Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1416
Delivered on Lord’s-Day Morning, May 26, 1878
“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 Timothy 1:15.
IT is worthy of notice that Paul, in the passage before us, as, indeed, in all his writings, exhibits great sensitiveness with regard to sin. The sin which he had, himself, committed against the Lord Jesus, looked at from some points of view, might have been greatly extenuated on account of the honest, although mistaken, motive which lay at the bottom of it. But Paul, after allowing for his ignorance, declares that of sinners he had been chief and that he obtained mercy that in him, first, Jesus Christ might show forth all long-suffering for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on Him to life everlasting. He describes himself as having been “a blasphemer, a persecutor and injurious” and, he is evidently lost in grateful astonishment that he should have been saved.
This godly sensitiveness with regard to sin was associated in the Apostle’s mind with an equally vivid sense of the freeness and richness of Divine Grace. That Christ died, not for the righteous, but for the guilty, is the great thought which is upon his mind and he has no hesitancy whatever in declaring it—and in speaking most boldly concerning the exceedingly abundant Grace of God in forgiving sin. The union of these two feelings in Paul is, by no means, an unusual occurrence among human minds, for you will generally find that the preacher who is most clear in his witness that salvation is by Grace, is also the man to whom sin is exceedingly sinful! Indeed, all those who prize Grace most are men who feel most sorrow concerning their transgressions.
All systems of theology, except that which is founded upon Free Grace, in some way or other take off the edge of guilt. If they try to compromise the business and make salvation to be partly a matter of human effort and human merit—and partly a work of Divine Grace—they are sure, in the process, to conceal the exceeding iniquity of sin. Man is made out to be a poor, weak creature victimized by a Law too rigid for his frailty. It is represented that he has a right to mercy and a great uproar is made if we deny him any such right! And much anger is felt if we declare that mercy is the Sovereign prerogative of God which may be exercised at His own absolute discretion.
Rebellion against Divine Election is often founded on the idea that the sinner has a sort of right to be saved and this is to deny the full guilt of sin. You will find that he who sets forth Free Grace as the only fountain and source of human salvation—and declares that sin is pardoned and put away freely by the mercy of God in Christ Jesus—is most plain and severe in denouncing sin with all his might and most tender in sorrowing over his own personal iniquities. I shall preach Grace to the chief of sinners at this time without reserve and without guarding my words in any respect whatever! I shall fling the big net of the Gospel right into the sea, let it go where it may! But do not, therefore, conclude that we think little of sin. Far from it! It is to us the sum of all abominations and the fire of Hell! And this, I trust, shall be apparent all along, though for the present we shall confine our thoughts to the greatness of the Grace of God, since to that subject our text summons us.
The Apostle Paul had been describing himself and his sin. He confessed that he was, before, a blasphemer and a persecutor, “But,” he says, “I obtained mercy.” His was an instance of a sinner saved and he now declares that his case was a type of all others, for Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners! The tendency is to set up the Apostle as an exceptional convert, but he corrects the idea by asserting the grand doctrine that the Savior’s errand was to those who are guilty and undeserving—among whom he counted himself to be the chief. This coming of Christ to save sinners as sinners he regards as a Truth of God so well known in the Christian Church that it had come to be a saying, “familiar in their mouths as household words.” It had become a sort of proverb with Christians that Christ Jesus came to save sinners and
Paul says that it might justly be received as a proverb among all nations, for it was worthy of universal acceptance from the weight of its meaning, the importance of its subject and the Divine authority with which it was sealed.
Moreover, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners is so true that it is not merely a saying, but a faithful saying, worthy of all confidence, being as sure as the Truth of God, Himself! Pass it round, you Christians! Repeat it among yourselves without the slightest hesitancy or question! Let it be a proverb among you, an undoubted fact, an unquestionable Truth of God— Jesus came into the world for the salvation of sinners! He contemplated the saving of no other sort of persons but those who are sinful.