2 Timothy 1:2 – Christ from Every Angle

1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, according to the promise of life which is in Christ Jesus,

2 To Timothy, a beloved son:

Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus…

"We should consider the Word ," offers Charles Spurgeon in Morning and Evening, "to be as a mirror into which Christ looks down from heaven; and then we, looking into it, see His face reflected as in a glass-darkly." Spurgeon qualifies, "It is true, but still in such a way as to be a blessed preparation for seeing Him as we shall see Him face to face."

Blessedly, Scripture itself aids us in developing this Christ centrality. Opening his second letter to Timothy in the canon, Paul has mentioned Christ three times already before the second verse is concluded. Even with the pressing business that will unfold and what comes down to us as 2 Timothy, it takes but little, it seems, to draw the old apostle's thoughts toward his, and our, Savior. 

Paul has, as we have seen, already considered Christ integral to his own ministry, job, and calling. He leaves off that way. Lest we consider Christ as something he put on and took off as the role demanded, like a work ID or uniform, he quickly relieves us of this notion. What Paul is, has told us, he is according to the promise of life which is in Christ Jesus. Even his breathing, even his sleeping, what he is off the clock, so to speak, he is because Christ saves and maintains him.

And yet, inspired, he focuses his words to determine that he has not yet spoken enough of Christ. Even his exalted contemplations of God the Father cannot be enhanced, magnified, echoed without just consideration of the Son. If manna, after all, shows the Father's grace, how much more His Son as the Bread of Life? If the Passover marking the Father's mercy, how much more His laying our sins on His Son? If, for instance, the Father's repudiation of Balaam's mission to slander Israel shows His posture of peace, how much MORE His depositing of the Spirit inside us because of the righteousness that is ours in His Son. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus indeed!

With such company on either end, even the conjunction "and" vibrates with meaning. We delegate and demarcate. They, Father and Son, One from the beginning delighting in each other, conjoined to reveal one another's glory. Earthly monarchs are jealous of prerogatives, and we all reign over our jealous idea of our own kingdom and mission. Yet They offer us an internal model of perfect community to go back to again and again. We can hope to cooperate with and celebrate one another because we continually renew ourselves in Them.

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