"By the Command of God"

WHO CALLS?: 1 Timothy 1:1 (part 2)

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope ...

The first striking aspect of this verse is the reference to "God our Savior". We often hear the phrase "our Savior Jesus Christ". Here, though, Paul says "God our Savior". So we understand, just as in John 3:16 and other passages such as 1 John 3:1 and 4:19, that it is of God's eternal purpose that God's own creation be redeemed, and that God is the primary Actor in our salvation. This gives the lie to the idea that the God of the Old Testament is a vengeful and judging and even capricious Dictator, where the Savior is kind, loving, and forgiving. God is the loving Father, the eternal Spirit of both love and justice, who has purposed to redeem and restore all of His creation. Moreover, because we believe that God is revealed as Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we understand from the apostle that the whole of the Godhead is bending toward our salvation.

The second striking feature of the passage is the double mention of "Christ Jesus". Paul is an "apostle" (apostolos, "one who is sent") by Christ Jesus; and he also identifies the same Christ Jesus as the end of his quest and every believer's ("our hope"). Christ is therefore both the origin and basis, but also the end and goal, of our life's purpose.

There are two ways at least of understanding this. One, and I think the wrong way, is to see Christian profession as the limitation of our personhood. The great science fiction writer Robert Heinlein, himself an atheist, pointed this way when he maintained, "The worshiping mind is not a creative mind." This is to make Christ a barrier that one cannot get across. But this is a mistake: the fashioner of our minds, our hearts, our creativity, our very dreams when whole and healthy, is the limitless Mind and Heart which created all things and set before us and all beings an open future.

The other way is to consider this belonging a bit like being part of a family. I was born into my clan, my tribe, my nuclear home gang; and, having lived my life connected to them directly or not-so-directly, I will always belong there and pass from this life with my identity still rooted in that belonging. What I do with that identity is up to me -- but it is a big part of defining who I am. Even if I should abandon the family connection and take another name, that name too will be part of my self-definition. As a Christian, we are born anew into the family of God by the grace of Christ; and that identity is part of our inheritance and points us onward to the great destiny which belongs to all of God's true children.

Christ is "our hope". Hope implies something identified, but not fully realized; a goal, an end. He is our hope because He has made us His own. He is our hope because we look to make all that we do serve His purpose, and win His approval and applause. He is our hope because He has begun to reform creation, un-corrupting and healing that which has become broken and corrupted through sin and rebellion.

He is our hope. When that Hope is the one who has called and named and identified, how can one go wrong? What confidence this brings! What daring it can inspire! And this is exactly how Paul is fired -- and so is able to encourage the protege he will now begin to address in the letter.


Prince Frederick, Maryland (Providence)