The Baby in the Manger #20: King of Kings and Lord of Lords (2)

King of Kings and Lord of Lords
(heb: meleḵ meleḵ 'ăḏōnāy 'āḏôn, grk: basileus basileus kai kyrios kyrios)

But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses. In the sight of God, who gives life to everything, and of Christ Jesus, who while testifying before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I charge you to keep this command without spot or blame until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which God will bring about in his own time – God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honour and might for ever. Amen.

1 Timothy 6:11-16

Aside from the passage of Revelation 17-19, which we looked at yesterday, there is one more place in the Bible where the entire title King of Kings and Lord of Lords is used, and that is in Paul's final charge to Timothy in his first letter to the same.  I will therefore dive in to this little paragraph for 'part 2' of King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Our passage begins with a "but...", so clearly some context is needed!  There are two things that Paul warns about in the previous paragraphs.  The first is false teaching: he warns against those who have departed from the teaching of Christ and who are both conceited and also stir up unnecessary quarrels and controversies.  We must not come to the Word of God with arrogance, or insist on trying to meld it to our own desires or wishes, and nor must we use it to cause unnecessary* division and argument (*I use unnecessary here as sometimes the very act of remaining faithful to the word will cause others to argue, and we must not lose sight of the one true gospel for a false 'unity' that is really no unity at all!).  

The second is a warning against the love of money.  There are many idols, but wealth has to be one of the most ubiquitous across times and cultures.  It is this very paragraph from which the famous and oft-misquoted verse comes: the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil (1 Timothy 6:10).  In our churches today it could be argued that the love of money is one of the most insidious idols that often goes unnoticed.  

But Paul says this to Timothy: But you, man of God, flee from all this (6:11).  And that's a hard task!  It is so tempting to let ourselves be led astray that Paul doesn't just say don't do it, he says FLEE!  Not only that, but he tells Timothy to Fight the good fight (6:12).  It's no walk in the park - it is a constant battle of our hearts.

How can Timothy (and we, for that matter) keep going?  Because Jesus Christ will come again.  Paul writes:

I charge you to keep this command without spot or blame until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which God will bring about in his own time – God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords (1 Timothy 2:14-15).

We can keep going because we know that there is one who is even more worthy of our honour and obedience than any pressures and temptations we might face in the world.  This same King we also call our brother, and are adopted into the family and share in the same heavenly Father.  And yet, he is also King of King and Lord of Lords - he has power and authority over everything and the only one who has the right to rule our lives.

And we can keep going, because he's coming back.  Paul charges Timothy to keep going until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which God will bring about in his own time (2:14-15).  It might feel like Jesus is not the supreme ruler of all at the moment - when temptations seem too strong, justice is swamped by injustice, and following him leads to ridicule, hatred or even persecution.  But as we saw yesterday, those that rule in this world have only been given power because the King of Kings has given it for a time, and he will come and fight and win the battle against evil.  

And that leads us to the final reason: we can fight the good fight (6:12) because the King of Kings and Lord of Lords is fighting for us.  There is a battle going on for our hearts, and he will keep fighting it until he returns.