1:5-11 Whatever tends to weaken love to God, or love to the brethren, tends to defeat the end of the commandment. The design of the gospel is answered, when sinners, through repentance towards God and faith in Jesus Christ, are brought to exercise Christian love. And as believers were righteous persons in God's appointed way, the law was not against them. But unless we are made righteous by faith in Christ, really repenting and forsaking sin, we are yet under the curse of the law, even according to the gospel of the blessed God, and are unfit to share the holy happiness of heaven.

Verse 11. - The gospel of the glory for the glorious gospel, A,V. The gospel of the glory of the blessed God. The phrase, τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τῆς δόξης τοῦ μακαρίου Θεοῦ, cannot mean, as in the A.V., "the glorious gospel of the blessed God," except by a very forced construction. It might mean three things:

(1) τῆς δόξης τοῦ Θεοῦ might be a periphrasis for "God," as Romans 6:4, or Exodus 24:16, 17; Exodus 33:18; Leviticus 9:6, 23; Psalm 104:31; 2 Corinthians 4:6; or as "the Name of the Lord" (Proverbs 18:10; Isaiah 30:27, etc.); and as we say "thee queen's majesty," the "king's grace." Or

(2) "the glory of God" might mean Jesus Christ, who is the Brightness of God's glory, the Image of the invisible God, in whose face the glory of God shines (2 Corinthians 4:4, 6). Or

(3) it might mean the gospel which tells of the glory of God, which reveals and proclaims his glory, the glory of his grace (Ephesians 1:6, 12), or perhaps here rather the glory of his holiness, which St. Paul's "sound doctrine" pressed for imitation upon all Christians (see 1 Timothy 6:3); comp. 2 Corinthians 4:4, "The gospel of the glory of Christ." Either the first or last is doubtless the true meaning. The blessed God. This and 1 Timothy 6:15 are the only passages in the New Testament where μακάριος, blessed, is an epithet of God. Elsewhere "blessed" is εὐλογητός; as e.g. Mark 14:61; 2 Corinthians 11:31. In classical Greek μάκαρ is the proper epithet of the gods; μάκαρες Θεόι μακάριος is usually spoken of men or qualities, and especially of the happy dead. It does not appear how or why the apostle here applies μακάριος to God. Committed to my trust; literally, with which I was entrusted. A thoroughly Pauline statement (comp. Romans 1:1, 5; Romans 2:16; Galatians 1:11, 12; Ephesians 3:1-8, etc.).

According to the glorious Gospel of the blessed God,.... For no doctrine is sound, but what is agreeable to that: this is a very great encomium of the Gospel. The doctrine preached by the apostles was not only Gospel, or good news, and glad tidings, but the Gospel of God; of which he is the author, and which relates to his glory, the glory of all his perfections; which reveals his purposes, shows his covenant, and exhibits the blessings and promises of it; and is the Gospel of the blessed God, who is blessed in himself, and is the fountain of blessedness to others; and particularly he blesses his chosen ones with spiritual blessings, and which are set forth and declared in the Gospel; for which reason this epithet seems to be given to God here: and it is a glorious one; it discovers the glory of God, of his wisdom, grace, and love in the salvation of men; its doctrines of peace and pardon, righteousness and salvation by Jesus Christ, are glorious ones; and so are its promises, being great and precious, all yea and amen in Christ, absolute, unconditional, unchangeable, and irreversible; its ordinances also are glorious ones, being amiable and pleasant, and not grievous and burdensome to believers; and it is glorious in its effects, being the power of God unto salvation, the means of enlightening the blind, of quickening the dead, of delivering men from bondage and servitude, of turning men from sin and Satan to God, and of refreshing and comforting distressed minds, and of reviving the spirits of drooping saints, of establishing and strengthening them, and nourishing them up to eternal life. The apostle adds,

which was committed to my trust: to distinguish this Gospel from another, from that of the false teachers, which was an inglorious one, and he had nothing to do with; and to show the excellency and worth of it; it being valuable, was deserving of care and keeping, and was a depositum the person intrusted with was faithfully and carefully to keep and preserve.

11. According to the glorious gospel—The Christian's freedom from the law as a sanctifier, as well as a justifier, implied in the previous, 1Ti 1:9, 10, is what this 1Ti 1:11 is connected with. This exemption of the righteous from the law, and assignment of it to the lawless as its true object, is "according to the Gospel of the glory (so the Greek, compare Note, see on [2465]2Co 4:4) of the blessed God." The Gospel manifests God's glory (Eph 1:17; 3:16) in accounting "righteous" the believer, through the righteousness of Christ, without "the law" (1Ti 1:9); and in imparting that righteousness whereby he loathes all those sins against which (1Ti 1:9, 10) the law is directed. The term, "blessed," indicates at once immortality and supreme happiness. The supremely blessed One is He from whom all blessedness flows. This term, as applied to God, occurs only here and in 1Ti 6:15: appropriate in speaking here of the Gospel blessedness, in contrast to the curse on those under the law (1Ti 1:9; Ga 3:10).

committed to my trust—Translate as in the Greek order, which brings into prominent emphasis Paul, "committed in trust to me"; in contrast to the kind of law-teaching which they (who had no Gospel commission), the false teachers, assumed to themselves (1Ti 1:8; Tit 1:3).

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