1 Timothy 6

The man of God is set over against the craving just named. Flee these things as from a serpent; pursue a cluster of graces: righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance, and gentleness. Wesley: a man devoted to God, a man of another world; faith is a supernatural sight of God's mercy in Christ, and love is the spring of inward and outward holiness.

Flight and pursuit are acts under assisting grace. The title man of God does not nullify effort; it summons a messenger to a holy chase that can be neglected if the heart turns back to gold.

Calvin: man of God adds weight. Follow righteousness, piety, faith, patience: by contrast he tells Timothy what riches to desire, spiritual ones, and so corrects avarice. He who is earnestly employed about necessary things will easily abstain from superfluous ones.

These virtues are not a self-made ladder into office. God names the fruit He works in His servant. Fleeing greed and pursuing gentleness belong together as the Spirit's training of a man already claimed.

The fight is of the faith, not about words. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called, and you already made the good confession before many witnesses. Wesley: lay hold, just before thee; the confession (perhaps at baptism) was one to which the witnesses assented.

Calling and confession do not finish the race. Grace enables a resistible perseverance: keep fighting, keep laying hold. Eternal life is held out to be grasped, not presumed as an immovable possession apart from continuing faith.

Calvin: Christ calls His servants to warfare, not to serve at ease. The fight is good, that is, successful, under Christ's banner where victory is certain and the reward is glorious immortality. Lay hold: God calls thee to eternal life; nothing has been done till we have obtained the life to come. The calling itself should animate us, because God directs the labor and stretches out His hand.

The God who called effectually also keeps. Taking hold is the appointed way the preserved actually obtain what He secured. Former confession adds obligation: the end should match the beginning.

The charge is sworn in two presences: God who gives life to all things, and Christ Jesus who made the good confession before Pilate. Life-giving goodness is as wide as creation; the Son's public testimony is the pattern for Timothy's. Wesley: who hath quickened thee, and will quicken thee at the great day.

Arminian reading of gives life to all: God's kindness toward all He has made is sincere, not a mask. The God who quickens creatures also offers living mercy in the gospel. Timothy answers before a generously life-giving Father and a confessing Christ.

Calvin: ascribing to God that He quickens all things meets the offense of the cross, which shows only the appearance of death. Shut your eyes when ungodly men threaten death; fix them on God who restores the dead to life. Christ's confession before Pilate was ratified by His blood, a seal better than many words.

Reformed reading of gives life to all: providence and common kindness quicken every creature without converting that gift into a saving intention toward every person equally. The charge still stands: Timothy must confess as Christ confessed, because the Giver of life is Judge and Keeper.

The charge's content is to keep the commandment without spot, blameless until Christ appears. Ministry is a long obedience under the eye of the coming Lord, not a short burst of zeal.

Grace enables a clean keeping, and the command can still be stained if Timothy grows careless. The appearing of Jesus is both comfort and deadline: hold the trust until He shows Himself.

Calvin takes the commandment as the whole office committed to Timothy: show yourself a faithful minister to Christ and the church, spotless and unblameable, until the revelation of the Lord. In an age of hatred and little visible fruit, the mind must be fixed on that day.

The only remedy for a difficult, dangerous office is to keep the eyes on Christ's appearing. God who assigned the charge also appoints the appearing; perseverance is loyalty until then.

The appearing will be displayed at the proper time, not on our clock. He who times it is the blessed and only Ruler, King of kings and Lord of lords. Wesley: the power, knowledge, and revelation of that appearing remain in His eternal mind.

God sincerely governs history and will show Christ when He chooses. The church waits without seizing the timetable; enabling grace teaches hope that does not dictate to the only Sovereign.

Calvin: we are hasty and almost prescribe a day to God; Paul restrains that haste. The revelation of Christ has its appointed time. Blessed and only Prince: titles that exalt God's authority so that earthly princes do not dazzle us. Only Sovereign does not abolish magistrates; it means He alone reigns from Himself.

All governments depend on Him and fall at His bidding. When the wicked seem to mock God, the church looks past transitory splendor to the King of kings whose authority endures.

God alone has underived, independent immortality and dwells in light no creature approaches. No one has seen Him with bodily eyes; yet, Wesley adds, we shall see Him as He is. Honor and eternal dominion close the doxology.

The gap between God and us is not imaginary, and grace still brings us near in the Son. Unapproachable light does not cancel the promise of seeing; it humbles speculation and calls for holy fear until the appearing.

Calvin: God alone is immortal from Himself; creatures only borrow life. Take away His communicated power and the soul fades. Unapproachable light means God is concealed from us, yet the cause of obscurity is in our dullness, not in darkness in Him. We look by faith to Him whom we cannot see with bodily eyes or even with the soul's native powers.

No happiness, dignity, or life exists out of God. Honor and eternal dominion are His. Curiosity must not outrun peace and sanctification, without which no one will see God.