“THAT EVIL SLAVE”

32. In his parable of the servants in Matthew 24:45-51, what other professed Christian group will be sentenced to destruction?

³² Another group claiming to be Christians that will receive the same sentence as the “man of lawlessness” is the group that Jesus called prophetically “that evil servant” or “that evil slave.” (Matt. 24:48-51, AV; NW; Luke 12:45, 46) These are dedicated and baptized Christians who have been begotten by God’s spirit to a heavenly hope and who have been associated with the faithful Christian congregation whom Jesus called “a faithful and wise servant” or “faithful and discreet slave.” (Matt. 24:45-47, AV; NW) However, the “evil slave” class becomes rebellious and seeks to manage the Lord’s affairs according to its own pleasure and serves itself according to its fleshly craving and mistreats those of the “faithful and discreet slave” class.

33. (a) Why is the “evil slave” class more blameworthy than the hypocrites outside the Lord’s household? (b) With what other classes pictured in Jesus’ parables is this slave identified?

³³ The Lord Jesus Christ catches the “evil slave” in the midst of such misconduct. He punishes him “with the greatest severity” and puts him out of the house and among the religious hypocrites, where this “evil slave” class belongs. For having been in the Lord’s real household and having been entrusted with his valuable spiritual things, the “evil slave” class of Christians is even more blameworthy than those hypocrites outside the house. They are guilty also of being traitors to their faithful Christian brothers, just as Judas Iscariot was toward the Lord Jesus Christ. They will have no resurrection any more than Judas will. Identical with or included in with the “evil slave” class is the “wicked and sluggish slave” with one talent of his Lord, as pictured in Jesus’ parable in Matthew 25:15, 16, 22-30; also, the “wicked slave” who refused to negotiate with the one mina of his Lord, as described by Jesus in Luke 19:13, 20-27. The Holy Bible leaves no hope for the resurrection of such to heavenly life.

Part Two

1, 2. (a) What unfaithful Christians did Paul mention in 1 Timothy 1:18-20? (b) What opportunities of theirs had they ruined?

AWAY back in the days of the apostle Paul there were dedicated Christians who ruined all their opportunities for a spiritual resurrection to heavenly glory and power with the Lord Jesus Christ. The apostle Paul indicates how this came about when he wrote this to Timothy:

² “This mandate I commit to you, child, Timothy, in accord with the predictions that led directly on to you, that by these you may go on waging the fine warfare; holding faith and a good conscience, which some have thrust aside and have experienced shipwreck concerning their faith. Hymenaeus and Alexander belong to these, and I have handed them over to Satan that they may be taught by discipline not to blaspheme.”—1 Tim. 1:18-20, NW; Ro.

3, 4. (a) Why does that not mean that the reinstatement of these two men into the congregation was looked forward to? (b) Who, then, received the discipline in this connection?

³ This is not to say that Hymenaeus and Alexander finally learned a lesson and stopped blaspheming and were brought back into the congregation and rescued from Satan’s clutches. This could not be, inasmuch as those two dedicated and baptized Christians had thrust aside the Christian faith and a good conscience and had suffered the shipwrecking of their faith so that it went down into the sea of destruction.

⁴ By being disfellowshiped from the faithful Christian congregation these two men did not learn any corrective discipline. The beloved faithful congregation got the discipline, learning to avoid those two spiritually shipwrecked men and to have nothing to do with them, leaving them entirely to Satan, to whom Paul, with apostolic authority, had handed them over. By the necessary expulsion of these two men who had lost faith and a good conscience the loyal congregation were disciplined to fear taking the course of action of Hymenaeus and Alexander lest they themselves suffer the same ruin to their Christian lives and be disfellowshiped, handed over to Satan.

5, 6. (a) According to 2 Timothy 2:16-19, what was wrong with Hymenaeus? (b) Why did the congregation have to renounce Hymenaeus and Philetus, and how did these men teach the resurrection to be past?

⁵ The apostle Paul gives further information regarding Hymenaeus and shows what was wrong with him when he later wrote Timothy as follows: “Shun empty speeches that violate what is holy; for they will advance to more and more ungodliness, and their word will spread like gangrene. Hymenaeus and Philetus are of that number. These very men have deviated from the truth, saying that the resurrection has already occurred; and they are subverting the faith of some. For all that, the solid foundation of God stays standing, having this seal: ‘Jehovah knows those who belong to him,’ and: ‘Let everyone naming the name of Jehovah renounce unrighteousness.’”—2 Tim. 2:16-19.

⁶ Hymenaeus and Philetus no longer belonged to Jehovah, but were handed over to Satan by expulsion from Jehovah’s Christian congregation. The faithful Christians had Jehovah’s name called upon them as a “people for his name” and they named that divine name in their congregational meetings and in preaching outside. (Acts 15:14-18) For that reason they had to renounce such untrue Christians as Hymenaeus and Philetus, as being full of unrighteousness. Those men had their own ideas about the resurrection. They taught that “the resurrection has already occurred” in their day; evidently this was by their teaching that the resurrection was merely a spiritual one, of a symbolic kind, and that the dedicated Christians had already had their resurrection and that this was all there was to the matter and there was no further resurrection in the future under God’s Messianic kingdom.

7. What was executed upon them at their death, and why?

⁷ Hymenaeus and Philetus had already subverted the faith of some members of the congregation by such resurrection teaching. Whether in that same connection they were teaching the pagan Grecian doctrine of the immortality of the human soul, Paul does not say. However, those conscienceless subverters of the faith of Christian believers were sinning willfully after having come to an accurate knowledge of the truth, even in connection with the apostle Paul. Hence when they died the “judgment of Gehenna” was executed upon them. They will have no resurrection.

8, 9. What point does Paul make strong in 1 Timothy 6:9, 10, 20, 21?

⁸ Christians who let themselves be lured into heaping up material riches and into acquiring much worldly knowledge or “science” are endangering their opportunity for a resurrection and life in the righteous system of things to come. Not by riches and “science” but by the true Christian faith we are saved.

⁹ Making this point strong in the conclusion