1 Timothy 6:13

‘I charge you in the sight of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who before Pontius Pilate witnessed the good confession,’

Paul now gives Timothy a solemn charge, a charge which applies to all God’s people. It is made in the sight of God Who is the giver of life, and of the Messiah Jesus, Who sealed His confession before Pontius Pilate ‘unto death’, as the Faithful and True Witness (Revelation 1:5; Revelation 3:14). His was the death and resurrection from which the good confession of Timothy (1 Timothy 6:12), and of all others (Romans 6:3), gains its meaning. Life and death, both as God’s gifts, are thus involved, and the whole of God’s working in salvation is in mind, for it indicates that God has done all that is necessary for our deliverance. It was because God is the giver of all life, and the Messiah Jesus had lived and died and risen again, appropriating that life for His own, that Timothy, and all Christians, could partake in eternal life (1 Timothy 6:12; compare Ephesians 2:1-8).

‘Before Pontius Pilate witnessed the good confession.’ Note the emphasis on the historicity of the occasion. Unlike the myths of the false teachers Jesus made His confession in history, and His coming in the flesh (compare 1 Timothy 3:16), followed by His death and resurrection were a part of history, never needing to be repeated.