2 Timothy 2:12

2:8-13 Let suffering saints remember, and look to Jesus, the Author and Finisher of their faith, who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despised the shame, and is now set down at the right hand of the throne of God. We must not think it strange if the best men meet with the worst treatment; but this is cheering, that the word of God is not bound. Here we see the real and true cause of the apostle's suffering trouble in, or for, the sake of the gospel. If we are dead to this world, its pleasures, profits, and honours, we shall be for ever with Christ in a better world. He is faithful to his threatenings, and faithful to his promises. This truth makes sure the unbeliever's condemnation, and the believer's salvation.

If we suffer, we shall also reign with him; that is, if we suffer for his name’s sake, for a constant owning and adherence to his doctrine of faith, or discharge of any trust he hath reposed in us, we shall reign with him in glory. If we deny him, he also will deny us; but if we, upon prospect of danger, deny his truth, or desert the profession of him, he in the day of judgment will not own us before his Father and the holy angels, Matthew 10:33 Mark 8:38 Romans 8:17 .

2 Timothy 2:12 . Ὑπομένομεν , we endure ) The present and something more significant, and reaching further than to die; therefore also there is a further rewrard than life , viz. the kingdom .— εἰ ἀρνούμεθα , if we deny ) with the mouth. If we do not believe , viz. with the heart, follows in the next verse. The denial is put first, for it extinguishes the faith which had previously existed.— κᾀκεῖνος , He also ) Christ.

If we suffer we shall also reign with him (εἰ ὑπομένομεν, καὶ συνβασιλεύσομεν) For suffer, rend. endure. Συνβασιλεύειν to reign with, only here and 1 Corinthians 4:8. Comp. Luke 19:17, Luke 19:19; Luke 22:29, Luke 22:30; Romans 5:17; Revelation 4:4; Revelation 5:10; Revelation 22:5. If we deny him he also will deny us (εἰ ἀρνησόμεθα. κἀκεῖνος ἀρνήσεται ἡμᾶς) The verb Po. Him must be supplied. The meaning of the last clause is, will not acknowledge us as his own. Comp. Luke 9:26; Matthew 10:33.

12. suffer—rather, as the Greek is the same as in 2Ti 2:10, "If we endure (with Him)" (Ro 8:17). reign with him—The peculiar privilege of the elect Church now suffering with Christ, then to reign with Him (see on [2497]1Co 6:2). Reigning is something more than mere salvation (Ro 5:17; Re 3:21; 5:10; 20:4, 5). deny—with the mouth. As "believe" with the heart follows, 2Ti 2:12. Compare the opposite, "confess with thy mouth" and "believe in thine heart" (Ro 10:9, 10). he also will deny us—(Mt 10:33).

2 Timothy 2:12 . εἰ ὑπομένομεν καὶ συνβασιλεύσομεν : See Matthew 25:34 ; Luke 22:28-29 ; Acts 14:22 ; Romans 8:17 ; 2 Thessalonians 1:5 ; Revelation 1:6 ; Revelation 20:4 . εἰ ἀρνησόμεθα , κ . τ . λ .: An echo of our Lord’s teaching, Matthew 10:33 . See also 2 Peter 2:1 ; Judges 1:4 . “The future conveys the ethical possibility of the action” (Ell.)

Verse 12. - Endure for suffer , A.V.; shall deny for deny , A.V. and T.R. Endure ; as ver. 10. Mark the present tense as distinguished from the aorist in ἀπεθάνομεν , betokening patient continuance in suffering. If we shall deny him ( ἀρνησόμεθα ); comp. Matthew 10:30 ; Luke 12:9 ; Acts 3:13, 14 , etc. 2 Timothy 2:12

12 . if we suffer ] Rather endure with brave and manly submission; 2 Timothy 2:10 . The submission is followed by sovereignty, as death by life. Cf. Matthew 19:28 ‘ye which have followed me … shall sit on twelve thrones.’ if we deny him] The ms. authority requires the future if we shall deny him , cf. Matthew 10:32-33 . The future there and here indicates ‘ethical possibility,’ i.e. what can and may take place, viewed speculatively. Is it not possible that this very phrase of the ‘Oral Gospel’ embodied in Matthew 10:33 may have already found a place in this earliest of hymns?

If we suffer, we shall also reign with him - The meaning is, that the members will be treated as the Head is. We become united with him by faith, and, if we share his treatment on earth, we shall share his triumphs in heaven; see the notes at Romans 8:17 . If we deny him, he also will deny us; - see the notes at Matthew 10:32-33.

(12) If we suffer, we shall also reign with him. —And the faithful saying went on with this stirring declaration. How, it seems to ask, can a believer in Christ shrink from suffering, when he knows what to him will be the glorious consequences of this present suffering? The word rendered “suffer” would be better translated, if we endure —that is, if we bravely bear up against sufferings for His sake, and all the while work on with hand and brain for Him and for our brother as best we can. If we do this in this life, we shall, in the life to come, reign with Him—more than merely live with Him, as the last verse told us: we shall even “be kings with Him.” (See Romans 5:17 ; Romans 8:17 ; and Revelation 1:6 , where Jesus Christ is especially spoken of as having made us “kings.”) The promise thus woven into the faithful saying, and repeated in these several passages, of the “reign of the saints in Christ,” gives us a strangely glorious hope—a marvellous on-look, concerning the active and personal work which Christ’s redeemed will be intrusted with in the ages of eternity. If we deny him, he also will deny us.—But there is another side to the words of the Blessed. While to the faithful and the believer He will grant to sit down with Him on His throne, the faithless and unbeliever will have no share in the glories of the life to come.

These grave warnings are apparently addressed rather to unfaithful members of the outward and visible Church, than to the Pagan world who have never known Christ. The words, “He also will deny us,” imply something of a recognition on the part of us who are denied by Him—something of an expectation on our part that He would recognise us as friends. They are evidently an echo of the Lord’s own sad reply to those many who will say to Him in that day, “Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name? . . . and then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from Me, ye that work iniquity.” (Matthew 7:22-23. See too Matthew 10:33 and Mark 8:33.)