What does 2 Timothy 2:13 mean, "if we believe not, yet he abideth faithful"?

Whosoever Will, Three Men Who Cannot See the End: You expect the symmetry to hold. You expect: if we are faithless, He will be faithless to us. That is what the previous three have trained you to expect. It is not what Paul writes. He writes if we believe not, yet he abideth faithful, and then he tells you exactly why the symmetry could not hold: he cannot deny himself. That is the hinge of the whole passage. Your faithlessness cannot produce a matching faithlessness in God, because His faithfulness is not a response to your performance. It is an expression of His own nature. For God to become unfaithful to what He has promised in Christ, He would have to stop being God. That is the one thing omnipotence cannot do. Scripture, King James Version: 2 Timothy 2:13, "If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself.".

Verified. Every scripture quotation on this page has been checked word-for-word against the King James text. Last reviewed 2026-10-18.