Easter 6
1
Tim 2:1-6
5/26/19
Let me tell you, no one was more surprised that Paul was
an apostle of Jesus Christ than Paul.
This is the calling he never saw coming.
It was the calling he could never have fathomed, because it turned his
world inside out.
Paul was an obvious a rising star in
the Judaism of his day. First of all, he
was a Pharisee. He had chosen to be part
of a group in Judaism that was deeply committed to living in ways that were
holy – ways that kept the Torah in accordance with the interpretation and
traditions of the Pharisees.
However, Paul wasn’t just any
Pharisee. Many Pharisees were what we
would call “lay people.” They had
committed to living lives in accordance with the Pharisees’ understanding of
the Torah. On the other hand, a small group received advanced training in the
Pharisee understanding of Scripture and the Torah. Paul was originally from Tarsus in Asia Minor
– what is modern day Turkey. But he had
been brought up in Jerusalem itself and educated at the feet of Gamaliel, one
of the noted Jewish teachers of his day.
Yet Paul wasn’t just a Pharisee who
had received advanced scribal training.
He was a man of action. When he
saw something that contradicted and blasphemed the teaching of the Pharisees –
the tradition of the elders – he felt compelled to do something about it. Paul
told the Galatians, “For
you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God
violently and tried to destroy it. And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many
of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of
my fathers.”
Paul was so
zealous for the Torah as understood by Pharisees, that when he encountered
those who were proclaiming Jesus as the Christ, that he felt compelled to take
action. Christians were proclaiming that
Jesus - who had been crucified - was
the Christ, the Messiah promised by God.
Now there
were a variety of understandings about the Messiah present in the Judaism of
Paul’s day. But the shared feature in
all of them was that the Messiah was powerful
and victorious. All agreed that
anyone who ended up hanging dead on a Roman cross was no Messiah. What was
more, the Torah said in Deuteronomy that anyone who was hung on a tree – which
in the first century was understood to mean a cross – was cursed by God. For Paul,
to proclaim Jesus as the Messiah was to reject what the Scriptures taught about
the Messiah. Perhaps even more
importantly, it was to reject the Torah of Yahweh which clearly said that
anyone hung on a tree was cursed by God.
Paul
persecuted the Christians. He took point
in the attempt to eradicate this blasphemy against God and his Torah. But as he travelled to Damascus to do so
there, the risen and exalted Lord Jesus appeared to him and confronted him. Paul told the Galatians that God, who had set
him apart before he was born and called him by grace, was pleased to reveal his
Son to Paul in order that he might preach Jesus among the Gentiles.
Just before
our text, Paul has been reflecting on this fact as he writes to Timothy. He says, “I
thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged
me faithful, appointing me to his service, though formerly I was a blasphemer,
persecutor, and insolent opponent. But I received mercy because I had acted
ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the
faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.”
God had
shown Paul mercy. And for Paul this
illustrated an important truth. He
added: “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ
Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received
mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display
his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for
eternal life.” Paul saw in himself a
chief example of the fact that Christ came into the world to save sinners.
This
thought is still in the background when Paul begins our text by saying, “First
of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and
thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high
positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in
every way.” Paul says that prayer should
be offered on behalf of all people. This is actually quite surprising. It was not something that was part of the
practice in Judaism. It’s not something
that is usually stated in the New Testament, where prayer is offered on behalf
of Christians – those who are brothers and sisters in Christ.
But here
Paul explicitly states that Christians should offer prayer on behalf of everybody. And then he notes that specifically this
should include the leaders in the world whose work provides the setting in
which Christians can live a peaceful, godly and dignified life. This
instruction, found in a number of the letters of the New Testament, is
something we continue to carry out every Sunday in the Prayer of the Church.
Paul has
said that prayer is to be offered on behalf of all people. And then he
provides a theological reason for why Christians are to do this. He states: “This is good, and it is pleasing
in the sight of God our Savior, who
desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”
Prayer is to be offered on behalf of all people because God cares about all people – he wants all people to be saved.
The proof
for this is found in what God has done.
Paul writes: “For there is one God, and there is one mediator between
God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which
is the testimony given at the proper time.”
There may be many peoples – and Paul dealt with all kinds of regional
and ethnic groups as he proclaimed the Gospel in Syria, Asia Minor, Greece and
Rome. But there is only one God who is
over all of them – who is the Creator of all of them.
Paul says
that they all must relate to the one God.
But in order for this to happen, the apostle declares that there is one
mediator. He tells us that there must be one mediator. That mediator is the man Christ Jesus who
gave himself as the ransom for all.
Earlier I mentioned
how Paul said “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” Paul told the Galatians that in the fullness
of time God sent forth his Son who was born of a woman. In the next chapter of this letter he says
that the Lord “was manifested in the flesh.”
Here, Paul
emphasizes the humanity of Jesus
Christ. He says the “man Christ Jesus”
is the mediator. The man Christ Jesus is
needed as the mediator because of what the man Adam did. Paul told the Romans, “Therefore,
just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so
death spread to all men because all sinned.”
The man Adam was the means by which sin entered into the world. Paul tells us that as a result, all people
are under sin – that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
This is what you see in your own
life. You see it when you choose to be
selfish – when you choose not to do that thing that you know would help and
assist your spouse or parent. You see it
when you choose to share that interesting piece of information that makes
someone else look bad. You see it when
you don’t want to read God’s Word during the week, and so you just don’t – or
when it doesn’t even occur to you that you should.
Because you are a sinner, Christ
Jesus came into the world. He was
manifested in the flesh – the Son of God became man, without ceasing to be
God. He came to be the mediator between
God and man – the only One who can bring us to God. He did this by offering himself as the ransom
on behalf of all. He offered himself on
the cross as the price needed to free us from sin. His suffered and died in our place. He bore our sins and received God’s judgment
against them – that was the cost that was paid when he offered himself as the
ransom.
When Paul wrote these words to
Timothy, the death of Jesus Christ on the cross was something that had happened
in the past – more than twenty years ago.
Yet the apostle says in our text: “For
there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the
man Christ Jesus.” He says two things
that were true in the moment he was
writing.
In the next chapter he expresses why
this was so – and why it is still so
today. He writes: “Great
indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness: He was manifested in the flesh,
vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations,
believed on in the world, taken up in glory.”
Jesus was vindicated by the Spirit on Easter when the Spirit raised Christ
from the dead. Sin brings death. Jesus Christ died in your place because of
your sin. But then, on the third day,
the event occurred that has changed everything.
God raised Jesus from the dead through the work of the Spirit. Because
he has – because Jesus lives – death is no longer the final word caused by sin. Sin has been forgiven, and resurrection life
that overcomes death has begun in Jesus Christ.
Jesus our mediator has been taken up
in glory in his ascension – which, by the way, we are celebrating with the
Divine Service on Thursday night this week.
As the risen, ascended and exalted Lord he continues to be the One who
gives us fellowship with God. He gives
us forgiveness and life now.
And so, like Timothy at the end of
this letter, Paul tells us who have received this salvation to pursue righteousness, godliness,
faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. He tells us to fight the good fight of the faith
and to take hold of the eternal life to which we were called. We do so as we
look for the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ which he will display on the Last
Day.
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