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I
believe First Timothy 3:16 is a text which should be read before any reading of
the Gospels. No matter what facet of Jesus’ life and ministry we study we ought
to let the Spirit remind us that we are dealing with a mystery which should
bring thoughts and actions of awe (godliness) to our lives – thoughts and
actions which mimic the footprint of the King whom we serve now in hostile
territory and in whose Kingdom we will serve “when the dark night has ended, and the storms come no more.”
The
text tells us that the mystery of godliness is nothing less than the
incarnation of Christ. Here are the first three categories of that awe inspiring
mystery.
God manifest in the flesh.
In
some respects I fear that people who reject this truth have a better grasp of
it than those of us who believe it. They understand its ramifications on their
lives and hate it. They grasp the “impossibility” of it apart from an act of God and they scorn it for that very reason. We, on
the other hand, seem to treat it as an oh-yeah-that part of our faith and, for eleven months of the year, live our lives woefully unconcerned with the spine-tingling, miraculous wow-factors which surround it.
God justified in the Spirit
The biographies of Jesus' walk among us reveal that the Father, through the Holy Spirit, orchestrated every aspect of his earthly pilgrimage so that his identity and his authoritative claims were thoroughly authenticated and
declared to be right and righteous. This is vital to the peace which belongs to those of us who are justified by faith in him, and it is the basic reason for this
series of devotionals.
God seen by angels
This
can refer to the fact that Jesus’ authenticity was witnessed in both the natural
and supernatural realm; and, also, because angellos
(angel) can refer to human messengers who bring good news (eu-angellion), it can also refer to the many witnesses who observed his
life and gave testimony to its authenticity even to the point of laying down
their lives.
God, give us grace to stand at the threshold of such a panorama of mystery with such awe that we step back in stunned wonder and step forward with a longing to explore it deeply.
God, give us grace to stand at the threshold of such a panorama of mystery with such awe that we step back in stunned wonder and step forward with a longing to explore it deeply.
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