2 Timothy 2:8-13: a reflection

8Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, of the offspring of David, according to my Good News, 9in which I suffer hardship to the point of chains as a criminal. But God’s word isn’t chained. 10Therefore I endure all things for the chosen ones’ sake, that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. 11This saying is trustworthy: “For if we died with him, we will also live with him. 12If we endure, we will also reign with him. If we deny him, he also will deny us. 13If we are faithless, he remains faithful; for he can’t deny himself.”

Paul, writing from prison in chains, hands Timothy a trustworthy saying, and it builds through a series of if-then lines until it reaches one that breaks the pattern beautifully. If we died with him, we will live with him; if we endure, we will reign; if we deny him, he will deny us; and then: if we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself.

Notice how that last line turns. You expect the pattern to continue, if we are faithless, he will be faithless too. But it does not. Our faithlessness does not make God faithless. His faithfulness does not rest on ours; it rests on his own unchanging character. He remains faithful for he cannot deny himself. To stop being faithful, God would have to stop being God, and he will not.

That is an anchor for anyone who knows their own inconsistency, the up-and-down of a faith that wavers, the shame of having been faithless again. Your steadiness is not what holds the relationship together; his is. When you have been faithless, the ground you stand on is not your fluctuating loyalty but his fixed faithfulness, which does not rise and fall with yours. He cannot deny himself. Lean your wavering faith on his unwavering faithfulness.

Lord, when I have been faithless again, thank you that you remain faithful, because you cannot deny yourself. My steadiness is not what holds us together; yours is. Let me lean my wavering faith on your unwavering faithfulness.