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1Ti_4:1. In the first five verses of this chapter, Paul speaks of the heretics, directing special attention in 1Ti_4:3 to one point in their doctrine.
τὸ δὲ πνεῦμα ῥητῶς λέγει ] The δέ connects this verse with the beginning of 1Ti_3:16, and connects it by way of contrast. Τὸ πνεῦμα is the Holy Spirit, as the source of prophecy. To explain the expression by οἱ πνευματικοί (Heydenreich) is inaccurate. Paul goes back here to the fundamental basis of all prophecy.
ῥητῶς ( ἅπαξ λεγ .) means: “in express words,” and is used particularly with quotations.[151] Heydenreich is inaccurate in explaining it as equivalent to σαφῶς , φανερῶς ; Luther: “distinctly.” The apostle, then, appeals here to a prophecy of the Spirit expressly worded. Such a prophecy of the future apostasy lay before him in many utterances, both of Christ and of others; besides, the Spirit declared them to the apostle himself.
Leo is wrong: animus mihi praesagit.
ὅτι ἐν ὑστέροις καιροῖς ἀποστήσονταί τινες τῆς πίστεως ] We might readily take ὕστεροι καιροί here as equivalent to ἔσχατοι καιροί (comp. 2Ti_3:1 : ἔσχαται ἡμέραι ; 1Pe_1:5 : καιρὸς ἔσχατος ; 2Pe_3:3; Jdg_4:18; in Ignatius, Ep. ad Ephes. c. xi.: ἔσχατοι καιροί ); but we must not overlook the difference between the two expressions. The former points simply to the future, the latter to the last time of the future, immediately preceding the completion of God’s kingdom and the second coming of Christ (so, too, van Oosterzee, Hofmann). It is unsuitable to press καιρός here in the sense of “the fitting time,” and to translate it with Matthies: “in the fitting time hereafter.”
Τινες are not the heretics, but those who are led away from the faith by the heretics. The apostasy belonged to the future, but the heresy to the present. Hofmann thinks differently, assigning the heresy also to the future, though the apostle’s expression does not warrant this.[152] We must not, however, with Otto, infer that in the apostle’s time the heretics were still outside the church.
ἀποστήσονται τῆς πίστεως ] “This sentence forms the antithesis to what has preceded, 1Ti_3:15-16” (Wiesinger); for the expression, comp. Luk_8:13; Heb_3:12; Wis_3:10; 1Ma_1:15, and other passages.
προσέχοντες ] comp. 1Ti_1:4; the partic. tells how the apostasy is brought about.
πνεύμασι πλάνοις ] the πνεύματα πλάνα are in contrast with the πνεῦμα in 1Ti_4:1; and the former are as little to be identified with the heretics, as the latter with the prophets (Wolf: spirituales seductores, i.e. doctores seducentes). The πνεύματα are rather the active spiritual powers hidden in the heretics, the tools and servants of the devil. As the truth is one, so also is its principle one: τὸ πνεῦμα τῆς ἀληθείας . Error on the other hand is manifold, and is supported by a plurality of spirits, who may, however, be regarded as a unity: τὸ πνεῦμα τῆς πλάνης , 1Jn_4:6.
These πνεύματα are called πλάνα , because they seduce man from the truth to falsehood; comp. 2 John 1Ti_4:7.
καὶ διδασκαλίαις δαιμονίων ] δαιμονίων is not the objective (Heydenreich: “doctrines regarding demons, a characteristic of Essene-gnostic heretics who spoke so much of the higher world of spirits, of aeons,” etc.), but the subjective genitive (Wiesinger, van Oosterzee, Winer, p. 176 [E. T. p. 233]). The δαιμόνια are the source of the doctrines which are opposed to the truth, of the σωφία δαιμονιώδης (Jam_3:15); comp. Col_2:22. It is wrong to suppose that the δαιμόνια are the heretics themselves. As with πνεῦμα in 1Ti_4:1, Paul goes back here to the inner grounds; the διδασκαλίαι proceeding from these form the opposite of the διδασκαλία ἡ τοῦ σωτῆρος ἡμῶν Θεοῦ .[153]
[151] [Huther must mean that ῥητῶς is ἅπαξ λεγ . in the N. T.; for it is found in Sext. Empir. adv. Log. i. 8: ὁ Ξενοφῶν ῥητῶς φησίν ; also in Strabo, i. p. 4 B, and Polybius, ii. 23. 5.—TR.]
[152] Plitt is not wrong in observing that “the errors now described by the author were no longer matters purely of the future; they were already appearing.”
[153] The expression δαιμόνια occurs often in the synoptic Gospels; in John only in the singular. Paul has it only here and in 1 Corinthians 10. Otto uses this last fact as a proof that the two epistles were contemporaneous, but he is wrong; the reference is different in the two cases; in the passage of 1 Cor. it is not the “gnostic” heresy that is spoken of.