1 Timothy 4.10-Paul And Timothy Made Every Effort To Experience Eternal Life Because They Possess The Confident Expectation Of Rewards Because Of The Living God
Wenstrom Bible Ministries
Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom
Tuesday June 21, 2011
1 Timothy: 1 Timothy 4:10-Paul And Timothy Made Every Effort To Experience Eternal Life Because They Possess The Confident Expectation Of Rewards Because Of The Living God
Lesson # 85
Please turn in your Bibles to 1 Timothy 4:6.
This evening we will study 1 Timothy 4:10.
1 Timothy 4:6 In pointing out these things to the brethren, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, constantly nourished on the words of the faith and of the sound doctrine which you have been following. 7 But have nothing to do with worldly fables fit only for old women. On the other hand, discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness; 8 for bodily discipline is only of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. 9 It is a trustworthy statement deserving full acceptance. 10 For it is for this we labor and strive, because we have fixed our hope on the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of believers. (NASU)
“For it is for this we labor and strive” is composed of the preposition eis (εἰς) (eece), “for” and its object is the accusative neuter singular form of the immediate demonstrative pronoun houtos (οὗτος) (oo-toce), “this” which is followed by the post-positive conjunction gar (γάρ) (gar), “for” and the first person plural present active indicative form of the verb kopiao (κοπιάω) (koe-pee-ah-owe), “we labor” and the conjunction kai (καί) (keh), “and” which is followed by the first person plural present middle indicative form of the verb agonizomai (ἀγωνίζομαι) (ahgoe-nee-zoe-meh), “strive.”
“For” is the “emphatic” and “intensifying” use of the conjunction gar, which advances upon or intensifies and emphasizes Paul’s previous statements in 1 Timothy 4:8-9.
The immediate demonstrative pronoun houtos refers to the trustworthy statement that appears in 1 Timothy 4:8b, which refers to the promise of godliness which involves experiencing eternal life during one’s present lifetime and in addition as a certainty experiencing it throughout all of eternity.
The immediate demonstrative pronoun houtos is the object of the preposition eis, which functions as a marker of purpose indicating the purpose for which Timothy and Paul worked hard and struggled.
This prepositional phrase answers the question as to why Paul and Timothy worked hard and struggled.
The verb kopiao means “to work hard” in the sense of exerting oneself mentally, physically and spiritually in the face of adversity.
It is used here to describe Paul and Timothy’s efforts on behalf of the promise of experiencing eternal life for the present and the future, throughout eternity.
The present tense of the verb is a customary present indicating that Paul and Timothy “continued to make it their habit of” working hard in the sense that they exerted themselves mentally, physically and spiritually in the face of adversity for the promise of experiencing eternal life.
The conjunction kai is epexegetical meaning that it explains in greater detail the previous statement.
The verb agonizomai is used in a figurative sense and means “to make every effort to win” in the sense of engaging in an intense struggle to accomplish a victory against strong opposition.
The idea of victory is implied in the meaning of the word since the word continues the athletic metaphor that appears in 1 Timothy 4:7-8.
Thus, it contains the idea of a runner struggling intensely to win a race in the Graeco-Roman games in the face of stiff opposition from other runners competing against him.
Here the term refers to Paul and Timothy making every effort to experience eternal life which will accomplish the Father’s will for their lives despite strong opposition from sin and Satan’s kingdom.
The runner in the Graeco-Roman games would struggle intensely against other runners in order to win a race, which would earn him a crown and rewards at the bema seat.
In a similar fashion, Paul and Timothy struggled intensely to live the Christian way of life against opposition from the sin nature and Satan’s kingdom in order to execute the Father’s will to become like Christ, which would earn them a crown and rewards at the Bema Seat Evaluation of the church.
1 Timothy 4:10 For it is for this we labor and strive, because we have fixed our hope on the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of believers. (NASU)
“Because we have fixed our hope on the living God” is composed of the conjunction hoti (ὅτι) (owe-tee), “because” and the first person plural perfect active indicative form of the verb elpizo (ἐλπίζω) (el-pee-zoe), “we have fixed our hope” and the preposition epi (ἐπί) (eh-pee), “on” and its object is the dative masculine singular form of the noun theos (θεός) (thay-oce), “the God” and the dative masculine singular present active participle form of the verb zao (ζάω) (zah-owe), “living.”
The conjunction hoti introduces a causal clause that expresses the reason why Paul and Timothy continued to make it their habit of making every effort for the promise of experiencing eternal life so as to accomplish the Father’s will to become like Christ.
The verb elpizo continues the athletic metaphor in the sense of describing what takes place when a runner has won the race in the Graeco-Roman games, namely, they received a crown and rewards for their victory.
Here it indicates that Paul and Timothy “confidently expect to receive a crown and rewards” because of the living God, i.e. because they received revelation from God.
The perfect tense of elpizo is an intensive perfect used to emphasize the results or present state produced by a past action.
Here, the present state is Paul and Timothy’s confident expectation of receiving rewards and the past action was Paul and Timothy accepting by faith the Spirit’s revelation from the Father that they would be rewarded for their efforts.
This revelation declared that they would be rewarded for making every effort to experience eternal life in order to execute the Father’s will to become like Christ despite opposition from the sin nature and the devil’s kingdom.
The noun theos is the object of the preposition epi, which functions as a marker of cause indicating that Paul and Timothy continued to make it their habit of making every effort to experience eternal life because of the living God.
In other words, they possessed a confident expectation of rewards because of the revelation they received from the Father through the Spirit.
This revelation they accepted by faith as demonstrated by their making every effort to experience eternal life in order to become like Christ and execute the Father’s will.
So because of revelation from the Father who gave them eternal life at regeneration, they possessed this confident expectation.
This revelation, as well as the rest of the revelation that appears in the Word of God, is eternal life since the Word of God is eternal life.
Paul ascribes eternal life to the Father because in context Paul is stating that he and Timothy were continuing to make it their habit of making every effort to experience eternal life, which constitutes the promise of godliness.
The Father gave them eternal life through faith in His Son Jesus Christ and by the power of the Spirit through regeneration.
“Who is the Savior of all men” is composed of the nominative masculine singular form of the relative pronoun hos (ὅς) (oce), “who” and the third person singular present active indicative form of the verb eimi (εἰμί) (ee-mee), “is” and the nominative masculine singular form of the noun soter (σωτήρ) (so-peer-deh), “Savior” and the genitive masculine plural form of the adjective pas (πᾶς), “of all” which is modifying the genitive masculine plural form of the noun anthropos (ἄνθρωπος) (ahn-throe-poce), “men.”
The noun soter is a title for the Father emphasizing that He is the member of the Trinity who initiated salvation and is its source.
He is the Savior or Deliverer of the human race in a seven-fold sense: (1) Deliverer or Savior from personal sins. (2) Deliverer or Savior from old sin nature (3) Deliverer or Savior from Satan and his cosmic system. (4) Deliverer or Savior from spiritual and physical death (5) Deliverer or Savior from eternal condemnation. (6) Deliverer or Savior from self. (7) Deliverer or Savior from condemnation from the Law.
The eternal life that Paul and Timothy experienced by obedience to the Spirit’s teaching in the Word of God that they are crucified, died, buried, raised and seated with Christ enabled them to experience this seven-fold deliverance.
The noun anthropos is modified by the adjective pas, which is used attributively emphasizing the totality of the human race and specifically it refers to unregenerate humanity.
The adjective is used here in a distributive sense meaning that the word denotes that God the Father is the Savior of “each and every” member of the human race without exception.
“Especially of believers” is composed of the superlative adverb malista (μάλιστα) (mah-lee-stah), “especially” and the genitive masculine plural form of the adjective pistos (πιστός) (pee-stoce), “believers.”
The adverb malista functions as a superlative adverb meaning “especially” and is used to single out those who have exercised faith in Jesus Christ as Savior in contrast to the unsaved or do not.
It is singling out those who appropriate salvation provided by the Father through His Son Jesus Christ through faith alone in Christ alone in contrast to those who don’t appropriate this salvation through unbelief.
The adjective pistos is used as a substantive and means “believers” referring to those who have been converted to Christianity by exercising faith in Jesus Christ as their Savior.