Copyright Ó 2011 J. Neely
2 Timothy 3:15
15 And [kai] that [hoti] from [apo] a child [brephos] thou hast known [eido] the
holy [hieros] scriptures, [gramma] which [ho] are able [dunamai] to make [sophizo] thee [se] wise [sophizo] unto [eis] salvation [soteria] through
[dia] faith [pistis] which [ho] is in [en] Christ [Christos] Jesus. [Iesous] KJV-Interlinear
15 and that
from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you
the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. NASB
Scripture is the source
of saving truth (Ps 19:7; Mark 4:14-20; John 5:24,39; James 1:18). The truth of
the Word, when mixed with faith in Jesus Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit,
leads to spiritual life. In his letter to the church in Rome, Paul asks
rhetorically, "How shall they [unbelievers] hear without a preacher?"
(Rom 10:14), and later explains that "faith comes from hearing, and
hearing by the word of Christ" (v. 17). The Word presented by human
witness is God's plan for reaching people with the gospel.
The women who heard
Paul preach the Word of God at a Jewish place of prayer outside Philippi
illustrate that pattern. Luke reports that "a certain woman named Lydia,
from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple fabrics, a worshiper of God, was
listening; and the Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by
Paul" (Acts 16:14). God has chosen believers to be His spokesmen to bring
His saving truth to others.
Timothy had the
privilege of hearing the Word through his family, because from childhood, or
more literally "from infancy," he had been taught and had known the
sacred writings. It was at the knees of his "grandmother Lois, and his
mother Eunice" (1:5) that he was led to saving faith, and it was in their
lives that he first saw genuine godliness.
Among Greek-speaking
Jews, of which there were many in the time of the early church, the Jewish
Scriptures (our Old Testament) were often referred to as ‘hieros’ ‘grammata’ (the
sacred writings). It was on those sacred writings that the faith of Lois and
Eunice was built and on which the faith and devotion of Timothy was built as
well. As they became exposed to New Testament truth, the reality of the Old
Testament anticipation turned to realization.
Remember that prior to the New Testament, only the Old Testament
existed, and thus salvation was obtained through the knowledge of its teaching.
Timothy may not have
had the constitutional strength of Paul and was more easily intimidated and
discouraged. But he did not lack a foundation for strength of faith or
character. Paul admonished him to hold on and to stand firm, but he never had
to correct Timothy for faulty doctrine or sinful living. Both as a child under
his mother and grandmother and as a young man under Paul, he had been taught
well and had learned well. He was qualified to take the revelation he had heard
from Paul "in the presence of many witnesses" and to "entrust it
to faithful men, who would be able to teach others also" (2:2).
The faith of Timothy's
grandmother Lois and his mother, Eunice, (1:5) were built on the Jewish
Scriptures, the Old Testament, and it was on those sacred writings, that those
women helped build the faith and devotion of Timothy.
This verse shows that
the Old Testament clearly gives the wisdom that leads to salvation. From
Genesis through Malachi, that wisdom reveals the holiness, majesty, and
lovingkindness of God and His gracious offer of forgiveness and redemption from
sin for those who trust in Him and not themselves and seek His grace and mercy.
The moral law was
intended to set a righteous standard which no one could keep, thus confirming
every person as a sinner under God's judgment. Since no one could be made
righteous by the law, it rendered everyone doomed by guilt. Men were therefore
in desperate need of grace and forgiveness, which God was eager to give to
those who repented and asked. The sacrifices did not save Jews but showed that
they recognized the fact that sin demands death.
Every sacrifice made
under the Old Covenant depicted the ultimate, perfect, and complete sacrifice
of the coming Savior, Jesus Christ, who does not need daily, like those high
priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins, and then for the sins
of the people, because this He did once for all when He offered up Himself. . .
. But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He
entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands,
that is to say, not of this creation; and not through the blood of goats and
calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all,
having obtained eternal redemption. (Heb 7:27; 9:11-12)
Even before it
occurred, the death of Jesus Christ provided the satisfaction of divine justice
by which God could forgive the penitent. Even before the death of Jesus,
salvation was available by grace through faith alone — based on the perfect
sacrifice that was yet to be made on the cross.
In the time of Nehemiah
a spiritual awakening began in Israel when the people turned to God's Word for
wisdom and spiritual renewal. Faced with a new awareness of their sin and of
the Lord's holiness, they confessed their sin and sought His forgiveness. By
God's mercy, they began to worship with divinely cleansed hearts and in genuine
reverence and praise, (Neh 8:1-3; 9:2-3; 10:28-29)
In the parable of the
sower, given before the New Testament was written, Jesus explained that
"the seed is the word of God" and that the several types of soil
represent the different ways in which people respond to God's Word (Luke
8:4-15). The power of the Word has always brought salvation, but its
effectiveness in doing so depends on the condition of each heart. The only ones
who hear it and understand the wisdom of the Word are "the ones who have
heard the word in an honest and good heart, and hold it fast, and bear fruit
with perseverance" (v. 15). For them, it leads to salvation.
The heart and soul of
effective evangelism, therefore, is the faithful preaching, teaching, and
witnessing of the truth as it is revealed in Scripture. That is the only
"seed" the Lord will bless and bring to fruition. When "a
certain lawyer," that is, a scribe, "stood up and put Jesus to the
test, saying, 'Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?'" the
Lord replied, "What is written in the Law? How does it read to you?"
(Luke 10:25-26). In other words, the source of truth regarding eternal life is
Scripture and only Scripture. The truth of Scripture invariably brings a
genuine, Spirit-prompted seeker to salvation. This salvation is not by works
but through faith placed in Christ Jesus (Rom 3:19-28; 10:9-10; Eph 2:8-9).
The Lord Himself
declared that fact unequivocally, saying to unbelieving Jews in Jerusalem,
"The Father who sent Me, He has borne witness of Me. You have neither
heard His voice at any time, nor seen His form. And you do not have His word
abiding in you, for you do not believe Him whom He sent. You search the
Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is
these that bear witness of Me" (John 5:37-39). In other words, any Jew, or
Gentile, who had faith in God the Father would also have faith in the Son. In
the same way, anyone who truly believed the Old Testament Scriptures would have
faith in the Son, because they "bear witness" to Him. "For if
you believed Moses," that is, the five books of the Law, Jesus went on to
say, "you would believe Me; for he wrote of Me" (v. 46). "The
Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ," Paul explains, "that
we may be justified by faith" (Gal 3:24).
Peter also used the
figure of a seed to represent Scripture, both of the Old and New Testaments.
After reminding believers that they had "been born again not of seed which
is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and abiding word of
God," he quoted from Isaiah, saying, "All flesh is like grass, and
all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls
off, but the word of the Lord abides forever." It was the same saving
truth, the same "word," he went on to say, "which was preached
to you" (1 Peter 1:23-25; Isa
40:6-8).
Because Joseph and Mary
genuinely trusted in God through His revelation in the Old Testament, they
believed — even before Jesus' birth — that the Messiah and Savior, the very Son
of God, would be miraculously born through Mary, just as the angels told them
(Matt 1:18-25; Luke 1:26-38). Because they genuinely trusted in God through His
revelation in the Old Testament, both Simeon and Anna acknowledged and trusted
in Jesus as the Christ, the prophesied Redeemer of Israel and Savior of the
world, while He was still an infant (Luke 2:21-38).
It was because he
trusted in God and was seeking to understand His revelation through the prophet
Isaiah that the Ethiopian eunuch immediately believed Philip's testimony,
placed his faith in Christ, and was saved (Acts 8:26-39). It was because they
genuinely trusted in God and sought to understand His will that ‘certain’ Jews
in Berea "received the word [of Paul and Silas] with great eagerness,
examining the Scriptures daily, to see whether these things were so, . . .
[and] therefore believed, along with a number of prominent Greek women and
men" (Acts 17:11-12).
To avoid the false
trust against which Jesus warned — of trusting the knowledge of Scripture
itself to give eternal life (John 5:39) — Paul, like his Lord, makes clear that
the words in sacred writings do not in themselves have power to save but rather
that the wisdom they impart leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ
Jesus.
Like many Christians in
the early church, Timothy and his mother and grandmother believed under both
covenants. They had repented and sought the grace and mercy of forgiveness from
the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, of Moses, David, and Elijah. And when
they heard the gospel of Jesus Christ, then — like Joseph, Mary, Simeon, and
Anna — they knew that God's great promise of the Messiah-Redeemer had been
fulfilled, and they immediately believed in Him as Savior and Lord.
Just as were the men
and women mentioned in Heb 11, every Old Testament saint was saved through
faith which is in Christ Jesus. Although their spiritual understanding was
limited, they were like their "father Abraham, [who] rejoiced to see
[Christ's] day, and he saw it and was glad" (John 8:56), and like Moses,
who considered "the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures
of Egypt" (Heb 11:26). Whatever they may have known or not known about the
coming Messiah (1 Peter 1:10-12), they understood that He would come to suffer
for their sins as the sacrifice that would satisfy God. John summed up godly
Jewish anticipation when, upon first seeing Jesus, he exclaimed, "Behold,
the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!" (John 1:29). (MacArthur New Testament Commentary)
And so as so many
others were saved because of the information written in the Old Testament, and
prior to the writing of the new Testament, so too, many can be led to salvation
based on the writing of the New Testament.
But it is not the written words that save, but the faith exhibited in
Christ as a result of learning and understanding those written words which are
learned through the hearing of the Word.
But the spiritual life
does not stop with salvation. That is
only a beginning. And we will get to
that tomorrow.
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