A Word in Season: Sinners to Save (1 Timothy 1:15)

The Need to Pay Attention to a Faithful Saying

I don't know how you call attention to something that you consider important. It might be as simple as telling someone, come here and look at this, you've got to pay attention to what I am saying and to what I am seeing.

The Lord Jesus called attention to certain phrases or declarations by saying Amen, Amen, often translated truly, truly or verily, verily. For the Apostle Paul in 1st Timothy in chapter 1 verse 15, he said this is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation.

In other words, what I am about to tell you is utterly reliable, it's properly credible, it's something that you don't just need to hear but you need to heed. It's not something you can allow to float past you, you need to grasp a hold of this, you need to receive this, to respond to this in the right way.

Christ Jesus Came into the World to Save Sinners

What is it that Paul is so desperate that you and I should understand? It is this, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom, says Paul, I am chief. Now there is a wealth of theology of the wonders of God's revelation in those few words.

Here is Christ Jesus, here is the eternal God who became man without ceasing for one moment to be God. He as the God-man is here in this world, he took flesh and blood from the moment that he was conceived in the womb of his mother Mary all the way through to his sufferings and death on the cross at Calvary and then his glorious resurrection again from the dead.

The Lord Jesus was moved by a definite purpose, he came into the world to do something, to deal with someone. Who did he come to deal with? Paul's language in the original puts the emphasis here next.

Christ Jesus came into the world sinners. Christ has come into the world to deal with sinners. Now what would you imagine would come after that? Christ came into the world, sinners to damn, sinners to condemn, sinners to judge.

After all, sinners are rebels against God's rule, they are transgressors, they have broken his law, they have fallen short of the glory of God. Their whole lives have been patterns of rebellion and resistance to the God of heaven.

Their natural hearts are enmity against God. And you would then say, well surely the incarnate son would come to really deal with these people who have made their stand against God his father. And yet what do we see?

The Saving Purpose of Christ's Incarnation

Christ Jesus came into the world, sinners to save. His whole purpose in coming was to deliver those who deserved death from death and to bring them to life, to bring them out from under the state of condemnation, to deliver them from the wrath of God and to bring them into a condition of peace, to provide everything that was needful and actually to apply everything that was needful.

Christ didn't come just to make sinners savable, he didn't come to create a level playing field so that we could somehow then climb back to God. He came actually to save us. He came to lay down his life, to pay the purchase price of our salvation, to ransom us from sin and death and hell and to bring us back to God, to do everything actually to secure our peace with God, to do the whole work once and for all, actually to redeem.

Paul’s Mercy and the Call to Trust Christ

Now, how can Paul be so confident? Well he says, I was the worst of them. I was a gross transgressor. My whole existence was a rejection of and a rebellion against God as he made himself known in Christ Jesus.

And yet I received mercy. And so says Paul, you can too. If you also will acknowledge God as the great creator, the great law giver, if you will acknowledge Christ as his son who has come to save, if you will turn to him as he's presented in the scriptures and entrust yourself to him, you will find that this is indeed a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus Christ came into the world, sinners to save.