1 Timothy 1:15

This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(15) This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation.—This striking formula in the New Testament, found only in the Pastoral Epistles, here and in 1Timothy 3:1; 1Timothy 4:9; 2Timothy 2:11; Titus 3:8; and the somewhat similar expression, “these sayings [words’] are faithful and true,” Revelation 21:5; Revelation 22:6, were formulas expressing weighty and memorable truths, well known and often repeated by the brotherhood of Christians in the first ages of the faith. They were, no doubt, rehearsed constantly in the assemblies, till they became well-known watchwords in the various churches scattered over the Mediterranean-washed provinces of the Roman empire; and in these “sayings” we see, perhaps, the germs of the great creeds of Christianity. [1Timothy 3:1, perhaps, as usually understood, hardly falls under this category of “watchwords of the faith,” unless St. Chrysostom’s interpretation of the text be followed, which refers “the faithful saying” to the solemn truths which immediately preceded it in 1 Timothy 2]

That Christ Jesus came into the world.—This is an unmistakable allusion to the pre-existence of Christ. He came into the world, leaving the glory which he had with the Father before the world was (see John 16:28; John 17:5; Ephesians 1:3-4). And the purpose for which he came into the world is stated distinctly in the next sentence.

To save sinners.—There are no details given respecting this salvation. The “sinners” here mentioned is a broad, inclusive term. It includes, besides Jews, the outcasts of the Gentiles without hope and without God—all the lost, irrespective of race or time. In the Lord’s own blessed words: “The Son of Man was come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10).

Of whom I am chief.—The intense humility of the strange, beautiful character of the Gentile Apostle prompted this bitter expression. St. Paul, it has been well said, knew his own sins by experience, and every other man’s per speculationem. In another place a similar feeling leads him to style himself as “less than the least of all saints” (Ephesians 3:8). He had been in time past so bitter an enemy of the Lord that no preaching of the disciples was effectual to work his conversion. In his case, to overcome his intense hatred of the Name, it needed a special appearance of the Risen One.

MacLaren's Expositions

1 Timothy

THE GOSPEL IN SMALL

1 Timothy 1:15.

Condensation is a difficult art. There are few things drier and more unsatisfactory than small books on great subjects, abbreviated statements of large systems. Error lurks in summaries, and yet here the whole fulness of God’s communication to men is gathered into a sentence; tiny as a diamond, and flashing like it. My text is the one precious drop of essence, distilled from gardens full of fragrant flowers. There is an old legend of a magic tent, which could be expanded to shelter an army, and contracted to cover a single man. That great Gospel which fills the Bible and overflows on the shelves of crowded libraries is here, without harm to its power, folded up into one saying, which the simplest can understand sufficiently to partake of the salvation which it offers.

There are five of these ‘faithful sayings’ in the letters of Paul, usually called ‘the pastoral epistles.’ It seems to have been a manner with him, at that time of his life, to underscore anything which he felt to be especially important by attaching to it this label. They are all, with one exception, references to the largest truths of the Gospel. I turn to this one, the first of them now, for the sake of gathering some lessons from it.

I. Note, then, first, here the Gospel in a nutshell.

‘Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.’ Now, every word there is weighty, and might be, not beaten out, but opened out into volumes. Mark who it is that comes--the solemn double name of that great Lord, ‘Christ Jesus.’ The former tells of His divine appointment and preparation, inasmuch as the Spirit of the Lord God is upon Him, anointing Him to proclaim good tidings to the poor, and to open the prison doors to all the captives, and asserts that it is He to whom prophets and ritual witnessed, and for whose coming prophets and kings looked wearily through the ages, and died rejoicing even to see afar off the glimmer of His day. The name of Jesus tells of the child born in Bethlehem, who knows the experience of our lives by His own, and not only bends over our griefs with the pity and omniscience of a God, but with the experience and sympathy of a man.

‘Christ Jesus came.’ Then He was before He came. His own will impelled His feet, and brought Him to earth.

‘Christ Jesus came to save.’ Then there is disease, for saving is healing; and there is danger, for saving is making secure.

‘Christ Jesus came to save sinners’--the universal condition, co-extensive with the ‘world’ into which, and for which, He came. And so the essence of the Gospel, as it lay in Paul’s mind, and had been verified in his experience, was this--that a divine person had left a life of glory, and in wonderful fashion had taken upon Himself manhood in order to deliver men from the universal danger and disease. That is the Gospel which Paul believed, and which he commends to us as ‘a faithful saying.’

Well, then, if that be so, there are two or three things very important for us to lay to heart. The first is the universality of sin. That is the thing in which we are all alike, dear friends. That is the one thing about which any man is safe in his estimate of another. We differ profoundly. The members of this congregation, gathered accidentally together, and perhaps never to be all together again, may be at the antipodes of culture, of condition, of circumstances, of modes of life; but, just as really below all the diversities there lies the common possession of the one human heart, so really and universally below all diversities there lies the black drop in the heart, and ‘we all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.’ It is that truth which I want to lay on your hearts as the first condition to understanding anything about the power, the meaning, the blessedness of the Gospel which we say we believe.

And what does Paul mean by this universal indictment? If you take the vivid autobiographical sketch in the midst of which it is embedded, you will understand. He goes on to say, ‘of whom I am chief.’ It was the same man that said, without supposing that he was contradicting this utterance at all, ‘touching the righteousness which is in the law’ I was ‘blameless.’ And yet, ‘I am chief.’ So all true men who have ever shown us their heart, in telling their Christian faith, have repeated Paul’s statement; from Augustine in his wonderful Confessions , to John Bunyan in his Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners . And then prosaic men have said, ‘What profligates they must have been, or what exaggerators they are now!’ No. Sewer gas of the worst sort has no smell; and the most poisonous exhalations are only perceptible by their effects. What made Paul think himself the chief of sinners was not that he had broken the commandments, for he might have said, and in effect did say, ‘All these have I kept from my youth up,’ but that, through all the respectability and morality of his early life there ran this streak--an alienation of heart, in the pride of self-confidence, from God, and an ignorance of his own wretchedness and need. Ah! brethren, I do not need to exaggerate, nor to talk about ‘splendid vices,’ in the untrue language of one of the old saints, but this I seek to press on you: that the deep, universal sin does not lie in the indulgence of passions, or the breach of moralities, but it lies here--’thou hast left Me, the fountain of living water.’ That is what I charge on myself, and on every one of you, and I beseech you to recognise the existence of this sinfulness beneath all the surface of reputable and pure lives. Beautiful they may be; God forbid that I should deny it: beautiful with many a strenuous effort after goodness, and charming in many respects, but yet vitiated by this, ‘The God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, thou hast not glorified.’ That is enough to make a man brush away all the respectabilities and proprieties and graces, and look at the black reality beneath, and wail out ‘of whom I am chief.’

But, further, Paul’s condensed summary of the Gospel implies the fatal character of this universal sin. ‘He comes to save,’ says he. Now what answers to ‘save’ is either disease or danger. The word is employed in the original in antithesis to both conditions. To save is to heal and to make safe. And I need not remind you, I suppose, of how truly the alienation from God, and the substitution for Him of self or of creature, is the sickness of the whole man. But the end of sickness uncured is death. We ‘have no healing medicine,’ and the ‘wound is incurable’ by the skill of any earthly chirurgeon. The notion of sickness passes, therefore, at once into that of danger: for unhealed sickness can only end in death. Oh! that my words could have the waking power that would startle some of my complacent hearers into the recognition of the bare facts of their lives and character, and of the position in which they stand on a slippery inclined plane that goes straight down into darkness!

You do not hear much about the danger of sin from some modern pulpits. God forbid that it should be the staple of any; but God forbid that it should be excluded from any! Whilst fear is a low motive, self-preservation is not a low one; and it is to that that I now appeal. Brethren, the danger of every sin is, first, its rapid growth; second, its power of separating from God; third, the certainty of a future--ay! and present --retribution.

To me, the proof of the fatal effect of sin is what God had to do in order to stop it. Do you think that it would be a small, superficial cut which could be stanched by nothing else but the pierced hand of Jesus Christ? Measure the intensity of danger by the cost of deliverance, and judge how grave are the wounds for the healing of which stripes had to be laid on Him. Ah! if you and I had not been in danger of death, Jesus Christ would not have died. And if it be true that the Son of God laid aside His glory, and came into the world and died on the Cross for men, out of the very greatness of the gift, and the marvellousness of the mercy, there comes solemn teaching as to the intensity of the misery and the reality and awfulness of the retribution from which we were delivered by such a death. Sin, the universal condition, brings with it no slight disease and no small danger.

Further, we may gather from this condensed summary where the true heart and essence of the Christian revelation is. You will never understand it until you are contented to take the point of view which the New Testament takes, and give all weight and gravity to the fact of man’s transgression and the consequences thereof. We shall never know what the power and the glory of the revelation of God in Jesus Christ is until we recognise that, first and foremost, it is the mighty means by which man’s ruin is repaired, man’s downrush is stopped, sin is forgiven and capable of being cleansed. Only when we think of the Gospel of Jesus Christ as being, first and foremost, the redemption of the world by the great act of incarnation and sacrifice, do we come to be in a position in any measure to estimate its superlative worth.

And, for my part, I believe that almost all the mistakes and errors and evaporations of Christianity into a mere dead nothing which have characterised the various ages of the Church come mainly from this, that men fail to see how deep and how fatal are the wounds of sin, and so fail to apprehend the Gospel as being mainly and primarily a system of redemption. There are many other most beautiful aspects about it, much else in it, that is lovely and of good report, and fitted to draw men’s hearts and admiration; but all is rooted in this, the life and death of Jesus Christ, the sacrifice by whom we are forgiven, and in whom we are healed. And if you strike that out, you have a dead nothing left--an eviscerated Gospel.

I believe that we all need to be reminded of that to-day, as we always do, but mainly to-day, when we hear from so many lips estimates, favourable or unfavourable to Christianity and its mission in the world, which leave out of sight, or minimise into undue insignificance, or shove into a backward place, its essential characteristic, that it is the power of God through Christ, His Son Incarnate, dying and rising again for the salvation of individual souls from the penalty, the guilt, the habit, and the love of their sins, and only secondarily is it a morality, a philosophy, a social lever. I take for mine the quaint saying of one of the old Puritans, ‘When so many brethren are preaching to the times, it may be allowed one poor brother to preach for eternity.’

‘This is a faithful saying, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.’

II. Now, secondly, note the reliableness of this condensed Gospel.

When a man in the middle of some slight plank, thrown across a stream, tests it with a stamp of his foot, and calls to his comrades, ‘It is quite firm,’ there is reason for their venturing upon it too. That is exactly what Paul is doing here. How does he know that it is ‘a faithful saying’? Because he has proved it in his own experience, and found that in his case the salvation which Jesus Christ was said to effect has been effected. Now there are many other grounds of certitude besides this, but, after all, it is worth men’s while to consider how many millions there have been from the beginning who would be ready to join chorus with the Apostle here, and to say, ‘One thing I know, that whereas I was blind, now I see.’ My experience cannot be your certitude; but if you and I are suffering from precisely the same disease, and I have tested a cure, my experiences should have some weight with you. And so, brethren, I point you to all the thousands who are ready to say, ‘This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him.’ Are there any who give counter-evidence; that say, ‘We have tried it. It is all a sham and imagination. We have asked this Christ of yours to forgive us, and He has not. We have asked Him to cleanse us, and He has not. We have tried Him, and He is an impostor, and we will have no more to do with Him.’ There are people, alas! who have gone back to their wallowing in the mire, but it was not because Christ had failed in His promises, but because they did not care to have them fulfilled any more. Jesus Christ does not promise that His salvation shall work against the will of men who submit themselves to it.

But it is not only because of that consentient chorus of many voices--the testimony of which wise men will not reject--that the word is ‘a faithful saying.’ This is no place or time to enter upon anything like a condensation of the Christian evidence; but, in lieu of everything else, I point to one proof. There is no fact in the history of the world better attested, and the unbelief of which is more unreasonable, than the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. And if Christ rose from the dead--and you cannot understand the history of the world unless He did, nor the existence of the Church either--if Jesus Christ rose from the dead, it seems to me that almost all the rest follows of necessity: the influx of the supernatural, the unique character of His career, the correspondence of the end with the beginning, the broad seal of the divine confirmation stamped upon His claims to be the Son of God and the Redeemer of the world. All these things seem to me to come necessarily from that fact. And I say, given the consentient witness of nineteen centuries, given the existence of the Church, given the effects of Christianity in the world, given that upon which they repose--the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead--the conclusion is sound, ‘This is a faithful saying . . . that He came into the world to save sinners.’

Men talk, nowadays, very often as if the progress of science and new views as to the evolution of creatures or of mankind had effected the certitude of the Gospel. It does not seem to me that they have in the smallest degree. ‘The foundation of God standeth sure,’ whatever may become of some of the superstructures which men have built upon it. They may very probably be blown away. So much the better if we get the rock to build upon once more. A great deal is going, but not the Gospel. Do not let us be afraid, or suppose that it will suffer. Do not let us dread every new speculation as if it was going to finish Christianity, but recognise this--that the fact of man’s sin and, blessed be God! the fact of man’s redemption stands untouched by them all; and to-day, as of old, Jesus Christ is, and is firmly manifested to be, the world’s Saviour. Whatsoever refuge may be swept away by any storms, ‘Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation, a stone, a tried corner-stone, a sure foundation: He that believeth shall not be confounded.’

III. Lastly, notice the consequent wisdom and duty of acceptance.

‘Worthy of all acceptation,’ says Paul. Yes, of course, if it is reliable. That word of the Lord which is ‘sure, making wise the simple,’ deserves to be received. Now this phrase, ‘all acceptation,’ may mean either of two things: it may either mean worthy of being welcomed by all men, or by the whole of each man.

This Gospel deserves to be welcomed by every man, for it is fitted for every man, since it deals with the primary human characteristic of transgression. Brethren! we need different kinds of intellectual nutriment, according to education and culture. We need different kinds of treatment, according to condition and circumstance. The morality of one age is not the morality of another. Much, even of right and wrong, is local and temporary; but black man and white, savage and civilised, philosopher and fool, king and clown, all need the same air to breathe, the same water to drink, the same sun for light and warmth, and all need the same Christ for redemption from the same sin, for safety from the same danger, for snatching from the same death. This Gospel is a Gospel for the world, and for every man in it. Have you taken it for yours? If it is ‘worthy of all acceptation,’ it is worthy of your acceptation. If you have not, you are treating Him and it with indignity, as if it was a worthless letter left in the post-office for you, which you knew was there, but which you did not think valuable enough to take the trouble to go for. The gift lies at your side. It is less than truth to say that it is ‘ worthy of being accepted.’ Oh! it is infinitely more than that.

It is, also, ‘worthy of all acceptation’ in the sense of worthy of being accepted into all a man’s nature, because it will fit it all and bless it all. Some of us give it a half welcome. We take it into our heads, and then we put a partition between them and our hearts, and keep our religion on the other side, so that it does not influence us at all. It is worthy of being received by the understanding, to which it will bring truth absolute; of being received by the will, to which it will bring the freedom of submission; of being received by the conscience, to which it will bring quickening; of being received by the affections, to which it will bring pure and perfect love. For hope, it will bring a certainty to gaze upon; for passions, a curb; for effort, a spur and a power; for desires, satisfaction; for the whole man, healing and light.

Brother! take it. And, if you do, begin where it begins, with your sins; and be contented to be saved as a sinner in danger and sickness, who can neither defend nor heal yourself. And thus coming, you will test the rope and find it hold; you will take the medicine and know that it cures; and, by your own experience, you will be able to say, ‘This is a faithful saying, Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.’

1 Timothy

THE CHIEF OF SINNERS

1 Timothy 1:15.

The less teachers of religion talk about themselves the better; and yet there is a kind of personal reference, far removed from egotism and offensiveness. Few such men have ever spoken more of themselves than Paul did, and yet none have been truer to his motto: ‘We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus.’ For the scope of almost all his personal references is the depreciation of self, and the magnifying of the wonderful mercy which drew him to Jesus Christ. Whenever he speaks of his conversion it is with deep emotion and with burning cheeks. Here, for instance, he adduces himself as the typical example of God’s long-suffering. If he were saved none need despair.

I take it that this saying of the Apostle’s, ‘Of whom I am chief,’ paradoxical and exaggerated as it seems to many men, is in spirit that which all who know themselves ought to re-echo; and without which there is little strength in Christian life.

I. And so I ask you to note, first, what this man thinks of himself.

‘Of whom I am chief.’ Now, if we set what we know of the character of Saul of Tarsus before he was a Christian by the side of that of many who have won a bad supremacy in wickedness, the words seem entirely strange and exaggerated. But, as I have often had to say, the principle of the Apostle’s estimate is to be found in his belief that, not the outward manifestation of evil in specific acts of immorality, or flagrant breaches of commandment, but the inward principle from which the deeds flowed, is the measure of a man’s criminality, and that, according to the uniform teaching of Scripture, the very root of sin, and that which is common to all the things that the world’s conscience and ordinary morality designate as wrong, is to be found here, that self has become the centre, the aim, and the law instead of God. ‘This is the condemnation,’ said Paul’s Master-- not that men have done so-and-so and so-and-so, but--’that light is come into the world, and men love darkness.’ That is the root of evil. ‘When the Comforter is come,’ said Paul’s Master, ‘He will convince the world of sin.’ Because they have broken the commandments? Because they have been lustful, ambitious, passionate, murderous, profligate, and so on? No! ‘Because they believe not in Me.’

The common root of all sin is alienation of heart and will from God. And it is by the root, and not by the black clusters of poisonous berries that have come from it, that men are to be judged. Here is the mother-tincture. You may colour it in different ways, and you may flavour it with different essences, and you will get a whole pharmacopoeia of poisons out of it. But the mother-poison of them all is this, that men turn away from the light, which is God; and for you and me is God in Christ.

So this man, looking back from the to-day of his present devotion and love to the yesterdays of his hostility, avails himself indeed of the palliation, ‘I did it ignorantly, in unbelief,’ but yet is smitten with the consciousness that whilst as touching the righteousness that is of the law he was blameless, his attitude to that incarnate love was such as now, he thinks, stamps him as the worst of men.

Brethren, there is the standard by which we have to try ourselves. If we get down below the mere surface of acts, and think, not of what we do, but of what we are, we shall then, at any rate, have in our hands the means by which we can truly estimate ourselves.

But what have we to say about that word ‘chief’? Is not that exaggeration? Well, yes and no. For every man ought to know the weak and evil places of his own heart better than he does those of any besides. And if he does so know them, he will understand that the ordinary classification of sin, according to the apparent blackness of the deed, is very superficial and misleading. Obviously, the worst of acts need not be done by the worst of men, and it does not at all follow that the man who does the awful deed stands out from his fellows in the same bad pre-eminence in which his deed stands out from theirs.

Take a concrete case. Go into the slums of Manchester, and take some of the people there, battered almost out of the semblance of humanity, and all crusted over and leprous with foul-smelling evils that you and I never come within a thousand miles of thinking it possible that we should do. Did you ever think that it is quite possible that the worst harlot, thief, drunkard, profligate in your back streets may be more innocent in their profligacy than you are in your respectability; and that we may even come to this paradox, that the worse the act, as a rule, the less guilty the doer? It is not such a paradox as it looks, because, on the one hand, the presence of temptation, and, on the other hand, the absence of light, make all the difference. And these people, who could not have been anything else, are innocent in degradation as compared with you, with all your education and culture, and opportunities of going straight, and knowledge of Christ and His love. The little transgressions that you do are far greater than the gross ones that they do. ‘But for the grace of God, there goes John Bradford,’ said the old preacher, when he saw a man going to the scaffold. And you and I, if we know ourselves, will not think that we have an instance of exaggeration, but only of the object nearest seeming the largest, when Paul said ‘Of whom I am chief.’

Only go and look for your sin in the way they look for Guy Fawkes at the House of Commons before the session. Take a dark lantern, and go down into the cellars. And If you do not find something there that will take all the conceit out of you, it must be because you are very short-sighted, or phenomenally self-complacent.

What does it matter though there be vineyards on the slopes of Vesuvius, and bright houses nestling at its base, and beauty lying all around like the dream of a god, if, when a man cranes his neck over the top of the crater, he sees that that cone, so graceful on the outside, is seething with fire and sulphur? Let us look down into the crater of our own hearts, and what we see there may well make us feel as Paul did when he said, ‘Of whom I am chief.’

Now, such an estimate is perfectly consistent with a clear recognition of any good that may be in the character and manifest in life. For the same Paul who says, ‘Of whom I am chief,’ says, in the almost contemporaneous letter sent to the same person, ‘I have fought a good fight; I have finished my course; I have kept the faith’; and he is the same man who asserted, ‘In nothing am I behind the very chiefest apostles, though I be nothing.’ The true Christian estimate of one’s own evil and sin does not in the least interfere with the recognition of what God strengthens one to do, or of the progress which, by God’s grace, may have been made in holiness and righteousness. The two things may lie side by side with perfect harmony, and ought to do so, in every Christian heart.

But notice one more point. The Apostle does not say ‘I was ,’ but ‘I am chief.’ What! A man who could say, in another connection, ‘If any man be in Christ Jesus, he is a new creature; old things are passed away’--the man who could say, in another connection, ‘I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God’--does he also say, ‘I am chief’? Is he speaking about his present? Are old sins bound round a man’s neck for evermore? If they be, what is the meaning of the Gospel that Jesus Christ redeems us from our sins? Well, he means this. No lapse of time, nor any gift of divine pardon, nor any subsequent advancement in holiness and righteousness, can alter the fact that I, the very same I that am now rejoicing in God’s salvation, am the man that did all these things; and, in a very profound sense, they remain mine through all eternity. I may be a forgiven sinner, and a cleansed sinner, and a sanctified sinner, but I am a sinner--not I was . The imperishable connection between a man and his past, which may be so tragical, and, thank God, may be so blessed, even in the case of remembered and confessed sin, is solemnly hinted at in the words before us. We carry with us ever the fact of past transgression, and no forgiveness, nor any future ‘perfecting of holiness in the fear’ and by the grace ‘of the Lord’ can alter that fact. Therefore, let us beware lest we bring upon our souls any more of the stains which, though they be in a blessed and sufficient sense blotted out, do yet leave the marks where they have fallen for ever.

II. Note how this man comes to such an estimate of himself.

He did not think so deeply and penitently of his past at the beginning of his career, true and deep as his repentance, and valid and genuine as his conversion were. But as he advanced in the love of Jesus Christ, his former active hostility became more monstrous to him, and the higher he rose, the clearer was his vision of the depth from which he had struggled; for growth in Christian holiness deepens the conviction of prior imperfection.

If God has forgiven my sin the more need for me to remember it. ‘Thou shalt be ashamed and confounded, and never open thy mouth any more because of thy transgressions, when I am pacified towards thee for all that thou hast done.’ If you, my brother, have any real and genuine hold of God’s pardoning mercy, it will bow you down the more completely on your knees in the recognition of your own sin. The man who, as soon as the pressure of guilt and danger which is laid upon him seems to him to be lifted off, springs up like some elastic figure of indiarubber, and goes on his way in jaunty forgetfulness of his past evil, needs to ask himself whether he has ever passed from death unto life. Not to remember the old sin is to be blind. The surest sign that we are pardoned is the depth of our habitual penitence. Try yourselves, you Christian people who are so sure of your forgiveness, try yourselves by that test, and if you find that you are thinking less of your past evil, be doubtful whether you have ever entered into the genuine possession of the forgiving mercy of your God.

And then, still further, this penitent retrospect is the direct result of advancement in Christian characteristics. We are drawn to begin some study or enterprise by the illusion that there is but a little way to go. ‘Alps upon alps arise’ when once we have climbed a short distance up the hill, and it has become as difficult to go back as to go forward.

So it is in the Christian life--the sign of growing perfection is the growing consciousness of imperfection. A spot upon a clean palm is more conspicuous than a diffuse griminess over all the hand. One stain upon a white robe spoils it which would not be noticed upon one less lustrously clean. And so the more we grow towards God in Christ, and the more we appropriate and make our own His righteousness, the more we shall be conscious of our deficiencies, and the less we shall be prepared to assert virtues for ourselves.

Thus it comes to pass that conscience is least sensitive when it is most needed, and most swift to act when it has least to do. So it comes to pass, too, that no man’s acquittal of himself can be accepted as sufficient; and that he is a fool in self-knowledge who says, ‘I am not conscious of guilt, therefore I am innocent.’ ‘I know nothing against myself, yet am I not hereby justified: but He that judgeth me is the Lord.’ The more you become like Christ the more you will find out your unlikeness to Him.



III. Lastly, note what this judgment of himself did for this man.

I said in the beginning of my remarks that it seemed to me that without the reproduction of this estimate of ourselves there would be little strong Christian life in us. It seems to me that that continual remembrance which Paul carried with him of what he had been, and of Christ’s marvellous love in drawing him to Himself, was the very spring of all that was noble and conspicuously Christian in his career. And I venture to say, in two or three words, what I think you and I will never have unless we have this lowly self-estimate.

Without it there will be no intensity of cleaving to Jesus Christ. If you do not know that you are ill, you will not take the medicine. If you do not believe that the house is on fire, you will not mind the escape. The life-buoy lies unnoticed on the shelf above the berth as long as the sea is calm and everything goes well. Unless you have been down into the depths of your own heart, and seen the evil that is there, you will not care for the redeeming Christ, nor will you grasp Him as a man does who knows that there is nothing between him and ruin except that strong hand. We must be driven to the Saviour as well as drawn to Him if there is to be any reality or tightness in the clutch with which we hold Him. And if you do not hold Him with a firm clutch you do not hold Him at all.

Further, without this lowly estimate there will be no fervour of grateful love. That is the reason why so much both of orthodox and heterodox religion amongst us to-day is such a tepid thing as it is. It is because men have never felt either that they need a Redeemer, or that Jesus Christ has redeemed them. I believe that there is only one power that will strike the rock of a human heart, and make the water of grateful devotion flow out, and that is the belief in Jesus Christ as the Redeemer of mankind, and as my Saviour. Unless that be your faith, which it will not be except you have this conviction of my text in its spirit and essence, there will not be in your hearts the love which will glow there, an all-transforming power.

And is there anything in the world more obnoxious, more insipid, than lukewarm religion? If, with marks of quotation, I might use the coarse, strong expression of John Milton--’It gives a vomit to God Himself.’ ‘Because thou art neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.’

And without it there will be little pity of, and love for, our fellows. Unless we feel the common evil, and estimate by the intensity of its working in ourselves how sad are its ravages in others, our charity to men will be as tepid as our love to God. Did you ever notice that, historically, the widest benevolence to men goes along with what some people call the ‘narrowest’ theology? People tell us, for instance, to mark the contrast between the theology which is usually called evangelical and the wide benevolence usually accompanying it, and ask how the two things agree. The ‘wide’ benevolence comes directly from the ‘narrow’ theology. He that knows the plague of his own heart, and how Christ has redeemed him, will go, with the pity of Christ in his heart, to help to redeem others.

So, dear friends, ‘If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves.’ ‘If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.’

Benson Commentary

1 Timothy 1:15-16. This is a faithful saying — A saying not only certainly true, but infinitely momentous, as the same expression evidently signifies 1 Timothy 4:9; 2 Timothy 2:11; Titus 3:8; and worthy of all acceptation — As infallibly true, it is worthy of all credit, and as infinitely important, worthy of being considered, received, and embraced, with all the powers of our souls; that Christ — The Messiah promised; Jesus — The Saviour exhibited; came into the world to save sinners — All sinners without exception, who are willing to be saved in the way of repentance toward God, and faith in him and his gospel. Of whom I am chief — “The apostle did not mean that he was absolutely the greatest of all sinners, but the greatest of those who sinned through ignorance, as is plain from 1 Timothy 1:13. And he spake in this manner concerning himself, to show the deep sense he had of his sin in reviling Christ, and persecuting his disciples, and that he judged charitably of the sins of other men, and of their extenuations.” Howbeit, for this cause — Among others which were also important; I obtained mercy, that in me first — Or, in me the chief of sinners, as the clause may be rendered; Jesus Christ might show forth all longsuffering — Might exhibit an example thereof to the view of the whole world; for a pattern to them — For the direction and encouragement of those who should afterward believe on him — Even to the remotest ages of time; that is, to teach and encourage them to expect the like mercy upon their believing in him, to the obtaining of eternal life. And it must be acknowledged, that no example could be more proper to encourage the greatest sinners in every age to repent, than the pardon which Christ granted to one who had so furiously persecuted his church.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

1:12-17 The apostle knew that he would justly have perished, if the Lord had been extreme to mark what was amiss; and also if his grace and mercy had not been abundant to him when dead in sin, working faith and love to Christ in his heart. This is a faithful saying; these are true and faithful words, which may be depended on, That the Son of God came into the world, willingly and purposely to save sinners. No man, with Paul's example before him, can question the love and power of Christ to save him, if he really desires to trust in him as the Son of God, who once died on the cross, and now reigns upon the throne of glory, to save all that come to God through him. Let us then admire and praise the grace of God our Saviour; and ascribe to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, three Persons in the unity of the Godhead, the glory of all done in, by, and for us.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

This is a faithful saying - Greek, "Faithful is the word," or doctrine - ὁ λογος ho logos. This verse has somewhat the character of a parenthesis, and seems to have been thrown into the midst of the narrative because the mind of the apostle was full of the subject. He had said that he, a great sinner, had obtained mercy. This naturally led him to think of the purpose for which Christ came into the world - to save sinners - and to think how strikingly that truth had been illustrated in his own case, and how that case had shown that it was worthy the attention of all. The word rendered "saying," means in this place doctrine, position, or declaration. The word "faithful," means assuredly true; it was that which might be depended on, or on which reliance might be placed. The meaning is, that the doctrine that Christ came to save sinners might be depended on as certainly true; compare 2 Timothy 2:11; Titus 3:8.

And worthy of all acceptation - Worthy to be embraced or believed by all. This is so, because:

(1) all are sinners and need a Saviour. All, therefore ought to welcome a doctrine which shows them how they may be saved.

(2) because Christ died for all. If he had died for only a part of the race, and could save only a part, it could not be said with any propriety that the doctrine was worthy of the acceptance of all. If that were so, what had it to do with all? How could all be interested in it or benefited by it If medicine had been provided for only a part of the patients in a hospital, it could not be said that the announcement of such a fact was worthy the attention of all. It would be highly worthy the attention of those for whom it was designed, but there would be a part who would have nothing to do with it; and why should they concern themselves about it? But if it was provided for each one, then each one would have the highest interest in it. So, if salvation has been provided for me, it is a matter claiming my profoundest attention; and the same is true of every human being. If not provided for me, I have nothing to do with it. It does not concern me at all.

See this subject discussed at length in the supplementary note on 2 Corinthians 5:14.

(3) the manner in which the provision of salvation has been made in the gospel is such as to make it worthy of universal acceptation. It provides for the complete pardon of sin, and the restoration of the soul to God. This is done in a way that is honorable to God - maintaining his law and his justice; and, at the same time, it is in a way that is honorable to man. He is treated afterward as a friend of God and an heir of life. He is raised up from his degradation, and restored to the favor of his Maker. If man were himself to suggest a way of salvation, he could think of none that would be more honorable to God and to himself; none that would do so much to maintain the law and to elevate him from all that now degrades him. What higher honor can be conferred on man than to have his salvation sought as an object of intense and earnest desire by one so great and glorious as the Son of God?

(4) it is worthy of all acceptance, from the nature of the salvation itself. Heaven is offered, with all its everlasting glories, through the blood of Christ - and is not this worthy of universal acceptation? People would accept of a coronet or crown; a splendid mansion, or a rich estate; a present of jewels and gold, if freely tendered to them - but what trifles are these compared with heaven! If there is anything that is worthy of universal acceptation, it is heaven - for all will be miserable unless they enter there.

That Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners - The great and unique doctrine of the gospel. He "came into the world." He therefore had a previous existence. He came. He had, therefore, an object in coming. It makes his gospel more worthy of acceptation that he had an intention, a plan, a wish, in thus coming into the world. He came when he was under no necessity of coming; he came to save, not to destroy; to reveal mercy, not to denounce judgment; to save sinners - the poor, the lost, the wandering, not to condemn them; he came to restore them to the favor of God, to raise them up from their degradation, and to bring them to heaven.

Of whom I am chief - Greek, "first." The word is used to denote eminence - and it means that he occupied the first rank among sinners. There were none who surpassed him. This does not mean that he had been the greatest of sinners in all respects, but that in some respects he had been so great a sinner, that on the whole there were none who had surpassed him. That to which he particularly refers was doubtless the part which he had taken in putting the saints to death; but in connection with this, he felt, undoubtedly, that he had by nature a heart eminently prone to sin; see Romans 7. Except in the matter of persecuting the saints, the youthful Saul of Tarsus appears to have been eminently moral, and his outward conduct was framed in accordance with the strictest rules of the law; Philippians 3:6; Acts 26:4-5. After his conversion, he never attempted to extenuate his conduct, or excuse himself. He was always ready, in all circles, and in all places, to admit to its fullest extent the fact that he was a sinner. So deeply convinced was he of the truth of this, that he bore about with him the constant impression that he was eminently unworthy; and hence he does not say merely that he had been a sinner of most aggravated character, but he speaks of it as something that always pertained to him - "of whom I am chief." We may remark:

(1) that a true Christian will always be ready to admit that his past life has been evil;

(2) that this will become the abiding and steady conviction of the soul; and,

(3) that an acknowledgment that we are sinners is not inconsistent with evidence of piety, and with high attainments in it. The most eminent Christian has the deepest sense of the depravity of his own heart and of the evil of his past life.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

15. faithful—worthy of credit, because "God" who says it "is faithful" to His word (1Co 1:9; 1Th 5:24; 2Th 3:3; Re 21:5; 22:6). This seems to have become an axiomatic saying among Christians the phrase, "faithful saying," is peculiar to the Pastoral Epistles (1Ti 2:11; 4:9; Tit 3:8). Translate as Greek, "Faithful is the saying."

all—all possible; full; to be received by all, and with all the faculties of the soul, mind, and heart. Paul, unlike the false teachers (1Ti 1:7), understands what he is saying, and whereof he affirms; and by his simplicity of style and subject, setting forth the grand fundamental truth of salvation through Christ, confutes the false teachers' abstruse and unpractical speculations (1Co 1:18-28; Tit 2:1).

acceptation—reception (as of a boon) into the heart, as well as the understanding, with all gladness; this is faith acting on the Gospel offer, and welcoming and appropriating it (Ac 2:41).

Christ—as promised.

Jesus—as manifested [Bengel].

came into the world—which was full of sin (Joh 1:29; Ro 5:12; 1Jo 2:2). This implies His pre-existence. Joh 1:9, Greek, "the true Light that, coming into the world, lighteth every man."

to save sinners—even notable sinners like Saul of Tarsus. His instance was without a rival since the ascension, in point of the greatness of the sin and the greatness of the mercy: that the consenter to Stephen, the proto-martyr's death, should be the successor of the same!

I am—not merely, "I was chief" (1Co 15:9; Eph 3:8; compare Lu 18:13). To each believer his own sins must always appear, as long as he lives, greater than those of others, which he never can know as he can know his own.

chief—the same Greek as in 1Ti 1:16, "first," which alludes to this fifteenth verse, Translate in both verses, "foremost." Well might he infer where there was mercy for him, there is mercy for all who will come to Christ (Mt 18:11; Lu 19:10).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

This is a faithful saying; the following saying, which is the great proposition of the gospel, is a saying that is in itself true, and wherein God hath declared his truth.

And worthy of all acceptation; and worthy to be with all thankfulness received, believed, and accepted.

That Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; that Jesus Christ, being sent of the Father, in the fulness of time, was incarnate, lived, and died in the world; not only to set sinners an example of a better life, nor only to make God placable towards men, that if they would they might be saved; but to purchase a certain salvation for sinners, satisfying Divine justice, and meriting all grace necessary to bring them to salvation, to carry the lost sheep home upon his shoulders; yea, though they had been great wanderers, amartwlouv.

Of whom I am chief; and I was as great a one as any other, yea, the chief. Paul, though converted, had his former sin of persecution before his eyes. Persecutors are some of the chief sinners. Some will have the relative of whom to refer to the saving mentioned: of which sinners brought to salvation I am the great president, having been so great a sinner as I have been and yet received to mercy.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation,.... This is said, lest it should be thought strange, or scarcely credible, that so great a sinner should be saved; as well as to give a summary of the glorious Gospel the apostle was intrusted with; and in opposition to fables, endless genealogies, and vain jangling, and contentions about the law. The doctrine of Christ's coming into the world, and of salvation by him, as it is the sum and substance of the Gospel, so it is a "faithful saying"; in which the faithfulness of God is displayed to himself, and the perfections of his nature, his holiness, justice, love, grace, and mercy; to his law, which is magnified, and made honourable; to his word of promise hereby fulfilled; and to his Son in carrying him through the work: and the faithfulness of Christ is discovered herein, both to his Father with whom, and to his friends for whom, he engaged to obtain salvation; and the faithfulness of ministers is shown in preaching it, and of other saints in professing it, and abiding by it: it is a true saying, and not to be disputed or doubted of, but to be believed most firmly; it is certain that God the Father sent his Son into the world for this purpose; and Christ himself assures us, that he came for this end; his carriage to sinners, and his actions, testified the same; his works and miracles confirm it; and the numberless instances of sinners saved by him evince the truth of it: and it is "worthy of all acceptation"; or to be received by all sorts of persons, learned, or unlearned, rich or poor, greater or lesser sinners; and to be received in all ways, and in the best manner, as the word of God, and not man; with heartiness and readiness, and with love, joy, and gladness, and with meekness, faith, and fear, and by all means; for it is entirely true, absolutely necessary, and suitable to the case of all, and is to be highly valued and esteemed by those who do approve and accept of it. It is the Christian Cabala, or the evangelical tradition, delivered by the Father to Christ, by him to his apostles, and by them to the saints, by whom it is cordially received. The apostle seems to allude to the Cabala of the Jews, their oral law, which they say (m) was delivered to Moses on Mount Sinai, and by him to Joshua; and by Joshua to the elders; and by the elders to the prophets; and so from one to another to his times: but here he suggests, that if they would have a Cabala, here is one, that is firm, and true, and certain, and worthy to be received, whereas the Jewish one was precarious, yea, false and untrue. Indeed, sometimes the words of the prophets are so called by them; so that passage in Joel 2:13 is called "Cabala" (n), some thing delivered and received; upon which one of their commentators (o) has these words,

"whatever a prophet commands the Israelites, makes known unto them, or exhorts them to, is a Cabala.

And if a prophetic command or admonition, then surely: such an evangelical doctrine, as follows, is entitled to this character,

that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; Christ came into the world, being sent by his Father, but not against his will, but with his free consent: he came voluntarily in the fulness of time into this sinful world, where he was ill treated; and this was not by local motion, or change of place, but by assumption of nature; and the end of it was, that he might be the Saviour of lost sinners, as all men are, both by Adam's sin, and their own transgressions; though he came not to save all, for then all would be saved, whereas they are not; and if he came to save them, he must have then so far lost his end; but he came to save sinners, of all sorts, even notorious sinners, the worst and chief of sinners: and the apostle instances in himself,

of whom I am chief; or "first"; not that he was the first in time; Adam was the first man that sinned, though Eve was before him in the transgression: it is a most stupid notion, that some gave into from this passage, as if the soul of Adam passed from one body to another, till it came to Paul, and therefore he calls himself the first of sinners: but his meaning is, that he was the first in quality, or the greatest and chiefest of sinners, not only of those that are saved, but of all men, Jews or Gentiles; and this he said not hyperbolically, nor out of modesty, but from a real sense or apprehension he had of himself, and his sins, which were made exceeding sinful to him; or he was the chief of sinners, and exceeded all others in his way of sinning, in blaspheming the name of Christ, and persecuting his saints, otherwise his conversation was externally moral, and in his own, and in the opinion of others, blameless: he was no fornicator, adulterer, thief, extortioner, &c. but in the above things he went beyond all others, and was a ringleader in them; and the remembrance of these sins abode with him, and kept him humble all his days; he was always ready to acknowledge them, and express his vileness and unworthiness on account of them: hence he here says, not "of whom I was", but "of whom I am chief". Now such sinners, and all sorts of sinners, Christ came to save from all their sins, original and actual; from the law, its curse and condemnation; from the bondage of Satan, the evil of the world, and wrath to come, and from every enemy; and that, by his obedience, sufferings, and death, by fulfilling the law, bearing its penalty, offering himself a sacrifice for sin, thereby finishing it, making reconciliation for it, and bringing in an everlasting righteousness: and a great Saviour he is, and an only one; a full, suitable, able, and willing Saviour; a Saviour of the soul, as well as of the body, and of both with an everlasting salvation,

(m) Pirke Abot, c. 1. sect. 1.((n) Misn. Taanith, c. 2. sect. 1.((o) Jarchi Misn. Taanith, c. 2. sect. 1.

Geneva Study Bible

{13} This is a {i} faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.

(13) He turns the reproach of the adversaries upon their own head, showing that this singular example of the goodness of God, contributes greatly to the benefit of the whole Church.

(i) Worthy to be believed.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Meyer's NT Commentary

1 Timothy 1:15. Πιστὸς ὁ λόγος κ.τ.λ.] With this formula, which is peculiar to the Pastoral Epistles (found besides here in 1 Timothy 3:1, 1 Timothy 4:9; 2 Timothy 2:11; Titus 3:8; only in Rev. is there a similar formula: οὗτοι οἱ λόγοι πιστοὶ καὶ ἀληθινοί εἰσι, Revelation 21:5, Revelation 22:6), the apostle introduces the general thought whose truth he had himself experienced.

καὶ πάσης ἀποδοχῆς ἄξιος] This addition is also in 1 Timothy 4:9; the word ἀποδοχή occurs nowhere else in the N. T. (comp. ἀπόδεκτος, 1 Timothy 2:3, 1 Timothy 5:4). As Raphelius has shown by many proofs from Polybius, it is synonymous in later Greek with πίστις: the verb ἀποδέχεσθαι (“receive believing”) is used in the same sense in Acts 2:41. The adjective πάσης describes the ἀποδοχή of which the word is worthy, as one complete and excluding all doubt.

ὅτι Χρ. Ἰησ. ἦλθεν εἰς τὸν κόσμον] This expression, found especially in John, may be explained from the saying of Christ: ἐξῆλθον παρὰ τοῦ πατρὸς καὶ ἐλήλυθα εἰς τὸν κόσμον, John 16:28, κόσμος having here a physical, not an ethical meaning: “the earthly world.”

Ἁμαρτωλοί stands here in a general sense, and is not with Stolz to be limited to the opponents of Christianity, nor with Michaelis to the heathen. As little can the idea of σῶσαι be limited in the one direction or the other. After this general thought, that the aim of Christ’s coming is none other than the σωτηρία of sinners, the apostle returns to his own case, adding, in consciousness of his guilt (1 Timothy 1:13): ὧν πρῶτός εἰμι ἐγώ, “of whom I am first.” Paul says this, conscious of his former determined hostility to Christ when he was a βλάσφημος κ.τ.λ. (1 Timothy 1:13), and considering himself at the same time as standing at the head of sinners. It is inaccurate to translate πρῶτος without qualification by “the foremost” (in opposition to Wiesinger and others). Even in Mark 12:28-29, πρώτη πάντων ἐντολή is the commandment which stands at the head of all, is first in the list, and δευτέρα is the one following. In order to qualify the thought, Flatt wishes to translate πρῶτος by “one of the foremost,” which he thinks he can justify by the absence of the article. Wegscheider, again, wishes not to refer ὧν to ἁμαρτωλούς, but to supply σωζομένων or σεσωσμένων; and similarly Mack explains ὧν by “of which saved sinners.” All these expositions are, however, to be rejected as pieces of ingenuity. The thought needs no qualification—at least not for any one who can sympathize with the apostle’s strong feeling. The apostle does not overstep the bounds of humility in what he says in 1 Corinthians 15:9 and Ephesians 3:8; neither does he overstep them here.

Expositor's Greek Testament

1 Timothy 1:15-17. The dealings of Christ with me, of course, are not unique. My experience is the same in kind, though not in degree, as that of all saved sinners. Christ’s longsuffering will never undergo a more severe test than it did in my case, so that no sinner need ever despair. Let us giorify God therefor.

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

15. This is a faithful saying] More exactly, Faithful is the saying, ‘gravissima praefandi formula, says Bengel; the first of five occurrences in these epistles, where only it is found, 1 Timothy 3:1, 1 Timothy 4:9; 2 Timothy 2:11; Titus 3:8. With it we may compare Revelation 21:5, and our Lord’s ‘Verily, verily I say unto you.’ The special weight of each maxim or practical instruction thus introduced is examined in Appendix, E. See also Introduction, ch. iii. ii. 1 c, p. 30.

faithful] That is, trustworthy and claiming implicit credit; more than merely ‘true,’ which is the rendering in the P. Bk. Communion Service, ‘This is a true saying and worthy of all men to be received;’ worthy of all acceptation, of every kind and degree, as there is no article with ‘all’; to be received with every mark of regard and welcome, of confidence and affection.

What is the truth thus heralded? ‘Christ Jesus as God in heaven; Christ Jesus come to this earth to save sinners; Christ Jesus come to save me the chief of sinners.’ It is this personal dealing of the Saviour with the single soul, the personal laying hold by the separate soul of the Saviour’s love and pardon, which is so specially precious to St Paul and gives new lustre to the jewel, the simple creed.

of whom I am chief] am, shewing his abiding sense of his sinfulness, and this at the close of his life, when he could say ‘I have fought the good fight, I have kept the faith, &c.’

‘And they who fain would serve Thee best

Are conscious most of wrong within.’

Cf. 1 Corinthians 15:9. So in Acts 22:4; Acts 22:19; Acts 26:9, he takes every opportunity of referring with express self-condemnation to his past life.

Bengel's Gnomen

1 Timothy 1:15. Πιστὸς, faithful) A very solemn form of preface. Paul knows what he says, and whereof he affirms (1 Timothy 1:7), and refutes the false teachers by the very simplicity of his language, treating, but with great beauty, of common topics, so much the rather, as others affected to treat of those which are more abstruse. So also Titus 2:1.—πάσης, all) Even faith is a kind of acceptation. This statement deserves all acceptation by all the faculties of the whole soul: ἀποδοχὴ (from δέχεσθαι, Luke 8:13), is when I am thankful, and speak of a thing as a good deed (a boon conferred on me): comp. the correlative, ἀποδεκτὸν, acceptable, ch. 1 Timothy 2:3.—Χριστὸς Ἰησοῦς) Christ, viz. as promised: Jesus, as manifested. Franckius, in Homil. on this passage, shows that in this sense the name Christ here is put first, and Jesus after it; comp. 2 Timothy 1:9, note.—κὀσμον, world) which was full of sin, John 1:29; Romans 5:12; 1 John 2:2.—ἁμαρ—τωλοὺς, sinners) great and notable sinners. He saves also those whose sins have been not so aggravated; but it is much more remarkable that He saves so great sinners. It can scarcely happen, but that they who themselves have tasted the grace of God, should taste its universality, and, in like manner, from it entertain favour towards all men. Paul draws the conclusion from his own individual case to all men.—πρῶτος, first) This is repeated with great force in the following verse [a force which is lost by the Engl. Vers., chief]. The example of Paul is incomparable, whether we consider sin or mercy. [There had been then no such example from the ascension of the Lord.—V. g.]

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 15. - Faithful is the saying for this is a faithful saying, A.V. Faithful is the saying (πιστὸς ὁ λόγος). This formula is peculiar to the pastoral Epistles (1 Timothy 3:1; 1 Timothy 4:9; 2 Timothy 2:11; Titus 3:8), and seems to indicate that there were a number of pithy sayings, maxims, portions of hymns or of catechetical teaching, current in the Church, and possibly originating in the inspired sayings of the Church prophets, to which the apostle appeals, and to which he gives his sanction. The one appealed to here would be simply, "Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners." This, St. Paul adds, is worthy of all acceptation - by all, and without any reserve. Acceptation (ἀποδοχῆς); only here and 1 Timothy 4:9, in connection with the same formula. The verb ἀποδέχομαι occurs in Luke 8:40; Acts 2:41; Acts 15:4; 18:29; 24:3; 28:30. It contains the idea of a glad, willing acceptance (see note on Acts 2:41). So doubtless ἀποδοχή also means "hearty reception." I am chief; in respect of his having been" a blasphemer, a persecutor, and injurious." That great sin was indeed freely forgiven by God's grace, but it could never be forgotten by him who had been guilty of it. "Manet alta mente repostum" (comp. Ephesians 3:8). 1 Timothy 1:15

Vincent's Word Studies

This is a faithful saying (πιστὸς ὁ λόγος)

Better, faithful is the saying. A favorite phrase in these Epistles. oP. See 1 Timothy 3:1; 1 Timothy 4:9; 2 Timothy 2:11; Titus 3:8.

Worthy of all acceptation (πάσης ἀποδοχῆς ἄξιος)

The phrase only here and 1 Timothy 4:9. Ἁποδοχή Pasto olxx. Comp. Acts 2:41, ἀποδεξάμενοι τὸν λόγον received his word. Πάσης all or every describes the reception of which the saying is worthy as complete and excluding all doubt.

Came into the world (ἦλθεν εἰς τὸν κόσμον)

The phrase is unique in the Pastorals, and does not appear in Paul. It is Johannine. See John 1:9; John 3:19; John 11:27; John 12:46.

To save sinners (ἁναρτωλοὺς σῶσαι)

The thought is Pauline, but not the phrase. See Luke 9:56; Luke 19:10.

Chief (πρῶτος)

Or foremost. Comp. 1 Corinthians 15:9, and Ephesians 3:8. This expression is an advance on those.