2 Timothy 2:8

Ver. 8. Remember Jesus Christ as having been raised from the dead, of the seed of David, according to my gospel. This I take to be the exact rendering of the original not “remember that Jesus Christ has been raised” with the Vulg. ( Jesum Christum resurrexisse). Authorized Version, and, among others, Alford, who tries to distinguish between the use of an accusative after μνημόνευε, and a genitive, as if in the former case it was a fact that was to be borne in mind, rather than an object or a person. Any one who will compare the following examples, in the two first of which the object of the verb is in the genitive, and the other two in the accusative (Luke 17:32; John 16:21; Matthew 16:9; 1 Thessalonians 2:9), may see that the alleged distinction is entirely fanciful. When in the first of those passages our Lord called His disciples to remember Lot's wife, He surely meant Lot's wife as embodying a memorable fact, not less than when in the third of them He called His disciples to remember the five loaves of the five thousand; and so with the others. The verb seems to have been indifferently coupled with a genitive or an accusative of the object in classical writers more frequently with the accusative, in the New Testament more frequently with the genitive; but with whichever case, the import is much the same namely, to remember or bear in mind the person or object expressed in the noun that follows. So here it is, Remember Jesus Christ, but Jesus Christ in a specific aspect, as “having been raised from the dead,” while still “of the seed of David.” Why should an injunction have been laid on Timothy to keep so specially in remembrance the fact of a risen Saviour, and a Saviour sprung from the seed of David? We are left to conjecture; but it was partly, no doubt perhaps we should say primarily by way of encouragement: for, having his eye ever fixed on one so sprung and so glorified, he had in a manner before him the fulfilment of all promise, and the pledge of all just hope and expectation. Why should he therefore faint under his duty of service, or quail before the assaults of the persecutor? He knew that his Redeemer, the destined Head of God's chosen heritage, lived after having triumphed over sin and death, and was set down at the right hand of the Majesty on High. But in the same great facts, grasped by a childlike and reliant faith, he should have a secure position against the more subtle dangers which had begun to arise from that Gnostic spirit which, in its disparagement of flesh, at once ignored the natural descent of Christ, and made void the truth of His literal resurrection. And this also may have been in the view of the apostle, though there seems no reason for supposing, with some, that it was the only consideration to which he had respect in introducing the subject; nor, looking to the connection, even the more prominent one. The more immediate point is, how to endure hardship, to brave persecution, for the truth of Christ; and, surely, holding fast by Christ's royal lineage, which was essential to His being the Messiah promised to the fathers, and by His resurrection from the dead, which was equally essential to His right to reign over the house of God, could not but form the best preparation, as it was indeed the indispensable condition, of stedfastness.