_THE POWER OF A BELIEF IN THE RESURRECTION AND THE INCARNATION.--THE
GOSPEL OF ST. PAUL._
"Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, of the seed of David,
according to my gospel: wherein I suffer hardship unto bonds, as a
malefactor; but the word of God is not bound. Therefore I endure all
things for the elects' sake, that they also may obtain the salvation
which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory."--2 TIM. ii. 8-10.
These words are a continuation of the same subject. They are additional
thoughts supplied to the Apostle's beloved disciple to induce him to
take courage and to bear willingly and thankfully whatever difficulties
and sufferings the preaching of the gospel in all its fulness may
involve. In the three metaphors just preceding, St. Paul has indicated
that there is nothing amazing, nothing that ought to cause perplexity or
despondency, in the fact that ministers of the word have to encounter
much opposition and danger. On the contrary, such things are the very
conditions of the situation; they are the very rules of the course. One
would have to suspect that there was something seriously amiss, if they
did not occur; and without them there would be no chance of reward. Here
he goes on to point out that this hardship and suffering is very far
from being mere hardship and suffering; it has its bright side and its
compensations, even in this life.
Throughout this section it is well worth while to notice the very
considerable improvements which the Revisers have made in it. One or two
of these have been already noticed; but for convenience some of the
principal instances are here collected together.
"Suffer hardship with me," or "Take thy part in suffering hardship," is
better than "Thou therefore endure hardship," which while inserting a
spurious "therefore," omits the important intimation that the hardship
to which Timothy is invited is one which others are enduring, and which
he is called upon, not to bear alone, but to share. "No soldier on
service" is better than "No man that warreth," and "if also a man
contend in the games" is more definite than the vague "if a man also
strive for masteries." The ambiguity of "must be first partaker of the
fruits" is avoided in "must be the first to partake of the fruits." But
perhaps none of these corrections are so important as those in the
passage now before us. "Remember that Jesus Christ of the seed of David,
was raised from the dead, according to my gospel," gives quite a wrong
turn to St. Paul's language. It puts the clauses in the wrong order, and
gives an erroneous impression as to what is to be remembered. Timothy is
charged to "remember Jesus Christ;" and in remembering Him he is to
think of Him as one Who is "risen from the dead," and Who is also "of
the seed of David." These are central facts of the Gospel which St. Paul
has always preached; they have been his support in all his sufferings;
and they will be the same support to the disciple as they have been to
the master.
"Remember Jesus Christ." Every Christian, who has to endure what seem to
him to be hardships, will sooner or later fall back upon this
remembrance. He is not the first, and not the chief sufferer in the
world. There is One Who has undergone hardships, compared with which
those of other men sink into nothingness; and Who has expressly told
those Who wish to be His disciples, that they must follow Him along the
path of suffering. It is specially in this respect that the servant is
not above his Lord. And just in proportion as we are true servants will
the remembrance of Jesus Christ help us to welcome what He lays upon us
as proof that He recognizes and accepts our service.
But merely to remember Jesus Christ as a Master Who has suffered, and
Who has made suffering a condition of service, will not be a permanently
sustaining or comforting thought, if it ends there. Therefore St. Paul
says to his perplexed and desponding delegate, "Remember Jesus Christ as
one _risen from the dead_." Jesus Christ has not only endured every kind
of suffering, including its extreme form, death, but He has conquered it
all by rising again. He is not only the sinless Sufferer, but also the
triumphant Victor over death and hell. He has set us an example of
heroic endurance in obedience to the will of God; but He has also
secured for us that our endurance in imitation of Him shall be crowned
with victory. Had Christ's mission ended on Calvary, He would but have
given to the world a purified form of Stoicism, a refined "philosophy of
suffering;" and His teaching would have failed, as Stoicism failed,
because a mere philosophy of suffering is quickly proved by experience
to be a "philosophy of despair." Renan remarks with truth, that the
gospel of Marcus Aurelius fortifies, but does not console: and all
teaching is doomed from the outset, which comes to a groaning and
travailing humanity without any consolations to bestow. What is the
thought which through long centuries has wrung, and is still wringing
millions of human hearts with anguish? It is the thought of the
existence and not only the existence but the apparent _predominance_, of
evil. Everywhere experience seems to teach us that evil of every kind,
physical, intellectual, and moral, holds the field and appears likely to
hold it. To allow oneself to be mastered by this thought is to be on the
road to doubting God's moral government of the world. What is the
antidote to it? "Remember Jesus Christ as one risen from the dead." When
has evil ever been so completely triumphant over good as when it
succeeded in getting the Prophet of Nazareth nailed to the tree, like
some vile and noxious animal? That was the hour of success for the
malignant Jewish hierarchy and for the spiritual powers of darkness. But
it was an hour to which very strict limits were placed. Very soon He Who
had been dismissed to the grave by a cruel and shameful death, defeated
and disgraced, rose again from it triumphant, not only over Jewish
priests and Roman soldiers, but over death and the cause of death; that
is, over every kind of evil--pain, and ignorance, and sin. It was for
that very purpose that He laid down His life, that He might take it
again: and it was for that reason that His Father loved Him, because He
had received the commandment to lay it down and take it again from His
Father (John x. 17, 18).
But "to remember Jesus Christ as one risen from the dead" does more than
this. It not only shows us that the evil against which we have such a
weary struggle in this life, both in others and in ourselves, is not (in
spite of depressing appearances) permanently triumphant; it also assures
us that there is another and a better life in which the good cause will
be supreme, and supreme without the possibility of disaster, of even of
contest. We talk in a conventional way of death as the country "from
whose bourne no traveller returns:" but we are wrong. We do not mean it
so; yet this saying, if pressed, would carry with it a denial of a fact,
which is better attested than any fact in ancient history. One Traveller
_has_ returned; and His return is no extraordinary accident or
exceptional and solitary success. It is a representative return and a
typical success. What the Son of Man has done, other sons of men can do,
and will do. The solidarity between the human race and the Second Adam,
between the Church and its Head, is such, that the victory of the Leader
carries with it the victory of the whole band. The breach made in the
gates of death is one through which the whole army of Christ's followers
may pass out into eternal life, free from death's power for evermore.
This thought is full of comfort and encouragement to those who feel
themselves almost overwhelmed by the perplexities, and contradictions,
and sorrows of this life. However grievous this life may be, it has this
merciful condition attached to it, that it lasts only for a short time;
and then the risen Christ leads us into a life which is free from all
trouble, and which knows no end. The miseries of this life are lessened
by the knowledge that they cannot last long. The blessedness of the life
to come is perfected by the fact that it is eternal.
Once more, to "remember Jesus Christ as one risen from the dead," is to
remember One Who claimed to be the promised Saviour of the world, and
Who _proved His claim_. By its countless needs, by many centuries of
yearning, by its consciousness of failure and of guilt, the whole human
race had been led to look forward to the coming of some great Deliverer,
Who would rescue mankind from its hopeless descent down the path of sin
and retribution, as a _possibility_. By the express promise of Almighty
God, made to the first generation of mankind, and renewed again and
again to patriarchs and prophets, the chosen people had been taught to
look forward to the coming of a Saviour as a _certainty_. And Jesus of
Nazareth had claimed to be this longed for and expected Deliverer, the
Desire of all nations and the Saviour of the world. "I that speak unto
thee am He" (John iv. 26). By His mighty works, and still more by His
life-giving words, He had shown that He had Divine credentials in
support of His claim: but not until He rose again from the dead was His
claim absolutely proved. It was the proof which He Himself volunteered.
"Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up" (John ii.
19). "There shall no sign be given but the sign of Jonah the prophet:
for as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale,
so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of
the earth" (Matt. xii. 39, 40), and then return again to the light of
day as Jonah did. He had raised others from the dead; but so had Elijah
and Elisha done. That proved no more than that He was a prophet as
mighty as they. But no one before Jesus had ever raised Himself. If His
Messiahship was doubtful before, all doubt vanished on Easter morning.
And this leads St. Paul on to the second point which his downcast
disciple is to remember in connexion with Jesus Christ. He is to
remember Him as "of the seed of David." He is not only truly God, but
truly man. He was risen from the dead, and yet He was born of flesh and
blood, and born of that royal line of which Timothy, who "from a babe
had known the sacred writings," had many times heard and read. The
Resurrection and the Incarnation;--those are the two facts on which a
faltering minister of the Gospel is to hold fast, in order to comfort
his heart and strengthen his steps.
It is worth noting that St. Paul places the Resurrection before the
Incarnation, a fact which is quite lost in the transposed order of the
A. V. St. Paul's order, which at first sight seems to be illogical, was
the usual order of the Apostles' preaching. They began, not with the
miraculous birth of Christ, but with His resurrection. They proved by
abundant testimony that Jesus had risen from the dead, and thence argued
that He must have been more than man. They did not preach His birth of a
virgin, and thence argue that He was Divine. How was His miraculous
birth to be proved, to those who were unwilling to accept His mother's
word for it? But thousands of people had seen Him dead upon the Cross,
and hundreds had seen Him alive again afterwards. No matter of fact was
more securely established for all those who cared to investigate the
evidence. With the Resurrection proved, the foundations of the faith
were laid. The Incarnation followed easily after this, especially when
combined with the descent from David, a fact which helped to prove His
Messiahship. Let Timothy boldly and patiently preach these great truths
in all their grand simplicity, and they will bring comfort and strength
to him in his distress and difficulty, as they have done to the Apostle.
This is the meaning of "according to my gospel." These are the truths
which St. Paul has habitually preached, and of the value of which he
can speak from full experience. He knows what he is talking about, when
he affirms, that these things are worth remembering when one is in
trouble. The Resurrection and the Incarnation are facts on which he has
ceaselessly insisted, because in the wear and tear of life he has found
out their worth.
There is no emphasis on the "my," as the Greek shows. An enclitic cannot
be emphatic. The Apostle is not contrasting his Gospel with that of
other preachers, as if he would say, "Others may teach what they please,
but this is the substance of _my_ Gospel." And Jerome is certainly
mistaken, if what is quoted as a remark of his is rightly assigned to
him by Fabricius, to the effect that whenever St. Paul says "according
to my Gospel" he means the written Gospel of his companion St. Luke, who
had caught much of his spirit and something of his language. It would be
much nearer the truth to say that St. Paul never refers to a written
Gospel. In every one of the passages in which the phrase occurs the
context is quite against any such interpretation (Rom. ii. 16; xvi. 25;
cf Tim. 1. i. 11). In this place the words which follow are conclusive:
"Wherein I suffer hardship unto bonds, as a malefactor." How could he be
said to suffer hardship unto bonds in the Gospel of St. Luke?
A word of protest may be added against the strange and impossible theory
that the third Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles were written by St.
Paul himself. If there is one thing which is certain with regard to the
authorship of the Books of the New Testament, it is that the Acts was
written by a companion of St. Paul. Even destructive critics who spare
little else, admit this of portions of the Acts; and the Book must be
accepted or rejected as a whole. Moreover, it is admitted by both
defenders and assailants that the writer of the Acts did not know the
Epistle to the Galatians; and it is highly probable that when he wrote
he had not seen the Epistles to the Romans and to the Corinthians.[92]
How then can he have been St. Paul? And why should the Apostle write
sometimes in the third person of what _Paul_ said and did, and sometimes
in the first person of what _we_ did? All this is quite natural, if the
writer is a companion of the Apostle, who was sometimes with him and
sometimes not; it is most extraordinary if the Apostle himself is the
writer. And of course if the Acts is not by St. Paul, the third Gospel
cannot be; for it is impossible to assign them to different writers.
Moreover, not to mention other difficulties, it may be doubted whether,
more than two years (Acts xxviii. 30) before the death of St. Paul,
there would have been time for "_many_" to "have taken in hand to draw
up a narrative concerning those matters which have been fulfilled among
us" (Luke i. 1), and then for him to have collected material for the
third Gospel and to have written it, and then, after an interval, for
him to have written the Acts. All the arguments in favour of the Pauline
authorship of the third Gospel and of the Acts are satisfied by the
almost universally accepted view, that these two works were written by
a companion of the Apostle, who was thoroughly familiar with his modes
of thought and expression.
The preaching of this Gospel of the Resurrection and the Incarnation had
caused the Apostle (as he here tells us) to suffer much evil, as if he
had done much evil, even to the extent of a grievous imprisonment. He is
bound as a malefactor; but his Gospel "is not bound," because it is "the
word of God." He perhaps changes the expression from "my Gospel" to "the
word of God" in order to indicate why it is that, although the preacher
is in prison, yet his Gospel is free;--because the word which he
preaches is not his own, but God's.
"The word of God is not bound." The Apostle is imprisoned; but his
tongue and his companion's pen are free. He can still teach those who
come to him; can still dictate letters for others to Luke and the
faithful few who visit him. He can still, as in his first Roman
imprisonment, see that what has befallen him may "have fallen out rather
unto the progress of the gospel; so that his bonds became manifest in
Christ throughout the whole praetorian guard, and to all the rest"
(Phil. i. 12, 13). He has been able to influence those whom, but for his
imprisonment, he would never have had an opportunity of reaching,--Roman
soldiers, and warders, and officials, and all who have to take
cognisance of his trial before the imperial tribunal.
"The word of God is not bound." While he is in prison, Timothy, and
Titus, and scores of other evangelists and preachers, are free. Their
action is not hampered because a colleague is shut up. The loss of him
might have a depressing and discouraging effect on some; but this ought
not to be so, and he hopes will not be so. Those who are left at large
ought to labour all the more energetically and enthusiastically, in
order to supply whatever is lost by the Apostle's want of freedom, and
in order to convince the world that this is no contest with a human
organization or with human opinion, but with a Divine word and a Divine
Person.
"The word of God is not bound," because His word is the truth, and it is
the truth that makes men free. How can that of which the very essence is
freedom, and of which the attribute is that it confers freedom, be
itself kept in bondage? Truth is freer than air and more incompressible
than water. And just as men must have air and must have water, and you
cannot keep them long from either; so you cannot long keep them from the
truth or the truth from them. You may dilute it, or obscure it, or
retard it, but you cannot bury it or shut it up. Laws which are of
Divine origin will surely and irresistibly assert themselves, and truth
and the mind of man will meet.
FOOTNOTES:
[92] It is not credible that a writer who was very familiar with the
incidents and persons mentioned and alluded to in Gal. i. 17; ii. 1-5,
11-14; Rom. xv. 19, 28; xvi. 1-3, 23; 1 Cor. i. 11-16; v. 1; xi. 30;
xvi. 15; 2 Cor. ii. 12; vii. 5; xi. 24; xii. 3, 7, 18, should make no
mention of them or reference to them. The silence respecting Titus would
be most extraordinary if the Apostle himself were the author of the
Acts. See Bishop Lightfoot's article on the Acts in the new edition of
the _Dict. of the Bible_.