I Timothy 1 v 19b – 20 - Professing Christians, Serious wayward behaviour and Excommunication [1]

 Because they were persistently blaspheming, ‘Hymenaeus and Alexander, [were] yielded up to Satan, the adversarial accuser, in order that they may be trained not to blaspheme,’ (I Timothy 1 v 19b – 20). A similar phrase is used in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. ‘Delivering to Satan’ conveys the same idea as when Jesus said, “If he is continuing to disregard the fellowship [then] he is to you just like the ‘outsider’ and [like] the one who gathers taxes from the Jews for ‘outsiders’”. In other words he or she is serving the opposition. At Corinth the Christian leaders and assembly were to regard the man who was excommunicated as separated away from them. As cut off from the Kingdom of God, like foreskin is cut off in circumcision, as belonging within the orderly arrangement of the world under the delegated authority of Satan. To exclude someone from the Kingdom of God is by default to place him or her into the dominion of Satan.

Paul says that the purpose or aim in handing Hymenaeus and Alexander over to Satan was that they will be trained, educated and disciplined not to blaspheme. We are not to interpret Paul’s action as a punishment, or as an attempt to make them pay off the debt that their improper speech incurred. Rather it is about training and education towards godliness and cleanliness. And about the maintenance of the cleanliness of the assembly and reverence for God and the gospel. 

In Corinth the aim was to bring the excommunicated man’s physical body and its fleshly raw passions to ruination and loss. He was not being handed over for the destruction of his body, or to die. Rather he was being handed over for the ruination of his flesh. For bringing about the end result of his fleshly passions – the proportionate recompense within himself - so that he might be humbled and brought back to the path of godly cleanliness and be recalled to virtue by means of his suffering, discomfort and loss. The aim was that this man’s mind and body would be shaken, buffeted and afflicted such that he would be brought to his senses regarding his gross sexual behaviour, and then repent of it by making humble acknowledgment of it and turning away from it. 

Paul teaches that this affliction and torment, this ruination of the flesh, is the work of Satan. He presents Satan as the author of bodily diseases such that even of himself, Paul says that ‘in order to keep me from becoming conceited I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me’, (II Corinthians 12 v 7). Similarly, we also have this statement regarding Jesus healing on the Sabbath: ‘a woman was there whom a breath had crippled for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all.... [Jesus said] “Shouldn’t this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free?”’ (Luke 13 v 11, 16).

The divinely disapproved-of and God-opposing speech, attitudes and behaviours of both the man in Corinth and of Hymenaeus and Alexander, were extremely unacceptable. They were opposed to God and public. Their behaviours were not ‘hidden away out of sight’ but were clearly known about and heard both within the Christian assemblies and by ‘outsiders’. More than this, these three men, who declared that they were Christians, were disregarding the assembly and in many ways serving the purposes of those were opposed to God. For these reasons they had to be removed from the fellowship, they had to be dis-identified with and separated away from the assembly in order to protect the honour of God and the reputation of the fellowship. But the aim was that they might turn around and away from such speech and behaviours.

I Timothy 1 v 18, 19 - Elders and Christians bringing the gospel into disrepute

 In verse 15 Paul stated the good news of the Messiah very succinctly. In verses 3 – 7 he stated that some were missing the mark with regard to this good news or gospel. Some were becoming absorbed in myths, others in endless genealogical details, and others wanted to be experts in Covenant law. Paul explained that divine is law is good but that it is not intended for the righteous. It is for the unrighteous and lawless. Paul agrees that before he became a Christian he was very lawless. He persecuted and oppressed Jews who were embracing Christianity. But he says that he acted in ignorance and despite his behaviour, God’s mercy through His anointed son, Jesus, super-abounded.

I have stayed with Paul’s account to Timothy because Paul now moves on to two Christians who had fallen into behaviour that also openly opposed the gospel and was bringing it into disrepute. How did the Apostle deal with these two Christians? Did he quote Levitical law and the Ten Commandments to them? That is what legalists would do. Let’s see what Paul did in the next three verses. 

‘I place alongside this injunction to you Timothy my child, down from the prophecies going before you, that you serve as a soldier within them, the good military service. 19 possessing entrustment and a good conscience', (I Timothy 1 v 18, 19a). First of all, Paul gives an exhortation to Timothy who is a ruling elder in this assembly. This exhortation was either based either on some earlier assessments by fellow Christians in relation to Timothy, or (more probably) on the basis of some revelations that Paul, or some other believers had received concerning Timothy. Paul tells Timothy to serve as a good soldier of the Messiah within the Ephesian assembly, particularly within their leaders. He encourages Timothy to hold on to faith and a good conscience. This leads Paul to make a statement about some of these leaders and especially about two wayward Christians named Hymenaeus and Alexander. 

Paul says that ‘some have pushed away, causing a shipwreck around entrustment', (I Timothy 1 v 19b). They have pushed away from the basic teaching of the gospel that Paul had announced to the Ephesians, as we have just seen. Hymenaeus and Alexander were two Christians who had a tendency to blaspheme – to defame, revile, to speak evil and irreverently. In other words, they were acting like ‘outsiders’ and bringing disrepute upon the gospel, God and Jesus. All of these people were causing a shipwreck around entrusting and being persuaded of the Messiah. They were creating opposition and resistance to the gospel. Thus Paul begins by exhorting Timothy not to be like them, but rather to ‘serve like a soldier holding on to faith and a good conscience’.

So what did Paul do with regard to Hymenaeus and Alexander? Did he refer them to Covenant law? No, although the principle and aim of Covenant law no doubt informed his decision. Christians are not summoned by God to then behave in a way that causes resistance to the gospel. Such behaviour is not down from the Breath of God. Christians ‘walking within the Breath’ do not regularly and persistently ‘rubbish’ God, Jesus or the gospel. Such speech and behaviour brings the gospel and the assembly into negative criticism and leads ‘outsiders’ into dismissal of the gospel. Paul’s decision was that since they were behaving like ‘outsiders’, opposing the gospel and bringing God and His Messiah into disrepute, he ‘handed them over to Satan’. They were no longer acknowledged as being associated with the Ephesian assembly. Help, support and fellowship was withdrawn from them and they were ‘back in the worldly arrangement’.

I Timothy 1 v 12 – 14 - Self-forfeiture before being brought forth by God

Paul anticipates a potential objection. Didn’t he once persecute Christians? Didn’t he once engage in a mission to hunt down Hebrew Christians to force them to turn back to Judaism? Didn’t he stand by as an observer who approved of Stephen being stoned to death? Isn’t he like one of the very people who he has just being describing – one strongly opposed to Christian teaching? So he goes on to say, ‘I have thankfulness for the [one] having strengthened me, Jesus the Messiah, our Lord, that he led me faithfully, having placed me into service, 13 formerly being a blasphemer, a persecutor and damaging insulter’. (I Timothy 1 v 12 – 13a). Paul admits that this is exactly what he was like. But then he adds, ‘But I was shown mercy, because being ignorant I constructed within lack of faith, 14 and the graciousness of our Lord exceedingly abounded, in company with entrustment and beneficial love within the Messiah, Jesus’, (I Timothy 1 v 13b – 14). In effect, one of the things he is saying is that Christians do not act in the kind of ways that he has just been describing. He says, ‘Yes, its is true. I did act in that way, as persecutor and blasphemer, but I was acting in ignorance, within lack of knowledge and perception, and what I was doing was in the sphere of lack of entrustment and persuasion. This was how I was before I became a Christian.’ He then says that despite his excessive opposition, the free gift and mercy of God and His Messiah ‘exceedingly abounded’ – it was superabundant, it went beyond his self-forfeiture and was super-plentiful. God’s graciousness came in company with persuasion and entrustment – faith – and practical beneficial love within God’s anointed the Messiah.