A Good Man and A Great God (1 Timothy 1)

‘To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honour and glory forever and ever. Amen’ (1 Tim. 1:17). Paul wrote these words as his response, as it were, to giving his own testimony about his conversion to Jesus Christ many years previously. He had been a bad man, but he had become a new man, and therefore he had a story to tell about divine grace, and how he loved to tell it, even to Timothy who had probably heard it many times before!

Moreover, his words reveal his attitude towards the merciful God who had saved him despite his awful actions against the Saviour whom he had blasphemed (no doubt by denying his deity), whose people he had persecuted (almost to extinction), and whose purposes he had opposed (by attempting to crush the church in its infancy).

Paul’s mind has been drawn to the ages, perhaps because he sensed his time on earth was running out, although he had a few years yet to live. In verse 16, he mentions that when sinners believe in Jesus they have the life of the ages (or eternal life); in verse 17, he describes God as the king of the ages and he closes the verse by affirming that God deserves to have honour and glory throughout the ages of the ages.

The apostle had lived for about sixty years, a long life in some ways at that time, and he was worthy of honour for what he had done for the Lord in the years after he received mercy. He was a great man in terms of human stature. Yet we can see the contrast he places between himself and God. He recalls his past days as a non-Christian and is ashamed of his behaviour as well as being astonished at the amazing grace revealed to him.

So it is worth us asking two questions in the light of those aspects he mentions in this passage. First, we can ask, what kind of man was Paul at this stage in his life, what do his words reveal about him? Second, we can ask, what does Paul say about his God?

What kind of man was Paul now?

Paul spontaneously says a lot about himself without any thought of boasting about himself. He was continually grateful to Christ because he  was a weak man who needed divine strength from Christ all the time; he was a submissive man who used such strength to serve Jesus as his Lord wherever he was sent; he was a church man because he recognised that others also served Jesus ‘our’ Lord; he was a transformed man who had received from Jesus such overflowing grace that showed its ongoing presence by streaming constantly by the rivers of faith and love to him and through him; he was a saved man because divine mercy had been shown to him and he could not forget that the Lord had been so gracious to him; he was a model for revealing the perfect patience of Jesus, perhaps a reference to his pre-conversion life or maybe a reference to both his pre-conversion and his post-conversion life.

Did all this make him a complex man? Not really. Despite his past, he became a Christian with a special calling from Jesus his Lord. His particular calling, although very important, did not mean he should not live the Christian life in such a way that put him on a different spiritual plain or plateau from other believers. What God’s grace had done for him could be experienced by others, which made him optimistic about the salvation of other great sinners. And all that made him into a praising man. A praising person is someone who has good things to say about God, who blesses the Lord by speaking well of him. And that is what Paul desired for other believers.

What does he say about God?

Paul lists several divine attributes and no doubt he wanted Timothy to think about them. It is not the only list he gives of divine attributes, even in this letter. It is probably God the Father that Paul has in mind here, but the meanings of the attributes will be the same if we regard the reference to God as signifying the triune God.

An affirmation of the divine royalty

We haven’t really seen a king. There are monarchs in our world and we should respect them, but at some stage in the past their ancestors lost the extent of power that they had. Yet even if we had lived in the age of Caesar, we would have only seen a limited king because the period that he reigned was short (now counted in mere centuries) and the space he reigned over was confined; there were replacers coming and eventually his kingdom would shrink into nothing. But there is a real King, whose reign had no beginning and whose reign will have no end. From everlasting to everlasting he is God.

What are the ages over which our God reigns? Paul does not say so, but we can divide them into three in order to help us grasp them. There is the age before he created the cosmos, there is the age between the creation and the return of Christ, and there is the age after Jesus returns. As far as the big picture is concerned, the ages are the past, the present and the future. Or we could describe them as the age when only God existed, followed by the age of time and space, which will be followed by the eternal age to come.

There was never a crowning day in this sense, the moment when this reign began. Jesus, the eternal Son, was crowned as the Mediator when he ascended, but that is a different expression of God’s kingdom. The fact is, our God reigns, has always done so, is doing so now and will do so forever. And knowing this reality should make us worship him.

An affirmation of the divine existence

Paul also mentions that the Lord is immortal or incorruptible, which means he cannot cease to exist. Not only can he not cease to exist, he also cannot decline in any way. The best of humans usually decline mentally and physically before they die, but that is not the case with God. He remains full of life forever. He gives life without losing any of it; he remains constantly full. Creating the universe did not tire him and upholding it does not drain him of any power. Weakness and tiredness are never a feature of his existence. He is the eternally self-existing God.

Of course, we can depend on such a God. He upholds all his people constantly. He is always there in his fullness for Paul, the man now getting old with all its effects. Think of Paul and concerns for the church that he would have had, now that the apostles, and others who had been there when the church commenced, were dying. Who could guarantee that it would not only survive but flourish? The immortal God. What wonderful comfort for an old servant of Christ, and for all servants of Jesus!

An affirmation of the divine hiddenness

God cannot be seen by his creatures but is invisible to them. We would know nothing about him if he had not revealed himself to us. He reveals himself in his creation, as Romans 1 states. He reveals himself in his Word, the Bible. He revealed himself through the human nature of Jesus when he was on earth and continues to do so in heaven where he is exalted. But his essence cannot be seen. His invisibility is not like some creaturely things, such as the air, which can be analysed.

God is different from us. He is omnipresent, yet unseen. He reads our minds, knows the degree of warmth in our hearts, sees our circumstances, is aware of our fears, recalls all the details of our lives. He has told us who he is, so the fact that he is invisible need not terrify us. His invisibility should lead us to worship him, as David did in Psalm 139. Thinking about God is satisfying to our minds and affects our hearts with wonder.

An affirmation of the divine uniqueness

His thoughts about those three divine attributes of sovereignty, immortality and invisibility led Paul to an obvious truth about God – there is nothing that we can compare with him. That was the problem with idolatry – it reduced one’s idea of God to the level of creatures. But our God is infinitely above all that. The world in Paul’s time  was full of idols in the marketplaces of life. It is the same today. Why do we try and elevate people to heights they cannot attain? People are regarded as stars in all walks of life. But they cannot come close to God. It is important that we affirm that there is only one God, the sovereign, immortal, invisible God. How do we do that?

How should we respond to God’s existence?

First, we should say that we want him to remain the same God forever and ever. Our desires will not change the fact that he will remain the same, but they will reveal whether we are remaining his worshippers and are not shifting our gaze on to minor things.

Second, we will want to worship him in this life and in the next. Inevitably, there will be creatures such as angels and humans who will worship him now and in the next life. We should want to be among them. In this life, we should love the gatherings of worshippers, the place where his honour dwells. We should also anticipate the heavenly gathering of the redeemed in the presence of God and of our place in that great crowd that no one can number, enthralled with the beauty of the Lord.

Third, we should do what Paul did here when he listed some of the attributes of God. Take a few minutes each day and think about God, his holiness, his love, his power. Run the Shorter Catechism definition through your minds. Reflect on his attributes in action in your own life and in the life of others.

Fourth, whenever you do so, say Amen. The word means ‘so be it’. It reveals the intensity of our desires. It is not a word to be mumbled. Rather it should a word of clarity, a word of intensity, a word of anticipation, a word of love that tells others and ourselves that we are God-centred people who desire his honour and glory above all other legitimate longings we may have.

Why did I chose this text to focus on today? I have been reading a book about Jonathan Edwards. In it, the author referred to the day when Edwards first felt the power of this verse. Edwards recorded: ‘As I read the words, there came into my soul, and was as it were diffused through it, a sense of the glory of the Divine Being; a new sense, quite different from any thing I ever experienced before. Never any words of Scripture seemed to me as these words did. I thought with myself, how excellent a Being that was, and how happy I should be, if I might enjoy that God, and be rapt up to him in heaven, and be as it were swallowed up in him for ever!’

Obviously, Edwards had a profound experience of encountering the powerful effects of the living Word of God as it revealed to him the glory of its Author. We too could have a similar experience if we were to meditate on the wonderful Divine Being who desires to save us from our sins, to bring us into his family through faith in Jesus, and to give to us a permanent share in the eternal inheritance that belongs to his people. To think that the sovereign, immortal, invisible God has us in his mind and affections is astonishing beyond any creaturely assessment!