“I KNOW WHOM I HAVE BELIEVED”
A. J. E. Welch
We have often referred to the way the Lord secured the writer of these verses and what his history was, especially at its beginnings with God. The scripture tells us what took place, or much that took place, when Paul, the writer of these verses, was stricken down on his way to Damascus by an appearing of the Lord to him from heaven—wonderful beginning of the path with God of one that God signally used—Paul. It struck me, as I thought about him, that a very important thing is not just how he began, and not just how we began, but what our present link with Christ really is.
There might have been a falling away; I do not mean with the writer of these words, I need scarcely say; there might have been with me a falling away. Maybe today is not our best day thus far. I believe the Lord would speak to us about that, what He is to us today. What is our appreciation of Him today? Where are we in this precious pathway of committal to the interests of Christ today, and what is our outlook this very day? For these verses were written not at the beginning of his pathway in God’s testimony, but as we understand very close to the end. What a pathway it had been, as the history shows. Paul had his beginnings, remarkable beginnings. I expect everyone here, every mature person anyway, has had beginnings, and some of them have been remarkable beginnings, not always miraculous beginnings in an outward sense but remarkable enough in an inward sense when the Lord spoke to us; but where do we stand in reference to Him and His interests today?
This man, as he wrote these words, as we understand from what he writes, was in prison, but how feelingly he writes of God’s calling, and what the calling is; and he also writes about “the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ”. You cannot read these verses without sensing the depth of feeling with which the beloved writer speaks of the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, that which is the central point of the whole situation to which he is referring. What a glorious presentation we have here of what He has done, setting out in a few words the immensity of His work, “who has annulled death”. How briefly that is put, yet how immense the cost was in suffering! Whose sufferings? The sufferings of “our Saviour Jesus Christ”; He
“annulled death”, he says. What a wonderful thing it is at this present time, as we think of the incidence of death in this dark scene in which we are, to think of the brevity, the power, with which the writer of these verses could present a glorious Person who has annulled death, has met and set aside its power—not that its power does not remain in the sense of the article of it and the bearing it has on men.
He is calling attention to One who has annulled death. Think of a Person of whom that can be said. You know who the Person is. Thank God I know who this Person is. This very scripture makes that perfectly plain, but I ask you just to ponder for a moment the immensity of the power of death being annulled by one glorious Man. God would bring some sense of His power into our souls as we preach, or listen to the preaching—the might of delivering power in the hand of God through the efficacy of the work of Jesus. It is towards you to set you perfectly free, to give you and sustain with you a link with this glorious Person that shall go right through. Are you looking back, beloved friend, on brighter days? Does any one of us here look back on brighter times in our histories? The Lord would have to say to us this afternoon if that is so. He would have these times, these times remarkable in their place and way, to be our best times. Maybe for any one of us there shall be better yet, but has something come in to rob us of the real appreciation of Christ and of the glad tidings of which He is the precious Theme and Centre? Has anything come in like that?
See how this man writes at the end of his time, “I know whom I have believed”. How the enemy has sought to bring in many a diversion in the history of us all, many a taunt, many a lie to divert; but here is a man who says, “I know whom I have believed”. He has a secure assurance in his soul. It is the constant effort of the enemies of Christ, of the enemies of God, of the enemies of the assembly, to bring in some lying diversion from what is precious to Christ and fruitful to God. How many of us have experienced the bitter thrusts of a defeated foe, for such he is. Thank God we know the One by whom he has been defeated. Let us remember that; let us say, as this writer says, “I know whom I have believed”, and continue in the sense of strength, the sense of being stabilized in realising that our hope is in Christ; our hope in that sense is in God. Our resource, our immediate resource, is in the Spirit; our objective, Christ in glory, the same glorious Person of Jesus.
Has somebody, or something, sought to divert you from a clear view of Christ as He is? What is the present situation? There may have been brighter situations in past history. The Lord would say, Why is this so? What is it that has come in? Here is a man who went on from strength to strength and can write thus very close to the end of his days. It is not that he did not make mistakes, I am not suggesting that, but his end is the bright, radiant, happy enjoyment of a sustained link with Christ in his soul, something which he can fall back upon as the enemy makes fresh thrusts. A man in prison circumstances with nothing of an outward kind, I suppose, for his comfort or encouragement, far otherwise; but his hope is in God, his faith is in Christ, his resource is in the Spirit, his links are with the saints of the assembly, to one of whom he is writing so feelingly, this beloved child of his, Timothy.
There are some Timothys here, young men seeking to follow in the Pauline course, and I would address myself feelingly to such, to young men and young women, that there may indeed be a following of a Pauline course, nothing less. Let us seek, in our time, in grace and strength which God gives, to stand for nothing less than what Paul stood for. You may say, ‘I am not a Paul’. I am not suggesting that you are. Paul was an apostle; the Lord appointed him. But the path that he set on is the christian pathway in its true and essential character. He set on a path in which those who have followed in faithfulness to Christ have continued. You say, ‘What about those Dark Ages?’ God knows. It is not for you and me to reason about the Dark Ages, the point is today; where do I stand today? In what path are my steps today? And if I may make so bold as to ask the direct question, In what path are your steps today? Is it the Pauline way? There was a time, you know, in his journeys when Paul made a “straight course”. Thank God there is a straight course today. The enemy would love to introduce all kinds of diversions into that straight course, but there is a straight course to be taken in dependence upon the Lord, in reliance upon the Spirit.
So he speaks of God “who has saved us, and has called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace”. It is remarkable how he looks back over things and sees how it all has its origin in God and His grace, “according to his own purpose and grace”; that is, he sees that he was in God’s heart for blessing, and he sees how God came in in grace to effect his blessing. He goes right back to his beginnings in the sense that his beginnings were in the heart of God. He did not achieve his own blessing; he was set on a totally different course, persecuting the assembly, but divine grace wrought; “according to his own purpose and grace”. God came into this man’s history, engaged him with Christ, and brought him to submission to Christ; and that is the great point to which we so often have to come back.
If some diversion has come, if I am not as bright and happy and free with Christ and in the truth today as I was, maybe six months ago or at some prior time, let me ask myself, ‘Am I a truly submissive person to the One who is established of God, as another scripture reminds us, “Lord and Christ”?’ We spoke of that this afternoon, but I feel the vital point of real submission to the Lord. That is how this man began such a course as this. We may have begun that way, and something may have come in just to interrupt our submissive course in relation to Christ. What is the present situation? That the heart of God is toward us, “according to his own purpose and grace”; we were in His heart long, long before He ever was in ours in any sense at all. Grace took us up just as we were in our sins, in our need, we might say in our yielding to flesh; all these things marked us, but God came in in His own grace and turned us to Jesus, as Paul says here, “our Saviour Jesus Christ”.
What a Saviour! What sufferings He endured! What a laying down of His life we have to think of; that occupied us a little this morning. He laid down His life; in that sense it was not that men slew Him. It was their intention to slay Him and they did put Him on the cross to die, and it was their intention He should die; but He laid down His life; He did that. Men could not take the life of the Son of God; men could not take the life of Jesus; He laid it down. He laid it down for you, He laid it down for me, He laid it down for myriads of the redeemed. What a Saviour! This is all in the grace of which the writer speaks; it is all to meet your case, not only at its beginnings but in its continuance.
It has in mind the way in which every one of us shall continue to find Christ in every fresh eventuality of the pathway, and to find in Him, “our Saviour Jesus Christ”. That is the whole bearing of what is in that Person toward us in the course of these present things. He is “our Saviour Jesus Christ”, there is always saving power there whatever may beset us, whatever fresh temptation may come, whatever fresh diversion may be attempted; He is our Saviour, and the saving power is ever to be known and proved by us, “our Saviour Jesus Christ”.
Paul says the calling “has been made manifest now by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who has annulled death, and brought to light life and incorruptibility by the glad tidings”; “life and incorruptibility”. Life in Him? Yes, but far more, life for you; there is incorruptibility in Himself as He is, certainly, but it stands related to what is incorruptible in you, in me, in men. I am not speaking of actual incorruptibility yet whilst we are yet in these bodies, but I am calling attention to the blessed fact that God has incorruptibility in view, an incorruptible order of things, an order of things into which sin and decline can never come. And He would sustain you by the Spirit in the gain of what is established incorruptibly in the Person of His beloved Son. How much there is in this dark scene to corrupt; but God would say, ‘I will give you a link in faith and in the gift of the Spirit with that which is incorruptible’ as He turns you to that glorious, risen, ascended, exalted Man where He is. He has “brought to light life and incorruptibility by the glad tidings”.
Do you value the glad tidings? Are they glad tidings to you? Is there something holding someone from what I might speak of as the gladness of the glad tidings, the spring of joy of appreciation of Christ, the enjoyment of the gift of the Spirit, a place in relation to His interests here? Oh what joy is in these things! I would say again to you, (just to turn you if I may to the Lord about it) Was there a time when the joy was greater? Was there a time when the joy was brighter? Why is it?
Here the beloved apostle, after a long course of devoted service, of eventful history spiritually and circumstantially, says, “I know whom I have believed”. Oh, I love the definiteness, the, sense of assurance which he conveys! How stable is a man who has gone on in his history, has found His links with Christ to be his true strength, and has found the known gift of the Spirit to be his constant ever-faithful present resource. You may find all this; you may find it not just momentarily, certainly not just passingly, but find it as the characteristic spring of your life, a link with a glorified Christ and realisation of power here known to you in the gift of the Spirit. Why should these things not be yours? God is toward you in them; the glad tidings go out. In some sense this scripture brings its own voice in true glad tidings irrespective of what a preacher may say. Here is this precious scripture coming home to you. Why should you not come into the gain of the same resource that Paul knew, to know the same Saviour that Paul knew, to drink into the same Spirit that Paul drank into, to find yourself in principle and in life in the same company that Paul found his life in?
These things are to be yours, though he says, “For which cause also I suffer these things”. The present moment, he would say, is a moment of suffering. We do not know in detail what those sufferings were. His being in prison would be among them, but I doubt if that would be his only element of suffering. He was suffering in the sense of departures from Christ and from the truth, but he says, “I am not ashamed; for I know whom I have believed”. Well, is this our brightest moment? The Lord would speak to us this evening just to revive us, maybe; such is His grace, He loves to revive. He would search out things, if something has come in between Himself and any one of us, that we might be able to be alongside of Paul in what his present link with Christ is, as he says, “I know whom I have believed”. May we thus be under God’s good hand and continue under His hand, for His name’s sake.
Preaching at Warley, Worcs.
23 September 1973