The Promise of Life.
Realising the failure of the church in regard to the testimony
committed to it by God, and knowing that its ruin was inevitable, the Apostle
Paul wrote to his beloved child Timothy to instruct him, and us, in the path of
God's will for such a time. While saddened at the church's failure, we need not
be surprised, for man has failed in every position in which God has placed him
in responsibility; and the greater the position of privilege, the greater has
been the failure. Adam, Noah, Israel, Aaron, David and Nebuchadnezzar all
witness to man's solemn history of failure.
With all this before him, Paul announces himself in his Second
Epistle to Timothy as Apostle by the will of God, according to the promise of
life, the life that is in Christ Jesus. We are brought at once, at the very
threshold of the epistle, to what is outside the realm of human failure; to
where all rests on the promise of God, not on man in responsibility. Moreover,
the life that is promised is in Christ Jesus, where it cannot be corrupted or
lost; death cannot touch it, for it has no claim upon it or power over it.
Here we can find rest, comfort and joy for our hearts amidst all
the breakdown and ruin of the last days, for God has brought us into what lies
outside of all the failure of man; He has given us what is in Christ Jesus,
what was promised before the present church period began, yea, before the ages
of time — a life — eternal life, which was brought to light by the Gospel after
death had been annulled by the Lord Jesus.