The word [is] faithful; for if we have died together with [him], we shall also live together;
Paul hands Timothy a settled saying to lean on when the cost of service feels too high. Two questions sit at its heart. What kind of death is meant, and when does life with Christ begin?
The opening words can be read in more than one way.
The exact meaning of "It is a faithful saying," or, literally, "faithful is the word," is not seen at once. It may be a solemn declaration that the sentences which follow are true. Or it might mean that these truths were already current among the saints. The Apostle then takes them up and applies them to the matter in hand. To Timothy, at such a moment, they would carry great force. He was at least tempted to shrink from the cross that came with his service. Nothing could meet that moment better than this truth: if we have died with Christ, we shall also live with Him.
Paul leaves out a phrase he adds to other such sayings. That omission shows who this one is for.
He does not add about this word "worthy of all acceptation"; for it is a saying for saints rather than for sinners as such. But the saying is faithful beyond doubt: "if we died together with Him, we shall also live together." Every Christian has died with Christ. It is the very truth which every baptized soul confesses in his baptism, even if he were unable to speak. And it is lack of faith, not lack of speech, which makes it untrue of anyone. The "if" clause is the decisive one. Yet no Christian should shrink from it, and no true Christian can. For it was Christ who, having suffered everything, gave everything freely.
The "if" is not a test the reader might fail. It points back to something finished at the cross.
Christ has been through death for us, and that death was our death. It carried the weight of our sins — a death of wrath and curse, to deliver the children of wrath. Dying in our place like this, we who believe in Him have died — are dead — with Him. It is not an individual experience; it is not experience at all. It is a fact, true even apart from our faith in it. Yet our faith in it counts for much in the character of our Christianity.
Commentators differ over where the weight falls.
This is true of all believers by their position: all have died in Christ and live in Him. But the meaning here is the practical showing of it in self-denial and suffering with Him.
Taking the place of death changes what threats can do to a servant of Christ.
Being joined with Christ in His death meant that they accepted the place of death in this world. So with Timothy, and with us all. If we take the place of being dead, no persecutions, no dangers could turn us aside from the path of service. It will also encourage us always to count ourselves dead. And it reminds us that our living together with Him is the divine consequence of being joined with Him in death.
Believers do live now by Christ's life, yet the promise in this verse looks forward.
And "if we died with Him," which no believer can dispute now, "we shall also live with Him." Paul here assures us of the bright and blessed future. It is just as true that we live now because He lives, or, as Scripture puts it elsewhere, Christ lives in us. But here the living with Him remains before us as a hope. Here and now we are to carry about in our bodies the dying of the Lord Jesus (2 Cor. 4:10); by and by it will be nothing but living with Him.
This order — death first, life after — is what steadies a servant who may lose everything.
The faithful saying encourages us to remember Jesus Christ and to follow the Apostle's example in accepting the path of suffering and toil: "If we have died together with Him, we shall also live together." We may be called to "endure all things", even death. Let us not forget that we can afford to let go of the present life, because of the great truth that, having died with Christ, we shall indeed live with Him.
- Faithful — Paul gives this saying to believers under pressure, not to outsiders as a gospel appeal. It may already have been a truth passing among Christians.
- Died — the "if" states a fact, not a condition. Christ's death was our death. Every believer confesses it in baptism, whether or not we feel it.
- Accepted — that fact is meant to show itself in self-denial, so no danger can push a servant off the path of service.
- Carried — meanwhile we carry the dying of Jesus in the body. Life with Him is still hope, not yet sight.
- Released — because life with Him is certain, we can let the present life go, even to death itself.
if we endure, we shall also reign together; if we deny, *he* also will deny us;
Paul sets two futures side by side. Endurance now leads to reigning with Christ later. Denial has its own answer.
The verb Paul uses is not the ordinary word for suffering, and one writer traces the difference carefully:
This is hardly a question of suffering with Christ, or for Christ. In fact, it is not the usual word for suffering, as it is in Romans 8:17. It means to endure, or, as someone has put it well, "to go through suffering patiently." So it must include suffering with Christ, since every Christian does this. The measure of it will depend on his faithfulness to Christ and on his walking in the Spirit. It may also include suffering for Christ.
It is easy to read the verse as a trade: pain now, a throne later. One commentator answers that:
Our reigning with Christ does not depend in any way on our present suffering. Rather, suffering here is the appointed path for those who will share Christ's kingdom with Him.
Some claim that believers reign already. One writer answers by pointing to where Christ Himself now sits:
There need be no question here: it is suffering now, not reigning with Him yet. Some ancient copies read Revelation 5 or Revelation 20 as if the saints reign now. That is plainly wrong — wrong morally as well as in doctrine. We shall reign with Christ, but even He still sits on the Father's throne. He is waiting to receive His own throne, and we must wait much more... Until then we are to endure, not to reign. When He appears, we shall appear with Him. When He reigns, we shall reign with Him.
This suffering comes from being tied to a Person the world still refuses. One writer points to the men who stood by David while he was rejected:
We must not forget that He is the rejected Christ, still rejected by the world, and we are called to share in His rejection. The reigning day has not come, but it is coming... Those 400 followers of David shared his fortunes while he was rejected, and then shared his glory when he was raised up. In the same way we are called to share our Lord's rejection now, and His glory later.
Peter denied his Master, and grace restored him. That case shapes the second half of the verse:
Denying the Lord is far from impossible for a servant of His. Scripture shows it happening in one of the most honoured of them, who had thought that for him, of all men, it was impossible; yet Peter was about to do it... Still, the all-overcoming, all-forgiving grace of Christ rose above it and wiped it out... But where denial is a course of life, as here ("if we shall deny", not merely if we should deny in a single act), the result is what it ought to be: God must defend His injured majesty. "He also will deny us." God would stop being God if He put up with the dishonour of His Son.
Another writer defines the denial itself, and explains why Paul says "we":
To deny Christ means, not a sudden fall into temptation, like Peter's, but a total and absolute denial. Whatever profession was made before, it shows there had never been any reality in the soul. We can understand the word "we" when we remember that the Spirit of God always takes us up on the ground of our profession. So the question is not whether a believer can finally deny Christ. The teaching is that an absolute denial of Him is the unmistakable evidence that the soul had never been converted... Those who deny Christ will also be denied; that is, they will be finally and entirely rejected.
- Share His lot — Christ is still rejected by the world. We share that rejection now, as David's 400 men shared his, and we share His glory later.
- Endure — the word means more than "suffer". It means "to go through suffering patiently". Every Christian carries some of this, and the measure depends on faithfulness and walking in the Spirit.
- Path, not price — suffering does not buy the kingdom. It is the appointed road for those who will be with Christ in it.
- Not yet — Christ still sits on the Father's throne and waits for His own. So do we. Until He appears, our part is to endure, not to reign.
- Denial — the warning targets a settled course of life, not a single fall. Grace restored Peter after his denial. A total denial shows the soul was never converted.
if we are unfaithful, *he* abides faithful, for he cannot deny himself.
This verse ends a short saying that Paul set before Timothy. It closes not with what we do, but with what God is. It raises two hard questions. What failure does Paul mean? And how can God stay faithful when we do not?
The last clause is not a loose add-on. The word "for" makes it the ground of everything said before.
There is a closing sentence of great weight: "if we are unfaithful, He abides faithful." And this is for the most convincing and glorious of reasons: "for He cannot deny Himself." At first hearing, reading "for" may seem to spoil the ease and flow of the sentence. But good and ancient manuscripts require it. On reflection it adds a great deal to its force. It is not a separate remark added to confirm what goes before. The ground or proof of His abiding faithfulness lies in the blessed fact of His unchanging truth.
The denial in view is a settled path, not a moment of weakness.
There is a solemn warning here. The denial in this verse is no isolated fall, however shameful, as in the case of the Apostle Peter. It is the continued course of those who deny the glory and work of the Son, whatever profession they make. He will deny such people. As it has been truly said, "God would cease to be God, if He accepted the dishonour of His Son." Amid all the unfaithfulness of the professing Christian world to Christ, "He abides faithful: He cannot deny Himself."
Peter is the test case. His story shows what grace does with a single act of denial.
No doubt this was only a passing act, however shameful and terrible, and however often he repeated it, each time making it worse. Yet the all-overcoming, all-forgiving grace of Christ rose above it and wiped it out. It even turned it into profit never forgotten and fruitful blessing.
Commentators differ over the middle phrase, which older translations render "if we believe not". Some read it as unbelief in the full sense: a soul that never had faith at all. Even so, they find comfort in the second half of the verse.
The question is not whether a believer can finally deny Christ. The teaching is rather that an absolute denial of Him is the unmistakable evidence that the soul had never been converted. … Then comes the solemn addition, "If we believe not." Some have argued that this means being unfaithful as Christians. It does not. It means being positively without faith, and we see no reason for departing from the usual meaning of the word. "He abides faithful" — not to us, but to Himself and to His word — "He cannot deny Himself." Whatever our wavering and changeableness, He must always act in line with His own nature, His holiness, and His truth. In this — in His unchangeableness — lies the eternal security of all who, through grace, have been led to put their trust in Him.
Others apply it to believers whose trust is thin. They draw comfort from it, not despair.
Still we must never forget this. His trustworthiness does not depend in the least on the worth, or otherwise, of our trust. "If we believe not — are unfaithful — yet He abides faithful: He cannot deny Himself" (2 Tim. 2:13). So it is a happy truth that those who are weak in faith, and so do not trust Him fully, still find Him wholly true. Nothing does more to strengthen and increase our trust in the Lord.
Because His faithfulness is to Himself, His plans move forward whether or not we keep pace with them.
If we do not believe, the Lord will still carry out all the purposes of His heart, all the thoughts of His love; for He cannot deny Himself. He does not depend in any way on our faithfulness or service. Yet He may be pleased to give us the privilege of being His servants, of working in His vineyard.
This verse speaks into a scene of ruin. It tells faith where to look.
But, in the face of all this, God abides faithful. He cannot deny Himself. Here is the resource and the resting-place of faith. Faith is not blind to human failure; but it fixes its gaze on divine faithfulness. It confesses the ruin of man; but it counts on the resources of God.
The same faithfulness opens the way back after failure.
For Him to deny Himself would be impossible. But if He abides faithful, He is also "faithful and just to forgive" when His failing people confess their sins to Him, whether on their own behalf or on behalf of others.
- Faithful to Himself. The word "for" carries the weight: His faithfulness rests on His own unchanging truth, not on ours.
- Faithful in warning. A settled course of denying Christ has its answer. God would cease to be God if He accepted the dishonour of His Son.
- Faithful after a fall. Peter's denial was an act, not a course, and grace rose above it and turned it into lasting blessing.
- Faithful to His purposes. He does not depend on our faithfulness or service. Every thought of His love still arrives.
- Faithful as our resting-place. Faith owns the ruin, counts on God, and comes back by confession to the One who is faithful and just to forgive.