We are now examining Paul’s exhortation to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:8. “Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel…” In the last post I encouraged you to remember Christ’s humanity. Today, I want us to remember to:

Cling to His Divinity

We live in a day that some professing Christians try to pit Paul against Jesus, but the Bible will have none of that. Paul’s gospel is Christ’s gospel. The gospel of Paul is a gospel that exalts the divinity of King Jesus. In Titus 2:13 Paul calls Jesus our “Great God and Savior”.

The mediation we need between God and man can be fulfilled by none other than one who is both God and Man. And this we have in Christ Jesus. He is fully man and fully God. Denying either of these propositions puts one outside of the faith once delivered for all the saints.

Because Jesus is Divine, our clinging to Him connects us to both the Father and the Spirit. In Jesus we are connected to all three persons of the Godhead. The Spirit unites us to Christ, and through Christ we have access to the Father.

Cling to His Divinity. The world around us changes daily. The world around us may crumble. America may one day fall. But the eternal Son of God never changes.

Let this remind you of what Paul says in Romans 8:38-39 – “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

This reminds us that when our hands feel too weak to cling to Christ, He is still clinging to us. Bring this to the forefront of your minds and hearts today!

Christian, you are loved by God in Christ. What joy! What privilege! What invincible power! Press on in good courage as we contend for the faith in uncertain days! Nothing can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

Cling to His Victory

Paul reminds Timothy here that yes, Jesus suffered. Oh, but a resurrection awaited Him. He won victory through His suffering. By the resurrection of Christ we are justified by grace through faith (cf. Romans 4:25).

The victory over sin, death, and hell has been won in Christ. Though trials, heartaches, and temptations to give up abound here, there is a resurrection coming for every believer.

Cling to this hope, dear Christian. Hebrews 7:25 says, “he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them…”

Jesus lives. We serve a risen, reigning, and living Savior. He always lives forevermore. He resurrected from the grave in victory. We are not called to cling to dead orthodoxy. We are not called to cling to fables or myths.

We are called to cling to a living Christ! Our faith is an experiential one because Christ Jesus lives. He is a living vine and we are the branches. We must take our cares to Him. We must take our prayers to Him. We must commune with Him—for He is alive.

No matter what the culture may say or try to do to us, we win because Jesus won. Cling to the living Christ!

Cling to His Prophecy

Paul begins Romans by reminding us that Jesus is descended from David. He reminds us here again in 2 Timothy 2:8 that Jesus is the offspring of David.

This lineage from David is an important aspect of Paul’s gospel. Why? Because this is God’s promise in the Old Testament. If Jesus is not the offspring of David, He cannot be the Messiah.

For example, 2 Samuel 7:12 says, “When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom.”

This gives us a big picture understanding of the Scriptures. I would add even a covenantal understanding of the Scriptures. We see the metanarrative of the Bible here. The Scriptures are 66 books that comprise one story of God redeeming an unworthy people for Himself through the work of King Jesus.

Jeremiah 23:5 says, “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.”

Ah, here is Christ! The righteous branch! The descendant of David. The culmination of the Law and the Prophets. All of the Scriptures bear witness to Him. All of the Scriptures are ultimately about Him.

Thus, to cling to Christ, we must cling to His Word.

Timothy could not endure suffering apart from remembering the faithfulness of God in sending His Son as promised in the Scriptures.

The Scriptures, in one sense, are the very sustenance of our lives: We must make it our practice to meditate on them regularly. To draw out form them the sweetness and glories of our Crucified and Resurrected King.

To cling to Christ, we must be Bible people. The Holy Spirit takes these inerrant and infallible words and uses them to strengthen us, to sharpen us, to humble us, and to tighten our clinging to Christ.

In an earlier post, I talked about our hearts being a vast ocean and Christ being the treasure. We can think of the Scriptures as what gives the very treasure of Christ in our hearts the buoyancy to float to the surface. We use the Scriptures to meditate on Christ so that He has preeminence in our hearts over the garbage of this world.

The Scriptures reveal to us the infinite glories of Our King. We must cling to them not separately from Christ but as a means of clinging to Christ Himself.

In the final post, I will cover one more thing to remember, and conclude this series on Clinging to Christ in Cultural Chaos.