Endure in Faith, He Will Be Faithful

by Steve Meister

The Christian life can get hard. We are promised as much by how often the New Testament makes endurance - hypomone, ὑπομονή (“endurance, patience”) - evidence of sincere faith:

But the one who endures [or, is patient] to the end will be saved (Matt 24:13)

As for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience [or, endurance]” (Luke 8:15, ESV) 

 “As servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: by great patience [or, endurance]” (2 Cor 6:4; cf. 12:12). 

For you have need of endurance [or, patience], so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised (Heb 10:36)

 I, John, your brother and partner in the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance [one word, hypomone] that are in Jesus (Rev 1:9; cf. 3:10).

For this reason, we confess in 2LCF 17.3:

And though they may, through the temptation of Satan and of the world, the prevalency of corruption remaining in them, and the neglect of means of their preservation, fall into grievous sins, and for a time continue therein, whereby they incur God's displeasure and grieve his Holy Spirit, come to have their graces and comforts impaired, have their hearts hardened, and their consciences wounded, hurt and scandalize others, and bring temporal judgments upon themselves, yet shall they renew their repentance and be preserved through faith in Christ Jesus to the end.

True Christians will endure to the end by God’s preserving grace. But how does this work during our fight with the “corruption remaining” in us? When we have fallen into grievous sin, had our hearts hardened and consciences wounded, what motivation or hope is there to endure to the end? In the assurance of God’s faithfulness.

Christians have made this assurance a part of their confession of faith since the apostolic era. In 2 Timothy 2:11-13, Paul cites the last of five “trustworthy” or “faithful'“ sayings in his letters to Timothy and Titus (cf. 1 Tim 1:15; 3:1; 4:9; Titus 3:8), quoting liturgical statements or confessional summaries of the first Christians. While we cannot be certain, this saying may have originated in the church of Rome, perhaps even it’s baptismal service liturgy. Paul is writing from prison in Rome and the first line in v. 11, “If we have died with him, we will also live with him,” is nearly a direct quote of Romans 6:8:

Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.

As Romans 6 deals with baptism as “a sign of [our] fellowship with [Christ], in his death and resurrection” (2LCF 29.1), it may have first been confessed or chanted during baptismal services.[1]

It’s neat structure and parallelism suggests some confessional or liturgical use. But it is when the cadence is broken in the fourth line (v. 13), that there is a surprising point of emphasis:

if we are faithless, he remains faithful— 

for he cannot deny himself.

Are we to understand that the Lord is faithful to punish unbelief because He cannot deny His own holiness? Or is that He is faithful to preserve and restore His saints when they act faithlessly, because He cannot deny those who are engrafted to Him, His Church? There are at least four reasons why we ought to read this as the latter, a reminder of truly amazing grace.

1. First, it makes most sense of the chronological pattern in the saying. Quite deliberately, the first 3 lines change verbal aspect to move through the Christian life:

v. 11, If we have died [aorist] with him…

v. 12, if we are enduring [present]…

if we will deny [future] him…

Christians have died in Christ (cf. Rom 6:2; Col 2:20), are enduring in Him, and are warned of the consequences of any future renunciation or denial of Christ. This warning in the third line echoes Jesus’s own warning, in Matthew 10:33 (following an exhortation to endure to the end in v. 22):

but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven.

By deny, Jesus means to disown or renounce, it is a description of apostasy. In the New Testament, a professing Christian can be said to renounce their faith and Christ’s name (Rev 2:13; 3:8) or to practically do so by their actions (“they deny him by their works,” Titus 1:16). This was a needed warning to Timothy and the Ephesians with the apostasy among them (e.g., 2:17-18).

Yet, in the final line, the saying does not repeat the future aspect of the third line - that would be “If we will be faithless” - but returns to the present aspect of the second line, that is, “If we are being faithless…”. So it does not seem to be a repetition of the warning against apostasy. Instead, it is a change in topic and return to a discussion of what may be the present condition of a Christian, unfaithfulness.

2. The use of “faithful” (πιστός) in this context does not refer to the presence of faith in Christ, but a reliable or trustworthy character. Timothy is to train “faithful men” (2:2) and the saying itself is “trustworthy” or “faithful,” so it would seem best to interpret “faithless” (ἀπιστέω) in v. 13 in the same way. It describes a present character or action, not an absolute description of whether or not faith may be present.

3. When the New Testament refers to the Lord’s “faithfulness” it is in reference to His faithfulness to His promises to rescue and save, not to condemn. Our Lord is faithful to give us escape in temptation (1 Cor 10:13) and to guard us from the evil one (2 Thess 3:3). And perhaps most well-known is the assurance of 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.”

4. The theological backdrop to this entire saying is the Christian’s union with the Lord Jesus, especially beginning with a citation from Romans 6. Based on this union, the Lord could refer to His body, the Church, as “Himself.” Of this, Paul was well aware (Acts 9:4).

Why did Paul use this saying at this point in 2 Timothy? It was a time of widespread desertion (see 1:15; 4:9-16), false teaching in the church (2:14-3:9), and increasing persecution (3:12). So Timothy and the Christians in Ephesus needed to hear that Christ remains faithful. For those who have failed and fallen under the sway of false teaching, there was hope of restoration. Timothy and other ministers, who were being called to suffer hardship for Christ and His Gospel (1:8; 2:3), needed to hear, against the sound of their own insecurities, that even if they failed, Christ was with them.

The command to endure to the end must always be joined with the assurance that the Lord is with His saints to the end. He is the “finisher of our faith”:

This faith, although it be in different stages, and may be weak or strong, yet it is in the least degree of it different in the kind or nature of it, as is all other saving grace, from the faith and common grace of temporary believers; and therefore, though it may be many times assailed and weakened, yet it gets the victory, growing up in many to the attainment of a full assurance through Christ, who is both the author and finisher of our faith. (2LCF 14.3)

Christians must be reminded that Christ’s promises to be with us, to never leave nor forsake us (Matt 28:20; Heb 13:5), are not canceled when we fail. It is at those times that His promises are proven. He will restore and return all saints to Himself. Christ will lose “nothing of all that He has given Him, but will raise it up on the last day” (John 6:39).

Pastors often face the daunting prospect of enduring in the ministry of the Word in an immature and faithless church. Even in normal times, there is often a seeming futility to their efforts in ministry. John Flavel rightly observed of pastoral ministry:

And indeed it is not so much the expense of our labors, as the loss of them, that kills us. It is not with us, as with other laborers. They find their work as they leave it, so do not we. Sin and Satan unravel almost all we do, the impressions we make on our people’s souls in one sermon, vanish before the next.[2]

So pastors must be reminded that Christ will preserve His Church, even though at times it seems to be composed of “faithless” saints. He is faithful. Christians fail. We fail miserably. But God in His mercy has given us the assurance that though we fail, He will never fail us. This is a faithful saying.

NOTES

[1] This reconstruction is following George Knight, The Pastoral Epistles, p. 408.

[2]Works of John Flavel, 6:568-69.