Great Is the Mystery of Godliness

Dr. John Clayton's sermon on 1 Timothy 3:14-16 from our service on December 31, 2023, 2023.

“I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these things to you so that, if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth. Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness:

                        He was manifested in the flesh,

                                    vindicated by the Spirit,

                                                seen by angels,

                        proclaimed among the nations,

                                    believed on in the world,

                                                taken up in glory” (1 Timothy 3:14–16).[1]

The apostle Paul likely wrote his first epistle to Timothy after his Roman imprisonment and during his fourth missionary journey. Scholars date its writing some time between A.D. 62 and 64. It is an epistle characteristic of a mentor’s counsel to a young minister, encouraging him to use the gift God has given him in serving Christ’s church (1 Tim. 4:14). Given his age, Timothy has much to learn, and thankfully Paul has much to say. He addresses matters in the church such as prayer, corporate worship, government, and of course doctrine, all of which Paul conveys in writing so that, as he puts it to Timothy, “you may know how one ought to behave” in the church (1 Tim. 3:15).

Yes, Paul is specifically addressing how one ought to behave in the church (See also the entire epistle …). But in stating this purpose in his writing, Paul is also intentionally teaching us about the church. Using metaphors of house and home, Paul describes the relational and missional necessity of the local church. For, God has chosen the church to both house and hold forth the gospel of Jesus Christ to the world.

The Household of God

Of the metaphors Paul uses to refer to the church, here he begins with “household.” It is a synonym of family. Paul’s counsel is not to merely a social institution or club but to his family in Christ. And just as there is authority and responsibility within the home, so there is in the church. We ought to behave in the household of God as children of our heavenly Father, brothers and sisters in and with Christ. And so, in this sense the church is a family defined by God, whom we worship.

We are not isolationists, islands unto ourselves, but are named by our assembling, which is what the word “church” means. We live our lives together in Christ, gathering in Sabbath worship of Word, sacrament, and prayer, but also weddings, fellowships, and funerals, living the Christian life together from cradle to grave. We live together as one household, caring for one another, sharing with one another, even bearing with one another as fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers. Our common union is not merely a faith tradition, or the memory of the now-deceased; it is not in our political persuasions nor the figments of cultural idolatry but in the living and true God who dwells in us and meets with us, as Jesus said, “where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them” (Matt. 18:20).

Our purpose for being is worship, to which we are called and assembled. As Joshua reminded the Old Testament church of God’s presence among them, pointing to his provision for them (Josh. 3:10), so Paul reminds the New Testament church, because of Christ’s death, resurrection, and ascension, because of his promised presence among us, we do not go to the temple but are the temple of the living God (2 Cor. 6:16). As if describing a cathedral, Paul says that the church serves as “a pillar and buttress of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15). We are not an ornamental façade but a load-bearing pillar, not merely an aesthetic feature but an integrally engineered buttress. For, the weight of what we hold forth is indeed heavy with significance, especially amid the gale force winds and hostile forces of this stormy world.

But it is not because we are so strong. No, but what we proclaim is: Christ crucified, a stumbling block to many but, “to those who are called, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men” (1 Cor. 1:23-25). No, it is not in and of ourselves that we bear the truth but Christ Jesus, “who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption” (1 Cor. 1:30). And so, we who know the truth tell the truth, that which Paul calls “the mystery of godliness” (1 Tim. 3:16).

The Mystery of Godliness

When Satan, as a serpent, tempted Eve and through her Adam, they sinned against God, falling into “an estate of sin and misery.”[2] As a result, God pronounced their punishment, beginning not with Adam nor with Eve but serpentine Satan. It is within the poetic description of his punishment that we hear, curiously enough, not only of his imminent destruction but also a mystery of hope:

            The LORD God said to the serpent …

                        I will put enmity

                                    between you and the woman,

                                    and between your offspring and hers;

                        he will crush your head,

                                    and you will strike his heel (Gen. 3:15 NIV).

It is a prophetic yet mysterious promise, certain to be fulfilled but when and how? And who is the woman’s offspring, the one to crush the serpent’s head?

As we proceed from the third chapter of Genesis through the rest of the Old Testament, we see evidence of God’s sovereign preservation of individuals, such as Seth, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and then a people, Israel, chosen by God with prophetic purpose to fulfill his promise. But we also see Satan’s sinister attempts to unravel the mystery, to destroy the woman’s offspring, to thwart God’s plan. The apostle John paints the picture perhaps most colorfully in the twelfth chapter of Revelation, where Satan is no longer characterized as a lying serpent but “a great red dragon” (Rev. 12:3) whose anger and hatred leave destruction in the wake of his relentless pursuit of the woman and her offspring. John writes, “And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she bore her child he might devour it. She gave birth to a male child …” (Rev. 12:4b-5a) but devour him he could not. For he whom Satan sought to devour is not only the promised offspring of woman but also the Son of God.

The child’s identity did not deter Satan but incensed him. In passionate pursuit he would summons the darkness of his domain to extinguish the light. I would imagine Satan relished his seeming success in Christ’s crucifixion, hearing the suffering cry, “It is finished” (John 19:30), and the agonizing exhale of his last breath. But that old serpent who disguises himself as angel of light (2 Cor. 11:14) missed the meaning of the mystery of godliness. As John writes of our Lord Jesus, “In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:4-5). For, God used Satan’s murderous vengeance for our salvation: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21). And while Satan considered death to be the end, the end of life and light, the mystery continued to unfold, as “God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it” (Acts 2:24).

We, the posterity of Adam, we, who in him lost our communion with God, were under his wrath and curse, who were “made liable to all the miseries of this life, to death itself, and to the pains of hell forever,”[3] (mystery of mysteries!) are in Christ godly before God! Christ was crucified, but in it we have now been justified by his blood. Upon the cross, Christ was judged for our sin, and so by him we are saved from the wrath of God. We who in Adam lost communion with God, by the death of his Son are reconciled to him (Rom. 5:9-10). And all this God did, not in reaction to the sinister works of Satan nor in response to our sin, but before the foundation of the world, he chose us Christ, “that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved” (Eph. 1:4-6).                              

The Confession of Salvation

The mystery revealed is the truth Christ’s church proclaims, the essence of his life, death, resurrection, and ascension:

            He was manifested in the flesh,

                                    vindicated by the Spirit,

                                                            seen by angels,

            proclaimed among the nations,

                                    believed on in the world,

                                                            taken up in glory (1 Tim. 3:16).

It is perhaps an ancient hymn but most certainly a song every Christian sings. For, who we are rests on who he is, why he came, what he did. Our confession is simple but brilliant. That a virgin would conceive and bear a son (Isa. 7:14), that he who was in the beginning, “very God of very God,”[4] “became flesh and dwelt among us.” As John confesses, “we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).

And while Satan thought he had won by crucifying God’s only Son, Christ was “vindicated by the Spirit,” who raised him from the dead. His victorious vindication secured our justification, his righteousness became our righteousness, his life became our life. And though the serpent struck him, he who was “vindicated by the Spirit,” crushed the serpent’s head, relinquishing Satan’s sinful reign over death, redeeming us to life in Christ, with hopeful anticipation of the consummation of our salvation unto glory forever. And so, “he who humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:8) was glorified and has “gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him” (1 Pet. 3:22).

This is the mystery of godliness:

[Jesus Christ our Lord] was manifested in the flesh,

                        vindicated by the Spirit,

                                    seen by angels,

proclaimed among the nations,

                        believed on in the world,

                                    taken up in glory (1 Tim. 3:16).

And so, I ask you, is this your confession? If not, let it be today, and forevermore. Is this your confession? If so, then rejoice that your name is written in heaven, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God (Luke 10:20; Col. 3:1). Is this our confession? Indeed it is! For, it is not a mystery to be hidden but heralded to people of every tribe, tongue, and nation, a confession of salvation: “because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Rom. 10:9).

[1] Unless referenced otherwise, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (Wheaton: Crossway Bibles, 2001).

[2] “The Shorter Catechism” Q. 17, The Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms (Lawrenceville: PCA Christian Education and Publications, 2007), 364.

[3] Ibid., Q. 19, 366.

[4] “The Nicene Creed,” Trinity Hymnal, Revised Edition (Suwanee: Great Commission Publications, 1990), 846.