2 Timothy 3:15

‘And that from a babe you have known the sacred writings which are able to make you wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.’

And the reason he can be so confident in what has been taught to him is because of its source. For from his cradle he has known ‘the sacred writings’, a name given to the Jewish Scriptures as evidenced by Josephus and Philo. And it is they which are able to make him ‘wise unto salvation’ through faith in Christ Jesus, for they point to Christ, and bring Christ home to the heart in such a way that Timothy has been able to become one with Him by faith, and now continues to experience Him continually. For in the end the source of salvation is not the Scriptures, it is the One to Whom the Scriptures point. The value of the Scriptures is that they reveal Christ to the heart. They are a pointer to Christ. And so salvation is to be found ‘in Christ Jesus’, that is by being united with Him in His death and resurrection (2 Timothy 2:11-12; Romans 6:3-4).

But we may ask, why does Paul here refer to the Scriptures using the description ‘the sacred writings’. The first reason is because he wants to stress that what he is speaking about is the written word. He wanted Timothy to remember how he had read these sacred writings from an early age. They had been the means by which he had learned to read, and had metaphorically cut his teeth on them. And they had been a source of truth to him throughout his childhood, finally bringing him to His acceptance of Jesus Christ. The second reason may have been in order to contrast the source of Timothy’s faith, which was ‘the sacred writings’, with the source of the faith of the false teachers, which was philosophical arguments and theories, and mystical experience. The ancient world put a great value on ancient writings, especially sacred ones in which was to be found the wisdom of the ages. So he wanted Timothy to recognise that there was nothing newfangled about what he believed. It had come down to him in written form from many men of God, and had on it the seal of many generations.

‘Wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.’ The phraseology and the thought is typically Pauline. ‘Unto salvation’ is a favourite expression (Romans 1:16; Romans 10:10; compare 1 Peter 1:5), while ‘in Christ Jesus’ is at the root of his theology (nearly thirty times in Paul, nine times in the Pastorals, and once in 1 Peter 5:14). For salvation ‘in Christ Jesus’ was what his message was all about.