What does it mean to have a form of godliness but deny its power in 2 Timothy 3:5?

From all this we learn the solemn truth that the most Satanic resistance to God's testimony, in the world, is offered by those who, though they imitate the effects of the truth, have but "the form of godliness," and "deny the power thereof." Persons of this class can do the same things, adopt the same habits and forms, use the same phraseology, profess the same opinions as others. If the true Christian, constrained by the love of Christ, feeds the hungry, clothes the naked, visits the sick, circulates the scriptures, distributes tracts, supports the gospel, engages in prayer, sings praise, preaches the gospel, the formalist can do every one of these things; and this, be it observed, is the special character of the resistance offered to the truth "in the last days" — this is the spirit of "Jannes and Jambres." How needful to understand this! How important to remember that, "as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do" those self-loving, world-seeking, pleasure-hunting professors, "resist the truth!" They would not be without "a form of godliness;" but, while adopting "the form," because it is customary, they hate "the power," because it involves self-denial. "The power" of godliness involves the recognition of God's claims, the implanting of His kingdom in the heart, and the consequent exhibition thereof in the whole life and character; but the formalist knows nothing of this. "The power" of godliness could never comport with any one of those hideous features set forth in the foregoing quotation; but "the form," while it covers them over, leaves them wholly unsubdued; and this the formalist likes. He does not want his lusts subdued, his pleasures interfered with, his passions curbed, his affections governed, his heart purified. He wants just as much religion as will enable him "to make the best of both worlds." He knows nothing of giving up the world that is, because of having found "the world to come."

As Christians we have to do with divine things, and it is possible for us to possess the form of these things without any true knowledge of their power. The Apostle Paul, writing to Timothy warns him of the perilous last times. Describing their characteristics as they affect men, he refers to them as having “a form of godliness but denying the power thereof” (2 Tim. 3:5). This description is terrible. 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 a mere form, evacuated of all the power that is inherent in true godliness; to be a mere shell without a kernel, is sad beyond words. Of what use is a shell in living nature, if there is no succulent kernel?

Little comment is needed on these words. They are a prophecy. The apostle by the Spirit of God reveals what shall come in the last days. It is a description of the moral qualities in the vast number of professing Christians of the last days, "who have the form of godliness," that is, go "to church," profess a creed of some sect, and are outwardly religious, "but deny the power thereof." Three times they are shown to be lovers. "Lovers of themselves"--they live for themselves and know nothing of self-denial, they live and walk in the flesh. "Lovers of money"--this is what the word covetous means. Greed controls their activities so that they can enjoy themselves and live luxuriantly and in pleasure. And therefore "they are lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God."

(19) “Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof”. Thus in the closing days of Christendom the professing mass will be found abandoning themselves to every form of evil, while seeking to cover their wickedness with the cloak of sanctity. Thus nominal Christians become more wicked than pagans, for, while indulging in all the evils of paganism, they add to their wickedness by seeking to hide it under the form of Christianity, though utterly devoid of its spiritual power. What can be more desperately wicked than the effort to use the Name of Christ as a cloak for evil? It is this cloak of sanctity that constitutes the last days' “difficult times”, for the show of piety at times deceives even true Christians.

Christendom in the last days is portrayed in 2 Timothy 3:1–4, and the features are very similar to those that marked the heathen (See Rom. 1:29–32); and men who profess to be followers of Christ are “lovers of their own selves, lovers of money…lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.” Covering this ungodly state is a veneer of religion, “a form of godliness,” which denies the true power of piety. The power of godliness is a divine nature energised by the Holy Spirit who indwells every true believer, and who dwells in the house of God. The true believer is never told to be associated with mere professors; on the contrary, he is expressly exhorted, “from such turn away.”

If men love themselves, and love money, they seek to gratify themselves with the passing pleasures of this world, caring nothing for the God they profess to serve, for with all this solemn category of evil there is a veneer of religious profession. There is a “form of godliness,” an outward show of religion in which there is no divine power. Men will have their children baptised by the clergy, they will arrange their marriages in religious buildings, and at their death will be buried with religious ceremony; but all this can be a mere form of piety without the knowledge, or the desire for the knowledge, of the true God made known in Jesus.

Not only is there the absence of what is real in the “form of godliness,” there is also the denial of its true power. Even the leaders of Christendom deny the need for the new birth, for conversion to God, for a living faith in the Son of God to direct in the things of God. They have the outward forms of Christening and confirmation, and such things, and vainly imagine the form is what God demands.

Just as in the days of Eli, the Israelites put their trust in the ark rather than in Jehovah, and as in the last days of the kings of Judah, when the people put their trust in the temple rather than in God, so today, the many have their trust in membership of a great religious system rather than in the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. They have the form of godliness in their religious associations, but deny the power of godliness which is in a living link with the exalted Son of God.

It is not that the form of religion is abandoned; it is the faith that is given up, “having a form of piety, but denying the power of it.” There is an imitation of the real thing, just as the magicians imitated Moses up to a point. They failed when life was produced from the dust—from that of which man was made—from that out of which the Saviour rose after being brought “into the dust of death.” They had to own, “This is the Finger of God,” even though Pharaoh’s heart was hardened. But the Scriptures tell us the truth about such imitators, whatever they may profess. They are “men corrupted in mind, found worthless as regards the faith” (2 Tim. 3:8); and eventually “their folly shall be completely manifest.” On all sides men are departing from the faith; not necessarily from religion.

In the last days—days that were yet to come when the Apostle was writing—difficult times were to manifest themselves, for men would become selfish, covetous, self-willed, unnatural, hateful, traitorous, savage, pleasure-loving, with a thin veneer of piety over all, but without the smallest particle of its true power.

We have now to enter on the detailed examination of the evil characters which the apostle points out as impressing on the last days the stamp of "grievous times". The first and last words are remarkably and painfully instructive. It is Christendom which comes before us; yet those bearing the Lord's name can only be designated as "men", morally as corrupt and violent as the heathen (compare Rom. 1:29-31), if not so gross, yet having a form of godliness while they have denied its power.