1 Timothy 1:15Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

For this reason the apostle discusses this subject at length in the Epistle to the Romans, and also here. “Faithful,” he says, “and worthy of all acceptance is the saying, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am first.”

Since the Jews were especially drawn by this, he persuades them not to be attached to the law, because without faith it is impossible to be saved through it.

This is precisely what the apostle contends for, because it seemed incredible that a man, although he had spent his entire previous life idly and vainly and had wasted it on evil deeds, could afterward be saved through faith alone. Therefore he says: “Faithful is the saying.”

Some, however, not only did not believe, but reproached him, just as pagans do even now, saying, “Why not do evil that good may come?” (Rom 3:8). Since they had heard him say, “Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” (Rom 5:20), they distorted our teaching and preached in this way.

In the same manner, when we speak with them about Gehenna, they object: How can this be worthy of God? If a man seizes his servant who has sinned against him in many ways, then releases his guilt and grants pardon, will God punish eternally?

Again, when we speak to them about the font of baptism and the forgiveness of sins through it, they object: Is it worthy of God that He forgive the sins of one who has committed countless crimes?

Do you see the corruption of their mind, how in everything it reveals its own passion for disputes? If the forgiveness of sins is evil, then punishment is good. Conversely, if punishment is not good, then the forgiveness of sins is good.

I speak this way in accordance with their opinion. According to our teaching, both are good. Why this is so, I will show at another time, since it is not possible to do so now.

This subject is deep and requires detailed investigation. In due time it must be presented to your love. For now, let us turn to the question before us.

“Faithful,” he says, “is the saying.” In what way is it faithful? This is clear from what precedes and from what follows. See how he first prepares his hearers, and then, having prepared them, proceeds to the investigation.

By saying that God had mercy on him, a blasphemer and persecutor, he intended to prepare them. And not only, he says, did He have mercy, but He also made me a believer. To such a degree, he says, it is impossible to doubt that He had mercy on me.

For no one who sees a prisoner living in royal chambers will doubt that he has received mercy. The same could be seen in Paul. Therefore he brings himself forward as proof.

He is not ashamed to call himself a sinner, but especially rejoices in it. For by this he could best show the great miracle of God’s care, and that he had been counted worthy of such great mercy.

Why, then, having said elsewhere of himself, “as to righteousness under the law, blameless” (Phil 3:6), does he here say that he is a sinner and the first of sinners?

Because, in comparison with the righteousness of which God has made us partakers and which truly must be sought, even those who were righteous in the law are sinners. “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23).

Therefore he did not simply say, “as to righteousness,” but “as to righteousness under the law.” A man who has acquired much money may seem rich in himself. Yet, compared with royal treasures, he proves to be very poor and the first of the poor.

So here, compared with angels, men are sinners, even the righteous. If Paul, who performed righteousness according to the law, is the first sinner, then who else can be called righteous?

Therefore he speaks this way not in order to censure his life as disorderly. No. By comparing one righteousness with the other, the righteousness of the law with the righteousness of grace, he shows the insignificance of the former.

Nor does he say only this, but he also recognizes as sinners those who acquired righteousness under the law.

There is no humility in a sinner thinking himself a sinner. Humility consists in this: while being conscious of many great things in oneself, to think nothing great about oneself.

It means to be like Paul and, while able to say, “I know nothing against myself,” at the same time to say, “yet I am not thereby justified” (1 Cor 4:4). And again: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am first” (1 Tim 1:15).

In this humility consists: when one who is exalted in merits humbles himself in mind.

Because before the righteousness in Christ, righteousness according to the law is now sin, since its time has already passed. While its time lasted, it was righteousness, just as at night the moon and a candle are light.

But when Christ appeared like the sun, He overshadowed it. Therefore the one who uses the candle of legal righteousness after the sun of Christ's righteousness has shone sins and acts foolishly. The Apostle says this elsewhere: what was made glorious has come to have no glory (2 Cor 3:10).

There was no other reason for the Lord Christ to come except to save sinners. Take away diseases, take away wounds, and there will be no need for medicine.

If the great Physician came down from heaven, then a great sick man lay stretched across the whole earth. This sick man is the human race.

Because all have sinned, whether in Adam or by themselves, and fall short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23). Therefore all alike are subject to punishment. If the deserved penalty of condemnation were rendered to all, without any doubt it would be rendered justly.

For this reason those who are freed from this by grace are called not vessels of merits, but vessels of mercy (Rom 9:23). Whose mercy, if not His who sent Jesus Christ into this world to save sinners?

These sinners He foreknew, predestined, called, justified, and glorified (cf. Rom 8:29-30). Who is so deprived of reason by madness that he does not lift up words of ineffable thanksgiving to the mercy of Him who freed those whom He willed?

For His justice could not have been questioned even if He had condemned all without exception.

Listen to what the Apostle Paul says: Faithful and worthy of all acceptance is the saying, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am first. He said, “of whom I am first.” In what sense was he first?

Were there not many Jews who were sinners before him? Were there not sinners in the human race before him? What then does “of whom I am first” mean? It means, I am the worst of all.

He wanted “first” to be understood as “worst.” Remember Saul, and you will find the answer. You listen to Paul and have forgotten Saul. You listen to the shepherd and have forgotten the wolf.

Was he not the one for whom one hand was not enough to stone Stephen, and who guarded the garments of the others (cf. Acts 7:58; Acts 22:20)? Was he not the one who persecuted the Church everywhere (cf. Acts 8:3; Acts 22:4-5)?

Therefore he is the one who was the first persecutor, and there was no one worse than he.

Against these people the Apostle affirms that the word is faithful. For Christ became man precisely in order to save sinners, of course, those who believe in Him.

"Of whom I am first."

"First" serves to confirm the salvation spoken of above. Before others he sets himself as an example, because he not only received mercy, but was also deemed worthy of gifts, as has been said.

Do not marvel if he calls himself a sinner here, though elsewhere he called himself blameless according to righteousness under the law (Phil 3:6). This is because legal righteousness is sin in relation to the evangelical righteousness of God.

Just as one who possesses great wealth appears rich in himself, but proves poor when compared with royal treasuries, so also here. Those righteous under the law prove to be sinners in comparison with the heralds of the Gospel.

Some say that he called himself the first sinner, that is, surpassing others in his sins, but according to humility. Theodoret says: "He called himself first among sinners, and thereby surpassed the very limit of humility."

Even then he still looked upon his former deeds. He not only did not consider himself to have attained purity, but did not even think to acknowledge himself, as he ought, as a disciple.

For he said: "I am not worthy to be called an Apostle, because I persecuted the Church of Christ" (1 Cor 15:9). And when he had gained victory over the passions more than all men, he said: "I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified" (1 Cor 9:27).

If you say that the Apostle in other places recounts great things about himself, let him himself persuade you concerning this. For he says that he did this not voluntarily, nor for his own sake, but for the preaching.

And when he recounts this for the benefit of the faithful, he presents himself as altogether foolish for such praise of himself. He cries out and affirms: "You compelled me" (2 Cor 12:11).

And again: "I speak not according to the Lord, but as in foolishness, in this confidence of boasting" (2 Cor 11:17). This is the just and faithful rule given to us by holy Paul, righteous and upright.

He came into the world precisely in order to save sinners. I, he says, am the first of sinners, that is, the most sinful of all sinners, because I blasphemed the name of Jesus Christ, persecuted those who believed in Him, and reviled faith in Him.

Faithful is the saying. Faithful is the teaching that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. This teaching is faithful because it has been proved by innumerable testimonies, prophecies, and miracles of the Lord Jesus Himself and His disciples.

The Savior Himself proclaimed this truth many times. The Lord says: “I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Mt 9:13). Likewise: “The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost” (Lk 19:10).

“Worthy of all acceptance” means the word or teaching is worthy of acceptance. By his own example the apostle wishes to show and prove that this teaching is worthy of acceptance with undoubting conviction.

It is the teaching that the Lord Jesus came into the world for the salvation of sinners. It is a beneficent and consoling teaching, granting the believing person abundant saving grace.

“Christ Jesus came into the world.” The only-begotten Son of God took our human nature into union with His divine Person. He took soul and body, became true man, appeared and lived among men in this visible world, on this earth.

“To save sinners.” This is the purpose for which the Son of God, Jesus Christ, came into the world, or became man. At the same time, this shows that all people, through the fall of the first ancestors, became sinners.

Through sin they came under the curse and condemnation, and by themselves could not be freed from this great misfortune. Extraordinary divine help was necessary. As the apostle teaches, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us” (Gal 3:13).

“Of whom I am first.” “Of whom,” that is, of sinners, “I am first,” says the apostle. In what sense does Saint Paul call himself the first sinner?

Although before his conversion Paul, as he himself testifies, was zealous for God (Acts 22:3), and “lived before God in all good conscience” (Acts 23:1), he in no way excluded himself from the number of sinners.

For until Jesus Christ redeemed the human race from sin and condemnation by His merits, all were in sin and under the curse of sin (Rom 3:9, 23; 5:6, 10).

When the light of Christ’s grace illumined Paul, then he learned that sin was the reason he had so long struggled against the truth. He had not believed in Jesus Christ, though he had experienced repeated calls to conversion.

He was zealous not according to knowledge, but according to prejudice, which blinded his reason and long prevented him from knowing the truth of faith in Jesus Christ. All this was a cloud of sin covering Paul’s soul.

The apostle calls himself the first sinner according to his own consciousness and feeling, not by comparison with others. This is the property of a truly humble and repentant sinner.

He recognizes his sins, feels their full force, and finds them heavy and incomparable with the sins of other people. For he does not look at the sins of others and does not judge them. This is contrary to the feeling of true humility.

A humble heart loves to look only at its own infirmities and to judge only its own sins. Therefore it feels their weight as an unbearable burden, like a sick man who, suffering from a grave illness, thinks that no one suffers as he does.

The apostle says, “of whom I am first,” and did not say, “of whom,” or “of whom I was first.” This shows that he nourished such a deep feeling of humility in himself even when God’s grace had made him His chosen vessel for the salvation of many.

Looking at his present state, the apostle saw not himself, but the gifts of God. By their abundance these gifts also moved him to humility and to the outpouring of grateful feelings toward the supreme Benefactor.

Remembering his former life before conversion, he saw the sins of his ignorance. The remembrance of former sins nourished in him a deep feeling of humility, by which he considered himself the first sinner.

The salvation proclaimed by the word of the Gospel is fulfilled in them in deed. The hope of not one person who truly believed and sincerely sought has been deceived. All are saved. And whoever wishes to come to the Lord will be saved.

I assure you of this by my own example. I am the first of sinners, and I have been saved. What sinner after me could possibly not be saved? Therefore I also assure you that this word is faithful and worthy of all acceptance.

“Faithful,” that is, “not false, but true” (blessed Theodoret). “Worthy of all acceptance” means worthy of acceptance with an open heart, without the slightest shadow of doubt or wavering.

“Since it seemed incredible that a man, although he had spent his whole previous life without profit and had wasted it in evil deeds, could afterward be saved through faith alone, he therefore says: faithful is the saying. As proof of this he brings forward himself: God had mercy on me, a blasphemer and persecutor, and not only had mercy, but made me a believer. He is not ashamed to call himself a sinner, but especially rejoices in it. For by this he could best show the great miracle of God’s care for sinners” (Chrysostom).

The apostle calls himself the first of sinners. This comes from the feeling of contrition and repentance, because he had formerly blasphemed the Lord and persecuted His Church. There was, indeed, some excuse in his ignorance.

But a contrite heart does not like to display circumstances that lessen guilt. It takes refuge in mercy alone, considering itself guilty without answer. Having received mercy, it ascribes all of it wholly to mercy as its only source.

Already in this the apostle shows the true model for all who repent. He shows it even more in this: that he speaks and feels so about himself after so many labors for the glory of God and after so many mercies from God toward him.

The heart does not cease to ache if it knows it has offended the beloved, even if the offense was committed before the beloved was loved.

Blessed Theodoret writes that “the apostle, in calling himself the first of all sinners, goes beyond the very limit of humility.” But others offer another consideration here.

Chrysostom says: “How is it that the apostle, having said elsewhere that according to the righteousness of the law he was blameless (cf. Phil 3:6), here says that he is a sinner and the first of sinners? It is because, in comparison with that righteousness of which God made us partakers in Christ Jesus, and which truly must be sought, even those who were righteous in the law are sinners. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23). Therefore he did not simply say, according to righteousness, but according to the righteousness of the law. For just as a man who has acquired much money appears rich in himself, yet when he compares his possessions with royal treasures, he sees himself as very poor and the first of the poor, so here, comparing one righteousness with another, Saint Paul shows the insignificance of the former. Nor does he say only this, but he also recognizes as sinners those who acquired the first kind of righteousness.”

Blessed Theophylact expresses the same thought with a special nuance. “Saint Paul places himself among sinners because, before the righteousness which is in Christ, the righteousness which is according to the law is now sin, since its time has already passed. While its time lasted, it was righteousness, just as at night both the moon and a candle are light. But when Christ appeared like the sun, He dimmed it. Therefore he sins and acts foolishly who uses the candle of righteousness under the law when the sun of Christ’s righteousness has shone.”