The Practical Effects of This Truth in Apostolic Experience
T. Croskery 1 Timothy 4:10 For therefore we both labor and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Savior of all men… Looking to the realization of this promise, the apostle reminds Timothy how he was borne up by it in all his labor and suffering. I. ITS SUSTAINING EFFICACY. "For to this end do we labor and suffer reproach." 1. The apostle did not regard the life promised to godliness as one of mere corporeal enjoyment. 2. His life was actually one of severe and toilsome labor as well as of trying but unmerited reproach. 3. Yet he was stimulated to increased toil and supported under the infliction of unjust reproach by the thought of the promise involved in the life of true godliness. II. THE SOLID BASIS OF CHRISTIAN EXPECTATION UNDER TOIL AND SHAME. "Because we have set our hope upon the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of those that believe." 1. The blessed nature and continuity of this hope. (1) It is the good hope through grace which we enjoy. (2) Life would be a blank without it. "If in this life only we have hope, we are of all men most miserable." (3) It is linked with patience. "But if we hope for that which we see not, then do we with patience wait for it" (Romans 7:25). (4) It is a permanent and continuous hope, as the tense of the verb here signifies. 2. The ground or basis of this hope. "Upon the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of those that believe." (1) This hope is from the "God of hope" (Romans 15:13), who is the living God; that is, no mere God of imagination, but a real personal Agent, the very Fountain of life in infinite sufficiency. (2) It is a hope linked to salvation in its widest sense - both "the life that now is, and that which is to come." For God is "the Savior of all men, especially of those that believe." (a) The Saviorship here has relation to the two lives of men, as expressed in the context. In the one sense, God is a Savior of all men, since by his watchful and sustaining providence he preserves them from destruction; in the other, he offers and bestows eternal life. (b) The words do not warrant the Universalist conclusion that all men will be ultimately saved. The passage makes an express distinction between all "men" and "believers" inconsistent with this view. - T.C. Parallel Verses KJV: For therefore we both labour and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, specially of those that believe. WEB: For to this end we both labor and suffer reproach, because we have set our trust in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of those who believe.