If there was a way for you to be more godly and holy, would you be interested? As disappointing as it may be, there is no such a way, in short, because godliness comes from God alone, and his granting it to you is more than sufficient. False teachers put cunning bait in front of people’s weak minds that desire to love and be loved by God. As simple and pure as it might sound, Paul urges us not to be sidetracked.
1 The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.
Here begins the second strategy for fighting the good fight well (1:5-7).
In the NIV, it is missing, but a conjunction δὲ (de), meaning ‘now’ or ‘but’, begins this verse. Referring back to 3:16, it implies: despite the mystery of godliness (3:16), which God has opened for us to take part in. Paul describes God’s revelation of the mystery as the Spirit’s explicit forthtelling. As great as the mystery of godliness is, there will be forces deluding people away from the truth. If you read about the work of the false trinity mimicking that of the Holy Trinity, the picture becomes more vivid. ‘Because of the signs it was given power to perform on behalf of the first beast, it deceived the inhabitants of the earth. It ordered them to set up an image in honour of the beast who was wounded by the sword and yet lived’ (Rev 13:14).
2 Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron.
‘Lie’ contrasts with truth, in particular the legitimacy that has been granted and commissioned by the gospel of Christ, as in Timothy being the ‘legitimate’ son of the church and Christ. The church, or congregation of believers, has been led by the Holy Spirit (1:2) to her husband, Christ Jesus.
The ‘seared conscience’ is in contrast with the ‘good conscience’ in 1:5, from which love comes. Love was the purpose of the command not to teach false doctrine.
3 They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth.
Such teaching that comes from lies and a seared conscience is not biblical and has no love for which they would turn people to God. It would be like trying to make rays come out shining from Moses’ face without being with God and receiving his word (cf. Exodus 34:29–35). It would be equally ridiculous and cunningly misleading if there were a list of things you should or should not do to become holy.
4-5 For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer.
Therefore, Paul is urging Timothy to take as his goal the mystery godliness that comes from God and is bestowed onto him rather than asceticism,[1] which might look more decisive and impressive or even disciplined on the outside. The ‘word of God’ and ‘prayer’ that consecrate things are one and the same, which ties the message back to the clear-cut forthtelling of the Holy Spirit in v. 1, whose best and foremost job is to make people confess that Jesus is Lord (1 Cor. 12:3).
Lord, have mercy on us! We neither know your word nor your power, so we misunderstand and are misled so much and so often. Let us not fall away from you, who have bought us back from the dominion of darkness, where truth is manipulated. Because of Jesus, we are the children of legitimacy, the children of truth. Let us learn from you. Come to know your word and your power. Let us always confess with the Spirit that Christ Jesus is our Lord in all things, who loves us dearly to the end and beyond. Praise be to our Holy Trinity, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Image: Balaam and the Ass, by Pieter Lastman 1622, Wikimedia
[1] asceticism noun severe self-discipline and avoiding of all forms of indulgence, typically for religious reasons.
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