CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES
2 Timothy 4:6. For I am now ready to be offered.—R.V. “I am already being offered.” R.V. margin, “poured out as a drink-offering.” When the gaoler took the cup of hemlock to Socrates, the philosopher asked, “Is it allowable to make a drink-offering of it?” Paul’s spirit was the libation. Note the emphatic I in contrast to “thou” (emphatic too) in 2 Timothy 4:5. The time of my departure is at hand.—R.V. “is come.” In Philippians 1:23 the desire for this weighing anchor is expressed. Now the hour has arrived. Socrates, again, prayed to the gods that they would bless the voyage and render it happy.
2 Timothy 4:7. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.—“All three propositions denote the same thing. The second gives prominence to one particular form of contest, while the third clearly expresses how entirely Paul had done with life” (Hofmann).
2 Timothy 4:8. Henceforth.—Lit. “As concerns the rest.” At the end of his life there remains nothing more than to receive the reward. A crown of righteousness.—The just award of the impartial Umpire.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— 2 Timothy 4:6-8
The Faithful Minister in the Presence of Death—
I. Undismayed by the terrors of approaching martyrdom.—“I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand” (2 Timothy 4:6). Whatever hopes Paul might have had of his probable release are now dismissed. Without a murmur, without seeking revenge upon his adversaries, he is ready to be poured out as a libation, to shed his own blood in the cause he loved more than his own life. Death has no terror; it is but a peaceful departure. The anchor’s weighed, the moorings are loosed, and he is starting on the last voyage.
II. Sustained by the consciousness of a well-spent life.—
1. The Christian life is a conflict. “I have fought a good fight” (2 Timothy 4:7).
2. The Christian life is a race. “I have finished my course” (2 Timothy 4:7).
3. The Christian life is a stewardship. “I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7).
III. Exulting in the certainty of adequate future reward (2 Timothy 4:8).—The “henceforth” marks the decisive moment. He looks to his state in a threefold aspect.
1. The present. “I have fought.”
2. The immediate future. “There is laid up for me a crown.”
3. The future. “The Lord will give in that day.” A crown, or garland, used to be bestowed at the Greek national games on the successful competitor. The crown is in recognition of righteousness wrought in Paul by God’s Spirit: the crown is prepared for the righteous; but it is a crown which consists in righteousness. Righteousness will be its own reward. A man is justified gratuitously by the merits of Christ through faith; and when he is so justified, God accepts his works and honours them with a reward which is not their due, but is given of grace (Fausset). Even at this solemn crisis the large-heartedness of the doomed apostle is apparent. He thinks not only of his own reward, but of the reward also of all believing souls who love and are longing for the appearing of their Lord.
Lessons.—
1. We truly live only as we live unto God.
2. We should ever be more concerned about living than about dying.
3. Death admits the faithful into a larger life.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
2 Timothy 4:6-8. The Christian’s Course, Conflict, and Crown.
I. The view in which the apostle represents his decease.—“I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand.”
1. He expresses neither terror nor reluctance, but speaks of death calmly as a sacrifice and offering to God.
2. He regards death as the transferring of our life from the service of God on earth to the presence of God in heaven.
II. The reflections with which the apostle looks back upon his life on earth.—
1. He likens it to a good fight—a conflict which occasioned no remorse, in which he struggled to save and not to destroy—good in its object, in all its means, in its effect upon all employed in its labours, upon all interested in its success.
2. He likens it to a race. “I have finished my course.”
3. He is conscious of fidelity. “I have kept the faith.” He had not only run the Christian race, but had duly observed the rules of the contest.
III. The hope by which the dying apostle is cheered in his view of an eternal world.—“Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness.” He looks forward with joyful assurance to a more than sufficient recompense of all his toils and perils—not as payment of a claim he had earned or deserved, but as a glorious and bounteous gift. Not a mere honorary crown or empty ornament like those bestowed on successful victors and warriors, but a crown connected with a kingdom—a kingdom of righteousness.—J. Brewster.
2 Timothy 4:7. “I have kept the faith.”
I. A phenomenon is to be accounted for—the origin of this remarkable language.—
1. The deep-seated sentiments of natural religion will not account for it.
2. Still less the ancient natural theology.
3. It is accounted for only in Christ the life.
II. The world with the gospel is a new world.—
1. The text reminds us that the Christian is charged with a sacred trust. “The faith.”
2. The discharge of this trust involves constant vigilance and effort.
3. A time may arrive in the prosecution of the Christian course, as it did with the apostle, when the mind turns from the past and gives itself up to the expectation of the future.
4. How can we sufficiently admire that gospel which, in turning our mind from earth to heaven, enables us to omit the mention of death, or to speak of it only in terms of disparagement!
5. A modest self-estimate of Christian fidelity is perfectly compatible with a sense of entire dependence on the grace of God.—Dr. J. Harris.
2 Timothy 4:8. Love, the Preparation for Christ’s Coming.
I. If any one would love that day he must have a clear and deep perception of the hatefulness of sin.
II. We cannot love the day of Christ except we be dead to this world.
III. This love of His appearing is the direct and natural effect of love to Christ Himself.—The love of His unseen presence now is the true and all-comprehending discipline to prepare us for the coming of our Lord.—H. E. Manning.