Ezekiel, Jonah, and Pastoral Epistles by Patrick Fairbairn - 1 Timothy 1:15 - 1:15

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Ezekiel, Jonah, and Pastoral Epistles by Patrick Fairbairn - 1 Timothy 1:15 - 1:15


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Ver. 15. Now follows a general announcement respecting this grace, grounded on the apostle’s own experience, and exemplified by it. Faithful is the word, and worthy of all acceptation, etc. The expression at the commencement, introducing the great truth which follows, Faithful is the word ( ðéóôὸò ὁ ëüãïò ), is one of those peculiar to the Pastoral epistles, occurring in these no fewer than five times (besides here, 1Ti_3:1, 1Ti_4:9; 2Ti_2:11; Tit_3:8), but occurring nowhere else,—a proof, therefore, that it had somehow passed into a kind of proverbial utterance with the apostle in the later period of his ministry, and a proof also that those epistles belonged to about the same period. If we have nothing exactly parallel to this in Paul’s other epistles, we have at least what approaches it, in his marked predilection for particular words and modes of thought. By designating the word he is going to enunciate as faithful, he presents it to our view as perfectly reliable, entitled to implicit credit; and the additional characteristic, worthy of all acceptation (that is, of every sort and manner of it, ðÜóçò being without the article), commends it to us as deserving not only of being rested on with confidence, but of being received with every mark of inward affection and regard. It should be everywhere hailed by men, and embraced with the full accord of their soul, because of the benign aspect it carries towards them, and the blissful effect it is fitted to produce on their condition and destiny. The word is, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—the whole gospel in a sentence—and, indeed, but a slightly modified form of the original announcement made to Joseph, “Thou shalt call His name JESUS, for He shall save His people from their sins” (Mat_1:21). Only here, alone with the fact of the salvation of sinners as the one and all, in a manner, of Christ’s undertaking, He is represented as coming into the world to accomplish it, which implies His pre-existence in a higher condition, and His descent from that into this lower world for the execution of the task He had previously undertaken. So also in Joh_1:9, Joh_16:28.

But the apostle is not satisfied with expressing the general object of Christ’s mission; he must also indicate his own specific relation to it, or to the class whose good it contemplates. And this is the more remarkable part of the statement, as he places himself in the foremost rank of sinners: of whom I am chief (or first, ὧí ðñῶôüò åἰìé ἐãþ —first in the sense of greatest, as at Mar_12:28-29). Commentators have often sought to qualify the strength of the expression by confining the reference to converts from Judaism, and understanding the apostle merely to mean, that he had gone further in a sinful antagonism to the claims of Jesus than his believing countrymen generally, or that he held a leading place among such. But there is no warrant for any limitation of this sort. It accorded with the deep practical insight which St. Paul had through the Spirit obtained into his own case, that he should set his guilt in the foremost place: to his own eye it bulked more than all; as, indeed, for direct and palpable hostility to the cause of Jesus, it could scarcely be exceeded. It is not surely for us to extenuate what he has himself so broadly marked—the less so, as in this very depth and intensity of feeling respecting his sinfulness we recognise the essential element of his spiritual greatness, according to our Lord’s declaration, that he who humbles himself most shall be greatest in the kingdom of heaven (Mat_18:4).



Ver. 15. For already some have turned away after Satan; taking him, as it were, for their leader and guide, though in what precise way, or to what extent, is not stated. But it can easily be gathered from the preceding representation. Some of those who were the subject of discourse—namely, the younger class of widows whose names were on the list of the church’s almswomen—had already given evidence of the wanton, idle, and troublesome behaviour complained of, so that they had become more like Satan’s followers than Christ’s. Therefore the apostle would have them regarded as beacons, warning the church not to continue the overindulgent treatment it had begun to exhibit toward such. This argues nothing as to the time of the composition of the epistle; for a very few cases of the kind referred to, and such as might well enough have occurred within a comparatively limited period, would have been quite sufficient to justify the reference, and the advice grounded on it.