In the text, there is an antithesis be- tween the offices of God as our Saviour and of Christ Jesus as our hope. The one points to the past, at least chiefly, and the other to thefuture. Inspeaking of the saving action of God, St, Paul uses the aorist, 2 Tim. i. 9, Tit. ii. 11, ili. 4,5. He saved us, potentially. See further on ch. ii. 3. God, as the Council of Trent says (Sess. vi. cap. 7), is the efficient cause of our justification, while Jesus, ‘‘our righteousness,’’ besides being the meritorious cause, may be said to be the formal cause; for ‘‘the righteousness of God by which He maketh us righteous’ is embodied in Jesus, Who “‘ was made unto us... righteousness and sanctification”? (1 Cor. i. 30). Weadvance from salvation to sanctification; and accordingly we must not narrow down the conception Christ F$csus our hope to mean “" the hope of Israel ”’ (Acts xxiii. 6, xxviii. 20) ; but rather the historical manifestation of the Son of God as Christ Jesus is the ground of our “hope of glory”’ (Col. i. 27). Our hope is that ‘the body of our humiliation will be conformed to the body of His glory”’ (Phil. iii. 20, 21). See also Eph. iv. 13. Our hope is that ‘¢we shall be like Him” (1 John iii. 2, 3)- See also Tit. ii. 13, προσδεχόμενοι τὴν μακαρίαν ἐλπίδα. For this vivid use of an abstract noun compare Eph. ii. 14, αὐτὸς yap ἐστιν ἡ εἰρήνη ἡμῶν.
Ignatius borrows this noble appella- tion: Magn. 11; Trall. inscr., '' Jesus Christ Who is our hope through our resurrection unto Him”; Trail. 2, ** Jesus Christ our hope ; for if we live in Him, we shall also be found in Him”’. See also Polycarp, 8
Ver. 2. γνησίῳ qualifies the compound τέκνῳ ἐν πίστει, just as in Tit. i. 4 it qualifies τέκνῳ κατὰ κοινὴν πίστιν. As in the relation of the heavenly Father to those who are His children by adoption and grace, some are ‘“‘led by the Spirit of God,’’ and so are genuine sons of
2---3.
παρεκάλεσά σε '
δονίαν, ἵνα " παραγγείλῃς τισὶν μὴ
32= Mark viii. 2, Acts xviii. 18. 12,1 Tim. iv. 11, V. 7, Vi. 13, 17.
God, so in the filial relationships of earth—physical, spiritual, or intellectual —some sons realise their vocation, others fail to do so. γνήσιος (and γνησίως, Phil. ii. 26) is only found in the N.T. in Paul. See reff. It might be rendered lawful, legitimate, as γυνή γνησία means “lawful wife” (Moulton and Milligan, Expositor, vii., vi. 382). Dean Bernard (comm. in loc.) cites an interesting parallel from Philo (de Vit. Cont. p. 482, ed. Mangey), where ‘“‘ the young men among the Therapeutae are described as minis- tering to their elders καθάπερ υἱοὶ γνήσιοι. τέκνῳ ἐν πίστει: The parallel from Tit. i. 4 quoted above proves that πίστις here is the faith,as A.V. Absence of the article before familiar Christian terms is a characteristic of the Pastorals. Gf. 1 Cor. iv. 15, ‘In Christ Jesus 1 begat you through the gospel’. See also Gal. iv. το, Philem. το; and, for the term τέκνον as applied to Timothy, see reff. St. Paul ‘‘ begat him through the gospel’? on the first missionary journey. He was already a disciple in Acts xvi. 1. Nothing can be safely inferred from the variation ἀγαπητῷ in 2 Tim. i. 2 for γνησίῳ. The selection from among these. semi-conventional terms of address is influenced by passing moods of which the writer is not wholly conscious; but a pseudepigraphic author would be careful to observe uniformity. ἔλεος as an element in the salutation in addition to χάρις and εἰρήνη is only found, in the Pauline Epistles, in 1 and 2 Timothy. See reff. ‘‘ Mercy” is used in an informal benediction, Gal. vi. 16, “ Peace be upon them, andmercy”’. Ben- gel notes that personal experience of the mercy of God makes a man a more effici- ent minister of the Gospel. See vv. 13, 16, I Cor. vii. 25, 2 Cor. iv. 1, Heb. ii. 17.