Having thus laid down the sacred deposit, new as well as old, in its divine authority and edifying fullness, the apostle proceeds in the beginning of this chapter to urge the earnest ministration of it with all solemnity.
“I testify earnestly [or, charge] before God and Christ Jesus that is about to judge living and dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom: preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; convict, rebuke, encourage, with all long-suffering and doctrine” (ver. 1-2).
Here there is no small discrepancy, not only as to the right reading among the ancient witnesses, but also as to the just reflection of the original text. That which has been vulgarly received accredited a connecting particle with the preceding chapter, or at least its closing topic. This, a more careful examination, or certainly a more spiritual judgment, would have shown to be uncalled for and out of place; as well as the personal emphasis of the subject. Paul on the contrary, desired evidently rather to put forward God Himself and the risen Man, Who is to deal with mankind supremely in the coming day. The order of His name, and the omission of “the Lord,” or, “ours,” here, yet worse (otherwise due and ordinarily given), are sustained by the best authorities of every kind, and fall in admirably with the context. It would seem also that the conjunction before τὴν ὲπιφ. was not understood, and got supplanted by the preposition in order to ease the construction; which really had for effect to alter the connection of the sentence by severing “His appearing and His kingdom” from the verb at the beginning, and attaching them to the judging of the quick and dead as a date. So it stands in the Authorized and other Versions; but if we connect “His appearing and His kingdom” with the verb, a choice of version lies open to us. For we may regard the accusatives as the complement of διαμ. and translate as in Deut. 4:26, which some prefer, in the sense of calling Christ's appearing and His kingdom to witness against Christendom. But this seems far from a just analogy. Heaven and earth we can easily apprehend as thus invoked; but how about summoning Christ's appearing and His kingdom? It would be harsh indeed. How could Paul call Christ's future appearance and His kingdom to witness then, as Moses invoked heaven and earth that day to witness against Israel? The construction is therefore not really the same. Christ's appearance and His kingdom are therefore suited and most impressive grounds of appeal by which he was solemnly charging Timothy, or others like-minded and responsible, to preach, &c. The aeons. objecti appears thus quite untenable. Hence most prefer, with the Revisers, to understand the apostle to testify earnestly, without specifying Timothy, before God and Christ Jesus, and by His appearing and His kingdom, as that which gave the charge incalculable weight and awe. If κατά be read, it is hard to see how it can be connected with the verb; for where is the sense of “I charge [thee] at His appearing and His kingdom?” The preposition compels us to make these words dependent on the participle.
Turning from this brief but dry discussion of text and translation, which nevertheless is a duty owing to the proper clearance of scripture, obscured as it has been by defective knowledge and insight, we may now the more intelligently admire the apostolic appeal. That solemn testimony is before God and Christ Jesus, Who is about to judge living and dead. It is looked at as ever imminent; or, as another apostle puts it, Christ “is ready to judge living and dead” (1 Peter 4:5). Only our text speaks of the judgment as a continuous process, the other sums it up in its conclusion. The continuous character of our Lord's judging is made if possible more evident in Acts 17:31, where the object is defined clearly as the habitable earth, not the dead (which judgment will follow in its season) but the quick: a truth, which, though owned in the ordinary symbols of Christendom, has practically dropped out of mind even for earnest and sober Christians, who are apt to fasten their eyes exclusively on the great white throne (Rev. 20:11-15).
In this solemn matter they, and the Jews, fall into opposite faults. For the Jews were full of the earthly judgment which the Messiah is assuredly to execute over all the earth, when no nation can escape; whilst they in effect thought little or nothing of the everlasting, judgment of the dead. But the Lord Jesus, as Peter solemnly testified to Cornelius, is the One ordained by God as Judge of living and dead (Acts 10:42).
As we know the generality of Christians slur over the judgment of living men on the earth, it is the more important to unfold it somewhat more. Nothing demonstrates the need of this more than the citation of Cor. 15:51, 52, and 1 Thess. 4:16, 17, as bearing on the judgment of living and dead. “We, the living that remain,” we that without having fallen asleep shall be changed, are hot in the least included in the living, and of course not in the dead, of the text before us. “We” are Christian believers, who consequently do not come into judgment as our Lord ruled in John 5:24, but shall be changed without death any more than judgment, and brought up with the dead but risen saints to meet the Lord Jesus at His coming.
There is no such thought in scripture as a future judgment of the spiritually alive, though all must be manifested before the judgment seat of Christ. This to “the spiritually dead” will of course be nothing short of coming into judgment; but the saints will be none the less manifested there, that they may know even as they are known, and each may receive the things done in the body, according to those he has done., whether good or bad. Having Christ as their life and His redemption, they were saved even here by grace through faith; they are not to be put on their trial there, as if the salvation of God were a doubtful thing. For such it will simply be manifestation in this solemn but blessed way, and this with special view to the place of each in the kingdom; for there is the revealed certainty among the saved of each receiving his own reward according to his own labor. But judgment by-and-by, for him that has eternal life and is saved, is not only flat contradiction of the express word of Christ, but irreconcilable with all that eternal blessing which the gospel attests as due to Him and His work for the believer.
The passage then does not speak of the heavenly saints, still less of those privileges of grace which are theirs in Christ, but of the judgment to come which awaits quick and dead when He is revealed to this end according to the scriptures. Other passages of holy writ show that the quick are to be judged, not only when Christ appears in glory, but all through. His kingdom, which is said to be “forever,” because it closes only with the dissolution of the heaven and the earth that now are, and the subsequent judgment of the dead, the wicked dead, who small and great stand before the throne. Their manifestation is judgment in the fullest and eternal sense; because, having rejected Christ, or at the least failed to profit by any and every testimony God gave them, it remains only that they be judged each according to his works. And their works were evil on the one hand, and on the other not one was found written in the book of life; so that all were cast into the lake of fire. Theirs is therefore a resurrection of judgment: so the Savior calls it in John 5; as that of believers is a resurrection of life—life for the bodies of all who through faith had here below received life in Christ for their souls. The apostle however is here treating of judgment, first of the quick on earth at and during the kingdom of Christ, and lastly of the dead before it is given up to Him who is God and Father, that God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) may be all in all, in the eternal state.
It will be observed that the contextual language of the apostle is most precise and explicit. When he thus testifies before God and Christ That is about to judge quick and dead, he adds “and by His appearing and His kingdom.” “His coming,” or presence, would not at all have suited; for unless it be specially qualified (as by the term “of the Son of man,” &c.), it has no proper relation to the divine dealings in judgment, but rather to God's counsels of grace. Hence the presence or coming of Christ is connected with the translation of the saints on high. When it is a question of judicial action, “His appearing” is the exactly right expression as here, and either this, or His revelation, or His day, will ever be found in this connection.
Accordingly here “His appearing” is followed by “and His kingdom,” with no less accuracy; for “His appearing” alone would not have sufficed for more than the earlier judgments to fall on the guilty living generation of that day. To cover His judging the world throughout His long reign, and particularly the dead which remain to be raised for judgment at the close, we need and have “His kingdom” also. Every word is written wisely, all is required to complete the full picture of His judging. Hence we see the mistake of those who speak of the “modificated eternity” of His mediatorial kingdom (regnum gratiae) to be succeeded by the kingdom of glory to commence at His ἐπιφ., or appearing. Not so; the reign for a thousand years (Rev. 20) does begin, to speak generally, when Christ is manifested in glory (as the preceding chap. 19 clearly points out). And it may be described as a modificated eternity, because it introduces His kingdom, a kingdom which shall never be destroyed, nor shall the sovereignty thereof be left to another people; but it shall break in pieces and consume all previous kingdoms, and it shall stand forever, i.e., as long as the earth endures. It is absurd to apply this to the church (or the gospel) now; for the church, if true to its principles, is ever called to suffer, not to reign till He appears in glory. The bride is to bear herself in holy separation from the world, cast out like her crucified Master, till glorified with Him at His coming. The eternal scene which knows neither end nor modification is after the kingdom is given up, the kingdom given Him as man, and shared by Him with the risen saints, reigning together as they suffered together, but given up at the end, when He shall have abolished all rule and all authority and power. For Christ must reign till then; throughout eternity God as such, not the exalted Man, will be all in all.
With this in view then, the apostle gives the charge, “Preach the word; be instant in season out of season; convict, rebuke, encourage, with all long-suffering and doctrine.” The structure of each verb implies Prompt action. This of course is quite consistent with persevering continuance; but continuance might be, and often is, without such intensity of devotedness as is here insinuated by the rapid succession of pressures on Timothy, which did not pat even a particle to connect one with another. Proclaiming the word has the first place; urgent heed to the work in season,, out of season, follows up the preaching; convicting in the sense of proving home or reproving is enjoined as a wholesome duty, even though irksome to a tender spirit; rebuke comes afterward as necessary where fault was plain or out, as on the other hand encouragement or exhortation, where this rather was called for. In every case there was to be all long-suffering and doctrine. Who was sufficient for these things? Timothy's sufficiency, as the apostle's, was from God. So may ours be in our little measure.