CHAPTER 8

I Timothy 1

FACING FUNDAMENTALS

Found in the Face of the Almighty

It is time to revert to the beginning of the Epistles to Timothy.

How succinct and how tenderly benignant is the apostle!

It appears that Paul was delivered from prison as in Philippians we see he expected, and possibly visited Spain, as Papias' word concerning him suggests (the Western extremities visited, Papias speaking as from Rome, 1st century), and that the scenario, Paul from Ephesus, Timothy to remain in it (1:3) seems to give some testimony to this. It is a new conjunction beyond the apparent location and perambulation of the time of the book of Acts, which takes the matter till Paul arrived in Rome, prior to all imprisonment in that city; and so it appears to signify a later phase in the apostles’ life, such as would come after his release from a first imprisonment in the Roman capital.

This is no trifling matter.

What a marvellous confirmation for the apostle, that having spoken (Phil 2:19-24) with happy expectation of seeing more of the Philippians - whose church in the Lord, he had founded not too long before - in the epistle sent when he was in prison in Rome (Philippians 1:13), that he should then in fact come! It was rather like living in the Twin Towers and speaking of visiting a client, and then, following the bombing, doing so; but much more impressive, for some from those Towers escaped, but Paul was but one, in the blood-hungry city of Rome!

So does the Lord actualise the apparently hopeless, for Rome was an expert in severing heads, butchering flesh, consigning Christians to games, extinction processes quite reminiscent of Soviet Russian in its hideous 70 year reign. Nevertheless, as with Christ, so with Paul, there was a TIME for his decease, and not until then could it by any means happen (cf. Acts 14:19-20, and consider what early happened to Christ, as shown in Luke 4:28-30).  It was not merely an arithmetical matter, for this itself reflected the substantial matters to be performed.  With Christ they were as in all the prophets; with Paul it was as in his call by Christ for the great Gentile ministry (Acts 22:21, 9:15-16, 26:16-17). Nothing could terminate the action until its purpose was complete, as predicted.

Yet there is more.

For that matter, not only did the Lord provide for Christ, the Son of God, God in the flesh, the Word MADE flesh (John 1) so that His whole life fulfilled all its features, functions and episodes as required by prophecy (cf.  SMR Ch. 9, Biblical Blessings Ch. 1), no part missing:  it even included  the date of the Christ's death which also was forecast (Highway of Holiness... Chs. 4,  7), this itself becoming, if you will, an independent additive to the QUALITY and COVERAGE and PURITY required of and in the Messiah, showing that there was a perfect complementarity

	between the sovereign sending of the Son by the Father in His delicious willingness to suffer and die for sin as a ransom and payment, a satisfaction and coverage for it in all truth and justice and judgment,
	and the glorious personal performance of the Lord in the format of man, as Jesus Christ:
	the magnificent and the mathematical, alike and jointly, attesting more of the scope of the trinity's disposition of things in their customary intimacy, which knows neither parallel nor equal.

Nevertheless, in us whom He created, we have an understanding in the love which we are given, when His Spirit is poured into our hearts (Romans 5:5) of something of this intimacy as adopted children of this same intensely loving King (Ephesians 1:5).

As Paul puts it in I Timothy 1:14, "the grace of the Lord was exceedingly abundant, with faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief."

In himself, says Paul, God has shown a pattern of His longsuffering, and an encouragement indeed it is to all to see what He has done for others, and in particular for Paul, persecutor turned apostle, ruthlessly arrogant, become meek and sympathetically serviceable (I Thessalonians 2:7). He becomes, he says, a pattern in this superabundant divine grace, for all who are going to believe in Christ for eternal life. Notice how direct it is: the believing faith, saving faith,  and the eternal life are like two twins, always together.

Indeed, Paul pours out praise in that delightful thrust to the glory of God, inspired and inspiring: "Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, to God who alone is wise, be honour and glory forever and ever. Amen." Not surprisingly this has become the basis of one of the most famous of Christian hymns of praise, commencing "Immortal, invisible, God only wise..."

Far more potent is the invisible than the visible! It is to the heart of man that God chiefly addresses Himself, for without that there is no point! (cf. I Samuel 16:7 - the Lord does not see man as man sees man, for the Lord looks upon the heart). It is to the invisible centre of man's invisible core and criterion, the very spirit He gave, that the Lord speaks (cf. Little Things Ch. 5, It Bubbles ... Ch. 9, SMR pp. 348ff.). This divine speech is not only with wisdom but with washing, for man needs cleansing and indeed reconstitution (II Timothy 2:11ff.)

It is no physical washing that is needed (I Peter 3:21). In fact, even when there is a sacramental use of water, the extent of it is quite irrelevant, for the coverage is spiritual. On this, see John 13:10 cf. Leviticus 8:10, Numbers 8:7ff., Exodus 24:6ff., Hebrews 9:10. Here, in this last text,  'washings' is in fact the word 'baptisms' in the Greek, and seeing this with 9:13ff. which is a list of sprinklings, one recollects that indeed the normal practice for all sacrificial coverage including that for the very great day of atonement as in Leviticus 16-17, was sprinkling. Further, see  Ch. 4 above at "Mystery of Godliness" for further attestation on the very meaning of baptism in the case of Christ.

Hang-ups about the quantity of water or its coverage are most unfortunate, and best is the biblical mode where it has been so often specified both in the New and the Old Testament; but CRUCIAL is the understanding that it is the SPIRIT of the thing, not some physical symbol which is crucial. (Cf. Questions and Answers Chs. 11, 12, with Ch. 2.)

Just as man in his core IS spirit, so God is in His very nature the same. God invisible, immortal, alone with ultimate wisdom is He whose 'dismissal' by man is insufferable in consequence, as would be the dismissal of the ONLY one who understood some physical equation, when the relevant armoury came into focus, together with the ONLY ones who understood how to make it work effectively; but it is far more serious even than this. As CREATOR not merely of man, but of matter and design, God, invisible, source of the ordered, the governed, the organised and the visible (cf. SMR Chs. 1, 10), is the utmost peak of its (potential) splendour for man.

Grievously, wiithout Him, man is not merely meaningless (cf.  SMR Ch. 3, Barbs, Arrows and Balms  19), a self-interpreting plaything for self-contradictory philosophy, denying truth while affirming joyously in oblivion of its own premises, what the truth about man 'really' is, but an emptied cannister, self-thrown on the pile.

Small wonder then that Paul was thrilled and delighted, rapturous in praise to God, immortal, invisible, alone source of wisdom, in this, that having found Him, He had found all (cf. Matthew 13:45-46).

What however is the problem in Ephesus ? Some were evidently focussing on the biblical law in such a way as to imply, suggest or provide a thrust to legalism,  the concept that KEEPING the word of God is the WAY to OBTAIN SALVATION! Notice, it is not that it is wrong to seek with all the heart to keep the word of God, for Christ's teaching is the flat opposite (John 15:21-23, Matthew 5:19-21 cf. II Timothy 3:16), and any endeavour to twist things in that direction is quite as bad (antinomianism is the name of it) as is legalism. Obedience is NOT the method of OBTAINING salvation, but it IS a way of showing the LOVE which results from it, to regard all the word of God, rightly divided (II Timothy 2:15), seen in its OWN  perspective and not in some adventitious one from some philosophy, as authentic and inviting ardour.

The word of God, it is as you see in Psalm 119,  a joy and a delight to DO and perform in grace with an active will and a joyous heart. It is sound wisdom; it ought to be done. One’s design needs it; one’s Maker desires it; His love provides for it, friendship with Him assigns it, goodness prescribes it, peace prevails in it, truth rejoices in it. You follow it because you first follow Him, and in following Him (John 5:39-40), you FIRST repent (Luke 13:1-3) and being regenerated (John 3, Titus 3:5-7), delight in Him in the inner being, savouring His word, because it is His, and because of its function. HE saves; His word follows, and you in following Him, naturally do not ignore His lips!

In fact, it is not trusting in the Lord to trust in your own works, so that if there is one thing which is folly at once in terms of that Gospel which was presaged, previewed, predicted and in spirit received (as by Abraham, Romans 4 with Genesis 22, where the ram was provided for the sacrifice,  and expressly DONATED by God for this purpose to the patriarch cf. Psalm 49), it is to avoid the Gospel by seeking to gain entry to the kingdom, through your works, through your status, through your this or your that, your morality, your good works of heart, of psyche, of whatever invention or concoction. Romans 10 develops this point concerning some of the contemporary Jews, as going about to establish their own righteousness and not submitting themselves to the righteousness of God which is A DONATION (Romans 5:16-17!, 6:23).

The law, says Paul (I Timothy 1:8) is "good if one uses it lawfully". It is just the thing for lawbreakers, homosexuals, murderers of mothers (Paul's association of agendas!), and to designate, condemn and expose anything contrary to sound doctrine (1:10), including kidnapping ... and this is ACCORDING to the glorious GOSPEL, that this is so (1:11).

Paul then thanks God that though he himself was a massive law-breaker as a pugnacious persecutor of Christians (yet one who acted in ignorance in so doing, he exclaims), he is made a very pattern of being saved in this, that God freely forgave him all and used him in the ministry.

Nor is the Gospel a matter of trenchant opinionated clash and clangour over questions of genealogies (some of those being summary and abbreviated, concentrating on pivotal personalities, in the spiritual scene and so on).

What then is the focus for life in the Gospel. We find this near the very outset of this epistle.

Let us then obtain some

Overview of I TIMOTHY 1

1.   The Purpose of God – I Tim 1:1-5

Love out of –

A.    a pure heart

B.  a good conscience

C. a sincere faith
 

We recall James 1:22, and realise that
living faith is lively and works,
as all living things do (James 2:17).

However great the work needed from the Great Physician, Jesus Christ, in initial regeneration of the life of the sinner, and in its careful maintenance thereafter, when God is your light, you gladly proclaim and find this, "Send forth your light and your truth, let them lead me!" (Psalm 27:1, 43:3). You are where you belong, and there is nothing to compare: a manifest design, deliverance and bounty destiny.

Then there is something far beyond a dredging of a harbour, indeed more akin to its discovery. It is like a spiritual Sydney Harbour, newly discovered pristine, and established with later maintenance, with the beacon of direction and the peace of still waters all combined. To this, we return a little later.

    2. The Law of God – I Tim 1:6-11

 

The purpose of the law, directly, is to condemn, to drive to Christ (Galatians 4:4, 3:22). Its clamour is to expose; just as its word is to inform, to lead to His ways (Psalm 119). From Christ, in turn, comes the status of children of light (Ephesians 5:8, I Thessalonians 5:5). To underline the dark, endearing the light, the law worked wisdom.

This, the law, however, is not to start the grace, but to underline its necessity (Romans 4). Grace ruled from Noah, from Abraham, and before. The law stressed the problem of sin before the God of all truth and purity! Its prohibitions and requirements exposed the guilty both in their sin, and in its contrast with divine righteousness. It was like an X-ray driving to an operation! If, however, there is no realisation of problem, there is little appreciation of solution! Nor is there likely to be zeal for its application, or knowledge of God, whose hatred for sin and love for mankind are both intense. The law is not the solution: but it leads to it, as one leads a horse to drink.

The purpose of the law, then, is not to show something less than divine justice and judgment: its principles remain, though some of their applications were for Israel only, pending the Gospel.  Romans 6:11 which tells us that we are not under law but under grace, is simply distinguishing the emphasis, which always STARTED with grace (Romans 4). The RESULT of this is the OVERCOMING of sin. Under grace is the lead to victory (I John 5:4), not indifference! That is the teaching.

How ? Because such is the grace that sin in its light runs for cover, and Christ in His resident power is intimately known and encourages in His redeemer’s role, more than necessary food. WHY is sin NOT to reign over you (Romans 6:15) ? Shall we sin because of this ? Paul asks. The reason he gives for the eschewing of sin is this: that you are not under law but grace. It is not the opposite: it is not the ground of indifference! That would be the contradiction of the apostle, not the interpretation.

What then, in such grace,  is the result in your commandment keeping ? Victory, not failure.

 

What lives ? Your new life in Christ (II Corinthians 5:17-21). The exceeding sinfulness of sin is long exposed; now the exceeding grace that leads to victory in life is confirmed (cf. Romans 5:9-17). You do not gain victory by subverting standards; you do not win a hurdle race by kicking them all over. You pass over them, clipping here or there, but with a triumphant joy in the power of God, realising the need, and that it does not - as indeed it never did - depend on your strength that you so run for the Lord, but on His. It is HIS run that gives you the victory; IN HIM, you wholly saved by grace (Ephesians 2:8), act in place.

Your zeal is real (I Tim 2), but it is HIS which counts in counting His children. Resultant graces rejoice the heart; but the cause is Christ, the condition is Christ, the power is Christ’s, and the gift of eternal life is from Christ, secure as a scroll written in the hand of God, sealed and secure (Ephesians 1:6-11). The upward quest has zest because of Him, and childhood in God has joy because He is ALREADY one’s Father through the salvation in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:15-16, II Timothy 1:9-10ff.)!

3. The Grace of God – I Tim 1:12-16

These two topics are so intimately involved that we have already begun moving from the one to the other.

Here, then, is found transformation of life, its state and its status. Paul is a prime example of the depth and height of the pardon and power of God to fallen man. The law remains for ALL evil and evil doers (except where fulfilled, Matthew 5:17-20), and great is the blessing of those who teach and do what it directs, Christ there indicates. However the power of God is provided for the presence of Christ’s life and pardon to abound in great wonders of grace, through faith and in love. We look forward to His personal return, as now to His help in life (cf. II Timothy 1:12).

4. The Splendour of God and Service for Him – I Tim 1:17-20

Such magnificence demands glowing hearts, clear consciences, holy warfare, as love speeds its message and truth unlocks hearts, by grace, leading not to faithless rebellion, but walking with Christ in security; not to being shipwrecked, wracks of disaster racked with problems, pain and insufficiency. Not with diseased mind, void of faith, spewing folly, possessed of spiritual lunacy (cf. Hosea 9:7), but in blessing with thankfulness does the man and woman of God live.

Paul mentions two spiritual wrong-doers, one of whom we learn (in II Timothy 2:17-18) was teaching that the resurrection was past already. What demeaning of the dynamic of the Creator, what mocking laughter at the resurrection of Christ is this (cf. I Corinthians 15): what wily wickedness of Satan would make poetry out of power, and talk out of triumph!

On the contrary, from first to last, sin brings death, and through God’s plan of salvation in Christ His only begotten Son, salvation is brought, pardon is wrought, resurrection is realised, not in mind, but with the mind; and just as the body which God created, in Christ breached the death barrier, that vital boom-boom, as with the sound barrier, so Christ in returning with this trophy from the grace, completed the prediction of ages. The devil and the world together were powerless even to put up a good story. You cannot arrest God: even if He suffers it for salvation, man’s best plans are sure to fail: and theirs did!

In Matthew 28 we learn they tried to pretend the body was stolen ? Why then did not the soldiers fight who were guarding it ? They were asleep was the story. How then did they KNOW it was stolen. If this were true, all they knew was this, that He who was dead and in a great tomb with a boulder to block it, while they guarded it, overcame their power, death’s power and went. That’s what He had to do; that’s what He did.

The issue was fully drawn and monumentally simple. Rome and Jerusalem had immense need of keeping Him dead, and so producing the body. God had made categorical declaration that this would not occur: He would rise and in particular, after three (not four or two) days.

As to Rome and Jerusalem, those authorities of imperial power and conjugate authority: their need was thwarted. God did just as He had long declared, removed the body from death, and in this, Christ confirmed what He had done to His disciples, again, just as He had said He would do (Matthew 26:32, 28:7).

The idea that they were merely asleep, when such power was used to extract Christ, is not only a self-contradiction, but a rank denial of the power of Rome, set on KEEPING Him dead, and this all the more, for it was widely known that He had raised others. It was not only a denial, it was a precise one: for just as He had predicted that He would rise in three days, it was those three days that He took! It is like a thief telling the bank manager for 1000 years that he would rob his vault; and then adding this, that he would come out with the cash on a particular and specified DAYQ

The body of Christ they could not retain. He walked away with it, and with the hearts of many millions, to whom His life eternal is the grant of God (I John 1:1-4). Some may wish to study The Shadow of a Mighty Rock Ch. 6 on this wonderful action of God. It was because of this resurrection, that Christ’s words were verified, His power was once more demonstrated, the Father’s sending of Him was authenticated (Romans 1:4), while the rugged faith of the early church transformed ordinary men into heroes of the faith. As repeatedly and indeed characteristically with Christ (cf. Mark 2:1ff.), there was open and clear laboratory opportunity to SHOW Him false, or to verify God true.

Since ONLY the latter occurred, irrespective of the conditions, of the disparity between one man and an historic culture and its most gifted exponents, fortified by political and even military power, the naked reality was affirmed, like babies being born in a hospital. Each a seeming miracle, all were a torrent of performance. THESE babes, each one, were like self-performing Caesarian births, a manifest miracle in each, a total parade of divine power in all. Such is the power of God. When you know Him, you can know it likewise, for it is available (Ephesians 1:19), and Paul cites its scope in terms of this very same resurrection!

In your own life, therefore, be valiant, strong, fearless for the faith, living as one redeemed by the power of God for His coming purposes; and in prayer, continually pray, Father, let me do Your will in your power in the presence of My Saviour continually (cf. Psalm 71:3):

v     “Be thou my strong habitation, to which I may continually resort: thou hast given commandment to save me; for thou art my rock and my fortress.”  AMEN.

Let us however not fail to consider more fully that great utterance found in

I Timothy 1:5.

The END the PURPOSE,  of the COMMANDMENT in its threefold light as declared by Paul is here seen. What is it all about ?

First the purpose is LOVE.

It is not some shimmering, simpering, slithering substitute for love, in the form of self-interest making an investment in self-satisfaction, as with some immoral, lustful relationships which do not dignify themselves by marriage, since neither is the mutual trust (not even that!) adequate, nor the commitmen. 

Nor is it some psychedelic substitute in terms of emotional outlet from the harassment of a selfish or even relatively moral life, so that one can play a little, or be patted or relish mothering, or macho or whatever may be in mind.

It is love as in I Corinthians 13, the love of God, the love which the world CANNOT and NEVER DOES do without, except in calamitous collapses, resurgencies, futilities of vanity and vainglory, and the like, until their day comes. It is the missing ingredient in the contemporary world, seen in one whole as a process, in its spirit of the Age aspect. It is not however, even at that, a donation of potion kind, an abstraction, nor is it controllable in any way. It is the fact that GOD IS LOVE, and while judgment comes at length where the mercy which proceeds from love and the redemption which proceeds from mercy, and the salvation which proceeds from both of these is despised, ignored or subjected to evasion: yet this is His nature.

Reading I Corinthians 13 with Matthew 26, Luke 22 and John 13, and I John will give a conception of it; but since GOD IS love, therefore it is neither manipulable nor subject to ANY substitution, admixture or synthesis.

THIS is the purpose of the commandment, that we be in spirit attuned to, moulded through and conformable to this love of God; but all this in sincerity, not mere appearance; in reality, not in programs to impress or to make it appear that it is so, when actually some other motivation is merely using this!  

THIS LOVE … It is, secondly says Paul,   to be from

A PURE HEART.

Likewise, and thirdly,  it is to be from a

GOOD CONSCIENCE,

for what is love which is not found in the Christ who is the exact image of God, and how is anything in Him to be found without Himself as the ONE whom you must know in order to have it; but how would you seek to have it without Him if you were SINCERE, or how would you know Him except by and in FAITH, for without faith you CANNOT please God, who can only so be known on this earth (cf. Hebrews 11:6, 11:1, Romans 5:1).

How would you know Him, however, except as LORD, for as He says, Why do you call me LORD, LORD and not do the things that I say (Luke 6:46), and indeed, you cannot even be His disciple except you forsake (in spirit and in heart, in giving Him the uttermost priority in ALL things) all that you have (Luke 14:27ff.).

Thus in good conscience is this love to be found, as the objective in man; and in Christ must this be the case, and in Him there are NOT TWO MASTERS: behold, there is only ONE (Matthew 23:8-10, 6:24). Indeed, it is, this love, to be found from and in a
 

FAITH UNFEIGNED, FACTUAL FAITH.

Factitious faith is meretricious mumbling. Fancy someone saying, as one distinguished cleric recently is reported to have done, that while his faith might be WRONG, yet it had a lot of merit and was objectively better than the Moslem concoction!

HOW IS THAT faith at all, far less sincere faith ? It is not a question of deceit but confusion. You either believe in Him, or you do not; and one way to tell is the way in which you TRUST Him in all things! Another is your absolute acceptance of the Bible, not as something closed, but open, inspectable, directive and delightful. You believe what He says about what He says! as about other topics (cf. SMR Appendix D). Yet another aspect of sincerity in faith is this, that you have a DESIRE to do what He says, since it is truth and objectively sound; and also because having been saved by His grace, you desire to see His face. Why ? Why it is because you love Him.

God Himself gives His own seal and His own assurance as ONLY HE CAN; but just as rain follows dark clouds very often, so His work in your heart, giving you that call and condition of adoption which is yours if you are a Christian, follows faith. It is not mysterious. IF YOU are repentant and realise His gift and so take it, and if you trust Him for your eternal life, and if you find in Him your object of faith, then in you does He plant His Spirit (Romans 8), in you does He conduct the life, as a Shepherd does for the sheep (John 10:27-28); and as He has saved you when you were inimical to His claims, so much more do you come to realise will He save you from wrath to come (Romans 5) now you are His. How otherwise!

Alternative agendas ? This is for those who, like people 'mating' without marriage, do not actually find the utter, the absolute, the incomparable, the objective, the sound, the verified, the valid, the real, the incomparable in Christ, and so have their 'reservations' and like seed sown on shallow ground, become merely the site for the rotting of that seed. The seed ? It is the word of God, not you, and it rots when left lying about in your life, it does not take root because you are still hard underneath. You have not really repented, your under-soil is not broken, there is no genuine reception of the seed... it is not then a case of SINCERE FAITH.

But LOVE out of a PURE HEART, a GOOD CONSCIENCE and a SINCERE FAITH (literally, FAITH UNFEIGNED), this is the desideratum.

To those who know Him, it becomes like asking how they could prefer a water of divine qualities of purity, a pasture of superb softness and texture, a sky of wonderfully picturesque beauty and a food that brings tears of tenderness to the eyes, to polluted pastures with muddied streams in an industrial wasteland. It is however necessary to TASTE and SEE that the Lord is good. How ?

WHY by faith unfeigned, a purged and purified heart, receiving a good conscience as sin is borne, and life is brought to its vital summitry in your heart, where Christ now comes to live permanently (Colossians 1:27, I Thess. 5:9-10). In Him all impurity is alien, and in His own power, He not merely covers but cleanses (I John 1:7-2:2).

Now follows

AN ADDITIONAL PRESENTATION

founded in I TIMOTHY 1, 

FOR YOU TO CONTEMPLATE ON …

Let us ponder further,

THE GRACE OF GOD

 I Timothy 1:12-14

“And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord who has enabled me, because He counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry, although I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent man; but I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. And the grace of our Lord was exceedingly abundant, with faith and love which are in Christ Jesus …”

Compare this with Titus 2 and 3 concerning the kindness and love of God to man, and especially 2:11: “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men,” and 3:4, “when the kindness and the love of God our Saviour toward man appeared…” as also with Romans 5:18: “Therefore as through one man’s offence judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man’s righteous act, the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life.”

To be sure, many reject it, so that “those who receive abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.” This however is nothing startling: people continually reject grace and truth with this and that passion, lust or desire. God does not force man, who is in His own image.

Consider now the grace of God, in the light of these things, and esp. I Tim 1:12-14.

Not only is the divine grace limitless in depth, and in scope (Colossians 1:19ff.), but it is impermeable where the door is found and entered. It abounds, it surrounds, and it is free – for there is other door but the Lord Jesus Christ (John 10, Acts 4:11-12), nor ever will be (Ephesians 1:10); and it is the path of freedom, the law of liberty. 

Here in the divine mind and will,  is heartily uncircumscribed goodwill to all men (cf. Luke 2:14); and of course this is wholly alien to the sort of approach that would esteem multitudes subject to exclusion, on mysterious grounds. In fact, it might even have been thought by some, perhaps to be so, if God had not declared to the precise contrary; and not only does He propound this positively as in I Timothy 2 and Colossians 1, but negatively in a two-sided constraining bond. Some might even have dared, contradicting Him,  so to think in terms of such minimisation of His love, who IS love: UNLESS preferred darkness constitutes the exclusion criterion, in the very face of such grace (as in John 3:16, 19, cf. The Kingdom of Heaven Ch. 4, Marvels of Predestination Ch. 4, Chs.  1 and  3 above).

The word of God however not only declares in multitudes of ways the love of God toward man as in Titus 2, 3, and I Timothy 2, but resoundingly, categorically and continually assigns to man in the very sight of such love, in the very constraints and appeals of such pleas and pleadings, of such divine compassion, pity and mercy: that reckless renegacy, that relentless recidivism, that portentous pretence and pretension that ministers to itself eventual wrath.

Yes, we read in Psalm 78:38ff.,

¨  “ many times He turned His anger away,

¨  and did not stir up all His wrath;

¨  for He remembered that they were but flesh …

¨  How often they provoked Him in the wilderness …

¨  Yes, again and again they tempted God, and limited the Holy one of Israel…”

This love, in metaphor (Psalm 103), in allegory (even an acted one, in Hosea), in images and intimations (as stated in Hosea 12:10), in exhortations, in warnings, in judgments (Psalm 105-106, 78), in principle (Colossians 1), in grief (Matthew 23:37 with SMR Appendix B, Luke 19:42ff.), in parable (Luke 15), in protestation in broad asseveration (Ezekiel 33:11), to Jew and to Gentile (Jonah 4), God Himself declares.

This then the Bible affirms, the ground, the basis, the dynamic of exclusion. Indeed, making this human self-inculpation of the second order, in refusing even the rescue, and in hindering the help, in turning from the grace (Proverbs 1) in its very face (I Timothy 2), even when God Himself has all the power to prevent the mere pathology of will from making His desire ineffectual, a mountain of grief, He also assigns it as the reason for condemnation. ONLY when Christ comes in word and deed and is THEN rejected does hell appear on the horizon (John 15:21-23). Then however it certainly does so!

Not in God at all, but in man  alone is the biblical exclusion ground, principle and responsibility, and this in the very light of His own equally explicit love. This is grace expository, incandescent, irrepressible, uncontestable, illimitable: for it is no grace which forces a pretence of love, or engineers a substitute for reality and calls that ‘salvation’.

All the nature of the will of man, its disorder, its pathology, its integrity at creation, man’s image-bearing relationship with Himself, God knows. Knowing, He foreknows, foreknowing, He predestinates as Paul declares in Romans 8:29ff.. His knowledge is limitless, and consists not in mere human acts, and assuredly not in human works (Ephesians 2:1-12), but in His own omniscient penetration of all things.

What then follows practically ? This: If you seek God, fear not, His heart is to seek you!

¨   This divine grace shows its face,

¨   Seeks the human race,

¨   Gives freely (Romans 5:15,16,  3:23ff.), with all in view,

¨   Moving away at last from what moves away from its gifts,

¨   Its face, its arms, its donation, its peace.

¨   This is the grace of God,

¨   Not feigning love while using force

¨   Not forcing love in intemperance,

¨   Filled with goodwill to all,

¨   Fashioning hearts that prefer it to fashion,

¨   Awakening its own, calling to all (Proverbs 1),

¨   Weeping for the lost (Luke 19:42ff., Matthew 23:37),

¨   Who willfully remain so (cf. Ezekiel 33:11, Lamentations 3:33),

¨   Freely sacrificing, oblivious of none, kindly to all,

¨   Withdrawn from the detachments of those

¨      Eternally alien to any detachment from sin.

¨      Even in this world, such grace, shown by His people,

¨      Though HE ONLY can save,

¨      Tends to heal wounds, quietens eruption: and just as it was
        treated, allied with truth,

¨      In THE TRUTH, Jesus Christ, to slow torture on the Cross
        where He paid for His  people,

¨      And offered Himself for all (I John 2:2),

¨      So those who follow Christ in its goodness, are repeatedly subject  
        to obstruction.

¨      So does man in multitudes seek or act to stifle its flow, its message:
 

¨      In word, as in Victoria with its provisions practically
        amounting to pulpit  control,

¨      In organisation as in China with its registration and political
        dominion,

¨      In life, as in some Islamic countries, often ready to remove this
        very thing from speakers who proclaim it,

¨      In false churches, astray, that seek to starve out their Ministers,

¨      In deaths innumerable in times past, as in England, Italy,
       France,  Russia,

¨      In false charges,

¨      In long, fraudulent imprisonments, as in China,

¨      In slaughter, as in Ambon to our North,

¨      In kidnapping as in Sudan,

¨      In mental torture as for decades in the USSR, and in
        the Inquisition,

¨      In mockery as in academia, even though they mock the truth,

¨      With belligerent secular myths of their own making.

This grace, nevertheless, it continues and will do so until its Lord returns – and judgment according to truth proceeds (Romans 2:1ff.).

God in His grace has given several millennia for the liberties and self-imposed tyrannies of men. The children of spiritual inanity (Hosea 9:7) are well-grown. He has not shut mouths; but the truth will silence them in shame, just as it shows their logical folly even now (II Corinthians 10:5, Romans 1:17ff.).

The grace of God even seeks those who abuse others, that they may be liberated, with their prey.

Such a case was … SAUL, to become the apostle PAUL: before this,  as he declares, an arrogant man, a persecutor, he was arrested in evil by the God of all grace and comforted with His comfort, who pardoning him, also called him with amazing results.

These were but part of His journey of pilgrimage, through times tempestuous, of peace, through journeys and more static lecturing, through approbation and condemnation, through quasi-insane praise and morbid mauling, through celestial vision and enablement and times of stressful cleansing as in II Corinthians 1, through delight and nursing of those in need, in spiritual comforts and compassion as with the Thessalonians, and through times of being forsaken as in II Timothy 4.

It is to be done because of GRACE, and its end is LOVE from a pure heart, a good conscience and faith unfeigned.

“And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord who has enabled me, because He counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry, although I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent man; but I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. And the grace of our Lord was exceedingly abundant, with faith and love which are in Christ Jesus …”

Compare this with Titus 2 and 3 concerning the kindness and love of God to man, and especially 2:11: “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men,” and 3:4, “when the kindness and the love of God our Saviour toward man appeared…” as also with Romans 5:18: “Therefore as through one man’s offence judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man’s righteous act, the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life.”

To be sure, many reject it, so that “those who receive abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.” This however is nothing startling: people continually reject grace and truth with this and that passion, lust or desire. God does not force man, who is in His own image.

Consider now the grace of God, in the light of these things, and esp. I Tim 1:12-14.

Not only is the divine grace limitless in depth, and in scope where the door is found and entered – for there is other door but the Lord Jesus Christ (John 10, Acts 4:11-12, Ephesians 1:10), but it is the path of freedom, the law of liberty.  Here is heartily uncircumscribed goodwill to all men (cf. Luke 2:14); but it is wholly alien to the sort of approach that would esteem multitudes subject to exclusion: UNLESS preferred darkness constitutes the exclusion criterion, in the very face of such grace (as in John 3:19). All this God knows, not in mere human acts, and assuredly not in human works (Ephesians 2:1-12), but in His own omniscience. If you seek God, fear not, His heart is to seek you!

¨   This divine grace shows its face,

¨   Seeks the human race,

¨   Gives freely (Romans 5:15,16,  3:23ff.), with all in view,

¨   Moving away at last from what moves away from its gifts,

¨   Its face, its arms, its donation, its peace.

¨   This is the grace of God,

¨   Not feigning love while using force

¨   Not forcing love in intemperance,

¨   Filled with goodwill to all,

¨   Fashioning hearts that prefer it to fashion,

¨   Awakening its own, calling to all (Proverbs 1),

¨   Weeping for the lost (Luke 19:42ff., Matthew 23:37),

¨   Who willfully remain so (cf. Ezekiel 33:11, Lamentations 3:33),

¨   Freely sacrificing, oblivious of none, kindly to all,

¨   Withdrawn from the detachments of those

¨      Eternally alien to any detachment from sin.

¨      Even in this world, such grace, shown by His people,

¨      Though HE ONLY can save,

¨      Tends to heal wounds, quietens eruption, and just as it was treated, allied with truth,

¨      In THE TRUTH, Jesus Christ, to slow torture on the Cross
      where He paid for His  people,

¨      And offered Himself for all (I John 2:2),

¨      So those who follow Christ in its goodness, are repeatedly subject to obstruction.

¨      So does man seek or act to stifle its flow, its message:
 

¨      In word, as in Victoria with its provisions amounting to pulpit control,

¨      In organisation as in China with its registration and political control,

¨      In life, as in some Islamic countries, ready to remove it from speakers who proclaim it,

¨      In false churches, astray, that seek to starve out their Mnisters,

¨      In deaths innumerable in times past, as in England, Italy, France, Russia,

¨      In false charges,

¨      In long, fraudulent imprisonments, as in China,

¨      In slaughter, as in Ambon to our North,

¨      In kidnapping as in Sudan,

¨      In mental torture as for decades in the USSR, and in the Inquisition,

¨      In mockery as in academia, even though they mock the truth,

¨      With belligerent secular myths of their own making.

This grace, nevertheless, it continues and will do so until its Lord returns – and judgment according to truth proceeds (Romans 2:1ff.).

God in His grace has given several millennia for the liberties and self-imposed tyrannies of men. The children of spiritual inanity (Hosea 9:7) are well-grown. He has not shut mouths; but the truth will silence them in shame, just as it shows their logical folly even now (II Corinthians 10:5, Romans 1:17ff.).

The grace of God even seeks those who abuse others, that they may be liberated, with their prey.

Such a case was … SAUL, to become the apostle PAUL: before as he declares, an arrogant man, a persecutor, he was arrested in evil by the God of all grace and comforted with His comfort, who pardoning him, also called him with amazing results.

These were but part of His journey of pilgrimage, through times tempestuous, of peace, through journeys and more static lecturing, through approbation and condemnation, through insane praise and morbid mauling, through celestial vision and enablement and times of stressful cleansing as in II Corinthians 1, through delight and nursing of those in need, in spiritual comforts and compassion as with the Thessalonians, and through times of being forsaken as in II Timothy 4. It is to be done because of GRACE, and its end is LOVE from a pure heart, a good conscience and faith unfeigned.