The Chief of Sinners and the King of Ages Text: 1 Timothy 1:12-17
Introduction: The Resume of Grace
We live in an age of self-invention. Modern man is obsessed with his resume, his brand, his public image. We curate our lives online to present a carefully edited version of ourselves, one that is successful, competent, and altogether respectable. We are all, in our own way, trying to make a name for ourselves. We are trying to build a case for our own worthiness. And when we come to the church, we are often tempted to do the same thing. We want to present God with a list of our accomplishments, our quiet times, our moral efforts, our service. We want to be hired by God, as it were, on the basis of our qualifications.
The Apostle Paul, in this stunningly personal passage to his young protege Timothy, takes this entire project of self-justification and dynamites it. He takes his own resume, the one that would have been most impressive in his former life, and he sets it on fire. And in its place, he presents a new resume, a resume written entirely by grace. This new resume has only one qualification listed, and it is a shocking one: "chief of sinners."
This is the central absurdity of the gospel, the great stumbling block to the proud. God does not recruit the qualified. He qualifies the recruited. He does not call the righteous, but sinners. And as Paul will show us, He does not just save run-of-the-mill sinners. He saves the worst of them, the foremost, the tip of the spear in the rebellion against Him. And He does this for a very specific reason: to put His glory, His patience, and His astonishing mercy on display for all the world to see. This passage is not just Paul's personal story; it is a paradigm. It is the pattern for how God saves anyone. It is a glorious demolition of all human pride and a profound celebration of the super-abounding grace of God in Christ Jesus. It shows us that salvation is not a reward for the good, but a rescue for the guilty.
The Text
I am grateful to Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because He regarded me faithful, putting me into service, even though I was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor. Yet I was shown mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief; and the grace of our Lord was more than abundant, with the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. It is a trustworthy saying and deserving full acceptance: that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost. Yet for this reason I was shown mercy, so that in me as the foremost, Christ Jesus might demonstrate all His patience as an example for those who are going to believe upon Him for eternal life. Now to the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.
(1 Timothy 1:12-17 LSB)
Sovereign Recruitment (v. 12-13)
Paul begins with an explosion of gratitude, tracing his ministry back to its ultimate source.
"I am grateful to Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because He regarded me faithful, putting me into service, even though I was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor." (1 Timothy 1:12-13a)
Notice the direction of the action. It is all from Christ to Paul. Christ strengthened him. Christ regarded him faithful. Christ put him into service. Paul is entirely passive in his own commissioning. This is crucial. God does not look down the corridors of time, see that Paul will one day become faithful, and then choose him. No, God's choice is the cause of Paul's faithfulness. He "regarded" him faithful, which here means He appointed him to a trustworthy office. God did not find Paul faithful; He made him faithful for the task He had assigned him.
And what was Paul before this divine intervention? He gives us a three-word summary of his previous life. He was a blasphemer, speaking against God. He was a persecutor, acting against God's people. He was a violent aggressor, filled with insolent rage against the church of God. He was not a neutral party. He was not a sincere seeker on the wrong path. He was an active, energetic, and hateful enemy of the gospel. He was breathing out threats and murder against the Lord's disciples (Acts 9:1). This is the man whom Christ sovereignly arrested on the Damascus road and drafted into His service.
This completely upends our modern therapeutic notions of God. God did not see Paul's "potential." He saw his rebellion. And He crushed it, not with judgment, but with overwhelming, conquering grace. God does not do suggestion boxes; He does resurrections.
Mercy for the Ignorant (v. 13b-14)
Paul explains the basis on which this mercy was extended to him.
"Yet I was shown mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief; and the grace of our Lord was more than abundant, with the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus." (1 Timothy 1:13b-14 LSB)
Now, we must be careful here. Paul is not making an excuse for his sin. Ignorance is not innocence. Unbelief is culpable. He is not saying he deserved mercy because he didn't know any better. Rather, he is distinguishing his sin from the sin of one who knows the truth and willfully rejects it, like the Pharisees who attributed Christ's miracles to Satan. Paul's ignorance was the fertile ground in which his unbelief grew, but it was still unbelief. He was sincerely wrong, but sincerity does not make a man right. His point is that his sin, as heinous as it was, had not crossed the line into the unpardonable. He was a prime candidate for mercy precisely because his rebellion was so blatant and yet not final.
And the divine response was not just sufficient grace, but "more than abundant" grace. The Greek word here is a superlative. It hyper-abounded. It was an avalanche of grace. God's grace did not just cover Paul's sin; it buried it. Think of it this way: Paul's sin was a great canyon, but God's grace was the entire Pacific Ocean. When the ocean of grace comes in, the canyon simply disappears. And this grace was not a standalone force; it came "with the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus." Grace is not an abstract substance. It is personal. It is the personal favor of God, and it produces in us the fruit of faith toward Christ and love for His people. The very things Paul lacked in his unbelief, faith and love, are the very things grace supplied in abundance.
The Trustworthy Saying (v. 15)
Paul now quotes what was likely an early Christian creed or hymn, a central axiom of the faith.
"It is a trustworthy saying and deserving full acceptance: that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost." (Genesis 1:15 LSB)
This is the gospel in miniature. It is reliable, and it is to be embraced without reservation. What is the saying? That Christ's mission, His entire purpose for the incarnation, was the salvation of sinners. He did not come to be a moral teacher, a revolutionary, or a good example. He came to save sinners. The subjects of His rescue mission are not the virtuous, the religious, or the well-meaning. They are sinners.
And then Paul plants his own flag at the summit of this mountain of sin. "Among whom I am foremost." The word is protos, meaning first, chief, number one. Paul is not engaging in false humility here. He is not saying, "Oh, shucks, I'm just a terrible sinner like everyone else." He is making a cold, hard, theological assessment. When he considered the advantages he had, his knowledge of the Scriptures, his zeal for the law, and then measured that against the reality of his actions, persecuting the very Messiah he claimed to be waiting for, he concluded that he was, objectively, the worst. He was Exhibit A.
This is the mark of true conversion. The unconverted man, if he admits to sin at all, thinks of himself as a pretty decent sinner. He's not as bad as the guy down the street. But the man who has seen the holiness of God and the blackness of his own heart knows that, given his own particular mix of light and rebellion, he is the chief of sinners. He doesn't look at other sinners with contempt, but with compassion, because he knows he is the one who most deserved hell.
A Pattern of Patience (v. 16)
Paul now reveals the divine strategy behind his salvation. Why save the worst sinner first?
"Yet for this reason I was shown mercy, so that in me as the foremost, Christ Jesus might demonstrate all His patience as an example for those who are going to believe upon Him for eternal life." (1 Timothy 1:16 LSB)
Paul's salvation was not just for his own sake. It was a public demonstration. God saved the "foremost" sinner to put on display the full extent of His patience. The word for patience here means long-suffering. God's patience with Paul was stretched to the absolute limit, and it held. God was making a point. He was setting a precedent.
Paul became a living, breathing advertisement for the grace of God. His life became a pattern, an example for all who would come after. The logic is simple and glorious. If God can save Saul of Tarsus, the blasphemer, the persecutor, the chief of sinners, then He can save anybody. No one can ever say, "My sin is too great for God to forgive." The church can simply point to the Apostle Paul and say, "Nonsense. Look what God did for him." If the worst has been saved, then anyone on the spectrum below the worst is a candidate for that same mercy. Your sin, however great you think it is, is no match for the grace that saved Paul. His story is God's ultimate answer to despair.
The Doxology (v. 17)
This cascade of truth, this reflection on the sheer magnitude of grace, can only end in one place: worship.
"Now to the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen." (1 Timothy 1:17 LSB)
Good theology always leads to doxology. When we rightly understand who God is and what He has done, the only appropriate response is to praise Him. Paul's mind is lifted from his own story to the God who wrote it. He calls Him the "King of the ages," the sovereign ruler over all of history. He is "immortal," not subject to death or decay, the source of all life. He is "invisible," a spiritual being who cannot be seen by the physical eye. He is the "only God," repudiating all idols and all rivals.
To this God, and this God alone, belongs all honor and glory. Not for a little while, but forever and ever. The word "Amen" is our affirmation. It means, "So be it. Let it be so." It is the fitting conclusion to this breathtaking account of how a holy God saves unholy men, not because of who they are, but because of who He is.
Conclusion: Your Resume in Christ
The story of Paul is our story. We may not have been violent persecutors of the church, but we were all, by nature, enemies of God. We were all blasphemers in our hearts, persecutors in our desires, and violent aggressors in our rebellion. We were dead in our trespasses and sins.
And God, in His rich mercy, did not wait for us to clean up our act. He did not wait for us to become qualified. He invaded our lives with the same "more than abundant" grace that He showed to Paul. He gave us a new identity, a new name, and a new resume. That resume has one line item: "Sinner saved by grace."
Therefore, we must never be ashamed of the gospel. We must never try to pretty it up or make it more palatable to the proud. The good news is precisely that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. If you are here today and you feel the weight of your sin, if you feel that you are too far gone, that your past is too dark, then you must look to the pattern of Paul. God saved him to show you what He is like. He is a God of infinite patience and super-abounding grace. Your only qualification for salvation is that you are a sinner who needs a Savior.
And once you have received this grace, your life, like Paul's, must become a doxology. Every breath you take, every act of obedience, every word of gratitude should be directed to the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God. To Him alone be the honor and the glory for our great salvation, forever and ever. Amen.