Perfection and Failure

Notes of an Address given at Wooler, 1949, on 1 Timothy 3:14-16; 4:1-5; 2 Timothy 1:13-14; 2:15-22.

In reading these Scriptures it is well to remember when and why they were written. They are found in the last inspired epistles of the Apostle Paul, written at the very end of his arduous life of service for the Lord, a prisoner in Rome, about to be martyred for Christ’s sake. Evil and failure had already crept into that which bore Christ’s fair name on the earth. The Apostle writes to Timothy, his loved son in the faith. None were so like-minded as he with the Apostle. Yet he wrote to Timothy, that he might know how to behave himself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. If such a distinguished servant of Christ as Timothy needed instruction, how much more do we in these sadly broken days.

We may learn a fine lesson here. Instead of speaking of failure at this point in his first epistle, the Apostle Paul calls Timothy’s attention to that which is PERFECTION. He writes,
  “Without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached to the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.”

What was without controversy? Surely that “GOD was manifest in the flesh.” Here we get our eyes upon perfection. It is not merely that our Lord lived a perfectly sinless life on this earth. He did, all glory to His ever-blessed Name. But He was more than Man. He was “GOD manifest in the flesh.” Isaiah prophesied long centuries before the birth of our Lord, that the Child of the virgin, the Child of days, was at the same time THE MIGHTY GOD, THE EVERLASTING FATHER (Isa. 9:6), a mystery we shall never know, either now or hereafter. Our Lord in living a life of flesh in this world manifested God in all His fullness. Scripture tells us, “In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily” (Col. 2:9).

We read that our Lord was “justified in the Spirit.” Every step our Lord took, every act of healing He performed, every word that He spoke, was accompanied by the full and happy endorsement of the Holy Spirit. Alas! it is not so with the very best of us. With our Lord was absolute perfection. What a rest to the soul to look upon Him, to know that He glorified God to the full, that all God’s counsels and purposes will see their fruition in Him.

Our Lord was “seen of angels.” There are two amazing facts in Christianity: (1) When our Lord walked on this earth GOD WAS HERE. (2) When our Lord ascended into heaven MAN WAS THERE. What must the angels have thought on that day of days when our Lord was born of a virgin, and cradled in a manger at Bethlehem? Well might they rend the heavens with a glad shout, “Glory to God in the highest.” They saw Him when He was tempted of the devil in the wilderness. When Satan, baffled and beaten, departed from our Lord, angels came and ministered to Him. Angels were witnesses of His glorious and triumphant resurrection. But what must have been the adoring homage of the angels when our Lord entered the glory, a true Man, with the marks of His passion in His hands and feet and side?

  “Preached to the Gentiles.” Here we come to a deeply illuminating passage of Scripture. How could it be said that our Lord was preached to the Gentiles? He Himself said, “I am not sent, but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matt. 15:24). But once His atoning death had settled the whole question of sin, and He was risen from the dead, and on the eve of His return to the glory, the commission He gave to His disciples was, “Go ye into ALL THE WORLD, and preach the Gospel to EVERY CREATURE” (Mark 16:15). Does this not clearly show that godliness was to be perpetuated in the lives of the Christians, and that their activities would carry the Gospel world-wide. In short, that the life of our Lord was to be perpetuated in the members of His body here on earth. This thought is further emphasised in the next statement.

  “Believed on in the world.” Now all is different. As we have seen it is “all the world ” and “every creature,” for “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).

This was very manifest in the appointment of the Apostle Paul as the Apostle of the Gentiles. His labours and those of others, as with tireless energy they laboured in Gentile lands, was the answer to this commission, carried out to this very day in the labours of missionaries at home and in many distant lands.

  “Received up into glory.” This was the glorious consummation of our Lord’s sojourn on this earth. It is likewise to be the consummation of all the saints at our Lord’s second coming, when all the saints, whether their bodies lie in the grave, or they are alive on the earth, go to be for ever with the Lord. And does this not show how intimately the ascension of our Lord is linked up with our being caught up? Having completed the work of redemption, our Lord ascended to glory, not only for Himself, but representatively for His own, and that involves the rapture of the saints.

Thus we have depicted for us “the mystery of godliness,” so fully and blessedly seen in our Lord; and, when His life was no longer on earth, to be perpetuated in its measure with us, the members of His body here on earth, all grandly to be consummated when our Lord comes “the second time … to salvation” (Heb. 9:28).

Divine Instructions for a Day of Failure

It is to be carefully noticed how the mention of “the mystery of godliness” is immediately followed by the strong warning against “seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils” (1 Tim. 4:1). There can be no real compromise between good and evil, between light and darkness. Satan’s efforts are to mix the two together in the minds of men with very disastrous results. We see this in the world, and worse still in the professing church of God. Let us see to it, that we do not mix with the world. The warning to the young men of the family of God in 1 John 2:15 is that they should not love the world. Believers have the flesh still in them, constantly seeking gratification in ways far removed from godliness. As we live in the Spirit, it is our part to walk in the Spirit.

Now let us turn to 2 Timothy. We must ever remember that when first the Apostles went evangelising, they had no kind of organisation behind them, no Bibles or Hymnbooks in their hands. They relied alone on the mighty power of God’s Holy Spirit. Mighty results followed. Assemblies were formed.

The ministry in those days was very largely oral. It was not till the very end of the Apostle Paul’s career, that he wrote the inspired prison epistles—Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon and, we believe, Hebrews. The teaching embodied in these epistles must have been orally ministered before the Apostle became Nero’s prisoner at Rome. So we find the place that godly tradition rightly had—tradition means handing on. The Apostle Paul spoke of what Timothy had heard from his lips among many witnesses. The many witnesses would be a safeguard that what was passed on to faithful men was correct, for it was a collective memory, as it were, that checked everything. It was not dependent on the memory of one man. “Faithful men” were to hand on what they heard to “others also.”

Is there not a warning for us when Paul wrote,
  “Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 1:13)?

We know that the letter killeth, and it is the Spirit that alone gives life, yet here is an exhortation to hold fast the form of sound words.

The Apostle spoke of the good thing that was committed to Timothy by the Holy Spirit. Another translation gives it as “the good deposit entrusted” (Darby’s N.Tr.) In these last Laodicean days, it behaves us not to fritter away the truth that the Lord has given to us in His great grace. Let us be very zealous as to this. The awakening of interest in the truth of God over a century ago drew attention to things that had been lost sight of and forgotten. May we hold tenaciously to the precious deposit of truth, and lose nothing by carelessness or sloth.

It is possible to be so engrossed with church truth, that the Gospel is lost sight of. On the other hand we may be so keen in the Gospel, as to forget the truth that has been ministered to us of the assembly in relation to Christ. It is possible that the desire to see blessing in the Gospel has waned among the assemblies of God’s people. We fear it is so. The Apostle Paul is an example to us. He cried out, “Woe is to me, if I preach not the gospel” (1 Cor. 9:16). And yet he tells us in the magnificent closing words of the Epistle to the Romans that the preaching of the Gospel was to lead up to the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began—that is, the truth as to Christ and the church, which is His body, and we the members thereof on the earth for the perpetuation of the life of Christ in this world.

But how can brethren, especially those young in the faith, answer to all this, unless they study reverently the Scriptures of truth, seeking to learn God’s mind for His people, and seeking individually to show it forth in practical life down here?

Evidently things had got to a very serious condition when Paul wrote to Timothy,
  “The foundation of God stands sure, having this seal, The Lord knows them that are His. And, let every one that names the name of Christ depart from iniquity” (2 Tim. 2:19).

Here we have God’s side and ours. We sometimes wonder if some we know, who profess to be Christians, are really Christian or not. God knows. He knows if there is a vital link between Himself and one of whom we may stand in doubt. On our side we have to recognise as being Christians those that depart from iniquity.

Then the Apostle went on to use an illustration of a great house, in which are vessels of gold and silver, of wood and of earth, some to honour, some to dishonour. This describes Christendom all too well. The house of God has within it servants of God, faithful men, but alas! evil workers as well, who deny the very fundamentals of the Christian faith, professing to be the servants of God, but in reality are vessels to dishonour, tools in the hands of Satan.

And just here we get instructions, the like of which is found in no other part of Scripture. We read of divisions, splits, parties, sects, heresies in the church of God, but hitherto without any outward break. But here we read,
  “If a man therefore purge himself from these [vessels to dishonour], he shall be a vessel to honour, sanctified, and meet for the Master’s use, and prepared to every good work” (2 Tim. 2:21).

Here Paul in writing to an individual, and thus addressing himself to all Christians as individuals, gives clear instruction for the believer to purge himself from an association so sunk in evil teaching, that the only godly course is that of separation. This is

God’s Instruction for the Christian in a Day of Ruin.

To act on it needs spiritual discernment and moral courage. We have an instance of it in the Reformation, when in protest against the worldliness, superstitions, and evil teaching of the Romish Church, Martin Luther, a monk in the Romish system, severed his connection with it, thus acting according to the Word of God.

What then is the course left open for the one who purges himself from vessels to dishonour? First, he must refuse in his own life, ways dishonouring to the Lord, and “follow righteousness, faith, love, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart” (2 Tim. 2:22). Will his path be a lonely path? No, he will find other Christians moved as he has been by the Spirit of God to purge themselves from vessels to dishonour, calling here and there on the Lord out of a pure heart. Such will meet together, not as claiming to be the whole church of God, but as a remnant, seeking to be loyal to the truth of God, and finding themselves meeting with fellow believers for the highest of Christian privileges, even to answer to the Father’s desire, who seeks worshippers, who shall worship Him “in spirit and in truth” (John 4:23).

Now for a last remark. Is it not remarkable that the Apostle Paul wrote the prison epistles—Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians—about the same time as he wrote 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus? Surely he wrote all these epistles for all time. Would not the study of these epistles, telling us of God’s thoughts as to the constitution and practices of the Church of God, as God intended them to be, enlighten the minds of the saints? This study would broaden their minds, and bring them into a fuller appreciation of what the church is to Christ, what the body is to the Head in heaven. Spite of all failure there is “one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all” (Eph. 4:4-6). Would the contemplation of this not give a sobriety, a godly care for the holiness of God’s house, an answering in spirit to the truth of the assembly as before God? We think it would in a marked way.