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Keep this Commandment without Spot, Blameless
"But you, O man of God, flee these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, gentleness. Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. I urge you in the sight of God who gives life to all things, and before Christ Jesus who witnessed the good confession before Pontius Pilate, that you keep this commandment without spot, blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ’s appearing, which He will manifest in His own time, He who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, to whom be honor and everlasting power. Amen." (1 Timothy 6:11-16).
The Apostle Paul gave Timothy the charge of being blameless in regard to the commandment of submitting to authority. At the core of this commandment is the authority of Jesus Christ who "came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth" (Matthew 28:18).
This total and complete authority given to Jesus Christ reaches down from the Highest Authority of God's throne of grace, to every level of authority among man. This being the case, the Apostle Peter said, "Therefore submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake, whether to the king as supreme, or to governors, as to those who are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men— as free, yet not using liberty as a cloak for vice, but as bondservants of God. Honor all people. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king" (1 Peter 2:13-17).
The Lord Himself confessed His submission to our Heavenly Father when He said, "And if anyone hears My words and does not believe, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. He who rejects Me, and does not receive My words, has that which judges him—the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day. For I have not spoken on My own authority; but the Father who sent Me gave Me a command, what I should say and what I should speak. And I know that His command is everlasting life. Therefore, whatever I speak, just as the Father has told Me, so I speak" (John 12:47-50).
Our Lord testified to this again when Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves" (John 14:8-11). We know our Heavenly Father "raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come. And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all" (Ephesians 1:20-23), and "when all things are made subject to Him, then the Son Himself will also be subject to Him who put all things under Him, that God may be all in all" (1 Corinthians 15:28).
The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of submission which flows from the Father, to and through the Son, and from the Son to and through the Church. In this way the church operates in this world as a witness for God, because "no one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us" (1 John 4:12). Therefore, before going to the Cross of Calvary in His submission to the Father's will, the Lord spoke saying, "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you" (John 16:12-15).
The "things to come," which the Lord referred to, are all things related to the honoring of authority in total submission to God as "a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service" (Romans 12:1). Submission to all authority results in "a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence" (1 Timothy 2:2). Among the qualifications for an overseer in the church, the Apostle Paul includes the requirement of being "one who rules his own house well, having his children in submission with all reverence (for if a man does not know how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the church of God?" (1 Timothy 3:4-5). "Likewise, their wives must be reverent, not slanderers, temperate, faithful in all things" (1 Timothy 3:11). So, it is necessary that God's people first be those who rule their own spirit, bringing themselves under the authority of God by the leading of the Holy Spirit. Those who are under the authority of God are known by their submission to Him which is evidence of their trust and love towards God. "For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind" (2 Timothy 1:7).
This submission to all of God's authority includes honoring, respecting and submitting to the work of God which He is doing in and through the brethren. Therefore, the Holy Spirit tells us through the Apostle Paul, "See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of God (Ephesians 5:15-21). The Holy Spirit has revealed that "you are the body of Christ, and members individually" (1 Corinthians 12:27). The Holy Spirit through the Apostle Paul even pleads "with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment" (1 Corinthians 1:10). Submission to God therefore translates into mutual submission as a requisite of Christian conduct in the church of the living God.
Those who operate in reverent submission to all authority have the comfort of the Scriptures assuring their names are written in the Book of Life. Paul refers to some of his "fellow workers, whose names are in the Book of Life" (Philippians 4:3) while imploring Euodia and Syntyche "to be of the same mind in the Lord" (Philippians 4:2), and while urging the church to help them to this end.
Those whose names are written in the Book of Life are those who live under God's authority. "For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live" (Romans 8:13). "But, beloved, we are confident of... things that accompany salvation, though we speak in this manner" (Hebrews 6:9). The Holy Spirit says, "He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name from the Book of Life; but I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels" (Romans 8:13). Those who are clothed in white garments shall be so clothed by their own submission to the Lord's total and complete authority in heaven and among the affairs of man, which is their reasonable act of worship.
