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From: 1 Timothy 3:14-16

The Church is God’s Household

[14] I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these instructions to you so
that, [15] if I am delayed, you may know how one ought to behave in the house-
hold of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the
truth.

The Mystery of our Religion

[16] Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of our religion: He was manifested
in the flesh, vindicated in the Spirit, seen by angels, preached among the nations,
believed on in the world, taken up in glory.

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Commentary:

15. This verse contains three very evocative expressions which sum up the letter’s
ecclesiology or theology of the Church.

“The Church of the living God”: St Paul usually uses “church of God” and (once)
“church of Christ” (Rom 16:16), thereby implying continuity with the “assemblies
of Yahweh” in the Old Testament. The Church, in other words, is the true people
of God, founded on the New Covenant, heir to the ancient promises and trustee
of the means of salvation (cf. “Lumen Gentium”, 9). It is “the church of the living
God”, that is, it receives from him supernatural life (grace) and distributes it to
all. “It pleased God to call men to share in his life and not merely singly, without
any bond between them, but he formed them into a people, in which his children
who had been scattered were gathered together” Vatican II, “Ad Gentes”, 2).

“The household of God”: in the original Greek the definite article does not appear,
thereby emphasizing the family character of the Church. St Paul frequently de-
scribed the Church as God’s family: “you are fellow citizens with the saints and
members of the household of God” (Eph 2:19). The expression “household of God”
conveys the idea of family and also the idea of the cohesion of Christians as parts
of a holy building: the children of God, convoked by the will of God, form the
Church, a home and a temple, where God dwells in a fuller way than he did in the
ancient temple of Jerusalem (cf. 1 Kings 8:12-64).

This house or household of God is made up of all the believers; they are living
stones, as it were (1 Pet 2:5); its foundations are the Apostles (1 Cor 3:11), and
Christ himself is its cornerstone (Mt 21:42); those who hold office in it are not
domineering overlords but conscientious stewards, who should rule with the
same dedication as a father does in his own household (1 Tim 3:4-5, 12).

“Pillar and bulwark of the truth”: those aspects of the building would have been
very meaningful to Christians familiar with the great pillars of the temple of Jeru-
salem (cf. 1 Kings 7:15-52) or the columns of the huge temple at Ephesus dedi-
cated to the goddess Artemis. They very graphically convey the idea of the
Church’s solidity and permanence in the role of safeguarding and transmitting
the truth, for “the deposit of revelation [...] must be religiously guarded and cou-
rageously expounded” (”Lumen Gentium”, 25).

“The truth” which the Apostle mentions here is the Revelation God has commu-
nicated to men. It is interesting to note that there are three closely connected
expressions in this chapter: deacons are exhorted to hold “the mystery of faith”
(v. 9); the Church is “the pillar and bulwark of the truth” (v. 15); and then “the
mystery of our religion” is extolled (v. 16). These are three ways of looking at
the Church’s reason-of-being—Jesus Christ. For our Lord, who is the fullness of
Revelation (cf. Heb 1:2), is the center of our faith: he alone is the supreme Truth
(cf. In 14:6); and because he is the fullest expression of God’s love for men
(making them children of God), he is “the mystery of our religion” (cf. “Recon-
ciliatio Et Paenitentia”, 19).

16. The “pietatis mysterium”, the mystery of (our) religion, as opposed to the
“mystery of lawlessness” (2:Thess 2:7) which includes the devil and his activity,
refers first and foremost to Christ and his work of redemption and reconciliation.
By describing it as the mystery of “piety”, the virtue which characterizes parent/
children relations, it includes the idea of God’s paternal love for men, for it is
through Christ that men become children of God.

“It is profoundly significant”, John Paul II comments, “that when Paul presents
this “mysterium pietatis” he simply transcribes, without making a grammatical
link with what he has just written, three lines of a Christological hymn which—in
the opinion of authoritative scholars—was used in the Greek-speaking Christian
communities” (”Reconciliatio Et Paenitentia”, 20). The introduction itself (”we
confess”: by the confession of all), the rhythmic style, the fact that no articles
are used in the original Greek, and even the vocabulary — all point to these
verses having been taken from an early liturgical hymn (cf. 1 Cor 14:26; Eph 5:
19). It may even have been a kind of counter to the idolatrous chants of pagan
Ephesians: they used to shout “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” (Acts 19:
34); St Paul exclaims, “Great is the mystery of our religion.”

The order of ideas in this confession of faith is typical of the christological hymns
in the New Testament (cf. Phil 2:6-11; Col 1:15-20; Heb 1:3), and probably re-
flects the oral preaching of the Apostles which took in the existence of the Word
from all eternity, his incarnation and life on earth; his message of salvation for the
whole world; his passion, death, resurrection and ascension into heaven. Each of
the three parts of this short creed stresses the paradox of the mystery by using
phrases involving contrasts (Semiteswere very fond of this device). The first sen-
tence, professing belief in the Incarnation, uses a very early form of words—”mani-
fested in the flesh” (cf. 1 Jn 4:2; 2 In 7). Pope John Paul II comments as follows:
“he was made manifest in the reality of human flesh and was constituted by the
Holy Spirit as the Just One who offers himself for the unjust” (”Reconciliatio Et
Paenitentia”, 20).

The second phrase describes how Christ is manifested: the angels have direct
sight of him, men came to know him through preaching. Christ is manifested to
all, for just as he is seen by the angels (that part of creation nearest to God), so
is he revealed to the Gentiles (whom the Jews regarded as most distanced from
God): “he appeared to the angels, having been made greater than them, and he
was preached to the nations, as the bearer of salvation” (”ibid.”).

The last words profess faith in the glorification of Christ at the extremes of crea-
tion—earth and heaven. On earth he is glorified because faith in him implies recog-
nizing him as God; and he is glorified in heaven because the Ascension (which in
Pauline teaching marks the definitive victory of Christ—cf. Phil 2:19-2 and note) is
the definitive glorious revelation of his Person: “he was believed in, in the world,
as the one sent by the Father, and by the same Father he was assumed into
heaven as Lord” (”ibid.”).

And so the “mysterium pietatis” involves the reconciliation—union of man with
God in Christ: he takes our flesh without ceasing to be God; the nations of the
earth will recognize him, as will the angels in heaven, he dwells in the hearts of
men through faith, but his mansion is in heaven at the Father’s side.

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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.