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.
of whom is Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have delivered to Satan, that they may be taught by discipline not to blaspheme.
Paul ends his charge to Timothy by naming two men whose faith had gone under. Handing someone over to Satan sounds harsh, so who could do it, and how can it aim at any good?
These two men show the failure Paul has just described. Commentators trace it to the heart, not to a mistake in thinking.
Error does not begin with the head but with the heart. Some sin was cherished; some secret sin had control. They did not judge themselves, and they made no confession. With no good conscience, there was no longer real communion with God, and the shipwreck of faith followed in due time.
The order matters. A good conscience goes first, and faith goes down after it.
The sin allowed may be a very small one. But if it goes unjudged in God's sight, it becomes the start of a very great evil. Once they had put away a good conscience, their ship no longer answered the helm, and they made shipwreck of the faith.
Paul handed them over himself; he does not tell an assembly to act. Writers press that distinction hard.
This is not church discipline, or simply putting someone out of the assembly. It is the apostle's own act of power. In fact it is doubtful whether an assembly ever did, or ever could, hand anyone over to Satan without an apostle.
Another writer separates the two acts, then names what all discipline is for.
Let me add that delivering to Satan is an act of power. Putting out a wicked person is a duty that belongs to the faithfulness of the assembly… Paul did it in 1 Corinthians 5, acting with the gathered assembly, for the destruction of the flesh. He did it again in 1 Timothy 1, without any reference to the assembly, in the case of Hymenaeus and Alexander, so that they might learn not to blaspheme. All discipline is for the correction of the person, while it also keeps the house of God holy and clears the consciences of the saints themselves.
The act removed a shelter these men had been enjoying.
Satan had already deceived them, but they were not under his rule in a way that let him torment them and make them suffer. In the assembly, Satan has no power of that kind. God protects the assembly, and so does the power of Christ… The apostle handed these two men over to the power of the enemy, and took away the shelter they had enjoyed. He did it by the power given to him, for this is an act of positive power. They had to feel what the one they had listened to was like.
The purpose clause is the strangest part of the verse: the enemy is made to serve God's aim.
PLACEHOLDER_DO_NOT_USE: first, the importance of maintaining a good conscience, and the results that may follow its abandonment; and second, the way God can use the enemy for the profit (if such an one will learn) of the person delivered up to him… Thus God can use him as a creature in the carrying out of His designs, he himself having no such power over one in the assembly, unless such an one is delivered up to him.
The lesson is meant to be felt, not merely heard.
God allowed these men to come under the power of Satan. Through suffering and anguish of soul they were to learn the true character of the flesh, and to turn to God humbled and broken in spirit.
Both men appear again later, and not as recovered men.
In 2 Timothy 2:17 we see that Hymenaeus, though put out, went further into evil. His teaching was wicked, and another man, Philetus, was linked with him too… Discipline had not restored Alexander either, for Paul speaks of the great harm he did him (2 Tim. 4:14). How solemn that Scripture records these men's names in such a dreadful way! Proper discipline had not yet stopped their blasphemous rebellion, though that was its aim. Sad indeed that an aim so honorable may still fail!
The lesson turns back on the reader.
May we learn, dear friend, to judge ourselves in secret before our God, so the assembly may not have to deal with us. If we judge the roots of evil in private, the fruit will not appear above the surface of our practical life.
- Cause: conscience goes first. A small sin left unjudged breaks communion with God, and faith goes down after it.
- Act: Paul used his own apostolic power here, not assembly discipline. Commentators doubt that any assembly could do the same.
- Loss: what these men lost was shelter — moved from the house God protects into the world the enemy rules.
- Aim: even this was discipline, not ruin. Paul handed them over so that hard experience would break them and bring them back.
- Result: the aim can still fail. Both men appear later, worse than before. Judging ourselves in private is the safer road.