1 Timothy 1:13 Who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious: but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. Great as his sin had been, he became a subject of Divine mercy. I. THE LORD'S MERCY TO HIM. "I obtained mercy." 1. The mercy included the pardon of his great wickedness. It was mercy unsought for as well as unmerited. 2. It was mercy with the grace of apostleship added to it. II. THE GROUND AND REASON OF THIS MERCY. "Because I did it ignorantly in unbelief." 1. The true ground of mercy is nothing whatever in man, but the compassion of God himself (Titus 3:5). 2. The apostle does not signify that he had any claim to God's mercy, for he calls himself in the next verse "the very chief of sinners." 3. He does not mean to lessen the enormity of his guilt, but sets it forth, in all its attending circumstances, as not being such as excluded him from the pale of mercy, because he had not sinned against his own convictions. (1) He did it ignorantly; but ignorance was no excuse where there were the means of knowledge; and unbelief, out of which the ignorance springing could not be accepted as an excuse, since he had heard the statement of Stephen. Besides, all sins spring from ignorance, and are aggravated by unbelief. (2) But he did not sin willfully against light and conscience, and so commit the sin against the Holy Ghost. (3) He who has compassion on the ignorant had compassion upon him, when he found him an ignorant and blinded zealot. Thus were confirmed the words of Christ, that every sin against the Son of man will be forgiven, so long as there is no blasphemy against the Spirit (Matthew 12:31). The apostle had not deliberately set at naught the counsel of God, but stood on exactly the same ground with those sinners converted at Pentecost, who had acted "in ignorance" (Acts 3:17). The sin was great in both cases, but it was not unpardonable. (4) There is nothing in the apostle's statement to justify the opinion that those who have never heard of Christ will be forgiven on account of their ignorance. Our Lord's words warrant the expectation that there will be a mitigation, but not a remission, of punishment in such cases. "He that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes" (Luke 12:48). The language in both passages justifies charitable judgments even respecting persecutors. - T.C. Parallel Verses KJV: Who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious: but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. |
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