who before was a blasphemer and persecutor, and an insolent overbearing [man] but mercy was shewn me because I did it ignorantly, in unbelief.
Paul looks back at the man he was before Christ met him, and he uses three of the ugliest words he can find. Yet the verse turns on one word: mercy. And on a strange reason for it — he acted in ignorance and unbelief.
The three words Paul picks are not random insults. Each belongs somewhere else in Scripture, and no one else in Scripture wears all three.
The apostle sums up his life at that time in three telling words, and they explain it: "a blasphemer, a persecutor, and injurious." Telling words, we say. The first is one of the sins that mark the last days (2 Tim. 3:2). The second is what marked the Jews in the days of the apostles (1 Thess. 2:15). The last, "injurious," appears in the New Testament as a sin of the pagan world (Rom. 1:30). None of the pagans in that chapter of Romans are charged with blaspheming. No one in 2 Timothy 3, where the marks of the last days are listed, is called "injurious." But all three together marked Saul.
The ESV translates that third word as "insolent opponent."
Blasphemy is speech against God, not against people. A careful Pharisee took pains to avoid that charge. So the word itself says something about who Jesus is.
The Pharisees were careful, at least on the outside, never to face a charge of blasphemy — that is, of insulting the Name of God. Speaking against men, however wickedly or unjustly, is not blasphemy. And Paul, as a strict Pharisee, would not insult God on purpose. Who then did he blaspheme? He tells us himself, quite plainly: "I myself thought that I ought to do many things against the name of Jesus of Nazareth." Later he came to know that this blessed Person is "God over all, blessed forever" — and then he called himself a blasphemer. The Man of Galilee is none other than the eternal God!
Paul confesses this after his conversion. At the time, Saul had a flattering name for each of these three things.
Before his conversion he would never have used such words about himself. Far from thinking he was blaspheming God, he was quite sure he was serving God. Far from seeing himself as a persecutor, he no doubt felt he was a faithful champion of the truth. His overbearing insolence he no doubt viewed as praiseworthy zeal. Such is the blindness of a heart that has never been born again.
Nothing in Saul's conscience objected. He had religion and credentials on his side.
There was certainly no lack of sincerity: not a doubt clouded his conscience. He thought he ought to do much against the name of the Nazarene. He carried the authority and commission of the chief priests. He was confident of the strictest Pharisee teaching and the most careful practice, and satisfied that the religion of the true God had come down unbroken from Sinai.
Paul gives ignorance as the reason mercy could reach him. Ignorance is not innocence. But it does mark his sin off from sin done on purpose.
If we were ignorant, why were we ignorant? Ignorance means carelessness of some kind... The plea of ignorance helps in only one way — it marks the sin off from sin done on purpose. So of the sin of his unconverted state the apostle could say, "I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief."
The old law drew the same line, and it still runs today.
There was no forgiveness for sins done with a high hand under the law. The law says plainly, "if anyone sins through ignorance." Paul says he received mercy "because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief." In the old days, if a man sinned in open defiance, as in blasphemy, they stoned him. There is forgiveness for such sins now — but not if it is done after full knowledge of Christ, so as to give Him up.
Ignorance also placed Saul under an old provision. God gave cities of refuge — towns a man could run to if he had killed someone without meaning to.
He "did it ignorantly in unbelief." So he was not the deliberate killer, guilty of the planned, cold-blooded murder of the Lord Jesus. He was rather the man who kills without meaning to and without knowing what he does (Josh. 20:3). For such cases God appointed "cities of refuge." His mercy was available for such men. No doubt the same blessed truth shines in the word of the Lord Jesus from the cross, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do" (Lk. 23:34).
The same ground of mercy is held out to a whole nation. Paul's case is not a one-off.
In mercy. To us Gentiles, to Saul of Tarsus, and in the future, to Israel, when sunk in unbelief. As he says to Timothy, "I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief." And the same mercy will be shown to Israel in days to come: "For God has shut all up together in unbelief, that He might have mercy upon all" (Romans 11:32).
- Blindness — Saul called his blasphemy zeal and his persecution faithfulness. A heart that is not born again renames its own sins.
- Blasphemy — the word only makes sense if Jesus of Nazareth is God; Paul's confession is a witness to who Christ is.
- Ignorance — it excuses no one. But like the man who killed without meaning to, Saul had a refuge open to him.
- Mercy — his sincerity could not save him. Mercy did what his certainty could not.
- Reach — the ground of mercy shown to Saul is the ground on which mercy is promised to others still in unbelief.
But the grace of our Lord surpassingly over-abounded with faith and love, which [is] in Christ Jesus.
Paul has just called himself a blasphemer, a persecutor and a violent man. Here he measures grace against that record. Two questions follow: how much grace, and what did it bring with it?
Paul's word means more than "enough." Writers who work from the Greek, quoting older and more literal translations, put it more strongly.
The grace of the Lord toward him was exceedingly abundant. Translated more literally, it reads: "the grace of our Lord surpassingly overabounded." He had the most wonderful experience of this grace, which saves so freely and so fully.
The overflow had something to answer — the scale of what Paul had done.
The sin of Saul of Tarsus abounded. Full of ignorant unbelief, he aimed his damaging hostility straight at Christ Himself, by blasphemy and by persecuting His people. So he was, and he felt himself to be, the chief of sinners. But the super-abundant grace of God met the abundance of his sin. Did the glory of divine grace ever shine more brightly than when the rebel Saul met the risen Saviour? We think not. Yet we all owe our salvation to the same good news of the glory of the blessed God.
Grace brought with it the exact opposites of what had filled Saul before. Note what he lost as well as what he gained.
The heavenly Christ was Jesus whom he had been persecuting in His members. It was all over with him, and with his religion too. Christ was everything to him. And he now owns Christ in all who loved Him — the very name he had cursed until that moment. It was sinful unbelieving ignorance. "But the grace of our Lord abounded exceedingly with faith and love that is in Christ Jesus" — the contrast of unbelief and hatred when he knew only the law.
The order matters. Mercy meets the man where he is. Grace then does more.
Notice how grace closely follows mercy. Mercy had compassionately dealt with him in his condition and circumstances of ignorance. Now grace is exceedingly abundant. It enables him to triumph over every circumstance, because grace is the power that lifts a person above circumstances. Here faith and love in Christ Jesus are closely joined with this grace. Faith is that personal confidence in Him — God-given, in fact — and by faith we take hold of grace. Love is the warmth that comes with it: the very nature of God, poured into the heart by the Spirit of God.
Paul does not say grace arrived and he supplied the faith and love. One writer points to the grammar: the two are one thing with one source.
Faith and love are like the very life-breath of the believer. They are given at the very start, as a new moral being, and they take the place of the old life of sin... Then, at the height of his energy, he was "breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord" (Acts 9). At that moment the blessed Lord stepped in... Faith and love are given, "faith and love which is in Christ Jesus." They spring from there, they are one there (the verb is singular). Further, they are never separated from their source; we have them in Him. This stands at the start of the Christian life, and it runs on through that life to the end. Then faith will be changed to sight, and God will be known as love.
The phrase "in Christ Jesus" carries more than one sense.
And faith and love are necessarily in Christ Jesus — in Him, for He is the source, Object, and sphere of both alike.
Grace on this scale does not puff a man up. It changes his view of himself for good.
There was a time when Paul thought himself to be something. Recall his list of legal achievements and advantages... He then thought himself the best of men and boasted in the flesh to the utmost. But how vast the change when the light of God was let into his soul!... The best of men discovered that he was the chief of sinners. Nothing but sovereign grace and mercy could help such a man... Never again did he "think himself to be something." The proud, arrogant Pharisee became the lowliest of men. He became the closest possible follower of a rejected and suffering Lord. Only grace can do this.
- Mercy first — mercy met Paul where he was, in his ignorance.
- Then overflow — grace "surpassingly overabounded," and it did so where sin had abounded most. It lifted Paul above every circumstance.
- Then gift — Paul did not supply the faith and love; they came to him with the grace.
- Held in Christ — faith and love are one thing with one source, and they never leave it. He is their source, Object and sphere.
- And so, lowliness — the man who received the most grace never again thought himself to be something.
Faithful [is] the word, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom *I* am [the] first.
This verse puts the whole gospel into one sentence. Two questions press on the reader: how far can it be trusted, and how far down does its reach go?
Paul stamps this saying as trustworthy. One commentator hears two senses in the words that follow, which older translations give as "worthy of all acceptation."
The apostle gives us part of his reason for putting the divine stamp of approval on this saying: "This is a faithful saying. This is worthy of all acceptation." I always feel inclined to interpret that in two ways. First, it deserves wholehearted, absolute acceptance — not ninety-nine per cent, but one hundred per cent. But it is equally true if you take it in this sense: it is worthy of everybody's acceptance.
People believe all sorts of claims from other people. This one comes from God.
It will not deceive or disappoint you. It is true, it is faithful. You have heard and believed thousands of false sayings from the lips of men in your time; your readiness to believe in that respect is amazing. But here is a saying from the lips of God, and it is not false but true, and it is as good as it is true.
Salvation needed more than a messenger. The One who came was already God the Creator.
He is God, the Creator: eternal in being, almighty in power, infinite in wisdom. And He came into the world to save sinners. Long ago, God sent two angels to judge and destroy the corrupt and guilty cities of the plain. When rebellious men needed rebuke for their sins, He sent His word by holy prophets. But now the time had come — not for judgment, nor for rebuke, but for salvation. Neither angels nor prophets were equal to this great work.
"To save sinners" is not one theme among many. It sets the only footing on which God speaks to anyone.
The gospel of the grace of God is the revelation of the glory of God in the person and the work of His Son Jesus Christ. The word that is "true and worthy of all acceptance" is this: "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." The only ground on which God addresses man in the ministry of reconciliation is that he is a lost sinner.
Many read the closing phrase as modesty. Older translations render it "chief of sinners," and one writer asks whose record that is.
In reading 1 Timothy 1:15, we are not to think of the feelings of man. We are to think of the record of God, which declares that Paul was "chief of sinners." God says this of no one else. No doubt, in a secondary sense, every convicted heart will feel and own itself the guiltiest it knows of. But this is quite another matter. No matter how bad anyone may be, Paul could say, "I am chief." No matter how far from God a person feels, no matter how deep in the pit of ruin, a voice reaches him from a deeper point still: "I am chief."
Some try to narrow one word or the other. That works against the point of the sentence.
In vain do men seek to limit either "sinners" on the one hand, or "chief" on the other. His very aim is to sweep away all comparison, to overturn all self-righteousness, and to meet all despair. It lays man in the dust and exalts only the Saviour who abased Himself.
Paul writes "I am," not "I was." One writer explains the present tense:
It is a present sense: what he was accounts for his sense of it.
Paul puts his own case to two kinds of people: those working to earn their standing, and those who have given up hope.
He says to the legalists, "You will have to give it all up and let Jesus save you." And he says to the poor despairing sinner, "You may be sinner number two, friend, but you cannot be number one." I was sinner number one, and Jesus saved me. You and I may be numbers two and three, but we cannot be chief. There are not two chiefs — and Paul says, "sinners, of whom I am chief." If number one has been saved, then there is hope for you.
- Trustworthy — God has stamped this saying as true. It will not deceive or disappoint you.
- For all — Older translations read "worthy of all acceptation." That "all" works two ways: full acceptance, and acceptance by everyone.
- The Sender came Himself — Angels could judge. Prophets could rebuke. Salvation needed the Creator in person.
- One footing — In the gospel God speaks to people on one ground only: they are lost sinners.
- Chief — "I am chief" is God's record, not modesty. It ends all comparison. And if number one was saved, no one is too far down to save.