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Coming a little closer to the actual wording of verse 10 we find that we must
translated the passage:
"Therefore I endure all things for the elect's sakes, that they may also obtain that
salvation which is in Christ Jesus with age-abiding glory."
It is not "salvation" in its primary sense, but "salvation with age-abiding glory" that is
in view. The whole testimony of Scripture makes it unnecessary to think that the elect
will ever fail of salvation, but the elect may not all voluntarily share the humiliation of
Christ; the elect may not all even desire to be conformed to His death. The elect are
certainly on the one Foundation, Christ, yet for the building they erect subsequent to their
salvation they may receive a reward or they may suffer loss. That this is the teaching of
the Apostle the expansion of II Tim. 2: 11-13 is proof:
"It is a faithful saying: For if we be dead with Him, we shall also live with Him; if
we patiently endure, we shall also reign with Him; if we deny him, He also will deny us;
If we believe not, yet He abideth faithful: He cannot deny Himself."
Here we have two very distinct phases of the work of grace.
(1) Free and full, unmerited, favour, that reckons the believer to have died together
with Christ, and consequently pledges that he shall live together with Him, quite
irrespective of his endurance or works, even if there should be a sad lack of faith
subsequent to salvation (and Heb. 3: 12 is the classic example of the heart of unbelief in
the believer, see Heb. 3:, 4:). This lack of faith, which, while not depriving the
redeemed of the title "believer", would prevent him from taking the title "faithful"; this
smallness of faith would not touch the fact that he was saved, for "He abideth faithful, He
cannot deny Himself".
(2) Faithfulness, however, is marked with Divine approval wherever it is found.
Caleb and Joshua wholly followed the Lord, and they not only received, in type,
"salvation", but "age-abiding glory", which many of their contemporaries lost.
Consequently endurance under trial and a steadfast adherence to the Lord will be
honoured, and the honour, in this passage, is "reigning with Him". In Rom. 8: 17, 18
we have the two classes of believers brought before us, "If children, then heirs; heirs of
God". Nothing can alter this fact. It is all of grace, and is parallel with the opening
clause of II Tim. 2: 11, "If we died with Him we shall also live with Him". But
Rom. 8: 17 continues, "and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with Him,
that we may also glorified together".
This is an advance upon the former position, which is parallel with the glorious
testimony of Ephesians, "not of works". The latter is parallel with Philippians, "work out
your own salvation". The former is the hope of the calling, whatever calling may be in
view, the latter is the prize of that calling, whatever calling may be in view.
This "prize", this "reward", this "crown", this "reign" may be lost, and the one thing
picked out by the Apostle when writing to Timothy was that of denying the Lord. With