God’s Word for You

2 Timothy 1:2 Grace, mercy and peace

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Thursday, May 28, 2026

2 To Timothy, my beloved child: Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

By this time, Timothy was no longer a “child” in the physical sense. Paul invited Timothy to join him in ministry at the beginning of the Second Missionary Journey (50-52 AD), when Timothy was certainly still a young man. He circumcised him at that time (Acts 16:3), and from that time Timothy (not yet twenty) was Paul’s closest companion. When Paul made his long stay in Ephesus, Timothy went to Corinth as the Apostle’s emissary (Acts 19:22; 1 Corinthians 4:17). After this, the two traveled back to Jerusalem together (Acts 20:4). When Paul was in his first imprisonment in Rome, Timothy was with him (Philippians 1:1; Colossians 1:1; Philemon 1:1). Then, Paul tells us, he sent Timothy to Philippi as soon as the outcome of that trial was certain (Philippians 2:19-23). By that time, Timothy must have been in his late twenties or early thirties (Paul was released in 62 or 63). There is a remark in Hebrews 13:23 that Timothy was himself imprisoned for a while, and was later released. According to the traditions of the early church, Timothy was made bishop (overseeing pastor) of Ephesus, and died as a martyr under either Domitian (Emperor from 81-96) or Nerva (96-98). Here in 2 Timothy, young Timothy would have been in his middle to late thirties.

So in what sense is he a “child” (τέκνoν)? He was Paul’s spiritual son. Timothy had learned the trade of being a shepherd in the church of God. He had been raised as a Christian by his mother and grandmother (verse 5), but his docrine and the practice of caring for souls, and rightly handling the word of God, had to be taught by the preaching and teaching of Paul in the same way that the smith teaches his son to use the hammer, tongs, and forge, or the farmer teaches his son to plow, plant, weed, and harvest. So Paul calls Timothy his spiritual son as he does in the first letter (1 Timothy 1:2) and Titus as well (Titus 1:4), and as Peter does with Mark (1 Peter 5:13). And in the same way Paul told the Corinthians that he had become their father in Christ (1 Corinthians 4:14-15; 2 Corinthians 6:13). This reminds us of Elisha crying to Elijah as “My father! My father!” (2 Kings 2:12).

Paul sends a three-fold blessing to his spiritual son: “Grace, mercy, and peace.” This is an excellent moment to remember the meaning of these three words, and how they relate to one another.

Grace (charis, χάρις) is the love of God that sinners don’t deserve, but which God gives and shows to us because he is gracious and loving. By nature we are outside God’s grace. It doesn’t matter what family we come from, or what nation, or what race, or what we think of politics. None of these things contribute anything at all to our salvation. So God wants to us turn our hearts away from these things, and anything else that we might think of as being helpful. He doesn’t want us to have any confidence at all in what family we were born into, or who we vote for, or what color is our flesh, for underneath the skin we are all the flesh of Adam, and that means that we are all damned. And when we have been humbled and have felt the power and authority and heard the loud bang of the gavel that pronounces us guilty over our sins, and we stand condemned as if with a rope around our necks, thirteen steps up on a scaffold, with nothing but death and eternal death facing us. Then we truly know our helplessness. And then God holds out his grace, saying to us, “I have the only thing that will help you, if only you will trust me. It is my Son, who gave his life, died, and rose again for your sake.” This is grace.

Mercy (éleos, ἔλεος) is the reserve God uses, the willful pulling back of his hand, which should strike us down, swat us like flies, but instead withholds his wrath and his punishment for the sake of Jesus. If someone wants to divide mercy from grace, which for some might not be an easy task, then they might think of it this way: Grace is the love of God that we don’t deserve. Mercy is the pity of God that is always at work on behalf of those he loves. “Mercy,” explains our Professor Deustchlander, “is the kind of love that is provoked by the need and misery of someone.” In the New Testament, lepers and blind men cry out to Jesus for pity, for mercy. We pray, in the liturgy of the church, “Lord have mercy on us, Christ has mercy on us, Lord have mercy on us.” We beg him for his mercy because we are as needy and miserable as the blind men and lepers who cried out to him as he walked past in Galilee, in Samaria, in Jericho, and in Jerusalem. “Come here, too, Lord Jesus!” we cry. “We need you too!”

Peace (eirēnē, εἰρήνη) is the gift God offers along with his forgiveness and loving grace and mercy. Peace is the end of hostility. It is the hangman pulling off my hood, loosening the loop of rope from around my neck, untying my hands, and telling me that I am free. And if I may extend the little scene in terms of what Christ has done, this peace has come because my defending attorney, my spiritual Perry Mason, has taken my punishment on himself in my place. “Bind my hands, not his,” my Jesus says. “Slip that noose around my neck; I will not wriggle free. Put the hood over my head if you like. And you, hangman—I forgive you what you are about to do, too.” The lever is pulled, the trapdoor swings, the body of my Savior falls; his neck is broken. For me. It is done. All for me. The death sentence for my sin is carried out. But Jesus then rose from the dead! And the judgment and sentence? Paid in full, for his sake. There are no more “Wanted” posters in every town on earth, clutched by the devil and his demons, out to get me at every turn of the road. The posters are all burned, my Savior lives, the devil is defeated, and I am at peace with God. This is peace. This is the end of sin.

Why does Paul say “From God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord” without adding “and from the Holy Spirit”? For this, I think, we can receive a little help from the Apostles’ Creed. For in the Creed, we confess with each article, “I believe in God the Father… I believe in Jesus Christ…,” and “I believe in the Holy Spirit.” But in the original Greek text of the Creed, the second article does not have “I believe in” (πιστεύω εἰς) but only, “and in” (καὶ εἰς). In the Greek language, this emphasizes the equality of Christ with the Father. Not that the equality of the Spirit was in question, but since in the Old Testament the Holy Spirit is mentioned many times (Genesis 1:2; Psalm 51:11; Isaiah 63:10, and so on) there was not any question about the divinity of the Holy Spirit. In the early church, there was a need to emphasize the divinity of God the Son in particular.

Today, we have another dilemma. There are many Christians who spend their weekends away at a lake house or a cabin, and often claim that they are worshiping God in their own way, appreciating nature. I cannot question this or read their hearts. But assuming that they do, in fact, praise God for his created gifts, this is still only a First Article faith, a faith that rests on God the Father, but not on the work and benefits of God the Son. There is nothing wrong with proclaiming the First Article, but without the Second Article of the Creed, belief in Jesus Christ his dear Son, we too easily forget the forgiveness of sins and the promise of eternal life. Of course, we want a fully balanced faith, a proper understanding and trust in God in all three Articles: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But let us especially dwell upon the Second Article, on Jesus Christ our Lord, for his Apostle says, “Everyone who denies the Son does not have the Father. But the one who confesses the Son has the Father as well” (1 John 2:23).

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

Browse Devotion Archive