The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Timothy — Section 43

fatory fonnulo. ia peculiar to the pastoral Epistles. ':'he first clause, which occUJ'B five times, points to the certitude of the gosl?el. The would-be teo.chers of the Law-appa· rently Essenes~ealt in fables for which there was no ground of certainty, and in genealogies or naming,; of intermediate agencies, which only ministered disputings o.s to the names. The apostle regards the gospel as the embodiment of certainty. Ven- turing_ our imz1:10rta.l souls upon the truth of. this saying, i~ will i:iot prove a myth, but a glonous reality. The second clause, which occurs twice, pomts to the saying as worthy of a universal welcome. Let all men lay hold upon it as an essentially good saying-good for the whole nature; it is only the reception it deserves. 2. Particular form in ,ch.:Ch the gospel, is presented. "That Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." This is the gospel in all simplicity, to which the aged apostle cleaves. 'l'he Anointed of God for salvation said of himself, "I came out from the Father, and am come into the world." The world is to be understood in the physical sense; it is the earth, however, not in the purity of the conception, but the earth as it has become the congenial abode for sinners. It could not be said of Christ when he was here, that this was his original or congenial abode. He came into the world, he came from a pure world, from the Father, and that meant a world of highest purity. And what drew him to this world, with all its unCO'Tlgeniality 1 Jesus, the Na.me which he has made hia own, the Name which is above every name, points to his nature as love. It is of the nature of love to find a congenial outlet in saving. But whom on this earth did Christ come to save? Men who were wronged, upon whom superhuman powers were causelessly inflicting tortures? Did he come to assert their innocence against their strong oppressors? No; men who were in the wrong themselve~, who were wrongers of God, and were the causes of their own misery. lt was sinners that drew the Saviour down to earth. He longed to save them from their misery, from themselves as the guilty causes of their misery, from their sinful habits and associations, and to make them pure as the heaven from which he came. In saving sinners, he had to suffer from sinners, in his purity coming into contact with their impurity, and exposing him to their hate. He had especially to suffer in the room of sinners, in all the loneli- ness of a pure, perfect life, treading the wine-press of the Divine wrath against sin. 3. Individualization of the gospd. "Of whom I am chief." He was not at the head of sinners in this 8ense, that at one time he had reached a point beyond which sinning could not go in heinousness. He had not comznitted the sin against the Holy Ghost. Be had not sinned like Judas, in close neighbourhood to Christ and in clear impression of his Divinity. He had never been, in sinning, beyond the pale of mercy. Neither was he in the position to compare himself with all who had obtained mercy, and to say infallibly that he was the greatest of them all. But he was at the head of sinners in his sense of his own utter unworthiness apart from Christ. 'rhat unworthiness he viewed chiefly, we may say, in the lurid light of his persecuting career. It was so complete a self-revelation, that he could not keep it from coming up before his imagina- tion when he thought of self. But this self-revelation was not all before his conversion. He knew how self was ever seeking to mingle with all he did. In the whole discovery, then, of what he was apart from Christ, as one for whom the gospel was intended, he could. say in all truthfulness of feeling, and with no decrease of truthfulness as he advanced in the Chzi,;tian life, but rather an increase, that he was n.t the head of the claas of sinners. V. ENCOURAGEMENT TO BOINEIII>. "Howbeit for this cause I obt,,ined mercy, that in me as chief might JeBUB Christ show forth all his long-suffering, for an ensample of them which should hereafter believe on him unto eternal life." There was a fitness in Paul as chief in obtaining mercy ako coming at an early period in the history of the Christian Church, for the sake of future generations. He was a typical illustration in what happened in his case of the fulness of the long-suffering of Christ. For the first thirty years of his life he was going in the wrong direction altogether. As he drew near the end of that period he seemed far enough away from believing, in the active violen'; part he took agairust Christ. But Christ did not, as he could have done, make his hostility to recoil upon hi~ own head. But he treated him magnanimously, as one who ll! conscious of pure intention and forgiving love can do his foe. He treated him without haste, giving him space for experience, for thinkini;t about the Divine dealing, and for seeing his error. And, in the end, Paul WM subli1.1ed into belieVUii, OB. L 1-20.) THE FIRST EPISTLE TO TIMOTHY. 31