The Blessed Mercy of God—Lectionary Reflection for Pentecost 14C/Proper 19 (1 Timothy 1)

1 Timothy 1:12-17 New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

¹² I am grateful to Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because he considered me faithful and appointed me to his service, ¹³ even though I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, ¹⁴ and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. ¹⁵ The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance: that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the foremost. ¹⁶ But for that very reason I received mercy, so that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display the utmost patience as an example to those who would come to believe in him for eternal life. ¹⁷ To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.

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                From Philemon, we turn to a series of readings from two of the three Pastoral Letters. While the opening greeting of the letter we have before us (1 Timothy) comes from Paul and is addressed to his ministry partner Timothy, the majority of critical scholars believe that this along with 2 Timothy and Titus are post-Pauline letters, written by an interpreter of Paul long after his death. Whoever authored these three letters, and they are always treated as a collection, addresses pastoral matters. The letters cover a variety of concerns, the advice found in them at times beneficial and at other times problematic. There are reasons for rejecting Pauline authorship, but this is not the place to deal with them. As we read this passage, we do find elements that reflect Paul’s story. After all, the author, whom we are going to call Paul here without making a judgment on whether this is Pauline or deuteron-Pauline, refers to himself as formerly being a “blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence.” As we’ll see in this passage much is made of the before and after realities. As Paul reveals in 2 Corinthians 5, this Paul believes himself to be a new creation. That is due to God’s grace revealed in Jesus.

                With this reading, we jump into the midsection of the opening chapter of 1 Timothy. While verses 1-2 serve as a heading identifying both the author and the recipient (Timothy), the following verses serve as a warning against false teachers and practices. There are some problematic elements in these verses, which may explain why we’re skipping over them. As to their interpretation, I recommend finding a good commentary or two. The reading we have before us is a prayer of thanksgiving that begins with a word of gratitude to Christ Jesus and ends with a doxology commending the immortal and invisible God. 

                Why is Paul grateful to Jesus? He’s grateful because Jesus strengthened him and judged him faithful to be appointed to Christ’s service (vs. 12). This is true even though he had been a “blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence.” So, while this is a prayer of thanksgiving, it also reveals the essential message of salvation present in the letter and in Paul’s life. Once he had been an opponent of Jesus, but Jesus reached out and redeemed him so that he could be God’s agent of salvation in Christ. While he had once acted in ignorance when he opposed the ministry of Jesus’ followers, now he was enlightened. That’s because God’s grace had overflowed him.

As he offers this prayer of thanksgiving, acknowledging the person he had once been and the person he had now become in Christ, he acknowledges that Christ had come into the world to save sinners. He writes that “the saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” In saying this, Paul claims to be drawing on a Tradition passed on to him. As Christopher Hutson notes, this is the first of five “trustworthy” statements in the Pastorals (1Tim. 3:1; 4:9; 2 Tim. 2:11; Titus 3:8). Thus, Hutson writes that, based on what we know from other uses of the expression “trustworthy saying” in ancient literature, “for Pastoral Paul, then, a ‘trustworthy saying’ is an element of tradition that is settled and unquestionable” [First and Second Timothy and Titus: Paideia Commentaries on the New Testament, p. 39]. In essence, this is a creedal statement affirmed by the larger community. Thus, drawing on this trustworthy saying, Paul can identify himself as chief among sinners.

Whether Paul wrote this or not, the intended audience for this message (Timothy) could easily represent any new pastor who might be wondering about their own past. Am I worthy of this calling? Do I have too much baggage to be effective? With this prayer of thanksgiving Paul tells Timothy that Paul is the recipient of Jesus’ saving grace, so not to worry. In fact, if Jesus can save Paul, Jesus can save anyone. So, nobody is beyond God’s reach.  At least that’s how I read it.

                With this Paul breaks out in a word of praise and thanksgiving. “To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever.” If one is planning worship with this passage in mind, it would make sense to include, perhaps as the opening him, William Chalmers Smith’s hymn “Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise.” The opening stanza continues by declaring that “in light inaccessible hid from our eyes, most blessed, most glorious, the Ancient of Days, almighty, victorious, thy great name we praise.” Here is a word of gratitude to the one who transforms lives, and as such it serves as an invitation to worship.

                It is worth breaking down these three modifiers when speaking of God—immortal, invisible, and only. The modifying word “wise” that appears in the hymn depends on the reading in the King James Version, which includes this variant. Whether in the manuscripts used by modern translators, it does seem to fit. God is immortal (Gk. aphthartos), that is, God is imperishable and thus eternal. God is not only immortal/imperishable, but God is invisible (Gk. aoratō). Interestingly, this is one of five occurrences of this word in the New Testament.  One of those other instances—Colossians1:15—speaks of Jesus being the “image of the invisible God.” The Orthodox tradition helpfully emphasizes God’s invisible essence, and yet while God’s essence cannot be known, God can be known through God’s divine energies. Vladimir Lossky puts it this way:

We are therefore compelled to recognize in God an ineffable distinction, other than that between His essence and His persons, according to which He is, under different aspects, both totally inaccessible and at the same time accessible. This distinction is that between the essence of God, or His nature, proper so-called, which is inaccessible, unknowable and incommunicable; and the energies or divine operations, forces proper to and inseparable from God’s essence in which He goes forth from Himself, manifests, communicates, and gives Himself [The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, p. 70].

Finally, there is the word “only.” Here’s where that variant picked up by the King James Version is helpful—the “only wise God.” The emphasis here is on God’s oneness. This God who is the King of the Ages, the eternal/immortal one who remains invisible, yet revealed in Christ, is the only one whom we encounter the divine wisdom.   

So begins our tour through the Pastorals, letters of encouragement sent by an experienced pastor to younger pastors. In these words of encouragement, the older pastor acknowledges a before and after reality, such that if the younger pastor has any concerns about their past, they can take comfort in God’s blessed mercy and grace and love which comes to them through Christ Jesus our Lord. If this is a word of encouragement to such a pastor, surely it is a word of encouragement to all believers. Thus, there is power to be found in personal testimonies, in all our testimonies! Once again, to God be the glory.

                To the immortal, invisible, only wise God belongs “honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.” There is both a cosmic and an apocalyptic ring to this declaration. It is cosmic in that it affirms the invisible nature of God, but apocalyptic in that it looks forward to the culmination of the immortal/imperishable God’s reign, for to the King of Ages belongs glory and honor! With that we return to the hymn:

Thou reignest in glory; thou dwellest in light,

thine angels adore thee, all veiling their sight;

all praises we render: O help us to see

that only the splendor of light hideth thee.

Christ the King of Kings, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=55319 [retrieved September 2, 2022]. Original source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Christ_King_of_Kings_(Greece,_c._1600).jpg.