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While the believer must seek to provide things honest in the sight of all men, to
provide for his own, to labour with his hands, etc., he must guard against any tendency to
becoming "entangled". His wilderness experiences are to teach him that man doth NOT
live by bread alone. The moment the means of livelihood entangle the believer he ceases
to be a "good" soldier, and bids fair to lose in the "good" contest. A mistaken notion,
largely spread by hymnology, is that every believer is of necessity a soldier of Christ.
This is not the case. It is the last phase of ripe experience. It comes last in the epistle to
the Ephesians (6: 10-17).
THE ATHLETE.--The figure changes from a soldier to an athlete. "And if anyone
contend in the games" (athleõ). This is a figure which the apostle has elaborated
elsewhere:--
"Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So
run that ye may obtain. And everyone that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all
things.......lest.......I myself should become disapproved" (I Cor. 9: 24-27).
The closing word, wrongly translated "castaway", is echoed in II Tim. 2: 5. "He is
not crowned, unless he contend lawfully." Any who have entered for a race, or engaged
in sports, will know that no amount of prowess, skill or endurance can avail a competitor
who does not "strive lawfully", or in modern terms, "breaks the rules".
THE HUSBANDMAN.--This third figure is introduced to emphasize the truth that
the prize or the crown is the result of achievement. "The husbandman must first labour,
before he can be a partaker of the fruits" (II Tim. 2: 6).
As to the comparison of the teaching of the two epistles, Philippians and II Timothy,
we notice that whereas the word "soldier" does not occur in Philippians,
FELLOW-soldier does (2: 25). Athlete does not occur, but FELLOW-athletes does
(1: 27; 4: 3). This word (sunathleõ) translated "striving together" and "laboured with"
does not occur anywhere else. Here is an essential difference between the conditions
under which the Prize and Crown might be obtained. Philippians abounds in fellowship,
II Timothy is marked by loneliness. "Forsaken", "turned away from me", "no man
stood by me"; these are the expressions we meet in II Timothy. Most believers who
seek to hold the good deposit, the mystery, walk solitary paths. Since Philippians was
written the contest has become one of solitary, individual, scattered combatants.
"Striving together" does not represent the attitude now. It is for our encouragement and
strengthening that we draw attention to this change. The Lord Who knows the case fully
knows what is the handicap.
After having addressed Timothy, the apostle speaks next of himself. He suffers
trouble, or endures hardness for the gospel. Not only so, he patiently endures all things
"for the elects' sake", and that for a particular purpose, "that they may also obtain
salvation, that which is in Christ Jesus, with aionian glory". What that special aspect of
salvation may be, and what the accompany aionian glory means, is immediately
explained:--