Repudiating Its Power

They will maintain the outward appearance of religion but will have repudiated its power. So avoid people like these. – 2 Timothy 3:5 (NET)

Let’s consider Paul’s use of the term “power.” It makes frequent appearances in his writings. To take just a couple of examples that set out Paul’s opinion concerning power, we can look to the first chapter of Romans. There, Paul refers to Jesus as the Son-of-God-in-power (1:4). He then goes on to declare that the Gospel “is God’s power for salvation to everyone who believes” (1:16b). Here, Paul equates the Gospel of Jesus, which is the message that Jesus is the crucified and resurrected Lord of all, with power. For Paul, the very declaration of the fact of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, by the prompting of the Holy Spirit (for one only calls Jesus Lord---confesses a trusting allegiance in the Gospel---by the movement of the Holy Spirit – 1 Corinthians 12:3), is what releases the inherent transformative power of the Resurrection into the world.

Returning to the second letter of Timothy, we read that through “our Savior Christ Jesus,” that God has “broken the power of death and brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel” (1:10). Paul here informs us that the power of the Gospel is such that it breaks the power of death. Since the Gospel includes the message of One that was raised from the dead, such an insistence is a necessary corollary. It goes beyond the breaking of death’s power, as the Gospel brings life and immortality. To see this life and immortality, Paul has only to reflect on the fact that the risen Jesus is alive and ruling the kingdom of God that has been inaugurated, in a world that is now subject to two forces (death and Resurrection), and in which one of those forces (death) has already been defeated, while all creation, together with the people of God, await the consummation of that kingdom and the installation of the force of Resurrection as the animating principle of God’s kingdom in a restored and renewed creation. With this, Paul, in hope, awaits the life and immortality to be shared by God’s people, through Christ, in the Resurrection to come.

Having spoken in this way, Paul goes on to insist, “For this Gospel I was appointed a preacher and apostle and teacher” (1:11), with a clear echo (along with his talk of power) of the opening of Romans, as he refers to himself as “a slave of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the Gospel of God” (Romans 1:1). Later on, we will re-visit this use of “slave.” To Timothy, he continues on to write, “Because of this, in fact, I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed, because I know the One in Whom my faith is set” (1:12a). Paul’s use of “not ashamed” immediately evokes thoughts of Romans 1:16 again, where he announces the power of the message of the crucified yet risen Lord, prefacing it with the words “I am not ashamed.”

It is with these things under consideration that we advance to the third chapter of the letter to Timothy, finding Paul referencing those that hold to the outward appearance of religion, while repudiating its power (3:5). It would probably not be a mistake to equate Paul’s use of “power” here with his conception of the Gospel as power, and find him in rebuke of those that, quite simply, do not preach the message of the Gospel of Jesus. These people might very well have spoken of Jesus in certain ways, but quite likely, were leaving out that part of the message about Jesus that caused Paul to resolutely affirm that he was “not ashamed.” That would have been, without a doubt, the fact of the crucifixion. Less so, but certainly still, that would have included the message of the Resurrection. It is easy to understand people going about preaching Jesus’ kingdom ethics and miraculous deeds without reference to the shame and cursing of the crucifixion. It is just as easy to understand a reluctance to preach the Resurrection, as physical resurrection of a dead man, especially one that had been crucified, was such a preposterous idea. Paul has concluded that, in effect, preaching Jesus without the crucifixion and the Resurrection, and therefore not preaching the Gospel in its fullness, was nothing more than repudiation of the power of God.

A bit later on, Paul would describe the end result of preaching Jesus without reference to the crucifixion and Resurrection, which would be the propensity to “turn aside to myths” (4:4b), which would serve to turn Jesus into something of a strictly mythological, spiritual figure, in which there is a nod to the fact of His earthly existence, but little more than that. This Jesus would not be firmly rooted in history and in an accurate historical context that challenged all of the power structures of His day (and still does), instead, making him into something of a preacher of free-floating aphorisms and “timeless truths,” detached from the fullness of the Gospel message about Him and therefore robbed of His power and significance.

Having made his point about the turning to myths, Paul goes on to exhort Timothy to “do an evangelist’s work” (4:5). This brings us back to Paul’s consideration of the power of the Gospel and his conception of himself as a slave. An evangelist is a person who speaks forth “evangelion.” This is “good news,” or better yet, “gospel.” In that day, the “gospel” was generally limited to announcements about Caesar. The person who made these announcements would be a slave, or an evangelist. In this, Paul is encouraging Timothy to become as he has so often described himself to be, which is a slave, so as to “fulfill your ministry” (4:5). That ministry, first and foremost, is the preaching of the Gospel of power---that Jesus the Messiah (the Son of God, Son of Man, and king of Israel) is the crucified and resurrected Lord of all peoples and creation. This is the Jesus and the Gospel that we preach, which transforms first our hearts and minds and lives, while having power to effect the same in those that hear. Failing to do so---failing to consistently, and without fail, teach and preach our Lord Jesus crucified, resurrected, and glorified---is a failure to preach the Gospel, and is nothing short of a repudiation of the power of God. We cannot speak of a God of power, or a Lord and Savior, in absence of the message of the crucifixion and Resurrection. It simply is an impossibility.