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Now we come to the crucial points of the truth in 1 and 2 Timothy. First Timothy unveils to us God’s dispensation, His New Testament economy, concerning the church. The purpose of 2 Timothy is to inoculate the church against the decline. On the one hand, an inoculation is positive, and on the other hand, it is negative, because it indicates that we need to be protected from a disease that could kill us. Paul’s purpose in writing 2 Timothy was to inoculate the church against decline, degradation, and deterioration.
The first crucial point in 1 Timothy is God’s economy in faith. In 1:3-4 Paul says, “Even as I exhorted you, when I was going into Macedonia, to remain in Ephesus in order that you might charge certain ones not to teach different things nor to give heed to myths and unending genealogies, which produce questionings rather than God’s economy, which is in faith.”
God’s dispensing (v. 4), or God’s household economy (Eph. 1:10; 3:9), is God’s household administration to dispense Himself in Christ into His chosen people, that He may have a house, a household to express Himself, which household is the church, the Body of Christ (1 Tim. 3:15). The apostle’s ministry was centered upon this economy of God (Col. 1:25; 1 Cor. 9:17), whereas the different teachings of the dissenting ones were used by God’s enemy to distract His people from this. This divine economy must be made fully clear to the saints in the administration and shepherding of a local church.
Faith in the New Testament bears two denotations, an objective denotation and a subjective denotation. The dispensing of God is a matter in faith, that is, in the sphere and element of faith, in God through Christ. Faith may be in contrast to questionings. God’s economy to dispense Himself into His chosen people is not in the natural realm, nor in the work of law, but in the spiritual sphere of the new creation through regeneration by faith in Christ (Gal. 3:23-26). By faith we are born of God to be His sons, partaking of His life and the divine nature to express Him (1 John 5:11-12; 2 Pet. 1:4). By faith we are put into Christ to become the members of His Body (Eph. 5:30), sharing all that He is for His expression. This is God’s dispensing according to His New Testament economy carried out in faith. God’s economy is a matter in this kind of faith.
From God’s economy in faith we come to 1 Timothy 2:4, which says that God desires all men to be saved and to come to the full knowledge of the truth. No other verse besides 1 Timothy 2:4 in the entire New Testament tells us that God wants all men to enter into two things: His salvation and His truth. God desires all men not only to be saved but also to have the full knowledge of the truth. Truth means reality, denoting all the real things revealed in the New Testament, which are mainly Christ as the embodiment of God and the church as the Body of Christ. Every saved person should have a full knowledge, a complete realization, of these things. By such a verse we can realize where we should be. We should be in the full knowledge of the truth.
We should realize that God from the beginning has wanted all men to be saved and for all these saved ones to come to the full knowledge of the truth. We should endeavor — spend our energy, our mind, and our time — to get into the full knowledge of the truth. This is the word to all the believers, not just to the leading ones. All the believers should come to the full knowledge of the truth. No doubt there is a terrible shortage of those who have come to the full knowledge of the truth. We all should endeavor to be in the full knowledge of the truth.
In chapter 3 the crucial point of the truth is the function of the church in verses 15 and 16. In these verses the church is the house of the living God, the pillar and base of the truth, and the manifestation of God in the flesh. The church functions as the house and household of the living God for His move on the earth, as the supporting pillar and holding base of the truth, bearing the divine reality of Christ and His Body as a testimony to the world, and becomes the continuation of Christ’s manifestation of God in the flesh. This is the great mystery of godliness — Christ lived out of the church as the manifestation of God in the flesh.
In 1 Timothy 4:6-8 there are two important matters, the nourishing words and the exercise unto godliness. To minister Christ to others first requires ourselves to be nourished with the words of life concerning Christ. Being nourished is for growth in life, differing merely from being taught, which is a matter of knowledge. Having been nourished with Christ, we shall then have Christ as the food, the life supply, the nourishing words, to minister to others.
Godliness is Christ lived out of us as the manifestation of God. This very Christ is today the Spirit dwelling in our spirit (Rom. 8:9-10; 2 Tim. 4:22). Hence, to exercise ourselves unto godliness is to exercise our spirit to live Christ in our daily life.
It is of crucial importance that we exercise ourselves unto godliness. Inwardly we need nourishment, and outwardly we should have godliness. From within we should be nourished with Christ, and then we should have a living which is the expression of God.
In 1 Timothy 6:3 there are two kinds of words: the words of the Lord Jesus, which are the healthy words, and the teaching according to godliness. The words of our Lord Jesus Christ are words of life (John 6:63); hence, healthy words. The healthy words of the Lord are the source of the teaching according to godliness. When the Lord’s words of life are taught, particularly in certain aspects, they become the teaching according to godliness. The living words of the Lord always bring forth godliness — a life that lives Christ and expresses God in Christ. This is on the positive side.
Another crucial point is found in 1 Timothy 6:9 and 10: “Those who intend to be rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires, which plunge men into destruction and ruin. For the love of money is a root of all evils, because of which some, aspiring after money, have been led away from the faith and pierced themselves through with many pains.” The intention mentioned here is related to the strong desire to be rich. This is the love of riches, not the possession, of them, which leads the avaricious into temptation. Some are actually rich; some are rich in their desire. This evil desire ruins and destroys them. Destruction here implies ruin, and ruin implies perdition, both temporal and eternal. Those who resolve to be rich fall into a snare, as into a net, and also into many foolish and harmful lustful desires, which cause men to drown or sink into ruin or destruction. The Greek word rendered “aspiring after” in verse 10 means “craving for, longing for.” Those with this craving have wandered away from the faith; they have been led astray from the contents of our belief, from the faith of God’s New Testament economy.
In contrast to the man of riches desiring to be rich in 6:9 and 10 is the man of God laying hold on the eternal life in verses 11 and 12: “But you, O man of God, flee these things, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, meekness. Fight the good fight of the faith; lay hold on the eternal life, to which you were called and have confessed the good confession before many witnesses.” A man of God is one who partakes of God’s life and nature (John 1:13; 2 Pet. 1:4), thus being one with Him in His life and nature (1 Cor. 6:17) and thereby expressing Him. This corresponds with the mystery of godliness, which is God manifested in the flesh (1 Tim. 3:16). We should not be men of riches wandering away from the truth that is revealed in the New Testament. Rather, we should be men of God laying hold on the eternal life.
In 2 Timothy 1:1 Paul says that he is “an apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God according to the promise of life, which is in Christ Jesus.” Paul was an apostle established by the Lord according to the promise of life, which is in Christ Jesus. This is the eternal life. Paul was not an apostle according to letters, or ordinances, or ordination but according to the promise of life. He enjoyed eternal life in his apostolic ministry.
Second Timothy is an inoculation against the decline of the church. The way to inoculate the churches against their decline is by teaching the truth. By teaching the truth the degraded churches can be brought back. Because we are still under the degradation of the church, there is much need of the truth.
Second Timothy 1:5-7 says, “Having been reminded of the unfeigned faith in you, which dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and I am persuaded dwells also in you. For which cause I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God has not given us a spirit of cowardice, but of power and of love and of sobermindedness.”
The gift that the Lord had given to Timothy, according to the context of 1 and 2 Timothy, was probably the teaching gift (11, 13, 1 Tim. 4:14, 16). Teaching is altogether not a miraculous thing. Teaching is a matter of life, and life is a matter of our spirit. Thus, the gift of God that Timothy needed to fan into flame was the gift of teaching. He needed to fan the teaching gift into flame. Timothy needed to teach. What is needed to inoculate the church against the decline, the degradation, is not a miraculous gift, such as healing, but the sound, sober teaching by exercising one’s regenerated spirit indwelt by the Holy Spirit.
The word for at the beginning of 2 Timothy 1:7, “For God has not given us a spirit of cowardice, but of power and of love and of sobermindedness,” indicates that verse 7 is an explanation of verse 6. Thus, the gift of God in verse 6 should also be considered as the spirit given by God. Verse 6 refers to the gift of God, the spiritual ability, and verse 7 tells us what God has given — a spirit of power, love, and sobermindedness. The spirit in this verse is our human spirit, regenerated and indwelt by the Holy Spirit (John 3:6; Rom. 8:16). To fan into flame the gift of God is related to our regenerated spirit. Probably in the entire New Testament, verse 7 is the unique verse that fully develops our human spirit. Of power refers to our will, of love to our emotion, and of sobermindedness to our mind. This indicates that a strong will, a loving emotion, and a sober mind have very much to do with a strong spirit for the exercise of the gift of God, which is in us.
Such a spirit of power and love with sobermindedness is for teaching. We have to fan such a teaching spirit into flame. I feel that this point fits in our present situation. We all should fan our teaching spirit into flame. Fan the teaching spirit of power, of love, and of sobermindedness. If you do not have a sober mind, you will teach nonsensically. You need a very sober mind to apprehend all the truth. Then you can teach with power and with love.
The next crucial point is in 1:13. A pattern of the healthy words is an example. The word in verse 12 is a pattern, an example, of healthy words. To hold a pattern of the healthy words means to live by the healthy words. Paul’s intention in this section was to encourage and strengthen Timothy to not live in cooperation with the degradation but to live in another way. To live another way, in spite of the degradation of the church, is to be nourished with the healthy words. Then you yourself, your living, and your daily life will be a pattern of the healthy words.
Now we have to apply this to our own experience. We should not just pass on these crucial points to others. Rather, we should live these crucial points in spite of the environment of this age, in spite of the trend of today’s Christianity, and even in spite of the world situation. Today’s world situation is altogether concerning how to become rich, yet we should live in another way. This other way is to all the time be nourished with the healthy words. Then we will hold the healthy words in our living as a pattern. Paul was such a person. Paul lived such a pattern in front of Timothy. Therefore, Paul charged him to keep this pattern. All the saints should hold a pattern of the healthy words.
Second Timothy 2:1 and 2 say, “You therefore, my child, be empowered in the grace which is in Christ Jesus; and the things which you have heard from me through many witnesses, these commit to faithful men, who will be competent to teach others also.” Today we need to be empowered in grace, which is the processed Triune God given to us, or dispensed into us, for our enjoyment to commit the healthy words we have experienced to faithful men, who will be competent to teach the same healthy words to others also. We are to be empowered in this grace, not to do miracles but to commit the healthy words that we have enjoyed to faithful men to produce many competent teachers, whose speaking will inoculate the church against the decline.
Being empowered in the grace will issue in your being a teacher (2:2), a soldier (v. 3), a contender (v. 5), a farmer (v. 6), a carpenter (v. 15) to cut the word of God with no bias, and a vessel unto honor (v. 21).
The crucial point in 2:18-22 is a vessel unto honor. Honorable vessels are of both the divine nature (gold) and the redeemed and regenerated human nature (silver). These, like Timothy and other genuine believers, constitute the sure foundation to hold the truth.
As vessels unto honor, we need to pursue the spiritual things with the callers of the Lord (v. 22). To call on the Lord out of a pure heart is to name “the name of the Lord” (v. 19) in our prayer and praise to Him. The Lord’s seekers must be those who call on His name. Today those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart are found in His recovery. Thank the Lord that we are with those who call on Him out of a pure heart. With such believers we may pursue the virtues of righteousness, faith, love, and peace.
In 3:14-17 is a man of God with the breath of God. The Scripture, the Word of God, is the breath of God. God’s speaking is God’s breathing. Hence, His word is spirit (John 6:63), pneuma, or breath. Thus, the Scripture is the embodiment of God as the Spirit. The Spirit is therefore the very essence, the substance, of the Scripture, just as phosphorus is the essential substance in matches. We must strike the Spirit of the Scripture with our spirit to catch the divine fire.
As the embodiment of God the Spirit, the Scripture is also the embodiment of Christ. Christ is God’s living Word (Rev. 19:13), and the Scripture is God’s written word (Matt. 4:4). This Scripture makes the man of God complete and equips him.
Second Timothy 4:2 says, “Proclaim the word; be ready in season and out of season.” In the original text the New Testament has no chapter divisions. Therefore verses 1 and 2 of chapter 4 are a continuation of 3:14-17. The word in 4:2 is the word of the Bible, comprising what Timothy learned both of Paul and of the Old Testament (3:14-15). In caring for a local church, especially in a time of the church’s decline, the preaching of the word is vital. In 3:14-17 God’s speaking is His breathing. We should be men of God with the breath of God. Our reading of the Scripture is our inhaling of God’s breath. God is breathing, and we are inhaling. Then we are able to proclaim the word in season and out of season. Our preaching is our exhaling.
Physically, we breathe in season and out of season, without any choice. Harvesting may be in season or out of season, but breathing is not. Even eating and drinking may be at certain times, but breathing is in season and out of season because it must take place all the time. Our preaching should be like our breathing, our exhaling, in season and out of season, which means opportunely or inopportunely whether the opportunity is convenient or inconvenient, whether we are welcome or unwelcome.
Today we have so many diamonds of the truth, yet many times we do not speak. We should be today’s Timothys, the ones charged to commit all the rich deposit of the truth to the faithful ones, making them competent speakers to go out to speak the truth in season and out of season, anytime and anywhere. This is our heavenly breathing. Every day we should inhale God’s breath, and every day we should exhale by speaking. This will subdue today’s situation in which many are devoid of the truth.
In 4:18 Paul says, “The Lord will deliver me from every evil work and will save me into His heavenly kingdom.” In verse 6 Paul was expecting his imminent martyrdom for his Master: “I am already being poured out, and the time of my departure is at hand.” Paul’s martyrdom was an evil thing. Yet Paul says that the Lord would deliver him from every evil work. The Lord would deliver Paul from every evil work, but the Lord would not do this miraculously. When Paul was martyred, he was bold. That was something marvelous but not miraculous. He was not delivered from being martyred.
The Lord would deliver Paul into His heavenly kingdom. The heavenly kingdom here is different from the kingdom of the heavens in Matthew 5—7. The kingdom of the heavens there denotes the reality of the divine kingdom. The heavenly kingdom in verse 18 is the kingdom of their Father (Matt. 13:43), the kingdom of My Father (Matt. 26:29), the kingdom of Christ and of God (Eph. 5:5), and the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (2 Pet. 1:11), which will be a reward to the overcoming saints. It equals the crown of righteousness in 2 Timothy 4:8, and it is an incentive to the believers to run the heavenly course.
Paul knew that he was going to be martyred by the earthly kingdom, the earthly Roman Empire, and that he would be rejected, killed, and cut off from the earthly kingdom. Yet he also had the assurance that the Lord would deliver him into a heavenly empire, the heavenly kingdom. Therefore, he suffered martyrdom with no miraculous rescue. This indicates that in Paul there was no thought of something miraculous, but instead his thought was full of the spiritual, divine reality. As followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, we should not expect the Lord to do something miraculous for us. But we have the full right to claim that the Lord has to do spiritual things, divine things, and heavenly things for us.
The last point is in 4:22: “The Lord be with your spirit. Grace be with you.” You have to join, or combine, this point with fanning the teaching spirit into flame (1:6) and being empowered in the grace (2:1). This verse combines those two verses. In each of these verses the main items are our spirit and grace.
Second Timothy, which gives instruction on how to confront the degradation of the church, strongly stresses our spirit. In the beginning it emphasizes that a strong, loving, and sound spirit has been given to us by which we can fan the gift of God into flame and suffer evil with the gospel according to the power of God and the Lord’s life-imparting grace (1:6-10). In the conclusion it blesses us with the emphasis of the Lord being with our spirit so that we may enjoy Him as grace to stand against the downward current of the church’s decline and to carry out God’s economy through His indwelling Spirit (v. 14) and equipping Word (3:16-17).
In the grievous days during the worsening degradation of the church, what is needed is the eternal grace of God, which was given to us in eternity (1:9) and is appropriated by us in this age. This grace, which is in the indestructible life, is nothing less than Christ the Son of God, who is the very embodiment of the divine life, dwelling and living in our spirit. We need to exercise this spirit to enjoy the riches of Christ (Eph. 3:8) as the sufficient grace (2 Cor. 12:9). Thus we may live Him as our godliness (1 Tim. 4:7-8) for the building up of the church as a testimony of Christ, bearing all the divine realities according to God’s economy.
Titus is actually a continuation of 1 and 2 Timothy. In Titus, for our present need, I would cover only one crucial point in 3:4-7—“When the kindness and the love to man of our Savior God appeared, not out of works in righteousness which we did but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, in order that having been justified by His grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” The washing of regeneration, the renewing of the Holy Spirit, the grace, the heirs, and the hope of eternal life all compose a crucial point.
Verse 5 says that God saved us. Whenever we talk about God’s salvation, we generally would not think of the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit. We do not have this kind of idea or concept. The basic concept of God’s New Testament economy is to make us a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17), and the way that God makes us a new creation is to work Himself into our being by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit.
Regeneration in Titus 3:5 is not the same Greek word as in 1 Peter 1:23. John 3 tells us the fact of regeneration, but the word regeneration is not used there. The word regeneration is used in the real sense of being born of God by Peter in his first Epistle. He tells us that we have been regenerated through the incorruptible seed, which is the living word of God. The word translated “having been regenerated” in 1 Peter 1:23 means “having been born again.” This second birth is not merely to have an outward change but a change by life, with life, and in life. Regeneration is altogether a matter of life and always brings in a kind of washing.
Then this washing does some kind of restoring work, but this restoring work does not transpire in the physical part of our being. When we were regenerated, something divine was imparted into our spirit to make our spirit alive. This is surely a kind of restoration, but this restoration is altogether unrelated to our physical body. It is altogether a matter that transpires in our spirit to make our dead spirit alive by the divine life imparted into it. The very imparted divine life was the factor to enliven our dead spirit. The regeneration in our spirit brought in a washing by the divine life as the washing water. The divine life coming into our spirit to make our dead spirit alive washes away the dead things, the dead elements. This restores our dead spirit but has nothing to do with our physical being.
After this washing, something continues to go on — the renewing of the Holy Spirit. The renewing of the Holy Spirit is the continuation of the washing of the restoration in our spirit. This is the way through which God saved us. God has saved us, yet this saving is still going on because it is a saving through the washing, which is continued by the renewing. The washing is the restoration in our spirit, and the renewing is by the Holy Spirit continuously.
Titus 3:7 tells us, “In order that having been justified by His grace, we might become heirs.” Thus far we have not become heirs yet. At the most we have become children of God. In ancient Rome a child had to grow up to a certain age, probably twenty-one, so that he would be qualified and equipped to be the heir. In Romans 8 we are told that we are children, then heirs (v. 17). At our regeneration we became God’s children, but we have not become heirs yet. We are on the renewing way to becoming heirs.
We become heirs according to the hope of eternal life, which we have gained and by which we became children of God. This eternal life we are enjoying brings in a hope to inherit the divine inheritance. When you are enrolled in graduate school, your being enrolled brings you a hope to graduate from graduate school. In like manner, when you were regenerated, you received eternal life, and this eternal life brings you a hope that you may become an heir.
Your enrolling in graduate school brings you a hope to graduate. Your graduation is not a certainty, and you may fail. The hope of your enrolling is graduation. Enrolling is not the hope, but enrolling brings in the hope. Our spiritual graduation is our maturity in life, and our maturity in life is our glorification. This is fully mentioned and defined in Romans 8 (vv. 17, 30). Glorification will be our graduation, and this means that we have to be renewed, which is another term for being transformed. The renewing of the Holy Spirit is the transforming work of the Spirit to transform us into His image from glory to glory (2 Cor. 3:18). Transformation is the way to enter into glorification. Although many Christians love the world and are indulging in worldly pleasures, they think that they will be glorified automatically. When the Lord returns, however, many Christians will be judged at the judgment seat of Christ (5:10) and assigned by the Lord with a certain amount of discipline, or dispensational punishment (Matt. 25:30).
When we were regenerated, we were restored in our spirit, and God put Himself within us as the renewing Spirit. This Spirit continues, or follows, the washing of regeneration to renew us bit by bit every day, every morning, every evening, and minute by minute in every aspect of our daily life. In everything, everywhere, and at every time He is renewing us. By this renewing we are being gradually brought from one degree of glory to another into glorification. Glorification, which is like the blossom of a carnation, is our graduation. In that graduation we will surely be heirs. We have been born sons, but we will be heirs through the long procedure of being renewed unto glorification. When we are completely renewed unto glorification, that will be our graduation. By that time we will have become heirs to inherit what God promised as a reward in the coming kingdom. This is the right understanding of the Bible concerning our salvation. God saved us, and yet His saving is still going on by the renewing, the transforming work, of the Spirit. God’s saving will be completed by the last step of glorification.
Under God’s sovereignty in the arrangement of the New Testament canon, the book of Philemon was placed as a conclusion of the three foregoing books, 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus. In this book the major point, which is more than crucial, is the believers’ equal status in the new man. This short Epistle serves the special purpose of showing us the equality, in eternal life and divine love, of all the members in the Body of Christ. In the semisavage age of Paul, the life of Christ had annulled, among the believers, the strong institution of slavery. Since the sentiment of the love of the Christian fellowship was so powerful and prevailing that the evil social order among fallen mankind was spontaneously ignored, any need for institutional emancipation was obviated. Because of the divine birth and because they were living by the divine life, all the believers in Christ had equal status in the church, which was the new man in Christ, with no discrimination between free and bond (Col. 3:10-11). This was based upon three facts: (1) Christ’s death on the cross abolished the ordinances of the different ways of life, for the creating of the one new man (Eph. 2:15); (2) we all were baptized into Christ and were made one in Him without any differences (Gal. 3:27-28); and (3) in the new man Christ is all and in all (Col. 3:11). Such a life with such a love in equal fellowship is well able to maintain good order in the church (in Titus), carry out God’s economy concerning the church (in 1 Timothy), and stand against the tide of the church’s decline (in 2 Timothy). It is of the Lord’s sovereignty that this Epistle was positioned after the three preceding books in the arrangement of the New Testament.
