About this sermon
Paul’s doxology in 1 Timothy 6 praises God as the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. No one can look on God’s full glory and live, but the only Son has made him known: whoever has seen Jesus has seen the Father. Earthly rulers fade like passing fashions, while Christ’s government and peace increase without end. His people respond with praise: “Our God reigns.”
Sermon transcript
to 1st Timothy, chapter 1, verse 17. 1st Timothy 1, 17, and then we’ll just turn a page or a few over, depending on your Bible, to 1st Timothy 6, 15 and 16. When someone reads the Bible, God is speaking. May we be mindful of that. Let us hear God’s word. Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, the honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.
Turning to 1st Timothy 6, 15 and 16. We begin mid sentence here, which he will bring about at the proper time. He who is the blessed and only sovereign, the king of kings and lord of lords, who alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see. To him be glory, to be the honor and eternal dominion. Amen.
So ends the reading of God’s holy, inspired word. When I see honor and eternal dominion, I just want to pour more on. No, you’re supposed to be reading. Pardon me. Let us pray. Dear Heavenly Father, bless us with your word, for we need it. This word is our meat and our drink. May we feast this day, in Jesus’ name, amen.
For our meditation this day, I would point you to one other verse that will help us to have the lights of these passages shined upon us. that we might see God’s glory in these written words. The verse, the words that I would point you to is Isaiah 52, 7. You don’t need to read it or open to it. I’m going to read it to you.
But what I want you to see this day is that the Lord Jesus is King. The Lord is King. Isaiah 52. 7. It reads, how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, your God reigns. It’s those last three words I want you to just bark upon. Your God reigns. And you can make it personal about you. Our God reigns. That’s what I want you to understand.
We come to these passages, to these two texts, these doxologies in 1 Timothy. One is given in the beginning of the book, in what became the first chapter, and one is almost at the end. And they seem to be mirror images of each other in many ways, especially the way that they break down in the Greek. Both of these passages contain no verbs in the original Greek.
However, they are supplied for us by the translators of the English. But it’s oftentimes in God’s Word where we find verbless praise to God. Think of what the angels say at the birth of Christ. Glory to God. in the highest. There’s no verb there. It’s just glory and to the one who it is given. Glory to God. Equally we have that here. Why? Why are these placed here? Why are they placed in the two separate places that we find them?
One in 117, where Paul just erupts into praise. And then the second one, where Paul seems to just erupt into praise again. It’s as if you can just imagine him writing, and he’s writing to Timothy, and then The things that he’s writing about become so real and so clear to him that he must pause for just a moment and say, praise God, give honor and praise to the king who reigns. And it is my desire, it’s my hope that you would this day, this day, like every day, but especially on the Lord’s day, that you would magnify the Lord your God, that you would magnify the Lord Jesus Christ in your heart and in your mind this day. May we be with Paul, who is just, he’s just trucking along in his writing, and he just goes into praise. some of the high points, the pinnacles of praise to the Lord Jesus and to our God in the writings of Paul, and especially in the pastoral epistles. So what of the first chapter? What of the first chapter in that doxology, that praise that Paul gives there? What are we to think of that? I’ll just remind you of the context. Paul is writing about himself. He’s talking about God’s amazing grace.
He says, I was a sinner. I was a blasphemer. By many stretches of the imagination, Paul was a law keeper. Law keeper extraordinaire, humanly speaking. There was no one like him in his generation. But yet, he was a sinner, a blasphemer, a wicked man. It’s amazing what God does for Paul. For anyone else, we would think of the worst man. We think of Paul, it has such a good connotation, we think, Paul. But that’s not how the first generation of Christians would have seen him. They would have been frightened at the very name of Saul, which he was before.
God had grace on this one, that he is headed for eternal destruction. God holds him back and grasps him. He is one who is, as it were, snatched from the flames that he was about to enter into. What an amazing God this is. But he would not only make the one who was the greatest enemy into his friend, he would make the greatest enemy of the Christian church to really be the premier theologian of the apostolate. The great theologian of the apostles. And so it is there when Paul’s thinking of where he was headed and God had grace to save him. But then God has even more grace that he causes him to be not just a preacher, but one who writes about one third of the New Testament.
This is amazing what God has done. And he begins to just erupt. And what does he say? These glorious words, I read them again now to the eternal king, the king, eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, the only God be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. What can you do to respond to God’s grace to you? Praise him. Thank him, praise eternal, be heaped upon this one. He is the king of ages. Christ is the king of the temporal realm, but he’s also king of the atemporal realm. He is the king of the place where there is no time. But He enters into time that He might be exalted as King.
God is immortal. God is imperishable. But in the Lord Jesus Christ, we see Him put into a grave and beginning to be found immortal or perishing. but raised from the dead. God is invisible, but in Christ we see God. John tells us in John 1 18, no one has ever seen God, the only God who is at the right, at the Father’s side. He has made Him known. No one has ever seen God, but Jesus has made Him known. But Jesus can speak in very real ways.
He can say, whoever has seen me has seen the Father. John 14, 9. We cannot see God’s full glory. We cannot behold all of God. We would be consumed and it would be unknowable to us. But in Christ, who reveals the Father. We know God in a very real way.
So, the first instance, Paul is talking about himself, and then he erupts into that praise, as I said. That’s why it’s in that first instance. But then we must ask, what about the second time? At the end of the book, why does Paul enter into this doxology, into this praise? Paul’s not talking about the first coming of Christ. He’s not talking about what God has done for him in Christ. It’s the thought of Christ’s second coming. And the context that precedes this in chapter 6 is all about the second coming. The context speaks of fighting the good fight of faith. This is not war imagery, it’s athletic imagery. To fight the good fight, box the good boxing match, we could say.
That is, continue to make profession of faith before an unbelieving world until Jesus comes back. That’s what Paul is saying there. He says, just as the Lord Jesus made a profession of heavenly things, before a wicked ruler, Pontius Pilate. So, the Christian Church must continue to keep, to hold on to the faith and proclaim Christ and believe in Him with every fiber of its being, both corporately and also individually. He’s saying, Praise this one. Praise him because he is coming again.
The one who made that profession of faith before Pontius Pilate, he is coming back because he has been raised from the dead and he is going to judge the world. And just the thought of that, the thought of seeing his savior and being free from sin causes him to praise God. Does the thought of your being saved cause you to want to praise God like Paul does in the first instance? Does the thought of seeing your Savior face to face, does it cause you to want to erupt into praise in your heart?
Surely it must. I hope that it does. First, in the chapter six doxology, Paul speaks of the king of the earth. And then he speaks of his heavenly brilliance. He’s talking about Jesus. First, king of the earth, and then his heavenly brilliance. Look what he says. He said, Jesus is the blessed and only sovereign. Jesus is the only sovereign, the only ruler. We could say the only court official. It can mean that as well. Now why does Paul say it like that? Is Paul blind to the fact that the world is full kings and of officials and of people in courts? Is Paul blind? Paul is not blind at all.
What he is saying is that the Lord Jesus Christ has come and He has done what He has intended. He has died, He has risen from the dead, and He has gone to be with His Father, that is, ascending to be with Him. He sat down at the right hand of God the Father, and there He rules.
The Lord Jesus reigns. And there is no ruler like the Lord Jesus. There is none. For all of the other rulers are human. And this one is God. Surely we must understand that the Lord Jesus Christ is king before he comes into the world. Before he comes into the world, he is creator Lord. He is providential sustainer of all things. He is king.
But with Jesus’s death and all the things that I just mentioned that come after that, He enters into a new role of kingship, where he is dust of the earth, ruling as God, because he’s fully God, and he is fully resurrected humanity. And he is different then than all other rulers, all other court officials. He rules heaven and earth, the unseen and the seen world. He rules them all. He is ruler of angels. He is ruler of the animal kingdom. He is ruler of every single thing. There is nothing that he is not the ruler of. There is no part of this earth where he needs to take back a portion of it. It is all his. And that does not even compare.
Other magistrates, I should say, governmental officials do not even compare with the lasting reign of the incarnate resurrected ruler of heaven and earth. All of the kingdoms of earth are as a passing fad compared to the Lord Jesus Christ and his kingdom rule. All of the kingdoms of the earth go the way of bell-bottoms and lava lamps and Rubik’s cubes and 8-track players. They just are passing away compared with the lasting reign of the Lord Jesus Christ. Theirs is as a passing, fading glory, but the Lord Jesus Christ’s kingdom is as an expanding glory.
Does Isaiah not tell us that of the increase of his government, there will be no end. His government will continue to increase throughout eternity. So we could say, compared with all the other sovereigns of the world, he is the only sovereign. Because theirs is so small, it does not count. He is king of all the earth, then. He is, as the Greek says, king of those kinging. King of those reigning. He is lord of those lording.
All who would be rulers. passing away. Other kings are often deposed. Someone who is close to them comes along and works their way up and might assassinate that person and push them out and make themselves the king. Think of Julius Caesar, those words that cut to the heart. He says, et tu, Brute. You too, Brutus. I can’t believe you would be one of them who would seek to get rid of me, to depose me, to assassinate me.
But there is none of that going on in heaven. The Lord Jesus Christ’s kingdom cannot be deposed. And because of that, Paul must praise God because He is the eternal King, the only one. But we also must think of and talk of His heavenly brilliance, which is the second half, the second portion of this doxology. Jesus only has immortality. That is what Paul is putting before us. As he says, he alone possesses immortality. Just pause on that for a moment. Jesus alone possesses immortality. You might think of what your Bible says and you might say, well, I have immortality in one sense.
I mean, God has made me a living soul. And part of that is I’m going to live forever, whether in heaven or hell. I will live forever. There are no living souls that God has put his image into, namely mankind, humankind. There are none that will pass away and cease to exist. All will continue to exist. So we can say, well, I have immortality. Does not, is Paul making too much of a case for this? Well, It is true that we have immortality, and really angels do too. They’re not going to be destroyed.
But when we compare our immortality that we’ve been given by grace through faith, it does not compare with the immortality of the Lord Jesus Christ. His immortality is an immortality of creator. and ours is an immortality of creature. John tells us in the fourth verse of his gospel, in him was life. In Jesus was life. In the Father is life, and in the Son is life, and they have life eternal. from eternity past, eternity future, they have life eternal, even in the realm in which there is no time. And Jesus Christ comes into this world, and as he tells dear one in John chapter 11, he tells one who is heartbroken, He tells Martha, I am the resurrection and the life. Jesus Christ, who is always immortal life, enters into human flesh, dies and is raised, and now He is immortal, resurrection, glorious life.
Paul, how can we not desire to praise God with Paul because of this? He says that Jesus Christ is hidden. Now usually, young people, if you want to find a good place to hide, where do you hide if your friends are trying to look for you? You hide in the dark. You find a place that’s dark and secluded where they will not find you.
That’s not the way that the Lord Jesus in His glory is hidden. No. We can say that someone could be hidden in plain sight, but that’s different. The Lord Jesus in His glory is hidden in plain light. If you were to look upon Jesus’ glory, you would not be able to see His glory because of the brightness of it. Young people, if you were to look into the sun directly, and I don’t recommend that you do, you would not be able to do it for very long, and if you do, it could be damaging to your eyes. God is so glorious, the Lord Jesus is so glorious, that if you would look at Him, You would not be able to see him because of the brilliance, the brightness of his light and his glory, but we are able to see him in his human nature, and we shall see him in his human nature, and that’s why Paul praises him.
And so he heaps upon him honor and eternal dominion, and he says, amen and amen. But as I asked at the outset, why is it that both of these are placed where they are? There are no accidents in where God places what he wants to have placed in his word, and there are no accidents in Paul’s writing either.
What we must understand is that if our hearts do not beat for His first coming and His saving of His people, then our hearts will not beat for Him when He comes. For all mankind, no one will enter into heaven whose heart has not already been there. As believers in Christ, our hearts do not beat as the drumbeat which is headed for a cliff that is about to be ended, about to be finished as it gets closer and closer to the last beat. As believers in Christ who have been redeemed, doxology is the rhythm of our heartbeat. Why does Paul place these doxologies where they are? Because we love God’s first coming in Christ and we love His second coming.
Does Timothy not know that the Lord Jesus is King? Yes, Timothy knows it. He’s a preacher of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. So why does Timothy need to be reminded? Why does Paul remind him of these things? Over 300 years ago, a preacher named Cotton Mather said what I’m about to read. He says, the great design and intention of the office of a Christian preacher is to restore the throne and dominion of God in the souls of men. Isn’t that what the preacher is seeking to do? Timothy is a preacher. Paul understands this. He says, he’s saying, I must implant this great design, this intention of restoring the throne of dominion and glory of God in Timothy’s heart, in his soul, so that he might In turn, give it to the people who need it as well.
That is exactly what preaching is. Preaching is proclaiming the kingdom of our God. So it is with that thought that we turn to think of those words that we got from Isaiah. It’s a text about preaching, where he says, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news. It’s talking about preachers. And what do they say?
Your God reigns. Your God reigns. The promises that were given to Abraham by the Father are fulfilled in Christ, the true seed. And we have been blessed because of it. And he has been enthroned in glory so that we can say, our God reigns. Our God reigns.
And we will see him as John has seen him. For John sees. In the book of Revelation, on His robe and on His thigh, Jesus has a name written. And what is it? King of kings and Lord of lords. Your God reigns. Does He reign in your heart? May we say it together. Our God reigns. Say it together. Our God reigns. Amen. Let us pray.
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