1 Timothy 6:11–21

The desire to be rich was the path of snares and temptation, of foolish and hurtful lusts. Timothy was to flee these things, as a man of God. This is always the thought here. He was in the world on God's behalf. He represented Him in his part of the work. So he was to follow after something other than earthly riches. He was to follow the character of a man of God: righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness. These were the things which, in a man, presented God to the world and glorified Him.

"Man of God" is a phrase that occurs often, from the five books of Moses right through the history books of the Old Testament. It is used again and again of a prophet. It marks him out as a man identified with the interests and character of God in deed and in truth. He can still fail, of course, and then suffer chastening. In the New Testament the phrase appears only in the two letters to Timothy. Here Paul uses it of the man he writes to, to stir him up and warn him. In the second letter it is open to all who, in an evil day, make good in faithful and holy devotedness to God what the title implies.

Paul's words "O man of God" are an urgent and very personal appeal. Urgent, because of the need of the hour; and personal, because of the individual responsibility to meet this need. The Greek word for "man" above is without distinction of sex. It should be the character of men and women who are devoted to the Lord Jesus. They love the great truth of the house of God (1 Tim. 3:15).

It is not enough to avoid evil. There must be the pursuit of good… However others may act, the man of God will seek to walk in a way that fits his relationships to others as brothers and sisters. This is righteousness… The man of God will also pursue faith that has Christ for its Object. And he will pursue love that goes out to his brothers and sisters. That love bears evil and insults with quiet endurance and meekness, instead of impatience and resentment.

Six lovely features hang together like a cluster of fruit. The list begins with righteousness, which always has to be to the front in a world of unrighteousness and sin. It ends with meekness, the very opposite of what we are by nature. Meekness concerns our spirit, as righteousness concerns our acts.

Piety is confidence in the known and living God. That confidence leads the believer to walk in the holy fear of God through all the circumstances of life. It recognises and honours God. So it is the very opposite of a show of holiness that seeks to exalt self.

Confusion was growing. So the apostle gives the moral features which should mark the "man of God." These features would fit him for the conflict with the power of evil that he cannot avoid. No servant of Christ can hold up the standard of the truth unless the truth has first formed him. If he tries, he will only invite a disastrous defeat. In life, as well as in word, he must be a representative of the Master whom he serves.

If we are to be men of God, we must flee what draws the men of this world. We must follow what was seen in Jesus here on earth. All these precious moral features shone in their fulness and perfection in the Son of God.

As the confusion grew, the apostle gives the moral features that should mark the "man of God." These would fit him for his unavoidable conflict with the power of evil. No servant of Christ can hold up the standard of the truth unless the truth has formed him. If he tries, it will only end in disastrous defeat. In life, as well as in word, he must represent the Master whom he serves.

The good fight of faith is contending earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints. That means the truth which had been spread among the saints and received by them. So the faith is the thing believed. But remember: without faith at work in the soul now, this fight could not be won. Otherwise, however earnest the argument, "the faith" might be nothing more than a dead creed.

Meanwhile there was conflict: he must fight the good fight of faith. If anyone represents God in the world, there must be warfare, because the enemy is there. Faith's energy was also needed to lay hold of eternal life among the temptations and difficulties that the "things that are seen" bring.

This life is a personal possession. So the command does not mean obtaining eternal life; that is the gift of God. You must lay hold of it in faith, enter into it and enjoy it. Many have eternal life, but what they need is a practical laying hold of all that it implies and all that goes with it.

We lay hold on eternal life as we realise in our souls that we do not belong to this sphere. Everything for us is tied to the scene we are going to... We realise that the true life is life in fellowship with God. In the Spirit's power we can then use this world without abusing it, walking as Christ walked, who alone fully showed eternal life in this scene of death.

Timothy was to lay hold of eternal life, and let nothing shake his prey loose... The world around him was content to take its portion in this life, and many through the love of it had wandered from the faith (v. 10). But Timothy was to flee this as he pursued eternal life. Faith knew its object from the word of promise; and Timothy was to embrace it at every cost.

Our calling as Christians is a high calling, holy and heavenly. Like Abraham, we are to be pilgrims and strangers while we wait for all that God has promised us. God has not called us to present ease and the enjoyment of the world's pleasures. He has called us to conflict with the powers of darkness, and to the present enjoyment of heavenly things.

But it is hard indeed to keep up a profession contradicted, as far as sight goes, by everything in us and around us... Timothy had confessed a good confession before many witnesses, and he needed reminding of it. And so do we. For we so easily forget that we are what we are in hope.

If the man of God flees from evil, follows good, fights for the faith and lays hold of eternal life, his life will make a good confession before others. He becomes a living witness to the truths that he professes.

When Moses was about to leave this life, God told him to give Joshua a charge in the sight of all the congregation (Numbers 27:19). Now, before Paul left, he gave Timothy a charge — but in the sight of God and the Lord Jesus Christ, making Timothy aware that he stood in their presence. Timothy was to keep the commandment without spot and beyond reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ… Paul placed him before God, who keeps all things in life, and before Christ Jesus, who witnessed a good confession before Pontius Pilate. Mentioning God in this character would give him courage, and remembering Christ Jesus as a faithful witness would encourage him.

"Quickening," or creating, is not the thought. The thought is "keeping alive"… The usage in the New Testament, and in the Greek Old Testament, clearly points to saving alive or preserving. And here it is "all things", not persons, that are in question, though some go so far as to teach the contrary. God, who is the source of life, is also the preserver of all things. The man who takes up His cause in a hostile scene can count on this, and needs to count on it.

The Apostle encourages us to keep this charge. He reminds us that we live in the sight of One who preserves all things in life. Can He not then preserve His own, however severe the conflict they may have to pass through?

Confession stands by the truth of God against the lie of man, and it stands by it at the risk of everything. Our Jesus bore this witness. Throughout His life and ministry it was the way of the Son of God to hide Himself… He had come in His Father's name and not in His own. He sought not His own glory, but the glory of Him who sent Him. But the time was to come when He must openly stand confessed.

Here was God's true Representative in the world, standing before the man who represents the world. How precious and clear His witness, though His words were few. He bore witness to the truth. His kingdom was not of this world, but He was a King indeed, God's King, high above everything that only lasts for a time. He sought no prominence in this world, but the glory of His Father (John 18:33-37). This gives precious character to the commandment Paul tells Timothy to keep: "without spot, beyond reproach." There must be no lapse, no tarnishing of this testimony.

He is on high to support His servants. But here He was, as no one else, "the faithful Witness," the good Confessor. What cheer for the man who might lose heart through timid advice, or through the demoralising effect of compromise… He has to follow His steps in this as in all things. And if he knows his weakness — as he surely will, more and more, in the hard conflict — he has only to spread it out before the One whose grace is enough and whose strength is made perfect in weakness.

When Moses was about to leave this life, God told him to give Joshua a charge in front of the whole congregation (Numbers 27:19). Now, before Paul left, he gave Timothy a charge too. But it was in the sight of God and the Lord Jesus Christ. He set Timothy in their presence, aware of it, and told him to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ... Thinking of God in this character would make him bold. Remembering Christ Jesus as a faithful witness would give him courage.

This commandment no doubt covered everything the apostle charged Timothy with in this letter. It covered all that concerns behaviour in the house of God, all he was to avoid and all he was to pursue. Timothy was to surrender nothing. He was not to stain the commandment with human tradition, with compromises, or by bringing in anything that came from the heart or mind of man.

Here was God's true Representative in the world, standing before the man who represents the world. How precious and clear His witness, though His words were few. He bore witness to the truth. His kingdom was not of this world, yet He was a real King, God's King, far above everything that only belongs to this passing age... This gives precious character to the commandment Timothy is told to keep unstained and free from reproach. There is to be no lapse, no tarnishing of this testimony that would leave him open to rebuke, because it is all in view of the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The coming of the Lord does not display us before the world; it takes us right out of it to be with Christ... There the apostle urges his faithful fellow-worker to keep this commandment unstained and free from reproach, until — the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ? No; but "the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ." The coming of our Lord will not prove whether Timothy has been faithful. His appearing will prove it completely. The appearing of the Lord Jesus therefore is the right and proper word, and none other.

Timothy is urged to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of Jesus Christ. This verse is often used to argue the opposite, but it in fact shows how such words are to be taken. The appearing is the goal of responsibility. Whatever fills the time between now and the end of his path here would not change the exhortation. And no one would claim the apostle meant to guarantee that Timothy would live until the appearing.

The brightness of "the joy set before Him" never dimmed in the perfect faith of Jesus, even though the cross tested His hold on it to the very limit. In the same way, Timothy was to keep his grasp of eternal life, whatever else he might give up. God had set that promise before him. He would bring it out in all its promised blessing and glory at the appearing of Jesus. Timothy was to cling to it despite the whole world.

The Greek word, athanasia, immortality, occurs only three times in the Scriptures. First, as to God Himself. He only has immortality. It is inherent in Him — not given, not gained, but His, belonging to His own nature and being (1 Tim. 6:16). The other two cases (1 Cor. 15:53-54) concern the saints alive on this earth when the Lord comes.

When it is said of God that "He only has immortality," the reference is to essential, not to conferred, being. Even those who misuse the text do not deny that the angels are immortal. Our Lord Himself said this is their condition, and that the risen saints will be like them in this way. "They cannot die anymore, because they are equal to angels" (Luke 20:36). So God's having immortality alone fits perfectly with the immortality of angels — and, if so, with the immortality of the human soul. The soul is immortal as angels are, but only because God makes both so.

He dwells in light unapproachable, not in darkness, but in light infinitely brighter than any created eye can bear. Honour and power everlasting are His alone. The heart that gladly gives Him this praise will willingly accept a place where he himself is given no honour or power.

This character of the epistle is very remarkable. Nowhere else does Scripture present the unapproachable majesty of God, as God, in this way. Elsewhere it often teaches and shows His character. Here He alone has essential immortality. He dwells in inaccessible light. He is always invisible to the eyes of men. He alone has power. He has dominion over all who reign. This is God in His own pure essence, unchanging in His being, holding the rights of His majesty — veiled to all men.

Moses and the privileged group who climbed Sinai with him "saw the God of Israel," and this does not contradict 1 Timothy 6:16, which refers to God in His essential being and glory. As Ezekiel saw "the likeness of the glory of the Lord" (Ezek. 1:28), and as John on Patmos saw One who sat on the throne, who was "like jasper and carnelian" (Rev. 4:3), so these saw a manifestation of God. We note that no attempt to describe Him is made.

He is "the Word" — the expression of all that is in the divine mind — the full and blessed revelation of God. Until He became man, God was unexpressed, and so unknown, for "no one has ever seen God." But "the only God, who is at the Father's side, He has made Him known." (John 1:18; older translations read "the only begotten Son.") God is in the light, and the Person of the Son perfectly discloses everything that belongs to His nature and character.

The blessing we are brought into is deep and full, and here is a wonderful witness of it. Through the Holy Spirit — God dwelling in us and we in Him — we come to know Him, and we know the blessedness into which no creature can enter. God dwells in the light which no one can approach — yet we know Him as dwelling there. We know what light is, and we understand that in that essential being and glory He must be unapproachable — and still we know Him there.

Yet nothing here gives fanatical credit to the clothing or habits of poverty. There is no pious avoiding of ordinary food or shelter among the homes of men. Still less is there a hint that a life shut away in a monastery is worth more... But those who are rich in the present age ("this present evil age," as the same apostle stamps it in Gal. 1:4) especially need to be on their guard. They must listen, not to the voice of flattery that is so often close at hand, but to the solemn warning of the Holy Spirit.

His words show first of all the dangers that come with having wealth. Wealth tends to breed high-mindedness. It turns the owner from trusting God to trusting money. The rich man of the world thinks highly of himself. He feels safe from the ordinary troubles and struggles that other people face. The wealthy Christian must not imagine that his money gives him the right to dominate the church of God and lord it over fellow believers.

So the apostle warns first against high-mindedness. Next he warns against building one's hopes on the stability of what so quickly takes wings and flies away. The owner is so often called away from it in the middle of his own ambitious plans. "Uncertainty of riches" indeed: how true and how fitting!

We saw that trust in the living God is the very essence of godliness when we were looking at 1 Tim. 4:10. The expression occurs again in verse 17 here. Rich believers are to be godly. They are to bend their energies not to laying hold of larger things in this world but to laying hold of "eternal life," or "that which is really life." Real life is not found in money and the pleasures it buys but in the knowledge and service of God.

The safeguard against these snares is found in trusting in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy. However rich a man may be, he cannot buy the things that God gives. However poor, he can receive and enjoy what God gives.

You could not imagine a sentence that condemns the spirit of asceticism more completely. Strict self-denial looks better than the love of ease and luxury. But both are only forms of selfishness, however opposite they seem. Neither has the character of God, who has not left Himself without witness of His goodness toward men, even among the nations allowed to go their own ways.

We must constantly exercise trust in the Living God, He who gives richly all things to enjoy. If this trust is real, then it will reflect His own character of unselfish giving. They were to do positive good with what they had: let them be rich in good works, not only in possessions.

But God also looks for active good from rich people who are godly, since He Himself never tires of doing good (Acts 14:17). So the call follows: "to do good, to be rich in good works." There is an important shade of difference between the two acts. The first means doing works of kindness or goodness to others. Being "rich in good works" means overflowing with fair, upright works that are beautiful in themselves. The first are good in relation to others; the second are good in themselves. It matters greatly that the two are joined so closely, here and elsewhere. Most people praise the kind that affects man, and forget or belittle what counts for more: what is good in itself before God. Both flow from faith and love, and how acceptable both are!

Even this does not express all the generous outgoing of heart the apostle wants the rich to seek. He adds, as if he could not think of the poor enough, "to be liberal in distributing, ready to communicate." I take it that this goes beyond cases of urgent need. Some calls suit people of large means in particular, as in the many different needs of the Lord's work and witness. There are so many chances to promote His glory — and many of them are not the kind one would want to lay as a burden on the whole church!

The meaning of this scripture lies on the surface, once you understand the term "communicate." Two examples of its use will be enough. In Romans 12:13 it appears in the exhortation, "distributing to the necessity of saints," and in 1 Timothy 6:18 it appears as "willing to communicate." These two examples make Galatians 6:6 easy to read. What the apostle commands there is that the one who is taught in the word should share his "good things" with the teacher. In other words, the taught should enjoy the privilege of supplying the material needs of the teacher.

Trusting in the living God, who is the Giver of all good, will enable the rich man also to become a giver. But God loves a cheerful giver, so the apostle urges the rich man to be "ready to distribute" and "willing to communicate". Acting this way, he will lay up a good store for future blessing, instead of piling up riches for this present age.

Dorcas was in the spirit of this exhortation. She was rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to share what she had; for she had learned "the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich" (2 Cor. 8:9); and by that same grace she had become His representative in the world. She was a giver, because God, who had brought her to Himself, was a Giver. She knew she was not her own. She knew that all she had she held only as a steward for Him, to whom she belonged. So she placed both herself and her goods at His disposal.

God has given to the rich this means of laying up treasure in heaven in view of Christ's kingdom. It is wonderful that natural riches can, in this way, provide spiritual riches. The poor can also lay up treasure in heaven, for God has chosen the poor to be rich in faith. What is laid up for the time to come will surely be found with Christ in the day of His glory.

Here Paul tells the rich believers to lay up in store for themselves a good foundation for the time to come by their generous giving to others. It may not seem like good common sense, but it is the surer way of grace in faith. To be consistent with Christ is to treasure up for ourselves. It is all the better when we do it so that the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing. It is a key truth in Christian practice that our Father sees in secret. It is just as true that we will have reward later with Him who is in heaven.

A rich person may use his wealth in the service of God and in the help of His people. So the man who starts out rich in money may end up rich in good works, and this is wealth of a more lasting kind. Earthly riches are uncertain. The man who stores them up for himself may find his store badly depleted just when he needs it most. The man who uses his riches in the service of God is laying up a good foundation of reward in eternity.

The dishonest manager of Luke 16 is an example of this. Our Lord did not approve his dishonesty, but He did approve his prudence. While he had the opportunity, he used it with an eye to the future. The Christian should do the same. But there is this difference. The manager had dreaded days of unemployment ahead of him. The Christian should keep in view the judgment seat of Christ, where everything we have done will be brought into the light of God.

It is no question at all of the grace by which a person is saved, and that entirely apart from works. It is the teaching of that grace which has saved us, leading us to sacrifice all present advantages in view of what is future and eternal.

When God has saved us, He will keep us, but we have to go through the wilderness, where we have a great deal to learn, including the question of service, and even of rewards, and much more besides. People mix all these things up with the question of acceptance. But as to the crown in front of me, that is not a question of my being saved; it is my encouragement.

Rich believers are to be godly. They are to bend their energies not toward laying hold of bigger things in this world, but toward laying hold of "eternal life," or "that which is really life." The second reading is probably the correct one. Real life is not found in money and the pleasures it buys, but in the knowledge and service of God.

We lay hold on eternal life as we realise in our souls that we do not belong to this sphere. Everything for us is bound up with the place we are going to. So we learn to see the things of this life very differently from the way we once saw them. We realise that the true life is life in fellowship with God. In the Spirit's power we can then use this world without abusing it.

Satan is busy, even among Christians, shutting out the things of God. He does it through things that in themselves may not be evil. We are taken up with them and pressed by them, and we have not learned to link them with God and use them for God. Sadly, the secular part of our lives quietly steals away so much of "what is really life."

"Storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life," is the apostolic instruction about those who are rich in this world. In measure, all may do this, even those who are poor in this world's goods. To lay up treasure in heaven for themselves is the privilege even of the poorest in the church.

"The deposit" here, as in 2 Tim. 1:14, means the truth God entrusted through His chosen instruments. It is divine revelation given in words taught by the Holy Spirit. It is the pattern of sound words which Timothy heard from Paul among many witnesses. It is not the soul or its salvation. It is not the ministerial office. It is not even the grace of the Spirit. It is the perfect communication of what God is in nature, ways, relationship, and counsels.

We may not overstep our measure or take up the special duties of that honoured colleague of the apostle. But we are just as bound, in our own place, to guard the truth now entrusted to our keeping. In these last days of deception and self-will, one thing is declared to be the tower of safety: to acknowledge and receive every scripture as inspired by God.

The treasures brought from Babylon were weighed both before and after the journey to Jerusalem (Ezra 8:24-34), so that nothing would be missing. In the same way, we must expect a close check of everything entrusted to us. We must guard with zeal, and keep pure, what really belongs to God.

The word is linked to a word meaning "a threshold," which anyone may tread on and make unclean. It stands in contrast to a holy place or shrine, which is fenced in and guarded from defilement. In the New Testament older translations always render it "profane." Three times it describes babblings or empty talk (1 Tim. 4:7; 1 Tim. 6:20; 2 Tim. 2:16).

As soon as God revealed the true knowledge of Himself, the adversary began working to corrupt it... The Greek word translated "science" here is the usual word for "knowledge." The earliest corrupters of the faith were known as the Gnostics, which means "the knowing ones." They took their title from this word. The Apostle John referred to them in particular in his letters.

These words imply that a true science exists, in full harmony with revelation. They also state plainly that even 2000 years ago there was a wrongly-named science which opposed revelation. It was largely made up of the speculations of the philosophers. The wrongly-named science of today is much the same: partial knowledge, based on imperfect or inaccurate observations, mixed with a great deal of speculation, often of the wildest kind.

Nothing undermines the power of the truth we confess more than allowing theories which flatter man and keep the creature busy. Such theories ignore or degrade God and His Son, and in the end they will be found to deny both... This falsely-named knowledge tries to fill the emptiness that unbelief always feels, because it does not really know God and His Son. It fills that space only with its profane ramblings and contradictions. It cannot face the hard fact that sin has ruined man completely. So it avoids the revelation of pure grace, and of a righteousness which is God's own and which can justify the ungodly.

It is sad to know men loving darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil. But there is a deeper sorrow over those who once seemed to run well, and then went fatally wrong about the faith. They are not only the victims of folly and evil. They also blindly dishonour the Name which is above every name.

Avoid the babblings, and AVOID the wrongly-named science just as much as the babblings. We shall need grace from God to do this. So the letter closes with the words, "Grace be with you."

Now the Spirit expressly warns that, in the later times of the Christian profession, some will depart, or fall away, from the faith. Later, the Apostle gives more warnings. Some, by their practice, will deny the faith (v. 8). Some, by covetousness, will wander from the faith (1 Timothy 6:10). And some, by speculation, will miss the faith (1 Timothy 6:21).

"The falsely-named knowledge" always subjects God and His revelation to the mind of man. In this way man takes the place of judge, as far as he can. That role always suits his self-importance. He also needs it, to hide from himself his own guilty and ruined state in the sight of God. What is more, in the fullness of his presumption, he uses the human writers to deny inspiration in any real sense. So he sits in judgment on that word which, our Lord declares, will judge him at the last day (John 12:48).

Everything must be false where man does not feel his true state. Where that happens, people leave out the real character of God, and the way He steps in because of that state.

Here the apostle touches briefly on the effect of this false knowledge: "in professing which some missed the mark [or erred] concerning the faith." It is sad to know that men love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil. But there is a deeper sorrow over those who once seemed to run well, and then went fatally wrong about the faith. They are not only the victims of folly and evil. They also blindly dishonour the Name which is above every name.

These words imply that a true science exists which is in complete harmony with revelation. They also state plainly that even 2,000 years ago there was a wrongly-named science which opposed revelation. It was largely made up of the speculations of the philosophers. The wrongly-named science of today is also made up of partial knowledge, based on imperfect or inaccurate observation. It mixes in a great deal of speculation, often of the wildest kind. Whoever professes that sort of "science" misses the faith altogether.

It is not that any kind of knowledge which is true can be without its value. Christianity does not force us to reject any part of it. But how easily people lift these things into a place they should not hold, and turn them into real opposition to the truth. In that role they must be false.

The apostle wanted to prove that his letters were his own, and to keep believers from being taken in by forged letters. Someone seems to have tried that at Thessalonica. So early in his written ministry he chose a token that would mark his genuine writings. "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you" (20). He perhaps wrote it with his own hand, as he did in his second letter to the Thessalonians (2 Thess. 3:17). We find this greeting attached to all his letters, either in its longest form (2 Cor. 13:14) or in its shortest (1 Tim. 6:21).

Yet the last word is beautifully positive: "Grace be with you." Grace is the pure favour of God. In it lies the power to meet and rise above all the opposition that may ever come. And it is there for the personal joy, blessing and strength of the individual — not only, as in other letters, for the whole company of the saints.