“Faithful is the word and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am preeminent.”

(1 Timothy 1:15)

While Christ has preeminence in creation over all that was made and over all that is good, Paul describes himself as having preeminence amongst sinners. As he confessed above, he was a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a violent man. Yet, that is Paul’s point. Jesus did not come into the world to save people who had their act together (good thing, too, because he would have found no one in that category!). He came into the world to save sinners (like you and me). 

I think that our attitude toward sin is rather distorted in this world. On one hand, sin tends to be downplayed in the context of the church. Preachers tend to focus on the love and mercy of God and not upon the reason that love and mercy is needed. As a result, many people live lives that disregard the weightiness of sin and live much like the world does. On the other hand, many Christians, once convicted of sin in their lives, fall into a trap of thinking that their sin is so serious that God could not (or would not) forgive them. Paul brings this distortion into perspective with this verse as well. He is looking back upon his life, recognizing the greatness of his sin and offering the reminder to us and praise to God that God would forgive one such as him. It is a reminder that if God forgave Paul, he can forgive us as well. 

Law and grace must be balanced in the Gospel. We will never understand grace until we understand the greatness of our offense against God. Yet, we will never run to God in repentance if we do not understand the grace that can be found in His Son, Jesus Christ. All must be proclaimed in balance and in conjunction with one another. This verse demonstrates the balance in a profound manner. Gospel and law, law and gospel: inseparable aspects of God’s redemptive plan.