If we have been born of God, or what is commonly referred to as born again, then we have become the children of God. Paul addresses such a person here, speaking in an immediate context to Timothy, his child in the faith, and calling him a man of God. That’s a reference to the spiritual maturity that is expected and desired once a person has become born again as a child of God; they are matured into a man or woman of God.
Timothy has become a man of God, and he is a man of God in a deeper sense, as a spokesman of God, in the same vein as Moses was called a man of God, or Elisha was called a man of God. Timothy is a minister of the gospel as a sort of deputy apostle. He is acting on behalf of the apostle Paul in setting up and establishing the churches in the region of Ephesus and selecting and instructing the pastors of those churches. That was the role of an apostle. They were the foundation of the church.
And so in the immediate context Paul is writing to Timothy as a man of God in the position of a deputy apostle. But I believe it is entirely appropriate for us to see ourselves that are saved and mature in our faith as also men or women of God, and apply the same instructions that were given to Timothy to ourselves. We may not have the same role as Timothy, but we all are given a role as ministers, and we are even called priests of God. Not all of us are called to be a pastor of a church, perhaps, but we are commissioned to be an ambassador of the gospel, going into our world to proclaim the gospel.
That role as a minister that we are given is described and prescribed for us by the apostle Peter, saying in 1Peter 2:9 “But you are A CHOSEN RACE, A royal PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A PEOPLE FOR [God's] OWN POSSESSION, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.” That is our ministry, our priestly duty, to proclaim Christ, and to testify of the truth of the gospel.
So rather than interpreting this passage today as only relating to pastors, or just to men such as Timothy, we can reliably apply it to everyone that has come out from the darkness of sin and ignorance into the light of the truth of the gospel. The man or woman of God is then instructed by Paul in this passage to conform to the doctrine of godliness, and to accomplish that to do four things; what they are to flee from, what they are to follow after, what they are to fight for, and what they are to be faithful to.
Paul begins by saying what the man of God should flee from. Vs 11 “But flee from these things, you man of God….” Now to find out what things he should flee from, we must go back to the preceding verses. First we must flee from a different doctrine, not conforming to the doctrine of godliness. This doctrine or teaching we should flee from is not sound. It has no basis in scripture. This is simply the doctrine of worldliness. It’s mixing a little scripture with a lot of man’s wisdom and a mind set on the world. It’s what he says later in vs 5 as a depraved mind and deprived of the truth. That’s a worldly mind. It’s a doctrine that is not derived from the truth, but deprived of the truth. You know, it doesn’t take much error to make what may have elements of truth, to not be the truth anymore. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. So doctrinal purity, doctrinal truth is essential, and that man who eschews the truth of God for the truth according to man, is not wise. We should flee that sort of doctrine.
Paul went on to say that sort of false doctrine produces bad attributes. And those bad attributes are “he is conceited and understands nothing; but he has a morbid interest in controversial questions and disputes about words, out of which arise envy, strife, abusive language, evil suspicions, and constant friction between men of depraved mind and deprived of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain.”
So bad doctrine produces conceit, and that conceit, that self interest, selfish concern, results in a lack of understanding of sound doctrine. Instead they question the words of scripture to contrive a doctrine that appeals to their lusts of the flesh. And such conceit produces selfishness that is evidenced by strife, envy, evil suspicions. They want what seems best for themselves, to the point of disregarding the needs of others.
And that conceited attitude thinks that they can use the gospel, or their Christianity, to get more of the riches of this world. Paul goes on to talk about the love of money being a root of evil, and some longing for it have wandered away from the faith and caused themselves many griefs. So Paul says flee from such things. As mature men and women of God, we should flee those types of desires, flee the lusts of the flesh, flee the self conceit that produces such selfish, hateful behavior.
Instead, Paul says what the man of God should follow after, or pursue after. He gives us a list of different kind of behavior characterized by “righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance and gentleness.” This is the exact opposite of the conceited, self interested behavior they should flee from. This is selflessness, dying to the lusts of the world, and pursuing godliness, being of the same mind set as God.
That’s what Phl 2:3-8 talks about; “Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not [merely] look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, [and] being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”
That’s what we should follow after, the same attributes that Christ exhibited as an example for us, that we might follow in his footsteps. Peter said in 1Peter 2:21 “For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps.” So as Christ was exemplary in these things, so we should pursue righteousness, be godly, or holy in our behavior, in our speech, remain faithful, love others with a sacrificial love, love them enough to share the gospel with them, to serve them.
And that faith and love will be characterized by perseverance. Perseverance in this sense I think is speaking of endurance. Endurance is an undervalued virtue in the church today. But endurance is sometimes all we can do when we go through various trials. Our faith is sometimes stretched to the breaking point. It seems like everything is going wrong, that the devil is winning on every front. When we go through trials like that, James said, we should consider it as joy, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance, or perseverance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing.” Endurance is a character trait of the spiritually mature man or woman of God. I can assure you that endurance or perseverance is not always fun, but James says we should count it as joy. We endure it as a trial, but we count it as joy. It is something that may bring weeping may last through the long night of suffering, but a shout of joy in the morning when we see Jesus.
So we have seen what we should flee from, what we should follow after, and then Paul says what we should fight for. Vs12 “Fight the good fight of faith; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called, and you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.” Bible scholars tell us that the Greek word in the original text is one that means contest, and the anguish and conflict that is concerned with it. So from that, they surmise that what Paul has in mind here is not a race, which is a commonly used metaphor of Paul, but more likely a boxing match.
It’s kind of funny to think of faith as a fight isn’t it? But it really is. We are constantly in a conflict with lies, with doubt, with fear, with attacks of the devil, with heartaches, with disappointments. It’s a real struggle to maintain faith, to persevere in faith in the midst of such attacks. In this first letter to Timothy Paul is out of prison. But in his second letter he is in prison, and I think it’s obvious to Paul that he isn’t getting out of there alive. And so he writes to Timothy near the end of that letter, in 2Tim. 4:7-8 “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith; in the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day; and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing.” I put that verse on my dad’s gravestone. He was a minister of the gospel, who to some degree might have not looked like a winner from the world’s perspective, but from God’s perspective, he had fought the good fight, he had kept the faith, and there was laid up for him a crown of righteousness which the Lord will award to him.
But notice in that verse Paul likens the fight to finishing the course. Paul had finished the course that God had called him to run. He finished his ministry. And he says he has kept the faith. That’s a reference to endurance, to perseverance. He kept the faith in spite of many attacks against him from all quarters. Faith is a race, an endurance race. But it’s also a battle. Its a battle against the lusts of the flesh, against the desires of this world, and against the lies of the devil.
We should remember though that according to 2Cor. 10:3-4 “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses.” Our faith is the victory over our enemies. We fight the lie of Satan and the world with the truth of the scripture.
That’s why Paul joins that statement with another which says, lay hold of the eternal life to which you are called. Faith is believing, and believing is receiving. Eternal life, new life in Christ, is not something only available in the future, but right now. The idea is that Timothy is to grab hold of it and hang on to it. Possess the life of Christ now. Because as you are confident that you have eternal life now, you can proceed to serve the Lord without fear. Our life belongs to the Lord. He gives it, He will protect it, and He will not take it away until we have finished our course.
There is another aspect of laying hold of eternal life. Paul says Timothy “made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.” There doesn’t seem to be a consensus of opinion by Bible scholars on what he means by saying the good confession. But if you notice in the next verse, he says “Christ Jesus, who testified the good confession before Pontius Pilate.” So whatever the good confession is, both Timothy and Christ seem to have made it.
I think it can only be one thing for Timothy. I think it is confessing Jesus Christ as Lord. Paul says in Romans 10:9, “that if you confess with your mouth Jesus [as] Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” This was written at a time when Rome was trying to force people to say “Caesar is lord,” and they did so under penalty of death. So to publicly confess Jesus as Lord was to deny Caesar, and to put yourself at risk of death.
But we know that confession is also making the point that Jesus is the Messiah, the Anointed One from God, the Savior of the world. It’s also understood that the Messiah was to be the King of Kings, and Lord of Lords. And furthermore, it should be understood that to confess Jesus as Lord is to confess Him as YOUR Lord, your Sovereign, your Master. Thus your life belongs to Him. He controls your destiny. Timothy more than likely at his baptism publicly confessed Jesus as Lord in the presence of many witnesses, thus proclaiming his salvation and obtaining eternal life. And that faith is the victory over sin and death.
So we are to flee some things, follow after other things, fight the good fight, and then finally, Paul says what we are to be faithful to. Vs 13 “I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who testified the good confession before Pontius Pilate, that you keep the commandment without stain or reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which He will bring about at the proper time--He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see. To Him [be] honor and eternal dominion! Amen.”
Now there is a lot that is said there, but the primary point he makes is that we are to be faithful to keep the commandment. Now that sounds way too legalistic for most of us, so we better look at the original language and see what we might find that is more palatable for us. And we find in so doing that sixty nine times out of 71 it is translated as commandment. The other two are precepts. So that’s really not much help to us.
But what is helpful is the definition provided, which is, “an order, command, charge, precept, injunction , that which is prescribed to one by reason of his office, a prescribed rule in accordance with which a thing is done , a precept relating to lineage, of the Mosaic precept concerning the priesthood.” So what we might deduce is that the commandment might be understood to be a commission that was given to Timothy. It encompassed all that Timothy had been commanded to do in regards to his ministry and the governance of the churches under his care.
Now we too have been given orders, a commission, a commandment to proclaim the gospel to every living creature, to go into all the world with the gospel, to start in the realm of our family, then our neighborhood, then community, and then to the farthest reaches of the world. This is our ministry that we have all be commissioned to do. One of the other metaphors that Paul likes to use is that of the military. And he often likens the good fight of faith to being a good soldier of Jesus Christ. So this commission is our orders, what we are tasked to do as the church of Jesus Christ. Our ministry is to win souls. To proclaim the truth which is able to save souls.
Notice though that Paul uses especially strong words to convey the seriousness and urgency of this commission. He says I charge you in the presence of God. That’s like the phrase we hear sometimes used: “As God is my witness!” But Paul uses this for great effect, to show the seriousness of the charge he is giving Timothy, that it is not just coming from Paul, but from God Himself. So we should have a reverance, a holy fear of God that gives us motivation to do what He has charged us to do, and there is the added assurance that Paul gives which is that God gives live to all things. So though this commission may cause us to go through danger, our lives are watched over by God, and He will preserve us as we are keeping His charge.
And to that witness of God, Paul adds the witness of Jesus, saying, “and of Christ Jesus, who testified the good confession before Pontius Pilate.” Now we talked about Timothy’s confession, which resulted in his salvation and obtaining eternal life. What confession did Jesus make before Pilate? I believe it is a reference to the dialogue between Pilate and Jesus as recorded in John 18, where it says,
Vs. 33 Therefore Pilate entered again into the Praetorium, and summoned Jesus and said to Him, "Are You the King of the Jews?" Jesus answered, "Are you saying this on your own initiative, or did others tell you about Me?" Pilate answered, "I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests delivered You to me; what have You done?" Jesus answered, "My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm." Therefore Pilate said to Him, "So You are a king?" Jesus answered, "You say [correctly] that I am a king. For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.”
So the good confession that Jesus made is similar to the good confession that Timothy made, which is that Jesus is Lord, King of kings, that He is the Messiah that came into the world, born of man, but preexisting with God. Jesus said my kingdom is not of this realm, but I am a King, and for this I have been born, and for this I came into the world to testify to the truth. So there is a lot that is contained in the confession that Jesus gave Pilate. But it is the truth of God which we must believe if we are to be saved. Pilate did not believe the truth. His answer was “what is truth?” He tried to find a way to not commit one way or another. But in the end, his refusal to believe in Jesus Christ, caused him to side with those who would kill Jesus.
There is no neutral position in regards to Christ. A lot of people today want to think that they can have a little bit of Christianity and be ok. That they can mix the wisdom of the world and a little bit of Christianity together and they can have the best of both worlds. They can have the world’s riches, and yet still gain heaven in eternity. But the fact is that believing in Jesus Christ as Lord is not a 50/50 position. If Jesus is Lord, then He must be King, and if He is King, then to Him be all honor and eternal dominion.
Our worship of Jesus Christ as King then means that we offer up our selves as a living sacrifice, dying to the world and the lusts of this world that have controlled us and held us captive, so that through faith in Christ we might receive forgiveness of our sins, and be credited with the righteousness of Jesus Christ, so that we might receive new life, even everlasting life, which we now live as a citizen of the kingdom of God in submission to His will and His purpose.
That is salvation. It’s not sugar coated. It’s not if you come to Jesus all your wildest dreams will come true. Or you can live your best life now and get heaven to boot. But salvation requires full obeisance, honor and submission to Christ our King, and in exchange for renouncing our sinful life, and the passing, temporary pleasures of this world, He will give us forgiveness and HIs righteousness, and a life that is everlasting, and a crown which He will award to us on that day when He establishes His kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. I hope that you will lay hold of that truth, and confess Jesus as your Lord and King, that you might receive that life from God.
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