William Burkitt Notes and Observations - 2 Timothy 2:8 - 2:8

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William Burkitt Notes and Observations - 2 Timothy 2:8 - 2:8


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

Our apostle having, in the foregoing verses exhorted Timothy to patience and constancy under suffering, comes now to direct him as to the matter and subject of his preaching, particularly, that he insist upon the incarnation and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ; Remember that Jesus Christ was the promised Messias of the seed of David not of Joseph.

Timothy is here called upon to assert the incarnation of Christ, there being some heretics which did very early deny the truth of his human nature, as the Marcionites and Manichees; as there were others that denied the reality of his divine nature, particularly Ebion and Cerinthus.

Secondly, He calls upon Timothy to preach and press the doctrine of Christ's resurrection also, both because upon that depended the great evidence of his divinity, that he was really God, (his resurrection by his own power declared him to be God, Rom_1:4) and also because upon that depends the consolation and salvation of all believers.

Remember, and frequently inculcate, that Christ was raised from the dead, according to my gospel; that is, according to the gospel of Christ preached by me. Christ's incarnation and resurrection, are truths much to be preached and inculcated by ministers, and frequently remembered and thoroughly considered by their people.

It follows, Wherein I suffer trouble as an evil-doer, even unto bonds: but the word of God is not bound: that is, for which gospel, and for preaching which resurrection, I suffer as a criminal and reputed malefactor, yea, I suffer to that degree, that I am bound with chains for preaching Jesus and the resurrection: But the word of God is not bound; though they have restrained me, they cannot restrain that; that is loose and at liberty; when the dispensers of it are in bonds, that has its free course.

Learn, That the preachers of the gospel have, from the beginning, met with great persecutions, they have suffered trouble as evil-doers, even unto bonds.

Learn, 2. That the persecution of preachers doth not hinder the progress and liberty of the word; when ministers are in prison, the word may have free passage, and holy men rejoice at its liberty, under their own confinement: Yea, the providence of God so ordered it, (see Acts the last) Acts 28 that St. Paul, even during his imprisonment, preached the word with all boldness; his confinement had caused the gospel to spread in Rome. Thus God out-shoots Satan in his own bow: He thinks when he has the ministers of God in prison, he has done his work, but God over-rules and causes their imprisonment itself to fall out rather to the furtherance of the gopsel; I suffer bonds, says the apostle, but the word of God is not bound.