Ezekiel, Jonah, and Pastoral Epistles by Patrick Fairbairn - 1 Timothy 6:13 - 6:13

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Ezekiel, Jonah, and Pastoral Epistles by Patrick Fairbairn - 1 Timothy 6:13 - 6:13


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Ver. 13. The mention of that confession or witness-bearing which had been made by Timothy seems to have suggested to the apostle’s mind another and still higher act of the same kind, which he interweaves in a solemn appeal and charge to Timothy: I charge thee before God, who preserveth alive (The correct text appears to be æùïãïíïῦíôïò , the reading of A, D, F, G, not æùïðïéïῦíôïò , which is the received text, and is the reading of à , K, L; and th e meaning of æùïã . in the sense of preserving alive is confirmed by the only other passages where it occurs, Luk_17:33 , Act_7:19 .) all things, and Christ Jesus, who before Pontius Pilate witnessed the good confession. The object of this appeal, and of the specific characters under which God and Christ are here presented, is obviously to strengthen the exhortation which follows, and brace the mind of Timothy to its faithful discharge. God is represented as the preserver of all, and consequently as able to minister protection and support to those who were ready to obey His will, and hazard all for His glory. Then, as the highest example of One who did thus show that He made account of nothing in comparison of the fealty he owed to the claims of truth and righteousness, the apostle points to the fearless and uncompromising testimony given by Christ before Pontius Pilate. ( Å ̓ ðὶ admits of being taken in the sense either of under, with the Vulgate, Gothic, English versions, De Wette, Ellicott, etc., or before, as the Syriac, Chrysostom, Huther, Alford, etc.; but the latter seems the more natural sense, as it is only in connection with the closing scenes of our Lord’s life, and especially with the testimony He then bore to His own person and kingdom, and so shortly after sealed with His blood, that the evangelical record brings Him into contact with Pontius Pilate.) And in regard to the testimony itself, there is, I think, room for the distinction drawn between it and Timothy’s in the preceding verse, indicated by Bengel: testari confessionem, erat Domini; confiteri confessionem, Timothei. The one was of a fundamental or primary character, the other responsive and secondary. Christ bore witness to the truth respecting Himself and His kingdom, as in the closest manner identified with it, and being it; and His confession, as Bengel justly says, “animates all other confessions”—Timothy’s among the rest—gave birth to them, indeed. But we may still say, with Huther, that the confession which the disciple of Christ is called to make, and which is declared to have been made by Timothy, is as to its nature nothing else than that which was testified by Christ; and hence it is in each case “the good confession”—a specific and formal utterance in respect to the essentials of the Christian faith—differing, it may be, and doubtless often does, in words, but coinciding in the substance of the doctrines confessed. Some commentators appear to broaden the difference between the confessions beyond what the language necessarily implies, or even properly admits of.