1 Timoteo 1:1

Introductory Greeting (1 Timothy 1:1-2 ).

‘Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by order of God our Saviour, and Christ Jesus our hope,’

As he does regularly Paul here establishes his Apostleship. He asserts that it was a position given to him as a result of the commands of both ‘God our Saviour and Christ Jesus our hope’ setting him on a par with the twelve. It thus had the strongest possible backing. And he points out that he was appointed, as it were, directly ‘by order of (kat’ epitagen)’ the divine Board (a use of kat’ epitagen found in inscriptions). See Galatians 1:15-17; Galatians 2:8-9.

The definitions are significant in the light of the warnings that he will give to Timothy about false teaching. He wants it recognised that the salvation of which he has been speaking is the work of God Himself as ‘the Saviour’ (this is emphasised again in 1 Timothy 2:3; 1 Timothy 4:10), in accordance with Old Testament teaching (Deuteronomy 32:15 LXX; 2 Samuel 22:3; Psalms 106:21; Isaiah 43:5; Isaiah 45:15; Isaiah 45:21; Hosea 13:4, see also Luke 1:47; Jude 1:25), and that their hope lies in ‘the Messiah’, Jesus, Who is the Old Testament solution to man’s needs (Psalms 2:2; Psalms 18:50; Daniel 9:25). Both ideas are rooted in the Old Testament as expanded in later Jewish tradition. There may well here be a deliberate response to those who tried to portray Jesus as a kind of ‘Hellenistic saviour and intermediary’ as portrayed by an incipient Gnosticism. Paul is emphasising that any salvation connected with Jesus is to be seen as directly the work of God, and not of an intermediary, but that nevertheless our hope for this salvation and in the final consummation is in Jesus, who through His manhood is able to act as mediator between man and God our Saviour (1 Timothy 2:5). But as he will immediately point out, God is ‘the Father’, and the Messiah Jesus is ‘our Lord’ (in LXX kurios = YHWH). They are responsible for our salvation together, while Jesus is fully man and fully God, not a half and half intermediary.

‘Christ Jesus our hope.’ In Psalms 65:5 God is ‘our salvation’ and ‘the hope of all the ends of the earth’, thus ‘God our Saviour’ and ‘Christ Jesus our hope’ echoes this Psalmist’s words and places God and Christ Jesus on a parallel. In the same way God is said to be ‘the hope of Israel’ in Jeremiah 14:8; Jeremiah 17:13, compare Acts 28:20. Now to Paul and the early church the church was Israel (Galatians 3:19; Galatians 6:16; Ephesians 2:13-22), and thus Jesus as ‘our hope’ is here being thought of as ‘the hope of the new Israel’, that is, He is the hope of God’s people. As in Psalms 65:5 the idea of hope here includes both present salvation and final deliverance. He is both our daily hope and our future hope. In Colossians 1:27 also, Christ is our hope of glory, both now (2 Corinthians 3:18) and in the future (Romans 8:24-25), for Paul constantly speaks of our ‘hope’, and it is something that is certain of attainment. It is a ‘certain hope’.

Many see this ‘hope’ as simply referring to the second coming, but while that is certainly an important aspect of it, we cannot restrict it simply to that. Indeed the second coming is our hope precisely because what will happen then, will be the final result of this ‘hope’. Then, having been experiencing constant change (2 Corinthians 3:18; Philippians 2:13), we will be changed in the twinkling of an eye (1 Corinthians 15:52), and will become like Him for we will see Him as He is (1 John 3:2). We will be presented holy, unblameable and unreproveable in His sight (Colossians 1:22). But we will have many ‘hopes’ fulfilled before then. When the Psalmist in Psalms 43:0 was cast down in soul, he looked with hope to the God of hope, who would strengthen him to face the future and be his God. And he was expecting God to act in the near future. Our present and our future are thus both in His hands, and we can hope in Him for both, and with regard to this we must again remember that this Scriptural hope is a confident hope. The question in Scripture with regard to hope is not ‘will He?’ but When?’.

These ideas, which are firmly rooted in the Old Testament, were especially useful to Christian teachers in view of the fact that the terms ‘Saviour’ and ‘Hope’ were also prominent in pagan religion, for Nero was spoke of as ‘the (divine) Saviour’ and there were many Temples which were dedicated to ‘Hope’. Gentile Christians would thus see in this use of ‘Saviour’ and ‘hope’ that the church had a greater Saviour and a greater hope than their fellow-Gentiles. (Indeed it may well have been the emphasis being placed at the time on Nero as mankind’s ‘saviour’ that prompted Paul to refer to God as ‘our Saviour’, emphasising God’s overallness, and putting such Neronic ideas firmly in their place without actually saying so).

So the reason that Paul is what he is, (‘the Apostle, the one sent forth’), is because of the Old Testament salvation that God the Father, Who is Himself the Saviour, is bringing about through the Messiah, Jesus ‘our Lord’, and the result is that he, as an Apostle, (that is, as one ‘sent forth’ by God and by Jesus), has been given as a charge the establishing of the people of God, and the preservation of the truth, and it is for that purpose that he is writing to Timothy.

His calling on the fact of his Apostleship in what appears to be a personal letter demonstrates that he is giving not just advice, but instruction. The point is that his instructions to Timothy are to be seen as carrying the full weight of his authority behind them. Timothy would thus be able to present the letter as confirming his own authority in his dealings with the churches.

‘By order of, by command of.’ A thought typical of Paul. See 1 Corinthians 7:6; 2 Corinthians 8:8; Romans 16:26; Titus 1:3.