Complimentary Story
April 2024“Without controversy great is the mystery of godliness.” (I Timothy 3:16). Why would the Apostle Paul say this about godliness? Apparently he believed most did not grasp the meaning of the word godliness and how it relates to their daily life. What is godliness? In Paul’s first letter to Timothy, he spends a lot of time describing what a godly person looks like. In I Timothy 1:3-8 Paul says “don’t follow false teachers, but teach the truth.” “Now the end of this commandment is Charity (26-’Agape,’ perfect love) out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and faith unfeigned” (without hypocrisy). But, some having turned aside unto vain arguing, “desiring to be teachers of the law; understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm. But we know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully.”
Why is the law good? With it, God has told us what truth is, right and acceptable, as well as how truth is distorted, bent, warped, and perverted by the lies of Satan. Truth, the knowledge of good, can be known. But the knowledge of evil can never be completely known, for it only gets worse with time! Read Romans 1:17-32 which describes this evil progression. In I Timothy 1:9 he states, “the law is not made for a righteous man.”
Is a righteous man the same as a godly man? Yes they are! For the definition of the word in both Hebrew and Greek is; right thinking which always produces right living. So why did Paul consider godliness to be yet a great mystery? We spend way to much time debating issues as to which side is true, instead of searching the scriptures to know what is right and true. Quite often there are errors on both sides, by giving heed to fables, conceived in our imagination, which only minister more questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith. “Understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm” (Verses 4-7).
What, in the Hebrew, is a godly person? Godly (2623-is a person with great commitment to follow God’s will and purpose). A pious person is one who shows great loyalty and devotion to almighty God. Malachi 2:4-7 gives us the what and why we are to be godly. “Ye shall know that I have sent this (and all commandments) unto you, that My covenant (I will be your God, and I will meet your every need) might be with Levi (those who were the intercessors for the people), saith the Lord of hosts. My covenant was with him of life and peace (life as we were created to live); and I gave them to him for the fear within he feared Me, and was afraid before My name. The law of truth was in his mouth, and iniquity was not found in his lips: he walked with Me in peace and equity (4334-with a system of law that is a more flexible addition to ordinary common and statute law and is designed to protect rights and achieve just settlements in cases where ordinary legal settlement may be to strict, is a reprove with fairness for the meek of the earth, to level the field). For the priest’s lips should keep knowledge (to know the purpose and will of God according to His every word), and they should seek the law at his mouth: for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts.”
Are we, today, any less responsible to know God’s Word, to walk with God in peace and equity, turning many away from iniquity, the knowledge of evil. Why would anyone ask us of the reason of the hope that is in us ( I Peter 3:15), if we did not sanctify the Lord God in our hearts and lives, and be ready always to give an answer to every man with meekness and fear, the reason of the hope that is in us? Maybe we are as guilty as the priests of Israel in Malachi 2:8-9 when the Lord said to them, “But ye are departed out of the way; ye have caused many to stumble at the law; ye have corrupted the covenant of Levi,” that which establishes them as a set apart people, as priests of God to make intersession for many, between God and man in peace and equity. “Therefore have I also made you contemptible and base before all the people, according as ye have not kept my ways but have been partial in the law.” (Verses 11-12) “For from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same my name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense (the prayer of the saints) shall be offered unto My name, and a pure offering: for My name shall be great among the heathen, saith the Lord of hosts. But ye have profaned it, in that ye say, the table of the Lord is polluted (but we say, what difference does it make!); and the fruit thereof, even his meat is contemptible.” Much of the world does not know whether to hate us, or God, because of our hypocrisy!
Some have already questioned this by asking; Is this not dealing with the Old Covenant and the Levitical priesthood, animal sacrifices and the law which has been done away with? Therefore God accepts us the way we are. This is such a great distortion of truth by Satan, the father of lies!
(1.) The First Covenant is not done away with, just because it is called “old,” for it is a forever covenant (Genesis 9:16). Yes, there were parts which decayed and waxed old, made ready by the new, to vanish away, and did eventually vanish away.
(2.) Yes, the Levitical priesthood is done away with, ever since Jesus has now become our High Priest after the order of Melchisedec, a forever High Priest with the fulfillment of the New Covenant. Read Hebrews chapter 5, 7 and 8; which states that Christ the Son of God is a forever High Priest. Furthermore in I Peter 2:9 it also states, “Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of Him who hath called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.” Yes, we as Saints, Jews and Gentiles alike, are to continue to fulfill the role God has given to all the saints, to be sanctified (to be set apart from that which is common, for our given purpose), and go and preach to all the world the gospel of repentance and forgiveness (Luke 24:47). The “Ekklesia”, the Church, the same Church that Stephen in Acts 7:38 describes as being in the wilderness. And Paul the Apostle states in I Corinthians 10:4 of which they “all drank from that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.” We have not replaced Israel for the children of Israel are still the children of Israel! We today, as saints of God, have become one with the saints of the Old Testament, to be a bearer of the light of God’s truth to the whole world (Luke 24:47).
(3.) Yes, all the animal sacrifices are been done away with since the veil of the temple was rent from top to bottom in Matthew 27:50-51, with Jesus becoming “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world” (John 1:29), all planned from before creation (Revelation 13:8).
(4.) The law was not done away with. The only exception to this are the laws concerning the temporary atonement, the blood of animals which only covered man’s sins, forgiven, so we could know God and have fellowship with Him. Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin (Hebrews 9:22). But after the sacrifice of the Lamb of God, fulfilling the New Covenant atonement; “if we confess (in repentance of) our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and (now) to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (I John 1:9) given the Holy Spirit can now indwell. Prior to the Lamb slain He was just, only because of He faithfully promised to be that Lamb slain, planned before creation as His abundance of grace to meet our every need. Obviously some of the law had to change to accommodate the New Covenant, but the law was not done away with.
Neither does the definition of the word “godly” change from the Old Testament Hebrew to the New Testament Greek. The Greek words translated godly or godliness (2150, 2152, 2153, 2316, 3317) are all defined as living in sacred awe, exhibited especially in action of the living attributes of a Supreme Divinity: As a God-ward attitude, that does that which is well pleasing to our God: Having a reverence for God’s great love, which is full of compassion with mercy and grace, to meet our every need. One cannot be a godly person, without being first of all a righteous person, a right thinker; and that only comes from knowing God.
So why is godliness still a great mystery even today? Is it perhaps we are no different than Cain when in Genesis 4:9, after killing his brother in a non- justifiable anger, he said to God, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” As a godly person, yes we are! Jesus states in Matthew 22:23 the greatest of the commandments: The first is to “love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.” This is the beginning of a godly person. “The second is like unto it, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and prophets.” This is what Jesus said is to be a godly person. The law and the prophets were never intended to be done away with, as long as the knowledge of evil is present in our world. Furthermore Jesus said that all the other laws are to be hung on these two for peace and equity. (4334) as a system of law that is a more flexible addition to ordinary common and statute law. Designed to protect rights and achieve just settlements in cases where ordinary legal settlement may be to strict. Making it possible to reprove with fairness the meek and repentant of the earth, by leveling the field as Jesus did by making it possible for us to be forgiven.
A godly person is one that lives as we were created to live. Jesus showed us by example how to live that godly life.
(1.) First He loved (26-“agape,” perfect love) with all His heart, soul, and mind in that He planned before creation everything we needed to live as He intended us to live for eternity. (I John 3:1). “Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God.” (I John 4:8b-12). “God is love. In this was (made known) the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the (price paid) for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another… If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and His love is perfected in us. (Verses 16-18) “And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us, God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as He is, so we are in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. We love Him, because He first loved us.”
(2.) Secondly, He loved mankind as Himself with compassion, to lay down His life because of His abundant mercy, making it possible to justly “forgive us (I John 1:9) our sins, and to cleans us from all unrighteousness.” He created the law by the New Covenant to bring peace and equity between God and man, making it equally possible for all to be forgiven, no matter what our sins. (Ephesians 1:7) “In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace.” And in Colossians 2:13, “And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath He quickened together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses.” Compassion and mercy are inseparable. God commands us in Zechariah 7:9-11, 13, “Execute true judgment, and shew mercy and compassion every man his brother: And oppress not the widow, nor the fatherless, the stranger, nor the poor; and let none of you imagine evil against his brother in your heart. But they refused to (listen).” John also states in I John 3:17, “But whosoever hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and (witholdeth)compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?”
(3.) A godly person forgives others as the Apostle Paul states in Ephesians 4:32, “Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.” Why do so many that name the name of Christ and are grateful for God’s forgiveness, refuse to forgive others of their offences as Christ has forgiven them? Could it be because the price to forgive seems too high? What if God thought the price of His Son crucified was too much to give? We would all be without hope! Do we realize when we recite the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13) we are asking God to forgive us as we forgive others? Then Jesus continues in verses 14 and 15, “For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”
Jesus has even more to say on forgiveness in Matthew 18:21-22, Peter asks Jesus, “How often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.” Then to the end of chapter 18 He likens a servant that could not pay a debt to his king to the kingdom of heaven. The servant pleaded for patience that he would eventually pay. Out of compassion the King forgave his debt. This servant went to one of his fellow servants that owed him far less and threw him into prison because he could not pay. When the king heard what this man had done, he was angry saying, “O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desired it me: should not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow servant, even as I had pity on thee? And his Lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormenter, ‘til he should pay all that was due him. So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses.” “Even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.” (Ephesians 4:32b).
A godly man hangs all the law upon the two greatest statements of all the law in Matthew 22:35-40, to make a system of law that is a more flexible addition to ordinary common and statute law; Equity. God did this for us, and out of gratitude expects us to do the same with others. Godliness is impossible without one’s complete faith in God’s wisdom as expressed in His every word. Proverbs 8:10-13 state: (1.) Accepting wisdoms discipline is better than silver or gold. (2.) God’s wisdom is better than riches and more desirable than all pleasure. (3.) God’s wisdom is discerning and recognizing right things. (4.) God’s wisdom is pure and hates evil.
Godliness is being like God in the ways which He has commanded us to live! To love other s with compassion and mercy, forgiving other as Christ hath forgiven us.
