IV.
(1) I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ. — The parchment, or papyrus, in the prison room of St. Paul on which, probably, Luke (2 Timothy 4:11), the faithful friend, was writing to the Apostle’s dictation, was nearly filled up. What has still to be said to the chief presbyter of the Church of Ephesus must be brief. But St. Paul would have the last words introduced by a most impressive preface. So before he sums up his directions and exhortations, he appeals to him in these stately and solemn words. The Greek word rendered “I charge (thee),” is more accurately translated by, I solemnly charge (thee), before those divine witnesses, the Eternal Father and the Blessed Son, present with me in this prison of mine in Rome, present equally with you in study-chamber or church in Asia.
Who shall judge the quick and the dead. — These words must have sounded with strange power in the ears of men like Timothy, and must have impressed them with an intense feeling of responsibility. The Apostle in his divine wisdom was charging these teachers of the Church to be faithful and zealous in their work, by the thought, which must be ever present, that they — either alive on the day of the Coming of the Lord, or, if they had tasted death already, raised from the dead incorruptible (comp. 1 Thessalonians 4:17) — must stand before the Judge and give an account of their stewardship; on that awful morning must every man and woman render up, before the Judge who knows all and sees all, a strict account of the deeds done in the body. The looking forward to the judgment morning must surely be a spur to any faint-hearted, dispirited servant of the Lord disposed to temporise, or reluctant to face the dangers which threaten a faithful discharge of duties.
At his appearing and his kingdom. — The older authorities here — instead of the preposition “at” — read “and.” The rendering then would be: “I charge thee in the sight of God and Jesus Christ, who will judge quick and dead (I charge thee) by His appearing (epiphany) and by His kingdom,” the construction in Greek being the usual accusative of adjuration, as in Mark 5:7; Acts 19:13. So, too, Deuteronomy 4:26 (LXX.): “I solemnly charge you to-day by heaven and earth.” The passage, by this restoration of the ancient, and, at first sight, more difficult reading, gains, as we shall see, immeasurably in strength and power. “By his appearing,” or by His manifestation or epiphany, refers, of course, to the Lord’s coming a second time to judge the earth in the glory of the Father with His angels. (Matthew 16:27; 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17.) “And by His kingdom:” His kingdom, that kingdom is here meant which, in the words of the Nicene Creed, “shall have no end.” This glorious sovereignty of Christ is to succeed what Pearson (Creed, Article VI., p. 529, Chevallier’s edit.) calls “the modificated eternity of His mediatorship,” which will end when all His enemies shall have been subdued, and He shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father. The “kingdom” here spoken of is to commence at Christ’s glorious epiphany or manifestation, when “the kingdoms of the world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ; and He shall reign for ever and ever” (Revelation 11:15). Timothy was conjured by the “appearing” of Christ when he would have to stand before Him and be judged; he was conjured, too, by “His kingdom,” in which glorious state Timothy hoped to share, for was it not promised that His own should reign with Him? (2 Timothy 2:12.) There seems in this solemn ringing adjuration something which reminds us of “a faithful saying.” The germs at least of one of the ancient creeds are apparent here, where allusion is made to God (the Father) and to Jesus Christ, the judge of quick and dead, to His coming again with glory and then to His kingdom.