I give thee charge in the sight of God. — Better rendered, I charge thee in the sight of God. If possible, with increased earnestness and a yet deeper solemnity as the letter draws to an end does St. Paul charge that young disciple — from whom he hoped so much, and yet for whom he feared so anxiously — to keep the commandment and doctrine of his Master spotless; and, so far as in him lay, to preserve that doctrine unchanged and unalloyed till the coming again of the blessed Master. So he charges him as in the tremendous presence of God.
Who quickeneth all things. — The older authorities adopt here a reading which implies, who keepest alive, or preservest, all things. The Preserver rather than the Creator is here brought into prominence. Timothy is exhorted to fight his good fight, ever mindful that he is in the presence of that great Being who could and would — even if Timothy’s faithfulness should lead him to danger and to death — still preserve him, on earth or in Paradise.
And before Christ Jesus, who before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession. — Better rendered, who before Pontius Pilate bore witness to the good confession. The good confession which (1 Timothy 6:12) Timothy confessed before many witnesses, Jesus Christ, in the presence of Pilate, had already borne witness to. In other words, Jesus Christ, before Pontius Pilate, bore witness by His own solemn words, that He was the Messiah — the long-looked-for King of Israel. If the preposition which we have, with the majority of expositors, construed “before” (Pontius Pilate) have here its local meaning, the “witness” must be limited to the scene in the Judgment Hall — to the interview between the prisoner Jesus and the Roman governor.
Although this meaning here seems the most accurate, it is possible to understand this preposition in a temporal, not in a local, signification — under (that is, in the days of) Pontius Pilate — then the “witness” was borne by the Redeemer to the fact of His being “Messiah:” first, by His own solemn words; secondly, by His voluntary death. The confession was that “He, Jesus, was a King, though not of this world.” (See Matthew 27:11; John 18:36-37, where the noble confession is detailed.) He bore His witness with a terrible death awaiting Him. It was, in some respects, a model confession for all martyrs, in so far as it was a bold confession of the truth with the sentence of death before His eyes.