who has saved us, and has called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to [his] own purpose and grace, which [was] given to us in Christ Jesus before [the] ages of time,
Paul has just urged Timothy to share in suffering for the gospel by God's power. Instead of a technique for courage, he points back to what God has already done and already planned: a salvation settled in Christ before time began.
Paul mentions God's power in verse 8 and at once traces it to its source.
The mention of God's power leads the Apostle back and upward to the source of all the blessing that was flowing out through the gospel: to God's purpose and grace. That purpose is the unchanging foundation on which God was working. It is also the assurance that no effort of the enemy could stop God from carrying out His thoughts.
The verse names two acts of God, and they are not the same act said twice.
It is plain that the first great object of the gospel is our salvation... Not only has God saved us; we also read that He has "called us to a holy calling." This passage calls it "a holy calling." Scripture also calls it "the heavenly calling" (Hebrews 3:1) and "the upward call" (Philippians 3:14). Salvation sets us free from our sins and from this world under judgment. The calling links us with heaven and with all the spiritual blessings God has purposed for us in the heavenly places in Christ.
Scripture has other names for this calling: heavenly, upward. Here Paul calls it holy, and that fits a letter about decline.
But God "saved us and called us to a holy calling." Here "holy" carries the weight. It suits this letter and the conditions it has in view. The calling was always holy, but now it was urgent to press its "holy" character. It is a calling on high, or upward, as we read in Philippians 3:14. It stands in contrast with the earthly things in which men find their glory, to their shame. It is a heavenly calling, as we see in Hebrews 3:1... But now, as those who bore the Lord's name were sliding into decline, the apostle binds God's salvation together with His holy calling. An evil time is not a time for lowering the standard. It is a time for unveiling it and pressing its importance.
The timing of God's purpose settles the question of merit before anyone can raise it.
These precious words, "His own purpose and grace," stand far above and beyond man's works! No one was there to influence His purpose. No one had ever lived to raise a question about what sort of life would be blessed with His grace. No — it is the grace of God, known and believed, that gives a man's life its right shape.
This does not mean a believer has no good works. It means those works stand on a different footing from salvation.
There are good works in every saint: "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them" (Ephesians 2:10)... Still, God's salvation rests on Christ's work, not ours.
Many read the phrase as a promise about the endless future. Kelly presses it the other way — backwards, before any creature existed.
This, too, was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages of time began. It is a most weighty and blessed truth. It does not mean only that our security is guaranteed without end. It means that grace was given in Christ Jesus before time began. It was not so with Israel: God called them in time. God's purpose about us Christians was in eternity, before any creature existed... Their blessing was a plan bound up with Christ before the world existed, and before any question of creature responsibility came in... so we are all the more bound to walk, here and now, as He walked.
A gift can be given long before anyone sees it. That gap is what this verse describes, and Darby warns against turning it into a debate about who is chosen.
This is not a question of election here, even if election is involved. The point is that God gave us a place in Christ — the sovereign calling — before the world began, and did not reveal it until Christ came.
- Purpose first. God settled your place in Christ before creation, before any creature could earn or lose anything. He called Israel in time; He formed this calling before time.
- Grace given, not earned. God gave the gift when no one existed to sway Him. So works are ruled out at the root: good works follow salvation, they never pay for it.
- Saved from. Salvation is deliverance — from sins, from judgment, from a doomed world system.
- Called to. The calling adds more: it links you with heaven and everything God purposed for you there.
- Holy, therefore unshakeable. Paul calls it "holy" in a letter about decline. No enemy can shake this foundation, and an evil time is no time to lower the standard.
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.