Fidelity to Truth and Trust

Hotp fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus. That good thing which was committed unto thee keep, by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us. A.Y.

Hold to the model of the healthful words which thou heardest from me, in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. The good deposit guard, through the Holy Spirit which dwelleth in us.

Tuus St. Paul has uttered in Timothy’s hearing his 2 Tim. i. own personal confession of faith. It has come from 13714- such a depth of the soul, a depth where only the Things greatest and most cherished treasures lie, that in the Unnamed. expression of it he has not needed to define anything.

The Person is not named; the ‘Deposit’ is not described; the ‘Day’ is not specified. Jesus Christ,

and His follower’s own immortal being, and the longed-for Return — these are things in the regenerate heart too great, too primary, to need to be

denoted in detail.

Now he returns to Timothy’s needs and to his duties.

It has been debated what is meant by the ‘model the yodel of healthful words.’ To some the phrase has seemed of Words. to suggest that even at that early date there had arisen an authorized statement of fundamental Christian truths, a summary of the main facts and principles of

2 Tim. i. 13-14. the Gospel, a veritable ‘Apostles’ Creed.’ It may be that this was the case; certainly in extremely early times some such formulated Confession was required of those about to be baptized. But the phrase here does not seem to me to point in this direction; at least not so clearly as to preclude a simpler exposition. And this I think is to be found in the view that by ‘the model’ St. Paul means here simply the Gospel itself in its grand lines of truth, the Message of Christ Jesus incarnate, sacrificed, risen, ascended, reigning, saving, coming; the Revelation of Him whom, ‘knowing,’ we ‘trust,’ and are ‘not ashamed.’ That Gospel was, from one point of view, a ‘model,’ according to which was to be developed the teaching of the evangelist and pastor. All he should say of truth, of duty, of peace, love, hope, and everlasting life, all the infinite applications of such sayings to the hearts of his hearers, was to be on the Gospel model, arranged along the great Gospel lines, as St. Paul had traced them for him. He, and they who heard him, would indeed find those lines ‘healthful,’ fresh with the open air of heaven. It is the full-orbed Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ which alone is thus ‘healthful,’ in the whole range of religious systems. In its majestic wholeness of truth about God, about Christ, about man, about pardon, holiness, and heaven, the full Gospel is the very opposite of a morbid or overwrought pietism. It is spiritual health itself, filled with the life-wind of the Spirit and with the morning sunshine of the Name of

the sacrificed and risen Saviour.

‘To’ this Gospel Timothy was to ‘hold,’ ‘in faith

Fidelity to Truth and Trust

and love ’ — the graces which were to form, so to speak, 2 Tim. i. the element ‘in’ which he was to live, as he main- 13-14. tained his hold. That ‘holding’ was to be no mere formal orthodoxy, hardening into a spiritual frost; a mere tenacious grasp upon a creed — a true creed, but a creed taken rather as an external thing than as the expression of soul-felt realities. He was to ‘hold to’ Holding it ‘in faith, practically relying in his daily walk on ‘°*: Him whom it set forth. He was to ‘hold to’ it ‘im love, so walking with Him as to find his soul’s affections poured into his belief. And this very experience of faith and of love was to be ‘in Christ Jesus.’ The pulses of the inmost being of the disciple could only beat aright as he was ‘joined to the Lord, one spirit.’

Then further this Gospel (so I would explain the The Deposit. connexion of ver. 14 with ver. 13) would become to him ‘the good deposit,’ the noble, the ‘beautiful ’ treasure committed to his keeping to conserve and to pass on intact. In other words he was to take jealous care that the full message of the Lord Jesus, the whole truth about His Person, His Glory, His Love, His wonderful Salvation, constituted his message. And this Timothy not only should do but could do, ‘through the Holy Spirit which dwelleth in us. For that sacred Revealer and Teacher, doing His covenanted work for the ordained pastor’s special needs, would so ‘ glorify’ Christ to him (Joh. xvi. 14), making his own soul apprehend more and yet more of what the Son of God is given to us to be, that his ‘guardianship’ should be carried on as with the embrace of an adoring love around the treasure which

2 Tim. i.
13-14.
he held, and then his transmission of it should be
done as with a voice inspired.

O that the Church, that the Ministry, had more truly and more constantly obeyed that precept! What fitful declines, what catastrophes of faith, what distorted growths of opinion, would then have been precluded in poor troubled Christendom! May the heavenly Master awake us anew to believe, to teach, to toil, ‘in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus, through the Holy Spirit which dwelleth in us.’