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146 How Can We Know the Christian Scriptures Are True?
automatically. Paul would say this human witness is essential but insufficient
by itself.
The risen Lord Jesus had commissioned Paul with these words: “I
am sending you to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness
to light and from the power of Satan to God” (Acts 26:17–18).
Paul knew (as 2 Cor. 4:6; 2 Tim. 2:25; and Eph. 1:17 show) that God
is the decisive power in giving spiritual sight. But here was Jesus telling
him to go do what only God could do. That is because God has
chosen to make the human witness essential in bringing people to
well-grounded faith.
What is Paul’s answer in 2 Timothy 2:25 to the question, Does the
work of “the Lord’s servant” in teaching and loving open the hearts
of those he is teaching and loving? Paul says, “God may perhaps grant
them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may
come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being
captured by him to do his will.” We do not have final control or final
say in how effective our teaching and loving is. But there is great hope,
because God does have final say, and no power of human resistance can
stand when God decides to “grant repentance.”
As in 2 Corinthians 4:4, here in 2 Timothy 2:26 we meet Satan
again, the “god of this world.” In 2 Corinthians 4:4, he is blinding people
to the truth. In 2 Timothy 2:26, he has them in his snare, captured
to do his will. And here in 2 Timothy 2:25, we also meet the sovereign
God of 2 Corinthians 4:6. There he does what he did on the first day of
creation. He says, “Let light shine,” so that the person trapped in darkness
suddenly sees the glory of God. Here this sovereign God “grants
repentance.” The effect of this supernatural work is that the captive of
Satan is freed from his stupor—his blindness. He comes to his senses
and sees the truth and beauty of what was before boring and untrue.
He comes to a knowledge of the truth.
It is real knowledge. It is based on real evidence and good grounds.
The liberated captive realizes that his ignorance of the truth of this
knowledge was not because there were no grounds for the truth, but
because he was blind. He was in a demonic stupor. Now, by God’s
sovereign grace, he has “come to his senses” and sees the truth. He has
knowledge of the truth.