1 Timothy 1:15 Commentary and Bible Study

This epistle is not only about the church; it is full of great statements that lift up our souls and furnish our understanding. This is the first of five faithful sayings all in the pastoral epistles, sayings about which we are certain, sure sayings. Modern versions say ‘trustworthy’ but the word includes the idea that we have been totally convinced: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Sure sayings are in very short supply. You can't be sure of anything much in this world. People think they are very sure about the ideas which they base their life on. In an age of atheism and unbelief there are people who say, I'm sure that all I have to be concerned about is a material world. Everything can be explained in material terms. Everything is physical, touchable, tangible in some way – matter is just there. That is not a faithful saying. How can you be sure of that? There's a great deal of obvious evidence and indications to the contrary. You build your life on the assumption that this is a good world, and that people are fundamentally good. As you go down life's pathway, you sadly prove the contrary. But everything vital is encapsulated in this one saying: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. How do I know it's a faithful saying? Because it's given by God. The apostle has proved it in his life, and so too have millions of others. Many things are not worthy to be accepted. Sometimes we are so unsuspecting and naïve, and we believe the things that we are told, but the older you get the more you see areas in which you have been duped. At school they told us in our biology classes with great authority that an amoeba was just about the simplest cell you could come across. How easy it was to see how life came about when there is such a simple cell. You can look down a microscope and you can see so few components: a nucleus, that strange thing called a contracting vacuole, and then just a cell membrane and some cell sap and nothing else. On this basis the theory of evolution looked plausible. But of course now all these years later you would say that is rubbish. That amoeba is the most sophisticated entity imaginable. There is so much complexity in there, there is so much information in there. Now when you read about it, you can't possibly imagine how it could have just emerged by chance. No, the origin of life is infinitely more complicated than anyone ever thought it was years and years ago, and yet that was once a sure and certain statement. The gospel is worthy because it represents the plan of salvation that God has devised in eternity by his infinite genius, far beyond our comprehension. He has done something to save lost men and women from unbelief, from sin, from being fooled. It is astonishing that God, who is incomprehensible and infinite, should in the second person of the triune Godhead enter into the world that he created and compress himself and take on human flesh and personality united with his divine being in order that he could be our representative and stand in the place of condemned sinners, and take the eternal weight of punishment due to us for our sin if we believe in him. How can a holy God ever overlook our sin and rebellion and indifference to him, our insults hurled at him, all our sins of selfishness and pride and greed and hatred? He cannot. It must be destroyed by punishment. He is holy and just. He must come himself and become one of us and take that punishment for us. If we took it ourselves, we would perish forever. He must take it himself. He came into this world where he would be buffeted, attacked, despised, rejected, and in the end crucified on the cross. Because he became truly man, he could suffer as we deserved to suffer. He became man to be our representative and our suffering atoning Saviour. He was also God, otherwise he would never have been able to sustain it. His divinity sustains him; his manhood suffers as a man. Because he was God as well as man, he could see all the millions and millions for whom he suffered. And he knew our sins; he knew what he was suffering for. He did it consciously, voluntarily, knowingly, feelingly for us as individuals. He came into the world to save sinners, to rescue sinner, we might say. ‘To save sinners of whom I am chief.’ The Apostle Paul felt his need, saw his sin, and came to Christ. What a transformation. This persecutor, this attacker of Christians, this man who despised the idea that Jesus of Nazareth was the Saviour of the world, sent from heaven by God to purchase forgiveness and salvation for people who come to him: he rejected that. He hated the idea. He took on the task of exterminating Christian believers, if he could. He was violent toward them, so bigoted, so certain. He says himself, ‘of whom I am chief’; I did such terrible things. He never forgets what he was and what he did, that he was a persecutor, that he shed blood, that he brought to imprisonment and sought to bring to death, those who believed in the Lord. But he came to Christ, and Christ showed him astonishing mercy and love. It was Christ, of course, who took the initiative. He was on his way to Damascus to persecute believers and there was a great light from heaven and he fell to the ground, and he heard the voice of Christ speaking to him.