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Warning against errorists, and exhortation to bear himself against them as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.—Description and in part confutation of the errorists
1Ti_4:1-5
1Ti_4:2. In hypocrisy, ἐí ὑðïêñßóåé . This verse has been connected with the preceding in various ways (see De Wette on this passage). It seems best to refer the words directly back to ðñïóÝ÷ïíôåò (Wiesinger, Huther). Just as this ðñïóÝ÷åéí was the cause of the apostasy, so the ὑðïêñßóéò was the cause of the ðñïóÝ÷åéí ; here, therefore, the error of the understanding had a psychological ground in the state of the corrupt heart. “The hypocrisy of the heretics lay in this, that, giving allegiance to such a spiritualism (1Ti_4:3), they had the appearance of a real spiritual life” (Huther).—Speaking lies, øåõäïëüãïé ( ἁð . ëåãüì .), øåõäïðñïöÞôçò (2Pe_2:1), and thus still more severe than the ìáôáéïëüãïé (1Ti_1:6).—Having their conscience seared, êåêáõôçñéáóìÝíùí ôὴí ἰäßáí óõíåßäçóéí ; that is, those who, like criminals branded for crime, bore in their own consciousness the mark of their guilt. Others with less probability explain it thus; their conduct has been such, that their consciences have by degrees become seared against all moral and holy influences. Êáõôçñßáæåéí (cauteris notare) was done not only to slaves, but to criminals, who were known to be such by the brand on the forehead. It was thus with the heretics, qui sauciam scelerum conscientia habent mentem (Wahl). This insensibility was, without doubt, a natural consequence; yet this is not exactly the meaning of the Apostle. While they profess to lead others to a true holiness, they bear in their own conscience ( ἰäßáí ) the brand of guilt and shame.
1Ti_4:3. Forbidding to marry. As the Essenes and Therapeutæ had before done (comp. Joseph., A. J., 14, 2, and Philo, De vita contemplativa). According to later Gnostic principles, also, marriage and begetting children were wrong, because the condition of marriage was looked upon as an institution of the Demiurge; and because, in this way, souls pure and innocent in a former state were imprisoned in impure bodies, and, by union with corrupt matter, became sinful and wretched. The germs of this tendency existed already in the day of Paul, as is clear from the Epistle to the Colossians. The Apostle continued even to the end of his life in conflict with this error.—And [commanding] to abstain from meats. See other examples of an ellipse, such as occurs here, in 1Co_14:34; 1Ti_2:12. How strongly the earliest Gnosticism insisted on this, is plain from Col_2:16. Later, Manichæus held that wine sprang from the blood and gall of the devil. Perhaps the food here designated is only meat (comp. Rom_14:2; Rom_14:21). The command probably arose from the Gnostic fancy, that the materials which nourished the body were not the work of the Most High God, but of the Demiurgus, and thus from the evil principle, the ὕëç of Satan. The absurdity of this notion Paul clearly shows in what follows.
[Much light is yet to be thrown by Oriental researches on the heresies alluded to in the Epistles of the New Testament. Yet, so far as these Pastoral Epistles are concerned, there is nothing to sustain the view of Baur, who would disprove their Pauline origin by referring these passages to the later Gnostics; but it seems clear that they describe the earlier Jewish errorists of the church. A collation of passages will prove this. 1Ti_1:7, they are teachers of the law. Tit_1:10, deceivers of the circumcision. Id. 1Ti_4:14, Jewish fables. Id.1Ti_3:9, genealogies are classed with strivings about the law. If, again, we study the errors themselves, we shall find them connected with notions of the Jewish schools. Our author has cited from Josephus and Philo the peculiar tenets of the Essenes. We must, however, correct one of his references. The book of Philo, Omnis probus liber, gives a sketch of the practical Essenes, who are nearer to the type than the Therapeutæ of the “Vita contemplativa.” Abstinence from marriage and meats formed the distinctive marks of this and kindred ascetic sects; 1Ti_4:1-3. The genealogies, 1Ti_1:4; Tit_3:10, are as fully explained by the Jewish fables of angelic hierarchies, as by the Æons of the later Gnostics.—See Nicolas, Doctr. relig. d. Juifs, c. 2, p. 88; 100:3, p. 234. The translation of the Avesta by Spiegel has cast fresh light on the Persian origin of the Jewish angelology. Einleitung, c. 2. Lastly, the doctrine ascribed to Hymeneus, 2Ti_2:18, has its root in the Essenian idea of the resurrection of the soul from carnal ignorance to the life of the spiritual man. Nicolas, c. 2, p. 88. See also, for an admirable summary of the whole argument, Schaff, “Apost. Church,” B. 5, c. 3, and the account of Gnosticism in general, in his “Church History,” vol. i. p. 221. It is true, as was said by older scholars like Prideaux, long before Baur and Reuss, that no direct trace of the Essene school is visible in the age of the New Testament. Yet it is not of Essenism as a distinct sect, but of its ideas and tendencies we speak, and these unquestionably had largely leavened the Hebrew mind. All the strange mixtures of Eastern and Greek theosophy had their influence on the later Jewish culture, and the Christian Gnosticism was only the ripening of the germs then planted in the church.—W.]
1Ti_4:3. Which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving, åἰò ìåôÜëçøéí ìåôὰ åὐ÷áñéóôßáò = ἵíá ïἱ ð ., ê . ô . ë ., ìåôáëáâῶóéí áὐôῶí . For the participation, the acceptance, and enjoyment of His own creatures, God in the beginning ordained food, and human prohibition is thus purely wilful.—With thanksgiving. This added clause meets the conceit, that the Apostle gives an unbridled freedom—a freedom that so easily leads to excess. Enjoyment with thanksgiving must eo ipso be moderate and seemly, as befits those who believe and know the truth. The ðéóôïß are, in the Apostle’s view, the true ãíùóôéêïß . As to the main thought expressed in this restriction, we recall the words of Calvin: “Paulum de usu licito hic agere, cujus ratio coram Deo nobis constat. Hujus minime compotes sunt impii, propter impuram conscientiam, quæ omnia contaminat, quemadmodum habetur ad Titum1:15. Et sane proprie loquendo, solis filiis suis Deus totum mundum et quidquid in mundo est destinavit, qua ratione etiam vocantur mundi hæredes.”
1Ti_4:4. For every creature of God is good. As the previous verse has shown us Paul’s fidelity to the position of genuine Christian freedom, which he holds also in the Epistles to the Romans and the Corinthians, so here, according to his usual custom in the discussion of a special case, he utters a universal principle. This is an internal evidence of the genuineness of the Pastoral Epistles, which should not be overlooked.— Êôßóìá , creature, a created thing; while elsewhere, with Paul, êôßóéò occurs in a passive sense. Naturally the word is to be understood here of those êôßóìáôá which are specially made for our nourishment. Comp. Rom_4:14; Rom_4:20; Act_10:15.— Êáëὸí , good, suited to its end, healthful. In and for itself, no food is objectionable, yet on condition that it be used with thanksgiving to God.
1Ti_4:5. For it is sanctified, ἉãéÜæåôáé ãὰñ . The ground of the preceding. The sense is: it is set apart as food holy and well-pleasing to God (comp. Lev_19:24). In itself, the food is not holy, nor is it at all unholy, but mere matter. Yet it can be raised to a higher rank, to that of things consecrated to God; and it really becomes such by the word of God, and prayer. By the word of God is meant not a special passage of Scripture, e.g., Gen_1:29 (Mack), nor a Divine command in the general sense (Matthies), nor the prayer itself, which is offered to God (Leo, Wahl), since this would be tautological; but most probably the word of God uttered in and with the ἔíôåõîéò named in addition. The customary prayer at the table probably consisted of words of holy Scripture; or the person praying should be regarded as speaking by the Spirit, and thus with the word of God. For an example of such a prayer at table, see Huther on this passage. [One of the most beautiful models of the primitive “Grace before meat” is cited by Conybeare from the Apost. Constitut., 7, 49. We translate it here: “Blessed be Thou, O Lord, who hast fed me from my youth, who givest food to all flesh. Fill our hearts with joy and gladness, that, having always what sufficeth, we may abound unto all good works, in Christ Jesus our Lord, through whom be unto Thee honor, glory, and power, forever and ever. Amen.”—W.]
2. While the heretics, opposed by Paul in the Epistle to Titus, are regarded as then present, he speaks of them in both the Epistles to Timothy in a more prophetic tone. Even then his prediction, though rooted in the present, reaches on to the far future. The errors here opposed are only the germs of those which in the course of centuries reveal themselves continually in new and varied forms; and which, though not at all exclusively, appear in the papacy. The Reformers consequently asserted the truth, but not the whole truth, when they found in 1Ti_4:3 a distinct description of the erring mother-church. Such phenomena may be regarded as among the many signs, although not the highest reach of Anti-christ. Already in the second century the heresies, here opposed, appeared in their first strength, and the whole sickly asceticism of the middle ages is only a variation of the theme here treated by the Apostle. [Thus Latimer, “Sermons,” ed. Parker Soc., p. 1Tim 162: “Here learn to abhor the abominable opinion of the Papists, who hold that marriage is not an holy thing, and that the minister of the word of God be defiled through marriage, which is clean against God and His Word. Therefore, seeing beforehand in the Spirit, St. Paul saith, 1Ti_4:3, which prophecy is verified in this our time.” The stout old Reformer had no nice criticism of the text; but he saw the real identity of the false principle in the Jewish-Christian asceticism, and that of the later Latin monkery.—W.]
3. Between the two cliffs of spiritualism and materialism we see the bark of the Church continually tossed hither and thither in the course of the centuries. It has scarcely escaped the one, when it runs into peril of being stranded on the other. In our time, with the prevailing love of pleasure and luxury, there seems little danger of such severe morality as Paul here describes. But will there not be, sooner or later, a necessary reaction? and does not history clearly show that one extreme leads to the opposite?
4. It is a sad evidence of the blindness and pride of the sinner, that, when God has freed him by grace from a law that can only condemn him, he will not rest until he has again put himself under the yoke of a law fashioned by himself. So eager are we to build up a righteousness of our own before God, so loth simply to be blessed by free grace. Self-righteousness always remains the fond idol of the natural man; nor does he perceive that he must thus fall into new and worse unrighteousness.
5. The perfect law of liberty (Jam_1:26) has annulled the letter of the Mosaic command in regard to meats and drinks for the Christian man, and he needs no longer agree with those who say, “Thou shalt not handle that, thou shalt not taste that, thou Shalt not touch that” (Col_2:21). But this very emancipation from the letter of the law is the best fulfilment of its spirit and substance; for when the Christian sanctifies all God’s gifts through prayer and thanksgiving, all food becomes pure, even that which under the old Levitical code was unclean. Thus Christian freedom is not a passport for license, but the best bulwark against it.
6. “The special design of every outward gift of God is to lead to the knowledge and praise of the Giver; to lead from the earthly and temporal to the heavenly and eternal. As this design of God is not fulfilled in the unbelieving, if they continue in unbelief, He has in this view made all these things not for them, but for His children who know the truth;” Von Gerlach.
7. The dark visions which Paul opens to us of the future, directly conflict with the optimistic and sanguine hopes of those who believe that, from the unceasing growth of knowledge, all on earth and in the Church of Christ is becoming always better, more harmonious, more peaceful. The same Scripture which gives the promise of the last glorious day for the Christian, utters its ever-increasing lamentations over the last times which are to precede that day. Yet without the pains of travail, and óêÜíäáëá in the ὑóôÝñïéò êáéñïῖò , the full glory of the ἐó÷Üôç ὥñá cannot break forth.
Starke: Great comfort, that God has revealed to His poor Church what is to come, that it may have the less cause to complain.—Cramer: The devil always finds his followers; and it is vain to hope that in this world all religious strife shall cease.—Anton: Whoso will shun false spirits, must first beware of his own spirit.—False teachers use for their craft hypocrisy, and the appearance of sanctity; they go about in sheep’s clothing, and inwardly are ravening wolves (Mat_7:15; Mat_23:28).—If every creature of God be good, it is godless for the Papist exorcists to pretend to cast out the devil from water, salt, and oil, and, by certain passes with the cross, and conjurations, drive him away.—Hedinger: If food should be received with thanksgiving, then man must not seek his bread by extortion. cheat, theft, and the like; for no one can give thanks for these.—Luther (in his “Larger Catechism”) teaches that “marriage is not to be esteemed lightly or scornfully, as the blind world and our false spiritual guides do, but is to be regarded according to God’s word, whereby it is made fair and holy; so that it is not only set on a level with all other estates, but is honored before and above them all; wherefore both spiritual and secular estates must humble themselves, and all accept this estate.”—Heubner: The devout spirit, enlightened by God, may often have glimpses of the future, so far as it is of importance for the present.—The corruptions and discords of Christianity are allowed by God for manifold reasons.—All that God made is in itself good; only through man’s distrust it becomes evil. The Christian knows how to sanctify even his own pleasures.—The unholy and the holy enjoyment of the gifts of God.—Lisco: The contradiction of all mere outward restraints imposed by man, to the witness of the revelation of God in Christ.
Footnotes:
1Ti_4:2.—[Whitby translates ἐí , instrumentally= äéÜ . “Through the hypocrisy of liars.” He appears to connect the phrase with ðñïóÝ÷ïíôåò ; so Wiesinger and Huther. The construction is difficult, several words being in apparent apposition with äáéìïíßùí , as if the devils were liars, seared in their conscience, and the rest. He would he a bold commentator who would maintain that the Apostle here calls heretics devils. Yet, in Php_3:2, he writes, “Beware of dogs.”—E. H.]