Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadEzekiel, Jonah, and Pastoral Epistles by Patrick Fairbairn - 1 Timothy 2:5 - 2:6
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Vers. 5, 6. For there is one God, one Mediator also of God and men. The connective particle ( ãὰñ ) presents what is here stated as an adequate ground, more immediately for the statement in the preceding verse, that God would have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth; but also, more remotely, for the call to prayer in behalf of all men, that so the benevolent desires of God toward them may come into effect For in the mind of the apostle the two are essentially connected together; and what affords a valid reason for the one, provides it also for the other. What, then, is the reason? It is, that all stand related to one and the same God, also to one and the same Mediator; for mankind generally there is but one Dispenser of life and blessing, and one medium through which the dispensation flows; and in the invitations and precepts of the gospel all are put on a footing in regard to them: there is no respect of persons, or formal preference of some over others. Substantially the same thought is exhibited in the Epistles to the Romans (Rom_3:30) and the Galatians (Gal_2:20); there, as grounding the universality of the gospel offer, as here the universality of the goodwill, which the provisions of the gospel on God’s part, and the prayers of His people on theirs, are ever breathing toward men. The oneness of the Mediator is followed by a declaration respecting His person and work: man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all. The want of the article before ἄíèñùðïò is noticeable; not the man as contradistinguished from some others, but man, one possessing the nature, and in His work manifesting the attributes, of humanity. Not, however, as if this were all; for the very fact of Christ’s mediating between God and men implies that He was Himself something that other men were not: they men, indeed, but in a state that men should not occupy toward God (hence requiring a Mediator); He, man in the ideal or proper sense, true image and representative of God, and as such capable of restoring the relations which had been disturbed by sin, between Creator and creature, and rendering earth, as it was designed to be, the reflex of heaven. Man, therefore, is used here much in the same emphatic manner that Son of man was by Daniel in his prophetic vision (Dan_7:13), and by our Lord Himself in His public ministry; man as ordained by God to hold the lordship of this lower world, to hold it for God, and therefore to establish truth and righteousness through all its borders (Heb_2:6-18). He who should be this is the true Head as well as pattern of humanity—the New Man, and at the same time “the Lord from heaven,” because only as related to that higher sphere, and having at command powers essentially divine, could He either be or do what such an exalted position indispensably requires. So that the use made of this passage by Unitarians is without any just foundation.
Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all— ὁ äïὺò ἑáõôὸí ἀíôßëõôñïí ὑðὲñ ðÜíôùí ; a participial clause indicating how especially Christ did the part of Mediator = Christ Jesus—He who, as Mediator, gave Himself, etc. The expression plainly involves the idea of substitution, an exchange of forfeits, one in the room of all, and for their deliverance. The words are, with a slight variation, an adoption of our Lord’s own, who said that He came to give His life ëýôñïí ἀíôὶ ðïëëῶí (Mat_20:28). For that in both passages it is mainly the death of Christ by which the ransom was paid for, or in exchange of, the persons indicated by the many in the one place, and by the all in the other, can admit of no reasonable doubt. And as the apostle is here contemplating Christ as the Messiah that had been promised, and now come for mankind at large, it is perhaps most natural to understand the language here with reference to those prophetical passages which represent the Messiah as obtaining from the Father the heritage of all families or nations of the earth; not the preserved of Israel alone, nor a few scattered members besides of other nations, but also the fulness of the Gentiles (Psa_2:8, Psa_22:27; Isa_49:6; Luk_21:24). So Cocceius, who remarks: “When it is said that, Christ gave a ransom price for all, it is also signified that Christ of His own right demands all for His inheritance and possession. This, therefore, is a sure foundation for our prayers, that those whom the Father gave for an inheritance to the Son, we should ask may become the Son’s possession; and since Ave know that all are given to the Son, we should pray for all, because we know not at what time God may be going to give this rich inheritance to the Son, and who may belong to the inheritance of Christ, who not; yet we do know, that if we ask all, we shall imitate the love of the Son.”
The testimony—that which is to be testified or set forth—for its own seasons: a pregnant clause standing in apposition not to the immediately preceding term ransom, but to the whole participial clause, which declares Christ to have given Himself a ransom for all. “I understand it to mean,” says Scholfield (Hints for Imp. Version), “that the great fact of Christ’s having given Himself a ransom for all is that which is to be testified by His servants in His times; that is, in the times of the gospel: it is to be the great subject of their preaching.” ( Êáéñïῖò ἰäßïéò , the dative of time, the temporal sphere or space within which the action takes place; Winer, Gr. § 31. 9; Fritzsche on Rom_12:1, note. The own, however, is more appropriately coupled with the testimony than with Christ: comp. Gal_6:9; here, 1Ti_6:15; Tit_1:3.) The matter in question being primarily a fact—the death of Christ—but that fact in its doctrinal bearing as a ransom for the sins of men, it is here and in other places presented under the aspect of a testimony. It was above all other things the subject to which the apostles had to bear testimony, since it was through Christ’s name, as that of the crucified, atoning Saviour, that they proclaimed the pardon of sin and eternal life to the penitent. And its times—the times specially appropriate for the bearing of such a testimony, and the witnessing of its results—are those which follow the great event itself, and reach onward to the second advent. All was but preparatory before; it was the time only for the anticipations of hope respecting it, or the longings of spiritual desire. But with the introduction of the reality, there came also the period destined for its full and proper exhibition, that through belief of the testimony its merciful design might be realized. (See Appendix A.)
Now, representations of this sort proceed on the idea that Christ and His apostles stood related to each other just as Plato did to his followers; that they were alike simply teachers of certain moral or religious truths; and that, of course, the master-mind must have taught in a clearer and nobler strain than any who might sit at His feet. But this is not the view of the relation given by the Master Himself—not, at least, in its bearing upon the question at issue. Jesus Christ had not simply a doctrine to teach, but a work to do; and a work of which His doctrine in the fuller sense was to be but the proper exposition and the varied application. Hence the promise of the Holy Spirit so largely dwelt upon by Christ before His departure, as requisite to bring His disciples to a full knowledge and appreciation of the truth concerning Him. The revelation He had given of Himself, therefore, in the Gospels could not by possibility be the whole. The germ of all, indeed, was there, but not its development into a comprehensive scheme of truth and duty. There are sayings and discourses of Christ which are profound and large enough to embrace everything: as when He said, “God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (Joh_3:16); or, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Mat_11:28); or, “The kingdom of heaven is like a certain man that made a great supper, and bade many” (Luk_14:16); and so on. But how much was still required to explicate the meaning of such statements, and show precisely what they involved respecting the work of Christ, and its adaptation to the wants and circumstances of mankind? Then, there were utterances of Christ which were thrown out as occasion offered—like seed-corn scattered here and there—but in which so little regard was had to systematic form or rounded completeness of representation, that, if taken apart, and without regard to acts and operations yet in prospect, which would shed a reconciling light upon them, might have seemed scarcely compatible with each other. For example, we find forgiveness of sin at one time coupled simply with the exercise of a penitent disposition, as in the case of the woman who was a sinner, or in the parable of the prodigal son (Luk_7:15); on other occasions with the manifestation of a forgiving spirit toward one’s fellow-sinners (Mat_6:12, Mat_6:14; Luk_6:37); while, again, in a different class of statements everything in that respect is made to depend upon the atoning death of Christ—as when He said that He came to give His life a ransom for many (Mat_9:28), or that He must die, that repentance and remission of sins might be preached in His name (Mat_16:21; Luk_24:44-47), plainly pointing to His suffering obedience as the ground on which all hope of blessing was to rest.
Indeed, this one great fact of the death of Christ—its necessity, its priceless worth, and the essential relation it was to hold to the entire mission of Christ—obviously rendered His own teaching, during the period of His personal ministry, in a great degree fragmentary and incomplete. It was with His death (coupled, of course, with the resurrection that was to follow) that He connected the finishing of His work; it was in that He was to perfect Himself as the Messiah; and till the destined consummation actually took place, the doctrinal significance of it could not possibly be more than very partially revealed. It was then only that the mystery which had hung around God’s scheme of grace began to clear away, and that it became possible to present anything like a full and harmonious exhibition of the truths and principles embodied in it. All instructions delivered beforehand, though uttered by One who spake as man had never spoken, were in a doctrinal respect necessarily imperfect; they could not possess the perfect clearness of gospel light, because the consummating act still lay in the future, which was to constitute for all time the main ground of God’s gracious procedure toward men, and of their confidence and love toward Him. It hence is the mediatorial death of Christ, not the moment of His incarnation, or of His entrance on His public ministry, which forms the proper boundary line between the Old and the New. It is with the shedding of His blood for the remission of sins—as He distinctly announced at the institution of the supper—that the new covenant was ratified, and its provisions of grace and blessing were made for ever sure to a believing people. And so the doctrine taught up to that time could not be final; in other words, the utterances and facts of gospel history could not be seen in their proper force and meaning till the events had taken place to which they all more or less pointed. The Gospels, indeed, reveal much; but they themselves close with the expressed need and promise of further revelations, in order to set in its true light, and carry out to its moral results, the perfected work of the Redeemer. (Archbishop Whately long ago urged very cogently the considerations just stated: “How could our Lord, during His abode on earth, preach fully that scheme of salvation, of which the keystone had not been laid—even His meritorious sacrifice as an atonement for sin—His resurrection from the dead, and ascension into glory, when these events had not taken place? He did, indeed, darkly hint at these events in His discourses to His disciples by way of prophecy; but we are told that ‘the saying was hid from them, and they comprehended it not, till after that Christ was risen from the dead.’ Of course, therefore, there was no reason and no room for Him to enter into a full discussion of the doctrines dependent on those events. He left them to be enlightened in due time as to the true nature of His kingdom by the gift which He kept in store for them [the Holy Spirit]. . . . Our Lord’s discourses, therefore, while on earth, though they teach the truth, did not teach, nor could they have been meant to teach, the whole truth, as afterwards revealed to His disciples. What chance, then, can they have of attaining true Christian knowledge who shut their eyes to such obvious conclusions as these? who, under that idle plea, the misapplication of the maxim that ‘the disciple is not above his master,’ confine their attention entirely to the discourses of Christ recorded in the four Gospels, as containing all necessary truth; and if anything in the other parts of the sacred writings is forced upon their attention, studiously explain it away, so that it do not go a step beyond what is clearly revealed in the evangelists? As if a man should, in the culture of a fruit-tree, carefully destroy as a spurious excrescence every part of the fruit which was not fully developed in the blossom that preceded it.”—Essays on St. Paul, sec. 2 of Essay ii.)
What, then, do we find as to those further revelations, or that more explicit and developed knowledge, when we turn to the other books of the New Testament? Do we find our Lord still acting with a view to impart it? We do. His agency in this respect did not cease with His death, nor even with His ascension to the heavenly places. A period of instruction, we are expressly informed, intervened between His resurrection from the dead and His ascension to glory, during which He often met with the disciples, and expounded to them the things concerning the kingdom. Of these explanations we are merely told that they turned much upon the necessity of His sufferings and death, in order to the fulfilment of what had been written of Him in the law and the prophets; and the results of the teaching we naturally look for in the discourses and epistles which, under the power and guidance of the Spirit, were addressed by the apostles to those who received their testimony. It had now become, in a sense, the dispensation of the Spirit, but it was not the less the dispensation of Christ, the glorified Redeemer. And it is instructive to mark how beautifully the one is linked with the other in the narrative of the Acts, where the Spirit is represented as working all, yet working as the representative of Christ—carrying forward His agency, giving effect to His will. Hence, in the march of events we never lose sight of Christ, any more than of the Spirit: everything is done as under the direction of His hand, and the witness of His risen power and glory. It is the same when St. Paul comes upon the scene; it is Christ who, by the Spirit, arrests him in his career of persecuting violence, and calls him to the work of an apostle, furnishing him with the authority and gifts requisite for its discharge. Hence the apostle disclaimed his doing anything as of himself: the commission he bore was not of man, or by the will of men, but by Jesus Christ, or by the commandment of God our Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ: the gospel he preached was received, not of man, but by revelation from Jesus Christ, so that the things he spake and wrote were to be acknowledged as the commandments of the Lord (1Co_14:37); and he and his fellow-labourers were but instruments to bear the treasure of the gospel, that others might believe as the Lord gave to every man. In short, the later history of the New Testament was but the varied manifestation of the continued life and agency of the Lord Jesus Christ. Through the instrumentality of His delegated servants. He was, though personally unseen, giving articulate form to His gospel, and applying it to the salvation of souls and the planting of His church in the world. The voice of Paul or the voice of Peter speaking to the churches, was in effect the voice of Jesus. Hence He had Himself said from the outset, “He that heareth you, heareth me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth me” (Luk_10:16).
Was the voice the same now, then, as when it came directly from Christ? The same, we reply, in substance, but with a difference of a circumstantial kind suited to the more advanced stage of things which had now been reached. It was no longer the objective Saviour merely, but this through the Spirit made manifest in the hearts of men: in other words, the facts concerning Christ’s person and work known and apprehended as doctrine; divine truth entering into human thought and human experience. On this account, also, it might be expected the word would be more effective, since everything would appear now at once in its proper harmony and proportions, and in its thorough adaptation to human wants and circumstances, enlightening the understanding, satisfying the heart and conscience, taking possession of the thoughts and feelings of the inner man.
Now this is precisely what we find in the representations given in the Acts and Epistles. Christ is throughout the great subject, or matter of the testimony delivered, and the instruction imparted. The apostles, we read in the Acts, “ceased not to teach and to preach Jesus Christ;” of one it is said “that he preached Christ unto them;” of another, “that he preached Christ in the synagogues,” or, “he preached Jesus unto them, and the resurrection.” The Apostle Paul sums up his preaching, in one place, as “Christ and Him crucified, the power of God unto salvation;” in another, as “repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ; “or, in the one immediately before us, as “the Mediator between God and man, who gave Himself a ransom for all, the testimony for its own seasons”—Heaven’s special testimony for the times of the gospel. In other passages we find the kingdom of God put along with the person of Christ as the subject of apostolic testimony. So St. Peter, for instance, on the day of Pentecost, when he gave the people to know assuredly that the “Jesus whom they had crucified was made both Lord and Christ”—that is, both King and Messiah, or King Messiah; and St. Paul, in the last notice we have of him in the history of the Acts, is said to have received those who came to him, “preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ.”
This mode of representation, it will be observed, carries us back to the kind of preaching or proclamation of which we read in the Gospels: it connects the one with the other, but with an obvious advance as to the mode of doing it. “The kingdom of God is at hand.” That was the common style of preaching as reported in the Gospels, first of John Baptist, then of Jesus, finally of the twelve; and many a parable was taught by our Lord, having for their common object the kingdom of God, in its nature, its principles of administration, and final issues. But now, since Christ had finished the work which was required for laying the foundation of the kingdom in its New Testament form, the doctrine of the kingdom came to be all associated with Himself; the truth had come to its proper realization in Him; and to preach the things which concerned His person. His work, and the glory that followed, was at the same time to testify of the kingdom. All who really received Christ as the ground of their peace and hope, entered into the kingdom; they were “translated out of darkness into the kingdom of God’s dear Son;” and what they thenceforth looked for was His appearance in the kingdom, when they also expected to appear with Him in glory. It was thus that the Spirit, through the preaching of the apostles, glorified Christ, in a way they could not possibly do during His sojourn upon earth. And, as a matter of course, the things testified respecting Him now were no longer simply facts, but facts as the basis of doctrine—facts with an interpretation put upon them which gave them a spiritual significance and power in relation to men’s spiritual life and well-being. “The Christ preached by the apostles was one who [had not only lived and wrought righteousness on earth, but also] had died and risen again, and whom the heavens had received till the time of the restitution of all things. In these three facts the manifestation of the Son of God had culminated, and in them the true character of His mission had appeared. The old carnal thoughts of it had been left in the grave, and could never rise from it again. It was ‘the Prince of Life’ who had risen from the dead; it was ‘the King of Glory’ who had passed into the heavens. And no less did these facts declare the spiritual consequences of His manifestation, since they carried with them the implication of those three corresponding gifts—the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.” (Bernard, Progress of Doctrine in the New Testament, p. 130.)
It thus appears how naturally, and by reason of the inevitable progress of events, the things concerning Christ assumed a more doctrinal form; or rather, how the facts which made up the earthly career of Christ necessarily became, on being completed, doctrines, and as such were preached in the name of Christ by apostles, and by the Holy Spirit were sealed upon the understandings and hearts of men. The question now was, not whether men simply believed in Jesus as the Messiah, but with what meaning or to what results did they accept of His Messiahship? Could they say, with St. Peter, “Neither is there salvation in any other; for there is none other name given under heaven among men whereby we must be saved”? Or, with St. Paul, “By Him all that believe are justified from all things, from which they could not be justified by the law of Moses”? To say this was to affirm the doctrine that Christ by His death had done, in respect to the desert of sin, what the old sacrificial system of the law could do only in a symbolical manner—that His death is the one great sacrifice that atones, because in it He bore our sins in His own body on the tree; and, consequently, that legal rites of propitiation must be done away, and no dependence rested on anything for salvation but the perfect work of Christ the crucified. This was the gospel of Peter and Paul; and when Paul accused the Galatians of accepting, through false teachers, another gospel, he did not mean to say that they denied the facts of Christ’s holy life and humiliating death, but that they understood these differently, failed to give them their proper moral significance—in other words, did not accredit and appreciate them in their true doctrinal import. So, also, when parties in the church of Corinth and elsewhere sought to couple with the faith of Christ a disbelief of the doctrine of the resurrection, or a licence to sin, they were denounced as really subverters of the faith, enemies of the cross of Christ, because practically robbing it of that moral worth and significance which in the scheme of God are inseparably connected with it.
Such is the gospel of Christ in its completed form—completed under the direction of Christ Himself, by the Spirit He gave and the instrumentality He appointed. It is simply the facts of His mediatory work in their spiritual bearing and personal application. Contemplated merely as facts or historical events, they stand outside of us, and may leave us morally much as we were. But when apprehended as doctrine, or appropriated by faith as the elements of saving knowledge, they enter into our consciousness; they touch the springs of thought and feeling in our bosom; they form the ground of new aspirations, the motives of a new and higher life. Without the facts, indeed, the doctrine might swim in the air; but without being seen in their doctrinal import, the facts would not be spirit and life to the soul.
We thus perceive the absurdity of attempting to separate Christianity from doctrine. Only as containing elements of doctrine does it become to us matter of truth and duty. Have I faith in Christ as the Son of God and Saviour of the world? Then I hold the doctrine of the incarnation, and realize its importance. Have I faith in the death of Christ, as the ground of my reconciliation with God? Then I hold the doctrine of the cross, or of a crucified Redeemer, as the one thing needful to my peace and hope. Have I faith in Christ as the conqueror of death, the resurrection and the life? Then I embrace Him as the source of a new and undying life, beginning here and perfected in eternity. Have I faith in Christ as ready to come again and appear on the throne of judgment? Then I hold the doctrine of the second advent, and recognise its bearing on my personal condition and destiny. Thus Christianity as a doctrine, is the root of Christianity as a life; reject it in the one respect, and you cut the sinews of its vitality and strength in the other.
But there is no difficulty in understanding how many should be disposed to make such a separation—disposed, that is, to accredit more or less of the recorded facts in Christ’s life, but make little or no account of them in their doctrinal aspects. So long as they are considered apart from these aspects, everything about them presents a kind of loose, sporadic appearance; and men may fix, some upon this, others upon that point in the life-history of Jesus as what, in their view, chiefly serves to make it valuable and important. There is, too, so much in that history, brief and chequered as it was, which appears attractive and winning even to the natural man—so much of grace and condescension, of disinterestedness in doing good, of compassion toward the miserable and unworthy, of readiness to brave the fiercest opposition, and to sacrifice life itself in the cause of truth and righteousness, that all the better feelings and sympathies of the heart can without difficulty be awakened, and turned toward the Son of man as exhibited in the Gospels with profound affection and regard; nay, can find there, as they can find nowhere else, what is fitted to interest and instruct them, in the varied circumstances and relations of life. But it is another thing when all that there was in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, is brought out in the subsequent parts of the New Testament, and, under the form of doctrinal belief, presented to every Christian bosom as the ground and nourishment of a life devoted to God, and fraught with the fruits of righteousness. Under this aspect of matters the natural heart rebels, and seeks in a thousand ways to escape the unwelcome conclusion. It does so, often, by putting another than the natural interpretation on the facts of gospel history; or, if not, by allowing other things to intercept their due influence on the affections of the soul and the actions of the life. To enter aright into this part of gospel teaching—to accept and relish Christianity as exhibited by the apostles, and by them formed into a system of truth and duty—has for its essential prerequisite a mind that has become profoundly conscious of the guilt and danger of sin, and longs for an interest in the restored favour and blessing of God as the one great good. Whenever men reach this state of spiritual conviction and desire, they will be ready to hail the entire manifestation of the truth in Scripture, and will find but the fitting sequel of Christ’s own teaching, and the true explanation of His work in the world, in the discourses and writings of His apostles.
It is incumbent on all who would do the part of faithful representatives of Christ, and true exponents of His mind and will to men, to draw their materials from what He has thus made known to us as the whole of His counsel in regard to salvation. It is of special moment that they should do so in an age like the present, when many persons of note, biassed by the aims and spirit of literary or scientific culture, are disposed to take the gospel only in part, and refuse to go the full length of a cordial appreciation and belief of the truth. They will speak, perhaps, in the most approving terms of the simply human aspects of our Lord’s character, and of the moral qualities exhibited by Him in His career on earth; they will also frankly concede the impulse derived from the power of Christianity in raising the tone of thought and feeling among the nations that have received it, and ameliorating in many respects the condition of society. But in all this they restrict themselves to humanitarian ground, and appear to make account of nothing as actually true, or at least appreciable by them, except the incomparable excellence of Christ’s character, and the pure morality of the gospel. But had that been all, great and valuable as it is, should the results which even such writers acknowledge to have followed in the train of Christianity have been produced by it? What wonders have been achieved, what moral reformations accomplished, by such a Christianity in the hands of its formal abettors, the modern Unitarians? Has not the history of the past taught us to associate with them the stagnant marshes of Christianity, rather than its vivifying streams and fruitful fields? “The force which Christianity has applied to the world, and by which it has produced that change in the world which it has, is the doctrine of grace. There has been a new power actually working in the system, and that power has worked by other means besides doctrine; but still it is the law of God’s dealings with us to apply His power to us by means of our faith and belief in that power—that is, by doctrine. Faith in his own position, the belief at the bottom of every Christian’s heart that he stands in a different relation to God from a heathen, and has a supernatural source of strength,—this it is which has made him act, has been the rousing and elevating motive to the Christian body, and raised its moral practice.” (Mozley on Miracles, p. 182.)
Yes, for a Christianity of regenerating power and divine blessing, we must have the saving doctrines, as well as the historical facts and moral teaching, of the gospel wrought into men’s convictions and experience. The light shall otherwise want power to reach the conscience, and call forth the nobler acts of self-denying love and patient continuance in well-doing, which are the marks of a living Christianity. Only when there is a faith which embraces all the essential elements of truth and hope in Christ, and is itself sustained in the heart by the Spirit of God, is there a principle of life powerful enough to resist the desires of the flesh, and overcome the evil that is in the world. With such faith, however, the followers of Christ have no need to be afraid. They will prevail in the future as they have done in the past. “Their antagonists themselves will be their helpers;” for these will but serve to drive them the more closely to Christ, and cause them to drink more deeply from the well-spring of His salvation.