2 Timothy 1:10

2. Paul’s apostleship, and committed trust of the gospel doctrine, 2 Timothy 1:11-14.

10. Now In sublime antithesis to before the world began. This is the epoch of divine revelation in contrast with ages of concealment.

Appearing ’ Επιφανεια , the shining forth, the epiphany, (see notes on 2 Thessalonians 2:8,) including the entire period of Christ’s first residence on earth.

Abolished death First in his own body, by his own resurrection; and then, by including the race in his resurrective power. See note on 1 Corinthians 15:26. All, like him, die; all, like him, rise again.

Brought… to light Literally, has illuminated, or shed light upon, life and immortality. The resurrective power lay, as yet, concealed in shades of death and darkness; but the gospel pours light upon and discloses the author, origin, and true nature of life and immortality to our view. Life takes place at the resurrection, and immortality is the eternal consequence of the soul’s enshrinement in the resurrective body. The apostle is not speaking here, nor perhaps anywhere else, of the metaphysical immortality of the soul, based on its own intrinsic immaterial nature, whether that be verity or not; but of that life of the soul consequent on the restoration of the race on the probationary basis as correspondent to the resurrection of the body. Note on 1 Corinthians 15:14.

Immortality Not undyingness; not the non-annihilation of the soul; but the incorruptibility of the resurrection body. Note, 1 Corinthians 15:42-43.

Through the gospel For, as it is Christ’s epiphany that has secured this resurrective insolubility, so it is his gospel that throws light upon and discloses it to men. All this implies not that the doctrine of future life was previously unknown to the world. On the contrary, it has been an almost universal thought in the mind of the race. Our love of life, (shared with the lower animals,) united with our intuitive idea of the eternal, (un-shared by lower races.) becomes a hope of endless life. Conscience adds the thought of retribution, which finds its realization only in a future existence. The earliest records of the race, disclosed by Egyptian obelisks and Assyrian bricks, reveal the fact that primitive men even clothed the conception of immortality with an imaginative and often fantastic costume of bodily resurrections. It is the gospel which presents in Christ the definite cause, method, and results of life and immortality.