I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these things to you so that, if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of truth.
THE OCCASION FOR WRITING
During Paul’s second missionary journey (a mission that eventually took him to Greece) he added Timothy, whom he met in Lystra, to his missionary entourage. Following Paul’s release from Roman imprisonment and further mission to the east, he left Timothy behind at Ephesus to continue the apostle’s work with that fledgling church. Though there was more to be done, Paul had already spent an extended time in the region of Ephesus and he was resolved in the Spirit to continue on to Macedonia. It was Paul’s concern for the Ephesian church that prompted him to leave Timothy at Ephesus, thus providing them with sound leadership (1 Timothy 1.3-7). Paul realized that false doctrinal teaching might easily corrupt the thinking of new converts. This concern is voiced in the following section of his letter: Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth (1 Timothy 4.1-3).
HIS PURPOSE IN WRITING
Though Paul hoped to come to Timothy soon he has given him some basic instructions in case he was delayed. Paul’s instructions may have been things that Timothy already knew, but Paul intends to give him apostolic support and encouragement to persevere, thereby providing the leadership that is sorely needed in this logistically important church. In 1 Timothy 3.1-13 Paul instructs Timothy about the character traits of godly leadership. The overseers of the household of God (the church) are responsible to guard the souls of those who have been entrusted to them (1 Timothy 4.16; cp. Acts 20.28). The purpose of his writing is to insure that Timothy instructs the household of God to behave in a proper manner. Such behavior is to be expected from those who have been entrusted with the truth about the work and person of Jesus Christ. Indeed, the church of the living God is a pillar and buttress of truth. In the following hymnic statement Paul identifies six things that pertain to Christ. As members of the household of God it is incumbent on everyone to understand something about the work and person of Jesus Christ. After all, it is God who is at work in the life of every believer (Philippians 2.13). God is alive and so is the church!
THE MYSTERY OF GODLINESS
Paul introduces the work and person of Christ with the emphatic statement: Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness. Without confessing Christ as savior there can be no salvation. The confession that Jesus is Lord and savior is a necessary requirement of salvation. As Paul writes: if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved (Romans 10.9-10). With the revelation that Jesus is the Christ, the last word of salvation history has been uttered. Previously, no one completely understood how God would fulfill his covenant promises. It was a mystery of sorts that had been long hidden. Then, at just the right moment (Galatians 4.4), God’s plan was made clear to everyone (Romans 16.25; Ephesians 3.1-13; Colossians 1.24-2.3). Of course, Paul is not using the phrase, the mystery of godliness, in a proto-Gnostic or cultic sense. Some of Paul’s contemporaries were members of mystery cults, which taught that “salvation” was available only to the initiates of the mystery cult. The events surrounding the birth of Christianity, by way of contrast, were public knowledge. Indeed, everything about Jesus’ life and ministry was attested publicly. However, what was witnessed by all (Acts 26.26) was received through faith only by the elect: The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned (1 Corinthians 2.14).
WORK AND PERSON OF CHRIST
Paul’s sixfold statement regarding Christ was probably an often repeated liturgical affirmation of the work and person of Christ. Whether it was hymnic or creedal in its origin is a matter of debate. The section begins with a relative pronoun, which indicates it has an antecedent in a section of a liturgical document not included by Paul, though the subject matter of the section suggests it had reference to Christ. That Paul is referring to Christ is not debated, but precisely how these six lines are to be connected has not been universally agreed upon. It is not unreasonable however, to view the six lines as three couplets dealing with the revelation of Christ, the proclamation of Christ and the reception of Christ.
The contrasts are between flesh and Spirit, angels and nations, and world and glory and may be summarized as repetitions of the one antithesis of earthy and heavenly. Furthermore, if this analysis is correct, the six lines present also a chiastic pattern of a-b, b-a, a-b. The first of the three couplets presents Christ’s work accomplished, the second his work made known, and the third his work acknowledged.
Gundry suggests, on the other hand, that the hymn is framed by lines 1 and 6 and filled out by synthetically parallel lines 2-3 and 4-5. For all the insightfulness and plausibility of this view, it does not seem more plausible than the analysis of the statement into three pairs of contrasting couplets. The linkage of lines 1 and 6 is not readily evident over that between 1 and 2 and between 5 and 6 (George W. Knight III, The Pastoral Epistles, p. 183).
REVELATION OF CHRIST (1st couplet)
1. Jesus was manifested in the flesh: New Testament believers understood this to mean that Jesus Christ was truly God and truly man. That is, he was the pre-existent and eternal Word (John 1.1-14; Philippians 2.5-11) and that he was incarnate through the miraculous conception of the virgin Mary (this, indeed, is a mystery but it is not irrational). In all of this there is a suggestion that Jesus’ prior existence was voluntarily concealed in human flesh. “Massinger suggests that ‘although there is a grammatical irregularity in referring the masculine relative pronoun ὅς [he] to the neuter pronoun μυστήριον [mystery], the result is a wonderful truth, namely that the mystery of godliness is Christ Himself; that godliness, hidden in ages past, has now been revealed, and is seen not to be an abstract ideal, a mere attribute of personality, but actually a person, the Lord Jesus Christ’” (William Mounce, Pastoral Epistles, p. 227). John Donne poetically expresses the reason for the incarnation: “And Jacob came cloth’d in vile harsh attire / But to supplant, and with gainfull intent: / God cloth’d himself in vile mans flesh, that so / He might be weake enough to suffer woe” (John Donne, Divine Poems 7).
2. He was vindicated by the Spirit. The content of the gospel was certainly validated by Jesus’ life and ministry (Matthew 3.16; John 9.31), but it was also vindicated by the Holy Spirit in his resurrection: and [Jesus] was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord (Romans 1.4; cp. 8.11). Jesus predicted that three days after his crucifixion he would rise from the dead. Unlike those cults that despised the work of the flesh, the Spirit, through the resurrection, vindicated everything Jesus did in his body so that the world might believe that Jesus is the Christ of God.
PROCLAMATION OF CHRIST (2nd couplet)
3. He was seen by angels. The contrast between the heavenly beings in line three and the earthly disciples in line four accentuates the supernatural witness to the work and person of Christ. Angels bore witness to his birth (Luke 2.9-14), they witnessed and gave testimony to his resurrection (Matthew 28.2-7), and they explained the meaning of the ascension to the disciples who witnessed his departure from the earth (Acts 1.10-11). At each of these pivotal junctures there is a heavenly attestation to Christ’s salvific work.
4. Jesus was proclaimed among the nations. If all this be true, then what else can a man do but preach and teach the eternal truth that Jesus is Lord of heaven and earth. Jesus required nothing less than this of his disciples: Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matthew 28.19-20; cp. 2 Timothy 4.2).
RECEPTION OF CHRIST (3rd couplet)
5. Believed on in the world. Men and women from every walk of life have committed themselves to Christ and worship him as Lord and Savior. When the good news of Jesus Christ is faithfully preached, people will believe in him to the saving of their souls: you [the Lamb] ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth (Revelation 5.9-10).
6. Taken up in glory. The Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world returned to the glory he enjoyed with his Father from all eternity past. In line one of this hymnic fragment Jesus is incarnate. In the final line he returns to the glory he knew with the Father before the world began (John 17.5; Acts 1.9-11). Jesus is now at the right hand of the Father (see my sermon notes on the session, August 22, 2004).
These truths then are entrusted to the church and believers are responsible for keeping them without additions or subtractions.
My words and thoughts do both express this notion,
that life hath with the sun a double motion.
The first is straight, and our diurnal friend;
The other hid, and doth obliquely bend,
One life is wrapt in flesh, and tends to earth;
The other winds towards him, Whose happy birth
Taught me to live here so that still one eye
Should aim and shoot at that which is on high;
Quitting with daily labour all my pleasure,
To gain at harvest an eternal treasure [cp. Colossians 3.1-4].
GEORGE HERBERT
