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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadEzekiel, Jonah, and Pastoral Epistles by Patrick Fairbairn - 1 Timothy 1:12 - 1:12
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Ver. 12. The thought of such a gospel having been committed to him—one so unworthy in himself of having any treasure of God entrusted to him—leads the apostle to recall with adoring gratitude the treatment he had received from God his Saviour. In doing so, he in one sense breaks off the thread of his former discourse,—leaving, as he does, for a time the false teachers, against whom he had been cautioning Timothy; but, in another, he is still prosecuting his design: for undoubtedly his main object was to inspire Timothy with right views of the nature of the gospel, and of the course it behoved him to follow in teaching and enforcing its lessons. The reference to false teachers was itself subordinate to this design; so that the occasion now taken to discourse of his own case as a singular exemplification of the gospel of God’s glory, is not of the nature of a digression, but is in perfect keeping with the general drift and aim of his instructions. It is also such an experimental record as might well come from the pen of the apostle himself, though we can scarcely conceive any one presuming to indite it in his behalf, far less to palm it on the church in his name. Ellicott, who vindicates the entire suitableness of the passage to the purpose of the apostle, justly says of it: “Thus, without seeking to pursue the subject in the form of a studied contrast between the law and the gospel (he was not now writing against direct Judaizers), or of a declaration how the transgressors of the law were to attain righteousness, he more than implies it all in the history of his own case. In a word, the law was for the condemnation of sinners, the gospel of Jesus Christ was for the saving of sinners and the ministration of forgiveness; verily, it was a gospel of the glory of the blessed God.”
×Üñéí ἔ÷ù —I give thanks. This is not the apostle’s usual mode of expressing thanks: he generally uses the single verb åõ ̓ ÷áñéóôù ͂; but ÷Üñéí ἔ÷åéí also occurs in 2Ti_1:3, in Heb_12:28, Luk_17:9; and ÷á ́ ñéò itself in the sense of thanks frequently by our apostle, Rom_6:17; 1Co_15:57; 2Co_2:14, etc. The apostle gives thanks to Christ Jesus our Lord, who had given him power, or strengthened him— å ̓ íäõíáìù ́ óáíôé —namely, to receive such a commission or charge as had been entrusted to him. He has respect to the work of an apostle, in relation to the gospel of Christ’s glory, as at once a very arduous and a very responsible undertaking, which, however honourable, would have oppressed and crushed him, but for the strengthening and sustaining grace which he received from above. This endowment of grace is undoubtedly to be connected with the whole work of his apostleship; not merely, as some, with the performance of miracles, or, as others, with the patient endurance of trial and suffering: for, while supernatural power was needed for these, they still formed an incidental and subsidiary, not the primary, object of the apostolic calling. The great end for which he received this calling, as Paul himself elsewhere testifies, was to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ, and thereby win men to the love and service of God, and form them into communities of believing Christians. And as this was emphatically a divine work, in which, if left to himself, he should have laboured in vain, the same gracious Lord who gave him the call to the work, gave him also the aid necessary to its successful prosecution.
With thanks for the power conferred on him, however, the apostle couples the acknowledgment of his own deep unworthiness: he had been counted worthy to be put in trust with the weightiest charge, and furnished with the noblest gifts for its execution, though in himself he had been an offender of the deepest dye. The Lord, he says, reckoned me faithful, or trustworthy ( ðéóôüí ); adding the proof in a participial clause, appointing me for service— åἰò äéáêïíßáí —for ministerial employ. Such employ necessarily requires fidelity in the person appointed to discharge it; and on this account, no doubt, the apostle chose the humbler and more general term of service, rather than apostleship, to designate his office, because viewing it here with reference to the work he had to do, not to the prerogatives given him to exercise. He thus also, for practical purposes, brought his case down to a level with Timothy’s, or that of any other servant of Christ. Whatever specific office they may hold, it is essentially a service they have to render; and the higher the office, the more onerous and important also the service: so that every one bearing office in the church of Christ is here admonished, by the example of the apostle, to regard himself as appointed to a duty of service, and to see in that a proof of the trust reposed in him by the great Head of the church; therefore also a call to fidelity in the work given him to do.