2 TIMOTHY 2 (THIRD READING)
2 TIMOTHY 2 (THIRD READING)
Ques Is a firm foundation what faith can take its stand upon and act upon?
CAC Yes; there is that which is of God in the midst of all the defection and failure. There is what is of God and it is a great thing to go on with that. Certain principles mark the foundation. The two principles in verse 19 mark what has divine stability, and nothing has divine stability but what is marked by these principles. We feel how unstable everything is in the religious world; people have an idea that all truths and doctrines are open to question, and they do not know where they are or what to believe. We need exercise to be identified with what is stable, that is, what is of God in the midst of all that is changing. Whatever man may do there is a divine building. “On this rock I will build my assembly”, and that building is marked by stability; “hades’ gates shall not prevail against it”. There is a tendency to look at this as if it were an abstract statement applying to the invisible church. The building of Christ is a real thing that is worked out by divine grace and power in souls; it is a spiritual reality. I think that firm foundation is that which gives divine stability to souls. It is plainly marked by these two great principles — “The Lord knows those that are his”; and, “Let every one who names the name of the Lord withdraw from iniquity”. The first principle is that there is something recognised by the Lord; the question is, does the Lord recognise me as His? People say they know the Lord, but does He know you? By and by people will come to the Lord and say they know Him, and He will say, I do not know you. It is a serious matter; the question is raised, does the Lord know me?
Ques We were noticing last week an illustration of this in Numbers 16. Will you tell us about it? In verse 5 we read, “The Lord will show who are his”. Here in 2 Timothy it is, “The Lord knows those that are his”.
CAC Yes, He will show who are His tomorrow, but now He knows them. This is very important in a day when christian profession is carried out under man’s eye. A great deal is thought of how we appear to others, but we should start with the question, how does the Lord regard me?
Rem Two hundred and fifty princes of the assembly, men of renown, rose up. It was a critical state of things.
CAC Yes, we see it in the epistle to Philadelphia: “I will make them of the synagogue of Satan ... to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee”. That is tomorrow; He will show it tomorrow, but now He knows. Are we content in the meantime with the Lord knowing? The Lord knows by moral signs; it is not an inscrutable thing. Take John 1: different souls come up to the Lord and they have all divine marks; no one else can discern, but the Lord can. He never trusted anything not of His Father. When the Lord saw a bit of the Father’s work in a soul He could say, I know that, and He did not know anything else. When He saw the Father’s work, He could commit Himself; He recognised it. We pass over this word in Timothy as a commonplace thing, but it is a serious exercise to say, is there that about me which the Lord can recognise as His own?
Rem You get the other side of the seal in Numbers 16: 20 - 26, “The Lord said, Separate yourselves”, and “Get you up from about the habitation of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram”. Then Moses says, “Depart ... from the tents of these wicked men”.
CAC It illustrates what is before us in the most striking manner. We get the private side of the seal and the public one. “The Lord knows those that are his” is a private matter, and separation from iniquity is a public step; that is, you take a public step in separation.
Ques When you speak of a public step, do you mean from what is ecclesiastically wrong?
CAC No, it says ‘iniquity’. If you name the name of the Lord, you have to separate from anything that does not give the Lord His place. It must be inwardly judged; mere outward separation would be pharisaism. “Withdraw from iniquity” is a public act; you take yourself away from it. Iniquity is unrighteousness, and righteousness is measured by what is due to the Lord.
Ques Is this the same as 2 Corinthians 6: 17, “Come out from among them”?
CAC [p. 402] I think it applies rather within the professing church, not to the heathen as in 2 Corinthians 6: “Come out from among them, and be ye separate ... and touch not the unclean thing”. There it is primarily the profane idolatrous world; we get the contrast, Christ and Belial, light and darkness, righteousness and unrighteousness, the temple of God and idolatry. Saints are called out of this heathen world, but then Scripture contemplates iniquity in the sphere of the christian profession. It is a very solemn thing how little is thought of what is due to divine Persons. I was greatly affected a few years ago in Wigtown by seeing a monument to two women who were tied to stakes at low water to be drowned, the old one far out and the young one of eighteen near, so that she could see the old one drowned and be given an opportunity to recant. The inscription on the monument was, ‘They died to maintain the rights of Christ in His assembly’. The point of righteousness is that you maintain the rights of Christ. If I call Jesus Lord the first principle with me must be to maintain what is due to Him. All else is unrighteousness and we are called to withdraw from it. It is a test for every one of us; we ought not to assume we have done it, but to see it is a divine obligation on every one of us. It might involve martyrdom even. I have often been struck by the fact that the martyrs frequently died for what might be called a very small point; if they would have changed a word or an expression, sometimes they could have been saved; it often all hung on a word and they might save their lives. Many died for what we, in a cold blooded way, call a non-essential. We are in a terrible day now; the whole talk is of the rights of man. We would like to hear about the rights of God and of Christ. If christians were in the spirit of these two women there would be some testimony for God. Things may look well in the eyes of men, but if the rights of Christ are not maintained it is iniquity, because He is the Lord, and He is the only One who has any rights. Maintaining the rights of Christ is the mark of the presence of the Holy Spirit. It is not the primary defect that the rights of Christ are not maintained, but the primary defect is that no place is given to the Spirit. The man who speaks by the Spirit says Lord to Jesus. The Holy Spirit does not lead in any uncertain way, but the mark of His leading is that we own the lordship of Christ. “No man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Spirit”. Supposing the Spirit had His [p. 403] way with all the saints in T., what would they do? They would all be saying Lord to Jesus, not with lips only but with their hearts, giving Him His due.
Rem That would bring us together.
CAC Yes; we are to follow righteousness, etc., with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.
Rem Righteousness is the basis of christian fellowship, the basis of God’s throne and of the kingdom.
CAC And of all peace. We get all through Scripture the connection between righteousness and peace; we find them in many places together. “The fruit of righteousness is sown in peace”. “Righteousness and peace have kissed each other”. If there is to be peace practically among saints it must be on the basis of righteousness. There is a tendency with us to have peace at any price, but if you put peace first there is nothing in that for God. There is a movement in the religious world to get christians to sink their differences and all to come together. This could only be by every one agreeing to give up what they hold. If we hold fast only to what we all agree on, we should give up a great deal.
We ought to consider this chapter very much; it is the most important chapter for the last days; it gives us instruction for the last days. The principle of attraction is found in following “righteousness, faith, love, peace” (verse 22); if christians took account of me as following righteousness, faith, love, peace, they would want to be with me. The first thing is that the Lord knows. The start is that there is what the Father has wrought and the Lord takes account of. Then there is what men can take account of — “pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace”. That has in view a company; it is “with those that call upon the Lord out of a pure heart”.
Ques Why does this verse 21 come in here speaking of being serviceable to the Master?
CAC “If therefore one shall have purified himself ... he shall be a vessel to honour”. That is the individual side; each one is to be a sanctified vessel. It seems to me that the iniquity of verse 19 identifies itself with persons. You cannot withdraw from iniquity merely as an abstract thing; iniquity connects itself with persons. The great house is used as a figure. We are responsible to judge of the character of vessels and I cannot separate from them if I do not judge them. If a man identifies himself with a principle of unrighteousness he is a vessel to dishonour. “If therefore one shall have purified himself from these, in separating himself from them, he shall be a vessel to honour, sanctified, serviceable to the Master”. It is most encouraging: “he shall be a vessel to honour”.
Ques Is it the same as in John 12: 26, “If any man serve me, him will my Father honour”?
CAC It is the same principle. It is a great thing to seek honour. People in the world seek it. It would be a great thing for us if we went in for honour, “the honour that cometh from God only”.
Ques Do we get the same thing in the close of Malachi? “They ... spake often one to another: and the Lord ... heard it, and a book of remembrance was written ... . And they shall be mine, saith the Lord ... when I make up my jewels”.
CAC Yes, that is beautiful. There was that about them which marked them under the Lord’s eye, and then they were known to each other. How wonderful to be a jewel in the eyes of the Lord! I do not doubt this idea of vessels is derived from the holy vessels of the sanctuary. When the people returned from captivity, the vessels they brought back were all counted. There were 5,400; they had been in Babylon and they came back to Jerusalem, and they were all counted. It is like that today. The vessels have been carried away to Babylon, a system marked by the glory of man, and now the thing is to come back to Jerusalem, the city of the great King. It is not what we do; there is no idea of activity in a vessel, it must be carried by another. The Master can put out His hand and take any one of them, they are clean and ready. And that is what the Lord does. All this comes in the way of compensation. If we are marked by fidelity we shall be circumscribed and in a limited sphere of reproach, but what a compensation to be a vessel to honour!
Rem One often feels, after an opportunity is gone, that one lost it because one was not ready to speak.
CAC Yes, that is a most humbling exercise; one has often had it. There has been a plain opening and one has not been equal to it. What a difference there is, speaking practically, if you are with the Lord! How easy it is then; you do not seem to need any effort, you are prepared. Sometimes we speak because we feel we ought to, and there is not much in it. The thing is to be ready for the Lord to use one and to feel He has [p. 405] taken one up and used one. We think service is what the servant does, but it is what the Lord does with the vessel.
Rem Down to the end of verse 21 it is very individual, but to pursue righteousness is with other people.
CAC It supposes Christians are to walk together; there is no giving up of that. You will always find somebody better than yourself! It is a great thing there are those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. It would be great gain to be with a few people like that.
The pursuit of righteousness is a continual exercise; it is not like a path with a definite termination; it is a thing that is never to cease; the pursuit is to go on continually. It must be a continual exercise to seek out these great principles of action. The tendency is that when people have taken a certain step of faithfulness and find blessing out of it, they settle down and go to sleep. This exercise must be kept up with us, for even if we go on in the divine path for some time, we may drop out of it. There is no security for any of us save as we pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace.
Ques How would you speak of faith in this connection?
CAC Faith is the only thing that would sustain one in pursuit of righteousness. The tendency is to systematise what God does. God moves and then man systematises; you find it everywhere, even in our meetings. We have to see to it that faith is maintained; we soon get away from faith and go on in an orthodox way. The recovery from Babylon was a very blessed work; it was purely God’s grace, and yet it became in the end pharisaism; that is what it all developed into. Even though the people were recalled to the Scriptures, yet faith and love ceased to characterise them, so that when the Lord came to earth He had to reproach the people that there was not faith or love with them.
Ques What is a “pure heart” spoken of in verse 22? Could every Christian be said to have a pure heart?
CAC I suppose it is characteristic of Christians as such. Speaking of the conversion of the gentiles in Acts 15: 9, Peter says that their hearts were purified by faith.
Rem In his epistle Peter also says, “Having purified your souls by obedience to the truth”.
CAC Yes. He says, “love one another out of a pure heart fervently”. I think a pure heart is a heart delivered from selfishness by the knowledge of the love of God. The [p. 406] love of God gives one a pure heart because it breaks the power of the selfish motives that had governed us. Nothing will break the power of selfishness but love. A heart brought under the influence of the love of God is free from all those things that mark the natural man. If God has given me everything in His love I do not need to be seeking and grasping after something for myself, and then one can call on God with a simple reference to God’s will, with nothing but a true desire to walk in the path of God’s will. We see the model of all these things in the Lord; it is very encouraging to see that.
Rem We get an instance of the reverse of this in those who said “Lord, Lord”, and did not the things that He said.
CAC Yes, that illustrates it exactly; that would be calling on the Lord out of an impure heart; a pretence of calling on Him and no intention of doing what He says. A pure heart calls on Him because it is set to do what He says.
Rem It is happy to own His authority. Many christians choose their own path.
CAC That is a denial of the lordship of Christ. It is a fundamental truth of christianity that Jesus is Lord. It is the owning of Jesus as Lord that brings us together rightly and marks us off as true christians.
Ques Does it suggest that in this day there are those who do not call on the Lord out of a pure heart?
CAC It suggests there is christian profession without a pure heart. Men have no intention of doing what the Lord says. The exercise with us should be to be here for God’s will; we are set to “pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace”; all these things are the will of God. If people are caught in Satan’s snare the servant is to seek to recover them. Satan is doing his best to get christians to be here for their own will, which is really Satan’s will, but our object should be to be here for God’s will. There is a beautiful word in John 7: 18, “He that speaks from himself seeks his own glory; but he that seeks the glory of him that has sent him, he is true, and unrighteousness is not in him”. That is what the Lord was. You see righteousness there, a blessed Man seeking the glory of the One who sent Him. When we begin to measure things by the will of God it throws a new light on everything. Christendom is full of good things which we like and even approve, but when we put them in the light of God’s will there is no justification for them.
[p. 407] Rem At the beginning of the passage we read, “If any one desire to practise his will, he shall know concerning the doctrine”, John 7: 17.
CAC Yes, the one who is said to practise the will of God has a pure heart; God has His right place in the thoughts of such a one: that is a christian characteristically. It may make us very ashamed of ourselves, but that is a christian.
Rem We are not always prepared to do God’s will.
CAC If we examine our motives we find them very mixed, and this necessitates self-judgment. We have to remember there is a snare of the devil referred to in the passage we are reading. The snare of the devil is anything that takes us off the line of God’s will, and of righteousness, faith, love and peace. It is a perversion of things brought about in a man’s mind which results in his opposing the truth. The servant is to recover him. He is not to be left as a bad job. This shows the recoverability of a bad case.
Rem Speaking of the qualities of an overseer in 1 Timothy 3, it says, “the overseer then must be irreproachable ... apt to teach ... mild, not addicted to contention”.
CAC Yes, it speaks of what was in the Lord Himself. The devil did his best to take that blessed One in his snare, but nothing moved Him out of the path of God’s will.
Rem It is said of the Lord, “He shall not strive or cry out, nor shall any one hear his voice in the streets”.
CAC Yes, it is a most important principle. When one has to do with all sorts of evil there is such a danger of getting into contentions. If we have the truth it keeps us quiet, because we trust in the Lord to support it. We have to put it before people in a spirit of meekness and the Lord supports it. We have not to contend. This gives us great peace as to controversies in which the truth is in question. The path of the testimony in the last days is beset by controversies. All the truth we have has been got by controversies; we do not need to be alarmed about it.
Rem Division may result from it.
CAC Division among saints is the fruit of self-will. If no will is at work brethren would never divide. I often say brethren never do divide! If we were really brethren we should say, We do not see alike, but we must see alike, and we will pray until we do see alike. If we are really brethren we shall never divide, but there are those among us who do oppose the [p. 408] truth as we find in verse 25. If they are not really bad they will be recovered by the servant in meekness instructing those that oppose. If there is nothing bad at the bottom of a man’s heart he will be recovered, but if self will is working he may be allowed to go on and fall over the precipice.
Ques Our attention is called in the next chapter to those we have to turn away from. There are those God may give repentance to, but it is a serious thing when we have to turn away from any. What is the difference between the two?
CAC The men in chapter 3 are clearly unconverted persons; they have “no love for what is good”, they are “lovers of pleasure”. You cannot do anything with them, there is nothing of God there. You do not keep company with persons of that sort. The Lord tells us not to cast pearls before swine. If people have no love for what is good, what can you do with them?
Rem One is exercised about people who are professedly servants of the Lord, as to how far one should combat that sort of thing.
CAC The Lord said of the Pharisees, “Let them alone”. But another class is contemplated not at all like these. They come into opposition with the truth. We find brothers — for the time — coming into opposition, and they have to be dealt with in gentleness and meekness so that they may be recovered. We have to act in such a way that they may be won.
Ques In what way would they recover themselves?
CAC By repentance. If God gives it to them to the acknowledgment of the truth, they wake up and see they have just been in the snare of the devil all the time.
Rem It is a great deliverance when a man who has been opposing the truth is led to see it and wakes up and repents and is found once more for God’s will in this world.
CAC It is a blessed deliverance! It can only be brought about by coming into the atmosphere of Matthew 11. The Lord says, “Come to me”. Just stand where I stand, look at things as I look at them — and then He says, “Learn from me; for I am meek and lowly in heart”. It is very beautiful. We are to be characterised by His spirit; this is how He always had to do with opposers. He endured such contradiction of sinners, and those cavilling. See how quietly He answered them, and how gentle He was!
[p. 409] Ques Would you say there is restoration when they recover themselves?
CAC Yes, the snare is broken. To my mind it is very important that we should count on more power for recovery. Nothing exercises me more than the lack of power of recovery. If people get wrong it seems impossible to get them right again.
Ques Is it lack of exercise on their part?
CAC That may be, but what troubles me is my part. I feel one ought to have more power to get them right. We have to bear in mind that if there is anything of God in a soul it will respond to the Spirit of Christ. If a man is wrong and I can approach him in the Spirit of Christ, in the faithful grace of Christ, he will respond, and then one must not let him go until one has got him back for God’s will.
Ques Do you think we fail in not having drunk sufficiently into the Spirit of the One who came down to recover men?
CAC Yes. A new order of man is brought into the world, man in Christ Jesus — not glorified in heaven but brought in morally down here. We find it all through this epistle: there is “faith and love ... in Christ Jesus”; “be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus”; “live godly in Christ Jesus”. Paul spoke of his “ways ... in Christ”. That is, the qualities of Christ Jesus are brought in morally down here, it is down here they are seen. If we are on the line of what is in Christ Jesus we shall show His qualities. If we have not the Spirit of Christ we shall pretend to have it. Jannes and Jambres imitated what Moses did; but what he did by divine power they did by human, or perhaps satanic power, but in the end the finger of God triumphed. There came a time when it was a question of life and then they could do nothing. When Moses and Aaron turned the dust into lice, “the magicians did so with their enchantments to bring forth lice”, but they could do nothing and they had to say, “This is the finger of God”. The moment it was a question of life they were baffled. You can imitate what is external in a christian, but it is imitation and will sooner or later be exposed.
Ques Would you say that we could imitate?
CAC I think there is a great deal of imitation in christendom, and I find all the evils of christendom in my own heart. Whatever is current in christendom you find in yourself. But if you get on to the line of what is in Christ Jesus that is the vital line and that will triumph.
[p. 410] Rem What I find in myself is assuming to be what I am not.
CAC Yes, there is an outward show that has nothing behind it; it is very humiliating. If we were only content to be what the grace of God has made us, how happy we should be!
Rem We want the continuation of Christ in His people.
CAC Christianity is the continuation of Christ in the saints. I do not understand anything else. We want to keep clear of all imitation. Let us have the real thing! What a contrast the apostle draws. Some men “found worthless as regards the faith”, and the end is “their folly shall be completely manifest to all”. Then the contrast is in “my teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, longsuffering, love, endurance, persecutions, sufferings ... and the Lord delivered me out of all”, 2 Timothy 3: 10, 11.