In the path of Christ the time surely comes when faith is put to the proof. It is one thing in the confidence of grace and at the summons of the truth to turn one's back on the fairest pretension opposed to His name; it is quite another to stand firm and unabashed when not only the world turns from us, but desertion sets in among those that confessed Him How few can stand the loss of valued associations, not to speak of their taunts and persecutions! This abnormal state was dawning on the sensitive and distressed spirit of Timothy. It has long been the ordinary experience for the faithful in Christendom. What a frightful illustration the last few years have furnished!
“Be not ashamed therefore of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me His prisoner; but suffer hardship with the gospel, according to, the power of God, Who saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to His purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before everlasting ages, but hath now been manifested by the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, Who abolished death brought life and incorruption to light through the gospel, whereunto I was appointed a preacher and an apostle and a teacher” (ver. 8-11).
It is only ignorance of self which makes it to many difficult to understand why Timothy Should be thus ashamed. When the tide of blessing is at the full there is little or no room for shame. It is far otherwise when the ingathering is small and when the love of the many waxes cold, when the world becomes more hardened and contemptuous and the saints cower under its reproaches. Faith alone keeps the eye upon Christ and the heart warmed with His love, in an atmosphere so chilling. His reproach (for it is Christ's assuredly) becomes then glorious in our eyes; and “in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.” For the testimony though it may seem to fail is none the less the testimony of our Lord, and the suffering witness under the unjust hand of human authority is His prisoner. “Be not therefore ashamed” is the word. Grace identified the witness who may not be perfect, with His testimony which is absolutely so. Why should we ever stand for that which is less than divine? We are not called to suffer or bear shame for anything but Christ. He has still His objects, precious in His eyes here below. Be it ours to final our lot only there, and let us not be ashamed in a day of grievous departure.
But more; Timothy was called to “suffer evil along with the gospel” as an object assailed and involved in all possible trial here below. It is a grievous blank where a servant of God has only the gospel before his soul, lacks heart for the glory of Christ as Head of the church, fails in faith to enter into the mystery of Christ and His body and takes the scantiest interest in the joys and sorrows which those blessed relationships entail here below. It is wrong to be absorbed even with the gospel, so as to abnegate our part in these high and heavenly privileges, and consequent duties, so near to Christ and inseparable from God's counsels and Christ's love. But there is the opposite error, which though more rare is at least as dangerous and even more dishonoring to Christ because it is more pretentious and seductive—the danger of occupying the mind and life with the truth of the church and its wondrous associations to the depreciation of the gospel and the despising of those who faithfully addict themselves to that work. The apostle to whom we are indebted more than to any other inspired instrument for the revelation of the church not less strenuously insists on the all-importance of the gospel. Christ is most actively and supremely concerned with both, and so should His servants, though one might be neither a teacher on the one hand nor an evangelist on the other. Still more responsible, because of the grace given to him, was Timothy, being both an evangelist and a teacher. He is here enjoined to suffer evil with the gospel, but according to the power of God. Nothing can show more forcibly the deep interest in it to which he was called. When worldliness enters, suffering hardship disappears. When the church becomes worldly, one gains honor, ease, emolument, and so it is with the gospel become popular. When the gospel and the church engage the heart and testimony according to Christ, suffering and rejection cannot but ensue. Timothy, therefore; was called to take Christ's part in the gospel; and God's power would not be lacking, however he might suffer.
The gospel is well worth the while, “for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one who believes,” entirely above the distinction which the law or circumcision made. It is of the Spirit, not of the flesh, not national now but personal. God “saved us.” It is the fruit of His work in Christ; and that work was finished on earth, and accepted in heaven, and abides forever, complete and unchanging. Men may be moved away from the hope of the gospel by ordinances on the one hand or by philosophy on the other. Both are of the world, and almost equally worthless; both absolutely inefficacious to save, though one be a sign, the other purely human. But God “saved us and called us with a holy calling.” Here “holy” is emphatic and most suitable to the Epistle and the state of things contemplated. Always true, it was urgent now to press its “holy” character. It is a calling on high or upward as we read in Phil. 3:1414I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:14), in contrast with the earthly things in which men find their glory to their shame. It is a heavenly calling, as we see in Heb. 3:11Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus; (Hebrews 3:1), which those needed especially to consider who were used to the external calling of Israel in the land. It is God's calling with its hope in and with Christ where the creature disappears from view and His eternal counsels for the glory of His Son are developed for the soul as in Eph. 1 and 4. But now in the growing declension of such as bore the name of the Lord the apostle binds together God's salvation with His holy calling. An evil time is not at all one for lowering the standard but for unveiling and pressing its importance.
Further, being divine, God's salvation and call are not according to our works but according to His own purpose and grace. Even the saint was to pray, “enter not into judgment with Thy servant, for in Thy sight shall no man living be justified.” There are good works in every saint: “For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God before prepared that we should walk in them;” they are not only fair morally but they ought to be such as suit those on earth who are united to Christ in heaven, responsible to reflect heavenly grace—no longer earthly righteousness merely. Such works alone are properly Christian. “Against such there is no law.” But they are quite distinct from those of legal obedience, were it ever so exact. Nevertheless God's salvation is according to Christ's work, not ours. Nor is it of him that willeth nor of him that runneth but, of God that showeth mercy, according to His own purpose and grace, Who would thus perfectly honor the Son as we do in our measure by our faith.
This, again, was given us in Christ Jesus before everlasting time, a most weighty and blessed truth. It is not merely security assured without end, but grace given in Christ Jesus before time began. It was not so with Israel: they were called in time. God's purpose about us, Christians, was in eternity before any creature existed. To make it only endless security in the future is to lose this wondrous fact of the divine will about the saints who are now called in Christ to His glory. Their blessing was a counsel bound up with Christ before the world was or any question of creature responsibility entered: God purposed to justify His love and glorify Himself in having us with Christ in His presence and like Him of His own sovereign grace, so much the more bound to walk, now and here, as He walked, in righteousness and holiness of truth, as the new man after God was created.
But the manifestation of this purposed grace to us came in with Him Who was manifested in flesh and justified in the Spirit. Even so, though all depended on the dignity of His person, and awaited the completion of His work, and His return as man into that glory whence He had come as God, the Son, that thus it might be the Son of man Who had glorified God in Himself, and this straightway. Manhood, now that the infinite work of suffering for sin was accomplished, was in His person at least raised from among the dead and glorified on high according to the fullest counsel of God. His purpose and grace was no longer a question of gift only as before the ages of time, but manifested now through the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, having annulled death and brought life and incorruption to light through the gospel. This helps to the more distinct understanding of ver. 1; for it is the promise of life, that which is in Christ Jesus, fulfilled. Grace was thus distributing its incomparable stores. Death was brought to naught as Satan's empire over sinful man, and Jesus was manifestly Lord of all and Conqueror over all hostile power and Giver of infinite blessing in communion with God His Father, and this in all truth and righteousness. For sin had been borne and borne away, as the gospel declares to all men in itself and applies the good news to ourselves by faith individually.
Where is man's wisdom then? Forever put to shame in His cross of which it was ashamed. Where is the bond written in ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us? Effaced forever and taken out of the way by Him who nailed it to the cross, as the resurrection cast its glorious light on the incorruption of the body pledged to us in Him risen. No wonder the apostle told the Roman saints long before that be was not ashamed of the gospel, destined to be imprisoned and slain and cast out in the person of its witnesses in that city more than in any other that professed it, not to speak of the loathsome imposture and harlotry which supplanted and still supplants it there. No wonder the apostle there imprisoned for its sake, and anticipating the speedy pouring out of his blood as a drink-offering (4: 6), adds with triumphant thankfulness, “unto which [gospel] I [emphatically] was appointed a preacher, and an apostle, and a teacher [of Gentiles].” Some few high and varied authorities omit “of Gentiles,” which from the character of the Epistle seems to me probably right; and the rather as the copyists were profoundly insensible of snob a trait but disposed to assimilate the second letter to the first, where “of Gentiles” has its suited and certain place.