1 Timothy 1:11

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.

According to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust. According to the glorious gospel (Romans 2:16).

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, ,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.

11 According to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust. Ver. 11. Of the blessed God] Blessed in himself, and to be everlastingly blessed of all creatures. Hence he is called, "The blessed," Mark 14:61. And frequently in the Commentaries of the Hebrew Doctors he is set forth by this title, Baruch hu, " he that is blessed."

(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. 2 Corinthians 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.

Verse 11. According to the glorious Gospel] The sound doctrine mentioned above, which is here called ευαγγελιοντηςδοξηςτουμακαριουθεου, the Gospel of the glory of the blessed or happy God-a dispensation which exhibits the glory of all his attributes; and, by saving man in such a way as is consistent with the glory of all the Divine perfections, while it brings peace and good will among men, brings glory to God in the highest. Sin has dishonoured God, and robbed him of his glory; the Gospel provides for the total destruction of sin, even in this world, and thus brings back to God his glory.

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.

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.

11. This entire charge against the errorists is according to the… gospel. The issue is between the vain jangling and that sound doctrine which is committed to my trust.