Guard the Gospel: 2 Timothy 1 (Urbana 67)

by John Stott

Christ abolished death. I tell you, if Christians believed that and lived it out in the world, the world would sit up and take notice.

Let's open our Bibles at the second letter of Paul to Timothy. We shall take a chapter a morning. Because they're a bit long, I shall not read them to you every morning, but hope very much that every member of the convention will have read the chapter before we come together.

Introduction

Before we look at 2 Timothy chapter l, there are four introductory points about the letter that I think it's necessary for me to make.

First, this is a genuine letter of Paul to Timothy. The Apostle Paul was its author and Timothy was its recipient. And the arguments that have been advanced against the Pauline authorship - historical, ecclesiastical, doctrinal, and linguistic arguments - are not sufficient to overthrow the evidence, internal and external, which authenticates it as a genuinely Pauline epistle. This is number one: 2 Timothy is a genuine letter of Paul to Timothy.

Second, the Paul who wrote it was a prisoner in Rome. He was not now in the comparative freedom and comfort of his own hired house in which the book of Acts takes leave of him and from which he seems to have been set free, as indeed he expected. But, rather, as Hendriksen puts it in his commentary, Paul was now in some dismal underground dungeon with a hole in the ceiling for light and air. Perhaps he was in the Mamertine prison in Rome, as tradition has suggested. At any rate, it was the prison to which a second arrest had brought him and from which Paul escaped only by death.

So Paul wrote this, his last letter that has survived to us, under the shadow of his imminent execution. And although it is a personal communication of Paul to Timothy, it is also - and consciously so - Paul's last will and testament to the Christian church.

Third, the Timothy to whom this letter is addressed was being thrust into a position of responsible Christian leadership far beyond his natural capacities. For over fifteen years Timothy had been Paul's missionary companion and a trusted apostolic delegate, and now at the time of Paul's writing, he was the accepted leader of the church in Ephesus. And still heavier responsibilities were going to fall upon him when the apostle's anticipated martyrdom took place.

Yet, humanly speaking, Timothy was utterly unfit for the responsibilities that were coming his way. These were the reasons:

He was still comparably young. We don't know his precise age, but in Paul's first letter to him, Paul told him that no man was to despise Timothy's youth. And in this letter that we're studying, Paul told him to shun youthful passions. This would indicate that he was still a comparably young man.
He was prone to sickness. In the first letter to Timothy, the apostle referred to Timothy's frequent ailments, and recommended that for his poor stomach's sake he exchange water for a little wine.
He was timid by temperament. Timid Timothy. He seems to have been naturally shy. If he'd lived today I have no doubt that we should have called him an introvert. He shrank from difficult tasks, so that when Paul wrote to the Corinthians he had to say, "When Timothy comes, see that you put him at ease among you, and let no man despise him." Several times in this letter Paul told him not to be ashamed but to take his share of suffering, because God had not given us a spirit of cowardice - and, in Patrick Fairbairn's words, Timothy was a man disposed rather to lean than to lead.

Now this was Timothy - young in years, frail in physique, retiring in disposition - who nevertheless was called to accept responsibilities in the service of Jesus Christ. And I believe there are thousands of men and women like that here today - young, weak, and shy. We're not young, strong, and free, as we sing in one of the hymns, but young, weak, and shy. And if you feel like that, then this epistle is addressed to you. If God is calling you to responsibilities far beyond your natural capacities, then you're just like Timothy.

And that brings me to the fourth introductory point. In writing to Timothy, Paul's preoccupation was with the gospel - the deposit of truth which has been revealed and committed to the Apostle Paul by God. You see, Paul was a prisoner then, but he was going to be a martyr quite soon. Paul's days of gospel preaching were over. What would happen to the gospel when Paul was dead? That was the question that was dominating his mind throughout this letter. And it was to this vital question that Paul addressed himself. He reminded Timothy that the gospel was now committed to Timothy. Paul was finished. He was on his deathbed. And Timothy now had to take over responsibilities. Now it was Timothy's turn to carry on the torch of the gospel that was about to drop from the apostle's hand.

In each of these four chapters, the Apostle Paul seemed to emphasize the different aspects of Timothy's responsibility. In chapter 1, Timothy was told to guard the gospel. He was to protect it, pure and undefiled. In chapter 2, he was told to suffer for it. In chapter 3, he was told to continue in it, to abide in it, and not to deflect from it to the right hand or to the left. And in chapter 4, he was told to preach it, to make it known.

After this introduction, we come to chapter 1 and the charge to guard the gospel. But before we come to this actual subject which begins with verse 8, there is an introductory paragraph in the first seven verses. In these, in a very vivid way, the characters of both Paul and Timothy, the writer and the recipient, are introduced to us. And, in particular, these verses tell us something of how each of these two men came to be what he was. These verses throw light on the providence of God, as we see how God had fashioned Paul and Timothy to be the kind of men he wanted them to be.

The Apostleship of Paul

So we'll begin with Paul. Verse 1 (RSV) says: "Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God according to the promise of the life which is in Christ Jesus." Paul claimed to be an apostle of Christ, and we need to consider that word.

I am sure you will remember how, at the very beginning of his public ministry, Jesus chose twelve men out of the wider group of his disciples and he himself named these men apostles. He appointed them to be with him. He deliberately gave them unrivaled opportunities to hear his words and to see his works in order that they might be unique witnesses to Christ of all that they had seen and heard. And Jesus promised them a special, extraordinary inspiration of the Holy Spirit to remind them of his teaching, to teach them more, and to lead them into all the truth which it was the purpose of God to reveal to them.

To this select apostolic circle Paul was later added. When Jesus apprehended him and laid hold of him on the Damascus road, he commissioned Paul as an apostle, and Paul could never forget it. Here was Paul, humiliated by men in a dungeon in Rome, awaiting the pleasure of the emperor. Yet, while humiliated by men, he was confident that he was an apostle of Jesus Christ.
The opening verse tells about the origin and object of Paul's apostleship. Its origin was the will of God. "Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God," says verse 1 (RSV).

Paul used identical words in two other epistles, and, in nine out of thirteen of his letters, he referred either to the will of God, the call of God, or the command of God through which he had become an apostle. Be clear about this. It was the sustained conviction of Paul from the beginning to the end of his apostolic career, that he was appointed neither by the church, nor by any man or men, nor by himself, but that his apostleship originated in the eternal will and historical call of almighty God through Jesus Christ. That was the origin of his apostleship - the will of God.

Now the object of his apostleship, the reason why he had been appointed an apostle, was the "promise of the life which is in Christ Jesus." In other words, the great object of his apostleship was to formulate and to preach the gospel - the good news to dying sinners that God has promised them life in Jesus Christ. The gospel offers life, true life, real life, eternal life both here and hereafter. The gospel declares that the only place in which this true life is to be found is in Jesus Christ. And the gospel promises life to every man and woman who is in Christ Jesus.

So that's how Paul introduced himself. He was an apostle of Jesus Christ; his apostleship originated in the will of God and issued in a proclamation of the gospel of God, which is the promise of the life that is in Christ Jesus.

The Making of Timothy

Now we move from Paul to Timothy. To Timothy "my beloved child;" so-called because Paul had led him to Christ and had become his father in the gospel. To him Paul sent his customary greeting, adding mercy: so he sent grace, mercy, and peace. Grace is shown to the worthless, the undeserving. Mercy is shown to the helpless who cannot save themselves. And peace is given to the restless. God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ together constitute the one source from which flows this threefold stream of grace and mercy and peace.

In verses 3 to 7 came a very personal paragraph in which the apostle expressed his deep thanksgiving to God for Timothy. Now I want to ask you to notice this very carefully. Paul thanked God for Timothy. And the only reason he could thank God for Timothy was that he was quite sure it was God who had made Timothy what he was. Now Timothy was not an apostle like Paul. But Timothy was a Christian, he was a missionary or minister, and he was an apostolic delegate. And God had been at work in Timothy to make him what he was. I find it fascinating that in this next paragraph, directly or indirectly, Paul mentioned four major influences which had contributed to the shaping and the making of Timothy.

The first was his parental upbringing: We skip to verse 5 for a moment: "I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice" (RSV). Now this reference to mother and grandmother was quite in order, because every man and woman is the product of his inheritance to a great extent. There is no doubt that the most formative influence of every one of us is our parentage and our home. The Bible taught this long before modern psychology discovered it. And this is the reason why good biographies never begin with their subject, but with his parents and probably with his grandparents as well. Now Timothy had a godly home. We know from Acts 16, verse 1, that his father was a Greek, and presumably an unbeliever. But his mother Eunice was a believing Jewess who later became a Christian, and before her, his grandmother Lois also had been converted. These women had instructed Timothy out of the Old Testament before his conversion, so we read in chapter 3, verse 15, that from childhood Timothy had been acquainted with the sacred Scriptures.

Now this was the first influence upon Timothy: his parental upbringing, a mother and a grandmother who were sincere believers and who taught him out of the Scriptures from his childhood. Anybody here who has been born and bred in a Christian home has received from God a blessing beyond price.

The second influence on Timothy was his spiritual friendship. After our parents, it is our friends who influence us most, especially if our friends are also our teachers. Timothy had in the Apostle Paul an outstanding teacher-friend. We already have seen that Paul was Timothy's father through the gospel, in that he led Timothy to Christ. But having led him to Christ, Paul did not desert, forget, or abandon him as we so often do with new believers. Instead, Paul constantly remembered him. Three times in this paragraph he says, "I remember you constantly in my prayers." "I remember your tears." "I am reminded of your sincere faith" (RSV). Timothy, I have never forgotten you.

Paul took Timothy with him on his missionary journeys. When they parted, Timothy could not restrain his tears. Mindful of his tears, Paul longed, as Bishop Moule in his commentary puts it, "with a homesick yearning, night and day, to see him that he might be filled with joy." Until Paul could see Timothy again, he prayed for him unceasingly. And from time to time he wrote Timothy letters of counsel and encouragement, like this one which we are studying now. Such a Christian friendship, including the companionship and the prayers and the letters which a Christian friendship will involve, did not fail to have a powerful molding influence upon Timothy, strengthening and sustaining him in his Christian life and service.

The third influence in Timothy's life was a special endowment. At this point in his letter, Paul turned from looking at indirect means by which God had shaped Timothy's Christian character - his parents and his friends - to look at a direct gift that God had given him. Verse 6 says: "I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands" (RSV). What this divine gift was we don't know for certain, for the simple reason that we are not told. Nevertheless, we can make tentative guesses. It is clear from this verse and from 1 Timothy 4:14 that whatever this gift was, it was given to Timothy when Paul and the elders laid their hands on him in what we would call his ordination. It was therefore an ordination gift - a gift related to the ministry for which he was set apart. It may have been the ministry itself, which is a great gift of God, as some commentators think. Or it may have been the gift of an evangelist to which Paul referred later in his epistle. Or, since he proceeded at once to refer to verse 7 to the Holy Spirit, it may have been some special endowment, some special anointing of the Holy Spirit at his ordination, to equip him for the ministry to which God had called him. Perhaps we can best sum it up in Alfred Thomas' words: "It was the authority and the power to be a minister of Jesus Christ."

So we have learned that a man is not only what he owes to his parents, his friends, and his teachers, but a man is also what God has made him by calling him to some particular ministry and by endowing him with appropriate natural and spiritual gifts.

The fourth influence on Timothy was personal discipline, All God's gifts, natural and spiritual, need to be developed and used by us. So Paul told Timothy here not to neglect his gift, but rather to kindle it. The Greek verb anazopureo is used of a fire. It likens this gift of God in Timothy to a fire. And the Greek verb contains a prefix which can mean either to stir up the fire or to rekindle it if it has died down. This doesn't necessarily mean that Timothy had let the fire die down and must now fan the dying embers into a flame again. It could equally well be an exhortation to Timothy to continue fanning it. The J. B. Phillips translation says, "Stir up that inner fire," and Abbott-Smith says, "Keep it in full flame." Presumably, this stirring comes by exercising the gift faithfully and by waiting upon God in prayer for its constant renewal.

Having issued this appeal to stir up the inner fire, Paul immediately went on to give Timothy a ground for doing so: verse 7: "For God did not give us a spirit of timidity" (RSV), so you don't need to be afraid of exercising your ministry, "but a spirit of power" in which to exercise your ministry, "and of love" in order to channel your gift rightly. You don't use your gift for self-advertisement, self-assertion, or vain glory, but in loving ministry to other people, and with self-control so as to exercise your gift with seemly reverence and restraint.

So far in these first seven verses we have studied what these two men, Paul and Timothy, had become. We have considered their making - what made them what they were. Paul claimed he was an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God. But he said in another place that God did not give him his grace in vain because he labored as an apostle. Similarly, a whole complex of factors had made Timothy what he was: godly upbringing, Paul's friendship, God's gift to him, and also his personal self-discipline.

My friends, I want to urge upon you, whoever you may be, the conviction that it is exactly the same with you and me today. The most striking lesson that we can learn from these verses is the dovetailing, in both Paul and Timothy, of divine sovereignty and human responsibility. Paul could say, "By the grace of God I am what I am." But he could add, "I labored." Timothy's mother and grandmother taught him out of the Scriptures; Paul befriended him, prayed for him, read to him, exhorted him; God gave him a special gift; but still Timothy had to stir up the gift that was within him by his own self-discipline. So it is with us. However much or however little we may have received from God, either directly in natural or spiritual endowments, or indirectly through our parents, friends, and teachers, we still must apply ourselves to active self-discipline so as to cooperate with the grace of God and to fan the inner fire into flame. You and I must do this if we are ever to become the men and women God wants us to be.

Responsibility to the Gospel

We come now to verses 8 to 18. Paul turned from the complex factors that had helped make Timothy, to the truth of the gospel, and Timothy's responsibility towards it. He began verse 8, "Do not be ashamed ... but take your share of suffering (RSV). This is a theme that we will refer to several times. You may be young, frail, and timid, and you may shrink from the tasks to which God is calling you, but God has molded you and gifted you for your ministry. Now don't be ashamed and don't be afraid to exercise it. Paul went on to say, don't be afraid of Christ, of bearing witness to Christ, and don't be afraid of me, his prisoner.

Many were afraid, many turned away from Paul when he was arrested, but Paul said to Timothy, Don't be afraid of me. It is possible not to be afraid of Christ, but to be afraid or ashamed of the people of Christ. It is possible to be a Christian on the campus and not want to associate with the Inter-Varsity group or chapter because you are ashamed of them. Paul said, Don't be ashamed of Christ, don't be ashamed of me, and don't be ashamed of the gospel. These are the three things we must never be ashamed of. For this temptation is strong. Every one of us knows it. Otherwise Jesus would never have warned us, "If any man is ashamed of me and-of my words in this generation, of him also will the Son of Man be ashamed."

After that introductory exhortation to not be ashamed, Paul enlarged on the gospel - the gospel which is committed to Timothy, the gospel of which he is not to be ashamed, and the gospel for which he has to suffer. Paul first wrote in verses 9 and 10 what the gospel is, and then in verses 11 to 14 he outlined our responsibility in relation to it.

Well, what is the gospel? The end of verse 8 says, "Take your share of suffering for the gospel in the power of God who saved us ...". Exactly. It is impossible to speak of the gospel without speaking of salvation in the same breath because the gospel is the good news of salvation. Have we not been thinking of this at Christmas? "I bring you good news of a great joy, for unto you is born ... a savior."

What did Paul tell us about salvation in these verses? Three things. First, he described the character of salvation - what it is. What is salvation? I have to tell you it is more than forgiveness of sin. The God who saved us simultaneously (v. 9) called us with a holy calling. An holy calling is an integral part of the plan of salvation. Salvation denotes that comprehensive purpose of God by which he justifies, sanctifies, and glorifies his people. First he pardons their offenses and accepts them as righteous in his sight through Christ. This is justification. Then he progressively transforms them by the Holy Spirit into the image of Christ. This is sanctification. Finally they become like Christ in heaven when they see him as he is. This is glorification.

I beg you, do not minimize the greatness of our great salvation. The gospel is bigger than most of our minds have taken in of it. It is the transformation of our whole personality, including, on the resurrection morning, our bodies transformed into the body of glory that Jesus Christ is wearing. This is the great character of salvation.

Second, Paul tells us the source of salvation. Where does it come from? "Not in virtue of our works but in virtue of his own purpose and the grace which he gave us in Christ Jesus ages ago" (v. 9). If you want to trace the river of salvation to its source, you have to look right back beyond time to a past eternity. The J.B. Phillips translation says, "Before time began." The New English Bible says, "From all eternity." Before eternal ages, before history and time started, the apostle says, it was the purpose of God to give us his grace which he actually gave us in Christ Jesus. He gave it to us before we existed; he gave it to us before history began.

And therefore it is quite plain that the source of salvation is not our own works. The Father gave us his grace in Christ before we did any good works, before we were born and could do any good works - indeed, before history, before time in eternity. Now, the doctrine of election seems difficult to our finite minds, but the doctrine of election is incontrovertibly a biblical doctrine. It emphasizes that salvation is due to God's grace, not man's merit. It is due not to our good works performed, in time, but to God's purpose of grace conceived in eternity. There is nothing that engenders gratitude and humility and excludes all boasting
in the presence of God like the doctrine of election.

That brings me to the third teaching here about salvation. This is the ground of salvation - that upon which it rests - the historical work of Christ at his appearing. That this grace that is given us in Christ Jesus ages ago, and now has manifested [historically in time] through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel" (v. 10). This is the historical outworking, through the coming, death , and resurrection of Jesus Christ, of the eternal purpose of grace that God has given us in Christ Jesus.

Let us meditate for a moment or two on this triumphant affirmation that Christ abolished death. I tell you, if Christians believed that and lived it out in the world, the world would sit up and take notice. The world is afraid of death. You can evaluate a religion almost better than in any other way when you see its attitude to death. And only when you see Christian people triumphant in the face of death do you see Christianity as it really is. Death summarizes our human predicament as a result of sin. Death is the wages of sin. Death is the grim penalty of sin - physical death, which is the separation of the soul from the body; spiritual death, which is the separation of the soul from God; and eternal death, which is the separation of both soul and body from God in hell forever. All these deaths of which the Bible speaks are due to sin. They are sin's just reward.

But Jesus Christ has abolished death and brought life and immortality to life through the gospel. Now the Greek verb for "abolish" does not mean that he has eliminated it, as we know it, from everyday experience. Certain ones of us still are dead in trespasses and sins and must be born again. All human beings die physically, and there are many who are going to die the final, the second death. But what is triumphantly asserted here is that Christ has defeated death. He has overthrown it. The New English Bible says, "He has broken the power of death." As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, Death is like a scorpion whose sting has been drawn. It's still alive but it's harmless because its sting has been drawn. Death is like a military conqueror whose power has been overthrown, and Paul can shout triumphantly, "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" Death is defeated.

Physical death is only a trivial episode in the life of a Christian, a gateway to fullness and newness of life. When a man comes to Jesus Christ in penitence and faith, he is given eternal life and death is passed away. On the last day, this life will be consummated in heaven. In these ways Jesus Christ has abolished death, and through the gospel he has brought life and immortality to light. This is the revelation of the gospel: This is what.has been brought to light in the gospel. The gospel is the promise of life in Christ Jesus with death defeated.

Such, then, is the salvation that is offered us in the gospel. Its character is man's transformation into the holiness of Christ. Its source is God's eternal purpose of grace. Its ground is Christ's historical appearing and abolition of death.

Our Duty to the Gospel

Now in the last few moments that we have, we will turn from God's gospel to our duty in relation to it. Of course, our first duty (which Paul doesn't mention here but takes for granted) is to embrace it and believe it. Timothy had already done that. So in the next verses, Paul gives Timothy three duties. First is the duty to communicate the gospel. "For this gospel I was appointed a preacher and apostle and teacher" (v. 11). The apostles formulated the gospel. Today there are no apostles of Jesus Christ. In the Christian church's early years, the apostles formulated the gospel and bequeathed it to the church. So if you want to find it in its definitive form, you have to look to the New Testament. Now, this apostolic New Testament faith is regulative for the church in every place and in every age. There is no other gospel. There can be no new gospel different from what the apostles received, formulated, and preserved in New Testament Scripture.

However, although there are no apostles of Christ today, there are preachers and teachers who give themselves to the work of expounding and proclaiming and communicating the gospel. And that is our first duty to the gospel - to make it known.

Our second duty is to suffer for it. See verse 12: "For this gospel I was appointed a preacher and apostle and teacher and therefore I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed". Have any of you ever asked yourself why is it that people suffer for the gospel? Why do men hate the gospel and oppose the gospel? I believe the answer, very simply, is this: according to the gospel, God saves sinners in virtue of his own purpose and grace and not in virtue of their good works. It is just the freeness of the gospel which offends. The natural man, who is not a Christian, hates to have to admit the gravity of his sin and guilt. He hates to have to admit his helplessness to save himself. He hates to have to admit the indispensable necessity of God's grace through Christ's sin-bearing death to save him, and, therefore, his inescapable indebtedness to the cross. The natural man hates it.

I remember, when I was a student at Cambridge University trying to explain to a fellow student that the good news of Christ is free. Salvation is a free gift and he could not earn it and he could not deserve it. And I shall never forget how, as he sat in a chair in my room there at Trinity College, Cambridge, he shouted at the top of his voice three times, "Horrible! Horrible! Horrible!" I thank God for that experience. I was given a naked awareness of the hatred of the human heart for the gospel. Because men hate the gospel which humbles them, they will oppose and persecute those who preach it. Every preacher knows the temptation to trim the gospel and to leave out the unpopular and unpalatable parts so that he will not have to suffer for it. But we are called to communicate the gospel and we are called to suffer for the gospel.

Third, we are called to guard the gospel. See verses 13 and 14 (we'll skip verse 12 for a moment): "Follow the pattern of the sound words which you have heard from me". Paul was saying, Timothy, you've received sound words - the gospel - from me. You've heard it in a pattern, on a prototype. Now follow this and hold onto it. Verse 14 continues, "Guard the truth that has been entrusted to you." The Greek word for this means "deposit." The gospel is a deposit (paratheke). It is a treasure that
has been entrusted to us and we've got to guard it. The Greek verb phulassein for "to guard" is a military word that is used of guarding a palace to prevent people from breaking into it. It's used of guarding possessions against their being stolen. It's used
of guarding a prisoner to prevent his escape. And it's used of the gospel. We must not allow the gospel to be lost. We must not allow it to be damaged. We are called to guard it. It's a precious treasure.

Timothy had to do this because, as the last verses go on to say, all Asia had turned away from Paul and his gospel. Onesiphorus was a bright exception to the general rule. And as all Asia was at this time turning away from Paul, he says, Oh, Timothy, don't you turn away as well. Guard the deposit that has been entrusted to you.

And so I finish. The gospel is good news of salvation. It was promised from eternity, was secured and purchased by Jesus Christ, and is now offered to friends. First, we must communicate it faithfully, we shall undoubtedly suffer for it. And when we suffer for it, we shall be tempted to trim it and to eliminate the elements that provoke opposition. So then, third, and above all, we must guard it against every possible corruption, keeping it pure whatever the cost. Guard it faithfully, spread it actively, suffer for it bravely - that is our threefold duty. These are the gospel.

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Guard the Gospel: 2 Timothy 1 (Urbana 67)

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December 27-31, 2009