2 Timothy 2:16-18 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

But shun profane and vain babblings See on 1 Timothy 1:4; for they will increase, &c. Though the evil of some of them may not immediately appear, and they may seem trifling rather than mischievous, they will advance unto more impiety; for the persons who so babble, having been prevailed on by Satan to quit the right way of experimental and practical godliness, will proceed not only to neglect, but even to deny, the most essential articles of the Christian faith. And their word Their doctrine; will eat as doth a canker Will destroy the souls of men, as a gangrene destroys the body, spreading itself further and further till the whole is infected. Of whom Of which sort of ungodly talkers; are Hymeneus and Philetus The apostle mentions these two by name as empty babblers, whom the faithful were to resist, because their errors were of the most dangerous nature, as is evident from the account which the apostle gives of them in the next verse. Of Hymeneus, see on 1 Timothy 1:20; Philetus is mentioned nowhere else in Scripture. Probably these teachers denied that Jesus Christ came in the flesh, (see 1 John 4:2,) consequently they denied the reality both of his death and resurrection. Who concerning the truth have erred Ηστοχησαν, have gone wide of the mark; have fallen into a most dangerous and destructive error, by their allegorical interpretations, explaining away one of the most fundamental doctrines of Christianity, and maintaining that the resurrection is past already That is, that there is no other but a spiritual resurrection, from a death in sin to a life in righteousness, which consequently is already past with regard to all true Christians; and overthrow the faith of some In a capital point, namely, concerning the resurrection of the body, and a future life of glory designed for it, as well as for the soul. By explaining the doctrine of the resurrection in a figurative sense, these false teachers probably endeavoured to recommend the gospel to the Greek philosophers, who considered the resurrection of the body not only as impossible in itself, but as a thing highly disadvantageous had it been possible.