1 Timothy 3

1 Timothy 3:1-4

Division 3. (1 Timothy 3:1-16; 1 Timothy 4:1-16.)The house of God and the holiness belonging to it. We now come really to the house of God itself first of all, indeed, to that which was instituted for the preservation of the character which it should necessarily have as the house of God. The elder, or overseer, and the deacon are provisions for the expression, on the one hand, of that godliness which belongs to it as such, and also of that character which we see must necessarily belong to it as the house of a Saviour-God, and whose love, therefore, must be shown by ministry to the need, which is, in fact, ordered on God’s part, to draw out and cultivate the spirit so necessary in the Christian. These things are all that we may learn how to conduct ourselves in the house of God. Whatever special place Timothy might have and had, yet the conduct of any in the house of God must befit the place in which he is. The directions even as to elders and deacons are not, so to speak, merely for their own sake; they show us the character that God values and seeks from His people, giving it only an emphasis which cannot certainly make the lesson for us less.

1. The bishop, commonly so-called, or “overseer,” as the word means, comes before us first here. His title of office expresses the character of it. The man himself who is to fill the office is the “elder,” though not here named as such. We have the two brought together in the plainest way in the apostle’s address to the elders at Ephesus in the book of Acts, where, calling for the elders of the Church, he bids them to take care for the Church of God, in which the Holy Spirit had made them bishops, or overseers. The elder (elder in years) is necessarily the one who is alone fit for such an office.

The incongruity of a young man being appointed to it should be obvious at first sight. It is a place which requires experience, and which calls for a reputation on the part of one who fills it, gained not all at once, but as he is tested and manifested by the testing.

He was appointed specifically to this work, did not appoint himself to it, though he might aspire to such, and desire a good work in aspiring to it. In fact, work of this character is what there is, perhaps, more danger of men shrinking from than aspiring to. Not every elder in years would therefore be what his years should have made him, and the apostle’s words indicate here that the love to others which necessarily exists in the Christian heart should lead him to desire labor of this kind. It is labor, not authority, that he desires. The appointment, which is what is called ordinarily ordination now, was that which manifestly gave authority. The idea everywhere entertained today that the evangelist, or teacher, needs such authority for the exercise of his proper gift, is an entire mistake as to the very purpose of the ordination.

A gift speaks for itself. It is the “manifestation of the Spirit,” as the apostle says, which is for every man to profit with it; that is, he is to use it for the profit of others.

The fact of the gift entails the responsibility of using it, and to seek authority from man in this way is, however ignorantly, to slight the authority of God, which can make no mistake in the gift that has been given. People would say, of course, that the question here is as to the possession of the gift; but there is in Christianity, as we have seen, the widest liberty for every one, without pretension, to help another according to the full capacity which he may realize to do so. Christians will easily determine for themselves whether it is help that they are getting or the reverse. We know the baker by the bread he gives us. We know the teacher by the spiritual food which he supplies. Ordination at the hands of a certain number of any limited class sets aside in reality the responsibility of every one to take heed for himself as to what he hears.

The teaching is supposed to have been otherwise guaranteed to him, and he has little to do except to sit down and receive that which comes with such a sanction. The abuse is everywhere manifest, and the abuse is inherent in such a use of ordination as we find here.

The conscience of both hearer and teacher is taken away from its proper immediate exercise before God, and human influences get their leave to rule in a disastrous way. The independence of the teacher must be secured in obedience to the Spirit Himself, who is in this respect the true Overseer every way and, on the other hand, the one who hears is to be in no wise dependent upon the teacher. The unscriptural thought of a minister and his congregation gives, in fact, the teacher a monopoly of instruction which a true soul, uninfluenced by tradition, would surely, as a matter of course, refuse. Who would desire to assume responsibility of giving to those under him all that they need in this way, shutting out the divers gifts in the body of Christ, as himself all-competent to be all gift? God’s way is at once that of liberty to serve, and of service instead of rule, which in this case is out of place. Wherever it is a question of teaching or evangelizing, the authority is in the Word itself, and no other is needed.

The Word is maintained in its place as the decisive word of God, to which all are to be subject, and is that also which every one is responsible for himself to recognize, and empowered to do so by the Spirit which is received. If the teaching becomes in any wise erroneous, so as to affect fundamental points, of course the discipline of the assembly comes rightly into its place.

Apart from this, the rule is, as the apostle says of prophesying in the assembly: “Let the prophets speak” -give them also their liberty -“and let the rest judge.” All party spirit, all working of men’s minds merely, in this way finds its most effectual power of restraint. But we have here to do, not with the evangelist or teacher, but with the overseer, who is indeed to be “apt to teach;” that is, he is to be able to use the word of God as he has received it. If he could not do this, he could have no right influence or authority over others; but this does not amount to a teacher’s gift, and in fact we find elsewhere that the elders that rule well are to be accounted “worthy of double honor, specially those who labor in the word and doctrine.” If they labored in the word and doctrine, that was an additional thing, and of necessity deserved additional honor; but the elder might rule well, apart from that. In the case, then, of oversight of the kind that is indicated here, (that fatherly oversight which he has shown his readiness for by having his children in subjection in his own house) ordination had its rightful place. There might be matters to inquire into which it would be in no wise well for every one to have liberty for. On the other hand, we never hear of an elder in a place or congregation, but of elders.

It was not the rule of one man that could be tolerated even here. Too much power of this sort man cannot be safely trusted with; while, on the other hand, the presence of a class which had such authority would be necessarily of great advantage.

It is evident that the elders in no wise interfered with the responsibility of assembly discipline, however much they might be leaders here; but the assembly in this was to act as the assembly everywhere, in its own place and responsibility. The character needed in the overseer will now be easy to understand. A man might rightly aspire to oversight, as has been already said. He might rightly crave the ability to help in matters in which every assembly, in fact, needs help. If he desired it as a good work, not for personal display, it was all well. But the overseer must be irreproachable. There must not be a cloud upon him. His moral character must be spotless in the eyes of all. He was to be the “husband of one wife, sober, discreet, decorous, given to hospitality, apt to teach, not given to wine, no striker, but mild, not given to contention, not fond of money.” Here is the moral character which becomes him, and it needs scarcely to be enlarged upon.

A special point is that which follows here, and we see how necessarily the elder would be both an elderly and a married man. There must have been time to show his power to conduct well his own house, otherwise how could he take this larger care as to the assembly of God itself? The apostle does not exactly say “the house of God” because, as we may believe, he is thinking of the local assembly, and the house of God is a larger thought than that; but the care, nevertheless, is similar. It is a fatherly care, suited to the house of God as such, although he cannot be the father in that house, as in fact he never was the father, even in one assembly. There was a community of fathers, for the house of God needs the care of many, and the various ability implied in this. He was not to be a novice, even though he might have all other qualifications.

He should be a man tried, and therefore who has had time for the trial, “lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil;” that is, should fall into the sin for which the devil is condemned. A solemn word this, which has been commented on, perhaps, sufficiently elsewhere; but here we have the primal sin itself, in view of which God has acted all the way through human history, and in the very creation of man no less.

How solemn to think that a being created in perfection, one of those “angels that excel in strength,” who are the type of creature independence so far as this can be spoken of, should fall in the only way, perhaps, in which we can think of any possibility of a fall on the part of such an one, by self-occupation, self-admiration; and what an awful fall it was! How has God hedged man around in this respect to hide pride from him, with the limitation of a human body, naturally a naked creature, inferior in some respects to the beasts around him, whose nature, too, in many respects he shares! A limitation this, which the fall has only been the means of more strictly circumscribing, so that the lesson shall be more fully learned at last. In how many ways, spite of all, may this pride seek its satisfaction; nay, its recognized place, one might almost say, among Christians themselves. and how many current systems provide more or less for this! Man in the office of an elder must be specially one who has shown himself not easily lifted up with pride. He must show that he has laid to heart the lesson of his origin, and of all God’s dealings with him by the way. His testimony also must be good from those that are without. God does not make light of a man’s testimony from the world itself, although we must not expect the world to appreciate that which is peculiarly Christian in him; but he must have a good testimony in this way, so as not to fall into reproach, (and bring reproach, therefore, upon those among whom he has a place of this sort,) and into the snare of the devil, the accuser, who will be apt to buffet and render him useless by this very reproach. 2. The deacon is, in the strict meaning of the word, the “minister” one who serves; and this word is applied in a larger way than to the local office which is here indicated by it. Here, no doubt, the minister was such as in the case of the seven appointed in Jerusalem; whose duty it was to “serve tables.” This expressively indicates what is in question. It is the bodily need especially that the deacon serves. In this way he cannot and must not forget that he is the spiritual man, and that all lesser and lower things are necessarily to have their character from their spiritual bearing. The ministry of the assembly is the outflow of the heart drawn out by the needs which God permits for this purpose.

It is the same principle as that which obtains in the whole body of Christ, here more in outward things; but there is, of course, nothing secular in it, nor indeed is there to be anywhere, in any point of Christian life. Those chosen in the Acts were to be “men full of the Holy Spirit,” no less; and we may be sure that they needed and could find use for all that this implies. Stephen and Philip are beautiful examples of those who in such ministry acquired “for themselves a good degree, and much boldness in the faith which is in Christ Jesus.” The deacons, then, are to be “grave, not double-tongued, not given to much wine, not seeking gain by base means;” and while not absolutely, as in the case of an elder, needing to be “apt to teach,” yet must hold “the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience.” Faith and conscience are thus to be joined together, as we have already seen. Mere orthodoxy is incompetent everywhere. If the conscience is not under the authority of the truth, the truth can only be a burden to one instead of the blessing that it should be. The deacons, also, were to be men who had been tested, and had abode the test. They were to be entrusted with things which manifestly have their power of temptation even among Christians. They are to be first proved, and then to minister as those without blame and who have approved themselves.

The wives are mentioned also in a special manner here, as not in the case of the elder, which has also, no doubt, to do with the relative characters of the two offices. The wives were to be “grave, not slanderers, sober, faithful in all things.” The deacons, too, were to be “husbands of one wife, conducting their children and their own houses well.” We are reminded of Philip’s daughters who were prophetesses, when Philip himself had risen to a larger sphere of labor than that which was his at Jerusalem in the first place. In this way they would “acquire for themselves a good degree,” they would be helped in helping, and find boldness also in the faith in Christ. 3. The apostle now tells Timothy that he was writing these things that he might know how to conduct himself in the house of God. Holiness becomes God’s house forever. The holiness which should be found in the houses of His people is, of course, but the mere reflection of this. Yet here, too, the character of the house is left in measure to the responsibility of those who are in it. A responsibility indeed it is, for this house of God is the assembly of the living God, indwelt by the living Spirit, the witness for Christ upon the earth.

As this, it is of necessity “the pillar,” proclaiming, and “the ground of the truth,” supporting it by its character; and this remains always in principle the same, although, alas, the failure of man has come in plentifully, as we know, to affect it. Still, if we think of Christendom itself, we could not look outside it for the truth, or for the character which the truth emphasizes.

We must not, indeed, look at the masses -that is sadly true; but we cannot look outside the profession of the faith for this faith that is professed. The truth which it declares is of the most marvelous character. It is “the mystery of piety” -thus, that which is necessary absolutely to godliness, as we have already seen. Without the truth there will be no godliness; but here it is “the mystery of piety,” not the truth simply which Israel had, but much more than this, and having features which, though we may find them in germ in the Old Testament, yet, after all, are peculiar in the full sense to the Christianity which has replaced it. A mystery is always something hidden; but which, nevertheless, is made known to those initiated. To them it is not a mystery any longer, not a secret, but a thing revealed, however much it be true that indeed there are heights and depths in it which no man has ever fathomed, or will fathom.

This mystery is in a Person, acquaintance with whom, if it be real, in the heart, is piety itself. It is “He who hath been manifested in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached among the nations, believed on in the world, received up in glory.” The opening clause here is, as we all know, contested. Our common version is: “God was manifested in the flesh.” The Revised has it as here: “He who hath been manifested.” It is a question of text, which criticism is answering in a way, perhaps, somewhat distasteful to one who cleaves most to the blessed thought, which is, however, really the same, however we read it. We are not really so poor in texts regarding the deity of Christ as to take so seriously the loss of this one; but in fact it is only a superficial view that we do lose it: for WHO is it that has been “manifested in the flesh”? What do such words mean? We cannot think of angels; we cannot think of a man manifested in the flesh. Deity it must after all be, and the language is almost equivalent to that which the apostle John uses in the place in which he is giving us the very criterion of orthodoxy in this matter: “Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ has come in flesh is of God.” That is the confession, to deny which constitutes an antichrist; yet the deity of Christ is no more positively stated there than in the questioned passage before us.

But who could speak of a man come in flesh? And there is no doctrine of an angel so coming, to be put in opposition to that which is plainly the true one.

The manifestation of God is that which is the intent and purpose of all divine communications. It can be nothing else here than God manifested in the flesh, whether this be stated or only implied. The passage, even as commonly read, has been taken by those unsound in the doctrine, the Gnostics, as merely a sort of appearance, a manifestation indeed, but not a personal one. The connection with what follows, however, speaks in favor of the new rendering. One can hardly say “God justified in the Spirit.” This latter clause, which speaks of the descent of the Spirit of God upon Christ, making Him thus the Christ, the Anointed, refers to Him as the Man Christ Jesus, the Second Man, wholly approved of God, refusing the first fallen one. It is quite true that here also is the One to whom God at the same time testifies as His beloved Son, but the expression has reference to the white robe in which the priest must offer, or the unblemished character of the lamb of sacrifice. It is thus John, who has seen the Spirit descend, testifies of Him as “the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world;” and the whole scene is in harmony with this. In any case, as already said, it is the Lord’s deity that is implied here. There is no meaning really otherwise in it; and what a wonderful thing it is, flesh, the human nature as identified with its lowest part, with just that which speaks of weakness and mutability, yet the vessel of the display of Deity itself! A Man here is found who can give God His character -single and alone can do it. The One who has revealed Himself in the Old Testament as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, (and then we must look at these as types, rather than at the men themselves,) is now revealed in One who as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ awakes the whole heart to worship. The lowliness of the manifestation is an essential part of its glory. The “vessel of earth” (although not in the same sense in which the apostle speaks of it in Corinthians) discloses, is fitted to disclose, the excellency of a power which is all of God.

It is not a gleam of glory that is there, but the full reality of it, which will make the throne of God forever to be also the throne of the Lamb. God and man are here in such relation that the one is, so to speak, essential to the other. There must be truest humanity and there must be the full truth of Godhead, or the revelation is lost. It must be the Creator who becomes the Redeemer. If it were any way possible, which it is not, yet the moral impossibility of God leaving the work of redemption to another should be manifest at once. It is God Himself who thus wins man’s heart to Himself.

It is God who has this double claim now upon His creature. It is thus He wins for Himself the creature He has made. From this point His justification in the Spirit becomes a necessity. God has not repented of His creation of man. Here the thought that He had in the beginning as to him is revealed. Here is the blessed Man before us who embodies that thought -One upon whom, without shedding of blood at all, because of His own perfection, the Holy Spirit can abide -nay, we should say, must abide. Our justification is, as we have seen in Corinthians, by the Spirit too; the Spirit now able to dwell in us because of the perfection in which we are before God; but this is no perfection of our own. It is the perfection of the work accomplished for us and of Him in whom we stand.

On the other hand, Christ as indwelt of the Spirit is the testimony to His own perfection, and this can never know any change. He is thus the Christ, the Anointed One. This becomes His very title -the Man approved of God, and approved as suited for the work with which He here connects Himself, just come out of that retirement in which He had been before the eye of God alone, to take His place openly as ministering to man, and that to the giving up of Himself in death; as Jordan, out of which He has come up, testifies. The next thing that we have here shows us the grandeur of the scene for which the revelation is. It is a revelation in manhood, in flesh; but it is a revelation “seen of angels.” The principalities and powers become not merely spectators, but spectators of that which is wonderful blessing for them, even while the Lamb of sacrifice is, of course, not for them; but we have seen in Ephesians that God the Father as revealed to us in Christ is thus “the Father of every family in heaven and earth.” The relation of Fatherhood is necessarily characterized by all that this revelation of the Father brings out in it. In the next clause we have another but a different expansion of the grace that is here: “Preached among the nations” shows that the old hindrances to that which was ever in His heart have been removed, and that now Jew and Gentile alike become the recipients of His favor. He is plainly seen not to be the God of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles. Thus He is “believed on in the world.” Though it be true that it is by the power of the Spirit only that anything is effected, yet there is this response in the world at large to the revelation made. That which Judaism could not accomplish, the Gentile world being practically almost untouched by it, is now accomplished. Man’s heart awakens in the new spring-tide of blessing which is opening up, and which, whatever the conflict yet with the cloud and darkness, is destined at last to banish them from the earth, and Christ “lifted up” from the earth to draw men unto Him. With all this ensured, then, the final word here is: “Received up in glory.” The glory of God from which He has come, once more receives Him. The cloud may for a while hide Him from the earth which His presence has so blessed, nevertheless it is only to open new scenes of higher blessing to man himself. He has glorified God upon earth, and God has glorified Him in heaven. There is hence not only a light breaking out through the opened veil for men, but also a way opened in for men into the place in which He is.