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;
Paul wrote this from prison. He points Timothy not to better circumstances but to a plan formed before time. The Saviour's appearing has now brought that plan into the open. The verse makes two claims: Christ abolished death, and He brought life and immortality to light. Both raise the same question — why do believers still die?
The verse looks back to the grace God "gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began" (v. 9). One writer marks how different that is from anything Israel knew.
It is not merely security assured without end, but grace given in Christ Jesus before time began. It was not so with Israel: they were called in time. God's purpose about us, Christians, was in eternity before any creature existed.
"Appearing" here is not limited to Christ's birth. One writer lists what else it covers.
This appearance is not only about His birth. It also covers His life, His death at Golgotha, His resurrection, His ascension, and the coming of the Holy Spirit on earth. This is what Paul has in mind in 2 Timothy 1:10.
"Abolished" is a strong word. It is the language of one thing driving out another.
"He abolished death": no stronger word could be used. It means that death has been brought to nothing — entirely ended — set aside. When what is all-powerful comes in, clearly everything in its way must give place. It pushes out what filled the space before. So Christ has displaced, abolished, death.
But funerals have not stopped. One writer draws the line between the fact of dying and death's title.
This Scripture presents our Saviour as having abolished death. Death is pictured here as a person, as sin is in Romans 7. Of course this does not mean that men no longer die as a fact. It means He has annulled the title of death as regards His own. Hebrews 2 declares the same: He took part in flesh and blood, "that through death He might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil." But He has done more: through the Gospel He has brought to light life and incorruption — the body is in question there, and not the soul only.
The wording matters here. One writer marks which of two words Paul used.
What then has the gospel brought to light? Two things which had been hidden until now — life and incorruptibility. Note, incorruptibility, not immortality (it is the same word as in 1 Corinthians 15:53). There was no doubt about immortality; that had been known before. But the gospel now brings incorruptibility to light, along with life. If we do not see this, we do not see the depth of what was in God's heart.
So the news is not that the dead live on. It is what resurrection opens for them.
Immortality is not the word here. People in Old Testament times already believed that the soul of man survived death and that resurrection lay ahead. Job's words here show it, and the Lord made it plain in His dispute with the Sadducees of His day. One thing was not made known: for the believer, resurrection will mean entry into a new and incorruptible order of things.
Note the phrase: "brought to light." These things were not absent from the older Scriptures; they were dim.
It is not said or meant that either was completely hidden. Enough was suggested for the faith of God's elect to show that resurrection and heaven were in His mind, and not earthly blessing only... The Gospel does not speak of life and incorruptibility as entirely unknown before. On the contrary, it assumes they were partly seen, gleaming here and there through the darkness. Now they stand out in bold relief, the grand theme of gospel testimony, as seen in the person of the Lord Jesus.
Paul wrote this letter as Nero's prisoner. One writer asks why he stayed calm.
When he wrote this second letter to Timothy, he was in Nero's hands; but he was not troubled in the least. Why? Because he had such a full sense of what the grace of God was... He did not think about what Nero could do to him. He was occupied with what was in God's mind before the world began.
The same truth reshapes how a believer faces his own end.
We may die; we do not have to. We may meet it as the providential dealing of an infinitely wise God — not as wrath, not as penalty... It is "to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better" — to be "away from the body and at home with the Lord."
- Purpose. God gave the blessing in Christ before time began, before any creature existed.
- Appearing. Christ's whole coming made it visible: His life, death, resurrection and ascension.
- Abolished. Death was not softened but displaced. Christ cancelled its title over His own, though believers still die.
- Incorruptibility. The second gift concerns the body. Old Testament believers already expected survival and resurrection; the incorruptible order it opens was new.
- Light. Old Testament believers saw it glimmering. The gospel now sets it in full daylight — and that is why a prisoner facing execution could write this without fear.
to which *I* have been appointed a herald and apostle and teacher of [the] nations.
Paul writes from a Roman prison, expecting to die, and names the three roles God gave him for the gospel he has just described. It raises three questions: who gives out such work, what the titles mean, and why God's appointment left a man in chains.
The word "for which" points back to the good news of verse 10 — the message that Christ has abolished death and brought life to light. The titles belong to that message. Paul names them at the very moment the message is costing him everything.
No wonder the apostle, imprisoned in Rome for the gospel's sake, and expecting his blood to be poured out soon like a drink offering (2 Tim. 4:6), adds with triumphant thankfulness, "for which I was appointed a preacher and apostle and teacher [of the Gentiles]." A few important manuscripts leave out "of the Gentiles." Given the character of this letter, I think that is probably right.
That is why translations differ. The ESV ends the verse at "teacher," while others add "of the Gentiles."
Other translations render the first title "herald." The three are not repetition. Each names a different way of handling the same truth.
Paul was the herald, the apostle, and the teacher of this truth. As the herald he was the one who cried out this message, as an apostle he had authority to bring this message, and as a teacher he explained it in all its details.
Paul does not say he took up this work or trained for it. God placed him in it. That is what makes his letters weigh more than a wise man's opinion.
God has made this gospel known to us in all its fullness through a specially appointed vessel — one who comes to us as Apostle of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles. So it reaches us on sufficient authority, through an Apostle who speaks by revelation and inspiration.
That appointment is also the reason no one today should copy the claim. Notice what Paul does not say about his younger co-worker:
We must take note of Paul's appointment here: the Spirit of God required this to be pressed home. It was no mere appointment by men, and it is not meant as a pattern for others to follow. With Timothy, nothing at all is said about his being appointed to anything. We are not even told what gift Timothy had, though Paul tells him to stir it up and to "do the work of an evangelist" (ch. 4:5). But God gave Paul the special responsibility of "laying the foundation," as "a wise master builder" (1 Cor. 3:10)... As Scripture often notes, so here again, God sent Paul to the nations, not to Israel, though his heart longed after his own people (Rom. 10:1).
That commission ran outward, to the nations. One writer weighs what such a task meant for the man who carried it.
Of this good news Paul was a herald, an apostle, and teacher of the nations. In this he was the most honoured man on earth. The grace of the heavenly Christ had subdued his stubborn will. What greater honour could a poor creature receive than to display that grace in the middle of a selfish world, and to light up the dark places of the earth with the knowledge of the salvation and love of a Saviour-God?
The very next verse ties Paul's suffering to this appointment. The chains are not a detour from the commission. They follow from it.
The apostle explains that he had been appointed as the herald and apostle of the gospel — not from man, as he tells the Galatians, nor by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised Him from the dead... His present sufferings came from his imprisonment (v. 8), from the opposition the gospel now met everywhere, and from being deserted by so many professed believers, and perhaps teachers (v. 15). He sees these sufferings as flowing out of the place he held in relation to the gospel.
Writers draw a plain warning from that link between office and cost:
People who reach for some place of official appointment or recognition are not usually the ones most ready to suffer persecution for Christ's sake. Paul had not wanted the place, but he was fully willing to suffer for Christ if it came to that. God put him in a position where he could not escape suffering.
- Appointed to a message. The three titles hang on the gospel of verse 10 — His standing comes from what he carries, not from rank.
- Appointed to three tasks. The herald cries the message out. The apostle carries authority to bring it. The teacher unfolds it in detail.
- Appointed by God. The commission came by revelation, not by human choice, which is why his words still carry authority.
- Appointed to the nations. God sent him to the nations, not to Israel — the highest honour on earth for a man whose stubborn will grace had subdued.
- Appointed to suffer. He could not hold the place God gave him without chains. Anyone craving the title should first weigh the cost.