This charge, [my] child Timotheus, I commit to thee, according to the prophecies as to thee preceding, in order that thou mightest war by them the good warfare,
Paul hands a young man a commission and ties it to prophetic words spoken over him earlier. By those words Timothy was to wage the good warfare. Two questions rise at once. What is the charge? And what use are old prophecies to a man facing a hard campaign?
The word points back, not forward. Paul had already told Timothy why he left him at Ephesus. That instruction is what he now hands over.
He had left Timothy at Ephesus to command certain people there not to teach any doctrine other than the truths of the gospel. Now the aim of that command, of this gospel commission, was love flowing from a pure heart, a good conscience and sincere faith… The apostle now entrusted this commission to Timothy, his own son in the faith. He was to maintain it with an authority grounded in divine testimony. But he held that authority officially from the apostle who appointed him to it.
The reason for such a guard lies in what it protects. Grace is easy to twist into permission.
"This charge" of verse 18 refers again to verse 3. For the precious revelation of the grace of God must not stay in men's hands, for them to trifle with as they please. Those who treat grace as mere indulgence will soon turn it into loose living, and God supplied safeguards against this from the beginning.
These prophecies did two things at once. And Timothy was not the first man God marked out this way.
First, prophecies had already been spoken about Timothy (1 Tim. 1:18; 4:14). They did not only mark him out; they also pointed to the gift God was about to give him… There were prophetic messages, probably from more than one person, about the work God had chosen him for. It was not unlike the way God called Barnabas and Saul and set them apart for their first missionary journey… Paul reminds him of them in this charge — "that by them you may wage the good warfare" — though that would be useless without "holding faith and a good conscience"… It would strengthen his spirit to remember that God had appointed him to a work of such difficulty and danger.
No one knows the wording or the occasion. One writer adds that God's choice came long before Timothy knew of it.
God chooses His servants long before they know it. But it matters that they fulfil the purpose He chose them for. We do not need to know what form these prophecies took. Timothy no doubt knew what Paul meant. Other believers may have spoken them before Timothy was ever called to the work. But he was not to forget them.
Timothy may be gentle and easily frightened. What matters is Whose word sent him.
It is no mere battle but a campaign that the apostle puts before his "child" and fellow-labourer. He must wage the good warfare, but he is not asked to go at his own risk. The Master had given the word. However gentle, sensitive or timid Timothy might be, he could trust Him. It was He Who had prophesied about Timothy through His servants.
Not every servant has such words spoken over him. One writer sees courage in the certainty — and honour in going without it.
By the prophecies: knowing for certain that God had called a man out would give him great courage. But it may be an extra honour put on us to work without it. Yet, in itself, this would give great strength. Such a person would, of course, still need the strength of God every moment. Faith may give a man the same place now.
This warfare is not Timothy's alone. And no soldier fights without equipment.
An army without the equipment it needs is an army headed for total defeat… The whole armour of God is available to all believers in Christ (Eph. 6:13-18). That armour is necessary — vital, in fact — for the fight against the unseen forces of satanic evil. Believers must put on every part of the armour. Any part left off leaves a place where Satan's fiery darts can pierce the soldier.
- Charge. Paul hands over the instruction of verse 3: teach no other doctrine. Its aim is love from a pure heart, a good conscience and sincere faith.
- Guarded. The charge is needed because men trifle with grace and turn it into permission for loose living.
- Called. The prophecies marked Timothy out and pointed to God's gift to him. God called and set him apart much as He did Barnabas and Saul — long before Timothy knew it.
- Braced. He fights "by them." The prophecies steady him. A timid man enters a long campaign not at his own risk, but on his Master's word.
- Armed. Faith can give a man the same footing today. But every soldier still needs the whole armour. Every piece left off is a place where the enemy can strike.
maintaining faith and a good conscience; which [last] some, having put away, have made shipwreck as to faith;
Paul tells Timothy to hold two things together that most people keep apart: what a person believes and how a person lives. Drop the second, the verse warns, and the first sinks with it.
Paul uses "the faith" for the truth itself, and he ties holding it to one condition.
What Paul calls "the testimony" in 2 Timothy, he calls "the faith" in his first letter to the same devoted young servant... "holding faith [literally, the faith; that is, the truth believed] and a good conscience. By rejecting this, some have made shipwreck of their faith." Now observe carefully: you can only hold the faith of God's elect in a godly way as you maintain a good conscience. If you ever put away a good conscience, you will lose the faith and make shipwreck of the testimony. You put it away when you allow yourself to go on with anything your conscience does not approve, once the Word of God has taught it.
Doctrinal collapse looks sudden, but the verse traces it back to something earlier and quieter.
Here we have an explanation of why men who used to hold the faith delivered to the saints have given up that faith. Error does not begin with the head but with the heart. They cherished some sin; some secret sin had control. They did not judge themselves, and they confessed nothing. Having no good conscience, there was no longer real communion with God, and the shipwreck of faith followed in due time.
Read closely, the thing "some" put away is not the faith. It is the good conscience — and the loss of steering comes next.
Some, having put away, not the faith, but a good conscience, made shipwreck of the faith. So it is fatal to stop watching over your ways, and to give up self-judgment in the great or small matters each day brings before us. That is true no matter what you may hold or appear to delight in. The sin allowed may be a very little one. But left unjudged in God's sight, it becomes the beginning of a very great evil. Having put away a good conscience, their ship no longer answers the helm, and as to faith they make shipwreck.
A person cannot live one way and believe another for long. Something has to give.
The person who holds wrong doctrine rarely, if ever, keeps a good conscience. There cannot be a good conscience without faith. And it works the other way too: when the conscience goes bad in practice, the faith is lowered, and it is a good thing if it is not completely twisted in the end. A man is uneasy at continuing burdened with the sense of his own inconsistency. So he is tempted to adjust his faith to fit his failure. In the end he believes what he likes, and that destroys the truth.
Paul writes this to a servant of God. Constant handling of holy things carries its own danger.
Those who are always occupied with the things of God face one constant snare: not having a "good conscience." No one is more likely to fall than the person who is always ministering the truth of God, if he is not careful to keep a "good conscience." Always talking about truth and being busy with other people tends to harden the conscience... If we are not diligent to keep a "good conscience," Satan comes in. He destroys the confidence between the soul and God, or else we fall into false confidence. The moment a person is very active in service, or has much knowledge and is put forward in any way in the church, there is the danger of not having a good conscience.
Two pictures show why the conscience matters so much.
If you would preserve your faith, look to your conscience. A good conscience is the hull that faith sails in; if the conscience is wrecked, how can faith be thought safe? If faith is the jewel, a good conscience is the case in which it is kept; and if the case is broken, the jewel must be in danger of being lost.
- Hold two, not one. Keep faith and a good conscience together. Only a life that agrees with the truth can carry it safely.
- Heart before head. Wrong belief starts with a sin someone holds on to and never confesses. Communion with God goes first; belief follows.
- Small things steer. A very little sin left unjudged is where great evil begins. Daily self-judgment keeps the ship answering the helm.
- Belief follows behaviour. A man tired of his own inconsistency adjusts his faith to fit his failure, and ends up believing what he likes.
- Teachers, beware. Handling truth for others hardens the conscience fastest. Those most occupied with the things of God are the most likely to fall.