God’s Word for You

2 Timothy 2:17-18 The resurrection

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Thursday, June 25, 2026

17 Their teaching will find its pasture like gangrene. Such are Hymenaeus and Philetus, 18 who have wandered away from the truth. They say that the resurrection has already happened, and they ruin the faith of some.

Paul says that the teaching (logos, λόγος) of the false teachers—those who do not correctly handle the word of truth—will find its nomen (νομὴν). I think that Paul is making a play on words here, because nomen sounds like nomos (νόμος), which means “law,” as if their teaching is the law of the Lord (Exodus 13:9), the law that goes out from Zion (Micah 4:2). But it is not nomos at all, but nomen, “pasture,” Their teaching is merely pasture for gangrene. This is the only time gangrene is mentioned in the Scriptures, but the Greek physician Galen (contemporary with the apostolic fathers) insisted on early treatment in patients to prevent the disease from spreading and killing the patient. The disease “finding pasture” also calls to mind sheep or goats eating all of the good grass in an area, and then moving on, leaving bare patches behind. Luther rightly says, “No bodily pestilence is as contagious for the body as the teaching of godlessness is for the soul… Just as the wise are called the soundness of the world, so the ungodly are justly called the pestilence of the world. Indeed, what more pernicious deceit is there than to give a deadly poison to souls hungry for pure truth?” (LW 14:290).

Two specific and immediate examples for Paul and Timothy are the false prophets Hymenaeus and Philetus. The former is probably the same man named in 1 Timothy 1:20 who was “handed over to Satan to be taught not to blaspheme.” The teaching of these men is described as the claim that the resurrection had already taken place. This might have been similar to the false teaching that was troubling the Thessalonians, that the second coming of Christ had already happened (1 Thessalonians 4:13-14; 2 Thessalonians 2:1-2). But here it is specifically the resurrection that is meant. The teaching could have been either of these:

1, That the dead had been raised, that the judgment had already also taken place, but that those who were still alive on earth were somehow unaware that the judgment had been made. Yet they might therefore now be able to sin with impunity, since they were already judged! Surely this would be one of “the depths of Satan” (Revelation 2:24), a lie that was spoken to kill souls. The men who spoke such things would perhaps have reasoned that since God had judged, he did not now know their sins, and therefore would not condemn those sins, a misapplication of the Psalm that says, “They are free from the burdens common to man; they are not plagued by human ills” (Psalm 73:5), which of course goes on to tell the terrible truth: “Therefore pride is their necklace,,, They say, ‘How can God know? Does the Most High know about this?’” (Psalm 73:6,11).

2, That the last day was still to come, but that a resurrection of bodies should not be expected on that day. There were some early church fathers who caught wind of this sort of teaching, saying that the argument of the false teaching was that statements in the Bible that talk about the resurrection were references to a spiritual resurrection of the soul from the death of sins. This is all very philosophical, and it gives up on the comfort of any physical resurrection, therefore sending people into despair rather than giving comfort. Another variation on this teaching, exposed by Ambrose and Theodoret, was that “they had said that the resurrection had occurred through the procreation of children.”

Notice that the Gospels, especially John’s, speak very clearly about the resurrection of the flesh: Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live” (John 5:25). And again, “A time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out” (John 5:28-29). And yet again, the Lord says about all those who have faith in him: “I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:54). Professor Gerhard speaks comforting words about this: “Christ is resurrection itself because he not only rouses bodies from the grave but also souls from sin. He is life itself and the source of life because he grants not only natural but also spiritual and eternal life” (Commonplace XXX, On the Resurrection §15)

Teaching the contrary, which still happens in some churches that do nothing but allegorize the Scriptures, “ruins the faith” of their people. If there is no resurrection, then there is no judgment. If there is no judgment, then there is no real consequence for sin. And if there is no real consequence for sin… the syllogism leads inevitably to more sin and corruption of souls, and the laughter of Satan echoes throughout the hallways of hell, fast filling up with more and more modern men and women. This is how it is with false teachers and heretics. They are not content with their own destruction but destroy many along with themselves, as if they need to prove that if someone else believes along with them, that they might be right after all, and so “Their teaching will find its pasture like gangrene.” What they speak are “false hopes; dreams that give wings to fools.”

Here we see the danger of this kind of false teaching. It eats away at the human heart, but from two sides. On the one side, the false teachers themselves suffer the damage of pride; they have been attacked by the devil who has whispered in their ears to puff up their opinions of themselves. They need to hear the law preached in all its savage purity to have this pride crushed and ground down to dust. But on the other side, the poor people who are misled by them suffer from despair. They lose hope, or have already lost it, and they are crushed by the weight of their sins. They do not need to hear the law. They need the sweet healing message of the gospel. They need to hear that their loved ones will indeed rise in the flesh on the last day, and that they will be reunited with them physically, spiritually, and eternally in heaven. For the gospel is everything that Christ brings: the promises of the forgiveness of sins, justification, and eternal life. This is also why in our creed, we are careful to proclaim, “I believe in the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting.” “For on the Last Day God will raise me and all the dead and give eternal life to me and all believers in Christ. This is most certainly true.”

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

Browse Devotion Archive