What does it mean that Paul was the chief of sinners (1 Timothy 1:15)?

Hence, therefore, in reading 1 Tim. 1:15, we are not to think of the feelings of man, but of the record of God, which declares that Paul was "chief of sinners." It is never stated of any one else. No doubt, in a secondary sense, each convicted heart will feel and own itself the guiltiest within its own range of knowledge; but this is quite another matter. The Holy Ghost has declared this of Paul; nor does the fact that He has told us this by the pen of Paul himself interfere with or weaken in the smallest degree, the truth and value of the statement. Paul was the chief of sinners. No matter how bad any one may be, Paul could say, "I am chief." No matter how far from God any one may feel himself to be — no matter how deeply sunk in the pit of ruin — a voice rises to his ear from a deeper point still, "I am chief."

But let us mark the object of all this dealing with the chief of sinners. "Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first, Jesus Christ might show forth all long-suffering, for a pattern to them who should hereafter believe on Him to life everlasting." The chief of sinners is in Heaven. How did he get there? Simply by the blood of Jesus; and moreover, he is Christ's "pattern" man. All may look at him and see how they too are to be saved; for in such wise as the "chief" was saved, must all the subordinate be saved. The grace that reached the chief can reach all. The blood that cleansed the chief can cleanse all. The title by which the chief entered Heaven is the title for all. Behold in Paul a "pattern of Christ's long-suffering"! There is not a sinner at this side the portal of hell, back-slider or aught else, beyond the reach of the love of God, the blood of Christ, or the testimony of the Holy Ghost.

I wonder if some hater of Jesus, legally authorised to bind and deliver to prison all that love Jesus in Edinburgh, were to appear here this night, what would you and I say? Would you confess or deny Him? Would you say, I do love that blessed Saviour, I really love His name. If not yet on the Lord's side, I pray you, as this year dies away tonight, let your heart be Christ's henceforth. I do not say you are pursuing the same mad course that the zealot Paul was pursuing here. You see what he did. He took a missionary tour to bring people to prison and death who loved the name of the Lord Jesus, and that is why he speaks of himself as "the chief of sinners" (1 Tim. 1:15). He knew that he was persecuting Christ in the persons of His people. This made him "the chief of sinners," but it was this same act that made him the chief of legalists, for, in another part of his writings, he says, "If any other man thinks that he has whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more: I … as touching the law, a Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the church; touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless" (Phil. 2:4-6). Paul touches, if I may so say, the two poles of human experience. He reaches the top of the tree of human righteousness, and goes to the lowest depth of human guilt by the same act — persecuting the saints. What was the summit of the tree of human righteousness? As a Jew, thinking he was doing God service by slaying those who loved Jesus. As to legal human righteousness, the finishing touch was the persecuting of the Church. How was he the chief of sinners? Because persecuting the Church! Look, he has got to the top and to the bottom of the ladder of human righteousness. Hence he can say to the legalist, I have gone further than you, but I have given up all and taken my place as lost, and Jesus has saved me. To the man who is writhing under a sense of his sin and guilt Paul says, I am a greater sinner than you are, and yet Christ saved me.

But to turn to the history of Saul of Tarsus; how different it is there! God comes to give righteousness, not to look for it, or demand it. His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, had been to earth, had died on the cross, and by His precious death had made propitiation, and as well as ending in God's sight the first man He supplied an answer to every righteous claim of a holy God. God can now come out and express His love for the sinner, yea for the very chief of sinners; and here it may be well to look at what made Saul of Tarsus the chief of sinners. It surely was not that he was an immoral man, or an outcast from society, as they say: were he so he would never have been selected for, and charged with, the mission on which he was running, when God stopped him; on the contrary, Philippians 3 tells us that Saul was one unequalled among his fellows for morality. "If any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more: circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin; an Hebrew of the Hebrews, as touching the law a Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the church, touching the righteousness which is in the law blameless." What made him chief of sinners was, not immorality, but the dreadful will and purpose with which he set himself against the purpose and mind of God. Listen to his own account of it;" I verily thought with myself, that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth; which thing I also did in Jerusalem: and many of the saints did I shut up in prison, having received authority from the chief priests; and when they were put to death, I gave my voice against them. And I punished them oft in every synagogue, and compelled them to blaspheme; and being exceedingly mad against them, I persecuted them even unto strange cities." (Acts 26:9-11.) Who could conceive wilfulness or wickedness more desperate than this, to force from city to city the scattered saints of God, and not this only, but to compel them to blaspheme the one who was to them above every one; on whose account they are suffering at the hands of this relentless hater of Jesus of Nazareth. Oh, what contrasts rise up before the soul as we think of it! With the natural thought of God and His ways, how would you predicate the course He would adopt with a wretch like Saul, breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the object of his terrible hate? Why, of course, you say, Almighty power would sweep from the earth a plague like Saul; the sword of divine vengeance and justice would be unsheathed to overtake such a one in his wild wickedness. But oh, how different from all this natural thought of God, His blessed way with poor Saul! Stop him God will, but with what? With the pit? No, but with glory! A light from heaven, above the brightness of the sun, shone round about him; at mid-day, when the sun is brightest, Saul is arrested by what is brighter still! What a sight! A scorner, despiser, hater of Christ in heaven, awakened, arrested, spoken to by that very blessed One Himself: "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me"? That very One Himself who had been on the cross, under the judgment, because of man's sin; that very One Himself, who, in that wonderful moment, knew what it was to be forsaken of God, that such as Saul might never be forgotten of Him; now risen up from among the dead, received up into glory, causes the rays of that glory to fall upon the persecutor's path, draws nigh to him, speaks to him, comes not to hurl him into the bottomless pit, but to take him up; to give him forgiveness, righteousness, glory; to make a pattern man of him, a chosen vessel unto Himself; to bear his name before the Gentiles, kings and children of Israel. Such is the way of His grace now, even to the vilest sinner. Christ has died, and by His death righteousness has been established, the love of God which was not liberated to travel out to sinners until righteousness is established now goes out world wide. There is not only salvation for the vilest sinner, but glory; it is the joy of the heart of God to minister everything now from Himself to sinners. May there be, by the Holy Ghost, in the hearts of all who read these pages, a desire to accept and receive what the blessed God delights to bestow. W. T. T.

You are no further away from the arm of the Saviour than Saul of Tarsus was; because, he tells us elsewhere that he was "the chief of sinners." He says, "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" (1 Tim. 1:15). Now he did not pen that in mock modesty. I quite admit that his life outwardly would bear comparison with anybody's here tonight. There is not a man in this hall this evening whose outward life could compare at all with Paul's (or Saul's, as he was then called). But yet, when he comes to see it in the light of the Saviour's estimate of what he was when the grace of Christ met him, he says distinctly — and the Holy Ghost has penned it, and the Holy Ghost never writes what is not true, — "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief." Wherein lay the sin of this moral, religious man, who was yet the "chief of sinners"? It was this; he was persecuting Christ. He was no drunkard; outwardly he was a perfectly moral man. He was no loose liver; he was a most careful man. He was no profligate, no debauchee. You may be that, but Christ can save you notwithstanding; because the chief of sinners has been saved.

Wherein, then, was it that Paul was the chief of sinners? I repeat, it was in this: He had bitterly and deeply hated the Son of God, Jesus of Nazareth, and had done his best to blot that name out of the earth. As he tells us himself here, his malignity against the followers of Jesus had reached such a level, that he was engaged upon a missionary enterprise of extermination. He wanted to blot the name of Jesus from the face of the earth, and also every man or woman who believed in Jesus; and, therefore, as we now read from this scripture, his missionary zeal became so violent that he secured credentials from the chief priests and travelled over the burning deserts to Damascus, that he might lead the Christians to Jerusalem, there to blaspheme the name of Christ; or, if they did not do that, to taste certain and violent death. What a lovely business that was for an intelligent man! It was while on such an enterprise and mission that this man was met; light shone upon him from heaven, and he was converted. Oh! the grace of Christ! Think of the grace of the Saviour; for we have all been opposed to Him, more or less. There is no man, no hearer, in this hall tonight who has not, more or less, been opposed to the Saviour; unless, indeed, he has been brought to Christ in early and tender years.

Now, Paul had been busy working out his own righteousness, and he learns that he has to give it all up. "I verily thought with myself, that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. Which thing I also did in Jerusalem: and many of the saints did I shut up in prison, having received authority from the chief priests: and when they were put to death, I gave my voice against them" (vers. 9, 10). In all this, he was the chief of legalists, as well as the chief of sinners. His persecution of the Church was the full measure of his sin. So, he says to the legalists, you will have to give 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. Do you see? 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." You and I may have second and third place, but we cannot be number one. If number one has been saved, then there is hope for you.

Sovereign grace comes in. This is why he calls himself the chief of sinners; not that he was at all immoral, but he was the highest expression of the enmity of man's heart against God.

Paul calls himself the chief of sinners; that is, he was a rejecter of the Lord after He was crucified and glorified; the Jew (properly speaking, is characterised as being) a rejecter before He was crucified. Stephen's martyrdom was the closing scene of the dispensation for the Jew. The chief of sinners is an end of self, and we are in the same boat with Paul when we take that place.

And Paul adds, "Of whom I am chief," considering him, self the most guilty of all. Not that he had been of a low, debased, repulsive character, but rather religious, self, righteous, proud; and this he knew now to be thoroughly sinful. But certainly, anyone, when he discerns the fact of his own dreadful guilt before the eyes of God, may say the same of himself: he sees himself to be the sinner, as though none others were worse than he. When the bottom is in this way reached, then the perfection and beauty of the grace is God in Christ Jesus is brought home to the soul, and there is peace in. the knowledge of eternal forgiveness, based entirely upon the blessed person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

In vain do men seek to limit either "sinners" on the one hand, or "chief" on the other. The apostle knew the truth incomparably better than they, be they Fathers of old, or modern Germans, Catholics, or Protestants. His very aim is to sweep away all comparison, to overturn all self-righteousness, and to meet all despair, laying man in the dust and exalting only the Saviour Who abased Himself and saves to the last degree those that disobey not "the heavenly vision."

Nor was it only a question of mercy in saving the foremost of sinners, there was also a purpose of grace toward others. "But for this cause mercy was shown me that in me, as chief, Jesus Christ might display the whole long-suffering for an outline-sketch of those that should believe on Him unto life eternal." It is impossible to exceed the energy of the expression. Nor need we wonder, if his case was to be a standing pattern or delineation of divine love rising above the most active hostility, of divine long-suffering exhausting the most varied and persistent antagonism, whether in Jews or in Gentiles at large; for who had in either exceeded Saul of Tarsus? How will not the Lord use the history of his conversion to win the hardened Jew by-and-by! How does He not turn it to the account of any wretched sinner now! Profoundly does the apostle delight in that grace which can thus make the pride and wrath of man praise Him, both at present and in the future day, through the faith of our Lord Jesus, without Whom all must have been only ruin and wretchedness, closed by everlasting judgment. "Now to the King of the ages, incorruptible, invisible, only God, [be] honour and glory unto the ages of ages. Amen."

What a moment in his mad career! What a sharp, sudden, and unexpected pull-up He was indeed the chief of sinners, little though he thought it up to that moment. When he learned the real truth about his condition, he could write to Timothy, “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” (1 Tim. 1:15).

We might think that the chief of sinners would be found among the ranks of the grossly evil and vile. In this connection we might think of the dying thief, or Judas Iscariot, or Simon Magus, or Mary Magdalene, out of whom were cast seven devils, so terrible was her condition. But no; here is a man of irreproachable conduct. As “touching the righteousness which is in the law [he] was blameless” (Phil. 3:6). And yet writing under divine inspiration, he could declare himself to be the chief of sinners. It looks as if we must look for the chief of sinners, not among murderers and thieves, not in prisons and jails, but in places of reputed sanctity. We find him in Saul of Tarsus, who set himself in fanatical zeal, with all the influence of his powerful personality, against God’s Christ. Thank God, the chief of sinners is in glory, the great trophy of God’s grace. He could write, “In me first Jesus Christ might show forth all long-suffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on Him to life everlasting” (1 Tim. 1:16).