maintaining faith and a good conscience; which [last] some, having put away, have made shipwreck as to faith;
Paul tells Timothy to hold two things together that most people keep apart: what a person believes and how a person lives. Drop the second, the verse warns, and the first sinks with it.
What "the faith" means here
Paul uses "the faith" for the truth itself, and he ties holding it to one condition.
What Paul calls "the testimony" in 2 Timothy, he calls "the faith" in his first letter to the same devoted young servant... "holding faith [literally, the faith; that is, the truth believed] and a good conscience. By rejecting this, some have made shipwreck of their faith." Now observe carefully: you can only hold the faith of God's elect in a godly way as you maintain a good conscience. If you ever put away a good conscience, you will lose the faith and make shipwreck of the testimony. You put it away when you allow yourself to go on with anything your conscience does not approve, once the Word of God has taught it.
Error begins in the heart
Doctrinal collapse looks sudden, but the verse traces it back to something earlier and quieter.
Here we have an explanation of why men who used to hold the faith delivered to the saints have given up that faith. Error does not begin with the head but with the heart. They cherished some sin; some secret sin had control. They did not judge themselves, and they confessed nothing. Having no good conscience, there was no longer real communion with God, and the shipwreck of faith followed in due time.
What is thrown away first
Read closely, the thing "some" put away is not the faith. It is the good conscience — and the loss of steering comes next.
Some, having put away, not the faith, but a good conscience, made shipwreck of the faith. So it is fatal to stop watching over your ways, and to give up self-judgment in the great or small matters each day brings before us. That is true no matter what you may hold or appear to delight in. The sin allowed may be a very little one. But left unjudged in God's sight, it becomes the beginning of a very great evil. Having put away a good conscience, their ship no longer answers the helm, and as to faith they make shipwreck.
Why belief bends to fit behaviour
A person cannot live one way and believe another for long. Something has to give.
The person who holds wrong doctrine rarely, if ever, keeps a good conscience. There cannot be a good conscience without faith. And it works the other way too: when the conscience goes bad in practice, the faith is lowered, and it is a good thing if it is not completely twisted in the end. A man is uneasy at continuing burdened with the sense of his own inconsistency. So he is tempted to adjust his faith to fit his failure. In the end he believes what he likes, and that destroys the truth.
The people most at risk
Paul writes this to a servant of God. Constant handling of holy things carries its own danger.
Those who are always occupied with the things of God face one constant snare: not having a "good conscience." No one is more likely to fall than the person who is always ministering the truth of God, if he is not careful to keep a "good conscience." Always talking about truth and being busy with other people tends to harden the conscience... If we are not diligent to keep a "good conscience," Satan comes in. He destroys the confidence between the soul and God, or else we fall into false confidence. The moment a person is very active in service, or has much knowledge and is put forward in any way in the church, there is the danger of not having a good conscience.
The picture in the word "shipwreck"
Two pictures show why the conscience matters so much.
If you would preserve your faith, look to your conscience. A good conscience is the hull that faith sails in; if the conscience is wrecked, how can faith be thought safe? If faith is the jewel, a good conscience is the case in which it is kept; and if the case is broken, the jewel must be in danger of being lost.
Summary
- Hold two, not one. Keep faith and a good conscience together. Only a life that agrees with the truth can carry it safely.
- Heart before head. Wrong belief starts with a sin someone holds on to and never confesses. Communion with God goes first; belief follows.
- Small things steer. A very little sin left unjudged is where great evil begins. Daily self-judgment keeps the ship answering the helm.
- Belief follows behaviour. A man tired of his own inconsistency adjusts his faith to fit his failure, and ends up believing what he likes.
- Teachers, beware. Handling truth for others hardens the conscience fastest. Those most occupied with the things of God are the most likely to fall.