The Truth We Exalt

And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen by angels, preached among the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up in glory. (1 Timothy 3:16)

A single verse, sung by the early church, that exalts the central truth of Christianity: God became a man.

A Verse That Stopped Me

Over the last few weeks I've wrestled with this passage, trying to figure out exactly how to approach it as we come to the end of 1 Timothy 3. This last verse has been like a speed bump or a stop sign every time I come to it in my reading. I was tempted to pass over it and move into chapter 4—there are weighty truths there—but verse 16 kept stopping me.

In reality, 1 Timothy 3:16 was most likely an early church hymn or doxology. There's a good chance Christians 2,000 years ago knew these words as a statement they would say or sing together when the church gathered. The whole section fits that concept. And it addresses something central to the Christian faith and fitting for this season, because next month we celebrate Christmas—the Advent, the Nativity, the Incarnation, that God became a man. Here we read it plainly: God was manifest in the flesh.

A Truth Older Than the Church

The early church held this as central within just 35 or 40 years after Jesus died, rose, and ascended. The church has proclaimed it for 2,000 years. But this truth predates the church. About 700 years before Jesus came, Isaiah was already prophetically announcing the coming of God in human flesh:

Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel. (Isaiah 7:14)

Immanuel means "God with us"—God in our midst, so we can see Him and interact with Him. Isaiah 7:14 is followed by another famous verse:

For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given... and His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. (Isaiah 9:6)

For hundreds of years there was anticipation among the people of Israel for the coming of this One who would bring peace and joy.

Because we're about to enter the season of Advent, and because we'll be stepping out of 1 Timothy for about nine weeks over Thanksgiving and Christmas, it didn't make sense to jump into chapter 4 and put a big "to be continued" at the end. I believe God has a word for us in this short verse.

Three Propositions for Context

Before looking at verse 16, we need some runway of context. Look at verse 14:

These things I write to you, though I hope to come to you shortly; but if I am delayed, I write so that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. (1 Timothy 3:14–15)

Paul is writing to Timothy, the pastor of the church in Ephesus, telling him how he should conduct himself in the house of God and how to instruct others to do the same. At the end of verse 15 are three interesting propositions that launch into verse 16: the house of God, the church of the living God, and the pillar and ground of truth.

The House of God

In the Old Testament, the concept of the house of God shows up constantly—82 references across those 39 books. I read every one this week, and all but one speak of the same thing. For the Jewish mind under the Old Covenant, the house of God was the temple or the tabernacle.

The children of Israel were slaves in Egypt. God sent Moses to Pharaoh, brought the plagues, and delivered them about 3,400 years ago. They met God at Mount Sinai, where He gave them the law and said, "You're going to meet with Me at this place called the tabernacle." The entire nation camped around the tabernacle—it was the central focus of their life. When they entered the Promised Land, the tabernacle gave way to the temple under Solomon. Three times a year a faithful Jewish man would take his family up to Jerusalem to the house of God for Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles.

If you were going up to the house of God, you would prepare your heart emotionally, spiritually, and physically—even washing in a ceremonial bath. Going to the house of God was a big deal. For 1,500 years this was the center focus of the Jewish people.

Then it disappeared. In AD 70, just five or six years after Paul wrote this letter, the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans. Ever since, faithful Jewish people have longed for the temple, approaching the Western Wall—the Wailing Wall—with great reverence. But when Jesus our Messiah came, the concept all but vanished. Referenced 81 times in the Old Testament, it appears only six times in the New, and three of those are direct quotes about the Old Covenant temple. The other three completely change the concept.

A People, Not a Place

Here in verse 15, Paul is writing to Christians, telling them how to conduct themselves in the house of God. But where is that now? It's not a place, because he says the house of God is "the church of the living God."

Point one: The house of God is no longer a place; it's a people. The word church simply means a gathering of people. If you're a follower of Jesus, you're part of the gathering of the living God, and corporately and individually you are the house of God. This is why Paul told the Corinthians that the church is the temple of the Holy Spirit, and the individual Christian is the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. Jesus told His disciples the Holy Spirit "is with you and shall be in you," and at the end of John's Gospel He breathed on them, saying, "Receive the Holy Spirit."

This is amazing and weighty. Human beings, for some reason, love holy places and holy spaces—temples, mosques, synagogues, basilicas, cathedrals. Even Christians wrongly fall into calling this building "the house of God," though doctrinally that isn't true. We would rather have a holy location, because then we'd only have to work up holiness for a short period of time once a week. Wouldn't that be easier—75 minutes on Sunday?

But God doesn't give us that option. It's not a place; it's a people. The implication is staggering: if you're a Christian, wherever you go—your neighborhood, a construction site, an office, a school campus, the gas station—you represent the house of God. We need to conduct ourselves in a way that honors and glorifies Him everywhere. That's phenomenally challenging.

The Church Possesses the Truth

Why must we conduct ourselves rightly wherever we go? The answer is in the last proposition: the church is "the pillar and ground of the truth."

Point two: The church possesses and proclaims the truth—the truth, not a truth. That's an audacious claim. Does it mean everything outside the church or Bible is false? No. The Bible doesn't contain all true things that could ever be known; there are other truths we discover in the universe. But the Bible contains what I'd call the antecedent truth—nothing precedes it. It is the fundamental truth that creates the construct of reality, with which all other truths must align.

If you get the fundamental truth wrong, every deduction will be false. If you start with a false premise, every conclusion from it is wrong. Imagine if, over weeks, I convinced you this black object was the color red. That false premise would alter your observation of everything—you'd start seeing "red" dogs and cars, and your neighbors would correct you. A changed premise changes how you see the whole world.

I saw this perfectly illustrated in a TED Talk titled "The History of the Universe in 18 Minutes" by a presenter named David Christian—and the only thing Christian about him was his name. He opened brilliantly with a video of an egg being whipped, but running in reverse: the egg reconstituting, the shell un-cracking. Everyone watching said, "That's wrong," because it violates the second law of thermodynamics, the law of entropy—everything goes from order to chaos, like your kid's room. He drew the audience into acknowledging that.

Then he said, "But that's not always the case—sometimes the universe goes from chaos to order," and for the next 18 minutes explained it beautifully. He sounds so smart and could seem so right, but the conclusions he reaches flow from his foundational premise: there is no God. Holding that premise, when he sees a perfectly ordered world that physics says should go to chaos, he has to explain it some other way—"sometimes the universe just goes opposite the second law." Can you see why the founding principle is so essential?

The Mystery of Godliness

What, then, is the fundamental truth the church possesses? Paul gives it as a hymn:

And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness... (1 Timothy 3:16)

Beyond a shadow of a doubt, what I'm about to tell you is a great mystery. Some people struggle with mystery, but scientists don't—they spend their lives trying to unlock things they don't yet understand: the glue that holds everything together, how gravity works, dark matter. Here Paul says, "Great is the mystery of godliness"—the mystery of who God is, how He interacts with us, and how we become godly to interact with Him.

A biblical mystery is a concept that cannot be known apart from revelation. You cannot know who God is, what He's like, and what He wants apart from Him revealing it. We can learn certain things about Him from creation—"the invisible attributes of God are clearly seen" (Romans 1)—in the structure of DNA, the design of the eye, the more than 200 finely tuned conditions that sustain life. Creation points and says, "There is a God." But what He is like and what He wants must be revealed.

A Christmas gift is the perfect illustration. You place something into a box, wrap it, put a bow on it, and set it under the tree for an appointed day. What's inside is unknown to the recipient. My wife can't stand it—and I confess I thrive on torturing her with Christmas presents. Last night I told her I'd already finished her gift, and it triggers a month of "What is it? Give me a clue!" That which is wrapped and hidden has to be revealed to be known. So it is with the mystery of godliness.

God Was Manifest in the Flesh

Thank God for the next line: God was manifest in the flesh.

Point three: Jesus brought to light the glory and majesty of God. God cannot be found in a test tube, a telescope, or a microscope. He stands outside His creation. As 1 Timothy 6:16 says, He is the One "whom no man has seen or can see," dwelling in unapproachable light. For us to know Him, He had to step into our world.

Turn to 2 Timothy 1:

...the power of God, who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began. (2 Timothy 1:8–9)

Here's a mystery: before God ever said, "Let there be light," He already knew how He would give His grace to fallen human beings. Then verse 10:

But [it] has now been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. (2 Timothy 1:10)

When Jesus stepped onto the scene of humanity, He brought into the light life and immortality through the gospel. Inside every one of the 7.5 billion people on this planet is a desire to live and to live forever. Humanity has sought it for ages—in the myths of the fountain of youth, throughout story. Today venture capitalists in Silicon Valley pour hundreds of millions into startups trying to cure death. This week it was reported that Chinese surgeons performed a head transplant on a cadaver, claiming they could one day transplant a living head onto another body to extend life. It's freaky—read Frankenstein. But it reveals our desire to live forever. And Jesus, when God was manifest in the flesh, brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.

Justified in the Spirit

When you share this—there is a God, Jesus is God, and He came to give us immortality—people respond like Nicodemus in John 3: "How can these things be?" It's almost incredible. They want to believe it, but it seems unbelievable. How do we know this is the fundamental truth?

Not merely because the Bible says so. For too long Christians have answered tough questions with "the Bible tells me so," and that's not sufficient by itself. We know because of the next line: justified in the Spirit—or as another translation says, vindicated in the Spirit. This is what Paul meant in Romans 1:4:

...declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead. (Romans 1:4)

Jesus was vindicated, proven to be God in human flesh, most notably by rising from the dead. We intuitively know that people who die don't come back. Yet 2,000 years ago a man was crucified, buried, and three days later raised—witnessed by over 500 eyewitnesses, many of whom were tortured and martyred while professing, "I have seen the risen Jesus." He is God in human flesh, vindicated by the resurrection.

Seen by Angels

Next: seen by angels. Of the six lines, this seems the most odd. We assume of course angels saw God—they've been with Him since their creation. But that assumption isn't supported by Scripture. In John 8, Jesus says, "No one has seen God at any time," and I believe "no one" includes the angels. How could that be? Isaiah shows us:

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple. Above it stood seraphim; each one had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. (Isaiah 6:1–2)

The angels, in such awe of His glory, cover their faces and have never looked upon God. So when God became a man, they were "looking into these things," desiring to behold the glory of God for the first time. All of creation could behold His glory in the babe of Bethlehem.

Preached, Believed, Received Up

The fourth line: preached among the Gentiles. Point four: Christ came to be proclaimed. He came to a backwater town outside Jerusalem called Bethlehem, born probably in a cave, laid in a manger in obscurity—yet He came to be proclaimed. On the day He was born, angels proclaimed His birth, and ever since, we who know Him have proclaimed Him to all the world. This didn't start at His birth; prophets foretold for centuries that He would come of the tribe of Judah, a descendant of David, born of a virgin in Bethlehem. God is a gift-giver who loves to drop hints.

The fifth line: believed on in the world. We preach Christ so that people will come to faith in Him—not merely a mental acknowledgment or verbal acclamation, but absolute, wholesale trust. As Romans 10 says:

If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved... For the Scripture says, "Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame." (Romans 10:9–11)

The final line: received up in glory. The tomb is empty. Wherever you believe Jesus was buried—the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Gordon's Calvary, or some other tomb—it is empty. His followers went to anoint His body and found angels announcing, "He is not here; He is risen." You can go to Medina and visit the remains of Muhammad, or the temples of Asia where Buddha's cremated remains were scattered—but you cannot find the remains of Jesus, because He rose and ascended into glory, and one day He will come again.

Point five: We preach the Living Christ, not a dead prophet. That's one reason you can confidently invite people here—they will always hear the preaching of the risen, Living Christ. Jesus is God, and He came to bring life and immortality to light through the gospel, to be preached throughout the world and believed by all people for the salvation of the lost, that they too may be received up to be with Him in glory forever. That is good news.

Closing Prayer

Father, thank You for Your word. It is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, and it brings understanding and light. When we understand this fundamental truth, it changes everything about how we see this world. So many truths are thrown around as the potential fundamental truth, and all of them shape our worldview as we try to make sense of this chaotic world. But You, Jesus, come and say: this is reality—God is, and You, our God, came to give life for eternity. It changes everything. I pray we would hold this truth so close that it becomes our passion and we cannot hold it back. We praise You, Jesus.

It may be that you have never received the salvation of Christ. I want to give you a chance this morning. Simply ask in prayer for God's forgiving grace and for His Holy Spirit to come into your life to transform you. Pray with me: Dear Jesus, I know that I need You. Would You come into my life, forgive me of my sin, help me to follow You by faith and to glorify You in this world. Thank You for Your salvation. In Jesus' name.