Now in the same manner in which Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, thus these also withstand the truth; men corrupted in mind, found worthless as regards the faith.
For his picture of the last days, Paul reaches back to Egypt. He names two men who fought Moses by copying his miracles, not by denying them.
The Exodus story never names Pharaoh's magicians. Writers identify these two as their leaders, and follow their story to the end.
Jannes and Jambres were no doubt the leaders of the Egyptian magicians who imitated the first plagues before Pharaoh. But when it came to the question of creating life, they had to admit that the finger of God was there. The judgement of God fell on them too, for they were struck with boils and sores. As their folly was shown up when they contended with the God of Israel, so will the folly be of those who oppose the truth.
So how did Paul know their names? One writer suggests two ways.
Some details not mentioned in the Old Testament we learn only in the New. For example, here we come to know the names of the Egyptian magicians. Jewish oral tradition preserved not only tales but also various true events of earlier days. The writers of the New Testament could refer to such events under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. But was it not also possible that they received direct revelations from God?
These men never argued that Moses was a fraud.
The way Jannes and Jambres "opposed Moses" was simply by copying, as far as they could, whatever he did. We do not find that they said his actions came from a false or evil power. Instead, they tried to cancel out the effect of those actions on the conscience by doing the same things themselves. One was as good as the other. A miracle is a miracle. If Moses worked miracles to get the people out of Egypt, they could work miracles to keep them in — so where was the difference?
Mackintosh shows what came before the copying:
If you trace the forms of Satan's opposition to the truth of God, you find his method has always been the same. First he opposes it by open violence. Then, if that does not work, he corrupts it by producing a counterfeit. So he first sought to kill Moses (Ex. 2:15), and having failed in that, he sought to imitate his works.
The copying had a ceiling. The plagues themselves showed where it was.
They could only make the trouble worse by what they did; they could not relieve it. They could bring frogs up out of the river, but they could not take them away. So they could not possibly loosen the grip of judgement on themselves or on their false gods... After all, no one can imitate the fruit of God's blessed word or the power of His Spirit. That has its own unmistakable evidence for everyone who has eyes to see.
Kelly compares Egypt then with Christendom now.
These opponents worked by imitating Moses as far as possible. They could only do this within limits. In the end the power of God rose in such display that it was hopeless for them to follow. In Christendom imitation is easier, because it is not a question of miracle but of the appearance of truth. It is striking that the enemy's newest and most destructive lures are typically imitations of truth. They come so close that they would deceive even God's chosen, if that were possible.
The copy can reproduce every visible action:
People of this kind can do the same things as others. They take up the same habits and forms, use the same language, and hold the same opinions. Think of the true Christian, moved by the love of Christ. He feeds the hungry, clothes the naked, visits the sick, hands out Bibles and tracts, supports the gospel, prays, sings praise and preaches. The man who keeps only the outward form can do every one of these things. And notice: this is the special way people resist the truth "in the last days." This is the spirit of Jannes and Jambres.
The verse ends by naming what is underneath the imitation. "Reprobate" in older translations renders a word meaning tested and refused.
The outward dress of these resisters of the truth will look Christian, but the opened eye will see it is not the real thing — it is an imitation. More than that, the Holy Spirit exposes their true character. They are men of corrupt minds. They are reprobate — tried and found worthless — regarding the faith.
Hamilton Smith traces false teaching to its source:
Every false system in Christendom can be traced back to men whose minds have been corrupted by evil and who are found worthless as regards the faith.
- Copy — Jannes and Jambres fought Moses by doing what he did, not by calling him false. That is the pattern Paul names for the last days.
- Cloak — the copy keeps the same habits, the same language and the same good works as the real thing.
- Ceiling — copying can bring frogs up but never take them away. It cannot give life; the finger of God is where the copy stops.
- Core — under the copy lie corrupt minds; tested by the faith, these men are found worthless.
- Collapse — their folly was shown up in Egypt, and the folly of those who oppose the truth will be shown up too.
But they shall not advance farther; for their folly shall be completely manifest to all, as that of those also became.
Paul has just compared these false teachers to Jannes and Jambres, the magicians who copied Moses in Egypt. Does such a counterfeit keep spreading, or does God stop it?
God did not stop the magicians at the first sign. He let them match Moses step for step, right up to a line they could not cross.
A moment will come when the leaders of this bold imitation are suddenly checked and stopped. Their folly will be shown to everyone, as the folly of Jannes and Jambres was. God allowed them to keep pace with every step Moses took. Then the simplest fact of all showed that their power had reached its limit. They could not go on.
There was one thing the magicians could not produce: life. Their own words, "This is the finger of God," admitted where their power ran out.
Notice that last triumph of God. He drew the words from the mouths of Satan's instruments: "This is the finger of God!" Their folly is plain to all. Satan's deceiving power and his plausible counterfeits are worthless in the presence of life. Living realities speak for God more than anything else. They could go no further than this. The imitation might be so good that no one could match it. The counterfeit might be so near the truth, so alike, that everyone was fooled. But there is the life of Christ lived out on earth. Christ lives in His own people and produces a deep reality that no imitation can ever reach. Beside that, the folly of them all is plain, as theirs also was.
God does not leave His people without warning. Once the imitation is unmasked, it loses the very thing that made it dangerous.
So God does not fail to raise up a standard against the enemy, and His endangered saints profit by the warning. The comparison holds true for the dazzling counterfeit, which was made to confuse and mislead. It holds true just as much for the exposure of the trap itself. Once that happens, the counterfeit can do no more harm. The folly of those who invented and pushed it is too plain to injure anyone further. Have we not seen the enemy defeat himself in this way under the mighty hand of God? Let us not forget how much we owe to the watchful grace of our Lord, who vindicates His word and Spirit after man has misused both.
Commentators differ on the timing. Some see it as something God does again and again, before a watching world.
Yet God, in the way He governs the world, often lets these false teachers be fully exposed before the eyes of "all". Again and again the world has seen the folly of these religious systems and the evil lives of many of their leaders. They have become objects of contempt to everyone except their deluded victims.
Others expect only partial exposure now, and the full display at the end.
These men resist the truth, and their folly will be shown up. God may show it up wherever there is faithfulness, to save His own from it. But in general their evil work will go on. The deception will grow worse and worse until the end. Then God will make plain the folly of those who have departed from Him. They gave themselves up to the errors of the human mind, and they worked to keep those errors alive and spread them.
The magicians did not just run out of tricks. They ended up inside the judgment they had resisted. That is the warning in this verse.
The folly of Jannes and Jambres was plain to all. They not only failed to imitate what Moses and Aaron did next; they were caught up in the judgments of God themselves. This is a solemn point. The folly of everyone who has only the outward form will be shown up in the same way. They will be quite unable to imitate the full and proper effects of divine life and power. More than that, they will fall under the judgments that come from rejecting the truth they have resisted.
- Imitation. The enemy's method is copying. He fights the truth by wearing its outward form.
- Limit. God lets the counterfeit keep pace only to a fixed line. At the simplest test its power runs out.
- Life. The line it cannot cross is life — Christ living in His own produces a reality no imitation reaches.
- Exposure. Once unmasked, the deception can do no more harm. The enemy defeats himself under the mighty hand of God.
- Judgment. Like the two magicians, those who resist the truth do not just fail. They fall under the judgment they resisted.