Salvation does not ultimately rest upon our faithfulness, but upon the faithfulness of Christ. Why? Because He cannot deny Himself. The Christians assurance is rooted not in ourselves and some misconceived notion that we keep ourselves saved, but rather, it is firmly rooted in the unchanging character of God Himself.
Good try.
But this is not what it means.
I've already posted this and repeating is rather boring.
But here goes...
2 Timothy 2:12
If we deny Him
He also will deny us
2 Timothy 2:13
If we are faithless, He remains faithful
For He cannot deny Himself
Just let's make it easy for a moment.
Does the word of God contradict itself?
NO.
So if 12 says He WILL deny us IF we deny HIM
How could 13 say that even if we're faithless, HE will still be faithful to us?
If we ever deny Jesus at some point, HE WILL SURELY DENY US. This is plain to understand.
So how is Jesus faithful to Himself? This is the question.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers
(13) If we believe not.—Better rendered, if we are faithless—that is, untrue to the vows of our Christian profession. The faithlessness implies more than mere unbelief in any of the fundamental doctrines of the faith, such as the Resurrection of the Lord or His divinity.
Yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself.—Those who have understood these words as containing soothing, comforting voices for the sinner, for the faithless Christian who has left his first love, are gravely mistaken. The passage is one of distinct severity—may even be termed one of the sternest in the Book of Life; for it tells how it is impossible even for the pitiful Redeemer to forgive in the future life. “He cannot deny Himself”—cannot treat the faithless as though he were faithful—cannot act as though faithfulness and faithlessness were one and the same thing. The Christian teacher, such as Timothy, and the members of his flock likewise, must remember that, sure and certain as are the promises of glory and happiness to those who love the Lord and try to live His life, so surely will fall the chastisement on all who are faithless and untrue.
With the solemn words of this “faithful saying” St. Paul closes this, the second division of his Epistle—fellowship in the sufferings of Christ here, on this side the grave, and fellowship in the glory of Christ there, on the other side the grave—the one side was the sure consequence of the other; the one could not exist without the other.
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Expositor's Greek Testament
2 Timothy 2:13. εἰ ἀπιοτοῦμεν: It is reasonable to hold that the sense of ἀπιστέω in this place must be determined by the antithesis of πιστὸς μένει. Now πιστός, as applied to God, must mean faithful (Deuteronomy 7:9); one who “keepeth truth for ever” (Psalm 146:6; 2 Corinthians 1:18; 1 Thessalonians 5:24; 2 Thessalonians 3:3; Hebrews 10:23; Hebrews 11:11). There is the same contrast in Romans 3:3, “Shall their want of faith (ἀπιστία) make of none effect the faithfulness (πίστιν) of God?” But while we render ἀπιστοῦμεν, with R.V., are faithless, we must remember that unreliability and disbelief in the truth were closely allied in St. Paul’s conception of them.
ἀρνήσασθαι γὰρ—οὐ δύναται: Being essentially the unchangeable Truth, He cannot be false to His own nature, as we, when ἀπιστοῦμεν, are false to our better nature which has affinity with the Eternal. A lie in word, or unfaithfulness in act, is confessedly only an expedient to meet a temporary difficulty; it involves a disregard of the permanent element in our personality. The more a man realises the transitory nature of created things, and his own kinship with the Eternal, the more unnatural and unnecessary does falsity in word or deed appear to him. It is therefore inconceivable that God should lie (Numbers 23:19; 1 Samuel 15:29; Malachi 3:6; Titus 1:2; Hebrews 6:18). The application of the clause here is not that “He will not break faith with us” (Alf.), but that the consideration of our powerlessness to affect the constancy of God our Father should brace us up to exhibit moral courage, as being His “true children”.
Fran