I recently heard a sermon online. The preacher was speaking on 1 Tim 6:12, where Paul tells Timothy: Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called…
After reading the verse, the preacher asked the congregation if they had eternal life. At least a few people thought they knew the answer the preacher was looking for. They yelled out: “Yes!”
But the preacher corrected what he perceived to be their ignorance. He told them they did not yet have eternal life. He pointed out that Paul told Timothy that Timothy was called to have eternal life. He did not presently possess it.
The preacher wanted the congregation to realize that they did not have eternal life. He asked the question two more times, giving those he thought had answered incorrectly the chance to see the error of their ways. I am sure he was satisfied when nobody said they currently had eternal life.
The preacher was wrong. Everyone who has believed in Jesus for eternal life has it now (John 5:24). Paul was hoping that in the world to come, Timothy would have a greater experience of the life he already possessed. To do that, Timothy would need to walk by the Spirit and experience abundant life now (John 10:10). Timothy could grab with gusto the life he already had. If he did, he would have a rich experience of it forever.
That sermon made me sad. The trained and educated speaker was trying to set the untrained and (theologically) uneducated masses straight. Imagine being a believer in the congregation and being asked if you had eternal life. You would be thrilled to answer in the affirmative, only to be shot down and told you were wrong three times.
When I heard that message, I thought about what the Lord said in Matt 21:16. He had just cleaned out the temple and performed many miracles of healing. The children in the temple cried out, “Hosanna to the Son of David” (v 15).
The educated religious leaders of the nation were indignant when they heard the children and challenged Jesus about it. Jesus responded by quoting Ps 8:2: “Have you never read, ‘Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants You have perfected praise’?”
From what I understand, first-century mothers would continue to nurse their children so that the weaning process stretched over several years. I picture these children as four years old and older. They were able to speak. They were proclaiming that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of David. I am sure their parents, having seen the miracles Jesus had done in the Temple, were encouraging their children to do this.
It is difficult to determine the spiritual state of everyone in a crowd. I suppose that some of the parents believed that Jesus was the Christ, and others followed their lead because of the marvelous things happening in the temple. What they were saying was true, regardless of whether or not they understood the significance of their words.
The picture is one of the common people, the “unwashed masses,” proclaiming the truth about the One in their midst. The educated elite tried to stop them from saying what was obvious.
Jesus points out the irony. The babies in the temple were right. The ones with theological PhDs were wrong. The babies were the educated ones. The ones with degrees could have learned from the babies. Israel was in a spiritually sad and dark place.
That is what happened during the sermon I heard. People had come to hear the Bible taught. But at least some of them understood more than the teacher. When asked if they had eternal life, they said they did. If they had believed in Jesus for eternal life, they were right. The teacher was wrong.
I wonder at how the babies and their parents in the temple that day were not discouraged. I hope the people in that preacher’s congregation, whom he no doubt considered theological babies, were not discouraged either.
Unfortunately, many religious leaders agree with the preacher online. Like Israel in the days of the Lord, the Evangelical world is in a sad state.
