Suffering, Its End and Motive

Therefore I endure all things for the elect’s sakes, that they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. It isa faithful saying: For if we be dead with him, we shall also live with him: if we suffer, we shall also reign with him: if we deny him, he also will deny us: if we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself. A.V.

For this reason I endure everything, on account of the chosen ones, that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory. Faithful is the saying: For if we shared His death, we shall also share His life; if we endure, we shall also share His reign; if we shall deny Him, He also will deny us; if we are faithless, He abideth faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.

THE thought of suffering and ats fruits is still the 2 Tim. ii. ruling thought of the Apostle; the glorious gains of 10-13. pains. He is very near the goal now, very near eo ame ‘the Father’s house, where we lay our burthens

down. But this thought only accentuates the note

of self-sacrifice, of willingness to suffer, for the sake

of fruit-bearing, even to the last step of the journey.

‘For this reason,’ the reason that he is the dear- For the bought servant of a risen and once crucified Saviour, Flect’sSake. he can ‘endure everything,’ anything, in ‘fellowship with His sufferings. And that fellowship makes the cause not of Christ only but of His people precious to St. Paul; he will work and suffer to the end ‘on account of the chosen ones,’ to help them on their way through grace to glory, through Christ on earth to Christ in heaven. It is his

8&3

2 Tim. ii.
10-13.

The Elect.

The Hymn.

Master’s will that the safety of the flock should be largely bound up with the pains, and the pain, of the man sent to shepherd them. Well then, the man will present himself, a living sacrifice, on the altar of that ‘sweet, beloved will,’ on account of the flock. If, in order that they may know Jusus, and may at last be with Him where He is, Paul must struggle, weep, and die — it shall be done, and done with the whole heart of the doer poured into the doing.

‘The elect’ here are undoubtedly the Church, the Congregation of the disciples. But let us not think that the word loses its mystery and its greatness by that large reference. The elect are the Church, not anyhow, but as it is contemplated in its essential reality, as it is true to its eternal idea. From one aspect they are Christians taken on their profession, assumed to be all that ‘Christian’ means. From another, they are those whom the Lord knows to be such indeed; the souls in which the secret of His grace results in faith, and hope, and holiness indeed. Bright is their prospect in His plan; it is nothing less than the ‘eternal glory’ of His presence above; He will love them, He will keep them, even to the end, even to that end. Yet none the less, He who prepares the end prepares also, and also requires, the means. And among the means is prepared and provided the suffering life and death of His pastoral servant, spending and being spent for them.

And now (ver. 11-13), there sounds in St. Paul’s inner ear a solemn chant of pain and of praise, of trial and glory; a primeval Christian hymn, as we may confidently take it to be. He evidently quotes,

Suffering, its End and Motive

and does not compose, the heart-moving sentences in 2 Tim. ii. their responsive rhythm. We may group them with 10-13. four other utterances — all in the Pastoral Epistles Geet, CO bomi, 01, iv. 9.3% Tit. ili... 8); and “all introduced by the phrase, ‘Faithful is the saying ’ — as watchwords of the first believers, so worded, most of them however, as to lend themselves to song. So regarded they lie before us as examples of those ‘spiritual songs’ with which in an earlier day St. Paul had bidden the believers (Eph. v. 19; Col. iii. 16) to cheer one another’s faith and hope. Across the long ages, through the profound silence of the past, we seem to catch the music as those dear Christian voices blend in the sacrifice of song. We can hear them chanting in the upper chamber, around the Table of the Holy Supper, on the shore at parting, and sometimes on the last march to martyrdom. ‘They come to us as voices of the Spirit through the faithful Church, even as the Epistles which now enshrine them and authenticate them are His voices through the apostolic prophet and pastor.

What a song it is, in its holy awe, its conquering The Mesfaith and hope! It goes deep to the foundations of eee. whe the Gospel, basing all our peace and power upon our ‘share in His death.’ It affirms the eternal fact of His life, His indissoluble resurrection-life, as the secret and strength of the life of His believing follower. It looks upward and onward to His everlasting reign in glory, and to the promise that the sinners He has saved shall actually share that glory with. Him. It recites His own dread words (Matt. x. 32) to the disciple who denies Him, and

2 Tim. ii. 10-13. reminds the waverer that ‘He cannot deny Himself, cannot unsay His own plighted word, whether of promise or of merciful forewarning. Above all and through all it sings of Him, and makes of His Name its one divine refrain. ‘The faithful saying’ is instinct throughout with the Name of Jesus. The man who overcomes, who lives, who reigns at last above, does so as one to whom is ‘ gwen the victory — through our Lord Jesus Christ.’