the heretics. Instead of holding faith and a good conscience, these thrust away from them the latter, as men, with a certain violence, put away something that is disagreeable. Their truest friend they thrust aside, as they would a troublesome creditor. The result was, that they made shipwreck of their faith. Throwing away all that was needed to direct them, all that served as chart, compass, rudder, they made shipwreck of themselves concerning faith in Christ, thus coming short of eternal life. How disastrous, especially for those who seemed to make a fair start in the voyage of life! The teaching of the apostle is suggestive regarding the causes of heresy. "As unbelief nearly always leads to grosser or more refined immorality, so not rarely it begins from an immoral ground, at least when faith existed before (Romans 1:21). This is a deep mental truth; for it is far too common to represent faith or infidelity as a matter of abstract opinion." Earnestness in life leads to correct opinion (John 7:17), whereas moral indifference makes it for Our interest to doubt. Heresies have a secret moral genesis which will one day be made plain. Two notable heretics are mentioned here—Hymenaeus and Alexander. In 2 Timothy 2:17 Hymenaeus is associated with Philetus in this, that their teaching did eat like a cancer. He and Alexander (not the coppersmith of 2 Timothy 4:14) are here referred to as having been delivered unto Satan. This seems strong language to us who have nothing to impress us in the shape of such apostolic discipline in our time. It is properly regarded as "a form of Christian excommunication, declaring the person to be reduced to the state of a heathen, accompanied with the authoritative infliction of bodily disease or death." In this case the infliction of punishment was with a view to reformation. There was nothing to hinder their being received back into the Christian Church. Their probation was not at an end; there was reason for further dealing, and what was suitable to their case was the hard. dealing here referred to. Better that men should be excommunicated—with which power the Church is still invested—better that men should have disease sent upon them, than that they should remain in a state of religious indifference or be spreaders of error.—R.F.
1 Timothy Intro
1 Timothy
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