What does it mean to have sincere faith (1 Timothy 1:5)?

1 Timothy 1:5. How very perfect this statement as to the result! In what an atmosphere of blessing it puts us, in contrast with the idle speculations of man's mind! The object of the commission is not idle speculation, but love (God's own nature) enjoyed and active, purity in the affections, a pure heart which sees God - the conscience, with nothing on it, happy in God's presence; and then faith, the spirit of dependence on, and confidence in God. How bright a state in God's presence!

Faith unfeigned trusts Him ever, and keeps a good conscience; a perfect and pure heart confides in that love; and whence did it come? It sprang from Himself. By Him we believe in God, and what He expects from us is that we should know not only we are blessed in Him, but with Him. His perfect love is shewn by bringing us into blessing with Himself. Driven out of earthly paradise by sin, we are brought into heavenly paradise by redemption; and He leads our thoughts, desires, and affections after it, founded on His perfect work; a faith unfeigned giving us the knowledge of His heart, a heart to enter into all our sorrows and trials.

A good conscience is only conscious of what the pure heart should be in the presence of God, having an entire unclouded confidence (faith unfeigned) in God - "That your faith and hope might be IN God." If I fail, I fly back to God; if I am weak, I fly back to God with faith unfeigned in Him, as the One who has delivered me; counting upon God, as the One that is for me, to bring me back to my place.

But when heaven is opened, I find something else. I find that I had been in Paradise, surrounded with blessing and goodness, and that I had lost it, and been driven out of it, and that I never can get back; that there is no going back there; that Satan had come in, and I had trusted him, and hearkened to him, and distrusted the God who had put me there, that the evil had triumphed over the good, and that I never can be innocent again; there is no going back to that state, no unlearning the knowledge of good and evil. Shall I then remain in that wretched place, far away from the God who is perfect, and goodness, and love, and blessedness? Ah! that will not do for my soul. How then am I to get there, to leave the condition I am in, and to be fit for that God who is perfect in good? To be it, and to enjoy it now? I must have "a good conscience" — a conscience so perfect that it can charge me with nothing in the presence of that God who dwells in light. And to this end I must for myself learn the triumph of good over evil; I must learn what the apostle speaks of in verse 5 of our chapter, "The end of the commandment (or, charge) is charity (love) out of a pure heart, and a good conscience, and faith unfeigned." He speaks then of love out of a pure heart — a heart from which every motive and thought comes by the Holy Ghost from a nature within capable of enjoying God in light; which loves to think the thoughts of God, to walk in His ways, to look forward to be with Him, and to enjoy Him even now; and, having such a hope, to purify itself even as He is pure. He speaks of a good conscience — a conscience that can know God in the unsullied purity of light and holiness in which He dwells; and, knowing Him thus, to have the answer of a good conscience in His presence, and that it stands on an unclouded title to be there. And he adds, lastly, "faith unfeigned;" full and perfect trust and confidence in God Himself, as One who is for him, come what will, One who knows no change, and that nothing can move Him from His love.

This is what He came to accomplish and what He has done; it is the "end of the charge." "This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief; howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all long-suffering for a pattern to them who should hereafter believe on him unto life everlasting." "By him we believe in God," and thus we get a good conscience in His presence — a conscience that can be charged with nothing that it sees not fully answered according to the light of God; and we learn to trust Him, to exercise faith unfeigned. This is the charge he commits unto his son Timothy, according to prophecies which went before on him; and to us also that we may learn to war a good warfare, holding faith — faith unfeigned; entire and unbounded confidence in God's unbounded love; and a conscience practically good, void of offence towards God and man.

The charge has in view an end of purest moral blessing - "love out of a pure heart" first. The law actually required this, but furnished no power for it. In Christ that love is perfectly seen, and has been shed abroad in the believer's heart by the Spirit of God so that, being so blessed, he has no excuse for failing to manifest this love in his ways. "Out of a pure heart" too surely requires that we should not allow the intrusion of impure motives.

Secondly, a good conscience. This of course, is very personal, while the first is inclusive of others. To maintain a good conscience we must be obedient to what we have learned from God. "Faith unfeigned" completes this triplet, and, of course, connects the soul directly with God: it is the bringing of God into everything, in simple, unaffected confidence that He is supreme and at the same time vitally interested in all that concerns my path, His will perfect and good and acceptable. If these three things were always in vital, active exercise, how precious would be the testimony to the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ!

The apostle is setting the face of Timothy against those who would put the Christian under law. He does not allow their motives to be good in guarding souls from evil ways, nor does he fear their outcries against his teaching as antinomian. He maintains that the end of the charge he is giving is love out of a pure heart and a good conscience and unfeigned faith. These are the effects of the gospel brought home to the believers; of which things the law is essentially incapable. It may convict of the enmity and impurity of the heart; it may prove that the conscience is evil; and it is not of faith in any way, as we are told expressly in Gal. 3:12. The law works out wrath, not grace, and thus becomes death, not life; not because it is not good and holy, but because man is evil, ungodly, and powerless. It is by faith that the heart is purified (Acts 15:9) in virtue of obeying the truth unto unfeigned brotherly kindness that we may love one another out of a pure heart fervently (1 Peter 1:22); and so it is through the word of God; but it is the word that is evangelized, not the law, but the gospel contrasted with it.

Those whom the apostle characterizes were Judaizing adversaries; and he tells them plainly that they had missed their aim. Could they really pretend to a pure heart, or a good conscience, or unfeigned faith? They were manifesting not love but vain talk. Through Christ the feeblest Christian walks in truth and love. Being loved perfectly we love: the heart is purged according to the efficacy of Christ's sacrifice, as the conscience is made good by it; and faith, knowing that all the evil and ruin are fully met in Christ's death and resurrection, now rests at ease without feigning anything, because all good is truly given of God and secured in His Son.

(V. 5). Having warned against false doctrine, the Apostle passes on to speak of the end of the charge. The end he has in view is a right spiritual condition which alone will enable us to maintain the truth and escape error. We shall only be kept as we hold the truth in conjunction with “love out of a pure heart, a good conscience, and faith unfeigned”. Sound doctrine can only be maintained with a right moral condition.

Speculative questions can be raised and discussed by the human mind apart from a right moral condition of soul, for they leave the conscience and affections untouched, and therefore do not bring the soul into the presence of God. In contrast with man's speculations, the truth of God can only be apprehended by faith. Acting upon the conscience and the heart, the truth leads to the strengthening of the moral relations of the soul with God. Thus the truth edifies by leading to love out of a pure heart, a good conscience, and faith unfeigned. To exhort to these practical results was the great end of the charge to the Ephesian believers. The charge was not to do some great service or make some great sacrifice. It was not doing great things before men, but being in a right condition before God. Love in the heart, “a good conscience”, and “faith unfeigned” are qualities which God alone can see, though others may see the effect they produce in the life.

When the apostle used the word "commandment" he does not mean the Ten Commandments. It is the charge the apostle is putting upon his son and fellow-laborer Timothy. What he enjoins is, love out of a pure heart, and a good conscience, and unfeigned faith. And this is produced not by the law, nor by human imaginations and questionings, but solely by the gospel of grace. Speculative questions or anything else do not act upon the conscience nor bring into the presence of God. An unfeigned faith in Christ clears the conscience from guilt and produces love out of a pure heart. Some had swerved from this, by turning aside from the dispensation of the grace of God unto the vain talk about the law, fables and genealogies. They gave heed to Jewish fables and commandments of men (Tit. 1:14) and were consequently turned from the truth of the gospel. They aimed at being law-teachers, but they did not understand what they said and what they so strenuously affirmed. They were evidently the same Judaizers, ever insisting upon law-keeping and its ordinances, the false teachers who perverted the gospel, who continually dogged the steps of the apostle and tried to injure the work he was doing.

Then he explains what the nature of this charge was. Often, I fear, "commandment" gives the English reader a wrong impression. I do not say that "commandment" is not correct, but that so naturally do people in Christendom turn to what we call the Ten Commandments, or ten words of the law, that whenever the word "commandment" occurs, you may expect many, even children of God, who might and ought to know better, at once unconsciously turning back to the law. But so far was this from being the writer's thought here, that we shall find him in a moment deprecating most strongly that whole system of idea as a misuse of the law. What the apostle means by the commandment is the charge that he was laying on his child in the faith and fellow-labourer Timothy. The end of the charge or commandment "is love out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned." It was, in point of fact, not merely that charge that he was giving him, but the charge touched the truth of the gospel; it was the care of the faith, jealousy for the revelation of God Himself, our Saviour God in Christ. The end of all this was "love, and a good conscience, and faith unfeigned." And so then, as remarked already, far from leaving the smallest reason for any perversely to confound this with the law, the apostle instantly turns to that perverting of the law, which is so natural to the heart of man. "From which some having swerved have turned aside unto vain jangling; desiring to be law-teachers; understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm;" and thereupon he parenthetically, as disposing of this matter, shows what the lawful use of the law is. They were not to suppose that he meant that God could make anything without a real use. As there is no creature of God that has not its value, so certainly the law of God has its right field of application, and its own proper use. Thus he vindicates God in what He has given, as well as afterwards in what He has made, and nowhere so much as in this epistle do we find this.