1 Timothy 3:15

Ver. 15. But if I should tarry, [the things have been written] in order that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to conduct thyself in God's house, which indeed is the church of the living God, the pillar and basement of the truth. The expression rendered, how thou oughtest to conduct thyself (δεῖ ἀναστρέφεσθαι), has sometimes been taken in a more general sense: how men ought to conduct themselves, such as have to do generally with the management of God's house (so, for example, Huther). It might, no doubt, be understood in this manner; but it seems better to retain the special reference to Timothy: for, while many of the things written in the preceding portions of the epistle had respect to the conduct which men generally, especially men holding office in the Christian church, ought to maintain, their more immediate object was to instruct Timothy how he should himself act in the delicate and responsible position he was for the time called to fulfil at Ephesus. But even on the understanding that the special reference is to Timothy, such a rendering as this might fitly enough be given: how one ought to conduct oneself; but the other is simpler, and is to be preferred.

God's house, which indeed is the church of the living God οἴκῳ θεοῦ, ἥτις ἐστὶν ἐκκλησία Θ. ζῶντος; the latter clause epexegetical of the former, defining more exactly what is meant by God's house. The indefinite relative ἥτις is in such a connection stronger than the simple relative, being employed “to introduce an especial attribute belonging to the nature of the object, its real and peculiar property, or differentia ” (Jelf, Gr. § 816, 7; Ellicott on Galatians 4:24): the house of God, namely that which is or, which indeed is the church of the living God. There was a necessity for this definition, as in former times the expression “house of God” had been much associated with the material fabric of the temple, which was, in a sense that nothing of like sort could be in the gospel dispensation, the habitation or dwelling-place of Deity (2 Chronicles 5:14; Isaiah 56:7; Matthew 21:13). But even in Old Testament times, the more enlightened believers understood that the temple, with its sacred furniture and services, was an emblem of God's fellowship with His people, who therefore were then, as now, the only proper habitation of God on earth: hence such passages as Numbers 12:7; Isaiah 66:2; and those in which habitual communion with God is identified with dwelling in His house, Psalms 23:6; Psalms 27:4; or having God Himself for a sanctuary and dwelling-place, Psalms 90:1; Ezekiel 11:16. There was a mutual indwelling they in God, and God in them. But, in accordance with the spiritual character of the new dispensation, this truth is brought out more distinctly now, and that, too, in earlier parts of Scripture than in the passage before us. Thus, in Ephesians 2:20-22, the church, as composed of believing Jews and Gentiles, is represented as a glorious building, raised on Christ as the foundation: an holy temple in the Lord, or habitation of God through the Spirit. A quite similar representation is given in 1Pe 2:5; 1 Peter 4:17, and again in Hebrews 3:6, where, with reference to Christ as a Son in His own house, it is added: “Whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.” In these passages, the house, temple, or habitation of God is plainly associated with individuals, the individuals addressed by the apostle, contemplated as in living union with Christ; and in the strict sense it can only be predicated of such that they are God's house; for in their case alone is there the real link that connects the human with the divine the spiritual habitation with the glorious inhabitant. It is the church as the ecclesia of God, His elect, whom He has called out of the world and gathered into His fold, that He may sustain and keep them unto life eternal. But here, as in many other passages, the apostle does not use the word in this absolute sense; he uses it of the outstanding, organized communities of believers, viewed as the concrete realization, in this or that particular locality, of the spiritual or ideal body. This is what every one of such communities is called to be, though in reality it might be so but in part. He holds it, as it were, to its idea: if it was worthy of the name, it was God's house, a living community of saints pervaded by the presence of the living God; and hence, the pillar and basement of the truth (στῦλος καὶ ἑδραίωμα τῆς ἀληθείας): for, as so connected with God, it necessarily holds and bears up in the world, that with which His name and glory are peculiarly identified the truth as it is in Jesus.

Some have sought to connect these last words, not with what precedes, but with what follows with the mystery of godliness (so Episcopius, Mosheim, Bengel, Rosenmüller, and others, chiefly rationalistic expositors of more recent times). This, however, is against all probability, and is rejected by the great body of interpreters. It would form a most abrupt and artificial commencement were the terms pillar and basement made to begin a fresh sentence: “Pillar and basement of the truth, and confessedly great is the mystery of godliness! “Not only so, but to couple such specific terms first with a quite general epithet, great, and then with an object, mystery of godliness, which does not properly suit them (for with what propriety could a mystery be called a pillar?), would only be justifiable if it were impossible to find a more appropriate connection. But so far is that from being the case, that to regard them as a description of the church in her destination to maintain and exhibit before the world the testimony of divine truth committed to her keeping, is in itself a perfectly natural representation, and in accordance with what we elsewhere read of the calling of the church. Was it not the special calling of Christ Himself to bear witness to the truth, and by doing so to become the Light of the world? But in this Christ was only in a pre-eminent degree what in a measure His people, individually and collectively, should also be found. They should be, and they are, while stedfast to their profession, a basement whereon the truth may securely rest amid all the fluctuations of the world, and a pillar to bear it aloft, that all may know and consider it.

There has been a disinclination in certain quarters to acquiesce in this mode of interpretation, because of its supposed tendency to play into the hands of the Church of Rome. It is, no doubt, one of the passages on which Rome seeks to ground her claim to universal homage as the one church of Christ; but it is no more suitable to her purpose than the promise to St. Peter in Matthew 16:18; only by arbitrary distinctions and vain assumptions can either the one passage or the other be made to favour her pretensions. Here, in particular, where the church is set forth as the pillar and basement of the truth, it is a test we have to deal with, as well as a claim to consider. For the truth is not of the church's making, but of God's revealing: she has it, not as of her own, but from above; and has it not to alter or modify at her own will, but to keep as a sacred treasure for the glory of God and the good of men. And if she should anyhow corrupt or lose hold of this truth, she so far ceases to be the house of God; for she now does that part to the devil's lie, which ought to have been done exclusively for the sure word of God. Nor is it too much to suppose such a thing possible with a considerable portion of the professing church. It was so, we know, with by much the most pretentious section of the Jewish community before the time of Christ; and the apostle has elsewhere informed us, that in the Christian church also there was to be a great apostasy, a mystery of iniquity working under the cloak of a Christian profession, in consequence of which many should be given up to believe a lie (2 Thessalonians 2:3-11). Rightly understood, therefore, this passage determines nothing for Rome, or for any church which rests its claim to apostolicity on historical descent. The grand test is, does she hold by the truth of God? Is she in her belief and practice a witness for this? Or does she gainsay and pervert it?

It is rather strange that Chrysostom, while he applies the description to the church, inverts the order of the relation it indicates between the truth and the church: the church of the New Testament, he says, “is that which possesses in itself the faith and preaching, for the truth is both the pillar and the basement of the church (ἡ γὰρ ἀληθεία ἐστι τῆς ἐκκλησίας καὶ στύλος καὶ ἑδραίωμα).” Theodoret is better, for he expressly calls the company of the faithful who compose the church the pillar and basement of the truth: “for they continue stayed and settled upon the rock, and by active operations (διὰ τῶν πραγμάτων) preach the truth of the doctrines.” Not a few of the Fathers, however (see in Suicer at στύλος), referred the passage to Timothy, misled by other passages in which the designation of pillars is applied to persons occupying prominent positions in the church: so also, in recent times, Conybeare, and Stanley ( Apostolic Age, p. 121). According to this view, the whole sentence would run thus: “That thou mightest know how thou oughtest to conduct thyself in the house of God, [so as to be therein] a pillar and basement of the truth.” No grammatical objection can be made to this construction; only, for so specific a meaning the sentence is too indefinitely expressed. We should certainly have expected, as urged by Alford, the personal pronoun after δεῖ (δεῖ σε), and also the article with στύλος, so as to make: how thou oughtest to conduct thyself, who art the pillar, etc. Besides, while the term pillar might fitly enough be applied to Timothy, as it is to other individuals (Galatians 2:9; Revelation 3:12), the other term, basement, is not elsewhere so applied, nor was it strictly applicable to such a person as Timothy, an evangelist appointed for a short period to execute a definite commission for the churches in and around Ephesus. It were to say more of him, indeed, than is said of Peter and the other apostles, who are simply represented as foundation-stones of the visible church. For in this case the church presents itself as an organized institution, rising up to view in the world, and obtaining an outstanding existence, through the faith and labours of the apostles, who therefore stand to it in die relation of founders. But the truth itself, to which that church owes its distinctive character, and which it is called to preserve and manifest, cannot justly be said to have any individual basement, save in Him who is the very truth in everlasting and embodied fulness. It is quite improbable that the apostle should have designated his “child Timothy” by what is so peculiarly characteristic only of Christ. As to Stanley's objection to the other and more common interpretation, that “it is against the whole tenor of the passage to describe the same object first as a building, and then as a part of that building,” this arises from the complex nature of the object represented, as requiring to be contemplated sometimes in a collective, sometimes in an individual aspect; and the same sort of interchange between the one and the other occurs in other passages, as at 1 Peter 2:4-5, where believers are at once regarded as living stones of the spiritual house, then the house itself, and again as a holy priesthood offering up sacrifices within it.

We hold, then, that the description here given with reference to the truth is to be understood of the church of the church primarily in the higher sense, the church of the redeemed, and of particular communities only in so far as they possess the more essential characteristics of the other. The church in that respect is God's instrument of working. He does not (to use the words of Calvin) “personally descend from heaven to us, nor does He daily send angels for the purpose of promulgating the truth; but He uses the ministry of pastors, to whom for this very end He has granted ordination. To express myself more strongly: Is not the church the mother of all saints? regenerating them by the word of God, rearing and training them throughout their whole life, establishing and carrying them onward, even to their proper maturity? And for the same reason also she is designated a pillar of the truth, since the office of imparting spiritual instruction which God has committed to her is the sole provision for preserving the truth, so that it do not perish from the minds of men. Therefore this eulogium is to be referred to the ministry of the Word, which, being taken away, would leave the word of God to fall, not as if it were in itself infirm, and needed to be borne up on the shoulders of men, as the Papists impiously talk; but on this account only, because if the doctrine of the gospel were not continually sounded forth, if there were no godly ministers who by their preaching kept the truth from falling into oblivion, lies, errors, impostures, superstitions, and all forms of corruption, would forthwith usurp the kingdom.”

It were wrong to quit the subject without noticing, however briefly, the elevated view which the passage under consideration presents of every church that properly deserves the name: “ The house of the living God! The pillar and basement of the truth! “When one really takes in this sublime conception of the church of God, how little can anything of a merely adventitious or carnal nature add to its greatness! Let it be admitted that the friendly cooperation or temporal support of worldly powers might, within certain limits, enable her more promptly and successfully to work out the ends of her appointment; yet to raise her to a nobler position and enhance her real glory, this is not theirs to give. The palace differs from other dwellings in the land, and ranks proudly above them all; not, it may be, on account of its finer structure and more beautiful surroundings, but simply as being the seat and habitation of royalty. And such precisely is the distinguishing characteristic of the church of Christ, wherever situated, and whatever its external accompaniments: it is the palace of the Great King, where He is ever graciously present, and dispenses life and blessing to the members of His spiritual household. How careful, therefore, should these members be to maintain its proper character! How careful, especially, to stand in the truth, which alone makes the church what it is as a region of light and blessing!

Three things are essentially necessary to this. 1. That those who bear rule in the church possess only ministerial, not absolute authority serve while they rule. 2. That God's word be taken as their one grand directory of faith and practice in God's house. God's word must reign paramount: it is the statute book of the kingdom. 3. And then, lastly, the pervading character of all pertaining to it must be holiness; for holiness is the sum of God's moral perfections, “therefore holiness becometh His house for ever.”