Hymenaeus
"Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment" (John 7:24).
The name Hymenaeus appears twice in the New Testament. The two passages are provided below:
This charge I commit to you, son Timothy, according to the prophecies previously made concerning you, that by them you may wage a good warfare, having faith and a good conscience, which some having rejected, concerning the faith have suffered shipwreck, of whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I delivered to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme (1 Tim. 6: 18-20).
But shun profane and vain babblings, for they will increase to more ungodliness. And their message will spread like cancer. Hymenaeus and Philetus are of this sort, who have strayed concerning the truth, saying that the resurrection is already past; and they overthrow the faith of some (2 Tim. 2:16-18).
Before getting to the main point of discussion, the reader might wonder, "Is this the same Hymenaeus in both passages?" Most commentators believe that the individual is the same, although the evidence for such a conclusion is circumstantial—same author, same recipient, same name, in letters written perhaps 2 or 3 years apart. On the other hand, nothing compels us to think they are two separate individuals; so the assumption will be that the majority is right on this one.
What do we know from these texts about this individual? From 1 Timothy comes the charge that Paul's son in the gospel should wage a good warfare. How many Christians today consider this military aspect of Christianity? Surely, we cannot have overlooked the Christian armor as it is described in Ephesians 6:10-17. That passage is addressed to all who are members of the church. We are to fight against "the wiles of the devil" (Eph. 6:11).
Why? The reason we need the Christian armor is that we are under attack. Satan is leading the assault against individual Christians at a personal level and toward the church collectively. Timothy needed to take heed to himself personally, as in Paul's command to: "Flee youthful lusts…." (2 Tim. 2:22). However, as a preacher of the gospel, Timothy also had to wage war against Satan and all of the false doctrines that Satan introduced into Christianity.
Timothy was to keep the faith, as Paul would later say that he himself had (2 Tim. 4:6). Timothy also needed a good conscience—one that confirmed that he had preached the truth—and one that told him he had done what he could to spread the gospel. Hymenaeus could not do that. In order to explain apostasy, Paul uses the metaphor of a shipwreck, with which he was personally familiar, having been involved in one a few years earlier on his way as a prisoner to Rome (Acts 27). Imagine a ship sailing toward some treacherous rocks, as the Costa Concordia did, which sank on January 13, 2012. This sad event occurred about 62 miles northwest of Rome in the Tyrrhenian Sea. The ship struck a rock, and water began immediately to flood the engine room. Some passengers lost their lives. The same thing can happen spiritually to those following a careless captain.
Paul gave Timothy a specific charge which cannot be emphasized too much: "Take heed to yourself and to the doctrine. Continue in them, for in doing this you will save both yourself and those who hear you" (1 Tim. 4:16). If the one who preaches to others veers off course, he will suffer shipwreck, and those on board with him stand in jeopardy of losing their lives, also. This is what happened with Hymenaeus and Alexander. They had not taken the appropriate heed and had run aground. What caused a departure from the true course? Was not the teaching of Jesus and the apostles sufficient for them?
Motives
No hint of their reasons for taking the wrong direction are given to us here. Were they siding with another false teacher, or was this error one of their own devising? They do not seem to have been sincerely mistaken about something (which Paul would have corrected). It is possible that Hymenaeus could have been a preacher or one of the elders Paul had spoken to before he was imprisoned. When he met with the elders of Ephesus, where Timothy was when he received this letter (1 Tim. 1:3), Paul had warned them:
Therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood. For I know, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after themselves (Acts 20:28-30).
Hymenaeus could well have been one of those men who, in conjunction with Alexander, had decided to have his own following. The ambitious do not care about the truth; having men follow them is worth teaching an error or two. Faithful preachers of the gospel do not want anyone to follow them personally. Their goal is to preach Christ and Him crucified (1 Cor. 1:21). For some, however, merely pointing the way to Christ is not enough. Unlike John the Baptizer, they have no humility that enables them to acknowledge that Christ is the great one and that they are just servants.
Like Diotrephes, they love the pre-eminence and do not care what outrageous doctrine they must teach in order to obtain or maintain it. The sad thing is not that they crave adoration but that they actually receive it from willing brethren who either cannot discern the difference between truth and error or are so attached to such men that they will follow them anywhere. Thus the body of Christ becomes fractured, and the unity for which the Lord prayed stands in jeopardy.
The Withdrawal of Fellowship
Just as in the case of the man living with his father's wife in Corinth, Paul knew that this situation had to be dealt with. He withdrew fellowship from them. It would be helpful to know how he went about accomplishing this necessary action. Did he meet with them personally? If so, it must have occurred when Paul left Ephesus for Macedonia (1 Tim. 1:3). Was Timothy already aware of what Paul had done and is just being reminded of it? Did Paul bring this matter before the church at Ephesus, and they all participated in delivering these men to Satan? When the church withdraws fellowship from someone, it is the equivalent to delivering them to Satan. If all the righteous (those in the kingdom of God) withhold their fellowship from someone, then the only kingdom left for them to be a part of is the one over which Satan rules.
Why did Paul say that the goal of what he had done was that they might learn not to blaspheme? There was something in their teaching that was contrary to God or to Jesus. Or their teaching, whatever it was, may have violated the plain principles taught by Jesus and the apostles, in which case by implication they were speaking against the Holy Spirit by disagreeing with what He had revealed. The goal of someone being out of fellowship with Christ is always to allow them to see the seriousness of their actions, repent, and bring them back into the fold. This goal was obtained in the case for the man in Corinth, but if the Hymenaeus of 2 Timothy is the same one, it obviously did not work in this instance.
The teaching that Paul sets forth in this passage agrees with what he had taught elsewhere. He wrote to Titus, for example: "Reject a divisive man after the first and second admonition" (3:10). Of course, a person can be divisive without being in error. He might be perpetually cantankerous and searching for molehills to make mountains out of. He might even misrepresent what one person said to another, just desiring to create friction between brethren. But in light of the lengthy warning Paul gave against the gainsayers—those who subvert whole households for some financial and dishonest gain—he is probably considering idle talkers and deceivers (Titus 1:9-11). Paul also taught brethren to mark or "note those who cause divisions and offenses, contrary to the doctrine" they had learned, "and avoid them" (Rom. 16:17).
The 2 Timothy Passage
In this warning, which couples Hymenaeus' name with Philetus, Paul is talking about those who utter profane and vain babblings. One might think that these men are to be pitied rather than censured, but such is not the case. Whatever they were teaching led to ungodliness (like those concerning whom Peter wrote in 2 Peter 2 and Jude in his epistle). Furthermore, their teachings, if not confronted and checked, would spread like cancer, which is clearly a dangerous situation. For this reason Paul said concerning those in Crete that their "mouths must be stopped" (Titus 1:11).
Many brethren have expressed the opinion that we should just leave false teachers alone, citing what Jesus said concerning the Pharisees in Matthew 15:14: "Let them alone. They are blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind leads the blind, both will fall into a ditch." Did the Lord mean that false teachers and hypocrites should be left alone? He cannot mean that because that is not a doctrine He practiced. He utterly denounced the Pharisees and called them hypocrites all throughout Matthew 23. Certainly Paul calls for the exposure of such men in several of the passages already mentioned in this article. Is there a contradiction here? J. W. McGarvey explains what Jesus means in Matthew 15: "Let them alone, not in the way of ceasing to expose their errors, but in the sense of making no effort to appease them" (Commentary on Matthew – Mark 136).
Paul knew that a false doctrine, if left unopposed, would sway many brethren to stray concerning the truth. Therefore, he had identified Hymenaeus and Alexander as false teachers previously and withdrew fellowship from them that all might know they were in error. Now he again identifies Hymenaeus as one who is in error (and Philetus along with him). Only this time a specific false doctrine is identified. They were teaching that "the resurrection is already past." What? The resurrection of Christians from the dead had already occurred? What are the results of this teaching?
Specifically mentioned is that this doctrine overthrew the faith of some—probably because all who were yet alive must have therefore missed that great event. In Corinth, some had taught that no resurrection would occur, period. Paul pointed out that if no one can be raised from the dead, then neither has Christ been raised. Then he teaches the truth about that great day. Now, just a few years later, some men had come along and just modified that error. They said that Christ was raised, and many saints were raised, but the resurrection had already occurred. One wonders how and when that event happened, and only these two men knew about it. What special insight they must possess! (And they would be among the first to admit it, no doubt.)
To take away the coming resurrection promised to all the faithful saints is to remove one's hope for the future. What happens to the incentive given to all Christians concerning the hope of eternal life? "No, the resurrection has already happened, but you missed it," they had to claim. Why would anyone teach that? It gives them their own following because they are the only ones who can answer that question. Those teaching the truth could have no answer because the position is false. Perhaps they promised them something almost as good (like the Jehovah's Witnesses who are more excited about the false idea of living on a renovated earth than being in heaven itself). If we never know what the advantage was, nevertheless we know that the doctrine overthrew the faith of some and discouraged them from continuing the life of a Christian.
But there was also an opposite effect. While genuine Christians would be left desolate, carnal Christians would receive comfort. If the resurrection was already past, then there was no standing before the judgment seat of Christ to receive the things done in the body (2 Cor. 5:10), so one could engage in various pleasures of this life without fear of retribution. Truly, this teaching would lead to more ungodliness. Some in the first century were very clever in trying to spread corruption among Christians, who had just escaped from that kind of thinking and living when they obeyed the gospel (2 Peter 1:1-4). This teaching contradicted all of the passages of the New Testament that taught that the Day of Judgment was yet to come (2 Thess. 1:6-10). One would need a new revelation in order to propagate this doctrine, and that may be what was claimed. Some may have failed to realize that God does not reverse Himself.
WHY HYMENAEUS?
The important question to ask, however, is, "Why was anyone listening to Hymenaeus?" If both references are to the same man, Paul had already delivered him to Satan; so how did he retain any credibility? Why do brethren listen more to a "slick" user of words than to an inspired apostle? How does this happen? Paul was in Ephesus for three years. He started the church there and in all the surrounding region. They knew Paul and his character. Paul and various brethren had marked Hymenaeus; he was even "written" up" in a letter. Did some just attribute it to a "personality" clash? Could they not see the difference in the results of the doctrine?
When word got around that Hymenaeus had been withdrawn from, how is it that some Christians refused to honor that action? Why did some refuse to be warned? The result of his teaching was that some brethren's faith had been overthrown; the effect of Paul's teaching was that disciples were encouraged to be faithful and live in joyous anticipation of the wonderful future that God has in store for us. Should not a tree be known by its fruits? Paul's teaching resulted in greater spirituality; Hymenaeus' caused people to regress to what they were (or worse) before they became Christians.
Furthermore, Paul was an inspired apostle, selected by Jesus as an apostle to the Gentiles. Who was Hymenaeus, but some self-proclaimed "great" one, who had his own dogma and agenda? Why didn't brethren refuse to fellowship him until he repented of his false teaching? How was he even in a position that anyone would give him any kind of credence whatsoever?
Where is the Church Today?
Is the church today any different? Some preachers, elders, and congregations today are so ill-informed that they would not know a false doctrine from a kumquat. They would not recognize a false teacher even if he wore a sign around his neck. While it is the case that we do not have inspired apostles today, we do have the inspired Scriptures that they gave us, which teach us some important things about fellowship. In years past, most faithful brethren would take issue immediately with false teachers, but such no longer seems to be the case. He will be invited to hold gospel meetings and accorded every hospitable act that someone ought to receive who is still standing for the truth.
Back in the early 70s Max King revived the Hymenaeus and Philetus doctrine that the resurrection was already past. Gus Nichols and others immediately challenged it and him. Would that happen today? Whatever it was that caused some brethren to fellowship a withdrawn-from false teacher in the first century has revived itself in the twenty-first century. Have the principles concerning the fellowshipping of false teachers changed? Has there been some new revelation? When those who teach error are left alone, their doctrine will spread as cancer. Too late some may see that a distorted sense of "balance" has caused them to fall.