“YOUR SPIRIT”
One would like to say a few words on the apostle’s prayer for Timothy, “The Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit”. This epistle is encouraging to us all, in that it sets before us the “testimony of our Lord” as that which is intended to be our constant interest wherever we may be. The epistle has not a local setting, and it contains no reference to local exercises, as such, but it presents the testimony of our Lord as that which should command us at all times, and in any and every place.
Now it is noticeable that the testimony is presented in this epistle in a setting of suffering, and that not a suffering that is merely occasional or incidental, but as that which is its characteristic feature. The apostle says in the first chapter, “Be not therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner; but suffer evil along with the glad tidings, according to the power of God”. He says in the second chapter, “take thy share in suffering as a good soldier of Jesus Christ”. In the third chapter he says, “All indeed who desire to live piously in Christ Jesus will be persecuted”, and in the fourth chapter he says, “But thou, be sober in all things, bear evils”. These exhortations show that suffering in one form or another is to be recognised as the characteristic feature of the testimony, and the apostle refers time after time in the epistle to the particular sufferings or evils which he himself had endured, as committed to the glad tidings.
But the sufferings connected with the glad tidings are to be endured “according to the power 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, which was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages of time, but 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”. How it impresses us as we take account of the fact that God’s purpose and grace, given us in Christ Jesus before the ages of time, has now come to light in Him, the risen and glorified Man in the presence of God, and that in a power by which death has been annulled. Do we appreciate the grace that has for ever connected us with Christ, the Christ of God, and that according to a set purpose which the blessed God formed before we had any existence at all—the grace that has for ever set us apart, by the death of our Saviour Jesus Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit, from the order of sinful man with which we are only too familiar, and set us up in life and incorruptibility in Christ, the Man of His pleasure, now known as triumphant over the forces of evil and the power of death. The testimony is that He is the Man who is going to abide, that all the pleasure of God and the glory of God are bound up with Him, and with us in Him, and that He is going to displace man after the flesh, and fill the whole scene with His own blessedness.
Now this testimony, which should command the allegiance of all who love our Lord Jesus Christ, is carried in this world in suffering, for the ceaseless effort of the enemy is to weaken, and if possible extinguish, all true testimony to Christ. There is therefore continual conflict, and the battleground on which many of the conflicts of the testimony are waged is the spirits of the saints. Hence the apostle’s closing prayer, “The Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit”.
If we take account of the different exercises of the apostle’s which he refers to, we cannot but feel how much they must have involved pressure upon his spirit. In the first chapter he says, “Thou knowest this, that all who are in Asia, of whom is Phygellus and Hermogenes, have turned away from me”. In the second chapter he speaks of Hymenæus and Philetus, who as to the truth had gone astray, and were overthrowing the faith of some. The apostle would feel all these things with spiritual sensibilities—he says in another epistle, “Who is stumbled and I burn not?”- and he would doubtless feel being a prisoner and thus unable, in an active way, to take part in the conflict, but it is evident from the epistle that his spirit was preserved, that in his spirit he was maintained superior to all that tested him, and that he was thus evincing, in the presence of the onslaughts of the enemy, the power of “the life which is in Christ Jesus”. May we not gather that the secret of the apostle’s power was that the Lord Jesus Christ was with his spirit, and hence his prayer that his son Timothy should know the same secret of power?
Timothy was encouraged to take his share in suffering as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. He was to be always available to the One whom he served, he was to recognise that there were rules to be observed, that the conflicts of the testimony were to be waged in a way that was morally consistent with the One who is the subject of it, and that there must be readiness to labour patiently first before partaking of the fruits, see chap 2: 4-6. All this involves much exercise and testing of spirit. An example of this is seen at the end of the chapter, and at the same time an illustration of one of the ‘rules’. It says, “A bondman of the Lord ought not to contend, but be gentle towards all ... in meekness setting right those who oppose, if God perhaps may sometime give them repentance”. Any other spirit than that of meekness and gentleness, and of the forbearance that would wait in the hope that God might grant repentance, is out of keeping with the holy calling, but in the actual exercises of meeting opposition, and of maintaining the truth in the presence of it, what the bondman of the Lord needs is that the Lord Jesus Christ should be with his spirit. The title suggests the One who was known here in such meekness and lowliness, in perfect grace toward men, yet absolute faithfulness to God, marked out as God’s chosen One, His anointed, and known now as Lord in supremacy, faithful and powerful to support all that is of Himself here, and held as Lord in the living affections of His bondmen here.
In the last chapter the apostle refers to further assaults made by the enemy on the testimony for which he stood, further efforts to overcome the spirit of the apostle: “Demas has forsaken me”; “Alexander the smith did many evil things against me”; “At my first defence no man stood with me, but all deserted me”. But his spirit was preserved, and the “proclamation was fully made” in a power evidenced in a spirit that could sustain any amount of suffering and rise superior to it. He says, “May it not be imputed to them”. Of Alexander (according to the best translation, and it is in keeping with the spirit manifest in the words above just quoted) he does not say, “The Lord render to him”, which would be a prayer for retribution, but “The Lord will render to him according to his works”, a sober recognition that the testimony will prevail, and that opposition to it will meet its own reward. All through these closing exercises the apostle shines very much in the spirit of the Lord Himself in the closing hours of His personal testimony here, and he shews that the secret of his power was that the Lord was with him, “The Lord stood with me, and gave me power”.
But the very exercises and sufferings of the testimony beget a mutual sympathy among those who have part in them, and hence the apostle sends by Timothy, and conveys to him, salutations to and from others whom he names (chap 5: 19-21) as having the confidence and affection of himself and Timothy. He also informs him as to Erastus and Trophimus. When the testimony of our Lord is held in the affections, the movements and exercises of the saints become of great interest as viewed in connection with it, and their affections and sympathy are valued as affording great support. But if the conflicts of the testimony are to be sustained, what the bondman of the Lord needs is that the Lord Jesus Christ should be with his spirit, hence the apostle closes his letter with the words, “the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Grace be with you”.
STREATHAM
13th June 1925
Substance of an address, from Words of Grace and Comfort
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