To Have and to Hold

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“Holding faith, and a good conscience; which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck:” (1 Timothy 1:19 (KJV)

Those who teach that salvation can be lost use this verse to say that unless we maintain a tight grip on the faith that saved us, we will make shipwreck of the faith and lose our eternal life.

It will help us to read v19 in context.

“This charge I commit unto thee, son Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before on thee, that thou by them mightest war a good warfare; 19 Holding faith, and a good conscience; which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck: 20 Of whom is Hymenaeus and Alexander; whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme.” (1 Timothy 1:18-20 (KJV)  

“holding faith”

But when we compare Paul’s use of the word hold” here to how he told Titus to be “holding fast the faithful word(Titus 1:9), we understand “the faith” here to refer to the body of truth committed to the Apostle Paul. The context here is not salvation at all, it is warring a good warfare of (the prior verse, I Tim. 1:18) against men who teach false doctrine (see the following verse 20). We must read and study verses in context. The way to war a good warfare in the dispensation of grace is, as Paul later told Timothy, to hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of me (Paul)” (II Tim. 1:13).

“good conscience.”

We must maintain this tight grip on Pauline truth in “good conscience.” People say to “let your conscience be your guide,” but Paul “lived in all good conscience” (Acts 23:1) from his forefathers (II Tim. 1:3). That means that even while persecuting God’s people “unto the death” as Saul of Tarsus, his conscience was clear! That’s because he “did it ignorantly(I Tim. 1:13). That is, he didn’t know he was persecuting God’s people. He thought His people were heretics and that he was serving God in killing them (John 16:2). That tell you how dangerous it is to let your conscience be your guide? A conscience is only good if the light of God’s truth is shining on it!

A conscience is like a sundial in that respect. A sundial only gives the correct time when the right light is shining on it. If you check a sundial under the light of the moon, you are going to get a faulty reading. And if you go out at night with a flashlight, you can make it any time you like. The terrorists who flew those planes into the Twin Towers did so in all good conscience. People are born with a conscience that tells them that murder like that is wrong, but a conscience can “seared with a hot iron” by “doctrines of devils” (I Tim. 4:1,2). When that happens, people become “past feeling” (Eph. 4:19), and no longer feel the pricks of a conscience enlightened by God’s Word that is lit up to us by the Holy Spirit.

Many people say that doctrine isn’t important, but the people killed by Saul of Tarsus know better, as do the victims of 9/11. The mistakes you make in life may be nowhere near as heinous, but unless your conscience is enlightened by “the faith” committed to the Apostle Paul, the light from some other source will cause your conscience to give a faulty reading, and you won’t be able to “war a good warfare” for the Lord in the dispensation of grace.

This paper is “As Adapted by Arthur Licursi”