Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

2 Timothy 2:19

“We will not fear. The city of God … shall not be moved” (Psalms 46:2; Psalms 46:4; cf. Hebrews 12:28). The Church of the New Covenant is like the Church of the Old Covenant: it has an ideal integrity unaffected by the defection of some who had seemed to belong to it. “They are not all Israel, which are of Israel.… All Israel shall be saved” (Romans 9:6; Romans 11:26). “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us” (1 John 2:19). The Church, as existing in the Divine Knowledge, not as apprehended by man's intellect, is the firm foundation of God (R.V.), i.e., that which God has firmly founded. It is called here θεμέλιος τοῦ θεοῦ rather than οἶκος τ. θεοῦ, so as to express the better its immobility, unaffected by those who ἀνατρέπουσι, κ. τ. λ.; cf. στύλος καὶ ἑδραίωμα τῆς ἀληθείας (1 Timothy 3:15). There can hardly be an allusion to the parable with which the Sermon on the Mount closes, Luke 6:48-49. With στερεός compare the use of στερεόω, Acts 16:5, and of στερέωμα, Colossians 2:5.

ἔχων τὴν σφραγῖδα : It was noted on 1 Timothy 6:19 that in the two places in which θεμέλιος occurs in the Pastorals, there is a condensation of expression resulting in a confusion of metaphor. Here the apostle passes rapidly from the notion of the Church collectively as a foundation, or a building well founded, to that of the men and women of whom it is composed, and who have been sealed by God (see reff. and also Ezekiel 9:4; John 6:27; 2 Corinthians 1:22; Ephesians 1:13; Ephesians 4:30; Revelation 7:3-8). They are marked by God so as to be recognised by Him as His; and this mark also serves as a perpetual reminder to them that “they are not their own,” and of their consequent obligation to holiness of life (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). There is no allusion to the practice of carving inscriptions over doors and on pillars and foundation stones (Deuteronomy 6:9; Deuteronomy 11:20; Revelation 21:14). The one seal bears two inscriptions, two mutually complementary parts or aspects: (a) The objective fact of God's superintending knowledge of His chosen; (b) the recognition by the consciousness of each individual of the relation in which he stands to God, with its imperative call to holiness.

Ἔγνω Κύριος κ. τ. λ.: The words are taken from Numbers 16:5, ἐπέσκεπται καὶ ἔγνω ὁ θεὸς τοὺς ὄντας αὐτοῦ, “In the morning the Lord will shew who are His”. The intensive use of know is Illustrated by Genesis 18:19; Exodus 33:12; Exodus 33:17; Nahum 1:7; John 10:14; John 10:27; 1 Corinthians 8:3; 1Co 13:12; 1 Corinthians 14:38, R.V.m., Galatians 4:9.

Ἀποστήτω κ. τ. λ.: The language is perhaps another echo of the story of Korah: Ἀποσχίσθητε ἀπὸ τῶν σκηνῶν τῶν ἀνθρώπων τῶν σκληρῶν τούτων … μὴ συναπόλησθε ἐν πάσῃ τῇ ἁμαρτίᾳ αὐτῶν. καὶ ἀπέστησαν ἀπὸ τῆς σκηνῆς Κόρε (Numbers 16:26-27). But Isaiah 52:11 is nearer in sentiment, ἀπόστητε ἀπόστητε, ἐξέλθατε ἐκεῖθεν καὶ ἀκαθάρτου μὴ ἅψησθε, … οἱ φέροντες τὰ σκεύη Κυρίου, cf. Luke 13:27. Also Isaiah 26:13, Κύριε, ἐκτὸς σοῦ ἄλλον οὐκ οἴδαμεν, τὸ ὄνομά σου ὀνομάζομεν. The spiritual logic of the appeal is the same as that of Galatians 5:25, “If we live by the Spirit, by the Spirit let us also walk”. Bengel thinks that ἀπὸ ἀδικίας is equivalent to ἀπὸ ἀδίκων, the abstract for the concrete; cf. 2 Timothy 2:21, “purge himself from these”.

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Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

2 Timothy 2:19

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