1 TIMOTHY 2 (FIRST READING)
1 TIMOTHY 2 (FIRST READING)
CAC There must be maintenance of personal condition of soul according to the end of chapter 1 before we can take up this chapter.
Ques You mean there must be faith and a good conscience? There could not be lifting up of holy hands without?
CAC Yes, the effect of grace would be to bring about moral suitability; that is, the revelation of God in grace must have a profound effect. The faith is the revelation of God in grace, and if it does not produce its proper moral effect people lose it and make shipwreck, that is the end.
Ques Why is a good conscience so much emphasised in Timothy?
CAC Because it lies at the root of all the soul’s relation with God. If a good conscience is given up you have lost your link with God, and that would lead to antinomianism, that is, that grace leaves you free to go on with the old line of things, whereas grace really puts you on an entirely new line of things.
Rem The Christian is looked at here as a vessel for testimony, and as such it is important he should be real. Those who form the house of God must be true and be kept in true relation to God by the maintenance of faith and a good conscience.
CAC [p. 351] If God brings in a testimony it must be maintained in a suitable vessel. God’s house is marked by holiness, and holiness is very much maintained by the exercise of prayer.
Ques What does being delivered to Satan mean?
CAC I think the apostle was able by his power to give up these men to some special discipline; the object of it was that they should be disciplined. It was an act of power on the part of the apostle so that they were given up to discipline. This was a case of men who had given up a good conscience and made shipwreck, they were blasphemers, they spoke injuriously of divine Persons, and they came under a severe form of discipline. Prayer should characterise the saints, then they would be kept from making shipwreck.
Ques Is not this with regard to the company?
CAC Yes, but maintaining faith and a good conscience is individual. When you say ‘the company’ you do not mean to confine it to when we are together. It says “pray everywhere” (verse 8).
Ques Would it not be the good of the testimony of God we should have at heart?
CAC It is the testimony of God to maintain these things, to maintain that God is thinking of the good of man. He is favourable to man and there is a place on earth where it is understood and entered on; so the gate of heaven is very near to man, it is not a long way off. What a thought of God, even if you only take the side that He would have us lead tranquil lives! (verse 2).
Ques Are we to pray, because our exercise should be that room should be made here for the testimony to go on, or is a tranquil life freedom from persecution?
CAC Freedom from things that might be distracting; such things happen and if saints are distracted the testimony is enfeebled.
Verse 2 is a parenthesis. The main thought is that “supplications, prayers, intercessions, thanksgivings be made for all men, ... for this is good and acceptable before our Saviour God”. Verse 2 takes account of God’s government in this world, and the saints are indebted to God’s government for tranquility. If we had no police we should not lead a very quiet life.
God’s house should be known as a house of prayer, a house of supply, but when the Lord came He found it a place where [p. 352] people were being robbed. Men ought to know God’s house, where He is a Giver. Christendom now makes the impression on people that God’s house is a place where things can be got out of them.
Rem Eternal life should be seen there, and God’s house no longer a place of robbery, it is to be a house of supply.
CAC Yes. Verse 1 is what is to mark the saints as composing the house of God. It is not only when we come together; it is the character of the pillar which God has set up; it is always there whether we come together or not. What marks it is a company of people praying for all men; they are marked individually and therefore collectively.
Ques What is your thought as to “first of all”?
CAC We ought to remember that we are to give voice to everything according to God, whether it is the dependence of a creature and the confidingness of those who know His love, or the thanksgiving of those who have His general benefits all find a voice in the house of God. Who praises God now for a harvest or for sunshine? Every saint ought to have a harvest thanksgiving. It is a poor thing if God lavishes His good things and not a voice from the saints thanks Him. Nature always grumbles, but we must “in every thing give thanks”. We have to voice the thanksgiving of creation for the sunshine and rain, for the fruitful seasons, for the fulness of the earth “filling our hearts with food and gladness”, Acts 14. We take it up in detail, and give thanks intelligently for all the wonderful wealth of God’s bounty filling His creature with good things. In God’s house everything gets a thanksgiving, there is such a comprehensive field of joy and thanksgiving. You would not rob God of thanksgiving! We thank God for all things. The saints give thanks “for all men”.
Ques Do we think more of the mercy side? “His mercy endureth for ever”.
CAC Mercy should be lovingkindness there. All the natural good is the outcome of God’s lovingkindness. When you come to spiritual good, that is deeper, but every note of praise is sounded in the house of God.
The great and special thought here is that God is a Saviour God, and He is known, and people are near to Him in the sense of what He is. J.N.D. has a note in the New Translation to the word ‘intercession’, ‘personal and confiding intercourse [p. 353] with God on the part of one able to approach Him’. It is such a sweet thought to be near to Him.
Rem It puts great dignity on us to pray for men.
CAC It puts the saints on a higher platform than those in authority. We do not look down on them; but there is a moral dignity about saints who can pray. There was a bright spot in Jacob’s life when he blessed the greatest monarch on the face of the earth; he was a poor old man but he was superior to Pharaoh. The world is marked by murmuring and complaining; we should be marked by prayer and thankfulness.
Rem Each one in the house of God ought to be imbued with the desire that all men should be saved.
CAC Yes, and we should look at people in general in that way. That would preserve us from feelings of resentment to our enemies; we should see them as poor creatures whom God is so willing to bless. God approves of this in His saints (verse 3); it is a wonderful power to be on a line that you feel God approves, that God’s estimate is that it is good. There is no power in anything if you have not the sense that it is approved of God. The Spirit would always give us the consciousness of God’s approval if we fulfil the conditions laid down in Scripture. In the New Testament it is always supposed that the saints are marked by doing what God approves.
Rem Men are to lift up holy hands, that is like “the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice”, Psalm 141.
CAC Yes. We were saying last week that this aspect of salvation is that we should be delivered and free to serve. All this we are speaking of is the service of the house of God; it is service on the testimony side, the intercessory side of priesthood. It is more the character of royal priesthood, it sets forth the royal side, it is “the King of the ages”, God’s title in grace.
Ques What aspect of the death of Christ does the ransom bring before us?
CAC That the price is paid on the ground of which all men may go free and come into the service of God.
Ques Does it correspond with the mercy-seat; Romans 3?
CAC Yes, what underlies it is that God would have men free to serve Him.
Rem God could only approach us in a Mediator.
CAC Yes, the distance between God and men is so great, so infinite, that you must have a Mediator. If God is to come near to men, it must be in a Mediator, there must be a medium [p. 354] of communication, and that is the Man Christ Jesus. It is the blessed God acting in grace, coming near to men, not to a few, not to the elect people, but to men. And He does it on the ground of the death of Christ, so that God does not soil His holiness in coming near to men. He does not admit of any stain on His righteousness or holiness. He puts Himself into the most blessed communication with His fallen creature. The mediatorship is all founded on ransom, a ransom paid once and for everyone; thus He is the Mediator.
Ques Does the Mediator include what Christ is as Saviour, Advocate and Priest?
CAC Mediatorship is on God’s part manward, that is, between God and men. Advocacy and priesthood are offices on man’s part Godward, but as Mediator Christ fills a wonderful part towards men.