Trinity
3
1
Tim 1:12-17
6/16/24
Around
33 A.D. you could not have found a person less likely to become a Christian
than Saul of Tarsus. Saul had been born
in Tarsus which is a city on the Mediterranean Sea at the eastern end of
Turkey. Yet while he had been born
there, he had been raised in Jerusalem.
Saul
was a Jew. But Saul wasn’t just any
Jew. He was a Pharisee. He was a part of the group in Judaism that
was committed to a very strict keeping of the law. The Pharisees had developed their own
interpretation of the law called “the tradition of the elders.” It described how the law was to be kept and
at times it required actions that went over and above what the law actually
stated. The Pharisees has taken aspects
of the law that were meant for priests, and had applied them to all Jews who
wanted to be faithful.
The
Pharisees were a lay group. However,
among the Pharisees there were also those who had received training in the
interpretation of Scripture and the Pharisees’ own understanding about how the
law was to be kept. Saul had been
educated at the feet of Gamaliel, a famous Jewish teacher of that time.
Saul
was a Pharisee. He was educated in the
Scriptures and in the tradition of the elders.
And he was zealous. Saul
told the Galatians, “And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age
among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my
fathers.” Saul was a rising star in the
Judaism of his day. He combined a bright
mind with zeal for what he believed.
Saul’s
zeal made him a man of action. He told
the Philippians, “as to zeal, a persecutor of the church.” Saul lived at a time when a new group had
appeared in Judaism. They were followers of Jesus of Nazareth. This man had created a stir with his miracles
and teaching. The Pharisees had opposed
him at every chance because he did not keep the tradition of the elders. They said that he was able to work these
miracles because he was in league with Satan.
Jesus
had eventually been arrested by the Jewish religious leaders during the time of
the Passover. They had persuaded the
Roman governor - Pontius Pilate- to have Jesus crucified. This scoundrel had met a fitting end as he
died in the humiliation of the cross.
That
should have been the end of things. But
it wasn’t. Jesus’ disciples began to
say that God had raised Jesus from the dead on the third day. They declared that Jesus was Lord. They began to apply passages that talked
about Yahweh the God of Israel to Jesus.
They said that he was the Messiah sent by God who fulfilled the promises
of the prophets. They worshipped Jesus
and said that only through faith in him was there forgiveness before God. And
they did this with a fervor that they said was caused by the knowledge that
Jesus had risen from the dead.
For
Saul, this was an abomination. Jesus had
rejected the tradition of the elders. He
had been killed – he had been crucified – which proved that he was a false
Messiah. More than that, his death
on a tree showed that he had been cursed by God. And now the followers of Jesus were rejecting
the law by saying that forgiveness was to be found in Jesus and not in the
sacrifices offered at the temple.
So
Saul showed his zeal for the tradition of the elders by persecuting the church.
He was confident in his own standing – that he was blameless with respect to
righteousness under the law. He was
determined to destroy this threat. He
told the Galatians, “For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I
persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it.”
Saul had carried out a persecution in
Jerusalem. But his zeal led him to do
even more. Acts tells us, “But Saul, still breathing
threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high
priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if
he found any belonging to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound
to Jerusalem.”
Saul made his way to Damascus to persecute the Church. But on that trip a light from heaven suddenly flashed around him. Falling to the ground he heard a voice saying, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” Saul said, “Who are you, Lord?” And he said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” The risen Lord confronted Saul, and in that encounter he called Saul to be an apostle. Saul told the Galatians, how God had set apart him before he was born and called him by his grace. God had revealed his Son to Saul so that he could preach him to the Gentiles.
Saul, or as we more commonly know him by his Roman name
Paul, could never forget that he had persecuted Christ’s Church. He told the
Corinthians, “For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an
apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.” But at the same time we learn
in our text that Paul’s past made him recognize the mercy that God had shown to
him. And the apostle saw in himself an example of how God has acted towards all
people.
Paul begins our text by saying, “I thank
him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me
faithful, appointing me to his service, though formerly I
was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent.” Christ had called Paul to be an apostle. He had done so in spite of the fact that Paul
had been a blasphemer and persecutor.
Christ had given his mercy to Paul. Paul says, “But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.” Christ’s mercy had overlooked the ignorance of his unbelief. Instead, his grace had abounded in ways that resulted in the faith and love that are in Christ.
And so Paul says based on his own
experience: “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.” Paul declares that Christ
Jesus came into the world to save sinners.
And he holds himself up as the chief example of this. He adds, “But I received mercy for this
reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect
patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.”
In our text this morning we hear the
good news that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. He came to save us. This salvation could
never occur on basis of what we do. Our
actions – our keeping of the law – only reveal the sin present in our life as
we fail or do things for the wrong motives.
Paul told the Galatians,
“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his
Son, born of woman, born under the law,
to
redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as
sons.” The Son of God entered into our
world as he became true man without ceasing to be God. He came because it is God’s desire that all
people be saved.
In the next chapter Paul says that God
“desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of
the truth.” This is a key fact that we
must always keep in mind. When we
struggle with the question of why some believe and others don’t, we can never attribute
those who are lost to the will of God.
God does not elect people to be damned.
Instead, Paul explains God’s will to save by referring to what he has done. He says, “For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.” Jesus Christ is the mediator between God and man because he is true God and true man at the same time. He offered himself as the ransom by his death on the cross in order to free us from sin. He did this for the sins of all people.
Paul knew that Jesus had been
crucified. He thought the death of Jesus
was proof that Jesus was a false Messiah.
But on the road to Damascus he was confronted by the risen and exalted
Lord. He learned that God had vindicated
Jesus, and the cross had in fact been God’s powerful act of salvation. Just as it had been for the Christians whom
he had persecuted, so now the resurrection of Jesus became the source of joy
and fervor as he worked to spread the Gospel.
In our text Paul states: “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.” The apostle sets himself forth as the chief
of sinners because he persecuted the church.
Yet in his statement we find the comfort of knowing that there is no sin
that God does not forgive because of Jesus Christ.
The lie that the devil wants us to believe is that
our sin is too bad to receive forgiveness.
He wants us to drown in shame and guilt.
He wants us to live trapped in the past when we committed that sin.
But God gave his Son Jesus Christ as the ransom for
us to provide forgiveness for every sin.
There is only one thing that is needed.
We repent – we confess our sin and believe in Jesus Christ our crucified
and risen Lord. In confession and faith we have forgiveness. And God surrounds
us with the means by which he gives that forgiveness to us. He speaks it through the pastor in Holy
Absolution. He gives us the water of baptism
by which our sins have been washed away.
He speaks the Gospel to us through his word. And he gives us Christ’s true body and blood,
given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. He leaves no doubt that forgiveness
has been delivered.
The risen
Lord Jesus confronted Paul on the road to Damascus. He called the one who was a blasphemer,
persecutor, and insolent opponent, and made him into an apostle. Paul turned his back on his entire former
life. He abandoned all the advantages
that he had earned. Instead, he took up
a life of hardship in which he was persecuted as he suffered for Jesus Christ.
When Paul spoke about this to the Philippians he
declared that he had no regrets. He
said, “But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of
Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth
of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.”
We live with the same confidence because we know that the Christ Jesus
came into the world to save sinners. We
know that because of him we are the forgiven children of God who will share in
his resurrection on the Last Day.
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