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The reader will find, in The Berean Expositor, Volume XXVI, p.178, a chart
illustrating these three features of the Second coming which we commend, and in
Volume XXV, p.8, there is a chart illustrating the association of the Acts and the early
epistles of Paul, with the hope of Israel, and on page 65 of the same volume, is a chart
illustrating the three spheres of blessing with which the three phases of the Second
coming are associated.
If we "love" His appearing, it will make us more concerned, not less concerned, with
every detail of that blessed event. No one who was expecting the return of a loved one,
would be indifferent to the question of how, when and where to meet him, and love will
not be dimmed by weighing the differences between parousia and epiphaneia, it will
rather be quickened as it perceives in their discriminate use, indications of a loving
guidance, which will enable them indeed to live . . . . . looking . . . . . (Titus 2: 13).
No.41. Paul's longing for Timothy, and the forsaking of Demas,
with structure of the Section, (4: 9 - 22).
pp. 196 - 200
What a perfectly "natural" man, the beloved saint of God must have been! Without
hesitation, without apology, without the remotest suspicion of what is called "side", he
steps from the heights of glory, and the prospect of a crown, to the immediate needs of
himself as a poor solitary prisoner, dreading the cold of winter and the awful loneliness of
desertion. Men of a lower calibre would have hesitated to mingle such high and holy
things with such temporal and sordid elements; but Paul had not so learned Christ. He
could step from the exhortation to put on the whole armour of God, the contemplation of
conflict with spiritual foes, and the high dignity of being an Ambassador for the mystery,
to the homely and personal interchange of "news", "my affairs and how I do"
(Eph. 6: 10-22).
Paul saw no incongruity in speaking in the same context of "elect angels" and
Timothy's weak "stomach" (I Tim. 5: 21-23). We remember hearing some time ago that
a missionary in foreign parts was thrilled to receive the homely news, that her mother in
England had at last purchased a new hearth brush! To the superficial, to those who have
to keep up a spiritual appearance, such an idea would be met with a frown, but we can
readily believe that in Paul, this lady missionary would have found a boon companion in
her loneliness. Let us "put on" the new man by all means, but let us avoid like the poison
it is that "putting on" of spiritual airs and graces which are but the acknowledgment of
emptiness within.
So, without a transition, Paul steps from II Tim. 4: 8 with the crown and its glory, to
the urgent need of Timothy's presence and care before winter, and this closing section is
bounded by his insistence "Do thy diligence to come" (II Tim. 4: 9, 21).