Paul, The Chief of Sinners (1 Timothy 1:15)

Whatever people think of the apostle Paul, it is impossible to ignore him. There are few people who have affected subsequent history after their lives are over in the way that he has. Today, some people love him, and others despise him, which is quite a remarkable effect two thousand years after he lived. It is true to say that Paul would have made a mark in his own generation even if he had remained a traditional Jew, but the main reason for his ongoing effect is because he became a Christian. And he became one to the extent that he was prepared to be executed for his commitment to Jesus.

Conversion to Jesus on the Damascus Road did not only change Paul’s opinion of Jesus; it also changed Paul’s opinion of himself. Before he met Jesus, Paul knew that he was a sinner to some extent; after he met Jesus, Paul regarded himself as the chief of sinners and he held this opinion even when he had become a leading Christian. He saw no reason to conceal that self-opinion even when he was writing letters of apostolic authority to his colleague, Timothy.

Of course, Paul is not the only person to have had this opinion about himself. John Bunyan authored a book describing his own conversion experience and called it Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners. And no doubt, many another Christian has felt the same about himself of herself.

Why did Paul think he was the chief of sinners?

I would suggest that Paul had four reasons for describing himself in this way. First, he had a new understanding of the law of God. Before he became a Christian, Paul was dedicated to keeping the law of God, mainly in an external manner, and in his letter to the Philippians he says that at that level he was blameless. No-one could point a finger at his lifestyle and condemn him. He was meticulous in his adherence to the law and assumed that his conformity to its demands had been met by him. When he became a Christian, he discovered that the law applied to his inside as well as to his outside, and he now knew that he could not keep it perfectly. But there were other factors that contributed to his sense that he was the chief of sinners.

The second reason why he regarded himself as a great sinner was that he had discovered that a particular sin was in his heart. Which sin was that? That of covetousness, and he describes that process of discovery in Romans 7. In whatever way it came about, he realised that he was constantly breaking the tenth commandment, which forbids coveting. Of course, coveting is an invisible sin as far as other humans are concerned. No-one can know if another person is covetous, but any who are covetous will know that they are. It is possible to covet many things, and it is an expression of idolatry because it gives to something the place in our hearts that should be given to God. Paul was astonished to find how strong this sense of sin was within him, and therefore it is not surprising that he regarded himself as the chief of sinners.

The third reason why Paul had this estimation of himself was because he had committed certain sins against Jesus. He mentions them in verse 13 when he says that he ‘was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent’. His persecuting tendencies are recorded in the Book of Acts and those accounts reveal the kind of activities he engaged in, such as dragging to prison men and women who believed in Jesus. And we know about his role in the stoning of Stephen. By blasphemy, Paul has in mind his opinions about God and Jesus which he discovered were wrong after he was confronted by Jesus and changed into a Christian. He had thought he had been serving God, but he wasn’t. What did he mean when he described himself as insolent? He means violent in action and speech. It is not too difficult for us to imagine why such recollections would cause Paul to regard himself as the chief of sinners.

The fourth reason why Paul had this assessment of himself was that he had experienced the mercy of God in Christ. All his many sins, including those he had listed here, had been forgiven. But we might imagine that realising the mercy of God would cause him to forget about the seriousness of his sin. It was not just the fact of mercy that led Paul to have this assessment. He had also discovered the cost of mercy, which was that the Son of God had to become a man and the pay the penalty that sins deserved when he suffered on the cross. He had to give his life as a sacrifice. The mercy that he had received was undeserved, and it was also abundant. Like John Newton, he would have regarded God’s provision for a sinner like him as amazing grace. Moreover, the grace and mercy that he received transformed him and made him into a hugely different person – instead of being a violent persecutor he was now marked by truth and love.

When did Paul say this?

The first comment that we can make about the time is that he said it as a mature Christian and servant of the Lord. This statement was not made shortly after Jesus confronted him on the Damascus Road. Rather, it was made after he had been a believer in Jesus for several decades. He gave this self-description as a mature Christian, with a great understanding of doctrines and with a history of wonderful experiences. The lesson is obvious – this is how a mature Christian will think about himself.

A second comment that can be made is that Paul said this about himself when he was producing a book of the Bible. Peter tells us regarding the Old Testament that the Holy Spirit enabled holy men of God to author its various books. The same principle is true of the New Testament. Yet one of the holy men who composed many of its books freely acknowledged that he was a sinner, indeed the chief of sinners. He knew that he was serving God as he authored this book, but he did not believe that his awareness of who he was as a sinner prevented him from serving the Lord in this holy activity. But then we know that all the human authors of the biblical books were sinners.

A third comment to note is that Paul described himself in this way when he was writing to help Timothy deal with problems in the church at Ephesus. The problems that they were facing were caused by sinful people who were misusing the law of God. Paul describes himself as a sinner when he is describing the people who were causing problems in the church. Maybe he did so because he wanted Timothy to see that those people could be changed even as he himself had been changed from being an opponent into a devoted servant of Christ.

How did Paul say it

We can now think of how Paul made this statement about himself. What does it reveal to us about his outlook? Did his self-awareness cause him to have a low self-esteem, or does his words give the impression that he was morbid about himself? They do not. The opposite is the case. Three obvious suggestions can be made about how he would have seen himself, three key features of a healthy spirituality.

The first is that his statement reveals his honesty. He saw himself as a sinner, and he would do so for as long as he was in this world. The second is his humility. Paul had many gifts, but they were not what he was, they did not define him in a basic sense. Rather, he was a saved sinner, depending on Jesus as his Saviour and regarding him as his Lord. The third was his hopefulness. Because he was a saved sinner, he knew that divine help would be given to him. And he also knew that one day he would cease to be a sinner, but he also recognised that he would not forget that he was a saved sinner, delivered from his deserved penalty for eternity.

Some lessons

How did Paul see himself? On one occasion he described himself as the least of the apostles and on another occasion he said that he was the least of all the saints. Here he says that he is the chief of sinners. When did you last hear a Christian leader describe himself in this way? We have looked at several people in this series: Abraham, the friend of God; Moses, the meekest man in the earth; David, the sweet psalmist of Israel. Those descriptions were the opinions of others, and others who knew Paul would have commended him highly. But we cannot ignore how he saw himself, that he is the chief of sinners.

A second lesson to observe is that seeing oneself as a sinner is not limited to Paul. Recall how Peter responded to the miracle of Jesus when he enabled the disciples to have a large catch of fish. His words, said while falling before Jesus, were, ‘Depart from me for I am a sinful man, O Lord.’ The more we know of the greatness of Jesus the more we will recognise our defects.

A third lesson is that describing ourselves in this way highlights the grace of Jesus. Paul here refers to what Jesus did for him at conversion, after conversion and before conversion. At conversion, Jesus forgave him; after conversion, Jesus equipped him for service; before conversion, Jesus showed great patience and long-suffering with Paul. And is that not the story of every believer (apart from those saved in infancy)? It is not surprising that Paul wrote, ‘The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.’ Nor is it surprising that it became a memory verse for millions of believers.

The last lesson is to remind ourselves who should get the credit for salvation if we have been saved. Paul gave all the credit to God as we can see in his doxology recorded in verse 17: ‘To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.’ In that doxology, he mentions who God is – the One who cannot be deposed, the One who cannot die, the One who cannot be seen, the only God that exists. And he also mentions what our response to this great God should be. For all eternity, we want him to be praised and glorified, and high among the reasons for that desire from Paul was that this great and gracious God had provided a salvation for him as the chief of sinners. As Matthew Henry put it, ‘When we have found God good we must not forget to pronounce him great; and his kind thoughts of us must not at all abate our high thoughts of him, but rather increase them.’