NOTES for Ti2 2:13

For Paul it was obvious that Christianity is life with Christ in His Kingdom. It was just as obvious to him that there is no place in the Kingdom for evil or sin. But Paul always remained a realist. He knew human nature very well. From his own experience he understood that it is impossible for fallen man not to sin. And one can be completely freed from sin only after the complete transformation of human nature. Meanwhile the Savior calls each of us to new life, to life in His Kingdom, already now. How is this possible? Clearly, only despite our own sinfulness.

But what does "despite" mean? At the very moment when we give sin a place in our life, we thereby separate ourselves from the Kingdom, from its life. Yet sometimes this happens apart from our will: in the fallen state we are far from always able to control our own intentions, including those that lead us toward sin. If we sin consciously and do not repent of the sin committed, the Kingdom is closed to us. But another kind of unfaithfulness is possible: not betrayal, but a mistake, a spiritual breakdown. In that case we do not finally drown in our sin, though it may well overwhelm us completely for a time.

But as long as we ourselves do not consider such a state normal, sin does not have full power over us. That means we are not completely cut off from the Kingdom and its life. What, then, holds us in the Kingdom? Clearly, that true "I" of ours which does not agree with the sin that overwhelms us. Yet our faithfulness to the Kingdom and to its life still remains incomplete: at the moment when we find ourselves under the power of sin, we become inwardly divided, as it were. But Christ cannot be divided.

And not only because He bears in Himself the whole fullness of God, but also because His human nature is free from sin. He is an absolutely whole Person. And therefore only He can uphold the Kingdom. We will be able to become His full helpers only when we become the same kind of whole persons. Of course, we cannot contain the fullness of God, but the transformation of our human nature and its liberation from the power of sin is entirely real. We need only follow the path on which we have set out as Christians. To the end.

"Remind them of this, charging them before the Lord not to quarrel about words, which does no good but only ruins the hearers." This is, perhaps, the most important rule of church health, the health of people inclined toward active life within the church, or simply people active in relation to their spirituality. Let us turn to the spiritual diaries of one of the major theologians of the twentieth century, Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann. "...what confusion, even darkness, there is in these young heads; how deadened the immediate moral reaction is; what chaos has been created in the world, in the soul, in culture by every kind of 'intelligentsia.' The endless pride of all this. Pride and vulgarity. Artificial agitation over pseudo-problems, pride in pseudo-consciousness, the importance of emptiness. And now this unfortunate 'academicism,' 'problematics,' the possibility for everyone to imagine himself to be something. And faith in 'discussions,' 'clarifications,' 'communications.' Not one person in the world has been enriched by discussions. Only by encounter with reality, with truth, goodness, beauty. <...> Therefore, as one approaches 'reality,' fewer and fewer words are needed. In eternity there is only: 'Holy, holy, holy...' Only words of praise and thanksgiving, prayer, the whiteness of fullness and joy. Therefore only those words are genuine and needed that are not about reality ('discussion'), but are themselves reality: its symbol, presence, manifestation, mystery. The Word of God. Prayer. Art" ("Journals," Moscow, 2005, pp. 21, 22). In the same book, much later, he recalls a conversation between two women that he overheard in passing. They were arguing about how long the dead remain with us: forty days or not forty. "After all, the Church teaches..." "Why is this necessary?" Father Alexander simply asks. And this is the most terrible thing, when we spend time on "disputes about faith." All this is only a pitiful parody of warfare about the Spirit. So why give ourselves over to it? Let us seek among people those who are close to us not by convictions, but in the way shown to us by the Lord in the parable of the merciful Samaritan.

The very beginning of verse 11 suggests a two-way relationship between us and the sacred text. Paul, who repeatedly uses quotations from Scripture to confirm his words, here, on the contrary, himself affirms that a certain saying is true. This mutual recognition of the presence of the Holy Spirit in the Word and in a person is remarkable.

What follows is, apparently, a fragment of an ancient Christian hymn whose main meaning is the proclamation that life in union with God, beginning here with suffering and death shared with Jesus Christ, continues after death too, in His Resurrection and reign. Let us note for ourselves a certain paradox in the conclusion of this fragment: our denial of God, that is, the breaking of relationship with Him, also means our unfaithfulness, but God's denial of us is not unfaithfulness, because He remains faithful to Himself and to His purpose, and this gives hope to our existence in this changeable and unfaithful world.

In the Second Letter to Timothy, the apostle Paul probably quotes the words of one of the Christian hymns (2 Tim 2:11-13). He writes of these lines, “The saying is trustworthy,” as though adding his signature to their content. Indeed, in their construction they resemble verses that convey so much meaning in so few words. They touch upon what matters most in human life: its meaning and, as a result, how this life should be lived and what should be remembered. If we bind our life to Christ’s life so closely that we give our life to Him, then He, our Lord, has the power to restore our life in full by raising us from the dead. We then read about the content of this bond with God: to endure with Him, sharing His sufferings, and to remain faithful. The fearsome words about His denying us in response to our denying Him mean only His acknowledgment that the bond with the Creator has been broken. It has been broken on our side. And He can respond in only one way: with His faithfulness, “for He cannot deny Himself” (2 Tim 2:13).

The question of suffering for Christ is always one of the most difficult. Unbelievers consider it foolish to defend one's faith even unto death: they say it is not worth it, that one proves nothing to anyone in this way, and that there is no need to prove anything. Believers understand that in a difficult situation they may lack the spirit, strength, and courage to resist physical and moral pressure. Nevertheless, while awaiting death, Paul calls us to remain steadfast in the face of every trial, because denial of Jesus is always the consequence of what he calls being entangled in the affairs of everyday life. We fear the unknown, pain, and the possible consequences of our persistence for family and friends. Paul gives us no recipe for resisting the temptation to deny Christ; he simply calls us always to remember that, despite all our unfaithfulness, God is always faithful and always for us. And there is nothing more terrible than denying the One who entrusted His very Self to us.

Continuing the conversation about witness, Paul draws attention to the witness's responsibility. For the apostle, witness is a kind of spiritual relay, in the course of which everyone who has received the possibility of sharing in the life of the Kingdom afterward becomes a witness for those seeking new life (vv. 1-2). And the issue here, as we can see, is not merely a sense of duty, even a duty that people sometimes call sacred. The point is that witness is the normal spiritual state of a Christian. Of course, this does not mean that a Christian must spend whole days preaching, telling everyone around him about Christ and the Kingdom. It means something else: if Christianity for a person is truly new life, and not simply a new religion or a new morality, he will not be able to hide this new life from those around him, and will hardly want to hide it. The issue is not only the joy experienced by everyone who knows what the Kingdom is.

The point is also that the Kingdom can exist only by continuously expanding and including new inhabitants within itself. The breath of the Kingdom was not accidentally experienced, particularly on the day of Pentecost, as wind: like the wind, it knows no barriers, and like air, it penetrates everywhere it possibly can, occupying all available space. The difference between this breath and physical air is only that it spreads from heart to heart, and love for neighbor becomes for it the same organic medium of spreading that the atmosphere is for the wind. And a Christian, unless he wants to lose the Kingdom, must certainly become part of this process, this spiritual movement connected with the spread of the Kingdom in our world, which is being transformed but is not yet fully transformed. Only then will his own spiritual life be complete, as Paul reminds Timothy (vv. 3-7).

He also reminds his disciple of something else: the faithfulness to Christ without which there is no Kingdom (vv. 8-13). For Paul it is obvious that faithfulness to Christ and faithfulness to the Kingdom are one and the same, because Jesus of Nazareth is not simply a Teacher who shows the way. He Himself is the Kingdom; He bears it in Himself in all its fullness. A Christian can renounce the Kingdom to the extent that, before the complete transformation of his human nature, he still lives a divided life. Belonging to the Kingdom only in part, he also still belongs in part to the old, untransformed order of things. Christ is different: He is wholly the Kingdom. There is no other life in Him, and for Him to renounce the Kingdom would mean to renounce Himself. And Paul, as we can see, calls Timothy and all other Christians to become like Christ precisely in this fullness, in the fullness of the life of the Kingdom.