NOTES for Ti2 2:8-9

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.