1 Timothy: on Christology

1 Timothy on Christology

1. Creedal confession, 3:16. Let us begin with the fundamentals. St. Paul wants to come to Timothy. Yet, preparing the younger pastor for a possible delay, he provides the confessional statement – what should the Church know about godliness. Before we go into text itself, let’s touch on two words: confession and mystery.   

Confession – Greek homologeon, means speaking together out loud. This is what the church should say as a statement of faith. This is what we believe – it should not be changed, adjusted, or improved. Later confessions: Apostle’s creed, Nicaean creed etc. used the very same form – a collection of short statements revealing the elements of doctrinal teaching about God, Christ, Holy Spirit, or Church. We repeat it TOGETHER every Sunday.

The word Mystery reflects the revelatory aspect of our faith. It is given to us, given from above. Therefore, we can recite it, we can study it, we can proclaim it. But we never will come to the full understanding of Who God is, and What exactly happened on the Cross, in the Tomb, and on Resurrection Sunday morning. Both Old and New Testament speak of the mystery – not magic, but mystery – something beyond our understanding (Proverbs 25:2, Psalm 131:1).           

Confession proper:

1. God (!) manifested in the flesh

2. Justified in the Spirit

3. Seen by the angels

4. Preached in/among the nations

5. Believed in the World/Cosmos

6. Taken up/received in glory.

2. Global function of the Christ, 2:3-7. Christ is the Savior of the world. All people are justified and should come to the knowledge of (this) truth. There is a need to differentiate between General and personal Justification. The difference is obviously seen in 1 Timothy 4:10 and 1 John 2:1-2. This passage talks about salvation and justification in a general way – what Jesus accomplished for the fate of the world on the Cross. Note the distinction of to be saved and to know. True knowledge follows salvation. Same as teaching follows baptism – Matthew 28:18-20. These elements of godliness should not be separated, but knowledge doesn’t HAVE TO precede salvation. That’s why we baptize infants – to be saved (1 Peter 3:21, AC V:1-2).      

3. Function of Christ on the personal level, 1:12-17. Regarding personal aspect of Justification, we can see St. Paul’s own example. He describes his actions toward the Church before his conversion as blasphemy etc. (v. 13). His resistance was conquered by the grace of our LORD, providing the faith and love in Christ Jesus. The apostle goes from general to personal – the task for Messiah is “to save the sinners, of whom I am the foremost” (v. 15). Knowing that people like Saul (former name of St. Paul) can be saved, gives us example of God’s patience and encourages us to pray for our “friends” who don’t know about salvation they can enjoy (v. 16).     

4. Christology is complete in training others in godliness, 4:6-11. Let me start with an example of Old Testament saint, Ezra (7:10): three steps – (1) he recognition of the WORD, given to the world; (2) personal “conversion” by studying and doing; (3) teaching others. St. Paul approaches teaching of Timothy in a similar way. We’ve talked about the first two, here is the third: command and teach these things (v. 11). 

ROMANS: Israel's fate

Israel’s fate

Text: Romans 10

vv. 1-4, Apostol desired the salvation of the fellow Israelites: they have a zeal, but in accordance to knowledge,

Knowledge as a close/intimate connection 

Christ is the end/goal/purpose of the Law/Torah

 

vv. 5-7, righteousness based on the Law vs. righteousness based on the faith

Living by commandments vs living by faith (Rom. 1:17, Hab. 2:4)

Also, contrast of Jesus and Moses in the Prologue of John 1:17. Note that both John and Paul do not compare the texts, they compare the “lifestyles” – life according to the LAW vs. life of faith.

 

vv. 8-10, Mouth and heart

Interesting structure of the passage. St. Paul introduces “mouth” and “heart” (v. 8), then treats them in a chiastic pattern

A. 9a, confess with you mouth

  B. 9b, and believe in your heart

  B’. 10a, with the heart one believes – justification

A’. 10b, with the mouth one confesses – salvation   

This is based on two passages from the Old Testament that the apostle uses as “proof texts,” see next 

vv. 11-13, Everyone who believes will not be put to shame/be saved – Is. 28:16 and Joel 2:32:

Isaiah 28: 16 – about believing – no shame, justification

Joel 2:32 – about calling on the name – confessing with the mouth – salvation

vv. 14-15, How would they believe if they haven’t heard?

Chain sequence: calling upon the name – believing – hearing (from someone) – there should be someone preaching, biblical reference Isaiah 52:7 (which is written right before the next quote in v. 16 – Isaiah 53:1)

vv. 16-17, Gospel was “available for them – both in the days of Isaiah and now. For Isaiah exclaims: “Who has believed heard from us?”

So, faith comes from hearing – not as a penetration of sound waves into one’s ear but as a process described in the previous paragraph, see chain sequence. To complete it Jesus instituted the Office of the Holy Ministry (Matthew 28:16-20; John 20:19-23).

 

vv. 18-21, they have heard, but

didn’t understand/accept   

Others found Me

I hold out My hand to a disobedient people

One more time, maybe they didn’t hear? No, they did – Psalm 19:4

They heard but didn’t understand/accept

Both in the times of Moses – Deuteronomy 32:21

Then a second confirmation of their rejection came from of Isaiah [65:1] (700 years after Moses).    

And yet, the Gospel was available – Isaiah testifies for that [65:2].

Again, St. Paul juxtaposes the texts of Moses and Gospels or Apostles. He shows that the Gospel as Good News was always available. But people did not listen, didn’t accept, chose to live by the commandments not be faith, therefore rejecting the Good News of salvation.  

 

Psalm 32

Psalm 32

One of the penitential psalms

The psalm has an interesting structure:

A. vv. 1-2 are written in 3^rd person

   B. vv. 3-5 are written in 1^st person

A’. v. 6 is written in 3^rd person

     C. v. 7 is written in 2nd person

          D. v.8 is written in 1^st person

     C’. v. 9 are written in 2^nd person (imperative)

          D’. v. 10 is written in 3^rd person

     C”. v. 11 is written in 2^nd person

A. The psalm begins with a double blessing:

            a. transgression is forgiveness

            a’. sin is covered

            b. man with no iniquity

            b’. spirit with no deceit

We’ve met word blessed before – psalm 1 begins with it. Ash’rei – can be translated as blessed but also as happy or lucky. Overall, it is a man who feels lucky and happy because his life resembles the providential blessing of God. There is no more blessing that being in the right relationship with God or having a right standing before God. 

To be blessed is to recognize the need of forgiveness. This right standing before God can’t be achieved by our paying back or “reimbursement” for the mischiefs. Everyone needs forgiveness.   

St. Paul uses the first three lines in his Letter to Romans discussing the grace apart from works – for God’s forgiveness is a gift (Romans 4:7-8).

 

B. After a general introduction David goes into a personal account of the realization of the need for Confession and Absolution. An attempt to conceal sin led to inner distress – psychosomatic effect.

All day long at the end of verse three is paired up with “day and night” in the fourth – meaning that the consequences of sin haunted him not only during the sunlight part of the day but disturbed his sleep too. One of the reasons – the heavy hand of the Lord (your hand). Heavy can also be translated as “glorious” [same word]. There is a glory of God in leading sinners to repentance. Then he adds a very detailed picture of that – my strength dried as by the heat of the summer. We live here on Central Coast enjoying the mid-temperature climate. But think about the desert areas – Bakersfield, or Arizona, or New Mexico… You can put a juicy apple on the sun and it will dry up pretty fast.

After a serious push by God David acknowledges his sin – he did not cover his iniquity – an opposite action compared to the action of God – see v. 1:b-2a. Therefore, when we un-cover our sin, He covers it. What He covers it with? Blood of Christ.  

Liturgical use:

LSB, Divine service (setting 3) uses verse 5 as an introduction to the Confession and Absolution.

A’.  God promised to us His forgiveness – we don’t need to beg for it, we don’t need to buy it, we don’t need travel to special place where God will hear us better – He hears us as we pray.

Then the consequences of sin is compared here with the flood! (v. 6b).

PSALM 19

Psalm 19

The psalm has three main parts:

a. Glory of God via creation

b. Perfection of the written Word

c. Personal evaluation,

            based on the observation of creation and the Scripture

a. Creation is such an intricate “mechanism” that any attempts to ascribe its beauty to a random chance “stand no chance” being evaluated. Current astronomers use the term like “fine tuning” of Earth’s position in the Universe – we are so far from the Sun, and so far from the larger planets like Saturn and Jupiter that the gravity balances us in our perfect location. If Sun (or any other large heavenly object) would be a bit bigger or smaller – the life on Earth as we know it would not exist.