In previous blog posts, we saw that the good fight has everything to do with sound doctrine and the faith. These are not two separate subjects. Sound doctrine constitutes the content of the faith. The good fight of faith is, therefore, the struggle to remain faithful to what God has spoken.
Paul calls upon Timothy to do this at the beginning of his first letter. At the end of his life, he looks back on his own ministry. It becomes evident then that he did not merely call upon Timothy to fight the good fight, but that he himself fought it as well.
Holding fast
We have seen by now that the good fight does not consist of attacking the adversary, but of holding fast to sound doctrine. That makes Paul’s final words all the more striking. He does not say: “I have conquered the enemy,” or: “I have waged many battles.” He says: “I have kept the faith.”
2 Timothy 4 ISA
7 I have fought the excellent fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.
Paul writes this at the end of his life, knowing that his death is imminent (verse 6). He looks back on his race and concludes that he has fought the excellent fight and that his race as an apostle has come to an end. Paul concludes that he has kept the faith.
Race
Here, too, Paul uses the word agon which means a contest or race. Like an athlete in a race, he has brought the run to a conclusion. We find the race metaphor frequently in his letters — for instance, in 1 Corinthians 9, where he states that he does everything for the sake of the gospel. Just as an athlete in a race focuses on only one thing — winning the prize — so Paul concentrated on just one thing: winning others for the gospel. Because of this mindset, he set everything else aside.
Retained or guarded?
Most translations render 2 Timothy 4:7 as “I have retained the faith.” That would imply Paul was saying he believed at the start of his race and still believed at the end. But that is not what he is saying. Paul had guarded the words the risen Christ had entrusted to him.
Paul is not merely saying that he still believed at the end of his life. He had kept the faith: he had faithfully preserved and passed on the message entrusted to him by the risen Christ.
This aligns perfectly with the exhortations Paul had previously given Timothy: he was to hold fast to the pattern of sound words (2 Tim. 1:13), guard the good deposit (2 Tim. 1:14), and pass on sound doctrine (2 Tim. 2:2). At the end of his own race, Paul can say that he did exactly that: he guarded the faith.
He had added nothing to the gospel he received from the Lord, nor had he taken anything away from it. He had believed and passed it on just as he had received it from the Lord, despite the conflict this entailed.
This constantly brought him into conflict with his own people. In Antioch, they contradicted him and slandered his message (Acts 13:45–50). In Lystra, he was even stoned (Acts 14:19). In Thessalonica, they incited a riot (Acts 17:5–13). Yet Paul did not let this deter him from continuing to proclaim the gospel.
Unchanged
Paul’s retrospective confirms everything we have seen in this series. Fighting the good fight does not consist of attacking the opponent, but of holding fast to the faith that was entrusted to him. Despite all opposition, scorn, and persecution, Paul kept that faith and passed it on unchanged.
This rounds off the three passages where Paul speaks about the good fight. In 1 Timothy 1, at the beginning of his ministry, he calls upon Timothy to fight the noble fight. In 1 Timothy 6, he shows how that fight is waged: by holding fast to the faith and standing up for it. And at the end of his own ministry, Paul can look back and say: “I have fought the noble fight; I have kept the faith.”
the spiritual armor
Yet an important question remains. Paul also speaks about the armor of God. That particular passage is frequently cited when the topic is “spiritual warfare.” But does Ephesians 6 not confirm the very same line of thought? Does Paul call for an offensive there, or rather for standing firm and holding fast to the faith?
We will explore that in the next blog post.