traitors, headlong, of vain pretensions, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God;
Paul is describing what people will be like in the last days. This verse gathers four ugly traits: betrayal, recklessness, conceit, and a heart that prefers pleasure to God. What makes the list so serious is where Paul puts it. These are not outsiders. They are people who carry the name of Christ.
The first word describes a particular kind of malice: harming the people who trusted you. One commentator points to where the Lord Himself met this, and warns that it would spread.
This adds another shade of wickedness: the "treacherous", or "traitors". It is the form of malice that betrays others to ruin without a second thought. The Lord tasted this bitter baseness among His twelve disciples as no one ever did or could. This verse warns us that it will be a mark of Christendom. The trait was there here and there even when the apostle wrote, but like the rest it will spread and deepen as the last days drag on.
The older word here is "heady" — headlong. It describes a person who has decided what he wants and lets nothing stop him.
"Heady" or "headlong". The man who can betray his friends is the man who will drive on with his own will. He does not care what it costs, and he gives no thought to others.
The next trait supplies the cover story. Self-will does not admit what it is. It claims to be serving everyone.
"High-minded" or "of vain pretensions". The headlong man is full of self-conceit. He tries to cover his self-will with the empty pretence that he is acting for the general good.
The list begins and ends with the word "lovers". The items in between are the symptoms; the loves are the disease.
Love of self, love of money and love of pleasure are to mark the religious people of the last days. All the evil things listed between them show the different ways the proud, self-sufficient, lawless spirit of fallen man expresses itself. And all this, remember, is in people who call themselves followers of the meek and lowly Jesus. If we know anything of the present state of the so-called Christian nations, we may well conclude that we have reached the last days.
The phrase is not a mild preference. It sets two loves side by side and names the winner.
Who can deny how plainly and how strongly "pleasure-loving rather than God-loving" has grown? It is not new, of course, but it is stronger in our own day than ever. And it grows among people who would be deeply offended if they were not counted as Christians. When in this world's sad history was there ever such a constant, widespread whirl of excitement — travel and change, sweet sounds, pleasant pictures, and sensational tales? And that is to say nothing of lower kinds of bodily pleasure.
Another writer points to what this chase for pleasure ignores.
The clouds of coming judgment may be gathering. But Christendom is blinded by its own vanity and selfishness. It gives itself up to a whirl of excitement and looks for its pleasure in the senses. Too often the professed ministers of religion lead the way in every kind of worldly pleasure.
One commentator sets this list beside Paul's description of the pagan world in Romans 1. The difference is not in the sins but in the setting.
Compare Romans 1:29-31. You will see that the evil to be turned away from was as bad as the evil among the pagans. It was only worse here, because it stood in the place of light and under the pretence of light.
The verse is also a personal test. One writer traces how a believer drifts into this description.
Too often the amusements of the evening lead to the neglect of the Bible in the morning. This happens again and again, until the soul goes numb under the round of worldly fun and the lack of spiritual food. Then the life on show can only be described as "lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God". Surely all would shrink from such a brand!
- Betrayal — "treacherous" means harming those who trusted you. The Lord met it among His twelve disciples, and it would spread and deepen as the last days went on.
- Recklessness — the one who can betray a friend is the one who drives at his own will, whatever it costs anyone else.
- Conceit — self-will then hides behind the pretence that it is acting for everyone's good.
- Displacement — the list opens and closes with love: love of self, love of money, love of pleasure. Everything between is a symptom of those three.
- Aggravation — the same sins as in the pagan world, but worse here, because they stand in the place of light and under the name of Christ.
having a form of piety but denying the power of it and from these turn away.
Paul ends his list of last-day traits not with open godlessness but with religion — a shape of piety with the power taken out. The verse then turns from description to command: which side of that line does your own religion fall on?
The people in view are not outsiders. They carry the name of Christ.
It is Christendom that comes before us. Yet those bearing the Lord's name can only be called "men". In their morals they are as corrupt and violent as the heathen (compare Romans 1:29-31), if not as gross. They keep a form of godliness while they have denied its power.
A "form" is the outer shape with nothing living inside. (Older translations read "a form of godliness" where the ESV has "the appearance of godliness".)
Godliness is the one thing worth having. All else is corruption and evil. To have the form of what is good, and for it to be only a form, is sad beyond words. It is a form with none of the power that belongs to true godliness — a shell without a kernel.
Another writer names what they deny — the very things that make a person alive to God.
The "form of godliness" not only lacks what is real; it also denies the true power. Even the leaders of Christendom deny the need for the new birth and for conversion to God. They deny the need for a living faith in the Son of God to guide in the things of God. They have the outward forms of christening and confirmation and such things, and wrongly imagine the form is what God demands.
Religion added to sin does not soften it. It deepens the guilt.
In the closing days of Christendom the professing mass will give themselves over to every form of evil. They will try to cover their wickedness with the cloak of sanctity. So nominal Christians become more wicked than pagans. They indulge in all the evils of paganism, then add to their wickedness by hiding it under the form of Christianity. That form is empty of Christianity's spiritual power. What can be more desperately wicked than using the Name of Christ as a cloak for evil? This cloak of sanctity is what makes the last days "difficult times". The show of piety at times deceives even true Christians.
The imitation runs so close that no outward activity proves the thing is real.
Paul describes the last days, yet tells Timothy to act now. Why give Timothy this direction?
The answer is that these moral features were already beginning to appear. They will appear more and more clearly while the Lord Jesus delays. At last they will reach their full growth in the sins and corruptions described here. So when the Apostle adds, "from such turn away," he gives a direction for every age. It shows that it is the Lord's mind for His people to be in complete separation from all this moral corruption.
Turning away is not abandoning Christianity itself.
This was not to "go out" from the house of God but to be separate from the evil done in the Lord's name. Such separation is owed to Him. It is to depart from evil, but not to forsake the Christian profession… But no one is to slight fellowship: each is to seek out and cling to it with all who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.
Detecting the counterfeit does not come from studying counterfeits.
There is no need to know evil fully, for we do not escape evil simply by knowing about it. It is by knowing the truth that we can detect what is false and contrary to the truth. Having detected the evil, we should not dwell on it, but "turn away" from those who pursue it.
- Form. The shell remains; the kernel is gone. Piety keeps its outward shape, but denies the new birth, conversion and living faith.
- Cloak. The same form that looks like devotion works as cover. It hides the sins of the heathen world under the Name of Christ.
- Imitation. A formalist can copy every visible activity of a Christian. What he refuses is the power, because it costs self-denial.
- Command. "Turn away" is a duty for every age, not a prediction to wait for. It means separation from the evil, not desertion of the Christian profession or of fellowship.
- Safeguard. Knowing the truth exposes the counterfeit. Studying the error does not.