Paul, apostle of Jesus Christ, according to [the] command of God our Saviour, and of Christ Jesus our hope,
Paul opens this letter with a claim of authority. Before he gives one instruction, he names God as Saviour and Christ as our hope. Those three notes shape all that follows about order in God's house.
Paul's other letters open in different ways, and the wording here is deliberate. One writer traces the difference:
The character of the letter explains how it opens. In Romans, Paul is a "called" apostle. In 1 Corinthians he is an apostle "by the will of God." His other letters use other forms again. Here he is an apostle "according to command of God."
That wording settles how we should read the letter. This is not a senior man passing private opinions to a younger one:
Paul's apostleship is no light matter here. His call did not depend on the other apostles at all. It came "according to the command of God." So we are not free to treat his letters as his own convictions. We must recognize them as what God required him to write. They carry the supreme authority of God.
Paul at once calls this God our Saviour. The title is rare, and where it appears tells us something:
The expression "God our Saviour" is found only in the First Letter to Timothy and in the letter to Titus. (See 2:3; 4:10; Titus 1:3; 2:10; 3:4.) It shows that God's character towards the world is that of a Saviour, through the work of His Son. His grace, which brings salvation, has appeared to all men. That is a different thing from what was true under the law.
This was not always how God presented Himself:
Here God takes up, in a special way, the character of a Saviour-God toward the world. This principle matters greatly for how we live in the world and how we deal with people. We represent in our religious character a God of love. This was not the case in Judaism. He was indeed the same God; but there He took the character of a Lawgiver.
You might expect a letter about order in God's house to open with an official title. It does not, and one writer sees weight in that:
A shallow mind might have thought a church title would fit better here, since rule in that sphere fills so much of the letter. But it is not so, and God is as good as He is wise. His authority works through instruments He desires and chooses, and He would have the world see His character as Saviour. Not that all people are saved, of course. Believers are saved, and all are now called to believe on the Lord Jesus and so be saved.
The command and the saving title belong together:
If His authority is affirmed first, it is still not bare authority. It is the authority of the One who is Saviour, in matchless goodness, grace, and compassion.
Paul does not point to an event or a benefit here. He points to a Person:
Yes, it is Christ — Christ Himself, who is our hope. As individual believers our hope is not death, or the state of happiness that follows it, real and blessed as this is. Our hope is the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ to swallow up death in victory.
Salvation already known is not the whole of it. Something still lies ahead:
But salvation known even now and here is not all. We have Him by whom it came as "our hope," even Christ Jesus, who will present us in the glory of God to match His salvation. Oh, how that blessed hope has been lowered!
The letter goes on to deal with bishops, deacons and church order. Naming God and Christ first keeps hope from resting on any of them:
When decline sets in, it is good for us to know a living God as our Preserver. We should centre our hope not on churches, bishops, deacons, or on any man at all, but on the Lord Himself.
- Command. Paul is an apostle "by command of God," so the letter carries God's authority, not one man's private opinions.
- Character. The same verse calls Him Saviour. In Israel He took the character of Lawgiver; toward the world He now shows Himself as Saviour.
- Reach. "God our Saviour" appears only in 1 Timothy and Titus. It marks out grace that has appeared to all men, not to one nation.
- Balance. The authority behind the letter is never bare authority. It belongs to the One who is Saviour, in goodness, grace and compassion.
- Hope. The hope is not death, nor a recovered church, nor any man — it is Christ Jesus Himself, who will present us in the glory of God.
to Timotheus, [my] true child in faith grace, mercy, peace, from God our Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.
Paul opens his first letter to Timothy not with orders but with a name and a blessing. He calls Timothy his own child in the faith and asks God for grace, mercy and peace for him — and that middle word is one he drops when he writes to a whole church.
The word Paul chooses points to how Timothy came to God, not to how much he resembled his teacher.
Timothy was Paul's "true child in the faith," a real convert of his. So Paul trusted him enough to speak his heart with no evident reservation. The word here is "child," not "son." It speaks of actual spiritual birth, not the dignity of a position. Timothy had not merely copied Paul's character. "In Christ Jesus" Paul had given him birth through the gospel.
This warmth is not Paul's usual manner, and the reason lies in the moment he was writing.
We can easily see how such circumstances were bound to draw out a love that was always there. At such a moment that love would come out in a more fitting way. We find this in these letters. He writes to Timothy as his genuine child; it is not at all the usual way in the earlier letters. Here and now was the opening of that long pent-up heart. At the same time he was laying an important commission on a man God had raised up for the purpose. Timothy was still fairly young. Soon he would have to fight his way without the sympathy and support of one who had been such a blessing to him.
Each of the three words meets the same circumstances from a different side.
Paul wishes Timothy "grace," the divine favour that is enough to lift a person above whatever the circumstances may be. He wishes him "mercy," God showing compassion inside those circumstances. And he wishes him "peace," the calm of soul God gives, so that we pass through all circumstances in unbroken, unruffled communion with the Lord Jesus. Such blessing rests on the unity of the Father and the Son. It is found from no other source, but perfectly there.
Paul greets churches with grace and peace. To Timothy and to Titus he adds a word — and the difference is deliberate.
He does not say "mercy" to the assemblies. They stand before God as assemblies because of the mercy already shown them. However low their condition might be, God views them according to the nature in which they live by the Spirit. In that nature there is no question of mercy, because the nature is itself of God. Grace and peace are what they are to enjoy from God. But an individual is another matter. However godly or faithful he may be, he is both flesh and spirit. Part of his road still lies ahead and has to be provided for, so he always needs mercy. That is why the apostle wishes it to Timothy and to Titus. He knew how much they needed mercy. It was his own resource, what he had experienced for the comfort of his own soul.
The word matches what Timothy faced in Ephesus, where the pressure came from two directions.
It supposes the need, the constant wants, the difficulties, the trials and the dangers of individual believers. Timothy was in Ephesus. Fierce wolves came from the outside and false teachers from the inside. He needed mercy, so that he would be kept. The days grow darker. The departure from the faith becomes more pronounced. Individual believers need mercy upon mercy to stand and to withstand.
The names Paul uses for God and for Christ put teacher and pupil on the same ground. (The ESV reads "God the Father"; older translations read "God our Father".)
Turning to Timothy, as his own child in the faith, the Apostle desires grace, mercy, and peace for him. But he is thinking of Timothy as a believer, so he now says, "from God our Father" and Christ Jesus "our Lord".
If these three are already the believer's, why pray for them at all?
In the fullest sense the believer already owns God's grace, mercy, and peace for ever. They are his because Christ died for him. Yet Paul still wishes these things to Timothy, his child in the faith. Does this not teach us something? The believer constantly needs to take hold in practice of what is already truly his in principle. Take one example. We may know how precious peace with God is. That does not guarantee that we enjoy "the peace of God" all the time.
- Child. Paul calls Timothy a true child. The word marks real spiritual birth through the gospel, not a character copied from Paul.
- Need. Because an individual is still flesh as well as spirit, with a road still ahead, he always needs mercy.
- Supply. Grace lifts us above our circumstances. Mercy meets us inside them. Peace carries us through them.
- Source. All three come from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord, and from nowhere else.
- Practice. We must still take hold each day of what is ours for ever. Having peace with God is not the same as enjoying the peace of God.