Charles Ellicott Commentary 2 Timothy 2:12

"if we endure, we shall also reign with him: if we shall deny him, he also will deny us:" — 2 Timothy 2:12 (ASV)

If we suffer, we shall also reign with him.—And the faithful saying went on with this stirring declaration. How, it seems to ask, can a believer in Christ shrink from suffering, when he knows what the glorious consequences of this present suffering will be for him?

The word rendered “suffer” would be better translated, if we endure—that is, if we bravely bear up against sufferings for His sake, and all the while work on with hand and brain for Him and for our brother as best we can. If we do this in this life, we shall, in the life to come, reign with Him—more than merely live with Him, as the last verse told us: we shall even “be kings with Him.” (Romans 8:17; and Revelation 1:6, where Jesus Christ is especially spoken of as having made us kings.)

The promise thus woven into the faithful saying, and repeated in these several passages, of the “reign of the saints in Christ,” gives us a strangely glorious hope—a marvellous prospect, concerning the active and personal work which Christ’s redeemed will be entrusted with in the ages of eternity.

If we deny him, he also will deny us.—But there is another side to the words of the Blessed. While to the faithful and the believer He will grant to sit down with Him on His throne, the faithless and unbeliever will have no share in the glories of the life to come. These grave warnings are apparently addressed rather to unfaithful members of the outward and visible Church, than to the Pagan world who have never known Christ.

The words, He also will deny us, imply something of a recognition on the part of us who are denied by Him—something of an expectation on our part that He would recognise us as friends. They are evidently an echo of the Lord’s own sad reply to those many who will say to Him in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name? . . . and then will I profess to them, I never knew you: depart from me, you who work iniquity. (Matthew 7:22–23. See also Matthew 10:33 and Mark 8:33.)