2 Timothy 3:15

Ver. 15. And that from a very child (ἀπὸ βρέφους, from an infant, the youngest period of childhood) thou knowest the holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation. This is only a further specification and enhancement of the preceding statement, bringing out more distinctly the kind of learning Timothy had received, and from what period it dated. The expression τὰ ἱερὰ γράμματα for the divine word is peculiar, so far as the New Testament is concerned; but it occurs in Philo and Josephus (see in Wetstein), and always in the definite sense, the sacred writings, or the Holy Scriptures, namely, of the Old Testament. Here also, of course, it is Old Testament Scripture that is meant. And the things contained in them are represented as still possessed of saving virtue possessing it even for such a believer as Timothy: which are able (δυνάμενά, the present, not the past, as the οἶδας, knowest, virtually is) to make thee wise unto salvation σοφίσαι εἰς σωτηρίαν (the verb used in this sense also, Septuagint, Psalms 19:7; Psalms 105:22); yet not now as apart from the revelation of Christ in the gospel, but through the faith which is in Christ Jesus (or, through faith that, namely, which is in Christ Jesus). When ability to such an extent is ascribed to the Old Testament Scriptures, instrumental agency is all that can be meant available means in regard to salvation when intelligently and faithfully used; which they can be now only as handmaids to the faith in Christ the end to which they all more or less pointed; not when employed as a barrier to keep men at a distance from Christ, as if they were in themselves God's perfected revelation. It was necessary that the apostle should thus guard himself in respect to Old Testament Scripture, considering the abuse to which the unbelieving Jews were ever applying it. But having so guarded himself, he proceeds in the next two verses to give a fuller deliverance of his sentiments respecting the value and importance of sacred Scripture.