Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 2 Timothy · About this commentary
Who Abolished Death
2 Timothy 1:8-10
8 Therefore don’t be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner; but endure hardship for the Good News according to the power of God, · WEB
Do not be ashamed of a prisoner — and the reason given runs from before time began to an empty grave.
Don't be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner. The two are joined deliberately, and the second is the harder. A message can be defended in the abstract; a friend in chains is a public association with a convict.
Notice that Paul calls himself the Lord's prisoner rather than Rome's, as he does elsewhere Ephesians 3:1. The chain has a different owner in his telling.
Then the grounds, enormous for a paragraph about embarrassment. God saved and called us not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace, given in Christ Jesus before times eternal — before there was anyone to give it to, which places it outside anything Timothy's performance could affect.
Verse 10 brings it into daylight. It has now been revealed by the appearing of our Savior, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the Good News. The verb for abolished means put out of commission; death is not denied but decommissioned. A man about to be executed writes that sentence, and the letter never treats it as bravado.
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