1 Timothy 1:1-2 - Homilies By W.m. Statham

"Grace, mercy, and peace, from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord." This is a trinity of blessing. The gospel is to be preached as a new life. This contrasts with vain jangling in the sixth verse. Some had swerved , or literally turned aside, as an arrow that misses the mark. Paul speaks of "questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith." And there are questions mysterious, questions curious, which unregenerated hearts may discuss to the hindrance of true religion. This salutation of the young apostle begins, therefore, with a high spiritual tone: "Grace, mercy, peace."

I. WHO THE GIFTS WERE FROM . "God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord." But in the first verse Paul speaks of God as our Savior . Notice this; it is peculiar, and may keep us from confining ideas of pity and tenderness to Christ alone. God is the Author of salvation, He sent his Son to be the Savior of the world . Here, then, we come to the Fountain-head of the river of grace. Paul cannot give grace, mercy, and peace; they are from "God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord." Paul was the ambassador of the gospel, not the author of it; a preacher, not a priest. The priest never dies, because proud human nature never dies. Men like to say," through us." In after years, when Paul was dead, there might have come some temptation to Timothy to say, "I derived my apostolate from, I stood next to, him." But a salutation is not a consecration.

II. WHAT ARE THE GIFTS THEMSELVES ? Emphatically Christian gifts. The Roman motto would have been, "Courage, skill, force." The Athenian motto would have been, "Pleasure, beauty, philosophy."

1. Grace . God's favor. The beautiful Divine nature revealing itself on the cross as forgiveness, and in a life of tenderness, pity, and holiness to which the Christian is to be conformed. Grace forgives and grace renews. It is a large word. It carries at its heart all that we mean by moral loveliness and gracefulness. It is the fulfillment of the ancient prayer, "Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us."

2. Mercy . What a picture of cruelty we see in the Roman age, with its amphitheatres, its gladiators, its horrors on a Roman holiday, and its slave quarters! No hospitals for the sick, no asylums for the poor and needy. "Mercy." The cross meant mercy. The parables meant mercy. The prayer was fulfilled, "Lord, show us the Father."

3. Peace . The Jews had their disputations about eatings and drinkings and genealogies. Their Church was alive, only with vigorous disputation. The gospel meant true peace—peace, not of condition, but of conscience. Ever must it be so. Peace with God! Peace with our brethren! Peace within ourselves! So the Savior's legacy was realized: "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you."—W.M.S.

1 Timothy 1:5 . — The vital end of religion.

"Now the end of the commandment is charity." When we know the Divine end or purpose, we get light on all that leads to that end. Charity, or love that is like God's own love, is the end of all. Religious principle in its root and stem is to blossom into the beauty of Christ-like character. Christianity is a truth , that it may be a life . It is not to be mere doctrine, or mere ritual. We may be fiery disputants without being faithful soldiers. We may even be workers in the vineyard, without the faith which worketh by love. Ecclesiasticism is not necessarily religion. There may be Church uniformity, Church harmony, and aesthetic ceremonial, and yet, so far as Divine life is concerned, there may be "no breath at all in the midst of it." Let us confine ourselves to the first word.

I. CHARITY IS HIGHER THAN UNIFORMITY . With Constantine Christianity meant uniformity, with Hildebrand it meant supremacy. But in its spirituality and simplicity the gospel remains the same in all ages. We are to live Christ; and to live Christ is to live in love, as Christ also loved us, and gave himself for us. Ecclesiasticism is often a system of severe outward drill, an obedience to outward rite and cult. So the Romish Church in Spain, centuries ago, forcibly converted the Moors by dashing holy water in their faces, and so admitted them into the communion of the Church. The gospel cannot be spread by a rough-and-ready "multitudinism" like that. It must begin in personal faith, and work in the spirit of love.

II. CHARITY FINDS ITS IMAGE IN GOD . We need not ask what this love is. For we have seen it incarnated in the words and deeds of the Christ, and in his sufferings for "our sakes" upon the cross.

1. It is not the selfish love which gives affection where it receives affection, and turns even a gift into barter and exchange.

2. It is not the costless love which will be an almoner of bounty where there is no personal self-denial and suffering; but it gives itself.

3. It is not the love of a passing mood, which ministers in affectionate ways in times of high-wrought emotion; but a love which is full of forbearance with our faults, and is triumphant over our faithlessness. So the end of the commandment is worthy of the God who gives the commandment. Like himself, it is charity. And we have reached the highest vision-point in Revelation, when we see in its sublime teachings, not were commandments which may be arbitrary, but an unfolding of the nature of God.—W.M.S.

1 Timothy 1:5 . — Life's inner springs.

"Out of a pure heart." This is the soil in which the heavenly grace grows, and this soil is essential to the purity and beauty of the grace. It is not enough to plant the seed; we must till and nourish the soil.

I. THE HEART IS THE TESTING - PLACE OF WHAT WE LIKE . Here I would give emphasis to the fact that "the good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things." There must be passion in all true life. As Mr. Ruskin truly says, "The entire object of true education is to make people not merely do the right things, but enjoy the right things; not merely industrious, but to love industry; not merely learned, but to love learning; not merely pure, but to love purity; not merely just, but to hunger and thirst after righteousness. Taste is not only a part and index of morality; it is the only morality. The first and last and closest trial-question to any living creature is—What do you like? Tell me what you like, and I'll tell you what you are." Exactly! So says the gospel. "Out of the heart are the issues of life;" "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." This is a true teaching, and may open up a new view of moral and spiritual life to the thoughtful mind.

II. THE HEART IS THE REVEALING PART OF THE TRUE MAN . You must watch life in its temper and spirit at all times and in all places. You may be deceived by good actions. Men may build almshouses and yet live so as to break hearts; they may be courageous in confronting tyrannies abroad, and yet live impure lives in the indulgence of besetting sins. Think of this. Good actions do not make a good man; it is the good man that makes the good actions. A man may be beneficent and give thousands to hospitals, or brave and rescue drowning men from death, or patriotic and save a nation in perilous times, and yet he may not have the mind of Christ, and his heart may be unrenewed. "A pure heart." We all love pure things—the white marble, the rain-washed sky, the peerless alabaster, the silver wings of the dove. So Christ would have us all desire and seek the pure heart.—W.M.S.

1 Timothy 1:5 . — The sense of rectitude.

"And of a good conscience ." We here come to the ethical region of rectitude, showing us how complete the gospel is, and how it stands related to the whole of our complex nature. We notice here the connection of "good" with conscience; let us see what it means. May there be another conscience that is not good?

I. THERE MAY BE THE CASUIST 'S CONSCIENCE . We see this in the ease of the scribes and Pharisees in the time of our Lord. The simple instincts of justice and mercy were perverted by ecclesiastical routine, and the minutiae of legal ordinations. They overlaid the Law, which appealed to the native instincts of conscience, by their traditions, which did not so appeal, and which were burdensome and troublesome. So in Luther's time the consciences of men were in the keeping of the priests, and an artificial and Jesuitical morality made even immorality sometimes expedient and lawful. Men lost the native instincts of right and wrong in obedience to an artificial and ecclesiastical code of morals; they worried themselves about sins that were no sins, and they lost the consciousness that men may be sinners even when they are obedient sons of the Church.

II. THERE MAY BE THE WORLDLY CONSCIENCE . This makes custom into a god. Conscience is ruled and regulated by what is expedient, or what society expects of men. They are pained at the sin which brings shame before men, but are not disconcerted at desires, emotions, and actions which are evil in the sight of God. It is a wonderful interesting study this—the relation of society to sin. For there are fashionable vices and respectable sins which are heinous in the sight of God, but the conscience is at ease because the spirit of the age does not condemn them. How important, then, it is to keep conscience enlightened by the Word of God and invigorated by the Holy Ghost! The end of the commandment is in the best sense to make you a law unto yourself. It is important to have the Bible in our heads, but it is most important to have Christ enthroned in the tribunal of conscience within.—W.M.S.

1 Timothy 1:5 . — The absence of hypocrisy.

"And faith unfeigned." We all dislike shams. Led by Carlyle, the English nation has lately heard many prophetic voices against them. We insist, in art, in dress, in manners, and in religion, on sincerity. Without this nothing is beautiful, because nothing is real. We hate feigned learning, feigned skill, feigned culture, and feigned superiority. The apostle tells us here that faith must be unfeigned. Now, if the end of the commandment is love , the argument is this, that the faith which is to be worked by such a glorious inspiration of charity must be an honest, earnest, real faith.

I. WE MUST BELIEVE IN HUMANITY BEFORE WE CAN LOVE MEN . Believe, that is, that there is an ideal of God in every man; that underneath his depravity and degradation there is a moral nature which may be renewed, and a life which may be transfigured into the glory of Christ. For man's conscience was made to know the truth, his heart to feel it, and his will to be guided and energized by it. If we think of men cynically or contemptuously, then there will be no earnest efforts to save that which is lost.

II. WE MUST BELIEVE IN THE POWER OF CHRIST AND HIS CROSS , OR WE SHALL NOT BE ENTHUSIASTIC IN PREACHING THEM . No doubter can be a good preacher. Men know and feel the power of ardent faith. The arrow will miss the mark if the hand of the archer shakes, or distrusts its weapon. The one great element of success is unfeigned faith—a faith which says, "I believed, and therefore have I spoken." There may be a variable faith, like that of the Vicar of Bray's, which believed anything—Romanistic, Rationalistic, or Evangelical—for the sake of position. But the mask soon drops, anti men, instead of receiving the truth, despise the raise teacher. "We believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God," is the essential basis of a true ministry. Such a faith will be touched with enthusiasm like unto his who said, "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of Christ Jesus our Lord."

III. WE MUST BELIEVE IN A VITAL SENSE SO AS TO LIVE OUR BELIEF . An unfeigned faith is one that we practice ourselves; one that fills every channel of our being—our ethical life, our philanthropies, our missionary endeavors, our home joys and sanctities. There is a faith which is merely dogmatic—which holds fast the Christian doctrines, but fails to translate them into life. The atonement itself, so august and awful, must ever stand alone as a Divine sacrifice; but its moral effect is to be lived . "We thus judge, that if One died for all, then were all dead; and that we who live should not henceforth live unto ourselves, but unto him who died for us and rose again." Faith is not to be a waxwork fruit—something artificial and unreal—but the living vine, of which Christ is the root.—W.M.S.

1 Timothy 1:11 .—A gospel of glory.

"According to the glorious gospel." These are the words of a true enthusiasm. St. Paul gloried in the gospel. We may read it, however, as in the Revised Version, "According to the gospel of the glory of God." Either way the glory of it fills the heart of the apostle with intense rapture. No good work is done without enthusiasm. The great Italian artists—men like Angelico, Fra Bartolomeo, and Michael Angelo—associated heaven with earth in their work, and did it, not for mere pay, but for great ideal results. So also great apostles and reformers, like Paul, Wickliffe, and Luther, were enthusiasts. But all healthy enthusiasm is inspired by reality and truth. Some men have made shipwreck of religion because they lost the compass of the Word of God; and others, dependent on feeling alone, have wandered, being led by the ignis-fatuus of imagination alone.

I. PAUL SEES IN HIMSELF WHAT THE GOSPEL CAN DO . "Take me," he says; "I was before a persecutor, and injurious." What could account for such a change as is embodied in the man who from Saul became Paul? No theory of moral dynamics can stand, that suggests he lifted himself into so great a change. Neither could the Hebrew Church of that age, which was coldly ritual, sterile, and barren. "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief. Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Christ Jesus might show forth all long-suffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting." No man can be so ardent about a cure as he who has tried a physician; no man admires the great artist so much as he who has tested his own feeble powers. And now "what the Law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son," had done, and done in Paul: he is a proof of the gospel before he becomes a preacher of it.

II. PAUL GIVES A NEW SIGNIFICANCE TO THE WORD " GLORY ." On his lips glory takes a new meaning. He had seen the glories of the Caesars, who raised their thrones on hecatombs of human lives, and filled their courts with unbounded luxuries and lusts. Surrounded by soldiers and courtesans, their glory was in their shame. He had seen the glories of the architects, sculptors, and artists, at Athens, Corinth, and Rome. But the glory of which he spoke was in a life that gave itself—that came, not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and that on the cross died for the sins of the whole world. It was the glory of goodness, the glory of compassion, the glory of self-sacrifice.

III. PAUL REJOICES TO TELL THE GOOD NEWS OF THIS GLORY . It is the glorious gospel, or the glorious "good news" for all men—Greek and Jew, barbarian and Scythian, bond and free. How simple a thing it seems—"good news!" and yet it is speech that moves the world! Homer is remembered, when the military heroes of Greece are forgotten. Syncs live longer than thrones. This good news was of a Christ who had died, and risen, and was working then in the hearts of men. Paul lived long enough to plant Churches, and to show that the cross could turn men "from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God." He could show them not only the root, but the tree; not only the seed, but the flower. It was good news in relation to man himself—to his present history and his everlasting destiny. The gospel had made life desirable, and checked the false euthanasia of Roman suicide; and it had spread a great sky of immortality above men's heads, so that to live was Christ, and to die was gain.—W.M.S.

1 Timothy 1:11 . — The nature of God.

"Of the blessed God." Prove that the gospel comes from God, and it must be blessed; for God is blessed in himself. His nature is light, which is always beautiful; and love, which is always beneficent.

I. THIS IS A DESCRIPTION OF THE DIVINE NATURE . Not of some of the attributes of that nature, but of the very heart and center of it. Not the Omnipotent, the Omnipresent, the Omniscient; but the Blessed! Look at nature! Study its purity, its harmony, its exquisite adaptations of provision and plenty to the varied wants of all living things, show that God is not a Being of mere power or wisdom, but One whose works are very good, One who wished his creatures to share in his own blessedness.

1. Look at his revelation . Do we want beatitudes? Duty turned to joy? We find the way of peace and rest and joy in obedience to his will.

2. Look at the Christ himself . Blessed within, amid all outward forms of temptation and all endurances of trial. "That my joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full."

3. Look at the cross . Designed to make atonement, to reconcile man to God, and so to renew his image within, and to make man understand that separation from God was the root-cause of all his misery. The gospel is not only a revelation of doctrine; it is an unfolding of the Divine nature, into which we may be changed "from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord."

II. THIS IS THE UNIQUE REVELATION OF THE GOSPEL . False religions give prominence to aspects of power, and merge into dreads. The gospel alone shows that God is Love. And in revealing the blessed nature of God in his Son, it has shown us that evil is misery because it is another nature. Life apart from God is death—death to peace, purity, harmony, holiness. Men have in their experience testified to this. All is vanity apart from him. Over all life may be inscribed, "Nihil sine Deo"—"Nothing without God." So Christ would lead us to the Father, unite us with the Father, and transform us into the likeness of the Father—One who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords.—W.M.S.

1 Timothy 1:11 . — Trustees of the truth.

"Which was committed to my trust." Here Paul speaks of the preacher of this glorious gospel as a trustee. It is not a gospel of merely personal salvation; it is not designed to awaken only moral and spiritual admiration for its teachings; nor for the culture of immortal happiness, so far as we are ourselves alone concerned.

I. THE GOSPEL IS OURS IN TRUST . Water is sweet, but others are perishing with thirst. The open sky is beautiful, but others are in prison. Peace is restful, but others are in pain. What do you think in earthly matters of fraudulent or neglectful trustees? You rank them amongst the very worst of men. How ninny sons and daughters of the careful and. the prudent have been ruined through the long years by negligent trustees!

II. THE GOSPEL AFFECTS ALL TRUSTEESHIPS . Its spirit is to pervade all that we have and are. Men are coming to see that knowledge, skill, wealth, are not only to be enjoyed for personal gratification, but to be used for the uplifting and bettering of others. These will, and always must be, "our own;" but we are to look also "on the things of others." Do not fence in the park of your life, but act the steward of its beauties and its joys. Rights of possession there are , and yet responsibilities of possession too. Look at Christ.

1. He knew the secret of blessedness, and came to earth to reveal it.

2. He knew the grandeur of human nature, and came to live in it and to restore it.

3. He knew the mastery that evil had over us, and he came to break the fetters.

4. He knew that sin separated us from God, and he came to die, "the just for the unjust, to bring us unto God." Our captains at sea are guardians of life, and bravely do they do their duty. Our soldiers are trustees of a nation's honor, and never have failed in the great crises of her life. And our great citizen-fellowships are trustees of broad rivers, open commons, and the health and well-being of the poor, and have striven to protect their interests. As Christians we are each and all trustees of the gospel. It is no mere ecclesiastical privilege; for, alas! ecclesiastics have too often been trustees only of their own rights, or the rights of their special Churches. We are all trustees of the glorious gospel of the blessed God, and woe be to any of us who shirk our responsibilities or idly neglect our trust!—W.M.S.