“…God, the blessed and only Ruler…”

Ever stop to think how many rulers a person can have in life?  A baby has parents as first rulers.  Then the child grows up and has teachers at school — other rulers.  After graduation young adults may enter the military — still more rulers.  Then comes a job and an employer, another ruler.  Spouses act as rulers over each other in some areas (1 Corinthians 7:4).  A landlord would be another ruler, as would a doctor in the event of illness, or an attorney for legal misfortune.  The ultimate ruler on the earth would appear to be civil government.  For each of these it is possible to get out from under the ruler’s authority.  Babies grow up and move out, students drop out or graduate, soldiers de-enlist, employees quit or retire, couples divorce or a spouse dies, renters move out, patients can ignore their doctors and clients their attorneys.  People can even leave their countries and move to that idyllic, remote, south sea island that must exist somewhere besides their dreams.

But there are some rulers that we simply can’t walk away from, or graduate/divorce/quit/retire out of their domain.  Let’s take the devil as a ruler.  He doesn’t simply let us go, not for a second!  His power over us must be broken.  Ditto with sin.  Sin is perhaps the cruelest of rulers, because it rules from within.

Where does it say that the devil is a ruler, you ask.  Hebrews 2:14-15 says, “Since the children have flesh and blood, [Christ] too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.”  Obviously if we are slaves, our ruler is the devil, who used our fear of death to keep us in line.  Definitely not fun.  How about sin?  Romans 6:6 says that we were crucified with Christ so that “we should no longer be slaves to sin…”  That would make sin our ruler, where we must obey its commands.  But because of Christ, the power of both the devil and sin has been broken.  Verse 14 says it well, “For sin shall not be your master…”

Because of Christ, we now have a choice of rulers: “Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or [slaves] to obedience, which leads to righteousness?  But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted.  You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness (Rom. 6:15-18).  Clearly Christians have a choice as to who will be their ruler day in and day out.  Jesus gives us that choice.  But it says something very profound that Jesus is strong enough to break the power of both the devil and our sinful tendencies to give us this choice.

So who exactly is this Ruler we find in 1 Timothy 6:15?  As Paul wraps up his first letter to his subordinate, he warns Timothy about false teaching and materialism (6:1-10).  Then he tells him to “flee” those things and “fight the good fight of faith”.  That’s an interesting combo.  Fleeing and fighting at the same time?  Sounds like a contradiction.  Actually they are 2 sides of the same coin or “command” (v. 14), which Paul tells him to keep.  It is how one “take[s] hold of eternal life” (v. 12).  In this context it says that “God gives life to everything” (v. 13) and of Christ’s appearing “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 honor and might forever.” (vs. 15).  Notice the descriptions: “gives life to everything, the only ruler, King of Kings, Lord of lords, lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see”.  Not only are they impressive, they are not true of any other ruler!  We’re talking deity here.  Moreover, the word ruler in the Greek gives us our English word “dynasty”.  Inherently the word means power, but dynasty means a rule that continues.  On earth a dynasty is kept through succeeding generations.  But this Ruler needs no successor to be continuously the only Ruler.   Thus the world is not dualistic with two equal authorities, good and evil.  No, there is only one Ruler, and his kingdom, power and glory never end.  He is King of kings and Lord of lords, a title shared with his Son, another indication of absolute and complete power and majesty.

We are heirs of this Ruler (Rom. 8:17).  Are you tapping into your Ruler’s authority and power?