Ezekiel, Jonah, and Pastoral Epistles by Patrick Fairbairn - 2 Timothy 2:18 - 2:18

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Ezekiel, Jonah, and Pastoral Epistles by Patrick Fairbairn - 2 Timothy 2:18 - 2:18


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Ver. 18. The apostle now points to specific examples of what he meant: Of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus, men who ( ïἵôéíåò ) concerning the truth swerved (or went astray, see at 1Ti_1:6), saying that the resurrection has already taken place, and overthrow the faith of some. One of the names mentioned here, Hymenaeus, occurred in the First Epistle to Timothy, 1Ti_1:20; and, as was stated there, the name in both cases had respect, in all probability, to the same person. In the former passage he was represented as a man who had sunk into a bad moral condition—had thrust from him faith and a good conscience, and so concerning faith had made shipwreck. It is not materially different to say here of him, that he had gone astray respecting the truth, and did so to such an extent as to overthrow the faith of some. This, of course, implies that his own faith had previously suffered shipwreck—that he had virtually abandoned the ground of faith, and discarded the truth of God as taught by His authorized ambassadors. In this apostasy Philetus is coupled with him, of whom nothing is known except what is stated in this brief notice.

The specific error charged upon the persons in question, that they held the resurrection to have already taken place, is no proof of Marcionite teaching, as Baur and his school assert. There was no need of Marcion to account for the broaching of such opinions. The First Epistle to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 15) shows plainly enough how ready the Grecian mind was to stumble at the doctrine of a literal resurrection; and no wonder, since the doctrine was so entirely alien to the whole spirit and tendency of the Greek philosophy. Tertullian expressly affirms, that however much the philosophic sects might differ on other points, they were at one in denying that doctrine of the gospel (De Praescr. Haer. § 7); and hence, when St. Paul, in his discourse before the Athenian Areopagus, came to refer to the resurrection of the dead as a fact in history, already exemplified in Christ, the patience of his audience could stand it no longer; the assembly broke up amid jeers and laughter, as if some incredible absurdity had been uttered in their hearing. This, therefore, was precisely the point in respect to which it might be expected that heathen converts to the gospel would be apt to stagger; and such as were of a more speculative tendency, while admitting it in words, would deny it in reality. Within a few years of the first planting of the church at Corinth certain parties did so there, as several years later others appear to have done at Ephesus. In both places, very probably, the explanations fallen upon were of the kind mentioned by Tertullian: some identifying the resurrection with the soul’s spiritual renewal by the doctrine of the gospel, causing it “to burst forth from the sepulchre of the old man;” while others understood it of the soul’s departure from the body, “the world in their view being only the habitation of the dead” (De Resurr. § 19). The Hymenaeus and Philetus here noticed must have taken somewhat of the former view, holding, as they did, the resurrection to be already past. It was altogether a spiritual thing in their account, a quickening merely of the soul’s activities to newness of life; and thus, by their excess in spiritualizing, they loosened the very foundations of the Christian system; for the position they assumed involved by necessary inference the denial of Christ’s resurrection, and the saving efficacy of His death (1Co_15:12-19).