1 Timothy 1:11

According to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(11) According to the glorious gospel.—All that St. Paul had been saying concerning the Law—its true work and its only work—was no mere arbitrary conception of his own; it was simply a repetition of the teaching of the gospel which his Master had intrusted to him, the gospel which taught so clearly that the Law was for the condemnation of sinners—that it was for those alone who do not accept the easy yoke and the light burden of the Lord Jesus.

Of the blessed God.—The whole sentence is more accurately translated, according to the gospel of the glory of the blessed God. (Comp. 2Corinthians 4:4.) “The glory of the blessed God,” whether as shown in the sufferings of Christ or in the riches of His great mercy, is that which is contained in and revealed by the gospel; in other words, the “contents” of the gospel is the glory and majesty of God. God is called here “blessed,” not only on account of His eternal and changeless perfection, but also on account of His blessed gift of forgiveness, offered to all sinners who accept His gospel of love.

Which was committed to my trust.—This precious deposit, this “trust,” the gospel of the glory of God, was perhaps, in St. Paul’s eyes, his truest title to honour. When we inquire more closely what was exactly meant by “the gospel committed to his trust,” something more definite seems to be required than the general answer that he was a minister of the Church, intrusted with the proclamation of his Master’s blessed message. If this were all, St. Paul’s loved title to honour would have been by no means peculiar to him, but would have been shared by many another in that great company of prophets, teachers, and evangelists of the Church of the first days. St. Paul rather seems to have gloried in some peculiar and most precious trust. Was it not possibly in that Gospel of “Luke,” which some of the most venerated of the fathers tell us St. Paul was accustomed to mention as the Gospel written by him? (Irenæus, Origen, Jerome.) It was, perhaps, this blessed privilege of having been judged worthy to compile, under the direction of the Holy Ghost—or, at all events, largely to furnish materials for—one of the precious records of his adorable Master’s earthly lite and work and suffering which St. Paul loved to tell of as his proudest title to honour.

To his own disciples—as well as to those who disputed his apostolic authority—he would now and again refer to this, the highest of all honours bestowed on him by his Master; but there the boasting of the holy and humble man of God ended. Though the blessed evangelist St. Paul knew his work was for all the ages, the true humility of the noble servant of Jesus appears in the substitution of “Luke” for “St. Paul”—the scribe’s name in place of that of the real author.

MacLaren's Expositions

1 Timothy

‘THE GOSPEL OF THE GLORY OF THE HAPPY GOD’

1 Timothy 1:11.

Two remarks of an expository character will prepare the way for our consideration of this text. The first is, that the proper rendering is that which is given in the Revised Version--’the gospel of the glory,’ not the ‘glorious gospel.’ The Apostle is not telling us what kind of thing the Gospel is, but what it is about. He is dealing not with its quality, but with its contents. It is a Gospel which reveals, has to do with, is the manifestation of, the glory of God.

Then the other remark is with reference to the meaning of the word ‘blessed.’ There are two Greek words which are both translated ‘blessed’ in the New Testament. One of them, the more common, literally means ‘well spoken of,’ and points to the action of praise or benediction; describes what a man is when men speak well of him, or what God is when men praise and magnify His name. But the other word, which is used here, and is only applied to God once more in Scripture, has no reference to the human attribution of blessing and praise to Him, but describes Him altogether apart from what men say of Him, as what He is in Himself, the ‘blessed,’ or, as we might almost say, the ‘happy’ God. If the word happy seems too trivial, suggesting ideas of levity, of turbulence, of possible change, then I do not know that we can find any better word than that which is already employed in my text, if only we remember that it means the solemn, calm, restful, perpetual gladness that fills the heart of God.

So much, then, being premised, there are three points that seem to me to come out of this remarkable expression of my text. First, the revelation of God in Christ, of which the Gospel is the record, is the glory of God. Second, that revelation is, in a very profound sense, an element in the blessedness of God. And, lastly, that revelation is the good news for men. Let us look at these three points, then, in succession.

I. Take, first, that striking thought that the revelation of God in Jesus Christ is the glory of God.

The theme, or contents, or purpose of the whole Gospel, is to set forth and make manifest to men the glory of God.

Now what do we mean by ‘the glory’? I think, perhaps, that question may be most simply answered by remembering the definite meaning of the word in the Old Testament. There it designates, usually, that supernatural and lustrous light which dwelt between the Cherubim, the symbol of the presence and of the self-manifestation of God. So that we may say, in brief, that the glory of God is the sum-total of the light that streams from His self-revelation, considered as being the object of adoration and praise by a world that gazes upon Him.

And if this be the notion of the glory of God, is it not a startling contrast which is suggested between the apparent contents and the real substance of that Gospel? Suppose a man, for instance, who had no previous knowledge of Christianity, being told that in it he would find the highest revelation of the glory of God. He comes to the book, and finds that the very heart of it is not about God, but about a man; that this revelation of the glory of God is the biography of a man; and more than that, that the larger portion of that biography is the story of the humiliations, and the sufferings, and the death of the man. Would it not strike him as a strange paradox that the history of a man’s life was the shining apex of all revelations of the glory of God ? And yet so it is, and the Apostle, just because to him the Gospel was the story of the Christ who lived and died, declares that in this story of a human life, patient, meek, limited, despised, rejected, and at last crucified, lies, brighter than all other flashings of the divine light, the very heart of the lustre and palpitating centre and fontal source of all the radiance with which God has flooded the world. The history of Jesus Christ is the glory of God. And that involves two or three considerations on which I dwell briefly.

One of them is this: Christ, then, is the self-revelation of God. If, when we deal with the story of His life and death, we are dealing simply with the biography of a man, however pure, lofty, inspired he may be, then I ask what sort of connection there is between that biography which the four Gospels gives us, and what my text says is the substance of the Gospel? What force of logic is there in the Apostle’s words: ‘God commendeth His love toward us in that whilst we were yet sinners Christ died for us,’ unless there is some altogether different connection between the God who commends His love and the Christ who dies to commend it, than exists between a mere man and God? Brethren! to deliver my text, and a hundred other passages of Scripture, from the charge of being extravagant nonsense, and clear, illogical non sequiturs , you must believe that in that man Christ Jesus ‘we behold His glory--the glory of the only begotten of the Father’; and that when we look--haply not without some touch of tenderness and awed admiration in our hearts--upon His gentleness, we have to say, ‘the patient God’; when we look upon His tears we have to say, ‘the pitying God’; when we look upon His Cross we have to say, ‘the redeeming God’; and gazing upon the Man, to see in Him the manifest divinity. Oh! listen to that voice, ‘He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father,’ and bow before the story of the human life as being the revelation of the indwelling God.

And then, still further, my text suggests that this self-revelation of God in Jesus Christ is the very climax and highest point of all God’s revelations to men. I believe that the loftiest exhibition and conception of the divine character which is possible to us must be made to us in the form of a man. I believe that the law of humanity, for ever, in heaven as on earth, is this, that the Son is the revealer of God; and that no loftier--yea, at bottom, no other--communication of the divine nature can be made to man than is made in Jesus Christ.

But be that as it may, let me urge upon you this thought, that in that wondrous story of the life and death of our Lord Jesus Christ the very high-water mark of divine self-communication has been touched and reached. All the energies of the divine nature are embodied there. The ‘riches, both of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God,’ are in the Cross and Passion of our Saviour. ‘To declare at this time His righteousness ‘ Jesus Christ came to die. The Cross is ‘the power of God unto salvation.’ Or, to put it into other words, and avail oneself of an illustration, we know the old story of the queen who, for the love of an unworthy human heart, dissolved pearls in the cup and gave them to him to drink. We may say that God comes to us, and for the love of us, reprobate and unworthy, has melted all the jewels of His nature into that cup of blessing which He offers to us, saying: ‘Drink ye all of it.’ The whole Godhead, so to speak, is smelted down to make that rushing river of molten love which flows from the Cross of Christ into the hearts of men. Here is the highest point of God’s revelation of Himself.

And my text implies, still further, that the true living, flashing centre of the glory of God is the love of God. Christendom is more than half heathen yet, and it betrays its heathenism not least in its vulgar conceptions of the divine nature and its glory. The majestic attributes which separate God from man, and make Him unlike His creatures, are the ones which people too often fancy belong to the glorious side of His character. They draw distinctions between ‘grace’ and ‘glory,’ and think that the latter applies mainly to what I might call the physical and the metaphysical, and less to the moral, attributes of the divine nature. We adore power, and when it is expanded to infinity we think that it is the glory of God. But my text delivers us from all such misconceptions. If we rightly understand it, then we learn this, that the true heart of the glory is tenderness and love. Of power that weak man hanging on the Cross is a strange embodiment; but if we learn that there is something more godlike in God than power, then we can say, as we look upon Jesus Christ: ‘Lo! this is our God. We have waited for Him, and He will save us.’ Not in the wisdom that knows no growth, not in the knowledge which has no border-land of ignorance ringing it round about, not in the unwearied might of His arm, not in the exhaustless energy of His being, not in the unslumbering watchfulness of His all-seeing eye, not in that awful presence wheresoever creatures are; not in any or in all of these lies the glory of God, but in His love. These are the fringes of the brightness; this is the central blaze. The Gospel is the Gospel of the glory of God, because it is all summed up in the one word--’God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.’

II. Now, in the next place, the revelation of God in Christ is an element in the blessedness of God.

We are come here into places where we see but very dimly, and it becomes us to speak very cautiously. Only as we are led by the divine teaching may we affirm at all. But it cannot be unwise to accept in simple literality utterances of Scripture, however they may seem to strike us as strange. And so I would say--the philosopher’s God may be all-sufficient and unemotional, the Bible’s God ‘delighteth in mercy,’ rejoiceth in His gifts, and is glad when men accept them. It is something, surely, amid all the griefs and sorrows of this sorrow-haunted and devil-hunted world, to rise to this lofty region and to feel that there is a living personal joy at the heart of the universe. If we went no further, to me there is infinite beauty and mighty consolation and strength in that one thought--the happy God. He is not, as some ways of representing Him figure Him to be, what the older astronomers thought the sun was, a great cold orb, black and frigid at the heart, though the source and centre of light and warmth to the system. But He Himself is joy, or if we dare not venture on that word, which brings with it earthly associations, and suggests the possibility of alteration--He is the blessed God. And the Psalmist saw deeply into the divine nature, who, not contented with hymning His praise as the possessor of the fountain of life, and the light whereby we see light, exclaimed in an ecstasy of anticipation, ‘Thou makest us to drink of the rivers of Thy pleasures.’

But there is a great deal more than that here, if not in the word itself, at least in its connection, which connection seems to suggest that, howsoever the divine nature must be supposed to be blessed in its own absolute and boundless perfectness, an element in the blessedness of God Himself arises from His self-communication through the Gospel to the world. All love delights in imparting. Why should not God’s? On the lower level of human affection we know that it is so, and on the highest level we may with all reverence venture to say, The quality of that mercy . . . ‘is twice blest,’ and that divine love ‘blesseth Him that gives and them that take.’

He created a universe because He delights in His works, and in having creatures on whom He can lavish Himself. He ‘rests in His love, and rejoices over us with singing’ when we open our hearts to the reception of His light, and learn to know Him as He has declared Himself in His Christ. The blessed God is blessed because He is God. But He is blessed too because He is the loving and, therefore, the giving God.

What a rock-firmness such a thought as this gives to the mercy and the love that He pours out upon us! If they were evoked by our worthiness we might well tremble, but when we know, according to the grand words familiar to many of us, that it is His nature and property to be merciful, and that He is far gladder in giving than we can be in receiving, then we may be sure that His mercy endureth for ever, and that it is the very necessity of His being--and He cannot turn His back upon Himself--to love, to pity, to succour, and to bless.

III. And so, lastly, the revelation of God in Christ is good news for us all.

‘The Gospel of the glory of the blessed God.’ How that word ‘Gospel’ has got tarnished and enfeebled by constant use and unreflective use, so that it slips glibly off my tongue and falls without producing any effect upon your hearts! It needs to be freshened up by considering what really it means. It means this: here are we like men shut up in a beleaguered city, hopeless, helpless, with no power to break out or to raise the siege; provisions failing, death certain. Some of you older men and women remember how that was the case in that awful siege of Paris, in the Franco-German War, and what expedients were adopted in order to get some communication from without. And here to us, prisoned, comes, as it did to them, a despatch borne under a dove’s wing, and the message is this:--God is love; and that you may know that He is, He has sent you His Son who died on the Cross, the sacrifice for a world’s sin. Believe it, and trust it, and all your transgressions will pass away.

My brother, is not that good news? Is it not the good news that you need--the news of a Father, of pardon, of hope, of love, of strength, of purity, of heaven? Does it not meet our fears, our forebodings, our wants at every point? It comes to you. What do you do with it? Do you welcome it eagerly, do you clutch it to your hearts, do you say, ‘This is my Gospel’? Oh! let me beseech you, welcome the message; do not turn away from the word from heaven, which will bring life and blessedness to all your hearts! Some of you have turned away long enough, some of you, perhaps, are fighting with the temptation to do so again even now. Let me press that ancient Gospel upon your acceptance, that Christ the Son of God has died for you, and lives to bless and help you. Take it and live! So shall you find that, ‘as cold water to a thirsty soul,’ so is this best of all news from the far country.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

1:5-11 Whatever tends to weaken love to God, or love to the brethren, tends to defeat the end of the commandment. The design of the gospel is answered, when sinners, through repentance towards God and faith in Jesus Christ, are brought to exercise Christian love. And as believers were righteous persons in God's appointed way, the law was not against them. But unless we are made righteous by faith in Christ, really repenting and forsaking sin, we are yet under the curse of the law, even according to the gospel of the blessed God, and are unfit to share the holy happiness of heaven.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

According to the glorious gospel - The gospel is a system of divine revelation. It makes known the will of God. It states what is duty, and accords in its great principles with the law, or is in harmony with it. The law, in principle, forbids all which the gospel forbids, and in publishing the requirements of the gospel, therefore, Paul says that the law really forbade all which was prohibited in the gospel, and was designed to restrain all who would act contrary to that gospel. There is no contradiction between the law and the gospel. They forbid the same things, and in regard to morals and true piety, the clearer revelations of the gospel are but carrying out the principles stated in the law. They who preach the gospel, then, should not be regarded as arrayed against the law, and Paul says that they who preached the gospel aright really stated the true principles of the law. This he evidently intends should bear against the false teachers who professed to explain the law of Moses. He means here that if a man wished to explain the law, the best explanation would be found in that gospel which it was his office to publish; compare Romans 3:31.

Of the blessed God - Revealed by the blessed God - the same God who was the Author of the law.

Which was committed to my trust - Not to him alone, but to him in common with others. He had received it directly from the Lord; 1 Corinthians 9:17; notes, Galatians 1:1.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

11. According to the glorious gospel—The Christian's freedom from the law as a sanctifier, as well as a justifier, implied in the previous, 1Ti 1:9, 10, is what this 1Ti 1:11 is connected with. This exemption of the righteous from the law, and assignment of it to the lawless as its true object, is "according to the Gospel of the glory (so the Greek, compare Note, see on [2465]2Co 4:4) of the blessed God." The Gospel manifests God's glory (Eph 1:17; 3:16) in accounting "righteous" the believer, through the righteousness of Christ, without "the law" (1Ti 1:9); and in imparting that righteousness whereby he loathes all those sins against which (1Ti 1:9, 10) the law is directed. The term, "blessed," indicates at once immortality and supreme happiness. The supremely blessed One is He from whom all blessedness flows. This term, as applied to God, occurs only here and in 1Ti 6:15: appropriate in speaking here of the Gospel blessedness, in contrast to the curse on those under the law (1Ti 1:9; Ga 3:10).

committed to my trust—Translate as in the Greek order, which brings into prominent emphasis Paul, "committed in trust to me"; in contrast to the kind of law-teaching which they (who had no Gospel commission), the false teachers, assumed to themselves (1Ti 1:8; Tit 1:3).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Here the apostle specifies the sound doctrine of which he spake; that it is contained in the gospel, the perfect rule of righteousness, which he styles

the glorious gospel of the blessed God, it being a doctrine revealed from heaven, wherein the concurrence and command of the Divine attributes, wisdom, power, mercy, and justice, do most clearly shine to the glory of God, 2 Corinthians 4:6 Ephesians 1:6,12: and he gives the title of

blessed to God, thereby to signify his transcendent goodness, in that, being infinitely happy in the possession of his own excellencies, without any possible advantage and profit from any creature, yet he was pleased to give his Son to be our ransom, and with him grace and glory to us. The apostle adds,

which was committed to my trust, to distinguish it from the false doctrine which seducers published under the name of the gospel.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

According to the glorious Gospel of the blessed God,.... For no doctrine is sound, but what is agreeable to that: this is a very great encomium of the Gospel. The doctrine preached by the apostles was not only Gospel, or good news, and glad tidings, but the Gospel of God; of which he is the author, and which relates to his glory, the glory of all his perfections; which reveals his purposes, shows his covenant, and exhibits the blessings and promises of it; and is the Gospel of the blessed God, who is blessed in himself, and is the fountain of blessedness to others; and particularly he blesses his chosen ones with spiritual blessings, and which are set forth and declared in the Gospel; for which reason this epithet seems to be given to God here: and it is a glorious one; it discovers the glory of God, of his wisdom, grace, and love in the salvation of men; its doctrines of peace and pardon, righteousness and salvation by Jesus Christ, are glorious ones; and so are its promises, being great and precious, all yea and amen in Christ, absolute, unconditional, unchangeable, and irreversible; its ordinances also are glorious ones, being amiable and pleasant, and not grievous and burdensome to believers; and it is glorious in its effects, being the power of God unto salvation, the means of enlightening the blind, of quickening the dead, of delivering men from bondage and servitude, of turning men from sin and Satan to God, and of refreshing and comforting distressed minds, and of reviving the spirits of drooping saints, of establishing and strengthening them, and nourishing them up to eternal life. The apostle adds,

which was committed to my trust: to distinguish this Gospel from another, from that of the false teachers, which was an inglorious one, and he had nothing to do with; and to show the excellency and worth of it; it being valuable, was deserving of care and keeping, and was a depositum the person intrusted with was faithfully and carefully to keep and preserve.

Geneva Study Bible

{9} According to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, {10} which was committed to my trust.

(9) He contrasts fond and vain babbling with, not only the Law, but the Gospel also, which does not condemn, but greatly commends the wholesome doctrine contained in the commandments of God. And therefore he calls it a glorious Gospel, and the Gospel of the blessed God, the power of which these babblers did not know.

(10) A reason why neither any other Gospel is to be taught than he has taught in the Church, neither after any other way, because there is no other Gospel besides that which God committed to him.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Meyer's NT Commentary

1 Timothy 1:11. Κατὰ τὸ εὐαγγέλιον κ.τ.λ.] may be joined with ἀντίκειται, so far as the grammar goes; but the thought is against this, since the ὑγιαίν. διδασκ. is simply the doctrine of the gospel, and the whole of the added clause would be very slipshod. There is as little ground for joining it with διδασκαλία, as was done by Theophylact (τῇ ὑγ. διδ., τῇ οὔσῃ κατὰ τὸ εὐαγγ.), and approved by many later expositors. The only right construction is to refer this addition to the whole of the preceding thought (Wiesinger, Plitt, van Oosterzee, Hofmann), so as to bring the thought to a concluding point. Similarly in Romans 2:16, κατὰ τὸ εὐαγγ. is joined with what precedes. The apostle asserts thereby that his doctrine regarding the law is not founded on his own private opinion, but on the gospel entrusted to him. In order to make its authority plainer as a rule of life, he describes it as τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τῆς δόξης τοῦ μακαρίου Θεοῦ (de “Wette, Matthies).

The genitive τῆς δόξης is not to be interpreted by the adjective ἔνδοξος, and then joined with τὸ εὐαγγ. (= τὸ εὐαγγ. ἔνδοξον; Luther: “according to the glorious gospel”), or even with Θεοῦ (Heinrichs: = τοῦ μακαρίου καὶ ἐνδόξου Θεοῦ); the genitive should rather be allowed to retain its special meaning. Ἡ δόξα τοῦ Θεοῦ may be the glory of the Christians, which is given them by God (comp. Romans 5:2. Wegscheider: “according to the gladdening doctrine of the salvation which the blessed God imparts to us;” Theodoret: εὐαγγ. δόξης τὸ κήρυγμα κέκληκεν, ἐπειδὰν τὴν μέλλουσαν δόξαν ἐπαγγέλλεται τοῖς πιστεύουσι, and Theophylact). It is more natural, however, to understand the expression here, as in 2 Corinthians 4:4; 2 Corinthians 4:6, Romans 9:23, etc., of the glory dwelling in God, peculiar to Him, “revealed to the world in Jesus Christ” (Wiesinger). The relation of the genitive τῆς δόξης to τὸ εὐαγγέλιον is not to be taken to mean that the δόξα was declared to be the ground of the gospel (the gospel proceeding from the glory of God); the δόξα is rather contained in the gospel (Wiesinger, van Oosterzee, Plitt), so that it is thereby revealed and communicated to men.

God’s nature is here described more precisely by the adjective μακαρίου, by which still greater emphasis is laid on God’s δόξα, manifesting itself in the gospel in its peculiar power. Though the word is not foreign to the N. T., it is used only here and in 1 Timothy 6:15 as an attribute of God. It is not improbable that the apostle uses it with some reference to the heretics. If, in 1 Timothy 1:4, we are to understand by the genealogies, series of aeons emanating from God, he might readily use μακάριος of God in order to mark the divine unity, for holiness excludes all division of nature. Theodore of Mopsuestia thinks that God is here called μακάριος, not only because He has τὸ μακάριον in His nature διὰ τῆς ἀτρεπτότητος, but also because out of His grace He imparts it to us.[59] The words that follow declare that the gospel was entrusted to the apostle: ὃ ἐπιστεύθην ἐγώ (Titus 1:3). Regarding the construction of these words, cf. Buttmann, Gr. Gram. § 121. 7; Winer, p. 244 [E. T. p. 287]. The same construction is found in Romans 3:2; Galatians 2:7; 1 Thessalonians 2:4; 1 Corinthians 9:17. It is to be observed that this construction of the verb πιστεύεσθαι, apart from the Pastoral Epistles, occurs only in the epistles of Paul, and only where he speaks of the gospel, or the office given him to hold.[60]

[59] Otto takes the reference otherwise. He refers the word to the heretics, inasmuch as they taught the eternal continuance of the law: “The eternal continuance of the law presupposes a godlessness that cannot be amended. And these νομοδιδάσκαλοι teach a blessed God? God is not blessed if He is for ever afflicted with those opposed to Himself, with the ἀνόμοις κ.τ.λ. I teach that God got rid of this opposition by reconciling the world to Himself, and that we have indeed a blessed God.” Hofmann refers μακαρίου to this, that the heretics “make the law the subject of their instruction in the place where there should only be preached the things by which God has glorified His blessedness.” In any case, Paul chose the attribute, because the heresy stood in contradiction to God’s blessedness.

[60] We need not be surprised that here, and somewhat frequently in the Pastoral Epistles, Paul directs attention to himself and his office, if only we reflect that the apostle was fully conscious of his position towards the development of God’s kingdom, and that he was bound, therefore, to vindicate fully the principle of the Christian life which he had enounced.

Expositor's Greek Testament

1 Timothy 1:11. κατὰ τὸ εὐαγγέλιον, κ.τ.λ., refers to the whole preceding sentence and is not to be connected with διδασκαλίᾳ. only, which would necessitate τῇ κατὰ, κ.τ.λ. This reading is actually found in [257],* [258], [259], [260], Vg., Arm., quae est secundum, etc. Von Soden connects with δικαίῳ νόμος οὐ κεῖται.

[257] Codex Claromontanus (sæc. vi.), a Græco-Latin MS. at Paris, edited by Tischendorf in 1852.

[258] The Latin text of Codex Claromontanus (sæc. vi.), a Græco-Latin MS. at Paris, edited by Tischendorf in 1852.

[259] The Latin version of Codex Augiensis (sæc. ix.), a Græco-Latin MS., at Trinity College, Cambridge, edited by Scrivener in 1859. Its presents the Vulgate text with some modifications.

[260] The Latin text of Codex Boernerianus (sæc. ix.), a Græco-Latin MS., at Dresden, edited by Matthæi in 1791. Written by an Irish scribe, it once formed part of the same volume as Codex Sangallensis (δ) of the Gospels.

Inasmuch as unsound teaching had claimed to be a εὐαγγέλιον (Galatians 1:6), St. Paul finds it necessary to recharge the word with its old force by distinguishing epithets. εὐαγγέλιον had become impoverished by heterodox associations. The gospel with which St. Paul had been entrusted was the gospel of the glory of the blessed God. Cf. “the gospel of the glory of Christ,” 2 Corinthians 4:4. The gospel concerning the glory, etc., which reveals the glory. And this glory, although primarily an attribute of God, is here and elsewhere treated as a blessed state to which those who obey the gospel may attain, and which it is possible to miss (Romans 3:23; Romans 5:2; Romans 15:7. See Sanday and Headlam on Romans 3:23). The phrase is not, as in A.V., an expansion of “The gospel of God,” Mark 1:14, etc., “the gospel of which God is the author,” τῆς δόξης being a genitive of quality = glorious. (Compare Romans 8:21, 2 Corinthians 4:6; Ephesians 1:6; Ephesians 1:18; Colossians 1:11; Colossians 1:27; Titus 2:13).

μακαρίου: Blessed as an epithet of God is only found here and in 1 Timothy 6:15, where see note. Grimm compares the μάκαρες θεοί of Homer and Hesiod. But the notion here is much loftier. We may call God blessed, but not happy; since happiness is only predicated of those whom it is possible to conceive of as unhappy.

ὃ ἐπιστεύθην ἐγώ: This phrase occurs again Titus 1:3. Cf. Romans 3:2, 1 Corinthians 9:17, Galatians 2:7, 1 Thessalonians 2:4. St. Paul does not here allude to his particular presentation of the gospel, as in Galatians 2:7; nor is he thinking specially of God’s goodness to him in making him a minister, as in Romans 15:16, Ephesians 3:8, Colossians 1:25; he is merely asserting his consistency, and repudiating the charge of antinomianism which had been brought against him.

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

11. according to the glorious gospel] Rather with R.V. according to the gospel of the glory. How far back does St Paul look in ‘according to the gospel’? Surely through the whole passage since the last winding up at the end of 1 Timothy 1:3; just as the next passage winds up similarly at 1 Timothy 1:17. (The marking of the paragraphs in the R.V. throughout will be worth careful notice.) The charge to insist on sound teaching—the end of the charge, a life of love unselfish out of faith unfeigned, instead of a laboured law of mystic perfectionism—the sound teaching of those who (as he had written them word, Ephesians 4:11) were given them by Christ for the purpose—all this was ‘according to the gospel of the glory of God’: for the chief and surpassing glory of God was seen not in the law but in the person, the life of Jesus Christ.

the blessed God] The epithet seems added from the rush of personal feeling as the sense of the present love and mercy of Christ (never long absent) comes to him strongly in penning the words. It occurs again in 1 Timothy 6:15 in a similar passage.

Bengel's Gnomen

1 Timothy 1:11. Κατὰ, according to) This is construed with sound doctrine, 1 Timothy 1:10. Paul hereby establishes the authority of his own ‘commandment.’ Those who know the glory of God from the Gospel, vehemently detest all kinds of profligacy. The law is thus established by faith. Or else κατὰ is construed with χρῆται, if a man use it, 1 Timothy 1:8; although I know not whether it can be said, that we must use the law according to the Gospel; or with πίστεως, from faith, 1 Timothy 1:5.—τῆς δόξης, of the glory) Glory redounds to the Gospel from the Divine blessedness, and thence there results ‘soundness’ of doctrine.—τοῦ μακαρίου, of the blessed) The same epithet is applied to God, ch. 1 Timothy 6:15. A peculiar phrase, indicating immortality and supreme happiness, which most powerfully move men to confess the Gospel. The highest pinnacle of praise is blessedness; comp. notes on Chrysostom de Sacerdotio, p. 371. The Blessed blesses: thence He is called the Saviour, 1 Timothy 1:1.—ὃ ἐπιστεύθην ἐγώ, with which I was entrusted) Titus 1:3. This sets forth the peculiar and extraordinary privilege of Paul, Romans 15:16; Ephesians 3:8; Colossians 1:25.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 11. - The gospel of the glory for the glorious gospel, A,V. The gospel of the glory of the blessed God. The phrase, τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τῆς δόξης τοῦ μακαρίου Θεοῦ, cannot mean, as in the A.V., "the glorious gospel of the blessed God," except by a very forced construction. It might mean three things:

(1) τῆς δόξης τοῦ Θεοῦ might be a periphrasis for "God," as Romans 6:4, or Exodus 24:16, 17; Exodus 33:18; Leviticus 9:6, 23; Psalm 104:31; 2 Corinthians 4:6; or as "the Name of the Lord" (Proverbs 18:10; Isaiah 30:27, etc.); and as we say "thee queen's majesty," the "king's grace." Or

(2) "the glory of God" might mean Jesus Christ, who is the Brightness of God's glory, the Image of the invisible God, in whose face the glory of God shines (2 Corinthians 4:4, 6). Or

(3) it might mean the gospel which tells of the glory of God, which reveals and proclaims his glory, the glory of his grace (Ephesians 1:6, 12), or perhaps here rather the glory of his holiness, which St. Paul's "sound doctrine" pressed for imitation upon all Christians (see 1 Timothy 6:3); comp. 2 Corinthians 4:4, "The gospel of the glory of Christ." Either the first or last is doubtless the true meaning. The blessed God. This and 1 Timothy 6:15 are the only passages in the New Testament where μακάριος, blessed, is an epithet of God. Elsewhere "blessed" is εὐλογητός; as e.g. Mark 14:61; 2 Corinthians 11:31. In classical Greek μάκαρ is the proper epithet of the gods; μάκαρες Θεόι μακάριος is usually spoken of men or qualities, and especially of the happy dead. It does not appear how or why the apostle here applies μακάριος to God. Committed to my trust; literally, with which I was entrusted. A thoroughly Pauline statement (comp. Romans 1:1, 5; Romans 2:16; Galatians 1:11, 12; Ephesians 3:1-8, etc.). 1 Timothy 1:11

Vincent's Word Studies

According to

The connection is with the whole foregoing statement about the law and its application, 1 Timothy 1:9 ff. The writer substantiates what he has just said about the law, by a reference to the gospel. Comp. Romans 2:16.

The glorious gospel of the blessed God (τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τῆς δόξης τοῦ μακαρίου θεοῦ)

More correctly, the gospel of the glory, etc. The phrase as a whole has no parallel in N.T. The nearest approach to it is 2 Corinthians 4:4. Gospel of God is a Pauline phrase; but μακάριος blessed is not used of God by Paul, is not used of God by Paul, nor elsewhere outside of the pastorals, where it occurs twice, here and 1 Timothy 6:15. For blessed is not used of God by Paul, nor elsewhere outside of the Pastorals, where it occurs twice, here and 1 Timothy 6:15. For blessed see on Matthew 5:3. The appearing of the glory of God in Jesus Christ is the contents of the gospel. Comp. Titus 2:13.

Which was committed to my trust (ὃ ἐπιστεύθην ἐγώ)

Or, with which I was intrusted. Comp Titus 1:3; Romans 3:2; 1 Corinthians 9:17; Galatians 2:7; 1 Thessalonians 2:4. The ἐγώ I emphatically asserts the authority of Paul against the "teachers of the law" (1 Timothy 1:7).