NOTES for Ti1 3:15

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¹⁵But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.

Speaking of the Church, Paul calls it the house of God, the "support and foundation of the truth" (v. 15). For everyone at least superficially familiar with the Yahwistic tradition and, in particular, with Yahwistic worship, this definition was associated with the Jerusalem Temple as the place of God's presence, which sanctified the people and made them a single spiritual whole. Of course, according not to the priestly but to the rabbinic tradition, that same presence also dwelt in sacred gatherings, such as the Passover seder or the Sabbath meal, for example, but they were understood as a continuation of the sacred sacrificial meals of the Temple, with which they were connected not only by unity of faith, but also by unity of sacrifice: consecrated sacrificial meat was present at these meals right up to A.D. 70, until the end of the era of the Second Temple and the cessation of Yahwistic sacrifices.

Paul, however, clearly calls the church assembly the house of God, and this is not surprising: for here, in the apostle's thought, that fullness of the Kingdom became visible and was opened to all who participated, a fullness that usually remained hidden from the world and will be opened to it only on the day of Judgment and the return of the Savior. But this fullness, clearly, is connected no longer with temple worship, but with what the Savior brought into the world (v. 16). The apostle does not accidentally connect the "mystery of godliness" with the path of Christ, which is nothing other than the incarnation of God, step by step opening itself more fully to the world. And this revelation turns out to be inseparable from the revelation of the Kingdom entering the world. It is precisely the breath of the Kingdom, the breath of God, that manifests the fullness of the Messiah's righteousness ("...He justified Himself in spirit," Paul says). Only in the Kingdom, where there is no impassable boundary between spirit and nature, can a man born of an earthly woman show Himself to angels. And only by the Spirit of God is the good news of the birth of the Messiah promised by God proclaimed and received in the world, so that those who seek the Kingdom may hear, believe what they have heard, and follow the One in whom they have placed their trust.

When all this happened, the fullness of God's presence proper to the Kingdom was opened to the world, which the apostle, following traditional usage, calls the "glory" accompanying the Messiah risen from the dead. And the whole path traveled by Christ leads into the Church, into that assembly where He Himself, risen from the dead in order to give the world the Kingdom, becomes the presider. The Kingdom that, according to the apostle's word, becomes the "support and foundation of the truth," embodied in the Church just as the fullness of God was embodied in Jesus Christ Himself.

Other notes

For Ti1 3:14-16

¹⁴These things write I unto thee, hoping to come unto thee shortly:

¹⁵But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.

¹⁶And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.

The last verse of today’s reading is the most ancient Creed, for it fully expresses the essential core... Read more

The last verse of today’s reading is the most ancient Creed, for it fully expresses the essential core of the Christian faith. “In the flesh,” that is, as a human being—and this is a very important point. God took upon Himself the full burden of existence by coming into the world as a human being. “Vindicated by the Spirit,” or, in another translation, “revealed His righteousness” through the descent of the Holy Spirit promised by Jesus. “Seen by angels” means that redemption was accomplished for the sake of creation as a whole. Christ’s sacrifice destroyed the death sown by original sin.

For Ti1 3:14-16

¹⁴These things write I unto thee, hoping to come unto thee shortly:

¹⁵But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.

Paul says of the Church that it is the "pillar and foundation of the truth." How should his words be understood? And what does he mean by... Read more

Paul says of the Church that it is the "pillar and foundation of the truth." How should his words be understood? And what does he mean by the Church? In Christian history these words of the apostle were often used to assert the authority of one or another religion that grew up on Christian soil, and of many different church structures and institutions that claimed to be the final expressers and bearers of Christian truth.

Paul quite obviously does not have in mind any religions or any church institutions: for him Christianity was never a religion, and church institutions in their medieval form simply did not exist in his time. For the apostle, the Church is something completely different. This is not surprising, for Paul never perceived Christianity as a new religion either; for him it was always not religion, but life, life with Christ in His Kingdom.

It is in Him, in Christ, that Paul sees the living truth. And not Paul alone: the first two, or even three, generations of Christians looked at Christ as the living Torah, and therefore as the living truth. The Savior Himself also said of Himself that He is the way, the truth, and the life. But such truth can exist only as the person of the Messiah, who revealed the living Torah to the world. A person can know Christian truth only by becoming a living Torah in Christ. There can be no abstract, formulated Christian truth: no words and no formulas can contain it by definition.

There are, of course, church creeds, but they have never claimed to be a complete expression of Christian truth. They only mark out the space of opinions possible for a Christian on fundamental questions; by leaving that space, a person effectively ceases to be a Christian in the sense in which the first Christians were Christians. But for a person to become a living Torah is possible only on the condition of personal relationships both with God and with the Messiah sent by Him. More precisely, it is possible within these relationships, the relationships of the Father and the Son, in the spiritual space that they form.

All who find themselves in this space and participate in the process of spiritual formation are also bound to one another, forming that spiritual whole which in another letter the apostle calls the body of Christ. This is precisely the Church, the "pillar and foundation of the truth." Of course, such unity always has some outward dimension connected with the life of its age, but it is never fully identical with any of the forms in which it exists. The Church as the body of Christ is always greater not only than any church structure and any institution, but also than any particular church community. And only she, in her spiritual dynamic, is the "pillar and foundation of the truth." This is the Church of which Paul speaks in his letter to Timothy.

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NOTES for Ti1 3:15

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