Loving Christ’s Appearing An Exposition of 2 Timothy 4:6-10 -- By: W. Ross Rainey

Journal: Emmaus Journal
Volume: EMJ 08:1 (Summer 1999)
Article: Loving Christ’s Appearing An Exposition of 2 Timothy 4:6-10
Author: W. Ross Rainey


Loving Christ’s Appearing
An Exposition of 2 Timothy 4:6-10

W. Ross Rainey*

Introduction

For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love His appearing (2 Timothy 4:6–8).

Around the year of 1627 a Bohemian nobleman, Wenceslaus of Budova, was brought to execution for his faith in Christ. As he stood before the religious and imperial authorities in his final moments, the ecclesiastics made their last attempt to bring him back to the Roman persuasion. Wenceslaus raised his eyes to heaven and replied with conviction, “I have finished my course: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness.” “Ah,” responded his religious persecutors, “those words were true for the apostle, not for thee.” “Nay,” he rejoined, “you forgot what follows: ‘Not to me only, but unto all them also that love His appearing.’”1

* Ross Rainey is an itinerant Bible teacher who resides in Plymouth, Michigan. He has been serving the Lord in North America since 1954 in the areas of evangelism, Bible teaching, conferences, and pastoral ministry. He is a former visiting instructor at Emmaus Bible School in Oak Park and has taught at Kawartha Lakes Bible School in Peterborough, Ontario. For an earlier article on this chapter see W. Ross Rainey, “Portrait of a Preacher: An Exposition of 2 Timothy 4:1–5, ” EmJ 4(1995): 31-36.

What a thrilling and beautiful application of a profound truth!

Unless one has come to know Christ as his Savior and Lord, and seeks to live in fellowship with Him, he simply cannot have an earnest desire for the Lord’s second appearing, or genuinely look forward to the future apart from a sense of inward fear.

We need to understand what it really means to love Christ’s appearing, remembering that in this brief passage of Scripture we have some of the last words penned by the Apostle Paul as he faced a martyr’s death. For this reason alone it is important that we carefully examine what he had to say as he looked around and faced death, noting first of all the expression of:

His Soon Release (4:6)

Paul spoke of his impending death in a twofold way, first as:

A Drink Offering

For I am now read...

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