Corem Deo

As Paul draws his letter to a close, he issues Timothy a charge, “[I]n the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Timothy 6:13-14). With these words, the apostle invokes a reality that in Latin is called, coram deo, before the face of God. The phrase communicates a seriousness, a gravity, about our existence. God is. There is never a time that he is anything but who he is in all his fulness, and in that fulness he sees all that transpires in the universe that he has made — and that includes each of us. We live before the face of God.

We need to grasp this reality because of its implications for how we live our lives. For Timothy, it meant that he must pursue the kind of spiritual integrity that would enable him to carry out his task and bring honor to the gospel and to Christ. For us, it is no different. Though not everyone will be called to step into the role that Timothy had to fill, we are all expected to live lives of integrity. That is perhaps the most important implication of living coram deo. The psalmist asks, “Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence?” (Psalms 139:7). God is aware of us no matter where we are. For the psalmist it is a source of comfort, and it should be for us. But it also makes him petition, “Search me, O God, and know my heart! / Try me and know my thoughts! / And see if there be any grievous way in me, / and lead me in the way everlasting!” (Psalms 139:23-24). We cannot pretend that how live behind closed doors has no relationship with how live live publicly. Who we are at home should be who we are at work. Who we are in church should be who we are out “in the world.” Our responsibilities will be different in different settings, but who we are as followers of Jesus must be consistent.

How can we cultivate consistency? The four strong verbs with which Paul admonishes Timothy are instructive: flee, pursue, fight, and seize. We are to flee falsehood and the fruit it produces, but pursue the fruit of the Holy Spirit. We are to fight for the revealed truth, and seize hold of the hope that our faith in the revealed truth gives us. This is living intentionally, coram deo, before the face of God.